Norton Juster

“A slavish concern for the composition of words is the sign of a bankrupt intellect. Be gone, odious wasp! You smell of decayed syllables.”
- Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth (1961)

Niccolo Machiavelli

When neither their property nor their honor is touched, the majority of men live content.
- Niccolo Machiavelli

Henry Ward Beecher

It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich according to what he is, not according to what he has.
- Henry Ward Beecher

Laurence J. Peter

Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.
- Laurence J. Peter

Cyril Connolly

"Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self."
- Cyril Connolly

Julie Krone

With racing, you never rest on your laurels, and there are no counterfeits.
- Julie Krone

Woody Allen

"His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy."
- Woody Allen

Voltaire

Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing.
- Voltaire

Edward M. Kennedy

Don't sacrifice your political convictions for the convenience of the hour.
- Edward M. Kennedy

Aristotle

No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.
- Aristotle

Scott Adams

It's funny to me that I have to prove to the banks that I'M honest.
- Scott Adams

Diana Ross

“My travels led me to where I am today. Sometimes these steps have felt painful, difficult, but led me to greater happiness and opportunities.”
- Diana Ross

Albert Einstein

Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.
- Albert Einstein

James Clerk Maxwell

It was a great step in science when men became convinced that, in order to understand the nature of things, they must begin by asking, not whether a thing is good or bad, noxious or beneficial, but of what kind it is? And how much is there of it? Quality and Quantity were then first recognised as the primary features to be observed in scientific inquiry.
- James Clerk Maxwell

Oscar Wilde

It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is fatal.
- Oscar Wilde

George Elliot

"It's never too late to become the person you might have been."
- George Elliot

R. Buckminster Fuller

"Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines."
- R. Buckminster Fuller

Thomas Jefferson

I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
- Thomas Jefferson

Hubert H. Humphrey

“In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.”
- Hubert H. Humphrey (1911 - 1978)

George W. Bush

While the price of freedom and security is high, it is never too high!
- George W. Bush

Irving Babbitt

Tell him, on the contrary, that he needs, in the interest of his own happiness, to walk in the path of humility and self-control, and he will be indifferent, or even actively resentful.
- Irving Babbitt

Henry David Thoreau

"Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still."
- Henry David Thoreau

Sanford Sherizen

Lawyers should be buried 35 feet underground since, deep down, they are very nice people.
- Sanford Sherizen

Stephen Hawking

My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.
- Stephen Hawking

C. S. Lewis

Only the skilled can judge the skillfulness, but that is not the same as judging the value of the result.
- C. S. Lewis

Thomas Edison

From his neck down a man is worth a couple of dollars a day, from his neck up he is worth anything that his brain can produce.
- Thomas Edison

Tao Te Ching

See the world as your self. Have faith in the way things are. Love the world as your self, then you can care for all things.
- Tao Te Ching

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf ;is better than a whole loaf.
- Gilbert K. Chesterton

H. L. Mencken

In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell.
- H. L. Mencken

Arthur Ashe

"One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation."
- Arthur Ashe

Mark Twain

All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.
- Mark Twain