Quotations

Collected by Donald Gudehus

A B | C D E | F G H | I J K | L M N | O P Q | R S T | U V W X Y Z

F

Jerry Lamon Falwell (Aug. 11, 1933, Lynchburg, VA - ), American religious broadcaster
The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen'.
Jerry Falwell, as said on "The 700 Club" on Sept. 13, a TV program hosted by Pat Robertson, in reference to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and airliners which occured on Sept. 11, 2001, and to which Robertson replied: "Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted that aganda at the highest levels of our government."


Michael Faraday (Sept. 22, 1791, Newington Butts (London), England - Aug. 25, 1867, Hampton Court, England), English chemist and physicist
Nothing is too wonderful to be true.
Michael Faraday

Work, Finish, Publish.
Michael Faraday, Faraday's Slogan


David Glasgow Farragut (July 5, 1801, Knoxville, Tennessee - Portsmouth, NH, August 14, 1870), First Admiral of the United Staes Navy
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!
David Farragut, said while rallying his men to victory during the Battle of Mobile Bay, August 5, 1864


Timothy Ferris, (August 29, 1944, Miami, FL - ), American journalist and science writer
If the Universe was a house, astronomers all this time have only been 'observing' dust bunnies in the front hallway.
Timothy Ferris, The Whole Shebang, Chapter 5, The Black Taj


Richard Phillips Feynman (May 11, 1918, Brooklyn, NY - Feb. 15, 1988, Los Angeles, CA), American theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate
People who wish to analyze nature without using mathematics must settle for a reduced understanding.
Richard Feynman

Reality must take precedence over public relations, for Mother Nature cannot be fooled.
Richard Feynman

Science is what we have learned about how to keep from fooling ourselves.
Richard Feynman

Some people think Wheeler's gotten crazy in his later years, but he's always been crazy.
Richard Feynman, speaking to Kip Thorne about the physicist John Archibald Wheeler

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool.
Richard Feynman

The theoretical broadening which comes from having many humanities subjects on the campus is offset by the general dopiness of the people who study these things...
Richard Feynman

We are very lucky to be living in an age in which we are still making discoveries... The age in which we live is the age in which we are discovering the fundamental laws of nature, and that day will never come again. It is very exciting, it is marvelous, but this excitement will have to go.
Richard Feynman, in The Character of Physical Law, 1965

We have a habit in writing articles published in scientific journals to make the work as finished as possible, to cover up all the tracks, to not worry about the blind alleys or describe how you had the wrong idea first, and so on. So there isn't any place to publish, in a dignified manner, what you actually did in order to get to do the work.
Richard Feynman

What I cannot create, I do not understand.
Richard Feynman, found written on his blackboard when he died, 1988

What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the "why"? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined! Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were like a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?
Richard Feynman


W. C. Fields (William Claude Dukenfield) (Apr. 9, 1879 or Jan. 29, 1880, Philadelphia, PA - Dec. 25, 1946, Pasadena, CA), American comedian and actor
Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite and furthermore always carry a small snake.
W. C. Fields

Children should neither be seen nor heard from - ever again.
W. C. Fields

Hell, I never vote for anybody. I always vote against.
W. C. Fields

Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch?
W. C. Fields

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.
W. C. Fields

I am free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally.
W. C. Fields

I like children. If they're properly cooked.
W. C. Fields

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then give up. No use being a damned fool about it.
W. C. Fields

Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child - if you parboil them first for seven hours, they always come out tender.
W. C. Fields

...more people are driven insane through religious hysteria than by drinking alcohol.
W. C. Fields

Once ... in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were forced to live on nothing but food and water for days
W. C. Fields

Start every day with a smile and get it over with.
W. C. Fields

The only thing a lawyer won't question is the legitimacy of his mother.
W. C. Fields

There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation.
W. C. Fields

What a gorgeous day. What effulgent sunshine. It was a day of this sort the McGillicuddy brothers murdered their mother with an axe.
W. C. Fields


Harvey Fierstein (June 6, 1954, Bensonhurst, NY - ), American actor and playwright
Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.
Harvey Fierstein


Carrie Fisher (October 21, 1956, Beverly Hills, CA - ), American author and movie actress
Instant gratification takes too long.
Carrie Fisher


Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University
Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.
Irving Fisher, 1929


F. Scott Fitzgerald (Sept. 24, 1896, St. Paul, MN - Dec. 21, 1940, Hollywood, CA), American novelist and short-story writer
Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

No grand idea was ever born in a conference, but a lot of foolish ideas have died there.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, in The Crack-Up, 1945

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, in The Crack-Up, 1945

Vitality shows not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, in The Crack-Up,1945

What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, in Love of the Last Tycoon: A Western


Gustave Flaubert (Dec. 12, 1821, Rouen, France - May 8, 1880, Croisset, France), French novelist
Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work.
Gustave Flaubert

Love art. Of all lies, it is the least untrue.
Gustave Flaubert

Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.
Gustave Flaubert


Ian Lancaster Fleming (May 28, 1908, Mayfair, London, England - August 12, 1964, Canterbury, Kent, England), British author, journalist and Second World War Navy Commander
A horse is dangerous at both ends and uncomfortable in the middle.
Ian Fleming, in the "Sunday Times" (London), Octber 9, 1966

Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
Ian Fleming, said by the character Auric Goldfinger in "Goldfinger", 1959


Marechal (Field Marshal) Ferdinand Foch (Oct. 2, 1851, Tarbes, France - Mar. 20, 1929), Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre (1907 - 1911), Last commander-in-chief of the Allied armies in WWI (1918)
Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.
Marechal Foch

It takes fifteen thousand casualties to train a major-general.
Marechal Foch


Glen Ford (Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford) (May 1, 1916, Sainte-Christine, Quebec,Canada - ), Canadian-American actor
If they try to rush me, I always say, 'I've only got one other speed and it's slower'.
Glen Ford


Henry Ford (July 30, 1863, Dearborn, MI - Apr. 7, 1947, Fairlane, Dearborn, MI), American engineer and auto manufacturer
A bore is a fellow who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it.
Henry Ford

Don't find fault, find a remedy.
Henry Ford

History is bunk.
Henry Ford

If it doesn't add value, it's waste.
Henry Ford


Anneliese (Anne) Marie Frank (June 12, 1929, Frankfurt, Germany - March 12, 1945, Bergen-Belsen, Celle, Germany), A young Jewish girl who lived and died during the Holocaust
I don't think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that remains.
Anne Frank, in her diary


Felix Frankfurter, Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court
Freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of [achieving] a free society.
Felix Frankfurter


Benjamin Franklin (Jan. 17, 1706, Boston, MA - Apr. 17, 1790, Philadelphia, PA), American inventor and statesman
A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.
Benjamin Franklin

A light purse is a heavy curse.
Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac

A little neglect may breed mischief: for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost.
Benjamin Franklin, Maxim prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac

A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keep his nose to the grindstone.
Benjamin Franklin, Maxim prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac

A penny saved is a penny earned.
Benjamin Franklin

A slip of the foot, you may soon recover. But a slip of the tongue you may never get over.
Benjamin Franklin

A small leak will sink a great ship.
Benjamin Franklin

All cats look gray in the dark.
Benjamin Franklin

Beware of the young doctor and the old barber.
Benjamin Franklin

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
Benjamin Franklin

Don't throw stones at your neighbor's windows if you live in a glass house.
Benjamin Franklin

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
Benjamin Franklin, Maxim prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757

Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
Benjamin Franklin, Maxim prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.
Benjamin Franklin, Maxim prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757

Fish and visitors smell after three days.
Benjamin Franklin

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.
Benjamin Franklin

God heals, and the doctor takes the fees.
Benjamin Franklin

God helps them that help themselves.
Benjamin Franklin, Maxim prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757

He who scatters thorns, let him not go barefoot.
Benjamin Franklin

He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.
Benjamin Franklin

He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing.
Benjamin Franklin, Maxim prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757

He's a fool who makes his doctor his heir.
Benjamin Franklin

Here Skugg lies snug as a bug in a rug.
Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Miss Georgiana Shipley, September, 1772

Here you would know and enjoy what posterity will say of Washington. For a thousand leagues have nearly the same effect with a thousand years.
Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to George Washington, March 5, 1780

I am in the prime of senility.
Benjamin Franklin

Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliaments. If we can get rid of the former, we may easily bear the latter.
Benjamin Franklin, in a letter on the Stamp Act, July 1, 1765

If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead & rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.
Benjamin Franklin, in Poor Richard's Almanac, 1738

In rivers and bad governments, the lightest things swim at the top.
Benjamin Franklin

It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright.
Benjamin Franklin, Maxim prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, and half-shut afterwards.
Benjamin Franklin

Little strokes fell great oaks.
Benjamin Franklin, Maxim prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757

Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults.
Benjamin Franklin

Love your neighbor, but don't pull down your hedge.
Benjamin Franklin

Most fools think they are only ignorant.
Benjamin Franklin

Never confuse motion with action.
Benjamin Franklin

Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day.
Benjamin Franklin, Maxim prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757

Our Constitution is in actual operation; everything appears to promise that it will last; but in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.
Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to M. Leroy, 1789

Plough deep while sluggards sleep.
Benjamin Franklin, Maxim prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757

Remember that time is money.
Benjamin Franklin, in Advice to a Young Tradesman, 1748

The sting of gossip is the truth of it.
Benjamin Franklin

There never was a good war or a bad peace.
Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Josiah Quincy, Sept. 11, 1773

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Josiah Quincy, Sept. 11, 1773, and also in his Historical Review, 1759

Think of these things: whence you came, where you are going, and to whom you must account.
Benjamin Franklin

Those things that hurt instruct.
Benjamin Franklin

Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
Benjamin Franklin, in Poor Richard's Almanack

'Tis easy to see, hard to foresee.
Benjamin Franklin

To find out a girl's faults, praise her to her girl friends.
Benjamin Franklin

Vessels large may venture more, but little boats should keep near shore.
Benjamin Franklin, Maxim prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanack

We must all hang together or, assuredly we shall all hang separately.
Benjamin Franklin, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776


Sigismund Schlomo Freud (Sigmund Freud) (May 6, 1856, Frieberg, Moravia (now Príbor, Czech Republic) - Sept. 23, 1939, London England), Austrian psychologist
Only the real, rare, true scientific minds can endure doubt, which is attached to all our knowledge.
Sigmund Freud, in letter to Princess Marie Bonaparte

The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.
Sigmund Freud

The great question - which I have not been able to answer - is, "What does a woman want?"
Sigmund Freud

Zuweilen eine Zigarre ist nur eine Zigarre.
(Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar.)
Sigmund Freud, responding to a comment about him smoking a cigar.


Milton Friedman (July 31, 1912, Brooklyn, NY - November 16, 2006, San Francisco, CA), American Nobel Laureate economist
Theories can be based on any assumptions, however bizarre.
Milton Friedman, in Essays in Positive Economics, 1953

There's nothing so permanent as a temporary government program.
Milton Friedman


David B. Frohnmayer (July 9, 1940, Medford, OR -), 15th President of the University of Oregon
It is better to speak out against hateful language rather than allow it to fester silently or to create doubt as to our central values.
David Frohnmayer, in a letter to University of Oregon faculty and staff concerning statements made at Pacific Forum speeches, April, 2008, and reported in the Register Guard, April 18, 2008


Robert Lee Frost (Mar. 26, 1874, San Francisco, CA - Jan. 29, 1963, Boston, MA), American poet
Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.
Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Robert Frost, in Fire and Ice, 1923

They would not find me changed from him they knew Only more sure of all I thought was true.
Robert Frost

Two paths diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost, in The Road Less Traveled


Richard Buckminster Fuller (July 12, 1895, Milton, MA - July 1, 1983, Los Angeles, CA), American inventor, architect, and engineer
Dare to be naive
Buckminster Fuller, in Moral of the Work

There is enough for everyone. People think that there isn't enough, so they get as much as they can, so many people don't have enough.
Buckminster Fuller

You can't better the world by simply talking to it. Philosophy to be effective must be mechanically applied.
Buckminster Fuller


G

Top

John Kenneth Galbraith (Oct. 15, 1908, Iona Station, Ontario, Canada - ), American economist
One of my greatest pleasures in writing has come from the thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably pretentious position. Then comes the saddening realization that such people rarely read.
John Kenneth Galbraith

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.
John Kenneth Galbraith

When people are least sure, they are often most dogmatic.
John Kenneth Galbraith


Galen (Claudius Galenus) (circa 131, Pergamum (modern-day Bergama, Greece) - circa 210, Rome, Italy), Greek physician, scientist, and writer
The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms.
Galen


Galileo Galilei (Feb. 15, 1564, Pisa, Italy - Jan. 8, 1642, Arcetri, Italy), Italian astronomer, mathematician and father of experimental physics
I do not feel obliged to believe that same God who endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect, had intended for us to forgo their use.
Galileo Galilei

In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
Galileo Galilei

It was granted to me alone to discover all the new phenomena in the sky and nothing to anybody else. This is the truth which neither envy nor malice can supress.
Galileo Galilei, commenting on his discoveries

If anyone is allowed to imagine whatever he pleases and someone says that the Moon is surrounded by transparent invisible crystal, I shall willingly grant this provided that, with equal courtesy, I be allowed to say that this crystal has on its outer surface a great number of enormous mountains, thirty times as high as terrestrial ones, which, being of diaphanous substance, is invisible. The hypothesis is pretty; its only fault is that it is neither demonstrated nor demonstrable. Who does not see that this is a purely arbitrary fiction that puts nothingness as existing and proposes nothing more than simple noncontradiction? One might equally well define Earth to include the atmosphere out to the top of the highest mountain and then say 'the earth is perfectly spherical.'
Galileo Galilei, to Gallanzone Gallanzoni, Cardinal Joyeuse's secretary, responding to Galileo's opponent Lodovico delle Colombe, who while admitting that the surface of the moon looked rugged, maintained that it was actually quite smooth and spherical as Aristotle had said, reconciling the two ideas by saying that the moon was covered with a smooth transparent material through which mountains and craters inside it could be discerned. July 16, 1611

To command the professors of astronomy to confute their own observations is to enjoin an impossibility, for it is to command them to not see what they do see, and not to understand what they do understand, and to find what they do not discover.
Galileo Galilei


Indira Gandhi (November 19, 1917, Allahabad, India - October 31, 1984, New Delhi, India), Indian politician and Prime Minister of India (1966 - 1977) and (1980 - 1984)
My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group. There is much less competition.
Indira Gandhi


Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) (Oct. 2, 1869, Porbandar,India - Jan. 30, 1948, Delhi, India), Indian Hindu political and spiritual leader and proponent of nonviolent protest
An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.
Mahatma Gandhi

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.
Mahatma Gandhi

Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.
Mahatma Gandhi

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
Mahatma Gandhi

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still small voice within me.
Mahatma Gandhi

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi


Bill Gates, American software entrepeneur
640K ought to be enough for anybody.
Bill Gates, 1981


Andre' Gide (November 22, 1869, Paris, France - February 19, 1951, Paris, France), French writer and Nobel Laureate in Literature, 1947
It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.
Andre' Gide


Kahlil Gibran
Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."
Kahlil Gibran


Gail Godwin (June 18, 1937, Birmingham, AL - ), American author and novelist
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths pure theatre.
Gail Godwin


Hermann Goering (Jan. 12, 1893, Rosenheim, Germany - Oct. 15, 1946, Nuremberg, Germany), Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe and Deputy Führer of the Third Reich
Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Gustave M. Gilbert: There is one difference, In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
Hermann Goering, in a conversation between Gustave M. Gilbert (1911 - 1977), a German-speaking intelligence officer and psychologist, on the evening of April 18, 1946, published in Nuremberg Diary, 1947 by Farrar, Straus & Company and republished in an expanded edition in 1961.

Whenever I hear the word 'culture,' I reach for my pistol.
Hermann Goering, similar to a statement earlier made by the playwright Hanns Johst


Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Aug. 28, 1749, Frankfurt am Main, Germany - Mar. 22, 1832, Weimar, Germany), German poet
All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.
Goethe

Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but it is sure to repent every ill-judged outlay.
Goethe

Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.
Goethe

Difficulties increase the nearer we approach our goal.
Goethe

Genuis is formed in quiet, character in the stream of human life.
Goethe

Hatred is active, and envy passive dislike; there is but one step from envy to hate.
Goethe

I have learned much from disease which life could have never taught me anywhere else.
Goethe

It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it.
Goethe

It is the great triumph of genius to make the common appear novel.
Goethe

Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.
Goethe

Man, be he who he may, experiences a last piece of good fortune and a last day.
Goethe

Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it. Others do just the same with their time.
Goethe

National hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.
Goethe

Nature goes on her way, and all that to us seems an exception is really according to order.
Goethe

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
Goethe

One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.
Goethe

Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution.
Goethe

Science and art belong to the whole world, and before them vanish the barriers of nationality.
Goethe

Science has been seriously retarded by the study of what is not worth knowing, and what is not knowable.
Goethe

Talent is nurtured in solitude; character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.
Goethe

The best fortune that can fall to a man is that which corrects his defects and makes up for his failings.
Goethe

The coward only threatens when he is safe.
Goethe

The follies of the wise man are known to himself, but hidden from the world.
Goethe

The ideal of beauty is simplicity and tranquility.
Goethe

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.
Goethe

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Goethe


Sidney Goff (1920, Newark, NJ - ), American pharmaceutical researcher
A good time to keep your mouth shut is when you're in deep water.


Thomas Gold, physicist
For every complex natural phenomenon there is a simple, elegant, compelling, wrong explanation.
Tommy Gold


Senator Barry Goldwater (Jan. 1, 1909, Phoenix, AZ - May 29, 1998, Paradise Valley, AZ), United States Senator from Arizona
Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Tolerance in the face of tyranny is no virtue.
Barry Goldwater

I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell's ass.
Senator Barry Goldwater, when asked what he thought of Jerry Falwell's suggestion that all good Christians should be against Sandra Day O'Connor's nomination to the Supreme Court


Samuel Goldwyn (1889-1974), American film maker
Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.
Samuel Goldwyn

I can give you a definite perhaps.
Samuel Goldwyn

Television has raised writing to a new low.
Samuel Goldwyn


Jack Gordon, State Senator from Florida (1972 - 1992)
Well, if all regulation is bad; let's start with traffic. Let's take down all the stoplights and stop signs, and abolish the speed limit, and see what happens
Jack Gordon


Stephen Jay Gould, American paleontologist
Heydrich, Eichmann, and company therefore invoke the usual trick of argument for breaking a true continuum that lacks a compelling point for separation: choose an arbitrary dividing line and then treat it as a self-evident law of nature.
Stephen Jay Gould, in The Most Unkindest Cut of All, an essay on the Wannsee Protocol, Natural History, May, 1992.

Natural selection may lead to benefits for species, but these `higher' advantages can only arise as sequelae, or side consequences, of natural selection's causal mechanism: differential reproductive success of individuals.
Stephen Jay Gould, in Spin Doctoring Darwin, Natural History, July, 1995

Rifkin's assertions bear no relationship to what I have observed and practiced for 25 years ... Either I am blind or he is wrong -- and I think I can show, by analyzing his slipshod scholarship and basic misunderstanding of science, that his world is an invention constructed to validate his own private hopes ... Rifkin shows no understanding of the norms and procedures of science: he displays little comprehension of what science is and how scientists work.
Stephen Jay Gould, in a Discover magazine book review on Rifkin's Algeny, 1985

Something deep within us drives accurate messiness into the neat channels of canonical stories.
Stephen Jay Gould, in Jim Bowie's Letter & Bill Buckner's Legs, Natural HIstory, May, 2000


Billy Graham (William Franklin Graham) (Nov. 7, 1918, Charlotte, NC - ), American Christian evangelist
Graham: "This stranglehold has got to be broken or this country's going down the drain."
Nixon: "You believe that?"
Graham: "Yes, sir."
Nixon: "Oh boy. So do I. I can't ever say that, but I believe it."
Graham: "No, but if you get elected a second time, then we might be able to do something."
Billy Graham, in reference to alleged Jewish influence in the media, from Nixon tapes of early 1972, National Archives


Thomas Gray (Dec. 26, 1716, Cornhill, London, England - July 30, 1771, Cambridge, England), English poet
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melacholy marked him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,
He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
The bosom of his Father and his God.
Thomas Gray, in Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, The Epitaph

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.
Thomas Gray, in Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Stanza 8

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Ev'n in our Ashes live their wonted Fires.
Thomas Gray, in Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Stanza 23

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Thomas Gray, in Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Stanza 9


Sir Thomas Gresham (circa 1519, London, England - Nov. 21, 1579, London, England), English financier
Bad money drives out good money.
Sir Thomas Gresham
This concept was called Gresham's Law by the economist H. D. Macleod in 1858, but was actually known before Gresham's time. An early mention of the idea was made by the Greek poet Theognis in the late 6th or early 5th century BC.


Donald Gudehus (Sept. 13, 1939, Jersey City, NJ - ), American astronomer and composer
A free society gets what it wants; a brainwashed society wants what it gets.
Donald Gudehus, 1966

An effective counter to the endless succession of zealotry and fanaticism from one generation to the next, with its consequent ill effects on freedom of expression, thought, scientific inquiry, and behavior, would be to institute an age of consent for religious indoctrination.
Donald Gudehus, February, 2004

A person with too much time on their hands sometimes also has too many words on their tongue.
Donald Gudehus, June 3, 2007

At the time of the 9-11 attacks on our country, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson declared that the pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians, the ACLU, and the People for the American Way helped it happen because they made God mad. Now that Florida has been hit by four devastating hurricanes in a row these all-knowing men are silent, and we are left to guess at the reasons for this calamity.

Is God angry again? Are Floridians being punished for the 2000 election fraud? Has perhaps the accursed Bermuda Triangle shifted westward? Or is it a master plan by disgruntled sea creatures to divert storms to our southern shores? If the latter, I would put manatees at the top of the list of those subversives; their placid demeanor doesn't fool me one bit. We patiently await the true answer from Jerry and Pat.
Donald Gudehus, letter to The Eugene Weekly, Nov.11, 2004

Bad soil drives out good soil.
Donald Gudehus, Feb., 2008

Dribble-down economics: At the top level, one hand washes another; down below, the people receive the dribbles.
Donald Gudehus, Oct. 31, 2003

If a psychic's store goes up in flames, do you charge them with false advertising or arson?
Donald Gudehus, July 8, 2012

In its most common form, the inappropriate use of light is light pollution; in its most insidious form it constitutes light trespass and light assault.
Donald Gudehus, Jan. 22, 2002

In government, contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, and regulations are adjusted per the highest bidder.
Donald Gudehus, July 16, 2002

In science, paradigm shifts are sometimes not complete until the older generation not only dies off, but the next generation becomes convinced that they thought of the idea themselves.
Donald Gudehus, December 13, 2002

In the manufacture of products, quality tends naturally to split into three levels: professional level, consumer level, and scam level.
Donald Gudehus, July 19, 2004

In recent days we've experienced the Georgia Department of Education's proposal to delete the term "evolution" from the state's science curriculum, and the Bush administration's ongoing activity of undermining the integrity of scientific research for its own political purposes. The latter was recently criticized in a statement by 60 leading scientists (including 20 Nobel Laureates and 19 winners of the National Medal of Science), and accompanied a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). These events are reminiscent of the era of Lysenko in the Soviet Union, and do not bode well for the health of the science and politics in the United States.

I've often felt that the attractiveness of Lysenkoism to the Soviets was partner to the delusional idea that if the generation of the 1930s could be indoctrinated with Marxist philosophy (actually not real Marxism, but a "dictatorship of the professional dictator") then the next generation would be more atuned to such ideas, and easier to manage, with a resultant saving in the costs of control, e.g., the overhead of gulags, the KGB, and propaganda. This argues for a partly economic basis to Lysenkoism, a decidedly capitalistic concept.

When science is compromised by politics, religion, thought control, economics, etc. the result is not only bad science, but decay of the compromising entities and infrastructures, and harm to the innocent.
Donald Gudehus, comment on the Georgia Department of Education's proposal to delete the term "evolution" from the state's science curriculum, Feb. 4, 2004

Just as magicians don't reveal the secrets of their conjuring tricks, prophets don't reveal the secrets of their miracles.
Donald Gudehus, December, 2006

Let sleeping astronomers lie,
And let lying astronomers dream.
Donald Gudehus, December 27, 2011

Never argue with a crazy person. They will bombard you with irrelevant fiction, and never yield an inch.
Donald Gudehus, July 15, 2014

Password? We don't need no stinkin' password. That's all lower case and no spaces.
Donald Gudehus, July, 2009

Religion is like cigarettes. Too much of it stunts the growth - in this case, of the intellect and the emotions.
Donald Gudehus, June, 2003

Slam dunk, or Damn bunk?
Donald Gudehus, commenting on President Bush's case for the pre-emptive war against Iraq, http://www.historykb.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/history-general/200508/1, August 29, 2005

Some religions and faith-based schemes start off with allegedly good intentions; more than a few however, degenerate into insidious mechanisms for supression and retribution. The transformation is not unlike that of a house of cards into a chamber of horrors.
Donald Gudehus, 2001

Talk is cheap; the wrong talk is expensive.
Donald Gudehus, November 17, 2008

The evolution of evil in scientists and engineers:
Stage 1 - Sniveling ingrate
Stage 2 - Little/oversized smartass
Stage 3 - Spherical bastard
(see F. Zwicky for the definition of spherical bastard)
Donald Gudehus, 2003

The only way I can get interested in a can of worms is if I'm going fishing.
Donald Gudehus, June 3, 2011

The sea is a liquid tiger.
Donald Gudehus, 1975

The squeaky wheel gets oiled, the noisy wheel gets recycled.
Donald Gudehus, May, 2002

The sun never sets on the English Ivy.
Donald Gudehus, February 27, 2006

The waves pound on the shore.
A genius is born; ... and passes.
The waves pound on the shore.
Donald Gudehus, 1974

The world quickly forgets about losing vice presidential candidates and failed prophets.
Donald Gudehus, December, 2006

To believe is to have an opinion; to know is to be able to exclude other opinions.
Donald Gudehus, 1966

Tyranny begins in the home
Donald Gudehus, May 9, 2013

Would you buy a used oil well from this man?
Donald Gudehus, on a protest demonstration poster in reference to George W. Bush, September, 2002

You know a cheese is well aged, if the mammal it came from is extinct.
Donald Gudehus, December, 2006

If something moves and it's not supposed to move, use Duct Tape;
if something is supposed to move, and it doesn't move, use WD-40;
if something is supposed to move, and you aren't strong enough to move it, use a Vise-Grip.
Donald Gudehus, July, 2016


Herman Andrew Gudehus (Hermann Andreas Ludwig Gudehus) (Aug. 3, 1906, Hoboken, NJ - Jan. 4, 1979, Whiting, NJ), American artist
Believe half of what you see and a quarter of what you hear.
Herman Gudehus

Danger lurks at every corner.
Herman Gudehus


H

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Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (Feb. 16, 1834, Potsdam, Prussia (Germany) - Aug. 9, 1919, Jena, Germnay), Germnan biologist
I established the opposite view, that this history of the embryo (ontogeny) must be completed by a second, equally valuable, and closely connected branch of thought - the history of race (phylogeny). Both of these branches of evolutionary science, are, in my opinion, in the closest causal connection; this arises from the reciprocal action of the laws of heredity and adaptation... 'ontogenesis is a brief and rapid recapitulation of phylogenesis, determined by the physiological functions of heredity (generation) and adaptation (maintenance).
Referred to as The biogenetic law: Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.
Ernst Haeckel, in Riddle of the Universe at the Close of the Nineteenth Century, 1899

Politics is applied biology.
Ernst Haeckel

The real cause of personal existence is not the favor of the Almighty, but the sexual love of one's earthly parents.
Ernst Haeckel


John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (Nov. 5, 1892, Oxford, England - Dec. 1, 1964, Bhubaneswar, India), British geneticist
I'll gladly lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins.
J. B. S. Haldane, a quip to summarize kin selection in evolutionary biology

I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
J. B. S. Haldane, Possible Worlds and Other Papers (1927), p. 286


Nathan Hale (June 6, 1755, Coventry CT - Sept. 22, 1776, New York City, NY), American patriot and Captain inthe Revolutionary Army
I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.
Nathan Hale, last words before being hanged by the British


Evelyn Beatrice Hall (S[tephen] G. Tallentyre) (1868 - 1919)
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it
Evelyn Beatrice Hall, paraphrasing Voltaire's words in his Essay on Tolerance: "Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too" in The Friends of Voltaire, 1906


Alexander Hamilton (1755, Nevis, British West Indies - July 12, 1804, New York City, NY), Founding father and first Secretary of the Treasury of the United States
Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.
Alexander Hamilton


Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld (July 29, 1905, Jonkoping, Sweden - Sept. 18, 1961, Ndola, Zambia), Second Secretary-General of the United Nations (1953 - 1961)
Destiny is something not to be desired and not to be avoided.
Dag Hammarskjöld

Friendship needs no words - it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness.
Dag Hammarskjöld, from Markings


Christopher Hampton (Jan. 26, 1946, Fayal, Azores - ), English Oscar-wining playwright
A great number of the disappointments and mishaps of the troubled world are the direct result of literature and the allied arts. It is our belief that no human being who devotes his life and energy to the manufacture of fantasies can be anything but fundamentally inadequate.
Christopher Hampton

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.
Christopher Hampton

Choosing the lesser of two evils, is still choosing evil.
Christopher Hampton

I always divide people into two groups. Those who live by what they know to be a lie, and those who live by what they believe, falsely, to be the truth.
Christopher Hampton


Billings Learned Hand (January 27, 1872, Albany, NY - August 14, 1961, New York, NY), U. S. Federal Court judge and co-founder of The American Law Institute
A wise man once said, "Convention is like the shell to the chick, a protection till he is strong enough to break it through."
Learned Hand, in The Preservation of Personality in The Spirit of Liberty, 1927, p. 32

No doubt one may quote history to support any cause, as the devil quotes scripture....
Learned Hand, in Sources of Tolerance, 1930, p. 79

Our dangers, as it seems to me, are not from the outrageous but from the conforming; not from those who rarely and under the lurid glare of obloquy upset our moral complaisance, or shock us with unaccustomed conduct, but from those, the mass of us, who take their virtues and tastes, like their shirts and their furniture, from the limited patterns which the market offers.
Learned Hand, in The Preservation of Personality, 1927, p. 34

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest. And now in that spirit, that spirit of an America which has never been, and which may never be; nay, which never will be except as the conscience and courage of Americans create it; yet in the spirit of that America which lies hidden in some form in the aspirations of us all; in the spirit of that America for which our young men are at this moment fighting and dying; in that spirit of liberty and of America I ask you to rise and with me pledge our faith in the glorious destiny of our beloved country.
Learned Hand, in The Spirit of Liberty, 1944, pp. 190-191


Hannibal (Joy of Baal) (Hannibal Barca) (247 BC, Carthage - 183, Prussia), Carthaginian general and stateman
We will either find a way or make one.
Hannibal


Sydney J. Harris (1917 - 1986), American columnist
A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, but one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.
Sydney J. Harris

It's odd, and a little unsettling, to reflect upon the fact that English is the only major language in which "I" is capitalized; in many other languages "You" is capitalized and the "i" is lower case.
Sydney J. Harris

Knowledge fills a large brain; it merely inflates a small one.
Sydney J. Harris, in Detroit Free Press, January 7, 1982

Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.
Sydney J. Harris

The three most difficult tasks in life are neither physical feats nor are they intellectual achievements. Rather they are moral acts:
1. To return love for hate.
2. To include the excluded.
3. To say, "I was wrong."
Sydney J. Harris, in response to being asked what the three most difficult things were

Why are we willing to accept a new mathematical formula we don't understand as the product of a brilliant mind, while rejecting a new art form we don't understand as the product of a deranged mind?
Sydney J. Harris


Douglas Rayner Hartree (Mar. 27, 1897, Cambridge, England - Feb. 12, 1958, Cambridge, England), British computer scientist
The time from now until the completion of the project tends to become constant.
Douglas Hartree


Paul Harvey (Sept. 4, 1918, Tulsa, OK - ), American news commentator
If 'pro' is the opposite of 'con', what is the opposite of progress?
Paul Harvey


Stephen Hawking (Jan. 8, 1942, Oxford, England - ), English physicist
God not only plays dice. He also sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen.
Stephen Hawking, from Nature 1975, 257, 362

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


Carolyn Hax (December 5, 1966 in Bridgeport, CT - ), American writer and columnist
Your parents' views are, by current standards, out there. Getting in their faces about it would be needlessly disrespectful, but there's no reason for you to tiptoe through their delusional little terrarium as if you can't bend even one blade of grass.
Carolyn Hax, in "Tell Me About It", August 18, 2007


George Friderich Wilhelm Hegel (August 27, 1770, Stuttgart, Germany - November 14, 1831, Berlin, Germany), German philosopher
We learn from history that we do not learn from history.
Hegel


Heinrich Heine (Christian Johann Heinrich Heine) (Dec. 13, 1797, Düsseldorf - Feb. 17, 1856, Paris, France), German poet
Das Meer hat seine Perlen,
Der Himmel hat seine Sterne,
Aber mein Herz, mein Herz,
Mein Herz hat seine Liebe.
(The sea has its pearls,
The heaven its stars,
But my heart, my heart,
My heart has its love.)
Heinrich Heine from Die Nordsee, VII - Nachts in der Kajüte (The North Sea, VII - At Night in the Cabin)

Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am ende Menschen.
(Wherever they burn books, they will also, in the end, burn people.)
Heinrich Heine from Almansor, 1820 - 1821

Experience is a good school, but the fees are high.
Heinrich Heine


Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7, 1907, Butler, MO - May 8, 1988, Santa Cruz, CA), American science fiction author
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
Robert Heinlein

An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.
Robert Heinlein, in Beyond the Horizon, 1942

Free will is a golden thread running through the frozen matrix of fixed events.
Robert Heinlein, in The Rolling stones

Never frighten a little man. He'll kill you.
Robert Heinlein

Never try and teach a pig to sing: it's a waste of time, and it annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein, in Time Enough for Love

The whole principle is wrong; it's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.
Robert Heinlein, on censorship

When any government, or church for that matter, undertakes to say to it's subjects, this you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motive.
Robert Heinlein


Werner Heisenberg (Dec. 5, 1901, Würzburg, Germany - Feb., 1, 1976, Munich, Germany), German physicist
There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about them.
Werner Heisenberg

We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of searching.
Werner Heisenberg


Jesse Helms (Oct. 18, 1921, Monroe, NC - July 4, 2008), United States Senator from North Carolina (1973 - 2003)
Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here. He'd better have a bodyguard.
Jesse Helms

The destruction of this country can be pinpointed in terms of its beginnings to the time that our political leadership turned to socialism. They didn't call it socialism, of course. It was given deceptive names and adorned with fancy slogans. We heard about New Deals, and Fair Deals, and New Frontiers, and Great Society.
Jesse Helms

The New York Times and The Washington Post are both infested with homosexuals themselves.
Jesse Helms


Ernest Hemingway (July 21, 1899 - July 2, 1961), American author and journalist
A man has to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.
Ernest Hemingway


William Ernest Henley (Aug. 23, 1849, Gloucester, England - July 11, 1903, Woking, England), English poet
Out of the night that covers me,
   Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
   For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
   I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
    My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
    Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
    Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
    How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
    I am the captain of my soul.
William Ernest Henley, Invictus, 1875


Heraclitus (535 BCE, Ephesus, Ionia (present day Turkey) - 475 BCE, Ephesus), Greek philosopher
Doctors cut, burn, and torture the sick, and then demand of them an undeserved fee for such services.
Heraclitus

Fools when they do hear are like the deaf: of them does the saying bear witness that they are absent when present.
Heraclitus

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.
Heraclitus

Nature loves to hide.
Heraclitus

There is nothing permanent except change.
Heraclitus

You cannot step twice into the same rivers; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you.
Heraclitus


Hermann Hesse (July 2, 1877, Calw, Germany - Aug. 9, 1962, Montagnola, Switzerland), German poet, novelist, and Nobel Laureate in Literature, 1946
If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.
Hermann Hesse

When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.
Hermann Hesse


John Heywood (1497 - 1580), English playwright, poet, musician, and entertainer
A hard beginning maketh a good ending.
John Heywood

If you will call your troubles experiences, and remember that every experience develops some latent force within you, you will grow vigorous and happy, however adverse your circumstances may seem to be.
John Heywood

Many hands make light work.
John Heywood

Rome was not built in one day.
John Heywood

There are none so blind as those who will not see.
John Heywood, in Dialogue of Proverbs, 1546

Those who agree with us may not be right, but we admire their astuteness.
John Heywood

When all candles be out, all cats be grey.
John Heywood

Would ye both eat your cake and have your cake?
John Heywood


James Hightower (January 11, 1943, Denison, TX - ), American populist, radio commentator, and author
A guy who can strut sitting down.
Jim Hightower, in reference to Newt Gingrich

George Bush was born on third base and decided that he'd hit a triple.
Jim Hightower, Texas Agriculture Commissioner, at the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, GA, 1988, in reference to George Herbert Walker Bush

Ronald Reagan's idea of a good farm program was Hee Haw.
Jim Hightower

The elite in this country get to acting like they're the top dogs and we're just a bunch of fire hydrants out here.
Jim Hightower

There's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.
Jim Hightower


Greg Hinkel, student of Lynn Margulis, creator of the Gaia concept
Gaia is just symbiosis as seen from space.
Greg Hinkel


Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (Leytonstone, London, England, Aug. 13, 1899 - April 29, 1980, Los Angeles, CA), English-American motion-picture director
I understand that the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the man-made sound never quite equaled the purity of the sound achieved by the pig.
Alfred Hitchcock


Adolf Hitler, German despotic ruler
If the dismissal of Jewish scientists means the annihilation of centemporary German science, then we shall do without science for few years.
Adolf Hitler, rejecting an appeal by Max Planck in the defense of Fritz Haber and other Jewish scientists

In this they proceeded on the sound principle that the magnitude of a lie always contains a certain factor of credibility, since the great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil, and that, therefore, in view of the primitive simplicity of their minds they more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big.
This is sometimes shortened to:
The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Volume One, Chapter X, 1925

Universal education is the most corroding and disintegrating poison that liberalism has ever invented for its own destruction.
Adolf Hitler


Eric Hoffer (July 25, 1902, New York City, NY - May 21, 1983, San Francisco, CA), American writer, philosopher, and longshoreman
A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.
Eric Hoffer

Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep.
Eric Hoffer

Good and evil grow up together and are bound in an equilibrium that cannot be sundered. The most we can do is try to tilt the equilibrium toward the good.
Eric Hoffer

It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.
Eric Hoffer

Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Eric Hoffer

The ability to get along without an exceptional leader is the mark of social vigor.
Eric Hoffer

The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure.
Eric Hoffer

There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.
Eric Hoffer

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
Eric Hoffer


John Hollow Horn, Oglala Lakota Native American
Some day the earth will weep. She will beg for her life, she will cry with tears of blood. You will make a choice, if you will help her or let her die, and when she dies, you too will die.
John Hollow Horn


John Andrew Holmes
Never tell a young person that anything cannot be done. God may have been waiting for centuries for somebody ignorant enough of the impossible to do that very thing.
John Andrew Holmes


Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (March 8, 1841, Boston, MA - March 6, 1935, Washington, DC), American Supreme Court jurist
Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., mentioned in the verdict of Compania de Tabacos vs. Collector, 1927


Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (Aug. 29, 1809, Cambridge, MA - Oct. 7, 1894, Boston, MA), American poet
The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it contracts.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.


Homer, Greek poet
We mortals hear only the news, and know nothing at all.
Homer


Horace (Qintus Horatius Flaccus) (65 B.C., Venusia, Italy - November 17, 8 B.C., Italy), Roman poet and satirist
Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it.
Horace

Anger is a momentary madness, so control your passion or it will control you.
Horace


Sir Fred Hoyle (1915 - 2001)
I don't see the logic of rejecting data just because they seem incredible.
Sir Fred Hoyle


Edwin P. Hubble (1889 - 1953), American astronomer
Equipped with our five senses - along with telescopes and microscopes and mass spectrometers and seismographs and magnetometers and particle accelerators and detectors sensitive to the entire electromagnetic spectrum - we explore the universe around us and call the adventure science.
Edwin P. Hubble, 1948

We are by definition, in the very center of the observable region. We know our immediate neighborhood rather intimately. With increasing distance, our knowledge fades, and fades rapidly. Eventually, we reach the dim boundary - the utmost limits of our telescopes. There, we measure shadows, and we search among ghostly errors of measurement for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial.
Edwin P. Hubble, in The Realm of the Nebulae, 1936


Langston Hughes (Feb. 1, 1902, Joplin, MO - May 22, 1967, New York City, NY), Afro-American novelist and poet
I swear to the Lord
I still can't see
Why Democracy means
Everybody but me.
Langston Hughes, from The Black Man Speaks

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? ...
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Langston Hughes


Victor Hugo (Feb. 26, 1802, Besancon, France - May 23, 1885, Paris, France), French novelist and poet
Music expresses that which can not be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.
Victor Hugo

To love another person is to see the face of God.
Victor Hugo, from Les Miserables


Aldous Huxley (July 26, 1894, Surrey, England - Nov. 22, 1963, Los Angeles, CA), English novelist and essayist
After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is Music.
Aldous Huxley

Every man who knows how to read has the power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting.
Aldous Huxley

Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.
Aldous Huxley

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
Aldous Huxley

Maybe this world is another planet's hell.
Aldous Huxley

Science in itself is morally neutral; it becomes good or evil according as it is applied.
Aldous Huxley

The only completely consistent people are the dead.
Aldous Huxley

You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.
Aldous Huxley


Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (June 22, 1887, London, England - Feb. 14, 1975, London, England), English biologist
Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire cat.
Sir Julian Sorell Huxley


Thomas Henry Huxley (May 24, 1825, Ealing, England - June 29, 1895, Eastbourne, England), English zoologist
Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.
Thomas Henry Huxley

For once, the bishop's brains have come into contact with reality.
Thomas Henry Huxley, remarking on the death by a fall from a horse of Bishop "Soapy Sam" Wilberforce, champion of creationism, 1873

I wish you would let an old man, who has had his share of fighting, remind you that battles, like hypotheses, are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.
Thomas Henry Huxley, in a letter to Ray Lankester, 1888

Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men.
Thomas Henry Huxley

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.
Thomas Henry Huxley

The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land.
Thomas Henry Huxley

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