Quotations

Collected by Donald Gudehus

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Lee Iacocca, Former CEO of Chrysler Corp.

We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?: Lee Iacocca

James Inhofe, Republican United States Senator from Oklahoma

Vote the liberals out of office. You will be doing the Lord's work, and he will richly bless you.: James Inhofe

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Jesse Jackson, Afro-American political leader

Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up.: Jesse Jackson

William James (January 11, 1842, New York City - August 26, 1910, Chocoura, NH), American philosopher and psychologist

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.: William James

Thomas Jefferson (1743, Albermarle County, VA - July 4, 1826, Monticello, VA), Third President of the United States (1801 - 1809)

A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. But who can say what would be the evils of a scission, and when & where they would end? Better keep together as we are, hawl off from Europe as soon as we can, & from all attachments to any portions of it. And if we feel their power just sufficiently to hoop us together, it will be the happiest situation in which we can exist. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.: Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Taylor, June 4, 1798
A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. In order to flourish, the tree of Liberty needs the blood of patriots and tyrants.: Thomas Jefferson
A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both and deserve neither.: Thomas Jefferson
Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, their only capital.: Thomas Jefferson
But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.: Thomas Jefferson, i Notes on Virginia, 1785
Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man. ...Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus.: Thomas Jefferson
Compulsion in religion is distinguished peculiarly from compulsion in every other thing. ...I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor.: Thomas Jefferson
I cannot live without books.: Thomas Jefferson
I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.: Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut, Jan. 1, 1802
I have examined all the known superstitions of the word, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth.: Thomas Jefferson
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as a cause for withdrawing from a friend.: Thomas Jefferson
If a nation expects to be both ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.: Thomas Jefferson
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.: Thomas Jefferson
Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of higher classes and those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depository of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist.: Thomas Jefferson
Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.: Thomas Jefferson
Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree, (for all forbid us to murder, steal, plunder, or bear false witness,) and that we should not intermeddle with the particular dogmas in which all religions differ, and which are totally unconnected with morality.: Thomas Jefferson, from a letter to James Fishback, September 27, 1809
Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.: Thomas Jefferson
Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies.: Thomas Jefferson
Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.: Thomas Jefferson
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.: Thomas Jefferson
The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves...these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ.: Thomas Jefferson
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated tahn the man who reads nothing but newspapers.: Thomas Jefferson
... the maxim of civil government being reversed in that of religion, where its true form is, `divided we stand, united we fall'.: Thomas Jefferson, commenting on the true meaning of religious liberty in a pluralistic democracy, in a letter to Jacob De La Motta, Sept. 1, 1820
The truth is, that the greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them to the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come, when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away [with] all this artificial scaffolding and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.: Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.: Thomas Jefferson
To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.: Thomas Jefferson
We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing it.: Thomas Jefferson
Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government , I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.: Thomas Jefferson

Juan Ramon Jimenez (Dec. 24, 1881, Moguer, Spain - May 29, 1958, San Juan, Puerto Rico), Spanish poet and Nobel Laureate in Literature, 1956

If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.: Juan Ramon Jimenez
My only two weapons: time and silence.: Juan Ramon Jimenez
Some of my affectionate envious friends say, "You write too much." Maybe, I answer. But as long as the best of your little is worse than the worst of my much, I will keep on doing so.: Juan Ramon Jimenez
The greatest assassin of life is haste, the desire to reach things before the right time - which means over-reaching them.: Juan Ramon Jimenez

Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computer Inc.

I've never met one of you [Human Resources people] who didn't suck. I've never known an HR person who had anything but a mediocre mentality.: Steve Jobs, in interviewing an applicant for the position of Vice President of Human Resources, 1997, as mentioned in Upside.com
So we went to Atari and said, `Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, `No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, `Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.': Steve Jobs, on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.

Lydon Baines Johnson (LBJ) (August 27, 1908, near Stonewall, TX - January 22, 1973, Johnson City, TX)

It's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.: Lyndon Johnson, when asked why he chose to reappoint J. Edgar Hoover as FBI director; quoted in NY Times, October 31, 1971
Reporters are like puppets. They simply respond to the pull of the most powerful strings.: Lyndon Johnson

Samuel Johnson (September 18, 1709, Lichfield, England - December 13, 1784, London, England), English poet, essayist, critic, journalist, lexicographer, and conversationalist

The joy of life is variety.: Samuel Johnson
Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.: Samuel Johnson

Hanns Johst (July 8, 1890, Seerhausen bei Riesa, Saxony, Germany - Nov. 23, 1978, Ruhpolding, Bavaria, Germany), German playwright and Nazi poet-laureate

Wenn ich Kultur höre ... entsichere ich meinen Browning! (Whenever I hear the word culture ... I release the safety-catch of my Browning!): Hanns Johst, Schlageter (1933) act 1, scene 1

John Paul Jones (July 6, 1747, Arbigland, Kirkbean, Kirkcudbright, Scotland - July 18, 1792, Paris, France),American naval officer and hero of the American Revolution

Sir, I have not yet begun to fight.: John Paul Jones, said to the British captain of the Serapis, from the Bonhomme Richard, September 23, 1779

Thomas F. Jones, Jr. (1916 - 1981), American educator and Twenty-third President of the University of South Carolina

Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.: Thomas Jones, in the Wall Street Journal, 1975
The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on.: Thomas Jones

Chief Joseph (Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt or Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain) (1840, Joseph Creek, Wallowa Valley, Northeastern Oregon - Sept. 21, 1904, Colville Reservation, Washington), Chief of Nez Percé (Nimiputimt)

Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before I have in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohoolhoolzote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say 'yes' or 'no'. He who led the young men (Olikut) is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are; perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired: my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.

Chief Joseph, surrender speech at the Bear Paw Mountains battleground in Montana, October 5, 1877

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (February 2, 1882, Dublin, Ireland - January 13, 1941, Zurich, Switzerland), Irish novelist

Does nobody understand?: James Joyce, last words, January, 1941
There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being.: James Joyce, in a letter dated November 22, 1902

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Franz Kafka, German author

Just because your doctor has a name for your condition, doesn't mean he knows what it is.: Franz Kafka

Walter Karp

In the American republic, the fact of oligarchy is the most dreaded knowledge of all, and our news keeps that knowledge from us. By their subjugation of the press, the political powers in America have conferred on themselves the greatest of political blessings - Gyges' ring of invisibility.: Walter Karp, 1989

John Keats (Oct. 31, 1795, England - Feb. 23, 1821, Piazza di Spagna, Rome, Italy), English poet

Beauty is truth, truth beauty, - that is all ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know.: John Keats, in Ode on a Grecian Urn

Garrison Keillor (Gary Edward Keillor) (August 7, 1942, Anoka, MN - ), American author, humorist, columnist, musician, satirist, and radio personality

Dishonesty makes for poor rhetoric, and that's what gutted this beautiful holiday. The ideas it celebrates - that our young men and women did their duty and died in defense of their country - are simply not ture.: Garrison Keillor, in "Speechmakers tell lies over the graves of soldiers", June 3, 2007
My ancestors were Puritans from England. They arrived in the United States in the hope of finding greater restrictions than were permissible under the English law at that time.: Garrison Keillor
Sex is good, but not as good as fresh sweet corn.: Garrison Keillor

Helen Keller

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.: Helen Keller

Walt Kelly, American cartoonist

We has met the enemy, and he is us!: Walt Kelly, in Pogo comic strip, regarding environmental issues

Lord Kelvin, English physicist and president, Royal Society, 1895

Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.: Lord Kelvin

John F. Kennedy (May 29, 1917, Brookline, MA - November 22, 1963, Dallas, Texas), Thirty-fifth President of the United States

To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom--and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.: John F. Kennedy, in his inaugural speech, January 20, 1961
And so, my fellow Americans - ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world - ask not what America wil do for you but what together we can do for the freedom of man.: John F. Kennedy, in his inaugural speech, January 20, 1961
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.: John F. Kennedy
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.: John F. Kennedy, 1962
Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hung by the slenderest of thread, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or madness.: John F. Kennedy

Mongke Khan (1208-1259), grandson of Genghis Khan and fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire

Just as God gave different fingers to the hand so has He given different ways to men.: Genghis Khan, speaking to William of Rubruck, Karcorum, Mongolia, 1254

Omar Khayyam (Ghiyath al-Din Abu'l-Fath Umar ibn Ibrahim Al-Nisaburi al-Khayyami) (May 18, 1048, Nishapur, Persia (present-day Iran) - Dec. 4, 1131, Nishapur, Persia), Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.: Omar Khayyam, The Rubaiyat, Stanza 71 translated by Edward Fitzgerald (1809 - 1883)

Nikita Khruschev (April 17, 1894, Kalinovka, Kursk Province, Russia - Sept. 11, 1971, Moscow, Russia), Soviet Premier (1953 - 1964)

Everyone can err, but Stalin considered that he never erred, that he was always right. He never acknowledged to anyone that he made any mistake, large or small, despite the fact that he made not a few mistakes in the matter of theory and in his practical activity.: Nikita Khruschev
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build bridges even when there are no rivers.: Nikita Khruschev
The Americans have surrounded our country with military bases and threatened us with nuclear weapons, and now they will learn just what it feels like to have enemy missiles pointed at you; we'd be doing nothing more than giving them a little of their own medicine.: Nikita Khruschev

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Jan. 15, 1929, Atlanta, GA - April 4, 1968, Memphis, TN), American Civil Rights Leader

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.: Martin Luther King, Jr.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.: Martin Luther King, Jr.
I was not afraid of the words of the violent, but of the silence of the honest.: Martin Luther King, Jr.
If you can't fly, then run. If you can't run, then walk. If you can't walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, keep moving.: Martin Luther King, Jr.
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.: Martin Luther King, Jr.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.: Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963
The moral arc of the universe bends toward justice.: Martin Luther King, Jr., paraphrasing a longer statement of Theodore Parker
The old law about "an eye for an eye" leaves everybody blind.: Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.: Martin Luther King, Jr.

Rudyard Kipling (Dec. 30, 1865 - 1936), English poet, novelist, and short-story writer, Nobel Laureate in literature

A woman's guess is much more accurate than a man's certainty.: Rudyard Kipling
Everyone is more or less mad on one point.: Rudyard Kipling
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.: Rudyard Kipling
Oh the road to Mandalay Where the flyin'-fishes play An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!: Rudyard Kipling, in Mandalay
Single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints.: Rudyard Kipling, in Tommy
Take my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it takes a very clever woman to manage a fool.: Rudyard Kipling
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.: Rudyard Kipling
Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.: Rudyard Kipling

Arthur Koestler (Sept. 5, 1905, Budapest, Hungary - Mar. 3, 1983, London, England), British novelist and philosopher

If the creator had a purpose in equipping us with a neck, he surely meant us to stick it out.: Arthur Koestler
It is the disease which purports to be the cure.: Arthur Koestler, in a reference to psychoanaysis
The principal mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers.: Arthur Koestler

Akira Kurosawa, Japanese film maker

In defeat you must run. In victory you must run. When you can no longer run, you die.: One of Akira Kurosawa's samurai

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