Quotations
Collected by Donald Gudehus
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William Henry Vanderbilt (May 8, 1821, New Brunswick, NJ - Dec. 8, 1885, New York, NY), American capitalist and railroad magnate
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The public be damned.
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William Vanderbilt, responding to the suggestion of reporter Clarence Dresser of the
Chicago Tribune that the train schedules accomodate the public, 1883
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Gore Vidal, American author
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As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to
disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are
to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly
vote against their own interests.
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Gore Vidal, The Day the American Empire Ran Out of Gas
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Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452, Vinci, Italy - May 2, 1519, Cloux, France),
Italian scientist, inventor, and artist
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Affective gestures pointing to things near either in time or space should be made with the
hand not very far from the body of the person pointing; and if these things are distant, the
hand of the painter should be more extended and the face turned toward the person to
whom he is addressing the demonstration.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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Anyone who in discussion relies upon authority uses, not his understanding,
but rather his memory.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies
confounds and saps itself.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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Common Sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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Experience does not err. Only your judgments err by expecting from her what
is not in her power.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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He who does not punish evil commands it to be done.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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He who wishes to see how the soul inhabits the body should look to see
how that body uses its daily surroundings. If the dwelling is dirty and
neglected, the body will be kept by its soul in the same condition, dirty and
neglected.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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I say that in narrative paintings one should mingle direct contraries close by, because they
produce strong contrasts with one another, and all the more so when they are very close
together; that is, the ugly next to the beautiful, the big to the small, the old to the young, the
strong to the weak; in this way you will vary as much as possible and close by.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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I think it is no small attraction in a painter to be able to give a pleasing air to his figures,
and whoever is not naturally possessed of this grace may acquire it by study, as
opportunity offers in the following manner: be on the watch to take good parts of many
beautiful faces of which the beautiful parts are established by general repute rather than by
your own judgement, for you may deceive yourself by selecting faces that resemble your
own, since it often seems that such similarities please us; ... so therefore choose the
beautiful ones as I tell you and fix them in your mind.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather
becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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It's easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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Just as courage imperils life; fear protects it.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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Learning acquired in youth arrests the evil of old age; and if you understand
that old age has wisdom for its food, you will so conduct yourself in
youth that your old age will not lack for nourishment.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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Let the painter composing narrative pictures take pleasure in wealth and variety, and
avoid repeating any part that occurs in it, so that the uniqueness and abundance attract
people to it and delight the eye of the observer. I say that a narrative painting requires
(depending on the scene), wherever the eye falls, a mixture of men of diverse appearances,
of diverse ages and dress, combined together with women, children, dogs, horses,
buildings, fields, and hills.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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Lying on a feather mattress or quilt will not bring you renown.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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Make your faces so that they do not all have the same expression, as one sees with most
painters, but give them different expression, according to age, complexion, and good or bad
character.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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Never make heads straight on the shoulders, but turn them aside to the right or to the left,
even though they look down, or upward, or straight ahead, because it is necessary for them
to look lively and awake and not asleep. And do not depict the front or rear half of the
whole person so that too much straightness is displaced, one half above or below the other
half; and if you should wish to use stiff figures, do so only in portraying old people.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold.
For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to
hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with
great wrongs, and they will be powerless to vex your mind.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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The function of muscle is to pull and not to push, except in the case of
the genitals and the tongue.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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There is no higher or lower knowledge, but one only, flowing out of experimentation.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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Those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.
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Leonardo da Vinci, in describing three classes of people
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When fortune comes, seize her firmly by the forelock, for, I tell you, she is
bald at the back.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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Where there is shouting there is no true knowledge.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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Wisdom is the daughter of experience.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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Virgil
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Happy is he who has been able to learn the causes of things.
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Virgil
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Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet) (Nov. 21, 1694, Paris, France - May 30, 1778, Paris, France),
French author and philosopher
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Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
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Voltaire
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History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead.
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Voltaire
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I have just been informed that he is dead. He was a hardy patriot, a gifted writer,
a faithful friend and an affectionate husband and father - provided he is really dead.
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Voltaire, when called upon to eulogize an acquaintanccce he detested, after first
refusing and finally being persuaded to say a few words
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In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as
possible from one class of the citizens to give to the other.
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Voltaire
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Is this any time to make enemies?
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Voltaire, on being told on his deathbed to renounce Satan
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It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
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Voltaire
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Think for yourself and let others enjoy the priviledge of doing so too.
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Voltaire
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Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
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Voltaire
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To hold a pen is to be at war.
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Voltaire
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When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself
does not understand, that is metaphysics.
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Voltaire, in Philosophical Dictionary, 1764
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Peter de Vries
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Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is
good for dandruff.
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Peter de Vries
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W
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H. M. Warner, founder of Warner Brothers film studios
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Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?
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H. M. Warner, 1927
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George Washington (Feb. 22, 1732, Wakefield Plantation, Westmoreland Co., VA - Dec. 14, 1799, Mt. Vernon, VA),
Founding Father and 1st President of the United States (1789 - 1797)
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Be courteous to all, but intimate with few; and let those few be well tried before you
give them your confidence.
George Washington
Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a
fearful master.
George Washington, in his farewell address to the people of the United States, September, 1796
I am not only retired from all public employments, but I am retiring within myself, and shall
be able to view the solitary walk and tread the paths of private life with heartfelt satisfaction.
George Washington, in a letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, 1784
Offensive operations, often times, is the surest, if not the only means of
defence.
George Washington, 1799
The government of the United States is not, in any sense,
founded on the Christian religion.
George Washington
The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified,
shall be directly proportional as to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and
appreciated by their nation
George Washington, 1789
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Harvey Wasserman (c. 1945 - ), American author and columnist
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It is not the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments that form the bedrock of
American values. It is the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution.
Harvey Wasserman
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Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM
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I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
Thomas Watson, 1943
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John Wayne (Marion Michael Morrison) (May 26, 1907, Winterset, IA - June 11, 1979, Newport Beach, CA),
American actor
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If everything isn't black and white, I say, 'Why the hell not?'
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John Wayne
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Ivan Weber, American envirnomentalist
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When environmentalists would bring up an issue, SLOC would say, "It's too early to do anything"
and then at some point later would say, "It would have been nice, but it's too late now".
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Ivan Weber, describing his experience with the Salt Lake Olympic Committee
(SLOC) in the years leading up to the Winter Olympic games in 2002
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Richard Webb, British scientist and editor
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Consider this injustice. Governments tax labour and profit, the engines of prosperity, while pollution and
the depletion of resources - arguably the greatest threats to our economic well-being - remain largely
untouched. So while we're thinking about how to rebuild our broken economies, here's a plea for a new
cornerstone; a universal carbon tax.
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Richard Webb, in New Scientist, Sept. 12, 2009
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Harvey Weiss, American archaeologist
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Science changes one funeral at a time.
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Harvey Weiss, in reference to doubters of the idea that climate can influence the success
of civilizations; from Scientic American, Dec., 2002
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Steven Weinberg, American Nobel Laureate in physics
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Even where they do not attempt to formulate a science of war, military
historians often write as if generals lose battles because they do not follow
some well-established rules of military science. For instance, two generals of
the Union Army in the Civil War that come in for pretty wide disparagement are
George McClellan and Ambrose Burnside. McClellan is generally blamed for not
being willing to come to grips with the enemy, Lee's army of northern
Virginia. Burnside is blamed for squandering the lives of his troops in a
headlong assault on a well-entrenched opponent at Fredericksburg. It will not
excape your attnetion that McClellan is criticized for not acting like
Burnside, and Burnside is criticized for not acting like McClellan.
Steven Weinberg, in Dreams of a Final Theory
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Joseph Welch
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Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.
... Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?
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Joseph Welch, as Army counsel from the Boston firm of Hale and Dorr, addressing Senator
Joseph McCarthy, June 9, 1954,
in the Army-McCarthy hearings in Congress,
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Orson Welles, American filmaker
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In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and
bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance.
In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace and
what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.
Orson Welles
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Colonel Gerald Wellman, ROTC Instructor
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We don't necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain
types of people.
Colonel Gerald Wellman
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Herbert George Wells (September 21, 1866, Bromley, Kent, England - August 13, 1946, London, England),
English author
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Go away. I'm all right.
H. G. Wells, his last words
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Mae Jane West (August 17, 1893, Bushwick, NY - November 22, 1980, Los Angeles, CA), American actress
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When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.
Mae West
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Western Union
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This `telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered
as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.
Western Union internal memo, 1876
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William Westmoreland, U.S. Army General
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Vietnam was the first was ever fought without any censorship. Without censorship,
things can get terribly confused in the public mind.
William Westmoreland
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John Archibald Wheeler, American physicist
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To hate is to study, to study is to understand, to understand is to
appreciate, to appreciate is to love. So maybe I'll end up loving your theory.
John Archibald Wheeler, to a young physicist, Scientific
American, June, 1991
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Elwyn Brooks White (July 11, 1899, Mt. Vernon, NY - Oct. 1, 1985, North Brooklin, ME),
American essayist and writer
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Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.
E. B. White
Be obscure clearly.
E. B. White
Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers
give it passion.
E. B. White
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the
time.
E. B. White
Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a
whole one.
E. B. White
His words leap across rivers and mountains, but his thoughts are still only
six inches long.
E. B. White
I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the
world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to
plan the day.
E. B. White
Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions
without having to get the facts.
E. B. White
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Walt Whitman, American author and poet
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Who are they, as bats and night-bogs, askant in the Capitol?
Are those really Congressmen?
Walt Whitman
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Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), Irish dramatist, novelist, and poet
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A cynic is a person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Oscar Wilde
Democracy is the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
Oscar Wilde
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
Oscar Wilde
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
Oscar Wilde
The basis of optimism is sheer terror.
Oscar Wilde, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the youth know
everything.
Oscar Wilde
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about,
and that is not being talked about.
Oscar Wilde
Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the
difference between the sexes.
Oscar Wilde
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John Wilkes (Oct, 17, 1725 - Dec. 26, 1797, London, England),
English politician, satirist, and champion of a free press
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That depends, my lord, on
whether I first embrace your lordship's principles or your lordship's mistresses.
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John Wilkes, responding to the Fourth Earl of Sandwich in his prosecution of Wilkes, after
the Earl of Snadwich stated:
"Upon
my soul, Wilkes, I don't know whether you'll die upon the gallows or of the pox."
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William of Occam (c. 1285, Ockham, Surrey, England - Apr. 10, 1349, Munich, Germany),
English theologian and philosopher
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Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate.
(Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.)
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William of Occam, in Quodlibeta Septem. This is known as Occam's Razor, which for scientists is
sometimes stated as "when you have two competing theories which make exactly the same
predictions, the one that is simpler is the better."
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Edward Osborne Wilson (June 10, 1929, Birmingham, AL - ), American biologist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author
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So important are insects and other land-dwelling arthropods that if all were to disappear, humanity
probably could not last more than a few months.
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Edward O. Wilson
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Robert Anton Wilson
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We say, "Seeing is believing," but acutally ... we are all much better at believing
than at seeing. In fact, we are seeing what we believe nearly all the time and only
occasionally seeing what we can't believe.
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Robert Anton Wilson
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Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856, Staunton, VA - February 3, 1924, Washington DC),
Twenty-Eighth President of the United States ( 1913 - 1921)
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Liberty has never come from government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of
government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance.
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Woodrow Wilson
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Walter Winchell (Walter Winchel) (Apr. 7, 1897, Chicago, IL - Feb. 20, 1972, Los Angeles, CA),
American journalist and broadcaster
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A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.
Walter Winchell
Gossip is the art of saying nothing in a way that leaves practically nothing unsaid.
Walter Winchell
She's been on more laps than a napkin.
Walter Winchell
The way to become famous fast, is to throw a brick at someone who is famous.
Walter Winchell
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John Wing, Jr. (c. 1959, Sarnia, Canada - ), Canadian commedian
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A Canadian is just an unarmed American with health insurance.
John Wing
And God said: 'Let there be Satan, so people don't blame everything on me. And let there
be lawyers, so people don't blame everything on Satan.'
John Wing
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Jonanthan Harshman Winters III (November 11, 1925, Bellbrook, OH - ), American comedian, actor, and artist
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If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it.
Jonathan Winters
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William Wordsworth (April 7, 1770, Cockermouth, Cumbria, England - April 13, 1850, Rydal Mount,
Grasmere, Cumbria, England), English poet
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The child is the father of the man.
William Wordsworth
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Benjamin Woznik - American Physicist
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This reads like it was translated from Zulu by an illiterate Indian.
Benjamin Woznik, a comment on a student's term project while working as a teachinig assistant in
the MIT Junior Physics Laboratory,1960
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Christopher Wren, English architect
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All celestial mysteries were at once disclosed to him. His successors are
envious because they believe that there can scarcely be any new worlds left.
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Christopher Wren, commenting on Galileo's astronomical discoveries
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Si monumentum requiris, circumspice. (If you are searching for his
monument, look around.)
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Epitaph to Christopher Wren inscribed in the floor of Saint Paul's
Cathedral, written by his son
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Frank LLoyd Wright (Frank Lincoln Wright) (June 8, 1867, Richland Center, WI -
April 9, 1959, Taliesin West, Phoenix, AZ), American architect
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Beauty dissolves conflicts, quiets us within, inspires us, creates a sense of happiness and
serenity, refreshes us, and consoles us in times of depression. Beauty is not unnecessary or impractical.
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Frank Lloyd Wright
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If you ever tilted the map of the U.S.A. very sharply, Los Angeles is the spot where everything
would spill out.
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Frank Lloyd Wright
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Steven Wright, (Dec. 6, 1955, New York City, NY - ), American comedian
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A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
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Steven Wright
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A fool and his money are soon partying.
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Steven Wright
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A friend of mine is into Voodoo Acupuncture. You don't have to go. You'll just be walking
down the street, and ........... ooooohhhhhh, that's much better...
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Steven Wright
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All those who believe in psychokinesis raise my hand.
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Steven Wright
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Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.
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Steven Wright
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Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
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Steven Wright
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Ever notice how irons have a setting for PERMANENT press? I don't get it...
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Steven Wright
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Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don't have film.
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Steven Wright
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For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
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Steven Wright
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Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.
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Steven Wright
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How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?
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Steven Wright
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I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met.
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Steven Wright
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I broke a mirror in my house. I'm supposed to get seven years of bad luck, but my lawyer
thinks he can get me five.
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Steven Wright
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I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.
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Steven Wright
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I installed a skylight in my apartment... The people who live above me are furious!
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Steven Wright
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I was pulled over for speeding today. The officer said, "Don't you know the speed limit is
55 miles an hour?" I replied, "Yes, but I wasn't going to be out that long."
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Steven Wright
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I went fishing with a dotted line... I caught every other fish.
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Steven Wright
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I went to a general store, but they wouldn't let me buy anything specific.
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Steven Wright
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I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
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Steven Wright
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If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
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Steven Wright
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If you tell a joke in the forest, but nobody laughs, was it a joke?
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Steven Wright
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I've got some powdered water, but I don't know what to add.
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Steven Wright
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OK, so what's the speed of dark?
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Steven Wright
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Someone sent me a postcard picture of the earth.
On the back it said, "Wish you were here."
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Steven Wright
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The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
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Steven Wright
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The other day, I was walking my dog around my building - on the ledge... Some people are afraid of heights.
Not me. I'm afraid of widths.
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Steven Wright
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The other day when I was walking through the woods, I saw a rabbit standing in front of a
candle making shadows of people on a tree.
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Steven Wright
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The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.
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Steven Wright
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The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
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Steven Wright
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To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is
research.
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Steven Wright
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What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
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Steven Wright
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When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
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Steven Wright
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When I'm not in my right mind, my left mind gets pretty crowded.
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Steven Wright
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Ronald Lee Wyden (May 3, 1949, Wichita, KS - ), United States Senator from Oregon
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General, I can't tell now if you've simply said one thing and done another, or
whether you have just parsed your words like a lawyer to intentionally mislead
the public. What's to say that if your're confirmed to head the CIA, we won't
go through exactly this kind of drill with you over there?
Ron Wyden, to General Michael Hayden during the Senate confirmation hearings, May 18, 2006
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Y
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William Butler Yeats (June 13, 1865, Dublin, Ireland - Jan. 28, 1939, Roquebrune, France),
Irish poet and Nobel Laureate in Literature, 1923
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I have seen more men destroyed by the desire to have a wife and child and keep
them in comfort than I have seen destroyed by drink and harlots.
William Butler Yeats
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Henny Youngman (Mar. 16, 1906, London, England - Feb. 24, 1998, Manhattan, NY),
American comedian and "King of the One-Liners"
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A doctor gave a man six months to live.
The man couldn't pay his bill, so the doctor gave him another six months.
Henny Youngman
A man goes to a psychiatrist. The doctor says, "You're crazy."
The man says, "I want a second opinion !"
"OK, you're ugly too !"
Henny Youngman
Doctor, I have a ringing in my ears.
"Don't answer!"
Henny Youngman
I don't believe in reincarnation, but what were you when you were alive?
Henny Youngman
I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up - they have no holidays.
Henny Youngman
I was so ugly when I was born, the doctor slapped my mother.
Henny Youngman
I'll never forget my first words in the theatre. `Peanuts. Popcorn.'
Henny Youngman
I've got all the money I'll ever need if I die by four o'clock.
Henny Youngman
My doctor grabbed me by the wallet and said "Cough !"
Henny Youngman
My wife and I got remarried. Our divorce didn't work out.
Henny Youngman
The patient says, "Doctor, it hurts when I do this."
The doctor replies, "Then don't do that !"
Henny Youngman
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Emiliano Zapata (August 8, 1879 - April 10, 1919), Mexican revolutionary and
champion of agrarianism
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It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!
Emiliano Zapata
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Fritz Zwicky (February 14, 1898, Varna, Bulgaria - 1974, February 8, Pasadena, CA), Swiss astronomer
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Spherical bastards - 'spherical' because they still look like bastards from every possible angle.
Fritz Zwicky, in describing some astronomers at Mt. Wilson and Palomar Mt. Observatories
To base the unexplainabilty and the immense wonder of nature onto an other miracle, God, is unnecessary
and not acceptable for any serious thinker.
Fritz Zwicky
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