GRAVY FOR YOUR BRAIN:
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-b*tch." -
Jack Nicholson
"I intend to live forever. So far, so good." - Steven Wright
"My choice early in life was either to be a piano-player in a whorehouse
or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference." -
Harry Truman
“You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the
best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss
hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany
doesn't want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named
'Bush', 'Dick', and 'Colon.' Need I say more?” – Chris Rock
“Is it more far-fetched to believe that there is a group of very powerful
people combining their collective influences in order to increase their power
and control or that there isn’t?” – Anonymous
“I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, 'Where's the self-help
section?' She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.” - George
Carlin
“If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given
medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom.” - Dwight D.
Eisenhower
“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop
thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
- George W. Bush
"It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question
authority."- Benjamin Franklin
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be
one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded
fear." - Thomas Jefferson
“Atheism is a non-prophet organization.” - George Carlin
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies
in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are
cold and not clothed.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower
"If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our
institutions, great is our sin." - Charles Darwin
"The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't
betray it I'd be ashamed of myself." - Noam Chomsky
"The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who
can't read them." – Mark Twain
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher
esteem those who think alike than those who think differently." -
Friedrich Nietzsche
“By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.” - George Carlin
"I am Spartacus!" - Somebody who WASN'T actually Spartacus
"If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion." - Noam
Chomsky
“I don't get high, but sometimes I wish I did. That way, when I messed up in
life I would have an excuse. But right now there's no rehab for stupidity.” –
Chris Rock
"I don't want the world, I just want your half" - Lisa Klapp (in the
song Ana Ng by They Might Be Giants in 1988)
“I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that
these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them
together is certain death.” - George Carlin
“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the
innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they
control the minds of the masses.” - Malcolm X
"It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when
you lose yours." - Harry Truman
“A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” - Malcolm X
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and cause
me to tremble for safety of my country; corporations have been enthroned, an
era of corruption in High Places will follow, and the Money Power of the
country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of
the People, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic
destroyed." - Abraham Lincoln
"The money power preys on the nation in times of peace, and conspires
against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more
insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as public
enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes." -
Abraham Lincoln
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties
than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to
control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the
banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the
people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent
their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and
restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." - Thomas Jefferson
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial
complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and
will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our
liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an
alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge
industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals,
so that security and liberty may prosper together.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower
"We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society
to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit
motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the
giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being
conquered."- Martin Luther King Jr.
"The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me
new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. . .
. The ordinary objects of human endeavour -- property, outward success, luxury
-- have always seemed to me contemptible." - Albert Einstein
“If we could just find out who's in charge, we could kill him.” - George Carlin
“Gun control? We need bullet control! I think every bullet should cost 5,000
dollars. Because if a bullet cost five thousand dollar, we wouldn't have any
innocent bystanders.” – Chris Rock
"There never was a good war or bad peace." - Benjamin Franklin
“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, as one who has seen its
brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower
"In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who
learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed." -
Charles Darwin
"You never need an argument against the use of violence, you need an
argument for it." - Noam Chomsky
“I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it's for
or against.” - Malcolm X
"One moment of patience may ward off great disaster. One moment of
impatience may ruin a whole life." - Chinese Proverb
"The angry can be made happy again, but the dead can not be brought
back to life." - Sun Tzu
"Be excellent to each other" - Bill and Ted
"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?" -
Abraham Lincoln
"My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. - Thomas Paine
"Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a
fruit salad." - Miles Kington
"First the doctor told me the good news: I was going to have a disease
named after me." - Steve Martin
"I have six locks on my door all in a row. When I go out, I lock every
other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks,
they are always locking three." - Elayne Boosler
"When I die, I want to go peacefully like my grandfather did–in his sleep.
Not yelling and screaming like the passengers in his car." - Bob Monkhouse
"I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn’t work that way. So I stole
a bike and asked for forgiveness." - Emo Philips
"Men have only two emotions: hungry and horny. If you see him without an
erection, make him a sandwich." – Anonymous
"When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve
people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty." - Norm Crosby
"By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss
and work twelve hours a day" - Robert Frost
"Instead of getting married again, I’m going to find a woman I don’t like
and just give her a house." - Rod Stewart
"According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking.
Number two is death. Death is number two! Does that sound right? That means to
the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket
than doing the eulogy." - Jerry Seinfeld
"Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday
night." - Rodney Dangerfield
"Misers aren’t fun to live with, but they make wonderful ancestors."
- David Brenner
"To attract men, I wear a perfume called New Car Interior." - Rita
Rudner
“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you
wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call
him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much,
though.” - J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” - Mahatma Gandhi
“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of
control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst,
then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.” - Marilyn Monroe
“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally
better than your dreams.” - Dr. Seuss
“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” - Cicero
“Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not
follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” - Albert Camus
“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.” - Mark Twain
“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his
inferiors, not his equals.” - J.K. Rowling
“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.” - Oscar Wilde
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what
you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive
out hate: only love can do that.” - Martin Luther King Jr.
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else
is the greatest accomplishment.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
“A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it's in hot
water.” - Eleanor Roosevelt
“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is
more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the
world.” - Albert Einstein
“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” - Thomas
Edison
“Do one thing every day that scares you.” - Eleanor Roosevelt
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” -
Albert Einstein
“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” - George
Bernard Shaw
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree,
it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” - Albert Einstein
“I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please
everyone.” - Bill Cosby
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in
harmony.” - Mahatma Gandhi
“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.” - Ernest
Hemingway
“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.” - Edgar Allan Poe
“Peace begins with a smile..” - Mother Teresa
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” - Socrates
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what
lies within us.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom." - Thomas
Jefferson
"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and
leave a trail." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off
your goal." - Henry Ford
"We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the
distance they have traveled from the point where they started." - Henry
Ward Beecher
"A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination." -
Nelson Mandela
"A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge
that is idle." - Khalil Gibran
"Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom
consists in not exceeding the limit." - Elbert Hubbard
"Wisdom begins in wonder." – Socrates
"Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens
to you." - Aldous Huxley
"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is
noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which
is the bitterest." – Confucius
"A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit
from them, and strong enough to correct them." - John C. Maxwell
"Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance." -
George Bernard Shaw
"A fool flatters himself, a wise man flatters the fool." - Edward G.
Bulwer-Lytton
"We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think.
Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far." - Swami Vivekananda
"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment." - Jim
Rohn
"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to
change; the realist adjusts the sails." - William Arthur Ward
"I'd rather regret the things I've done than regret the things I haven't
done." - Lucille Ball
"Winners never quit and quitters never win." - Vince Lombardi
"When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters.
One represents danger and the other represents opportunity." - John F.
Kennedy
"Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment." - Lao
Tzu
"Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise." - Sigmund
Freud
"From the errors of others, a wise man corrects his own." - Publilius
Syrus
"It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved
in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it." - John
Steinbeck
“Is it better for a man to have chosen evil than to have good imposed upon
him?” - Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and
those who matter don't mind.” - Bernard M. Baruch
“Millions saw the apple fall, Newton was the only one who asked why?” - Bernard
M. Baruch
"Everything is habit-forming, so make sure what you do is what you want to
be doing." - Wilt Chamberlain
“Most of the successful people I’ve known are the ones who do more listening
than talking.” - Bernard M. Baruch
“The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The
woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been
before.” - Albert Einstein
"It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that
belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen." - Muhammad Ali
"I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and
live the rest of your life as a champion.'"- Muhammad Ali
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to
what lies within us." - Henry Stanley Haskins
"It is never too late to be what you might have been." - George Eliot
"Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it." - Charles
R. Swindoll
"If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way." -
Napoleon Hill
"You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take." - Wayne Gretzky
"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is
where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." - Henry David
Thoreau
"There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they
exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them." - Denis Waitley
"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right
things." - Peter F. Drucker
"Many of life’s failures are experienced by people who did not realize how
close they were to success when they gave up." - Thomas Edison
"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you
everywhere." - Albert Einstein
"Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch
excellence." - Vince Lombardi
"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the
opportunity in every difficulty." - Anonymous
"Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your
character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others
think you are." - John Wooden
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought
without accepting it." - Aristotle
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with
me." - Dudley Field Malone
"The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision."
- Helen Keller
"Don’t go through life, grow through life." - Eric Butterworth
"The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little
extra." - Jimmy Johnson
"To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing." - Fred
Shero
"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people
always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become
great." - Mark Twain
"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they
were the big things." - Robert Brault
"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts
can be counted." - William Bruce Cameron
“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill
in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” – Voltaire
"They say penis size is related to shoe size: This makes the fear of being
sexually abused by a clown that much scarier." – Anonymous
"There are not enough people in the world who are willing to give you a
lift without taking you for a ride." - Wilt Chamberlain
"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." - Benjamin
Franklin
"All the people like us are 'we' and everyone else is 'they'." -
Rudyard Kipling
"A woman's guess is much more accurate than a man's certainty." -
Rudyard Kipling
"If any question why we died tell them because our fathers lied." -
Rudyard Kipling
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has
always fought the battles." - Eugene Debs
"Pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered." - American idiom
"The bar is set so low we need a shovel." - Jalen Rose
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know
peace." - Jimi Hendrix
"We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity - romantic
love and gunpowder." - Andre Maurois
"Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage
is the triumph of hope over experience." - Oscar Wilde
"Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his
work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have
really worked, is mine." - Nikola Tesla
"The world, I think, will wait a long time for Nikola Tesla's equal in
achievement and imagination." - Edwin Armstrong
"I don't care that they stole my idea... I care that they don't have any
of their own." - Nikola Tesla
"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." - Charles Caleb Colton
"Necessity is the mother of invention." - English proverb
"What the country needs are a few labor-making inventions." - Arnold
H. Glasow
“There are moments which mark your life. Moments when you realize nothing
will ever be the same and time is divided into two parts: Before and after
this… Sometimes you can feel the moment coming… that’s the test… or so I tell
myself. I tell myself that at times like that strong people keep moving forward
anyway. No matter what they’re going to find.” – Denzel Washington in FALLEN
“For a society it is more import for innocence to be protected than guilt to be
punished.” – John Adams
“Nobody likes to get the sh*t kicked out of them. Nobody likes to get hit from
every angle. But evil just keeps on coming, you know what I mean? You saw it
before but now it’s in your face. Laughing at you.” – Denzel Washington in
FALLEN
“That bastard brat of a Scottish peddler! His ambition, his restlessness and
all his grandiose schemes come, I’m convinced, from a superabundance of
secretions, which he couldn’t find enough whores to absorb!” – John Adams
(about Alexander Hamilton)
“Not for nothing did [George’s wife] Martha Washington nick name her large
lascivious tomcat ‘Hamilton.’”- Ron Chernow (in his HAMILTON biography)
“A slur upon the moral government of the world” - John Adams (about Thomas
Jefferson)
“[John Adams is a] blind, bald, crippled toothless man who is a hideous
hermaphroditic character with neither the force and fitness of a man, nor the
gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” – Thomas Jefferson (about John Adams)
“The trouble with [General Joseph] Hooker is that he’s got his headquarters
where his hindquarters ought to be.” – Abraham Lincoln
"You'll never be alone with a poet in your pocket." - John Adams
"Self - consciousness is the enemy of interestingness." - Malcolm
Gladwell
"Fail early, fail often, fail forward." - Slilcone Valley saying
"Time is the answer to all questions." – Unknown
"I got gaps. She's got gaps. Together we fill gaps." - Rocky Balboa
"Women weaken legs." - Rocky's trainer
"If you don't like what they are asking, you don't except the premise of
the question." - Character on TV series West Wing
"The worship gene... women get it up until they're 18 or 19. And then they
stop going to the mall to see Debbie Gibson. With men, it just keeps getting
worse [with age]." - Colin Cowheard
"Damn John Jay! Damn everyone who won't damn John Jay! Damn everyone who
won't put up lights in the windows and sit up all night damning John Jay!"
- Graffiti on a Boston wall in 1795
"He [Jay] could travel at night from Boston to Philadelphia solely by the
light of his burning effigies." - John Jay
"It's poli-tricks..." - Jalen Rose
"Don't smoke Kool...be cool!" - Jalen Rose's uncle
"You own the things that don't cost anything." - Jalen Rose's
grandmother
"Sometimes that light at the end of the tunnel is a train." - Charles
Barkley
"My initial response was to sue her for defamation of character, but then
I realized that I had no character." - Charles Barkley
"I don't think of myself as giving interviews. I just have conversations.
That gets me into trouble." - Charles Barkley
"I'd never buy my girl a watch... she's got a clock over the stove."
Charles Barkley
"It is a damn poor mind indeed which can't think of at least two ways to
spell any word." - Andrew Jackson
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
"As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and
is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the right of persons
and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth
defending." - Andrew Jackson
“Here I stand all ragged and dirty. If you don't come kiss me I'll run like a
turkey!" - Martin Van Buren… Note: ([With] no kiss being volunteered
he strutted like a game gobbler across the room – Vice President Van Buren was
joining in on a children’s game with Jackson’s family on Christmas morning)
from John Meacham’s book AMERICAN LION
“And this goes to a bigger theme that you [Michael Lewis] write about which is
access to information. We think about ourselves in America as having this
democratic fair system. Or at least trying to be fair. As fair as possible. We
like to think that our markets are fair. We like to think it’s the land of
opportunity. If you have a talent you can rise to the top. And what’s becoming
increasingly clear, which you’ve written about in your books, is that people
with access to some information have an advantage.” – Conan O’Brien
“It’s not a fair market.” – Michael Lewis