Page One
Working Minds Homepage
free monthly 'WMail' Philosophy Newsletter [2000-2007]
Index of All Issues
After WMail Issue #72 in October 2007, essays & quotations & news are being posted to the
Dateline Chamesa weblog
Alphabetical by Author
A thru C • D thru F • G thru J • K thru N • O thru R • U thru Z
Proverbs & Anonymous • Laws of Life
Books of Quotations • Quotation Links
Edward 'Cactus Ed' Abbey [1927-89]
Lord Acton [1834-1902]
Joey Adams [1911-99]
John Adams [1735-1826]
Samuel Adams [1722-1803]
Aesop [600 B.C.E.]
James Agee [1909-55]
Fred Allen [1894-1956]
Eric Alterman
Baba Amte of India
New Mexico author Rudolfo Anaya
Glenn Anderson
Maya Angelou
Thomas Aquinas
Pietro Aretino [1492-1556]
Aristedes [circa 140 A.D.]
Aristotle [384-322 B.C.E.]
Raymond Aron
Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics
Isaac Asimov [1920-92]
W.H. Auden [1907-1973]
Norman R. Augustine
Marcus Aurelius [121-180 C.E.]
Lauren Bacall
Walter Bagehot [1826-77]
Peter C. Baker
James Baldwin [1924-87]
Natylie Baldwin
Bill Balsamico
David Baltimore, Nobel Prize winner & president of Cal Tech
Tallulah Bankhead [1902-68]
Deanne Barkley
Dave Barry
John Barrymore
C. Barsotti
Matsuo Basho
Frederic Bastiat [1801-50]
Charles-Pierre Baudelaire [1821-67]
Ron Bauer of Northridge, CA
Emily Bazelon
historian Charles Austin Beard
Henry Ward Beecher
David Ben-Gurion [1886-1973]
Walter Benjamin [1892-1940]
William J. Bennett
Sally Berger, Museum of Modern Art, New York City
South African activist Hilda Bernstein [1915-2006]
Yogi Berra [b. 1925]
Yogi Bhajan [1929-2004]
Earl Derr Biggers [1884-1933]], creator of detective Charlie Chan
Josh Billings [1818-85]
Chris Bittler
cowboy poet & columnist Baxter Black
Hugo Black [1886-1971] jazz musician Eubie Blake [1883-1983]
Wm. Blake [1757–1827]
Adele Block-Bauer [1881-1925]
Allan Bloom
physicist Niels Bohr [1885-1962]
Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University
Roberto Bolaño
Simón Bolívar [1783-1830]
Erma Bombeck
Napoleon Bonaparte [1769-1821]
Daniel Boone
comedian Elayne Boosler
USAF LtCol. Robert Bowman
columnist L.M. Boyd
sci-fi author
Ray Bradbury
David Brancaccio of P.B.S. News
author Max Brand [1892-1944]
Louis Brandeis [1856-1941] Joseph M. Branom of Oro Valley, AZ
Georges Braque
poet Richard Brautigan [1935-84]
Bertolt Brecht [1898-1956]
Ashleigh Brilliant
New York Times columnist David Brooks
California Governor Edmund G. 'Pat' Brown [1905-96]
Eryn Brown
William Jennings Bryan [1860-1925]
John Bryant
Jerry Buck of Sherman Oaks, CA
capitalist Warren Buffett
Vincent Bugliosi
writer Charles Bukowski [1920-94]
mystery author James Lee Burke
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Chicago architect Daniel H. Burnham [1846-1912]
William S. Burroughs [1914-97]
George H.W. Bush
George Dubya Bush
Samuel Butler [1835-1902]
Gen. Smedley Butler
Robert Byrne
George Gordon, Lord Byron [1788-1824]
James Branch Cabell [1879-1958]
John C. Calhoun [1782-1850]
movie producer John Calley
Joseph Campbell [1904-87]
Albert Camus [1913-1960]
Al Capone [1899-1947]
David O. Carter
Graydon Carter
George Washington Carver  [1864-1943]
James Carville
cellist  Pablo Casals  [1876-1973]
Neal Cassady  [1926-68]
Carlos Castañeda  [1925?-98]
Willa Cather  [1873-1947]
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Nicolas Chamfort  [1741-94]
Charlie Chan character, written by Earl Derr Biggers [1884-1933]
Raymond Chandler  [1888-1959]
Sir Charles Chaplin  [1889-1977]
Anton Chekhov
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney
Laura Chick
Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce [1840-1904]
Peter Chippindale
Carina Chocano
Noam Chomsky
Dame Agatha Christie  [1890-1976]
automaker Walter P. Chrysler  [1875-1940]
Sir Winston Churchill  [1874-1965]
Keri Clark
author-visionary  Arthur C. Clarke
Frank Clarke
Eldridge Cleaver [1935-98]
Bill Clinton
[Ms] Maxi Cohen, filmmaker of Venice, CA
Samuel T. Coleridge [1772-1834]
Colette
Chinese philosopher Confucius [551-479 B.C.E.]
Darby Conley (draws the "Get Fuzzy" comic strip)
mystery author
Michael Connelly
Joseph Conrad
editorial cartoonist Paul Conrad
mystery author K.C. Constantine
sports announcer Dan Cook {not Yogi Berra}
columnist Marc Cooper
Francis Ford Coppola
beat poet Gregory Corso
entertainer Bill Cosby
writer-activist Norman Cousins [1915-90]
Jacques Cousteau
Crazy Horse
Robert Crais
Rudy Crew
Francis H.C. Crick
Walter Cronkite
James Crumley
American poet e.e. cummings
now has a quotations page of his own: click here
Edward Abbey Page at 'Readers of The Purple Sage' Western Bookstore
• • “And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”  – full text of the famous 'Dictum of Lord Acton'  {blog 10/2007}
• • “The most certain test by which we can judge whether a country is really free is
the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.”  {blog 3/2008}
“A genius is one who can do anything except make a living.”  {blog 1/2008}
• • “The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of the rich men in the country.”  {Issue #36}
• • “This is a revolution, dammit, we're going to have to offend somebody.”
(during debates on the Declaration of Independence, 1776)  {Issues #48 & #58}
• • “Power always thinks [that] it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak,
and that it is doing God’s will when it is violating all His laws.”  {Issue #69}
• • “It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless
minority keen to set brushfires in people's minds.”  {Issue #39}
• • “It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority,
who keep on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”  {Issue #71}
“We hang the petty thieves, but appoint the great ones to public office.”  {Issue #36}
“The elementary beginning of true reason ... resides in the ability to recognize oneself, and others, primarily
as human beings, and to recognize the ultimate absoluteness of responsibility of each human being.”  {Issue #62}
“A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing,
but together can decide that nothing can be done.”  {blog 10/2007}
• • “With [George W.] Bush, we're left with the perennial unanswerable question:
dishonest, moronic, or both?”  {Issue #47}
• • “The real opposition to this administration is normative reality and the U.S. Constitution.”  {Issue #61}
“Victory is his who even in defeat never surrenders, and so victory will be the people's.”  {Issue #62}
• • “The battle of good and evil is always for the soul.”  {Issue #21}
• • “Man does not live on enchiladas alone.” (in "Zia Summer")  {blog 11/2007}
“The actor first feels, then thinks, then responds.”  {Issue #70}
“A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because
it has a song.”  {Issue #43}
“There can be no joy of life without joy of work.”  {Issue #19}
“I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself.”  {blog 3/2008}
“Temples are to be dedicated to the gods, and books to good men.”  {Issue #55}
• • “The poet should prefer probable impossibilities to
improbable possibilities.”  {Issue #42}
• • “All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind are convinced
that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.”  {Issue #48}
“[Politics] is never a struggle between good & evil, but between the preferable and the detestable.”  {Issue #56}
“Stop spending dollar time on penny jobs.”  {Issue #51}
• • “Ignorance must be battled.”  {Issue #33}
• • “The creationists' ... case is so weak that the only way [that] they can feel sure of maintaining it
is to make sure their victims never hear of anything else.”  {Issue #53}
• • “Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed
and working smoothly, it is completely honest.”  {Issue #62}
• • “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it) - but 'That's funny...'.”  {Issue #66}
“Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.”  {blog 12/2007}
“Ninety percent of the time things turn out worse than you thought they would. The
other ten percent of the time you had no right to expect that much.”  {Issue #46}
• • “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself
in the ranks of the insane.”  {Issue #65}
• • “The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.”  {blog 11/2007}
“Time flies even when you're not having fun.”  {Issue #59}
“The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.” (in 1853)  {blog 2/2008}
“Corrupt political thought creates and is furthered by sloppy language.”  {blog 12/2007}
“Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”  {Issue #62}
• • “The word 'capitalism' does not appear at all in Adam Smith's 1776 ground-breaking
900-page 'Wealth of Nations'.”  {Issue #62}
• • “Marketing – the process by which capitalists constantly work to convince people of the need or desire for [the glut of pointless items made available and sold to the public every day] – accounts for the majority of waste in terms of labor, materials and money.”  {Issue #62}
“At the current rate of legal & illegal aliens entering this country, August 2013 will be
designated White History Month.”  {Issue #60}
“We need a revolution in this country when it comes to parenting around education.”  {Issue #53}
“Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.”  {Issue #59}
“Writing is the only job [that] you don't have to be hired to do.”  {Issue #70}
• • “Congress, after years of stalling, finally got around to clearing the way for informal discussions that might lead
to possible formal talks that could potentially produce some kind of tentative agreements . . .”  {blog 12/2007}
• • “People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.”
{blog 3/2008}
“A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.”  {Issue #45}
“I have everything tied up in making ends meet.”
(cartoon in The New Yorker Magazine)  {Issue #37}
“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old;
seek what they sought.”  {Issue #42}
• • “Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors
to live at the expense of everybody else.”  {Issue #43}
• • “The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is, not to be skillfully attacked,
but to be ineptly defended.”  {blog 12/2007}
• • “Always be a poet, even in prose.”  {Issue #52}
• • “Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will.”  {Issue #66}
“Whether it's the war in Iraq, the environment, or the economy, the Bush
administration never lets truth get in its way.” (2004)  {Issue #47}
“The world is too big for effective governance.”  {Issue #50}
“One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating
the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence.”  {Issue #67}
“Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anyone
expects of you. Never excuse yourself.”  {Issue #37}
“In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.”  {blog 2/2008}
“The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception
but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly
realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency, and this will improve our position in the
struggle against Fascism. One reason why Fascism has a chance is that in the name of progress its opponents
treat it as a historical norm.”  (in 'On The Context of History' 1939)
{blog 10/2007}
“America's support for human rights and democracy
is our noblest export to the world.”  {Issue #27}
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”  {Issue #61}
“The meaning of life is a choice you make about the way [that] you live.”  {Issue #63}
“If you don't go to somebody's funeral, they won't come to yours.”  {Issue #55}
“If you can't see God in all, you can't see God at all.”  {Issue #48}
“In California, the subdivider, like the poor, is always with us.”  {blog 12/2007}
“Do not put off until tomorrow what can be enjoyed today.”  {Issue #51}
“It's not enough to be right.”  {Issue #39}
“When the chips are down and life hangs in the balance, someone has to be responsible.”  {Issue #52}
U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1937-71
• • “Paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part
of the government from deceiving the people.”  {Issue #69}
• • “Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.”  {blog 11/2007}
“If I'd known I was going to live this long,
I'd have taken better care of myself.”  {Issue #37}
• • “What is now proved was once only imagined.”  {Issue #37}
• • “Execution is the chariot of genius.”  {Issue #46}
• • “Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads without improvement
are roads of genius.”  {blog 1/2008}
“You have to learn to see. If you can appreciate what has quality
and what is worthless in art, you will appreciate it in people.”  {Issue #19}
“True liberal education requires that the student's whole life is
radically changed by it.”  {Issue #48}
“Nothing exists until it is measured.”  {blog 10/2007}
“If you think education is costly, try ignorance.”  {Issue #65}
“We ... tell ourselves that art runs on one track and life, our lives, on another,
and we don't realize [that] that's a lie.”  {Issue #60}
“The United States seems destined to plague us with all manner of evil in the name of liberty.”  {blog 12/2007}
“Laughter rises out of tragedy, when you need it the most, and rewards you
for your courage.”  {Issue #42}
• • “He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.”  {Issue #46}
• • “Reality has limits, stupidity has not.”  {Issue #47}
• • “Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self-interest.”  {Issue #68}
• • “I can't say I was ever lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.”  {Issue #36}
• • “It is never too late to do good.”  {Issue #36}
“When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country.”   {Issue #64}
“If the government has nothing to hide, why is it hiding everything?”  {blog 10/2007}
• • “The old Greeks coined a noun for the man who took no part in
public matters, and from it we got our word 'idiot'.”  {Issue #35}
• • “Less money is spent annually on medical research than on hairdos.”  {Issue #36}
Reader & cartoonist Carol Lay made use of this quotation in her syndicated cartoon panel #504,
published in early November 2003; to view the cartoon click here.
• • “Sea species are disappearing even faster than land dwellers.”  {Issue #41}
• • “Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off and build your wings on the way down.”  {Issue #35}
• • “If you're not in love with what you're doing, don't do it; find what you love.”  {Issue #51}
• • “I can't name a writer who's had a more perfect life. My books are all in print, I'm in all the school
libraries, and when I go places I get the applause at the start of my speech.”  {blog 11/2007}
• • “The thing is to be madly, madly in love all the time.”  {blog 12/2007}
• • “People on a jet have only been on a trip; people on a train have been on a journey.”  {blog 1/2008}
“The country has moved so far to the right [that] you can invoke
Barry Goldwater as sort of a centrist figure.”  {Issue #48}
• • “All the crookedness ain't outside the law ... the real fine work
begins on the inside and stays there.”  {Issue #34}
• • “Cowboys are all right, but they need a good laundering, most of the time.”  {Issue #65}
U.S. Supreme Court Justice
• • “We can have a democratic society or we can have a concentration of great wealth
in the hands of a few. We cannot have both.” (as quoted by Ralph Nader)  {Issue #26}
• • “The only title in our democracy that is superior to that of President is that of citizen.”  {blog 11/2007}
“George W. Bush is not a Texan. [He] was born in Connecticut, so
I suppose
that makes him a Conn man. Second, Bush does not wear 'cowboy boots'.
Cowboy boots have the manure on the outside.”  {Issue #38}
“Truth exists, only falsehood has to be invented.”  {Issue #43}
“A long time ago this was our future.”  {Issue #31}
“Art is not a mirror to reflect reality [but] a hammer with which to shape it.”   {Issue #64}
• • “I want either less corruption or more opportunity to participate in it.”  {Issue #46}
• • “Life is the only game in which the object of the game is to learn the rules.” {Issue #48}
“When conservatism was a movement of ideas, it attracted oddballs; now that it is a movement
with power, it attracts sleazeballs.”  {Issue #56}
“I have nothing but contempt for those who say that no new taxes are necessary.”  {Issue #50}
“Today, more than 80% of married households have two wages coming in.”
(Los Angeles Times Magazine)  {Issue #37}
“Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is
not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”  {Issue #10}
“If you are afraid to speak against tyranny, then you are already a slave.”  {Issue #36}
“Politics seems to be the only place where a draft dodger from
Wyoming and an AWOL guardsman from Texas can question the loyalty of
an authentic war hero from Massachusetts.” [L.A. Times Letter 3/2004]  {Issue #42}
• • “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”  {Issue #67}
• • “He who knows [that] he has enough is rich.”  {Issue #67}
“Plain incompetence ... from the highest levels on down, is endemic in our society.” (2007)  {Issue #71}
• • “The only thing that matters is how you walk thru the fire.”  {Issue #49}
• • “My advice to young writers is to stop looking for advice from old writers.”  {Issue #52}
• • “Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”  {Issue #60}
• • “If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be
alone with the gods. And the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to
perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.”  {Issue #63}
• • “Man is more a clown than a satan.”  {Issue #36}
• • “No matter what the war advocates of our time tell us, no violent excursion ends well.”  {Issue #64}
• • “If everybody agrees on it, it's wrong.”  {Issue #64}
• • “Capitalists are hanged by the rope [that] they sell their enemies.”  {Issue #68}
• • “No vice flourishes without sanction.”  {Issue #68}
“At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done.
Then they begin to hope [that] it can be done.
Then they see [that] it can be done.
Then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.”
{blog 10/2007}
“Make no little plans, they have no magic to stir men’s blood; think big.”  {Issue #17 & blog 11/2007}
• • “A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what is going on.”  {Issue #32}
• • “The only real thing about a writer is what he's written, and not his life.”  {Issue #46}
• • “In the U.S., you have to be a deviant or exist in extreme boredom. Make no mistake,
all intellectuals are deviants in the U.S.”  {blog 2/2008}
“Trying to eliminate Saddam would have incurred incalculable human and political costs.
We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. There was no viable
'exit strategy' we could see, violating another of our principles.
¶ “Furthermore, we had been consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.”  {explaining why he didn't go after Saddam Hussein at the end of the Gulf War, in his memoirs "A World Transformed" 1999)  {Issue #47}
• • “I have strong opinions of my own, but I don't always agree with them.”  {Issue #55}
• • “You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones
you want to concentrate on.” (2001)  {Issues #45 & #47}
• • “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.”
(at White House bill-signing ceremony 6 August 2004)  {Issue #47}
• • “I just want you to know that when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace.”
(18 June 2002)  {Issue #52}
• • “Money trumps peace.”  (press conference 14 February 2007)  {Issue #68}
• • “If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just as long as
I'm the dictator. Heh, heh, heh.” (speech on 18 December 2000)  {blog 11/2007}
• • “Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror ... States like these and
their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.”
("State of The Union", 29 January 2002)  {blog 12/2007}
“All animals, except man, know that the principal business of
life is to enjoy it.”  {Issue #41}
“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest,
easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.”  {Issue #65}
“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.”  {Issue #58}
• • “Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools,
and those who dare not, are slaves.”  {Issue #36}
• • “But words are things, and a small drop of ink, / Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces /
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.”  {Issue #62}
“The optimist proclaims that this is the best of all possible worlds,
and the pessimist fears that this is true.”  {Issue #51}
“It is harder to preserve than to obtain liberty.” (in Senate speech, 1848)  {blog 10/2007}
“Watergate was nothing to what we have now.”  {Issue #47}
• • “Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what is going on without bothering anybody with
a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends.”  {Issue #50}
• • “The god [that] you worship is the god [that] you deserve.”  {Issue #52}
• • “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”  {Issue #62}
• • “I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for
the experience of being alive.”  {blog 12/2007}
• • “The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.”  {Issue #2}
• • “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.”
("Myth of Sisyphus")  {Issue #13}
• • “An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.”  {Issue #18}
• • “There is merely bad luck in not being loved; there is
misfortune in not loving.” ("Return To Tipasa")  {Issue #27}
• • “Liberty is your right not to lie.”  {Issue #31}
• • “The only progress lies in learning to be wrong all alone.”  {Issue #52}
• • “Where there is no hope, one must invent hope.”  {Issue #57}
• • “It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.”  {Issue #71}
• • “Integrity needs no rules.”  {blog 10/2007}
“You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone.”  {Issue #63}
“A politician worries about the next election; a statesman about the next generation.”  {Issue #38}
“The [Bush] administration is well on its way to being the first since Herbert Hoover's to preside over
an overall loss of jobs during its complete term in office.”
(Editor's Letter in Jan 2004 Vanity Fair Magazine>  {Issue #41}
“Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough.”  {blog 2/2008}
• • “You know back in 2000 a Republican friend of mine warned me that if I voted for Al Gore and he won, the stock market would tank, we'd lose millions of jobs, and our military would be totally overstretched. You know what? I did vote for Al Gore, he did win, and I'll be damned if all those things didn't come true.”  {Issue #62}
• • “Washington [DC] is a dirty diaper that needs a change.”  {Issue #63}
• • “You must work – we must all work – to make the world worthy of its children.”  {Issue #36}
• • “The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?”  {blog 3/2008}
“Art is good when it springs from necessity.”  {Issue #50}
“All of us, whether or not we are warriors, have a cubic centimeter of chance that pops out from time to time. The difference between an average person and a warrior is awareness of this, and one of the tasks is to be alert, deliberately waiting, so that when the cubic centimeter pops out [the warrior] has the necessary speed and prowess to pick it up.”  {Issue #58}
“There are some things [that] you learn best in calm, and some in storm.”  {Issue #68}
“No art is possible without a dance with death.”  {Issue #34}
“Pleasure can be based on illusion, but happiness rests on reality.”  {blog 10/2007}
“Life is plenty good.”  {blog 10/2007}
• • “There are no vital and significant forms of art; there is only art,
and precious little of that.”  {Issue #18}
• • “Funny thing, civilization. It promises so much and what it delivers
is mass production of shoddy merchandise and shoddy people.”  {Issue #25}
• • “The growth of populations has in no way increased the amount [of art], it has merely increased
the adeptness with which substitutes can be produced and packaged.”  {Issue #50}
“Life isn't a meaning but a desire.”  {Issue #71}
“Everything is beautiful in this world – except what we think or do ourselves when we forget
our human dignity and the higher aims of our existence.”  {Issue #36}
“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has
weapons of mass destruction.”   (20 August 2002)  {Issue #47}
“If you're not indignant, you're not paying attention.”  {Issue #47}
“It does not require many words to speak the truth.”  {blog 3/2008}
“A good police force is one which catches more criminals than it employs.”  {Issue #28}
“Life is ruled by chaos and chance, but made meaningful and worthwhile by love.”   {Issue #62}
“Where society is ruled by ... a privileged elite, barriers must be created
to prevent those outside from understanding reality and acting on it
in their own interests.” (1991)  {Issue #24}
• • “There's too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man
does of his own free will.” (in "The Moving Finger")  {Issue #27}
• • “Money's queer. It goes where it's wanted.”  {Issue #36}
• • “What is required is a passion for the truth.”  {Issue #66}
• • “Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's not reason not to give it.”  {Issue #68}
• • “Life, you know, is inclined to make a fellow cynical.”  {Issue #68}
“Give the public something better and the public will buy.”  {blog 12/2007}
• • “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the
blessings.
The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.”  {Issue #43}
• • “In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.”  {Issue #45}
• • “Never give up! Never give up! Never give up!”  {Issue #48}
• • “One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it.
If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching,
you will reduce the danger by half.”  {Issue #49}
• • “You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.”  {Issue #60}
• • “Sometimes it's not enough to do your very best. Sometimes you have to get the job done.”  {Issue #66}
• • “Many forms of government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends
that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of
government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”  {blog 12/2007}
“Everyone can find the time to write; not everyone can find the courage.”  {Issue #33}
• • “All explorers are seeking something [that] they have lost. It is seldom
that they find it, and more seldom still that the attainment brings them
more happiness than the quest.”  {Issue #38}
• • “One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion.”
(in Free Inquiry, Spring 1999)  {Issue #65}
“There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who can deal in binary
and those who can't.”  {Issue #30}
“You are either part of the solution, or you are part of the problem.”  {Issues #28 & #62}
“A slight majority seem to have decided [that] they would like a new
president. Kerry just has to close the deal.”  (July 2004)  {Issue #47}
“Television is the glue that keeps us apart.”  {Issue #43}
“Talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius, being the action of reason
or imagination, rarely or never.”  {blog 1/2008}
“Who said you should be happy? Do your work.”  {Issue #21}
“What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others.” (in "Analects of Confucius")  {blog 11/2007}
• • “Cogito ergo consume.”  {Issue #35}
• • “I think, therefore I am annoyed.”  {blog 12/2007}
• • “There are too many people in the world who believe everything
they see on television.”  {Issue #41}
• • “Live by the media, die by the media.”  {Issue #43}
• • “Civil unrest occurs when the feelings of overwhelming powerlessness hit critical mass... It has to do
with society not addressing the essential needs of overlooked people.” (in "Angels Flight")  {Issue #66}
“Give me the right words and the right actions, and I will move the world.”  {Issue #46}
“Beware of the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry, [who] infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How will I know? For this I have done. And I am Julius Caesar.”
{Issue #29}
  { often falsely attributed to Julius Caesar [100-44 B.C.E.] }
• • “How'd it get like this? It's like the Depression all over again.”  {Issue #38}
• • “Fiction is damn near the only way to tell the truth in America.”  {Issue #39}
“It ain't over till the fat lady sings.”  {Issue #38}
• • “The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attack on John Kerry is the lowest, filthiest campaign maneuver
I've seen in my adult life. It is deeply offensive and intellectually insulting.”  {Issue #47}
• • “The Big Three Unresolved Issues that neither party has much to say about [are]
jobs, education, and health care.”  {Issue #54}
“Time is the lens through which dreams are captured.”  {Issue #37}
“You have to hurry. Death is chasing you and it's closer than you think.
There's a lot to do in a short time.”  {Issue #46}
• • “The revolution is in your neighborhood, it's in your house, it's in your mind.”  {Issue #53}
• • “I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”
{after Herbert Bayard Swope [1882-1958]}  {Issue #59}
• • “The wild dream is the first step to reality.”  {Issue #36}
• • “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies within us while we live.”  {Issue #62}
• • “In a democracy, the individual enjoys not only the ultimate power but carries
the ultimate responsibility.”  {blog 11/2007}
“Population growth is the primary cause of environmental damage.”  {Issue #43}
“One day I will leave this world and dream myself to reality.” (1874)  {Issue #24}
“There isn't so much love in the world that you can turn it away
when it's offered.”  {Issue #33}
“Education is about the distribution of knowledge ... and to whom we actually distribute
this particular commodity is a major question in this country.”  {Issue #43}
“Consciousness is the product of millions of years of evolution.”  {Issue #30}
“Most of the people say they ... get their news from television. That means they're inadequately informed,
too poorly informed to exercise their rights in a democracy. You cannot give people enough information
on the nightly news.”  (Writers' Digest Sept 2001)  {Issue #14}
“Not everything in California is a bad idea.”  {Issue #42}
“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”  {Issue #41}
jump to Page Two of WM Quotes [D thru J]
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Samuel Johnson [1709-84] Quotations website
Thomas Jefferson [1743-1846] Quotations Page
Mark Twain [1835-1910] Quotations Page
Albert Einstein [1879-1955] Quotations Page
Ayn Rand [1905-82] Quotations Page
Edward Abbey [1927-89] Quotations Page
G.E. Nordell Quotations Page
Official Yogi Berra Quotes Page
Elbert Hubbard / Roycrofters Epigrams
Said What? quotation website
quotations page at antiwar.com
Heart Quotes website
Brainy Quote website
House of Quotes
Quotesland / Quotation Playground
Independent Institute: Quotes On Power
Famous Quotes Interactive Database
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"The Yale Book of Quotations" [2006] Edited by Fred R. Shapiro Yale Univ Press 9½x7¼ {3.85 pound} pb [10/2006] for $31.50 |
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"The Writer's Quotebook: 500 Authors On Creativity, Craft & The Writing Life" [2006] Compiled, arranged & edited by Jim Fisher Rutgers Univ Press 9x6¼ hardcover [9/2006] for $22.95 |
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"The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations" [orig 1980; 3rd edition 2006] Edited by Antony Jay Oxford Univ Press 7½x5 pb [2/2007] for $14.00 Oxford Univ Press 9¼x6½ hardcover [3/2006] for $17.86 |
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"The Book of Military Quotations" [2005] Edited by Peter G. Tsouras Zenith Press 8½x5½ pb [10/2005] for $15.56 |
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"The Quotable South: A Compendium of Eclectic Quotes About The South" [2001] Compiled by Al Dixon, Foreword by Roy Blount, Jr. Hill Street Press 7x5 pb [8/2003] out of print/used Hill Street Press 6½x5 hardcover [7/2001] out of print/used |
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"Memorable Quotations: American Women Writers of the Past" [2000] Edited by Diana J. Dell iUniverse 9x6 pb [12/2000] for $20.95 |
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"Memorable Quotations: Philosophers of Western Civilization" [2000] Edited by Carol A. Dingle iUniverse 9¼x6 pb [8/2000] for $16.95 |
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"The Quotations of Chairman Greenspan: Words From The Man Who Can Shake The World" [2000] by Larry Kahaner Adams Media 7¾x5¼ hardcover [11/2000] out of print/used |
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"The Great Labor Quotations: Sourcebook & Reader" [2000] by Peter Bollen Red Eye Press 9x6 pb [8/2000] for $13.97 |
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"The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations" [orig 1983; rev 1999]
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"Western Movie Quotations" [1999] by Jim Kane McFarland & Co. hardcover [10/99] for $75.00 |
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"The Forbes Book of Business Quotations: 14,266 Thoughts On The Business of Life" [1997] by editors of Forbes Magazine Black Dog & Leventhal 9½x8¼ hardcover [4/97] for $40.00 |
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"Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations" [1997] Edited by Antony Jay Oxford Univ Press 9½x6½ hardcover [4/2001] for $40.00 Oxford Univ Press pb [4/2000] for $17.99 |
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"The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations" [1995] Edited by Ned Sherrin Oxford Univ Press 9.3x6 pb [5/2003] for $13.97 Oxford Univ Press 9½x6½ hardcover [9/95] for $45.00 |
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"A Dictionary of Philosophical Quotations" [1992] Edited by A.J. Ayer & Jane O'Grady Blackwell Reference 9x6 pb [8/94] for $21.73 Blackwell Reference 9¼x6½ hardcover [12/92] out of print/used |
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"Bumper Sticker Wisdom: America's Pulpit Above The Tailpipe" [1995] by Carol W. Gardner Beyond Words Publng 8x11¾ pb [10/95] out of print/used Beyond Words Publng hardcover [6/95] out of print/used |
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"The Military Quotation Book: More Than 1,200 of The Best Quotations About War, Leadership, Courage, Victory & Defeat (Revised & Expanded)" [1990] Edited by James Charlton Thomas Dunne Books 7½x5¼ hardcover [2/2002] for $13.22 St. Martin 7¼x5¼ hardcover [10/90] out of print/used |
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"The Writer's Quotation Book: A Literary Companion" [1980] Edited by James Charlton Faber & Faber 4th edition 7½x5&frac hardcover [10/97] out of print/used |
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"Famous Last Words" [1980] Edited by Jonathan Green Prion 9½x6½ pb [10/2002] for $11.55 |
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"A New Dictionary of Quotations On Historical Principles From Ancient & Modern Sources" [1942] Selected & edited by H.L. Mencken [1880-1956] Knopf 9½x7 hardcover [6/42] for $54.95 |
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