Extemp: Quotes

It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you've got - Sheryl Crow.

"The GOP is the evil party, the Democrats are the stupid party, and bipartisanship is when they join forces to do something both evil and stupid." - Stephen Johnson

I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way. - Carl Sandburg

To err is human--and to blame it on a computer is even more so. - Robert Orben

All generalizations are dangerous, even this one. - Alexandre Dumas

When you build bridges you can keep crossing them. - Rick Pitino, Lead to Success

Hatred does not cease in this world by hating, but by not hating; this is an eternal truth. - Buddha, The Dhammapada

In university they don't tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools. - Doris Lessing

Somebody who thinks logically is a nice contrast to the real world - The Law of Thumb

The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made. - Jean Giraudoux

Not even computers will replace committees, because committees buy computers. - Edward Shepherd Mead

You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it. - Malcolm X

"He means well" is useless unless he does well. - Plautus

No punishment of the unrighteous has ever been too severe in the eyes of the righteous. - Author Unknown

It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese. - Carl Sagan

People love high ideals, but they got to be about 33-percent plausible. - Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)

Women! Can't live with them...pass the beer nuts. - Norm (Cheers)

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. - Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. - Mark Twain

What luck for rulers that men do not think. - Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

No. - Amy Carter (President Jimmy Carter's daughter) when asked by a reporter if she had any message for the children of America

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. - Irving Caesar

Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based. - Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914), The Devil's Dictionary

... if you find a person that you've never seen before getting in a crop duster that doesn't belong to you -- report it. - George W. Bush,

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. - Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

ALLIANCE, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third. - Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914), The Devil's Dictionary

Rule 1: Never play poker with a guy who does card tricks.
Rule 2: Never show card tricks to the guys you play poker with. - Harry Anderson

When China renewed diplomatic relations with the United States, the Senate was leery: "Any country that has 900 million people, and claims its favorite sport is Ping- Pong, will lie about other things too."

An honest politician is one who, when bought, stays bought. - Robert Heinlen

“The buck stops here” - Harry Truman

“Well done is better than well said” - Benjamin Franklin

“Every great achievement was once impossible”

“Our problem is not the lack of knowing; it is the lack of doing” - Mark Hatfield

“A journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step” - Lao Tzu

“You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do”- Henry Ford

“An optimist is a person who goes after Moby Dick in a rowboat, and brings the tartar sauce with him.” - Zig Ziglar

“It is better to ask some of the questions than know all of the answers” - James Thurber

“More matter, less art” - Hamlet Act II, scene 2, line 103

“A drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall” - Abe Lincoln

“It is amazing how much people could get done if they do not worry about who gets the credit” Sandra Swinney

“Gladly we desire to make other men perfect, but we will not amend our own fault” - Tomas Kempis

“Most of us can live peacefully with our own faults, but the faults of others get on our nerves” - Banking

“What’s popular isn’t always right & what’s rights isn’t always popular”

“More people would learn from their mistakes if they weren’t so busy denying them” - J. Harold Smith

“99% of the failures come from people who have the habit it making excuses” - George Washington Carver

“If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all the evidence that you have tried”

“There is no more miserable human than the one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision” - William James

“A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.” - Thomas Carlyle

“The most pathetic person in the world is one who has sight but has no vision.”- Hellen Keller

“May I never get too busy in my own affairs that I fail to respond to the needs of others with kindness and compassion.” - Thomas Jefferson

“Everyone has a right to his own opinion. It’s generally of no use to anyone else.” - Dublin Opinion

“Part of the problem today s that we have a surplus of simple answers and a shortage of simple problems.” Syracuse Herald

“If it were considered desirable to destroy a human being, the only thing necessary would be to give his work a character of uselessness.” - Fydor Dostoevsky

“Don’t ever let your problems become excuses.”

“They conquer who believe they can.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.” - Booker T. Washington

“I must do something,” will always solve more problems than “something must be done.”

“The bible says “it came to pass,” but never “it came to stay.”

“People have a way of becoming what you encourage them to be -- not what you nag them to be.” Scudder N. Parker

“People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no mater how impressive their other talents.”- Andrew Carnegie

“The man who does things makes many mistakes, but he never makes the biggest mistake of all -- doing nothing.” - Benjamin Franklin

To break through creativity, we must defer judgment. That is, learn to accept all ideas, without prejudice, and examine them each in turn - Scott Isaksen

The law of "An eye for an eye” will eventually leave everyone blind. - Martin Luther King Jr.

"If you take out the killings, Washington actually has a very very low crime rate." - M. Barry, DC Mayor

“We often change jobs, friends and spouses without changing ourselves.”

“Words and ideas can change the world.” - Dead Poets Society

“Carpe Diem, seize the day, make your life extraordinary.” - Dead Poets Society

“That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.”- Walt Whitman

“Perhaps the candle burns brighter if it burns shorter.” - Darius

‘Times, they are a changin’, no longer will we see ‘Beware of Dog’ signs, in today’s world we will see, ‘Beware of Dog’s Lawyer’ signs.” - Jim Davis

“Depressed is waking up in the morning with the feeling that the world is out to get you...And finding out, you’re right.” - Jim Davis

“The last thing a depressed person wants to see is a happy person.” - Jim Davis

“Clark’s Law - any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

“The evil that men do lives after them.” - Micah Brock

“How dark can your existence be when compared with an eternal void.”

“Self in indulgence, there’s a great message in those words, if you don’t indulge yourself, no one else will.” Jim Davis

“I am the show.” - Miles Davis

“I hate TV, there’s too much sex, violence, infomercials, commercials, reruns, game shows and talk shows. It’s disgusting. The ten hours I watched yesterday was horrible.” - Jim Davis

“If there’s anything a depressed person hates, its a happy person.” - Jim Davis

“In our fast paced world, relaxation is practically a lost art.” - Jim Davis

“Life is like a poker game, if you don’t win, you lose.” - Jim Davis

“Sloth, not necessity is the mother of invention.” - Jim Davis

“I don’t care who I step on on the way up, ‘cause I ain’t coming back down.” - Jim Davis

“A song should have all the color and beauty of every rose.” - Quincy Jones

“The Lord giveth, the IRS taketh away.”

“Heaven loves all people dearly.” - Mo Ti

“You look like a blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat, that’s not even there.”

“Shikata Ga Nai” - "It cannot be helped". - Japanese/American citizen’s saying during WWII internment

“By doubting we come to inquiry, by inquiring, we perceive the truth.” - Peter Abelard

“The ink of the scholar is holier than the blood of the martyr.” - Muhammad

“Non milinari sed milinare - Not to be served but to serve”

“A man who does not forget an agreement is resolved and honorable man.” - Confucius

“Everybody learns something in life.” - Sofia

“During my service in the United States Congress, I took initiative in creating the Internet.” - Al Gore

“If Gore invented the Internet, I invented spell-check.” - Dan Quayle

“Ken Starr is like the energizer bunny” - Sen. Tom Harkin

“Bill Gates needs a memory upgrade” - Mike Pettit, Microsoft critic

“This is a creation without mother or father, It’s more like a Frankenstein monster patched together from old legislative body parts that don’t quite fit” - Sen. Robert Byrd on budget

“Bill Clinton seems to have a sin for each one of us to identify with” - New York Times

“I look at Bill Clinton, the way I look at Bill Gates. As long as my Microsoft stock is going up, I don’t care what Bill Gates does in the privacy of his own home.” - Will Smith

“I guess we have to vote for ugly men for President in the future.” - Washington resident, Bettie Gerachis

“If we’re talking about home runs, I’d rather identify with baseball.”
Principal John Lunn of Oklahoma City elem.

“Do I know what’s in this bill? Are you kidding. Only God knows what’s in this conference report” Sen. Robert Byrd on budget

“I think the country could be spared a lot of agony...if he’d go on and resign.” - Bill Clinton on Nixon

“It’s difficult to act as a great power when you constantly beg for aid.”
Georgi Arbatov, former USSR foreign policy expert

“You have opened a new era in promoting explicit sexual materials” - Larry Flynt on the Starr report

“No one need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world” - Anne Frank

“By the time he finishes defining sex, I’ll find out that I’m actually a virgin.” - Scarlett Thomas, critic

“In all fairness to Jerry Falwell, it’s probably too sophisticated for him” - Rep. Barney Frank

“If the democrats run Bonzo the Monkey or Bozo the Clown, that’s who I’m voting for.”
Jo Wessling, 45-yr old Republican fed up with GOP

“The good news is that the rich people and the business people still like us.”
Gov. John Rowland, Republican of Conn.

“When they come, they will eat the fat ones first” - Billboard in San Francisco

“A black man voting for Republicans make about as much sense as a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.” J.C. Watts Sr. fmr. GOP Rep.

“She is a woman, after all. Rattling rockets and bombs- it is simply against nature.”
Russian Comunist Party leader, Gennady Zyuganov on Madeline Albright

“Mommy made a big mistake” - Monica Lewinsky

“You feel great sympathy for them, but you envy the extra hours of sleep that they’re getting” Tom Brokaw on passing a homeless person

“I think it’s very important, and I think that what young people will learn from my experience is that even presidents have to do that and there are consequences when you don’t. But I also think that there will be a box score, and there will be that one negative, and then there will be the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times when the record will show that I did not abuse my authority as president, that I was truthful with the American people.” Bill Clinton

“Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins, which of the two has the grander picture?” Victor Hugo

“Life on its way returns into a mist, its quickness is its quietness again” - Lao Tzu

“The natural world is dynamic from the expanding universe, to the hair on a baby’s head, nothing is the same from now, to the next moment” - Helen Hoover

“Each one of us is part of the soul of the universe” – Plotinus

“Each living creature must be looked at as a microcosm a little universe formed of a host of self propagating organisms inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars in heaven” - Charles Darwin

"Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together...." - Carl Zwanzig

“Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock“ - Will Rogers

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former" - Albert Einstein

“A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done“ - Fred Allen


“I've always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted“
Lawrence Summers, chief economist of the World Bank, on why export toxic waste

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance”

“History does not repeat itself, historians merely repeat each other”

“It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education”

“Jury: Twelve people who determine which client has the better lawyer”

“You have the right to remain silent.... Anything you say will be misquoted, then used against you”

“What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary” - Richard Harkness NY Times

“Sacred cows make the best hamburger” - Mark Twain

“Always do right. This will gratify some and astonish the others” – Mark Twain

“When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail” - Abraham Maslow

“I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top” - English Professor, Ohio University

“There are two major products to come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence”

“There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets? “ - Dick Cavett

“The contagious people of Washington have stood firm against diversity during this long period of increment weather." – Marion Barry

"If you take out the killings, Washington actually has a very very low crime rate." – Marion Barry

“I promise you a police car on every sidewalk." – Marion Barry

"First, it was not a strip bar, it was an erotic club. And second, what can I say? I'm a night owl." – Marion Barry

"Bitch set me up." – Marion Barry

"I am clearly more popular than Reagan. I am in my third term. Where's Reagan? Gone after two! Defeated by George Bush and Michael Dukakis no less." – Marion Barry

"The laws in this city are clearly racist. All laws are racist. The law of gravity is racist." – Marion Barry

"I am making this trip to Africa because Washington is an international city, just like Tokyo, Nigeria, or Israel. As mayor, I am an international symbol. Can you deny that to Africa?" – Marion Barry

"People have criticized me because my security detail is larger than the president's. But you must ask yourself: are there more people who want to kill me than who want to kill the president? I can assure you there are." – Marion Barry

"The brave men who died in Vietnam, more than 100% of which were black, were the ultimate sacrifice." – Marion Barry

"I read a funny story about how the Republicans freed the slaves. The Republicans are the ones who created slavery by law in the 1600's. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and he was not a Republican." – Marion Barry

"What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because they deem it necessary?" – Marion Barry

"I am a great mayor; I am an upstanding Christian man; I am an intelligent man; I am a deeply educated man; I am a humble man." – Marion Barry

"People blame me because these water mains break, but I ask you, if the water mains didn't break, would it be my responsibility to fix them then? WOULD IT!?!" – Marion Barry

“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.” - Helen Keller

What lies behind us and
what lies before us are
small matters compared
to what lies within us - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Men are four;
He who knows and knows not that he knows. He is asleep; wake him.
He who knows not and knows not that he knows not. He is a fool; shun him.
He who knows not and knows that he knows not. He is a child; teach him.
He who knows and knows that he knows. He is a king; follow him.

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night. - Henry Wordsworth Longfellow

“What is life
It is a flash of a firefly in the night
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass
And loses itself in the sunset” – Crawford

“When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonders of this world,
that is when, and only when we come to it” - Maya Angelou

“Worlds on worlds are rolling over
from creation to decay, like bubbles on a river,
sparkling, bursting, borne away” - Percy Shelley

“I saw eternity the other night
Like a great ring
of pure and endless light
All calm, as it was bright,
and round it, time in hours, days, years,
driven by the spheres,
like a vast shadow moved
in which the world
and all her train were hurled” - Henry Vaughn