The Last Word

Friday, October 21, 2005

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.
—Abraham Lincoln

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
—Henry David Thoreau

Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open.
—Elmer Letterman

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
—Aristotle

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
—Michel de Montaigne

The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.
—Hannah Arendt

A liberal is a person whose interests aren't at stake at the moment.
—Willis Player

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it.
—Voltaire

I have never called myself an intellectual, and nobody has ever dared to call me one in my presence.
—Bertrand Russell

I fear that I have not got much to say about Canada.
—Henry David Thoreau

If you will not have God (and he is a jealous God) you should pay your respects to Hitler or Stalin.
—T.S. Eliot

Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.
—Bertrand Russell

Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science.
—Henri Poincare

Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices.
—Benjamin Franklin

The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it.
—Benjamin Disraeli

If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.
—Goethe

The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward.
—John Maynard Keynes

Growing older, I have lost the need to be political, which means in this country, the need to be Left. I am driven into grudging toleration of the Conservative party because it is the party of nonpolitics, resistance to politics.
—Kingsley Amis

Most bereaved souls crave nourishment more tangible than prayers: they want a steak.
—M.F.K. Fisher

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

My method of teaching precluded genuine contact with my students. At best, they regurgitated a few bits of brain during examinations. Vainly I tried to replace my appearances at the lectern by taped records to be played over the college radio.
—Vladimir Nabokov

Blog reading for me is like going down to the cellar amid shelves and shelves of musty books that you're condemned to turn the pages of
—Camille Paglia

I can't understand these chaps who go round American universities explaining how they write poems: It's like going round explaining how you sleep with your wife.
—Philip Larkin

Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.
—William Shakespeare

Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.
—Ronald Reagan

The Last Word

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