This is a collection of quotes that is still growing. If you have any comments on these quotes, or others you'd like to share email me but PLEASE don't send me any anonymous or self quotes.

"He who would be a leader must be a bridge" - Mabinogion

"Don't be afraid of opposition. Remember, a kite rises against, not with the wind." - Hamilton Wright Mable

"This is the best book ever written by any man on the wrong side of a question of which he is profoundly ignorant." - Thomas B. Macaulay

"To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved." - George MacDonald

"For the majority of people, smoking has a beneficial effect." - Dr. Ian G. Macdonald, Newsweek 11/18/1963

"Spenser: I suppose you can make an explosive out of chewing gum?

MacGyver: Why? Got some?" - MacGyver

"It is dangerous to free people who prefer to be slaves." - Machiavelli

"I could find words but not sentences they could fit." - Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

"I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence." - Doug MacLeod

"Churchill was fundamentally what the English call unstable: by which they mean anybody who has that touch of genius which is inconvenient in normal times." - Harold Macmillan

"Maturity begins to grow when you can sense your concern for others outweighing your concern for yourself." - John MacNoughton

"The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything." - Bishop W. C. Magee

"Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is: 'Because the animals are like us.' Ask the experimenters why it is morally okay to experiment on animals, and the answer is: 'Because the animals are not like us.' Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction." - Professor Charles R. Magel

"The Church says that the Earth is flat, but I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow on the moon and I have more faith in the Shadow than in the Church." - Ferdinand Magellan

"One who desires the destruction of the foe should not put the foe on his guard." - Mahabharata

"So one must find out how to become happy oneself. Wanting to reform the world without discovering one's true self is like trying to cover the whole world with leather to avoid the pain of walking on stones and thorns. It is much simpler to wear shoes." - Ramana Maharshi

"Death is nature's way of killing you." - Bill Maher

"I'm for the death penalty, I'm pro-abortion, I'm pro-assisted suicide, I'm pro-regular suicide. Anything that'll get the traffic moving." - Bill Maher

"Suicide is our way of telling God: 'You can't fire me. I quit.'" - Bill Maher

"You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions." - Naguib Mahfouz

"I don't want to die, really. I'm interested in what happens next, so I've got to keep on." - Margaret Mahy, The Changeover

"Perhaps every time anyone is praised it means that someone else somewhere is going to be ignored." - Margaret Mahy, The Other Side of Silence

"Family!... You might just as well celebrate battle, murder and sudden death." - Margaret Mahy, The Tricksters

"I know things are unbearable but in spite of that we have to bear them." - Margaret Mahy, The Tricksters

"You can't say you want things to be simple and then in the next breath ask me to be honest." - Margaret Mahy, The Tricksters

"There comes a time in a man's life when to get where he has to go - if there are no doors or windows - he walks through a wall." - Bernard Malamud

"I only have two rules for my newly born daughter: she will dress well and never have sex." - John Malkovich

"Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation.

Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?" - The Maltese Falcon

"Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans." - Thomas La Mance

"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered." - Nelson Mandela, A Long Walk to Freedom

"My girlfriend came up to me the other day and introduced me to one of her male friends, and at first I didn't mind, since I'm not the jealous type. I just wish she hadn't started calling him 'Sweetie' and living with him and having his kids and marrying him and stuff. It's really starting to make me wonder if she wants a future with me or not." - Derek Maness

"Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago." - Horace Mann

"Opinions cannot survive if one has no chance to fight for them" - Thomas Mann

"Charming villains have always had a decided social advantage over well-meaning people who chew with their mouths open." - Miss Manners (Judith Martin)

"It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help." - Miss Manners (Judith Martin)

"The earth we abuse and the living thins we kill will, in the end, take their revenge; for in exploiting their presence we are diminishing our future." - Marya Mannes, More in Anger

"Make it a rule of life never to regret... Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in." - Katherine Mansfield

"The pleasure of all reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books." - Katharine Mansfield

"When we begin to take our failures non-seriously, it means that we are ceasing to be afraid of them. It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves." - Katherine Mansfield

"Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you." - Maori proverb

"If we're bringing up kids that are so stupid that they kill themselves because of a song, what good are the kids in the first place?" - Marilyn Manson

"It doesn't matter who you love or how you love. If you are not in love or loving somebody, you are only half alive. Why do I love him? Because he is a thief, the first day I met him he stole my heart. Why, then, do I hate myself? Because I left my heart vulnerable, when the past has told me time and time again not to. Forgive the tears, they are only bits of selfishness that could be contained no longer. I only wish to keep you a little longer. Within the boundaries of my immediate life. Thank you for touching my life. And letting me know you. And love you. Too many of us stay walled because we are afraid to care too much, for fear the other person does not care as much or not at all. We don't love qualities, we love a person; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as their qualities." - Jacques Maritain

"I sometimes look in the face of my dog Stan and see wistful sadness and existential angst, when all he is actually doing is slowly scanning the ceiling for flies." - Marrill Markoe, What the Dogs Have Taught Us

"I like to see you move with the rhythm; I like to see when you're dancin' from within." - Bob Marley

"Every time we start thinking we're the center of the universe, the universe turns around and says with a slightly distracted air, 'I'm sorry. What'd you say your name was again?'" - Margaret Maron

"A hypocrite is a person who--but who isn't?" - Don Marquis

"An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it." - Don Marquis

"A child born to a Black mother in a state like Mississippi... has exactly the same rights as a white baby born to the wealthiest person in the United States. It's not true, but I challenge anyone to say it is not a goal worth working for." - Thurgood Marshall

"Every day you spend drifting away from your goals is a waste not only of that day, but also of the additional days it takes you to regain lost ground." - Ralph Marston

"Happiness is a choice, not a result. Nothing will make you happy until you choose to be happy. No person will make you happy unless you decide to be happy. Your happiness will not come to you. It can only come from you. Happiness is what you are, not what you have. It depends solely upon your own attitude. You can be happy no matter what your circumstances might be. You can never get happy. You can always be happy. Lift your own self-imposed restrictions on happiness. Count your many blessings, and be happy. Spread your happiness and it will grow." - Ralph S. Marston, Jr.

"I've always thought you become a real New Yorker on the day you stop, look around and say, 'God, I love this city. If only there weren't all these people and buildings around..." - Brett Martin, Time Out New York

"This summer I want to go to the beach and bury metal objects that say 'Get a Life' on them." - Demitri Martin

"I believe that Ronald Reagan can make this country what it once was - an Arctic region covered with ice." - Steve Martin

"I like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks" - Steve Martin

"Don't wake him up. He's got insomnia - he's trying to sleep it off." - Chico Marx, A Night at the Opera

"Oh! I'll wait 6 years to read it, when she'll be 18!" - Groucho Marx (on hearing about the novel Lolita)

"Look at me: I worked my way up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty." - Groucho Marx

"No, Groucho is not my real name. I am breaking it in for a friend." - Groucho Marx

"Outside of a dog a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read" - Groucho Marx

Groucho Marx: So, Mrs. Smith, do you have any children?

Mrs. Smith: Yes, thirteen.

Groucho: Thirteen! Good lord, isn't that a burden?

Mrs. Smith: Well, I love my husband.

Groucho: Lady, I love my cigar but I take it out of my mouth once in a while.

"These are my principles, and if you don't like them... well I have others" - Groucho Marx

"That can't be my shirt. My shirt doesn't snore" - Groucho Marx, A Night at the Opera

"The lonely heart you see tonight will not give up without a fight." - Richard Marx

"Take a good look around and you'll find people trying to mess with your mind." - Richard Marx

"I've been around. Well, maybe not around, but I've been nearby" - Mary, The Mary Tyler Moore Show

"Sometimes you have to get to know someone really well to realize you're really strangers." - The Mary Tyler Moore Show

"If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." - Abraham Maslow

"Every young person deserves the thrill, just once, of calculating personally the first several decimal places of pi." - a math textbook

"There is a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path" - The Matrix

MO<"I told one of my HMO patients to go get a tonsillectomy, and now he's mad because he thought I said 'appendectomy' and got his appendix removed instead. I guess I should really look into getting my drive-thru speaker fixed." - Curtis Matthews, (stolen from Ruminations)

"I was performing at a comedy club and when I said I'm a lesbian, a guy in the audience yelled out, 'Can I watch?' I said, 'Watch me what? Fix my car?'" - Sabrina Matthews

"Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit." - W. Somerset Maugham

"Love is an evil trick played on us to achieve the continuation of the species." - W. Sommerset Maugham

"Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit." - W. Somerset Maugham

"He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it." - W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

"It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded." - W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

"'Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who you are' is true enough, but I'd know you better if you told me what you reread." - Francios Mauriac

"To love someone is to see a miracle invisible to others." - Francois Mauriac

"The first recipe for happiness is: Avoid too lengthy meditations on the past." - Andre Maurois

"In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others." - Andre Maurois

"Laugh at yourself first, before anyone else can." - Elsa Maxwell

"The secret of my success is that no woman has ever been jealous of me." - Elsa Maxwell

"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

"Hate is not the opposite of love; apathy is." - Rollo May

"I will not condemn you for what you did yesterday, if you do it right today." - Sheldon S. Maye

"The tragedy in life does not lie in not reaching your goals, the tragedy lies in not having any goals to reach. It isn't a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideals, but it is a disaster to have no ideals to capture." - Benjamin Mays

"It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument." - William G. McAdoo

"To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else." - Bernadette Devlin McAliskey

"If you look hard enough, you can find race issues and racism in everything. I know people who say, 'See, I don't play pool 'cuz that's where the white ball chase the black ball off the table. So I prefer bowling, where the big black ball knock down the white pins with the red necks.'"-Chi McBride

"Make no judgments where you have no compassion." - Anne McCaffrey

"One cannot have wisdom without living life." - Dorothy McCall

"No one is out to break your heart, it only seems that way." - Paul McCartney

"Somebody said to me, 'But the Beatles were antimaterialistic.' That's a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say 'Now, let's write a swimming pool'." - Paul McCartney

"A man with no regrets has no decency." - Thomas McCormack, Endpapers

"Sometimes a majority simply means that all the fools are on the same side." - Claude McDonald

"You can't brag that you're humble ... and be humble." - Terry McEwen

"Imagination was given to us to compensate for what we are not; a sense of humor was provided to console us for what we are." - Mack McGinnis

"I love boxing. Where else do two grown men prance around in satin underwear, fighting over a belt?... The one who wins gets a purse. They do it in gloves. It's the accessory connection I love." - John McGovern, The Daily Show

"I think the world is run by C students." - Al McGuire

"I think men talk to women so they can sleep with them and women sleep with men so they can talk to them." - Jay McInerney, Brightness Falls

"Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong." - Peter T. McIntyre

"Tolerance of dissent is the hallmark of a mature party, and it is well past time for the Republican Party to grow up." - Senator John McCain

"I know I can't be with you. I do what I have to do. But I have the sense to recognize that I don't know how to let you go." - Sarah McLachlan

"It's innocence when it charms us, ignorance when it doesn't." - Mignon McLaughlin

"Our strength is often composed of the weakness we're damned if we're going to show." - Mignon McLaughlin

"A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person." - Mignon McLaughlin

"Do not rely completely on any other human being, however dear. We meet all of life's greatest tests alone." - Agnes McPhail

"On behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), I am writing to ask that you make Timothy McVeigh's final meals vegetarian ones... Mr. McVeigh's last meal, on May 16, should not involve bloodshed and the slaughter of an unwilling victim. The other animals feel every bit as much pain as we do, they are horrified at the sight and smells of the slaughterhouse, and they're afraid to die. Like us, they fight for their lives and wish to avoid pain.

Please don't let Timothy McVeigh be responsible for the death of even one more living being." - Bruce Friedrich of PETA in a letter to Timothy McVeigh's warden

And the response:

"I cannot sustain a prolonged intellectual debate on the subject as my time is short, but I'd suggest hitting Ted Kaczynski up for his opinions on the subject." - Timothy McVeigh

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