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.

"As long as one American is hungry... then we have unfinished business in this country." - William Safire

"If you wish to make an apple pie truly from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan

"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

"Nothing disturbs me more than the glorification of stupidity." - Carl Sagan

"History is full of people who out of fear, or ignorance, or lust for power have destroyed knowledge of immeasurable value which truly belongs to us all. We must not let it happen again." - Carl Sagan, Cosmos

"It is such a secret place, the land of tears." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never 'What does his voice sound like?' 'What games does he like best?' 'Does he collect butterflies?'. They ask: 'How old is he?' 'How many brothers does he have?' 'How much does he weigh?' 'How much money does his father make?' Only then do they think they know him." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

"To forget a friend is sad, not everyone has had a friend." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art." - Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Reminiscences

"God made man, and then he said 'I can do better than that' and made women." - Adela Roger St. John

"Please Rush me a Biblical Gold Book Seed Harvest Prosperity Plan so that I can take God as my financial partner." - Saint Matthew's Churches (they sent me a book in the mail)

"I am the kind of paranoic in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy." - J.D. Salinger

"Mothers are all slightly insane." - J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

"This fall I think you're riding for - it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement's designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn't supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn't supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started." - J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

"What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them." - J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

"What I like best is a book that's at least funny once in a while... 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." - J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

"It is always easy to begin a war, but very difficult to stop one, since its beginning and end are not under the control of the same men." - Sallust

"A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means." - Sallust, Jugurthine War

"There are two sides to every question because when there are no longer two sides, it ceases to be a question." - Herbert Samuel

"Do not choose to be wrong for the sake of being different." - Lord Samuel

"Women make up 51% of the world's population, put in 2/3 of the world's work hours, receive 1/10 of the world's wages and own 1/100 of the world's real property. This, essentially, is what the women's movement is all about." - San Francisco Examiner Grabbag 12-24-89

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

"Sometimes even to live is an act of courage." - Carl Sandburg

"Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you." - Carl Sandburg

"Man is only miserable so far as he thinks himself so." - Jacopo Sannazaro

"Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim." - George Santayana

"Most men's conscience, habits, and opinions are borrowed from convention and gather continually comforting assurances from the same social consensus that originally suggested them." - George Santayana

"The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it." - Alan Saporta

"Make sure you have finished speaking before your audience has finished listening." - Dorothy Sarnoff

"Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you." - Jean-Paul Sartre

"If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company." - Jean-Paul Sartre

"Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does." - Jean-Paul Sartre

"A man is not what he thinks he is, but what he thinks, he is." - Jean Paul Sartre

"We do not do what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are; that is the fact." - Jean-Paul Sartre

Seth Meyers: Governor, what do you have against New Jersey?
Fred Armisen as Governor David Paterson: Unfortunately, a Southern border. - Saturday Night Live

"Do some people get harmed in the pursuit of happiness? Aren't people (and neighborhoods and whole cities) harmed by, say, the drug trade? Aren't prostitutes frequently harmed by violent clients? Doesn't adultery destroy homes? Yes, yes, and yes. But much of the harm done by drugs, prostitution, and adultery should be laid at the feet of the virtuous. It's their meddling that often creates the harm, not the sins in and of themselves. There would be no money, and therefore no gangs or violence, in the drug trade if drugs were legalized and their sale taxed and regulated. When was the last time beer distributors killed each other? Oh, yeah: prohibition." - Dan Savage, Skipping Towards Gomorrah

"No urban music lover has ever, to give one example, placed a gun to Robert Bork's head and forced him to buy a rap CD. Nevertheless, in Slouching Towards Gomorrah, Bork argues that no one should be allowed to buy rap CDs. 'Is censorship really as unthinkable as we all seem to assume?" Bork asks in a chapter titled 'The Case for Censorship.' 'I [suggest] that censorship be considered for the most violent and sexually explicit material now on offer [including] the more degenerate lyrics of rap music.'

Personally, I never wanted to buy a rap CD until I read Bork's book, which is the strange? (and strangely predictable) thing about censorship: It creates a demand for the very things the censors want to stamp out. Even if it were possible to scuttle the First Amendment (so much for original intent!) and ban rap music, the effort would fail. The Soviet Union, a police state with unlimited powers and spies in every workplace and apartment building, attempted to ban rock and roll music. It failed. It's hard to imagine how our government could enforce a ban on rap music in a country whose citizens own almost as many CD burners as they do guns. Not that I would put it past John Ashcroft. Social conservatives will sometimes argue that rap music or violent movies or drugs need to be banned to protect the weak and vulnerable from taking up a life of sinful indulgence. It would be easier to take these arguments more seriously if the same social conservatives weren't opposed to laws that protect the weak and vulnerable from unsafe workplaces, flammable children's pajamas, and arsenic in our drinking water." - Dan Savage, Skipping Towards Gomorrah

"Everybody loves an accent. If you've been unlucky in love, consider pulling up stakes and moving to another country. Then you'll be the one with a neat foreign accent." - Marilyn vos Savant

"To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe." - Marilyn vos Savant

"If you start out depressed everything's kind of a pleasant surprise." - Say Anything

"I cannot open the windows from the outside without breaking them; but from the inside, you can lift them with ease." - B. Sbragia

"I realize that humor isn't for everyone. It's only for people who want to have fun, enjoy life, and feel alive." - Anne Wilson Schaef

"A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished." - Johan Christoph Schiller

"Smoking cures weight problems... Eventually..." - Rod Schmidt

"I wonder why it's called 'people watching' when 'people mocking' seems so much more appropriate?" - Luke Schollmeyer (stolen from Ruminations)

"Heaven on earth gives me a migraine." - School of Bayonne

"There is beauty even in the yellowish sludge." - School of Bayonne

"Truth is a brown rabbit lying dead in the road." - School of Bayonne

"Apart from man, no being wonders at its own experience." - Arthur Schopenhauer

"The beard, being a half-mask, should be forbidden by the police - It is, moreover, as a sexual symbol in the middle of the face, obscene: that is why it pleases women." - Arthur Schopenhauer

"Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure are, by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral and subject to chance." - Arthur Schopenhauer

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see." - Arthur Schopenhauer

"Whatever the heart resists, the head does not let in." - Arthur Schopenhaeur

"Tough times never last, but tough people do." - Robert Schuller

"Care more than others think wise. Risk more than others think safe. Dream more than others think practical. Expect more than others think possible." - Howard Schultz

"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia." - Charles Schulz

"Try not to have a good time... this is supposed to be educational." - Charles Schulz

"Linus: I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe we should think only about today.
Charlie Brown: No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday will get better." - Charles Schulz, Peanuts

"Charlie Brown: I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind! The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building." - Charles Schulz, Peanuts

"I think I've discovered the secret of life - you just hang around until you get used to it." - Charles Schulz, Peanuts

"The New Neighbor: I like to dabble in illegal arms sale... and play the guitar!" - Christian Schumann

"Among the varieties of American innocence that were lost on September 11, perhaps the most intriguing was the mass discovery of what it feels like to be hated. 'How can they hate us,' people asked, 'just because we're Americans, when they don't even know us?' Well, I thought, welcome to my world. People hate homosexuals all the time, across great distances, from places where they feel threatened by us even though most of us would never contemplate living there." - Michael Schwartz, The Gay & Lesbian Review

"Where are you going? Can you take me with you, for my hand is cold and needs warmth... far beyond where the horizon lies... and the land sinks into mellow blueness. Oh please, take me with you... Then I'll take your hand, finally glad that you are here by my side." - Stephen Schwartz, Godspell

"I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman." - Arnold Schwarzenegger

"Anyone who has accustomed himself to regard the life of any living creature as worthless is in danger of arriving also at the idea of worthless human lives." - Albert Schweitzer

"If there is something you own that you can't give away you don't own it, it owns you." - Albert Schweitzer

"Until he extends his circle of compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace." - Albert Schweitzer

"To have one's individuality completely ignored is like being pushed quite out of life - like being blown out as one blows out a light." - Evelyn Scott

"If you don't find it in the index, look very carefully through the entire catalogue." - Sears, Roebuck, and Co., Consumer's Guide, 1897

"Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to." - George Seaton

"In other parts of the country people tried to stay together for the sake of the children. In New York they tried to work things out for the sake of the apartment." - David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day

"I'll never understand why someone might pay to wear a corporate logo. To me, all such shirts read ALL MY OTHER CLOTHES ARE DIRTY or UNTIL WHICH TIME, IF EVER, I DEVELOP A PERSONALITY OF MY OWN, THIS T-SHIRT HAS OFFERED TO SPEAK ON MY BEHALF." - David Sedaris, New York Magazine

"Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't." - Pete Seeger

"It is possible to own too much. A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never quite sure." - Lee Segall

"All the king's HORSES and all the king's men? Are you kidding me? No wonder they couldn't put Humpty together again. Just what did those idiots expect the horses to do, anyway?" - Jerry Seinfeld

"Getting rid of a man without hurting his masculinity is a problem. 'Get out' and 'I never want to see you again' might sound like a challenge. If you want to get rid of a man, I suggest saying, 'I love you... I want to marry you... I want to have your children.' Sometimes they leave skid marks." - Jerry Seinfeld

"If professional wrestling did not exist, could you come up with this idea? Could you envision the popularity of huge men in tiny bathing suits, pretending to fight?" - Jerry Seinfeld

"Why does McDonald's have to count every burger that they sell? What is their ultimate goal? Do they want cows to surrender voluntarily?" - Jerry Seinfeld

"My parents took me to the Amish country, which to a kid, to see a bunch of people that have no cars, no TV, no phone, you go 'So what? Neither do I.' Who wants to see a whole community that's been grounded? That's the way they should punish kids after they've seen Amish country. "All right, son, get up to your room. That's it. I've had it, you are Amish, young man!...And don't come down til you've made some noodles and raised a barn." - Jerry Seinfeld, Sein Language

"I was up on 96th Street today, there was a kid couldn't have been more than ten years old. He was asking a street vendor if he had any other bootlegs as good as Death Blow. That's who I care about. The little kid who needs bootlegs, because his parent or guardian won't let him see the excessive violence and strong sexual content you and I take for granted." - Seinfeld

"Man is free, but not if he does not believe it." - Giacamo Girlamo Cassanova de Seingalt

"The breakfast of champions is not cereal, it's the opposition." - Nick Seitz

"Throughout history it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph." - Haile Selassie

"Why did the Wicked Witch have a bucket of water in her castle if she was so allergic to it in the first place?" - Eliya Selhub (stolen from Ruminations)

"In the real time world no one sees her at all. They all say she's crazy." - Michael Sembello

"Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more harmful to us than the injury that provokes it." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

"Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

"I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

"When I think over what I have said, I envy mutes." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

"I share no man's opinion, I have my own." - Ivan Sergeyvich

"It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper." - Rod Serling

"Looking back on my life, I wish I'd stepped forward and made a fool of myself more often when I was younger - because when you do, you find out you can do it." - William Sessions

"There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham." - Anna Sewell

"Easy?? You men have no idea what we're dealing with down there. Teeth placement, and jaw stress, and suction, and gag reflex. And all the while, bobbing up and down, moaning, and trying to breathe through our noses. Easy? Honey! They don't call it a 'job' for nothin'." - Sex and the City

"Words and eggs must be handled with care. Once broken they are impossible things to repair." - Anne Sexton

"Friends are people who help you be more yourself." - Merle Shain

"After twelve years of therapy my psychiatrist said something that brought years to my eyes. He said, 'No hablo ingles.'" - Ronnie Shakes

"The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose." - William Shakespeare

"I do desire we may be better strangers." - William Shakespeare

"It is one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall."; - William Shakespeare

"O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant." - William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

"Join in the movement to go out and do a random act of kindness. Then say, 'My angel made me do it." - Sally Sharp, The Quotable Angel

"I am loyal in relationships. Any relationship. When I go out with my mom I don't look at other moms and say, 'Oooh, I wonder what her macaroni and cheese tastes like!'" - Gary Shandling

"Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few." - George Bernard Shaw

"Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same." - George Bernard Shaw

"Do you know what a pessimist is? A person who thinks everybody as nasty as himself, and hates them for it." - George Bernard Shaw

"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one." - George Bernard Shaw

"Few people think more than two or three times a year. I've made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week." - George Bernard Shaw

"It is nearly 50 years since I was assured by a conclave of doctors that if I did not eat meat I should die of starvation." - George Bernard Shaw

"A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant." - George Bernard Shaw

"I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation." - George Bernard Shaw

"If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience." - George Bernard Shaw

"If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance." - George Bernard Shaw

"A learned man is an idler who kills time by study." - George Bernard Shaw

"Life does not cease to be funny when people die, any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh." - George Bernard Shaw (stolen from quoteofthemoment)

"Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else." - George Bernard Shaw

"Man's inhumanity to man is only surpassed by his cruelty to animals." - George Bernard Shaw

"My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world." - George Bernard Shaw

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." - George Bernard Shaw

"Religion is a great force - the only real motive force in the world; but what you fellows don't understand is that you must get at a man through his own religion and not through yours." - George Bernard Shaw

"Taste: a quality possessed by persons without originality or moral courage." - George Bernard Shaw

"When a man of normal habits is ill, everyone hastens to assure him that he is going to recover. When a vegetarian is ill, (which fortunately very seldom happens), everyone assures him that he is going to die, and that they told him so, and that it serves him right. They implore him to take at least a little gravy, so as to give himself a chance of lasting out the night." - George Bernard Shaw

"When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity." - George Bernard Shaw

"When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth." - George Bernard Shaw

"When the master has come to do everything through the slave, the slave becomes his master, since he cannot live without him." - George Bernard Shaw

"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity." - George Bernard Shaw

"[O]nce grant the ethics of the vivisectionists and you not only sanction the experiment on the human subject, but make it the first duty of the vivisector. If a guinea pig may be sacrificed for the sake of the very little that can be learnt from it, shall not a man be sacrificed for the sake of the great deal that can be learnt from him?" - George Bernard Shaw, The Doctor's Dilemma

"You cannot do justice to the dead. When we talk about doing justice to the dead we are talking about retribution for the harm done to them. But retribution and justice are two different things." - William Shawcross

"Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember it didn't work for the rabbit." - R. E. Shay

"No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks." - Mary Shelley

"Laney: Screw the dolphins.
Jesse: Tried that last year. Banned from Sea World for life." - She's All That

"If we fill our hearts with regrets over the failures of yesterday, and with worries for tomorrow, we have no today in which to be thankful." - The Shepherd's Guide

"Of course the US Constitution isn’t perfect; but it’s a lot better than what we have now." - Eric Sheppard

"For every set of horseshoes human beings use for luck, somewhere in this world's a barefoot horse." - Allan Sherman

"The game of life is a game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later, with astounding accuracy." - Florence Scovel Shinn

"If you open your heart to a smooth operator he'll take you for all that you've got." - Shock Treatment

"We're not strangers to confusion." - Nation, Shock Treatment

"We must view young people not as empty bottles to be filled, but as candles to be lit." - Robert H. Shoffer

"Trouble is part of your life, and if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough." - Dinah Shore

"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters." - Solomon Short

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