"Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time." - Rabbinical Saying

"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next." - Gilda Radner

"I had to quit university because my Dungeons and Dragons character died." - Al Rae

Person A: "My son died of AIDS today, he got it from being gang-raped when he was in prison.
Person B: That's what he gets for committing a crime.
A: He never should have been there in the first place. He was innocent.
B: He shouldn't have skimped on a good lawyer.
A: He was poor. He couldn't afford one.
B: Too bad he was too lazy to get a good job.
A: But there aren't any good jobs anymore.
B: There's always prison construction." - a comic by Ted Rall

"Incidental question: A librarian writing about librarian building, insists that libraries must be made to look as accessible to the public as possible - to 'bring the library nearer to the people.' 'Spacious and inviting entrances are placed at grade level, close to the public thoroughfare, with as few steps as possible between the pedestrian and the building.' This may be quite sound in relation to library architecture, but the question it raises, in a more general sense, is this: is it advisable to spread out all the conveniences of culture before people to whom a few steps up a stair to a library is a sufficient deterrent from reading?" - Ayn Rand

"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)." - Ayn Rand

"Francisco: I wish you'd learn to run faster. I'll always have to wait for you.
Dagny: Will you wait for me?
Francisco: Always." - Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

"'Why yes, I can,' said Midas Mulligan, when he was asked whether he could name a person more evil than the man with a heart closed to pity. 'The man who uses another's pity for him as a weapon.'" - Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

"The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see." - Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

"Roark: Shall I tell you what's wrong with it?
Dean: It's the Parthenon!
Roark: Yes, God damn it, the Parthenon!... Look... the famous flutings on the famous columns - what are they there for? To hide the joints in wood - when columns were made of wood, only these aren't, they're marble. The triglyphs, what are they? Wood. Wooden beams, the way they had to be laid when people began to build wooden shacks. Your Greeks took marble and they made copies of their wooden structures out of it, because others had done it that way. Then your masters of the Renaissance came along and made copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Now here we are, making copies in steel and concrete of copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies of wood. Why?... The Parthenon did not serve the same purpose as its wooden ancestor. An airline terminal does not serve the same purpose as the Parthenon. Every form has its own meaning. Every man creates his meaning and form and goal. Why is it so important - what others have done? Why does it become sacred by the mere fact of not being your own? Why is anyone and everyone right - so long as it's not yourself? Why does the number of those others take the place of truth? Why is truth made a mere matter of arithmetic - and only of addition at that? Why is everything twisted out of all sense to fit everything else? There must be some reason. I don't know. I've never known it. I'd like to understand." - Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

"To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul - would you understand why that's much harder?" - Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

"Cameron: You're abnormal.
Roark: Probably.
Cameron: I didn't mean it as a compliment.
Roark: I didn't either." - Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

"An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of The Lone Ranger" - Dan Rather

"You don't think he's buying the old Branch Davidian place, do you?" - Dan Rather (after hearing George W. Bush was buying property in Waco, Texas)

"A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life to be thankful for a good one." - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

"I believe there would be people alive today if there were a death penalty." - Nancy Reagan

"I don't intend for this to take on a political tone. I'm just here for the drugs." - Nancy Reagan

"I'm not smart enough to lie." - Ronald Reagan

"As long as there is one person in this country who is hungry, that's one person too many, and something must be done about it." - Ronald Reagan

"The taxpayer -- that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination." - Ronald Reagan

"The ten most dangerous words in the English language are "Hi, I'm from the government, and I'm here to help." - Ronald Reagan

"Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence." - Ronald Reagan

"What makes him think a middle aged actor, who's played with a chimp, could have a future in politics?" - Ronald Reagan (on Clint Eastwood's bid for mayor of Carmel)

"Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you; They're supposed to help you discover who you are." - Bernice Johnson Reagon

"There is nowhere you can go and only be with people who are like you. Give it up." - Bernice Johnson Reagon

"If you think that by threatening me you can get me to do what you want... well, that's where you're right. But - and I am only saying this because I care - there's a lot of decaffeinated brands on the market that are just as tasty as the real thing." - Real Genius

"Self-esteem is different than conceit. Conceit is the weirdest disease in the world. It makes everyone sick except the one who has it." - Hartman Rector, Jr., Ensign (May 1979)

"It's hard to believe that there's nobody out there. It's hard to believe that I'm all alone." - Red Hot Chili Peppers

"When I've found my peace of mind I'm gonna keep it for the end of time." - Red Hot Chili Peppers

"Where I go I just don't know." - Red Hot Chili Peppers

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear" - Ambrose Redmoon

"If we have no tears, who are we?" - Redwood Curtain

"The things that are ours cannot be given away, or taken away, or lost. We break our hearts, all of us, trying to keep things that do not belong to us - and to which we have no right." - Myrtle Reed

"Before a catastrophe, we can't imagine coping with the burdens that might confront us in a dire moment. Then, when that moment arrives, we suddenly find that we have resources inside us that we knew nothing about. What I've discovered is that we are able -- all of us -- to do much more than we think we can." - Christopher Reeve

"If error is corrected whenever it is recognised as such, the path of error is the path of truth." - Hans Reichenbach

"Plato had slaves... George Washington had slaves... So, do I feel intrinsically better than these two men? Of course I do! They're dead!" - Todd Andrew Reid

"Everybody hurts - take comfort in your friends." - REM

"If you are afraid of being lonely, don't try to be right." - Jules Renard

"Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired." - Jules Renard

"The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse." - Jules Renard

"It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere." - Agnes Repplier

"There is always a secret irritation about a laugh into which we cannot join." - Agnes Repplier

"We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh"- Agnes Repplier

"There is no expedient to which the average person will not go to avoid the hard work of thinking." - Joshua Reynolds

"You can always tell when someone's lying to you, because they're male..." - Caroline Rhea

"Cosine Secant Tangent Sine
3.14159
Cube Root, Square Root, BTU
Compass, Slide Rule, Go Rice U!" - Rice University's football cheer

"People who cease to believe in God or goodness altogether still believe in the devil. I don't know why. No, I do indeed know why. Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult." - Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

"Each day got through means one or two less mistakes remain to be made." - Tim Rice, Chess

"Everybody's playing the game but nobody's rules are the same... Never make a promise or plan. Take a little love where you can... Never stay too long in your bed. Never lose your heart, use your head... Never take a stranger's advice. Never let a friend fool you twice... Never be the first to believe. Never be the last to deceive... Never leave a moment too soon. Never waste a hot afternoon... Never stay a minute too long. Don't forget the best will go wrong... Better learn to go it alone. Recognise you're out on your own. Nobody's on nobody's side." - Tim Rice, Chess

"I've been a fool to allow dreams to become great expectations." - Tim Rice, Chess

"No one in your life is with you constantly. No one is completely on your side." - Tim Rice, Chess

"Nothing is so good it lasts eternally. Perfect situations must go wrong. But this has never yet prevented me wanting far too much for far too long." - Tim Rice, Chess

"Now I'm where I want to be and who I want to be and doing what I always said I would and yet I feel I haven't won at all. Running for my life and never looking back in case there's someone right behind me shoot me down and say he always knew I'd fall. When the crazy wheel slows down where will I be? Back where I started." - Tim Rice, Chess

"See my eyes - are they safe? Are they even sane?" - Tim Rice, Chess

"Who needs a dream? Who needs ambition? Who'd be the fool in my position? Once I had dreams, now they're obsessions. Hopes became needs, lovers possessions. Then they move in, oh so discretely. Slowly at first, smiling too sweetly. I opened doors, they walked right through them. Called me their friend, I hardly knew them... Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. Times have been good, fast, entertaining. But what's the point if I'm concealing not only love, all other feeling." - Tim Rice, Chess

"If you have taken this rubble for my past
raking through it for fragments you could sell
know that I long ago moved on
deeper into the heart of the matter

If you think you can grasp me, think again:
my story flows on in more than one direction
a delta springing from the riverbed
with its five fingers spread" - Adrienne Rich

"The principal House sponsor (of the Defense of Marriage Act), Bob Barr of Georgia has been married three times--which raises the question of why the act doesn't contain a three-strikes-and-you're-out provision." - Frank Rich

"Once in a lifetime a really beautiful song comes along... Until it does, I'd like to do this one." - Cliff Richard

"All big things in this world are done by people who are naive and have an idea that is obviously impossible." - Dr. Frank Richards

"My grandfather's a little forgetful, but he likes to give me advice. One day he took me aside and left me there." - Ron Richards

"It is necessary for us to learn from others' mistakes. You will not live long enough to make them all yourself." - Hyman Rickover

"Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong." - John G. Riefenbaker

"Much unhappiness results from out inability to remember the nice things that happen to us." - W.N. Rieger

"Do not assume that she who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. Her life may also have much sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond yours. Were it otherwise, she would never have been able to find these words." - Rainer Maria Rilke

"Keep your room dirty so your mom will be afraid to come in, and then she won't take your stuff." - Geoff Rill (twelve-year-old), Chicken Soup for the Kid's Soul

"Some think they are following their natural bent when they are just too lazy to straighten up." - Earl Riney

"Learning to live is learning to let go." - Sogyal Rinpoche

"The first time I see a jogger smiling, I'll consider it." - Joan Rivers

"I have flabby thighs but fortunately my stomach covers them." - Joan Rivers

"I knew I was an unwanted baby when I saw my bath toys were a toaster and a radio." - Joan Rivers

"People say that money is not the key to happiness, but I always figured if you have enough money, you can have a key made." - Joan Rivers

"Life is like stew. If you don't stir it frequently all the scum rises to the top." - Tom Robbins

"There are two kinds of people in this world: those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world, and those who are smart enough to know better." - Tom Robbins

"Success can eliminate as many options as failure." - Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

"When I was a child I was an imaginary playmate" - Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

"I would like to learn to play the cello. I would like to paint. I would like to fully understand the concept of pi." - Julia Roberts

"When my mother makes out her income tax return every year, under occupation she writes in, "Eroding my daughter's self-esteem." - Robin Roberts

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen Roberts

"Sheriff of Nottingham: I had a very bad childhood. It's amazing I'm sane." - Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

"I don't have to do what others expect of me." - Elizabeth Robinson

"Partisanship is our great curse. We too readily assume that everything has two sides and that it is our duty to be on one or the other." - James Harvey Robinson

"The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists." - Joan Robinson

"Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it." - John D. Rockefeller

"Smiling makes my face ache" - The Rocky Horror Picture Show

"Stay sane inside insanity." - The Rocky Horror Picture Show

"And it puzzles me to learn that though a man may be in doubt of what he knows, very quickly will he fight. He'll fight, to prove that what he does not know is so." - Rodgers and Hammerstein, The King and I

"Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both sides should know they're in the game." - Paul Rodriguez

"The sexual assault of a child by an adult is no more an expression of homosexual love than rape is an expression of heterosexual love." - Richard Rodriguez, Salon

"When I look at the world I'm pessimistic, but when I look at people I am optimistic." - Carl Rogers

"We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say 'It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.' Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes." - Fred "Mr." Rogers

"It doesn't much signify whom one marries, for one is sure to find next morning that it was someone else." - Samuel Rogers

"Don't just grab at the first thing that comes along... Know when to refuse something that won't get you anywhere." - Will Rogers

"Don't let yesterday use up too much of today." - Will Rogers

"An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's." - Will Rogers

"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." - Will Rogers

"Everyone is ignorant, only on different subjects." - Will Rogers

"I've suffered a great many catastrophes in my life. Most of them never happened." - Will Rogers

"See what will happen if you don't stop biting your fingernails?" - Will Rogers (to his niece on seeing the Venus de Milo)

"There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you." - Will Rogers

"We can't all be heroes because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by." - Will Rogers

"Always be willing to look at both sides of the argument. Understanding the other side is the best way to strengthen your own." - Jim Rohn

"Don't wish it was easier; wish you were better. Don't wish for less problems; wish for more skills. Don't wish for less challenge; wish for more wisdom." - Jim Rohn

"It's easy to carry the past as a burden instead of a school. It's easy to let it overwhelm you instead of educate you." - Jim Rohn

"The greatest gift you can give to somebody is your own personal development. I used to say, 'If you will take care of me, I will take care of you.' Now I say, 'I will take care of me for you if you will take care of you for me.'" - Jim Rohn

"I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they plan their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change." - Jim Rohn

"Learn how to be happy with what you have while you pursue all that you want." - Jim Rohn

"Life asked you to make measurable progress in reasonable time. That's why they make those fourth grade chairs so small - so you won't fit in them at age twenty-five." - Jim Rohn

"Motivation alone is not enough. If you have an idiot and you motivate him, now you have a motivated idiot." - Jim Rohn

"The only thing worse than not reading a book in the last ninety days is not reading a book in the last ninety days and thinking that it doesn't matter." - Jim Rohn

"The walls we build around us to keep out pain also keep out joy." - Jim Rohn

"You cannot succeed by yourself. It's hard to find a rich hermit." - Jim Rohn

"You must constantly ask yourself these questions: Who am I around? What are they doing to me? What have they got me reading? What have they got me saying? Where do they have me going? What do they have me thinking? And most important, what do they have me becoming? Then ask yourself the big question: Is that okay?" - Jim Rohn

"A hero is one who does what he can." - Romain Rolland

"Life will not break your heart. It'll crush it." - Henry Rollins

"Hear the other side." - Roman Proverb

"People think living in your parents' basement until you're twenty-nine is lame. But what they don't realize is that while you're there, you save money on rent, food, and dates." - Ray Romano

"If you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it." - Andy Rooney

"We're all proud of making little mistakes. It gives us the feeling we don't make any big ones." - Andrew A. Rooney

"Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't." - Eleanor Roosevelt

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." - Eleanor Roosevelt

"Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both." - Eleanor Roosevelt

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." - Eleanor Roosevelt

"We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all." - Eleanor Roosevelt

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt

"A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward." - Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"If you treat people right they will treat you right - ninety percent of the time." - Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time." - Theodore Roosevelt

"No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency." - Theodore Roosevelt

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president." - Theodore Roosevelt

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." - Theodore Roosevelt

"Rupert is extremely radical. Do you know that he selects his books on the assumption that people not only can read but actually can think?" - Rope

"Don't look back,
you're not going that way!" - Moonzy Silver Rose

"An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and before long the whole world will look like hockey players." - Jim Rosenberg, (stolen from Ruminations)

"Let our community of humor accept difference and disagreement without resorting to hatred and terror, even if the larger community cannot." - Jim Rosenberg (stolen from Ruminations)

"Jon: They don't actually taste like chicken. It's just a clever marketing gimmick.
Phil: But it says 'Tastes Like Chicken.' It says so.
Jon: It's a misnomer. It's like that time you went to 'Nobody Beats the Wiz' in leather chaps, shouting for Michael Jackson to 'Take it like a man.'" - Jonathan Rosenberg, goats.com

"I might show facts as plain as day:
But since your eyes are blind,
you'd say,
"Where? What?" and turn away." - Christina Rossetti

"A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead." - Leo Rosten

"Extremists think 'communication' means agreeing with them." - Leo Rosten

"I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe." - Leo Rosten

"Many [of the Americans] polled showed a marked disapproval of the Wallonians, Danerians, and Pirenians. The fact that these minorities were invented by the pollster did not diminish the hostility." - Leo Rosten

"No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does." - Francois, Duc de La Rouchefoucauld

"We get so much in the habit of wearing disguises before others that we finally appear disguised before ourselves" - Francios, Duke de la Rouchefoucauld

"We would often be ashamed of our finest actions if the world understood all the motives which produced them." - Duc de La Rochefoucauld

"When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere." - Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld

"Why can we remember the tiniest detail that has happened to us, and not remember how many times we have told it to the same person?" - Francios, Duke de la Rouchefoucauld

"We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all." - Francois, Duc de La Rouchefoucauld, The Maxims

"As people do better, they start voting like Republicans - unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing." - Karl Rove (Bush's top advisor)

"The oppressed without hope are mysteriously quiet. When the conception of change is beyond the limits of the possible, there are no words to articulate discontent so it is sometimes held not to exist." - Sheila Rowbothan, Woman's Consciousness, Man's World

"It is our choices ... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." - J.K. Rowling

"If you can distinguish between good advice and bad advice, then you don't need advice." - Van Roy's Second Law

"There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking." - Theodore Rubin

"I hate learning through experience. Just once I'd like to learn something because someone was nice enough to tell me in advance." - Rita Rudner

"I read recipes the same way I read science fiction. I get to the end and think, 'Well, that's not going to happen.'" - Rita Rudner

"I love being married. It's so great to find one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life." - Rita Rudner

"I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult." - Rita Rudner

"If a man prepares dinner for you and the salad contains three or more types of lettuce, he is serious." - Rita Rudner

"Men forget everything; women remember everything. That's why men need instant replays in sports. They've already forgotten what happened." - Rita Rudner

"Never play peekaboo with a child on a long plane trip. There's no end to the game. Finally I grabbed him by the bib and said, 'Look, it's always gonna be me!'" - Rita Rudner

"When I meet a man I ask myself, 'Is this the man I want my children to spend their weekends with?'" - Rita Rudner

"I never got that show - Les Miz. It's about the French guy, right, who steals a loaf of bread, and then he suffers for the rest of his life. For Toast. Get over it! " - Paul Rudnick, Jeffrey

"Incredibly, many people continue their old life-style, their habits even if they feel miserable, lonely, bored, inadequate, or abused. Why? Of course... because habit is an easy place to hide." - Tom Rusk

"Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occured to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths." - Bertrand Russell

"Even when all the experts agree, they may well be mistaken." - Bertrand Russell

"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd." - Bertrand Russell

"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted." - Bertrand Russell

"Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact." - Bertrand Russell

"A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations." - Bertrand Russell

"Sin is geographical." - Bertrand Russell

"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

"The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn." - David Russell

"It was one day in October when the sun began to fade, and Winter broke the promise that Summer had just made. It was one day in October when the rain came falling down, and someone said the bogey man was seen around the town." - Willy Russell, Blood Brothers

"It's hard to beat a person who never gives up." - Babe Ruth

"You believe that flag burning shows disrespect towards those who have fought to preserve our freedoms. Punishing protestors shows an even more profound disrespect for the ideals that these people died for. An intact flag is worthless if it no longer stands for freedom. A flag burned to ashes challenges us to remember just exactly what freedom is." - Dr. Mary Ruwart, The Liberator Online

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