In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.
~ Hubert H. Humphrey

A red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red rose. It would be horribly selfish if it wanted all the other flowers in the garden to be both red and roses.
~ Oscar Wilde

***

What one approves , another scorns,
And thus his nature each discloses:
You find the rosebush full of thorns,
I find the thornbush full of roses.
~ Arthur Guiterman

Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is a temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.~James Russell Lowell

"The "second sight" possessed by the Highlanders in Scotland is actually a foreknowledge of future events. I believe they possess this gift because they don't wear trousers."

G. C. Lichtenberg
(1742-1799) born on Jul 01
German "physicist, writer". He is best known for his satirical wit ridiculing metaphysical and romantic excesses.

The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted.

G. C. Lichtenberg
(1742-1799) born on Jul 01
German "physicist, writer". He is best known for his satirical wit ridiculing metaphysical and romantic excesses.

The state is a creation of Nature and man is a political animal.
~ Aristotle Doon

A camel is a horse designed my a committee.
~ Alex Issigonis

Magnetism is one of the Six Fundamental Forces of the Universe, with the other five being Gravity, Duct Tape, Whining, Remote Control, and The Force That Pulls Dogs Toward The Groins Of Strangers.
~ Dave Barry

***

People have seasons too, I think. There is
something steadfast about people who withstand
the chilling winds of trouble, the storms that
assail the heart, and have the endurance and
character to wait quietly for an April time.
~Gladys Bagg Taber (1899-1980), The Stillmeadow Road [1962]

A word carries far -- very far -- deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space.

-- Joseph Conrad: (1857-1924) Polish novelist, short-story writer

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought, and may vary greatly in colour and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.
~ Francis Bacon

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
~ Socrates

***

Chase after truth like hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat-tails.
~ Clarence Darrow

No, Sir, because I have time to think before I speak, and don't ask impertinent questions.

-- Erasmus Darwin: (1731-1802) English physician, poet

We flatter those we scarcely know,
We please the fleeting guest,
And deal full many a thoughtless blow
To those who love us best.
~Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Life's Scars

The idea that electricity & life can be joined through spontaneous generation was extremely popular again. In 1837 a man called Croft announced that had produced an insect through electricity. A few weeks later everyone said he was a fool. But, in fact at that moment people were very excited. So even in 1837 people could be excited by some one announcing that if you put electricity into a kind of soup you can get insects. ~ Pietro Corsi

***

An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.
~ H.L. Mencken

A lame duck session, for people who don't know what that means, it means the Senate is coming and the House is coming back between now and Christmas and they've got a few days to get some big things done. [11/7/2002]

George W. Bush

The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

History is Philosophy teaching by examples.~Thucydides

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
~ H. G. Wells

The atomic bomb embodies the results of a combination genius and patience as remarkable as any in the history of mankind.
~ Bertrand Russell

***

It is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously.
~ Peter Ustinov

"No pen, no ink, no table, no room, no time, no quiet, no inclination."

James Joyce
(1882-1941) born on Feb 02
Irish "novelist, poet, playwright". "He was best known for his novels of subtle, frank portraits of human nature; wrote "Ulysses," 1922; "Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man," 1914."