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I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it.

Garrison Keillor, in Vice and Virtue

He who spends his time reading aphorisms of another to have one of his own, has no time or brains to have any of his own.

M. Bernheisel, in Wisdom and Ignorance

Life's tragedy is that we get old to soon and wise too late.

Benjamin Franklin, in Wisdom and Ignorance

Silence is argument carried out by other means.

Ernesto "Che" Guevara, in Wisdom and Ignorance

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.

Samuel Johnson, in Art and Literature

In politics, merit is rewarded by the possessor being raised, like a target, to a position to be fired at.

Christian Nevell Bovee, (from Politicians and Other Scoundrels by Ferdinand Lundberg), in Law and Politics

Always forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.

John F. Kennedy, in Altruism and Cynicism and Vice and Virtue

That which is static and repetitive is boring. That which is dynamic and random is confusing. In between lies art.

John A. Locke, sometimes incorrectly attributed to John Locke, in Science and Religion

When angry, count to ten before you speak; when very angry, a hundred.

Thomas Jefferson, Writings, in Wisdom and Ignorance

I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.

John Keats, in Success and Failure

A painting in a museum probably hears more foolish remarks than anything else in the world.

Edmond Jules Goncourt, in Art and Literature

I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harms way.

John Paul Jones, in War and Peace

A man who seeks truth and loves it must be reckoned precious to any human society.

Frederick the Great, in Law and Politics

I will answer anything I can with honor, but not about others.

John Brown, in Vice and Virtue

So of cheerfulness, or a good temper, the more it is spent, the more it remains.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Happiness and Misery

I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, petty -- I call it the one mortal blemish of mankind.

Friedrich Nietzsche, in Science and Religion

I hate quotations.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Wisdom and Ignorance

Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions -- it only guarantees equality of opportunity.

Irving Kristol, in Law and Politics

It is people who live by the rules that are always hoping to get them changed.

Robert Harbison, in Law and Politics

Bad policies, stupid policies, gutless policies have real consequences.

Molly Ivins, in Law and Politics