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When a thing has been said, and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.

Anatole France, in Wisdom and Ignorance

The Puritans hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

Thomas Macaulay, History of England, I, in Vice and Virtue

These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves.

Gilbert Highet, in Art and Literature

My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed.

Christopher Morley, in Science and Religion

A book is a mirror; if an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to look out.

G. C. Lichtenberg, in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

When skunks duel, wind direction is everything.

Michael A. Loduha, (on environmental factors in legal cases vs. the attorneys' skills; from a lecture series), in Law and Politics

It's better to waste one's youth than to do nothing with it at all.

Georges Courteline, in Life and Death

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

Robert A. Heinlein, in Men and Women

The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

Niels Bohr, in Science and Religion

Comedy is tragedy plus time.

Carol Burnett, in Happiness and Misery

A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword.

Robert Burton, in Wisdom and Ignorance

Never try to out-stubborn a cat.

Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long, in Success and Failure

Be braver -- you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.

David Lloyd George, in Success and Failure

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

Thomas Jefferson, in Wisdom and Ignorance

Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

P. J. O'Rourke, in Art and Literature

It gets late early out there.

Yogi Berra, (on Yankee Stadium in the fall), in Work and Recreation

Too much of a good thing is just that.

Brian J. Dent, in Vice and Virtue

The secret of success is constancy to purpose.

Benjamin Disraeli, in Success and Failure

It is by will alone that I set my mind in motion.

Frank Herbert, Dune, in Work and Recreation

Whenever anyone says anything he is indulging in theories.

Alfred Korzybski, in Science and Religion and Wisdom and Ignorance