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

Garrison Keillor, in Vice and Virtue

Comedy is tragedy plus time.

Carol Burnett, in Happiness and Misery

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Winston Churchill, in Law and Politics

Why be a man when you can be a success?

Bertolt Brecht, in Success and Failure

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

Albert Einstein, in Vice and Virtue

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

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

Thomas Jefferson, Writings, in Wisdom and Ignorance

Ignorance does not necesarilly mean one has a lack of wisdom, for a most ignorant person can be one with much wisdom. It's "live and learn" that creates wisdom.

Austin Holmes, in Wisdom and Ignorance

I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.

John Keats, in Success and Failure

Riot: A popular entertainment given to the military by innocent bystanders.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, in War and Peace

To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.

James Carse, in Life and Death

Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life. Don't let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.

R. I. Fitzhenry, in Wisdom and Ignorance

Never try to out-stubborn a cat.

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

Death is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down. The difference between sex and death is that with death you can do it alone and no one is going to make fun of you.

Woody Allen, in Life and Death and Love and Hate

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

All these nervous breakdowns are driving me crazy.

Lee Hawkins, in Health and Disease

There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.

Douglas MacArthur, in Success and Failure

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

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

Benjamin Franklin, in Wisdom and Ignorance

Life is like a sewer -- what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.

Tom Lehrer, (from the album An Evening Wasted), in Life and Death