Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Marriages we regard as the happiest are those in which each of the partners believes he or she got the best of it.
History repeats itself, but in such cunning disguise that we never detect the resemblance until the damage is done.
When we have "second thoughts" about something, our first thoughts don't seem like thoughts at all - just feelings.
When we have 'second thoughts' about something, our first thoughts don't seem like thoughts at all - just feelings.
The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.
There are always too many Democratic congressmen, too many Republican congressmen, and never enough U.S. congressmen.
If you cannot endure to be thought in the wrong, you will begin to do terrible things to make the wrong appear right.
Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.
The main discomfort in being a middle-of-the-roader is that you get sideswiped by partisans going in both directions.
Why do so many people yearn for an eternal life when they don't even know what to do with themselves in this brief one?
Character is something you forge for yourself; temperament is something you are born with and can only slightly modify.
It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, 'the greatest', but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is.
As long as there are human beings, there will be the idea of brotherhood -- and an almost total inability to practice it.
Genealogy: A perverse preoccupation of those who seek to demonstrate that their forebears were better people than they are.
The greatest educational dogma is also its greatest fallacy: the belief that what must be learned can necessarily be taught.
Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.
Nothing is as easy to make as a promise this winter to do something next summer; this is how commencement speakers are caught.
The truest test of independent judgment is being able to dislike someone who admires us, and to admire someone who dislikes us.
Intolerance is the most socially acceptable form of egotism, for it permits us to assume superiority without personal boasting.
Time is love, above all else. It is the most precious commodity in the world and should be lavished on those we care most about.
We can often endure an extra pound of pain far more easily than we can suffer the withdrawal of an ounce of accustomed pleasure.
A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, his is also one who is permanently disappointed in the future.
Maturity begins when we're content to feel we're right about something without feeling the necessity to prove someone else wrong.
Middle Age is that perplexing time of life when we hear two voices calling us, one saying, 'Why not?' and the other, 'Why bother?'
Those obsessed with health are not healthy; the first requisite of good health is a certain calculated carelessness about oneself.
As WArden Lawes once said of convicts, no man can be called a failure until he has tried something he really likes, and fails at it.
Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.
We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we have stopped saying 'It got lost,' and say, 'I lost it.'
Any creed whose basic doctrines do not include respect for the creeds of others, is simply power politics masquerading as philosophy.
You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a realist he is preparing to do something that he is secretly ashamed of doing.
It may be true that the weak will always be driven to the wall; but it is the task of a just society to see that the wall is climbable.
When a baseball player makes an error, it goes into the record and is published. How many of us could stand this sort of daily scrutiny?
Being yourself is not remaining what you were, or being satisfied with what you are. It is the point of departure and far from the goal.
The best combination of parents consists of a father who is gentle beneath his firmness, and a mother who is firm beneath her gentleness.
Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a "necessary evil", it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.
The profound immoralities of our time are cruelty, indifference, injustice and the use of others as means rather than ends in themselves.
A 'penchant for telling the truth' can cripple a candidates chances faster than being caught in flagrante delicto with the governor's wife.
"Terrorism" is what we call the violence of the weak, and we condemn it; "war" is what we call the violence of the strong, and we glorify it.
Self-discipline without talent can often achieve astounding results, whereas talent without self-discipline inevitably dooms itself to failure.
Honesty consists of the unwillingness to lie to others; maturity, which is equally hard to attain, consists of the unwillingness to lie to oneself.
Much as a teacher may wince at the thought, he is also an entertainer—for unless he can hold his audience, he cannot really instruct or edify them.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem, but the perpetual human predicament is that the answer soon poses its own problems.
By the time a man asks you for advice, he has generally made up his mind what he wants to do, and is looking for confirmation rather than counseling.
The pessimist sees only the tunnel; the optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel; the realist sees the tunnel and the light - and the next tunnel.
Many people feel "guilty" about things they shouldn't feel guilty about, in order to shut out feelings of guilt about things they should feel guilty about.
Making out an invitation list for a party brings out the worst in everyone. It is then that our most ruthless estimates of the people we know come into play.
The commonest fallacy among women is that simply having children makes them a mother - which is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one a musician.
The art of listening needs its highest development in listening to oneself; our most important task is to develop an ear that can really hear what we're saying.
Real loneliness consists not in being alone, but in being with the wrong person, in the suffocating darkness of a room in which no deep communication is possible.
As the horsepower in modern automobiles steadily rises, the congestion of traffic steadily lowers the average possible speed of your car. This is known as Progress.