Evelyn C. Leeper's Quote File
Evelyn C. Leeper's Quote File
Quotations I've Used in My .signature File
Updated: 17 Feb 2009
Nobody believes the official spokesman ... but everybody
trusts an unidentified source.
--Ron Nesen, 1977
I know you can't live on hope alone but without hope
life is not worth living.
--Harvey Milk
Be braver. You cannot cross a chasm in two small jumps.
--unknown
Loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul.
--Mark Twain
A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what
he reads as a task will do him little good.
--Samuel Johnson
Just because everything is different doesn't mean
anything has changed.
--Irene Peter
A great many people think they are thinking when they are
only rearranging their prejudices.
--William James
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test
a man's character, give him power.
--Abraham Lincoln
All art at some time and in some manner becomes mass entertainment,
and if it does not it dies and is forgotten.
--Raymond Chandler
Heretic: someone who disagrees with you about
something neither of you knows anything about.
--anonymous
Life is complex--it has real and imaginary parts.
--anonymous
I believe I found the missing link between animal and civilized man. It is us.
--Konrad Lorenz
He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.
--John Stuart Mill
Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.
--Adam Smith
Faith is not so much a binary pole as a quantum state,
which tends to indeterminacy when closely examined.
--John Updike
Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn't have to experience it.
--Max Frisch
Junk is something you keep for years, then throw away two weeks before you need it.
--unattributed
By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.
--Mark Twain
An era can be said to end when its illusions are exhausted.
--Arthur Miller
Two is not equal to 3, not even for large values of 2.
--Grabel's Law
Real charity doesn't care if it's tax-deductible or not.
--Dan Bennett
A great many people think they are thinking when they
are only rearranging their prejudices.
--William James
In literature, as in love, we are astonished
by what is chosen by others.
--Andre Maurois
We don't inherit the earth from our ancestors,
we borrow it from our children.
--David Brower
Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can.
That is the only secret of style.
--Matthew Arnold
Civilization is a movement, not a condition; it is a voyage, not a harbor.
--Arthur Toynbee
Complaint is the largest tribute heaven receives,
and the sincerest part of our devotion.
--Jonathan Swift
A passionate commitment to social justice is no substitute for
knowing what the hell you're talking about.
--Thomas Sowell
When a philosopher says something that is true then it is trivial.
When he says something that is not trivial then it is false.
--Gauss
The foolish man wonders at the unusual;the wise man at the usual.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.
--Andre Gide
The average man, who does not know what to do with his life,
wants another one which will last forever.
--Anatole France
Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.
--Niels Bohr
Discovery consists of seeing what everyone else has seen
and thinking what no one else has thought.
--Albert Szent-Gyorgi
If the church put in half the time on covetousness that it does on lust,
this would be a better world.
--Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"
I found a kind of party terrorism pervading and oppressing
the minds of our best men.
--James Garfield
The fundamental precept of liberty is toleration.
--Calvin Coolidge
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
--Thomas Jefferson
This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless
we make it a good place for all of us to live in.
--Theodore Roosevelt
People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff
of which dictatorships are made.
--Franklin Delano Roosevelt
If you want to live like a Republican,
you've got to vote for a Democrat.
--Harry S. Truman
Most of us, when all is said and done, like what we like
and make up reasons for it afterwards.
--Soren F. Petersen
"Try to keep things in perspective. Fifty years from now, kids
in history classes will be yawning over what panics us today."
Separate is not equal. The right time to do the right thing
is always now. Those who say 'wait' usually mean 'never.'
--Bonnie Tinker and The Rev. Cecil Prescod
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test
a man's character, give him power.
--Abraham Lincoln
Loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain
or freed a human soul.
--Mark Twain
If you won't be better tomorrow than you are today, what
need have you for tomorrow?
--Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav
The greatest use of life is to spend it for something
that will outlast it.
--William James
We need to be creating a world that we would like to live in when
we're not the biggest power on the block.
--Bill Clinton
There are two futures, the future of desire and the future of fate,
and man's reason has never learned to separate them.
--J. D. Bernal
Dred Scott;
Plessy v. Ferguson;
Bowers v. Hardwick;
RIP
Thanks to words, we have been able to rise above the brutes; and thanks
to words, we have often sunk to the level of demons.
--Aldous Huxley
What appears to be coming at you is coming from you.
--Jack Flanders
Just as you choose to believe in determinism, I am forced to believe in free will.
--(unknown)
Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they
one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among men.
--J. R. R. Tolkien, THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, Book III, Chapter 2
At the foundation of well-founded belief lies belief that is not founded.
--Ludwig Wittgenstein
Unless we dream the best dreams of which we are capable, the
future will be poorer than it might be.
--Brian Stableford
I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.
--Jorge Luis Borges
Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western
religion, rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic
of Western science.
--Gary Zukav, "The Dancing Wu Li Masters"
Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of
bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither
did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
--Ezekiel 16:49
A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.
--Adlai Stevenson
Let us speak, though we show all our faults and weaknesses--
for it is a sign of strength to be weak, to know it, and out
with it...
--Herman Melville
There are infimal readers, readers who want to read the same book over
and over, but will never read the same book twice.
--Brian Stableford
Apatheism: The school of belief where one doesn't particularly
care if there is/are god(s).
--Taki Kogoma
We should be as passionately opposed to those who discriminate against
gays and lesbians as we were passionate in our opposition to apartheid.
-- Archbishop Desmond Tutu, February 1999, Brown Universityy
History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it just screams, "Why don't
you listen to me?" and lets fly with a big stick.
--John W. Campbell, Jr.
Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive,
diffucult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind
boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it.
--Gene Spafford, 1992
I'm coming to the conlcusion that the past really *is* another
country, one that sends invading armies into this one.
--Avram Grumer
Haiku for a New Year:
2001: / A new odyssey led by / George W. Bush
Golden ages always shine more brightly from a distance.
-- Jack Shafer
Nations don't start out. There is not a particular moment when they
unveil the essence of themselves. They are always a work in progress.
-- Simon Schama
Q: How many Floridians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Four! No, Two! No ... um ... wait. Can I let you know in six hours?
Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of sXXXch,
... or the right of the people peaceably to XXXemble, and to
peXXXion the government for a redress of grievances.
-- from the First Amendment to the US ConsXXXution
I search after truth, by which man never yet was harmed.
--Marcus Aurelius
What is boredom? It is when there is simultaneously too much and not enough.
--Jean-Paul Sartre
I will say this much for the nobility: that tyrannical, murderous,
rapacious, and morally rotten as they were, they were deeply and
enthusiastically religious.
--Mark Twain, Conn. Yank.
I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better
than myself.
--Mikhail Baryshnikov
So many problems are solved simply by knowing enough verbs.
--Teresa Nielsen Hayden
The biggest threat to traditional marriage is not two gay people who
love each other, but shows like "Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire?"
Thanks to words, we have been able to rise above the brutes; and thanks
to words, we have often sunk to the level of demons.
--Aldous Huxley
GOP Ad: Call Al Gore. Tell him the only litmus test ought to be
for patriotism.
Me: I thought that what people supporting gays in the military
have been saying all along.
Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Every day you're
alive is a special occasion.
--Ann Wells
The artist is a kind of prison from which the works of art escape.
--Jean Cocteau
In times of great stress, it is a relief to have the assurance that I can
never falsely believe that I exist.
Personally, I'm no fan of Oprah. But if she can use television to get
America to read, she has accomplished a feat more daunting than Hannibal
moving elephants over the Alps.
--Barnet Sherman
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over
public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
--Richard Feynman, Appendix to the Rogers Commission Reportt
on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident
There are two types of people in this world: those who think giant steam
powered robotic spiders are stupid, and those who don't.
--Bryan F. Theiss
If it's supposed to move and it doesn't, spray with WD-40;
if it's not supposed to move and it does, wrap with duct tape;
if it's more complicated than this, use a Swiss Army knife.
Publishing a book of poetry in the United States is liking dropping rose
petals off the rim of Grand Canyon and listening for the echo.
--Don Marquis
When you are trying to understand the world, it is unwise to assume
that you occupy a privileged position in it.
--Jim Holt
If you won't be better tomorrow than you are today, what
need have you for tomorrow?
--Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav
Even if one believes in nothing, there are moments in life when one is
always of the religion of the temple which is nearest at hand.
--HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, book 11, chapter 1
The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good,
in spite of all the people who say he is very good.
--Robert Graves
If everyone in Congress who has ever had an affair resigned, I have a feeling
Barney Frank would have the place to himself.
--Ailsa Murphy
A lot of writers can pull off being subtle, but it takes a genius like
Melville to write a great book that is so utterly lacking in subtlety.
--Fiona Webster
All work and no play makes Jack a valued employee.
That's how things are--you open the door to a possibility and the next
thing you know, an actuality has you by the throat.
--Russell Hoban
I am so small I can barely be seen. How can this great love be inside me?
Look at your eyes. They are small but they see enormous things.
--Rumi
What has the study of biology taught you about the Creator, Dr. Haldane?
I'm not sure, but He seems to be inordinately fond of beetles.
Lord, help me to relax about insignificant details beginning
tomorrow at 11:41.23 AM EST.
Never throw fruit at someone who understands the theatrics
of the situation better than you do.
--David Denby
Being gay, the last time I looked, had nothing to do with reading a balance
book, fixing a broken bone or changing a spark plug.
--Bill Clinton
Those who do not learn from the future are destined to make mistakes in it.
--Warren Miller (New Yorker)
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough
to make us love one another.
--Jonathan Swift
Life is not a "brief candle." It is a splendid torch that I want to make burn
as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
--George Bernard Shaw
The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but
queerer than we *can* suppose.
--J.B.S. Haldane
For there is a truth which cannot be bought or sold,
imposed by force, resisted or escaped.
--Greg Egan
Das Schone ist nichts als des Schrecklichen Anfang.
[Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror.]
--Rainer Maria Rilke
If it's not fun and it's not important then why am I doing it?
--Bill Hyde, Bell Laboratories
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
--Voltaire
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than
absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
--Martin Luther King
I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.
--Jorge Luis Borges
The destiny of Western civilization turns on the issue of our struggle
with all that Madison Avenue stands for.
--Arnold Toynbee
El sueno de la razon produce monstruos.
--caption to plate 43 of Goya's "Caprichios"
If a million people believe a foolish thing,
it is a foolish thing.
--Anatole France
If you threw all the liars out of Hollywood, Pompeii would look
like a bustling metropolis, by comparison.
--Peter Reiher
The tendency toward good in human nature has a force which no creed can
utterly counteract, and which insures the ultimate triumph of that tendency
over all dogmatic perversions.
--George Eliot, "Evangelical Teaching"
There isn't a limited amount of love in Iowa. It isn't a non-renewable
resource. If Amy and Barbara or Mike or Steve love each other, it
doesn't mean that John and Mary can't.
--Rep. Ed Fallon, Iowa
Enveloped in a common mist, we seem to walk in clearness ourselves,
and behold only the mist that enshrouds others.
--George Eliot, "Leaves from a Note-Book"
People are worried about online porn on the Internet. It's the endless
`Who's better--Kirk or Picard?' threads that should scare them.
--Jim Mullen, Entertainment Weekly
I like anarchy, but it's kind of hard to enforce.
--Brian Westley
It is better to debate a question without settling it than
to settle a question without debating it.
--Joseph Joubert
If there were a verb meaning 'to believe falsely,' it would
not have any significant first person, present indicative.
--Ludwig Wittgenstein
I don't care what may be his politics. I don't care what may be his
religion. I don't care what may be his color. I don't care who he is.
So long as he is honest, he shall be served by me.
--Theodore Roosevelt
No one is ever fanatically devoted to something they have complete
confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to
rise tomorrow. They know it is. Whenever someone is fanatically
devoted to a set of beliefs or dogmas or goals, it is only because
those beliefs or goals are in doubt.
--Robert M. Pirsig
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as
certain about anything as were the people who built this place.
--Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg on her visit to Auschwitz
The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice,
and the desire for personal independence--these are the features of the Jewish
tradition which make me thank my stars that I belong to it.
--Albert Einstein
"Am I politically correct today? Do I do crystals and New Age?
Obviously, women's music's for me--Edith Piaf, Bessie Smith, and Patti Page."
--Lynn Lavner
Remember, high-tech means breaks down next week, while cutting
edge means breaks down this afternoon.
--Bruce Sterling
Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies: As an online discussion grows longer, the
probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
Sircar's Corollary: If the USENET discussion touches on homosexuality
or Heinlein, Nazis or Hitler are mentioned within three days.
[Your propagation may vary.]
Note to General Powell, Senator Dole, Senator Nunn, et al:
Equal means getting the same thing, at the same time, and in
the same place.
--Justice Thurgood Marshall
To make the point [that homosexuals hamper military effectiveness] I'd say that
you would have to sift through your military history till you find an instance
in which failure has been attributed to the presense of homosexuals on the
losing side. I'm not aware of any such case in the past 2500 years, but I'd
be interested to hear what you find.
--Nathan Engle
God does not play dice with the universe.
--Albert Einstein
Albert, stop telling God what to do.
--Niels Bohr
God does not play dice with the universe.
--Albert Einstein
Not only does God play dice with the universe, but sometimes he throws the
dice where they can't be seen.
--Stephen Hawking
IQ describes how big your gas tank is, but it doesn't tell if you're
running on empty.
--Harvey Newstrom
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..."
--Isaac Asimov
I do not feel obliged to believe that same God who endowed us with sense,
reason, and intellect had intended for us to forgo their use.
--Galileo
Why can't they have gay people in the army? Personally, I think they are
just afraid of a thousand gay guys with M16s going, "Who'd you call a faggot?"
--John Stewart
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest thing: The decayed and degraded
state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war is
worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he
cares about more than his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no
chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men
than himself.
--John Stuart Mill
Oh, Irony! We don't get that here. No, the last time we had irony was '82,
when I was the sole practitioner of it and I got tired of being stared at.
--Steve Martin, ROXANNE
Never was the advice "Better to be silent and be thought a fool than to open
your mouth and remove all doubt" been as true as on Usenet.
--Evelyn C. Leeper
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
--Edmund Burke
If I am not for myself, who is for me? If I am only for myself what am I?
And if not now, when?
--Hillel
Evelyn C. Leeper (eleeper@optonline.net)
Go to Evelyn Leeper's home page.