Cool Quotes - M

There's a pinch of the madman in every great man.

I suppose it is much more comfortable to be mad and not know it, than to be sane and have one's doubts.

[Imagination] does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess players do. Mathematicians go mad … but creative artists very seldom.

Great wits are sure to madness near allied.

Oh, that way madness lies. Let me shun that.

Madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups.

[Majorian] presents the welcome discovery of a great and heroic character, such as sometimes arise, in a degenerate age, to vindicate the honor of the human species.

Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.

Limited in his nature, infinite in his desires, man is a fallen god who remembers heaven.

That man is an aggressive creature will hardly be disputed. With the exception of certain rodents, no other vertebrate habitually destroys members of its own species.

God must love the common man, he made so many of them.

Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable.

Such is the human race. Often it does seem such a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.

Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse.

Man differs from the animal only by a little; most men throw that little away.

Mortals, born of woman,
are of few days and full of trouble.
They springs up like flowers and wither away;
like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

I know in my heart that man is good.
That what is right will always eventually triumph.
And there's purpose and worth to each and every life.

Men are not against you; they are merely for themselves.

Man has much more to fear from the passions of his fellow-creatures, than from the convulsions of the elements.

Neither conservatives nor humorists believe man is good. But left-wingers do.

In this primitive and abject state [of hunters and gatherers], which ill deserves the name of society, the human brute, without arts or laws, almost without sense or language, is poorly distinguished from the rest of the animal creation.

For this is the tragedy of man—circumstances change, but he does not.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

[But] the man who dares not expose his life in the defence of his children and his property, has lost in society the first and most active energies of nature.

It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.

I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his imbecility but by length of time and frequency of experiment.

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

With man, most of his misfortunes are occasioned by man.

Man is neither angel nor beast; and the misfortune is that he who would act the angel acts the beast.

Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this—that you are dreadfully like other people.

History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.

Most human beings have an absolute and infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

We should expect the best and the worst from mankind, as from the weather.

One of the laws of paleontology is that an animal which must protect itself with thick armour is degenerate. It is usually a sign that the species is on the road to extinction.

Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough.

To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.

The fall of man stands a lie before Beethoven, a truth before Hitler.

At very best, a person wrapped up in himself makes a small package.

Cursed is every one who places his hope in man.

[The] vain and transitory scenes of human greatness are unworthy of a serious thought.

Human kind cannot bear very much reality.

Dear Miss Manners: Please list some tactful ways of removing a man's saliva from your face.
Gentle Reader: Please list some decent ways of acquiring a man's saliva on your face …

Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide the lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as "empty," "meaningless," or "dishonest," and scorn to use them. No matter how "pure" their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.

The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

The markets are moved by animal spirits, and not by reason.

Markets are too complex to manipulate beneficially.

No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes she were not.

Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up.

Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.

Marriage is neither heaven nor hell; it is simply purgatory.

When there's marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.

The Japanese have a word for it. It's judo—the art of conquering by yielding. The Western equivalent of judo is, "Yes, dear."

When a girl marries, she exchanges the attentions of many men for the inattention of one.

Marriage is a mistake every man should make.

As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and deaf husband.

A man in love is incomplete until he is married. Then he is finished.

By all means marry: If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

Choose in marriage only a woman whom you would choose as a friend if she were a man.

When should a man marry? A young man, not yet; an elder man, not at all.

I like being single. I'm always there when I need me.

Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.

One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.

The average woman must inevitably view her actual husband with a certain disdain; he is anything but her ideal. In consequence, she cannot help feeling that her children are cruelly handicapped by the fact that he is their father.

'Tis more blessed to give than receive; for example, wedding presents.

We were happily married for eight months. Unfortunately, we were married for four and a half years.

What nonsense people talk about happy marriages! A man can be happy with any woman so long as he doesn't love her.

When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.

When I was a young man, I vowed never to marry until I found the ideal woman. Well, I found her—but alas, she was waiting for the ideal man.

When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.

I belong to Bridegrooms Anonymous. Whenever I feel like getting married, they send over a lady in a housecoat and hair curlers to burn my toast for me.

The hardest task in a girl's life is to prove to a man that his intentions are serious.

It is assumed that the woman must wait, motionless, until she is wooed. That is how the spider waits for the fly.

A husband is what is left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted.

Men are horribly tedious when they are good husbands, and abominably conceited when they are not.

Marriage is the price men pay for sex, sex is the price women pay for marriage.

I think of my wife, and I think of Lot,
And I think of the lucky break he got.

We sleep in separate rooms, we have dinner apart, we take separate vacations—we're doing everything we can to keep our marriage together.

Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight.

I never knew what real happiness was until I got married. And by then it was too late.

When a man brings his wife flowers for no reason—there's a reason.

Take my wife … please!

Bride, n. A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.

If I ever marry, it will be on a sudden impulse, as a man shoots himself.

I respect the institution of marriage. I have always thought that every woman should marry—and no man.

A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage.

I don't see why I have to make one man miserable when I can make so many men happy.

Marriage is the death of hope.

Sex alleviates tension. Marriage causes it.

It should be a very happy marriage; they are both so much in love with him.

There's nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It's a thing no married man knows anything about.

Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.

I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewelry.

I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.

When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.

Metellus Numidicus, the censor, acknowledged to the Roman people, in a public oration, that had kind nature allowed us to exist without the help of women, we should be delivered from a very troublesome companion; and he could recommend matrimony only as the sacrifice of private pleasure to public duty.

But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this.

But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife—and his interests are divided.

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

In the most rigorous [Roman] laws, a wife was condemned to support a gamester, a drunkard, or a libertine, unless he were guilty of homicide, poison, or sacrilege, in which cases the marriage, as it should seem, might have been dissolved by the hand of the executioner.

A society in which marriage is encouraged and industry prevails soon repairs the accidental losses of pestilence and war …

My wife doesn't care what I do when I'm away, as long as I don't have a good time.

I've traveled the world and been about everywhere you can imagine. There's not anything I'm scared of except my wife.

A man may be a fool and not know it—but not if he is married.

What's the secret to a happy marriage? Lots of square feet [i.e. a big house] and 2 Tivos.

You cannot pluck roses without fear of thorns,
Nor enjoy fair wife without danger of horns.

My wife and I tried two or three times in the last few years to have breakfast together but it was so disagreeable we had to stop.

I am about to be married–and am of course in all the misery of a man in pursuit of happiness.

The desire to get married is a basic and primal instinct in women. It's followed by another basic and primal instinct: the desire to be single again.

The husband who wants a happy marriage should learn to keep his mouth shut and his cheque book open.

… gosh, maybe that's what true marriage is: two people who want each other to die.

[All] whom I have mentioned failed to obtain happiness, for want of considering that marriage is the strictest tie of perpetual friendship; that there can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity; and that he must expect to be wretched who pays to beauty, riches, or politeness that regard which only virtue and piety can claim.

That old saying which the peasants call the bachelors' prayer: "I pray thee, good Lord, that I may not be married. But if I am to be married, that I may not be a cuckold. But if I am to be a cuckold, that I may not know. But if I am to know, that I may not mind."

Marriage is a duel to the death, which no man of honour should decline.

Marriage is fine as an institution, but bad as a habit.

The stable monogamous marriage is one of the most fundamentally creative inventions of Judeo-Christian civilization.

To destroy marriage law is a step towards destroying the rule of law itself.

The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his rule begins.

To die for an idea is to set a rather high price upon conjecture.

Although always prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it should be postponed.

Men reject their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and honor those whom they have slain.

Capitalism seems to have recovered its entrepreneurial vigor. Marxist socialism appears to be dying, except perhaps in that home of lost causes, the university campus.

No Marxist ever seems to have held sensible views on agriculture, perhaps because neither Marx nor Lenin was really interested in it. Marxism is an essentially urban religion.

There is, indeed, no place for mercy in determinist systems such as Marxism. Mercy, like free will, is an anti-determinist idea.

All I know is I'm not a Marxist.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty - a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture.

Remember, son, many a good story has been ruined by over-verification.

The sports page records people's accomplishments, the front page usually records nothing but man's failures.

For most folks, no news is good news; for the press, good news is not news.

To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worthwhile. The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter.

An editor is one who separates the wheat from the chaff and prints the chaff.

… the violence of print is often the prelude to the violence of blood.

Media power today, though growing, is essentially blind, negative, destructive, and irresponsible.

The true aim of medicine is not to make men virtuous; it is to safeguard and rescue them from the consequences of their vices. The physician does not preach repentance; he offers absolution.

Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

Perseverance, n. A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.

Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.

The human race is divided into two groups: those who like to get on with it and those who like to attend meetings.

God gave us memory that we might have roses in December.

I never forgive, but I always forget.

It isn't so astonishing, the number of things that I can remember, as the number of things I can remember that aren't so.

Our memories are independent of our wills. It is not so easy to forget.

Men become old, but they never become good.

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

Some men are alive only because it is illegal to kill them.

Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men.

Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot.

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

MEN WANTED FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY
Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.

… any that pisseth against the wall.

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.

Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem.

I dress for women—and I undress for men.

The average girl would rather have beauty than brains because she knows the average man can see much better than he can think.

She was not a woman likely to settle for equality when sex gave her an advantage.

Men have a much better time of it than women; for one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier.

A man is a person who will pay two dollars for a one-dollar item he wants. A woman will pay one dollar for a two-dollar item she doesn't want.

I never hated a man enough to give him his diamonds back.

A woman wants a man who will satisfy her every want and need. A man wants every woman to satisfy his one want and need.

I married beneath me–all women do.

A wise woman will always let her husband have her way.

When a man opens the car door for his wife, it's either a new car or a new wife.

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

Disguise our bondage as we will,
'Tis woman, woman, rules us still.

'Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel.

A woman is a woman until the day she dies, but a man's a man only as long as he can.

Brigands will demand your money or your life, but a woman will demand both.

Lady Nancy Astor: "Winston, if you were my husband, I'd put poison in your coffee."
Winston Churchill: "Nancy, if you were my wife, I'd drink it."

Let thy maidservant be faithful, strong, and homely.

Men's magazines often feature pictures of naked ladies. Women's magazines also often feature pictures of naked ladies. This is because the female body is a beautiful work of art, while the male body is hairy and lumpy and should not be seen by the light of day.

Take my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a clever man, but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool.

To find out a girl's faults, praise her to her girl friends.

Women sometimes forgive a man who forces the opportunity, but never a man who misses one.

I asked a Burmese why women, after centuries of following their men, now walk ahead. He said there were many unexploded land mines since the war.

I don't mind living in a man's world as long as I can be a woman in it.

Whether women are better than men I cannot say—but I can say they are certainly no worse.

A man's womenfolk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit and authority, always regard him secretly as an ass, and with something akin to pity.

Whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.

George Moore unexpectedly pinched my behind. I felt rather honored that my behind should have drawn the attention of the great master of English prose.

She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint—the universal act of women to proclaim ownership.

I've been in love with the same woman for forty-one years. If my wife finds out, she'll kill me.

Most women set out to try to change a man, and when they have changed him they do not like him.

On one issue at least, men and women agree: they both distrust women.

Women do not like timid men. Cats do not like prudent rats.

Misogynist, n. A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.

The gods have sent medicines for the venom of serpents, but there is no medicine for a bad woman. She is more noxious than the viper, or than fire itself.

Woman, like good wine, is a sweet poison.

Women are like death: they pursue those who flee from them, and flee from those who pursue them.

A thousand men can easily live together in peace, but two women, even if they be sisters, can never do so.

A man always blames the woman who fools him. In the same way he blames the door he walks into in the dark.

To attract men, I wear a perfume called "New Car Interior."

Women have a hard time of it in this world. They are oppressed by man-made laws, man-made social customs, masculine egoism, the delusion of masculine superiority. Their one comfort is the assurance that, even though it may be impossible to prevail against man, it is always possible to enslave and torture a man.

Women have simple tastes. They can get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.

The allurement that women hold out to men is precisely the allurement that Cape Hatteras holds out to sailors: they are enormously dangerous and hence enormously fascinating. To the average man, doomed to some banal drudgery all his life long, they offer the only grand hazard that he ever encounters. Take them away, and his existence would be as flat and secure as that of a moo-cow.

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That is his.

Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.

King Solomon loved many strange women.

On Valentine's Day, millions of men give millions of women flowers, cards and candy as a heartfelt expression of the emotion that also motivates men to observe anniversaries and birthdays: fear.

Women in general seem to me to be appreciably more intelligent than men. A great many of them suffer in silence from the imbecilities of their husbands.

In every age and country, the wiser, or at least the stronger, of the two sexes, has usurped the powers of the state, and confined the other to the cares and pleasures of domestic life.

All other men govern their wives; but we command all other men, and our wives us.

Women [in ancient Rome] were condemned to the perpetual tutelage of parents, husbands, or guardians; a sex created to please and obey was never supposed to have attained the age of reason and experience. Such, at least, was the stern and haughty spirit of the ancient law …

[Thales] thanked fortune for three things: first of all, that he had been born a man and not a beast; secondly, that he was a man and not a woman; and thirdly, that he was a Greek and not a barbarian.

Women don't want to hear what you think. Women want to hear what they think—in a deeper voice.

No one attached to the traditional image of authoritarian patriarchy could imagine the consternation men endure. They have suffered an unexpected blow to the emotional quality of their lives. Its gravity has not been calculated. They have far fewer reliable links than women to the classic currents of family life. They are alienated not only, as Marx said, from the means of production but also from the means of reproduction.

I noticed that the greatest changes observable were with the women, not the men. I saw men whom thirty years had changed but slightly; but their wives had grown old. These were good women; it is very wearing to be good.

God created men and critics.

Only the stupefying ignorance of young women prevents them from comprehending the stupefying emptiness of the men who cluster round them.

The young women who attract so much attention never change: They are all stupid. They have at best only the crudest notions of their own power, and never calculate motives or consequences. Giving a young woman a young woman's body makes as much sense as giving ten teenagers Lamborghinis and telling them to drive in figure 8s around a parking lot.

That is the really great thing about being an adult male, once you get married and have children the whole decision-making process is taken out of your hands, and I for one am extremely grateful.

For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

My husband said he needed more space, so I locked him outside.

Never marry a man who hates his mother, because he'll end up hating you.

I've never yet met a man who could look after me. I don't need a husband. What I need is a wife.

Follow a shadow, it still flies you,
Seem to fly it, it will pursue:
So court a mistress, she denies you;
Let her alone, she will court you.
Say are not women truly, then,
Styl'd but the shadows of us men?

I finally figured out what men want. Men want a woman they can be incredibly intimate with … who will leave them alone.

Man is the one who desires, woman the one who is desired. This is woman's entire but decisive advantage. Through his passion nature has given man into woman's hands, and the woman who does not know how to make him her subject, her slave, her toy, and how to betray him with a smile in the end is not wise.

A woman simply is, but a man must become. Masculinity is risky and elusive. It is achieved by a revolt from woman, and is confirmed only by other men. Feminist fantasies about the ideal “sensitive” male have failed. Manhood coerced into sensitivity is no manhood at all.

Men are looking for maternal solace in women, and that's the nature of heterosexuality. Now you tell me, who really has all the power?

It is in the best interests of the human race, and of women themselves, for men to be strong.

Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.

He [Mencken] was an autodidact, with all the misplaced confidence and all the astonishing gaps that characterize that breed. Not many of us would venture to write a book about democracy without ever having read de Tocqueville, nor embark on a translation of Nietzsche with only a sketchy knowledge of German.

… there is nothing morally unhealthy about the existence of a middle class in society. No one need feel ashamed of being bourgeois, of pursuing a bourgeois way of life, or of adhering to bourgeois cultural and moral standards. That it should be necessary to assert such a proposition is a curious commentary on our age.

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

Veni, vidi, vici.
I came, I saw, I conquered.

I dropped an aerial torpedo right in the center, and the group opened up like a flowering rose. It was most entertaining.

War hath no fury like a non-combatant.

They told me it would disrupt my life less if I got killed sooner.

In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable.

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

As long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters.

The progress of manufactures and commerce insensibly collects a large multitude within the walls of a city: but these citizens are no longer soldiers; and the arts which adorn and improve the state of civil society, corrupt the habits of the military life.

[A] military force was collected in Europe, formidable by their arms and numbers, if the generals had understood the science of command, and the soldiers the duty of obedience.

[Serving in the military] is a million-dollar experience that you wouldn’t do again for a million dollars.

I am not absent-minded. It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else.

Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven.

[Riemann] had the type of mind that could hold only those things it found interesting, mathematics mostly.

Everything is miraculous. It is miraculous that one does not melt in one's bath.

"Are you lost daddy," I asked tenderly.
"Shut up," he explained.

He looked at me as if I were a side dish he hadn't ordered.

Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it.

We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others.

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.

What man ever blamed himself for his misfortune?

Kings have long arms, but Misfortune longer:
Let none think themselves out of her reach.

Most people are stupid. Nothing seems like a mistake until it's a mistake.

In the field of controversy I always pity the moderate party, who stand on the open middle ground exposed to the fire of both sides.

I have not been afraid of excess: excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.

Moderation is a fatal thing … Nothing succeeds like excess.

Total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.

Constantly practise abstinence and temperance, so that you may be as wakeful after eating as before.

Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide.

… and the practice of exercise and temperance had entitled him to a healthy old age.

Don't be so humble. You're not that great.

I was born modest; not all over, but in spots.

I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.

Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.

When you're as great as I am, it's hard to be humble.

If only I had a little humility, I would be perfect.

He neither drank, smoked, nor rode a bicycle. Living frugally, saving his money, he died early, surrounded by greedy relatives. It was a great lesson to me.

You can't force anyone to love you or to lend you money.

Money is the most egalitarian force in society. It confers power on whoever holds it.

Make money and the whole world will conspire to call you a gentleman.

Never invest your money in anything that eats or needs repairing.

To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.

Money swore an oath that nobody who did not love it should ever have it.

I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest to make money they don't want to buy things they don't need to impress people they dislike.

The holy passion of friendship is so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring in nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.

When a fellow says, "It ain't the money but the principle of the thing," it's the money.

When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.

Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant.

The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.

It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, as long as you've got money.

Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy.

The easiest way for your children to learn about money is for you not to have any.

There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency.

He [Thomas Edison] considered [money] as a raw material, like metal, to be used rather than amassed, and so he kept plowing his funds into new projects. Several times he was all but bankrupt. But he refused to let dollar signs govern his actions.

Gentlemen, if the man who invented compound interest had secured a patent on his idea he would have had without any doubt the greatest invention the world has ever produced.

The peace of the Eastern church was invaded by a swarm of fanatics [monks], incapable of fear, or reason, or humanity; and the Imperial troops acknowledged, without shame, that they were much less apprehensive of an encounter with the fiercest Barbarians.

Pleasure and guilt are synonymous terms in the language of the monks, and they discovered, by experience, that rigid fasts, and abstemious diet, are the most effectual preservatives against the impure desires of the flesh.

The monastic studies have tended, for the most part, to darken, rather than to dispel, the cloud of superstition.

I have somewhere heard or read the frank confession of a Benedictine abbot: "My vow of poverty has given me a hundred thousand crowns a year; my vow of obedience has raised me to the rank of a sovereign prince."—I forget the consequences of his vow of chastity.

[The monks'] credulity debased and vitiated the faculties of the mind: they corrupted the evidence of history; and superstition gradually extinguished the hostile light of philosophy and science.

[All] the manly virtues were oppressed by the servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks.

[The monks'] minds were inaccessible to reason or mercy …

If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.

When the president does it, that means it is not illegal.

It doesn't matter what you do in the bedroom as long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses.

[It] seems as if anything I like is either illegal or immoral or fattening.

I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob.

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.

Moral indignation is in most cases two percent moral, forty-eight percent indignation, and fifty percent envy.

Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law.

There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as moral indignation, which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue.

In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current.

Any of us can achieve virtue, if by virtue we merely mean the avoidance of the vices that do not attract us.

[Sir Stafford Cripps] has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.

I say that a man must be certain of his morality for the simple reason that he has to suffer for it.

To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.

He who postpones the hour of living rightly is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.

We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions which are unbridled by morality and true religion.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Not everything that is legal is reputable.

I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.

A society can survive the collapse of its economy, but not of its citizens' morality.

Our society is obsessed with personal rights, but it will survive only if we each adopt personal obligations.

People do bad things to other people because they do not have good values [not because of poverty or other societal problems].

The difference between moral people and immoral people is not that moral people don't have rage; it is that moral people control their rage, and immoral people don't.

Those who are merciful when they must be cruel, will, in the end, be cruel to those who deserve mercy.

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I?

[The] dreaming mind is regrettably immoral.

Nature abhors a moron.

No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.

My mother had a good deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.

Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother.

Become the person you know you should be.

You can't do anything about what you've done, but you can do something about what you're going to do.

I would have been more successful if I had left movies immediately. Stayed in the theater, gone into politics, written; anything. I've wasted a greater part of my life looking for money and trying to get along. Trying to make my work from this terribly expensive paint box, which is a movie. And I've spent too much energy on things that have nothing to do with making a movie. It's about 2 percent movie making and 98 percent hustling. That's no way to spend a life.

If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill came always together, who would escape hanging?

Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks;
When she saw what she had done
She gave her father forty-one!

English law does not permit good persons, as such, to strangle bad persons, as such.

The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes—ah, that is where the art resides!

Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.

She said, "I know you … you cannot sing". I said, "That's nothing, you should hear me play piano."

When one woman was asked how long she had been going to symphony concerts, she paused to calculate and replied, "Forty-seven years—and I find I mind it less and less."

I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to.

There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.

If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.