Famous People Say the Darndest Things

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.
Napoleon Bonaparte

Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people only once a year.
Victor Borge

After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say "I want to see the manager."
William S. Burroughs

Sometimes, when I look at my children, I say to myself, 'Lillian, you should have remained a virgin.'
Lillian Carter

Modern Art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea. (cf. Pollack, below)
John Ciardi

Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.
Michael Crichton

A pretty girl who is naked is worth a million statues.
e. e. cummings

Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.
Winston Churchill

By the time a man is wise enough to watch his step, he's too old to go anywhere.
Billy Crystal

My luck is so bad that if I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying.
Rodney Dangerfield

My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe.
Jimmy Durante

A little learning is a dangerous thing but a lot of ignorance is just as bad.
Bob Edwards

We are all apt to believe what the world believes about us.
George Eliot

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (cf.: Vaughan, below)

I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it.
W. C. Fields

The best way out is always through.
Robert Frost

I have never hated a man enough to give his diamonds back.
Zsa Zsa Gabor

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
Galileo Galilei

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is brought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?
Mahatma Gandhi

When ideas fail, words come in very handy.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Life is tough, and if you have the ability to laugh at it you have the ability to enjoy it.
Salma Hayek

Never confuse movement with action.
Ernest Hemingway

The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.
Frank Herbert

I am more and more convinced that our happiness or unhappiness depends more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves.
Alexander von Humboldt

I don't feel old. I don't feel anything until noon. Then it's time for my nap.
Bob Hope

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
Edward Langley

The difference between pornography and erotica is lighting.
Gloria Leonard (cf. Salvet, below)

Laughter is by definition healthy.
Doris Lessing

I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.
Groucho Marx

Money can't buy you happiness ... But it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.
Spike Milligan

No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.
Michel de Montaigne

Sometimes a slow gradual approach does more good than a large gesture.
Craig Newmark

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!
Pericles

The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through.
Jackson Pollock (cf.: Ciardi, above; Zappa, below)

When we are unable to find tranquillity within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld

I have unbounded admiration for the nude. I worship it like a god.
Auguste Rodin (cf.: cummings, above)

We could certainly slow the aging process down if it had to work its way through Congress.
Will Rogers

I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: - 'No good in a bed, but fine against a wall.'
Eleanor Roosevelt

The difference between eroticism and pornography is one of art.
André Salvet (cf.: G. Leonard, above)

To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography.
George Santayana

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
George Bernard Shaw

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.
Socrates

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
Herbert Spencer

If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.
Mark Twain

Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Mark Twain

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress.... But then I repeat myself.
Mark Twain

Last week, I stated this woman was the ugliest woman I had ever seen. I have since been visited by her sister, and now wish to withdraw that statement.
Mark Twain

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
Mark Twain

If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it's another nonconformist who doesn't conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity.
Bill Vaughan (cf.: Emerson, above)

Anything too stupid to be said is sung.
Voltaire

The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.
Horace Walpole

Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for.
Earl Warren

It's always better to be looked over than overlooked.
Mae West

Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.
Frank Zappa