Like everybody else, when I don’t know what else to do, I seem to go in for catching colds.
—George Jean Nathan (American Critic, Editor)
Being realistic is the most commonly traveled road to mediocrity.
—Will Smith (American Actor)
All musical people seem to be happy; it is to them the engrossing pursuit; almost the only innocent and unpunished passion.
—Sydney Smith (English Preacher)
Where there is no belief, there is no blasphemy.
—Salman Rushdie (Indian-born British Novelist)
Opportunities are always everywhere, learn to see and create them.
—Jacob Gelt Dekker (Dutch Businessman)
Prohibition may be a disputed theory, but none can say that it doesn’t hold water.
—Thomas Lansing Masson (American Anthropologist)
I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born.
—Oriana Fallaci (Italian Journalist)
Remember if you marry for beauty, thou bindest thyself all thy life for that which perchance, will neither last nor please thee one year: and when thou hast it, it will be to thee of no price at all.
—Walter Raleigh (English Explorer, Courtier)
People may expect too much of journalism. Not only do they expect it to be entertaining, they expect it to be true.
—Lewis H. Lapham (American Journalist)
Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned.
—Peter Marshall (Scottish-American Preacher)
Man is always waiting for something that never quite arrives.
—Alejo Carpentier (Cuban Novelist)
Far more has been accomplished for the welfare and progress of mankind by preventing bad actions than by doing good ones.
—William Lyon Mackenzie King (Canadian Statesman)
Language exerts hidden power, like the moon on the tides.
—Rita Mae Brown (American Writer, Feminist)
There is no kind of harassment that a man may not inflict on a woman with impunity in civilized societies.
—Denis Diderot (French Philosopher, Writer)
Ignorance has always been the weapon of tyrants; enlightenment the salvation of the free.
—Bill Richardson (American Politician)