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Proverbs and Sayings
Other-=-
The road to truth is long, and lined the entire way with annoying
bastards.
—Alexander Jablokov
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One man with courage makes a majority.
—Andrew Jackson
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Great ideas need landing gear as well as wings.
—C. D. Jackson
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I'm sorry if the following sounds combative and excessively personal, but
that's my general style.
—Ian Jackson
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Love is a game of Calvinball.
—Alan Jaffray
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Sometimes being pushed to the wall gives you the momentum necessary to get
over it.
—Peter de Jager
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In democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism it's your count that
votes.
—Mogens Jallberg
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Were I not a king, I would be a university man.
—King James I of England
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Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different
speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
—Clive James
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It is only when they go wrong that machines remind you how powerful they
are.
—Clive James
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A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely
rearranging their prejudices.
—William James
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Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the
fact.
—William James
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It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at
all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the
only thing that makes the result come true.
—William James
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The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
—William James
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The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be
appreciated.
—William James
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There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that
is to contradict other philosophers.
—William James
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Power is the ability not to have to please.
—Elizabeth Janeway
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Dismissed. That's a Starfleet expression for "get out."
—Captain Kathryn Janeway to Neelix, "Star Trek: Voyager"
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We're Starfleet officers. Weird is part of the job.
—Captain Kathryn Janeway
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God is the tangential point between zero and infinity.
—Alfred Jarry
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Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
—Thomas Jefferson
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I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.
—Thomas Jefferson
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I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself
infinitely the happier for it.
—Thomas Jefferson
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I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world,
and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one
redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.
—Thomas Jefferson
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In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to
Liberty.
—Thomas Jefferson
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Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.
—Thomas Jefferson
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Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you
fail.
—Thomas Jefferson
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The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.
—Thomas Jefferson
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The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads
nothing but newspapers.
—Thomas Jefferson
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We never repent of having eaten too little.
—Thomas Jefferson
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The woman whose behavior indicates that she will make a scene if she is
told the truth asks to be deceived.
—Elizabeth Jenkins
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As my mother always said, "You can't talk about the fate of the universe
on an empty stomach." ...Actually, she never said that.
—Eric Jensen, astronomy professor
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You don't usually see mathematicians running around DuPont yelling, "We
figured it out! Get the oxen!"
—Eric Jensen, astronomy professor, comparing our modern age with
the Greeks
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I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.
—Jerome K. Jerome
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It is always the best policy to tell the truth, unless, of course, you are
an exceptionally good liar.
—Jerome K. Jerome
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It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work
to do.
—Jerome K. Jerome
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Love is like the measles; we all have to go through it.
—Jerome K. Jerome
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I'd rather laugh with the sinners
Than cry with the saints
The sinners are much more fun
—Billy Joel
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You may be right, I may be crazy,
But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for.
—Billy Joel
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Men are like wine—some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with
age.
—Pope John XXIII
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It is good to be the possessor of some mountain-top experience.
—Vernon Johns
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The First Lady is an unpaid public servant elected by one person—her
husband.
—Lady Bird Johnson
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If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the
headline that afternoon would read: PRESIDENT CAN'T SWIM.
—Lyndon B. Johnson
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If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing
the thinking.
—Lyndon B. Johnson
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No member of our generation who wasn't a Communist or a dropout in the
thirties is worth a damn.
—Lyndon B. Johnson
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Only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. One is to let her
think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.
—Lyndon B. Johnson
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A cucumber should be well-sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and
then thrown out.
—Samuel Johnson
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A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.
—Samuel Johnson
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Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.
—Samuel Johnson
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Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not
the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.
—Samuel Johnson
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I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how
bad I am.
—Samuel Johnson
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It is better to live rich than to die rich.
—Samuel Johnson
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Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
—Samuel Johnson
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Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
—Samuel Johnson
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Sherry [Thomas Sheridan] is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken
him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of
stupidity, sir, is not in Nature.
—Samuel Johnson
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The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
—Samuel Johnson
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The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.
—Samuel Johnson
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We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have
never deceived us.
—Samuel Johnson
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What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
—Samuel Johnson
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Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is
not original, and the part that is original is not good.
—Samuel Johnson
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Always and never are two words you should always remember never to
use.
—Wendell Johnson
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Campus sidewalks never exist as the straightest line between two
points.
—M. M. Johnston
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I'm glad we don't have to play in the shade.
—Golfer Bobby Jones, on being told that it was 105 degrees in the
shade.
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And it should be the law: If you use the word "paradigm" without knowing
what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions.
—David Jones
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"Eight Days of Luke" was refused by another confused publisher on the
grounds that children shouldn't strike matches. When my agent pointed out
that David in the book was twelve years old, the publisher said that he
was striking matches to summon the devil, then, and this couldn't be
allowed.
—Diana Wynne Jones
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I always wonder why it's Art to take your clothes off; they never put in
the goose pimples.
—Jamie Hamilton (Diana Wynne Jones, "The Homeward Bounders")
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I think my moment of revelation came when I saw this young man come on
court in the most flamboyant clothes. He had a sweet smile and
questionably blonde hair and a generally chirpy glamour that in fact
concealed huge skill. When he was interviewed he confessed to hating to
get angry and it was also said that he slithered out of winning when it
came to the big matches. And I thought, My God! This Andre Agassi is the
image of Howl in my book HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE!
—Diana Wynne Jones
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"Is it a new thought then, to say: keep on, there's always hope? I thought
that was a very old saying."
"Yes, but you're the first person I've met who's still saying it when he's
dead. That has to be new."
—Diana Wynne Jones, "The Crown of Dalemark"
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It was quite an arduous process, but among us all we have finally
eliminated (I think) all the transatlanticisms. Cars have boots again
instead of trunks, and so on. The American way always makes me think
Americans see cars as elephants running backwards very fast.
—Diana Wynne Jones on un-Americanizing "Archer's Goon"
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Theseus made unscrupulous use of Ariadne (whom he left on an island where
Bacchus later found her—I always think that really meant she took to
drink, poor girl).
—Diana Wynne Jones
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Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they're
going to catch you in next.
—Franklin P. Jones
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Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake
when you make it again.
—Franklin P. Jones
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Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend,
an acquaintance, or a stranger.
—Franklin P. Jones
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One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least somebody's
listening.
—Franklin P. Jones
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The most efficient labor-saving device is still money.
—Franklin P. Jones
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The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate
it.
—Franklin P. Jones
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Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.
—Thomas Jones
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Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we
didn't.
—Erica Jong
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Ambivalence is a wonderful tune to dance to. It has a rhythm all its
own.
—Erica Jong
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Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow talent to the
dark place where it leads.
—Erica Jong
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Confound these ancestors....They've stolen our best ideas!
—Ben Jonson
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Choose in marriage only a woman whom you would choose as a friend if she
were a man.
—Joseph Joubert
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Imagination is the eye of the soul.
—Joseph Joubert
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Space is to place as eternity is to time.
—Joseph Joubert
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The heart has its prisons that intelligence cannot unlock.
—Marcel Jouhandeau
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Mistakes are the portals of discovery.
—James Joyce
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Just keep in mind that we'll have to put some sort of limit on the slender
young attractive very evil male villains, in particular of the unclothed
variety.
—Ethan Jucovy
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I can't understand it. I can't even understand the people who can
understand it.
—Queen Juliana of the Netherlands.
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As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle
a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.
—C. G. Jung
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Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding
of ourselves.
—C. G. Jung
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Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.
—C. G. Jung
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The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not
between right and wrong.
—C. G. Jung
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An ounce of emotion is equal to a ton of facts.
—John Junor
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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
[Who watches the watchmen?]
—Juvenal
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We all live in a state of ambitious poverty.
—Juvenal