—Dorothy Parker, "The Far-Sighted Muse"
%
Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.
—Dorothy Parker
%
Here in my heart, I am Helen;
I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least.
I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Stael;
I'm Salome, moon of the East.
Here in my soul I am Sappho;
Lady Hamilton am I, as well.
In me Recamier vies with Kitty O'Shea,
With Dido, and Eve, and poor Nell.
I'm all of the glamorous ladies
At whose beckoning history shook.
But you are a man, and see only my pan,
So I stay at home with a book.
—Dorothy Parker
%
His voice was a intimate as the rustle of sheets.
—Dorothy Parker
%
I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true.
—Dorothy Parker
%
I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the
roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do any thing. Not one single
thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more.
—Dorothy Parker
%
If I don't drive around the park,
I'm pretty sure to make my mark.
If I'm in bed each night by ten,
I may get back my looks again.
If I abstain from fun and such,
I'll probably amount to much;
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.
—Dorothy Parker
%
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he
gave it to.
—Dorothy Parker
%
Lady, lady, should you meet
One whose ways are all discreet,
One who murmurs that his wife
Is the lodestar of his life,
One who keeps assuring you
That he never was untrue,
Never loved another one...
Lady, lady, better run!
—Dorothy Parker
%
Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it
stays. Clutch it, and it darts away.
—Dorothy Parker
%
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.
—Dorothy Parker
%
One more drink and I'll be under the host.
—Dorothy Parker
%
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp.
Acids stain you,
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give.
Gas smells awful—
You might as well live!
—Dorothy Parker
%
Say my love is easy had,
Say I'm bitten raw with pride,
Say I am too often sad—
Still behold me at your side.
Say I'm neither brave nor young,
Say I woo and coddle care,
Say the devil touched my tongue—
Still you have my heart to wear.
But say my verses do not scan,
And I get me another man!
—Dorothy Parker
%
Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of
themselves.
—Dorothy Parker
%
The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere
pleasant—and let the air out of their tires.
—Dorothy Parker
%
The ladies men admire, I've heard,
Would shudder at a wicked word.
Their candle gives a single light;
They'd rather stay at home at night.
They do not keep awake till three,
Nor read erotic poetry.
They never sanction the impure,
Nor recognize an overture.
They shrink from powders and from paints...
So far, I've had no complaints.
—Dorothy Parker
%
The man she had was kind and clean
And well enough for every day,
But oh, dear friends, you should have seen
The one that got away.
—Dorothy Parker
%
The two most beautiful words in the English language are "check
enclosed."
—Dorothy Parker
%
There's a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth
in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.
—Dorothy Parker
%
There's little in taking or giving,
There's little in water or wine:
This living, this living, this living,
Was never a project of mine.
Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is
The gain of the one at the top,
For art is a form of catharsis,
And love is a permanent flop,
And work is the province of cattle,
And rest's for a clam in a shell,
So I'm thinking of throwing the battle—
Would you kindly direct me to hell?
—Dorothy Parker
%
This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with great
force.
—Dorothy Parker
%
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was
terrible with raisins in it.
—Dorothy Parker
%
Where's the man could ease a heart
Like a satin gown?
—Dorothy Parker
%
Who loves not wisely but too well
Will look on Helen's face in hell,
But he whose love is thin and wise
Will view John Knox in Paradise.
—Dorothy Parker
%
A committee takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts and dies, scattering
the seed from which other committees will bloom.
—Parkinson
%
The chief product of an automated society is a widespread and deepening
sense of boredom.
—C. Northcote Parkinson
%
Uncontrolled power will turn even saints into savages. And we can all be
counted on to live down to our lowest impulses.
—Parmen, "Plato's Stepchildren," "Star Trek"
%
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
—Ellen Parr
%
I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable
to sit still in a room.
—Blaise Pascal
%
Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice, and
happiness, which are everything in this world.
—Blaise Pascal
%
If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends
in the world.
—Blaise Pascal
%
Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is
tyrannical.
—Blaise Pascal
%
Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.
—Blaise Pascal
%
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.
—Blaise Pascal
%
Love may laugh at locksmiths, but he has a profound respect for money
bags.
—Sidney Paternoster
%
Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of
our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply...For fear will rob him of
all if he gives too much.
—Alan Paton
%
God forgives us....Who am I not to forgive?
—Alan Paton
%
To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's
responsibility as a free man.
—Alan Paton
%
What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another?
—Alan Paton
%
Who knows for what we live, and struggle, and die?...Wise men write many
books, in words too hard to understand. But this, the purpose of our
lives, the end of all our struggle, is beyond all human wisdom.
—Alan Paton
%
A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.
—Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.
%
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they
will surprise you with their ingenuity.
—Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.
%
The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other
bastard die for his.
—Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.
%
Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they
lack.
—Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.
%
This isn't right. This isn't even wrong.
—Wolfgang Pauli, on a paper submitted by a physicist
colleague
%
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
—Lester B. Pearson
%
Behind every successful man is a surprised woman.
—Maryon Pearson
%
Never stand between a dog and the hydrant.
—John Peers
%
Come quickly, I am tasting stars!
—Dom Perignon, upon discovering champagne
%
The computing field is always in need of new cliches.
—Alan Perlis
%
I am not in this world to live up to other people's expectations, nor do I
feel that the world must live up to mine.
—Frederick S. Perls
%
Always be sincere, even when you don't mean it.
—Irene Peter
%
An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he
predicted yesterday didn't happen today.
—Laurence J. Peter
%
A pessimist is a man who looks both ways when he crosses the street.
—Laurence J. Peter
%
Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has
lost its status.
—Laurence J. Peter
%
Competence, like truth, beauty, and contact lenses, is in the eye of the
beholder.
—Laurence J. Peter
%
Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who
will get the blame.
—Laurence J. Peter
%
Education is a method whereby one acquires a higher grade of
prejudices.
—Laurence J. Peter
%
Equal opportunity means everyone will have a fair chance at being
incompetent.
—Laurence J. Peter
%
If two wrongs don't make a right, try three.
—Laurence J. Peter
%
If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere
else.
—Lawrence J. Peter
%
In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of
incompetence.
—Laurence J. Peter
%
Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting
where you heard it.
—Laurence J. Peter
%
Psychiatry enables us to correct our faults by confessing our parents'
shortcomings.
—Laurence J. Peter
%
Not only does the English Language borrow words from other languages, it
sometimes chases them down dark alleys, hits them over the head, and goes
through their pockets.
—Eddy Peters
%
You don't die of a broken heart, you only wish you did.
—Marilyn Peterson
%
The only problem with seeing too much is that it makes you insane.
—Phaedrus
%
The way I understand it, the Russians are sort of a combination of evil
and incompetence...sort of like the Post Office with tanks.
—Emo Philips
%
All the world's a cage.
—Jeanne Phillips
%
The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to
grow sharper.
—Eden Phillpotts
%
Things are only impossible until they're not.
—Captain Jean-Luc Picard, "Star Trek: The Next Generation"
%
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
—Pablo Picasso
%
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he
grows up.
—Pablo Picasso
%
Everything you can imagine is real.
—Pablo Picasso
%
God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant
and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other
things.
—Pablo Picasso
%
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how
to do it.
—Pablo Picasso
%
In archaeology you uncover the unknown. In diplomacy you cover the
known.
—Thomas Pickering
%
Adding sound to movies would be like putting lipstick on the Venus de
Milo.
—actress Mary Pickford, 1925
%
Never eat more than you can lift.
—Miss Piggy
%
You don't sew with a fork, so I see no reason to eat with knitting
needles.
—Miss Piggy, on eating Chinese food
%
There's a way out of any cage.
—Captain Christopher Pike, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"), "Star
Trek"
%
The Least Successful Executions
History has furnished us with two executioners worthy of
attention. The first performed in Sydney in Australia. In 1803 three
attempts were made to hang a Mr. Joseph Samuels. On the first two of these
the rope snapped, while on the third Mr. Samuels just hung there
peacefully until he and everyone else got bored. Since he had proved
unsusceptible to capital punishment, he was reprieved.
The most important British executioner was Mr. James Berry who tried
three times in 1885 to hang Mr. John Lee at Exeter Jail, but on each
occasion failed to get the trap door open.
In recognition of this achievement, the Home Secretary commuted Lee's
sentence to "life" imprisonment. He was released in 1917, emigrated to
America and lived until 1933.
—Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
%
The Man Who Almost Invented The Vacuum Cleaner
The man officially credited with inventing the vacuum cleaner is
Hubert Cecil Booth. However, he got the idea from a man who almost
invented it.
In 1901 Booth visited a London music-hall. On the bill was an American
inventor with his wonder machine for removing dust from carpets.
The machine comprised a box about one foot square with a bag on
top. After watching the act—which made everyone in the front six rows
sneeze—Booth went round to the inventor's dressing room.
"It should suck not blow," said Booth, coming straight to the
point. "Suck?" exclaimed the enraged inventor. "Your machine just moves
the dust around the room," Booth informed him. "Suck? Suck? Sucking is not
possible," was the inventor's reply and he stormed out. Booth proved that
it was by the simple expedient of kneeling down, pursing his lips and
sucking the back of an armchair. "I almost choked," he said
afterwards.
—Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
%
The Worst Bank Robbery
In August 1975 three men were on their way in to rob the Royal Bank of
Scotland at Rothesay, when they got stuck in the revolving doors. They had
to be helped free by the staff and, after thanking everyone, sheepishly
left the building.
A few minutes later they returned and announced their intention of
robbing the bank, but none of the staff believed them. When they demanded
5,000 pounds in cash, the head cashier laughed at them, convinced that it
was a practical joke.
Then one of the men jumped over the counter, butfell to the floor
clutching his ankle. The other two tried to make their getaway, but got
trapped in the revolving doors again.
—Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
%
The vast possibilities of our great future will become realities only if
we make ourselves responsible for that future.
—Gifford Pinchot
%
Life is the living you do, Death is the living you don't do.
—Joseph Pintauro
%
The measure of a man is what he does with power.
—Pittacus
%
In parts of the world, people still pray in the streets. In this country
they're called pedestrians.
—Gloria Pitzer
%
Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.
—Plato
%
How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our
thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another
in the waking state?
—Plato
%
They certainly give very strange names to diseases.
—Plato
%
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have
to say something.
—Plato
%
If everybody's behavior can be explained by simple stupidity and greed,
there's no point in assuming a conspiracy.
—P. J. Plauger
%
In these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain.
—Pliny the Elder
%
Prosperity tries the fortunate, adversity the great.
—Pliny the Younger
%
Mankind is poised midway between the gods and the beasts.
—Plotinus
%
Working with Julie Andrews is like getting hit over the head with a
valentine.
—Christopher Plummer
%
I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I
nod; my shadow does that much better.
—Plutarch
%
The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
—Plutarch
%
Sometime when you least expect it, Love will tap you on the shoulder...and
ask you to move out of the way because it still isn't your turn.
—N. V. Plyter
%
I have great faith in fools—self-confidence my friends call it.
—Edgar Allan Poe
%
Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who
dream only by night.
—Edgar Allan Poe
%
Science is built up of facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection
of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.
—Henri Poincare
%
The years that a woman subtracts from her age are not lost. They are added
to other women's.
—Diane De Poitiers
%
Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theater.
—Roman Polanski
%
Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting somebody else to do the
work.
—John G. Pollard
%
If at first you don't succeed, why go on and make a fool of yourself?
—Susanna Pomeroy
%
A dead man cannot bite.
—Pompey
%
For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and big words Bother me.
—Winnie the Pooh
%
It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words
but rather short, easy words like "What about lunch?"
—Pooh's Little Instruction Book, inspired by A. A. Milne
%
When having a smackeral of something with a friend, don't eat so much that
you get stuck in the doorway trying to get out.
—Pooh's Little Instruction Book
%
When you discard arrogance, complexity, and a few other things that get in
the way, sooner or later you will discover that simple, childlike, and
mysterious secret known to those of the Uncarved Block: Life is Fun.
—The Tao of Pooh
%
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
—Alexander Pope, "Essay on Criticism, 625"
%
What would you do if you met your best friend in hell? Say you were happy
to know he was there too, and isn't the pitch hot?
—Christopher (Elizabeth Marie Pope, "The Perilous Gard")
%
Some couples go over their budgets very carefully every month; others just
go over them.
—Sally Poplin
%
If you do not raise your eyes you will think you are the highest
point.
—Antonio Porchia
%
One lives in the hope of becoming a memory.
—Antonio Porchia
%
Music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance...poetry
begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music.
—Ezra Pound
%
There is no monument dedicated to the memory of a committee.
—Lester J. Pourciau
%
I don't mind arguing with myself. It's when I lose that it bothers me.
—Richard Powers
%
If you sell diamonds, you cannot expect to have many customers. But a
diamond is a diamond even if there are no customers.
—Swami Prabhupada
%
A Thaum is the basic unit of magical strength. It has been universally
established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white pigeon
or three normal-sized billiard balls.
—Terry Pratchett
%
An ancient proverb summed it up: when a wizard is tired of looking for
broken glass in his dinner, it ran, he is tired of life.
—Terry Pratchett
%
Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you
anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be
wrong.
—Terry Pratchett
%
Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.
—Terry Pratchett
%
He was the sort of person who stood on mountaintops during thunderstorms
in wet copper armour shouting "All the Gods are bastards."
—Terry Pratchett
%
His philosophy was a mixture of three famous schools—Cynics, the
Stoics and the Epicureans—and summed up all three of them in his
famous phrase, "You can't trust any bugger further than you can throw him,
and there's nothing you can do about it, so let's have a drink."
—Terry Pratchett
%
It is a well known fact that warriors and wizards do not get along,
because one side considers the other side to be a collection of
bloodthirsty idiots who can't walk and think at the same time, while the
other side is naturally suspicious of a body of men who mumble a lot and
wear long dresses. Oh, say the wizards, if we're going to be like that,
then, what about all those studded collars and oiled muscles down at the
Young Men's Pagan Association? To which the heroes reply, that's a pretty
good allegation from a bunch of wimpsoes who won't go near a woman on
account, can you believe it, of their mystical power being sort of drained
out. Right, say the wizards, that just about does it, you and your leather
posing pouches. Oh yeah, say the heroes, why don't you...
—Terry Pratchett
%
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my
first name is Bad."
—Terry Pratchett
%
People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across
the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from
behind rocks then say things like, "Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone
else."
—Terry Pratchett
%
Rincewind formed a mental picture of some strange entity living in a
castle made of teeth. It was the kind of mental picture you tried to
forget. Unsuccessfully.
—Terry Pratchett
%
The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four
forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and
bloody-mindedness.
—Terry Pratchett
%
Unseen University had never admitted women, muttering something about
problems with the plumbing, but the real reason was an unspoken dread that
if women were allowed to mess around with magic they would probably be
embarrassingly good at it...
—Terry Pratchett
%
"What shall we do?" said Twoflower.
"Panic?" said Rincewind hopefully. He always held that panic was the
best means of survival; back in the olden days, his theory went, people
faced with hungry sabretoothed tigers could be divided very simply into
those who panicked and those who stood there saying "What a magnificent
brute!" and "Here, pussy."
—Terry Pratchett
%
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could
do is give them a meaningful look.
—Terry Pratchett
%
I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to.
—Elvis Presley
%
Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the fine line between sanity and
madness gotten finer?
—George Price
%
Drinking coffee for instant relaxation? That's like drinking alcohol for
instant motor skills.
—Marc Price
%
You have a lot of karmic fruit coming your way.
—Scott Price '00
%
There was no respect for youth when I was young, and now that I am old,
there is no respect for age—I missed it coming and going.
—J. B. Priestley
%
A city is a large community where people are lonesome together.
—Herbert Prochnow
%
The trouble with opportunity is that it always comes disguised as hard
work.
—Herbert Prochnow
%
Whap! Whap! Work, you damn program! Whap! Oh, look, salad!
—Otavia Propper '00, in response to the question of what would
happen if one tried to fix a program using a cucumber
%
The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new
eyes.
—Marcel Proust
%
Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret,
especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous.
—William Proxmire
%
Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.
—Publilius Syrus
%
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
—Publilius Syrus
%
It is not every question that deserves an answer.
—Publilius Syrus
%
Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.
—Publilius Syrus
%
Practice is the best of all instructors.
—Publilius Syrus
%
Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief
season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they
die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually
racked with pain.
—Philip Pullman, "The Golden Compass"
%
Another such victory over the Romans, and we are undone.
—Pyrrhus
%
Silence is better than unmeaning words.
—Pythagoras