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Proverbs and Sayings
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I base most of my fashion taste on what doesn't itch.
—Gilda Radner
%
Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.
—Sir Walter Raleigh
%
Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying.
—Ram Dass
%
You just need to see the world through slash-colored glasses, that's
all. Once you start doing that, pesky things like reality will drop right
away...
—Mona Ramsey
%
The closest to perfection a person ever comes is when he fills out a job
application form.
—Stanley J. Randall
%
I am an aristocrat. I love liberty; I hate equality.
—John Randolph
%
We all know our duty better than we discharge it.
—John Randolph
%
You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
—Jeannette Rankin
%
I felt exactly like the man in the advertisement who has not devoted
fifteen minutes a day to the study of the classics. If only (I thought) I
had devoted fifteen minutes a day to the cultivation of the aesthetic
attitude!
—Burton Rascoe
%
Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual
way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of
complaining.
—Jeff Raskin
%
A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention,
with the possible exceptions of handguns and Tequila.
—Mitch Ratcliffe
%
Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn't block traffic.
—Dan Rather
%
An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell
Overture and not think of The Lone Ranger.
—Dan Rather
%
Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow.
—Dan Rather
%
Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying as
an income tax refund.
—F. J. Raymond
%
A woman is like a teabag—you can't tell how strong she is until you
put her in hot water.
—Nancy Reagan
%
Facts are stupid things.
—Ronald Reagan
%
I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national
emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting.
—Ronald Reagan
%
My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation
which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes.
—Ronald Reagan, during a radio microphone test, 1984
%
Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many
rewards; if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.
—Ronald Reagan
%
Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to
realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.
—Ronald Reagan
%
You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating
jellybeans.
—Ronald Reagan
%
They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept
but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it.
—Red Cloud
%
Lots of people think they're charitable if they give away their old
clothes and things they don't want.
—Myrtle Reed
%
I am not sincere, even when I say I am not.
—Jules Renard
%
I don't know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if
He didn't.
—Jules Renard
%
Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get
tired.
—Jules Renard
%
Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if
you earn no money.
—Jules Renard
%
Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their
pedestals.
—Agnes Repplier
%
The tourist may complain of other tourists, but he would be lost without
them.
—Agnes Repplier
%
This is the devilish thing about foreign affairs: they are foreign and
will not always conform to our whim.
—James Reston
%
For years a secret shame destroyed my peace—
I'd not read Eliot, Auden or MacNeice.
But now I think a thought that brings me hope:
Neither had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope.
—Justin Richardson
%
Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from
coughing.
—Sir Ralph Richardson
%
What makes old age so sad is not that our joys but our hopes cease.
—Jean Paul Richter
%
When you meet a master swordsman,
show him your sword.
When you meet a man who is not a poet,
do not show him your poem.
—Rinzai, ninth century Zen master
%
I have flabby thighs, but fortunately my stomach covers them.
—Joan Rivers
%
I succeeded by saying what everyone else is thinking.
—Joan Rivers
%
I told my mother-in-law that my house was her house, and she said, "Get
the hell off my property."
—Joan Rivers
%
If God wanted us to bend over he'd put diamonds on the floor.
—Joan Rivers
%
There is not one female comic who was beautiful as a little girl.
—Joan Rivers
%
Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and
business.
—Tom Robbins
%
Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been
sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful,
rebellious, and immature.
—Tom Robbins
%
If little else, the brain is an educational toy.
—Tom Robbins
%
We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the
perfect love.
—Tom Robbins
%
Show me a person who doesn't like to laugh and I'll show you a person with
a toe tag.
—Julia Roberts
%
Love and magic have a great deal in common. They enrich the soul, delight
the heart. And they both take practice.
—Nora Roberts
%
When a Banker jumps out of a window, jump after him—that's where the
money is.
—Robespierre
%
Hah! It's the mighty elbow of death!
—Joe Robins '98, retaliating for being tickled
%
I don't anticipate ever smoking a cigarette. I'm probably more likely to
try to wedge my nose into the tailpipe of a moving bus.
—Joe Robins '98
%
One of the weaknesses of our age is our apparent inability to distinguish
our needs from our greeds.
—Don Robinson
%
Things are always darkest just before they go pitch black.
—Kelly Robinson
%
I have ways of making money that you know nothing of.
—John D. Rockefeller
%
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.
—Richard Roeper, "Men and Women Are Different"
%
Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.
—Theodore Roethke
%
Part of the joy of dancing is conversation. Trouble is, some men can't
talk and dance at the same time.
—Ginger Rogers
%
My approach to life can't be summed up in a pithy quote, and if yours can,
you're in trouble.
—Mark Rogers
%
A holding company is a thing where you hand an accomplice the goods while
the policeman searches you.
—Will Rogers
%
An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found
out.
—Will Rogers
%
Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for
finishing it....You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall
flat in a week.
—Will Rogers
%
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit
there.
—Will Rogers
%
Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.
—Will Rogers
%
Everything is funny as long as it is happening to Somebody Else.
—Will Rogers
%
Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we
have rushed through life trying to save.
—Will Rogers
%
I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
—Will Rogers
%
I'm not a real movie star. I've still got the same wife I started out with
twenty-eight years ago.
—Will Rogers
%
Nothing you can't spell will ever work.
—Will Rogers
%
On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only
nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter
what it does.
—Will Rogers
%
Our constitution protects aliens, drunks and U.S. Senators.
—Will Rogers
%
See what will happen if you don't stop biting your fingernails?
—Will Rogers, to his niece on seeing the Venus de Milo
%
The income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf.
—Will Rogers
%
The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit
that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks
the best.
—Will Rogers
%
The movies are the only business where you can go out front and applaud
yourself.
—Will Rogers
%
There is nothing as stupid as an educated man if you get him off the thing
he was educated in.
—Will Rogers
%
There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government
working for you.
—Will Rogers
%
This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when
the baby gets hold of a hammer.
—Will Rogers
%
We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as
they go by.
—Will Rogers
%
You can't say that civilization don't advance, however, for in every war
they kill you in a new way.
—Will Rogers
%
We do not colonize. We conquer. We rule. There is no other way for us.
—Rojan, "By Any Other Name," "Star Trek"
%
The world is an enormous injustice.
—Jules Romains
%
We've sent a man to the moon, and that's 29,000 miles away. The center of
the Earth is only 4,000 miles away. You could drive that in a week, but
for some reason nobody's ever done it.
—Andy Rooney
%
Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I
think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any
one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the
people.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
%
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
%
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it
frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
%
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts about
reality.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
%
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of
those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have
too little.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
%
Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.
—Theodore Roosevelt
%
The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do
what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with
them while they do it.
—Theodore Roosevelt
%
When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to
answer "Present" or "Not Guilty."
—Theodore Roosevelt
%
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, "Certainly, I
can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it.
—Theodore Roosevelt
%
Arguably, no artist grows up: If he sheds the perceptions of childhood, he
ceases being an artist.
—Ned Rorem
%
Mr. Wagner has beautiful moments but bad quarters of an hour.
—Gioacchino Rossini
%
If you are going to do something wrong at least enjoy it.
—Leo Rosten
%
A technique is a trick that works.
—Gian-Carlo Rota
%
A lot of rock bands are truly a legend in their own minds.
—David Lee Roth
%
He who knows how will always work for he who knows why.
—David Lee Roth
%
Here today, gone later today.
—David Lee Roth, on one-hit-wonder glam bands
%
I used to have a drug problem, now I make enough money.
—David Lee Roth
%
I used to jog but the ice cubes kept falling out of my glass.
—David Lee Roth
%
It doesn't get better, it doesn't get worse, but it sure gets
different!
—David Lee Roth
%
Money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to
pull up right alongside it.
—David Lee Roth
%
People ask me how far I've come. And I tell them twelve feet: from the
audience to the stage.
—David Lee Roth
%
The world's a stage, and I want the brightest spot.
—David Lee Roth
%
When you get something like MTV, it's like regular television. You get it,
and at first it's novel and brand new and then you watch every channel,
every show. And then you become a little more selective and more
selective, until ultimately...you wind up with a radio.
—David Lee Roth
%
There are three principal ways to lose money: wine, women, and
engineers. While the first two are more pleasant, the third is by far the
more certain.
—Baron Rothschild, ca. 1800
%
A husband is what's left of the lover after the nerve has been
extracted.
—Helen Rowland
%
Before marriage, a man will lay down his life for you; after marriage he
won't even lay down his newspaper.
—Helen Rowland
%
Every man wants a woman to appeal to his better side, his nobler
instincts, and his higher nature—and another woman to help him forget
them.
—Helen Rowland
%
Never trust a husband too far or a bachelor too near.
—Helen Rowland
%
One man's folly is another man's wife.
—Helen Rowland
%
The follies which a man regrets the most in his life are those which he
didn't commit when he had the opportunity.
—Helen Rowland
%
When a man makes a woman his wife, it's the highest compliment he can pay
her, and it's usually the last.
—Helen Rowland
%
When you see what some women marry, you realize how they must hate to work
for a living.
—Helen Rowland
%
No self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in that kind of
paper.
—Mike Royko on the Chicago Sun-Times after it was taken over by
Rupert Murdoch
%
Worst Vegetable of the Year:
The brussels sprout. This is also the worst vegetable of next year.
—Steve Rubenstein
%
It occurred to me when I was thirteen and wearing white gloves and Mary
Janes and going to dancing school, that no one should have to dance
backward all their lives.
—Jill Ruckelshaus
%
Before I met my husband I'd never fallen in love, though I'd stepped in it
a few times.
—Rita Rudner
%
I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you
want to annoy for the rest of your life.
—Rita Rudner
%
I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for
marriage...they've experienced pain and bought jewelry.
—Rita Rudner
%
I was a vegetarian until I started leaning toward the sunlight.
—Rita Rudner
%
I was going to have cosmetic surgery until I noticed that the doctor's
office was full of portraits by Picasso.
—Rita Rudner
%
In Hollywood a marriage is a success if it outlasts milk.
—Rita Rudner
%
My husband gave me a necklace. It's fake. I requested fake. Maybe I'm
paranoid, but in this day and age, I don't want something around my neck
that's worth more than my head.
—Rita Rudner
%
My mother buried three husbands...and two of them were only napping.
—Rita Rudner
%
My mother is such a lousy cook that Thanksgiving at her house is a time of
sorrow.
—Rita Rudner
%
Never play peekaboo with a child on a long plane trip. There's no end to
the game. Finally I grabbed him by the bib and said, "Look, it's always
gonna be me!"
—Rita Rudner
%
Someday I want to be rich. Some people get so rich they lose all respect
for humanity. That's how rich I want to be.
—Rita Rudner
%
To attract men, I wear a perfume called "New Car Interior."
—Rita Rudner
%
The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
—Muriel Rukiysen
%
The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong—but
that's the way to bet.
—Damon Runyon
%
All movements go too far.
—Bertrand Russell
%
Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was
twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by
examining his wives' mouths.
—Bertrand Russell
%
I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
—Bertrand Russell
%
It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been
searching for evidence which could support this.
—Bertrand Russell
%
Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
—Bertrand Russell
%
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth—more than ruin,
more even than death.
—Bertrand Russell
%
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that
one's work is terribly important.
—Bertrand Russell
%
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial
reasons.
—Bertrand Russell
%
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that
it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority
of mankind, a wide-spread belief is more likely to be foolish than
sensible.
—Bertrand Russell
%
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is
no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in
arithmetic.
—Bertrand Russell
%
The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one,
particularly if he plays golf.
—Bertrand Russell
%
The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to
seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one
will believe it.
—Bertrand Russell
%
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so
certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
—Bertrand Russell
%
To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three
parts dead.
—Bertrand Russell
%
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which
is the exact opposite.
—Bertrand Russell
%
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near
the earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people
to do so.
—Bertrand Russell
%
We want far better reasons for having children than not knowing how to
prevent them.
—Dora Russell
%
Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting.
—John Russell
%
The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed
entirely of lost airline luggage.
—Mark Russell
%
Acting is standing up naked and turning around very slowly.
—Rosalind Russell
%
Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving.
—Rosalind Russell, as Auntie Mame
%
Don't let your studies interfere with your education.
—Henry Rutgers
%
Possessions increase to fill the space available for their storage.
—Ryan