A Day in My Life

I am compiling a list of quotes that I either find thought provoking, ironic, or just plan funny. I hope you enjoy these quotes and are caused to stop and ponder while reading. A random quote can also be found at the bottom of the sidebar of my site.

A lawyer starts life giving $500 worth of law for $5 and ends giving $5 worth for $500. — Benjamin H. Brewster

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire. — Francois de La Rochefoucauld

A wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountain top. — Unknown

A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart. — Jonathan Swift

Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion. — Ambrose Bierce

Acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. — Ambrose Bierce

Act as if. Do you understand what that means? — Boiler Room

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king. — J. R. R. Tolkien

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. — Mark Twain

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much. — Oscar Wilde

An economist is a man who states the obvious in terms of the incomprehensible. — Alfred A. Knopf

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today. — Laurence J. Peter

An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. — Benjamin Franklin

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery. — Charles Dickens

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing. — Benjamin Franklin

Commerce is a game of skill which many people play, but which few play well. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff. — Frank Zappa

Creditors have better memories than debtors. — Benjamin Franklin

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time. — E. B. White

Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide. — John Adams

Determine never to be idle…It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing. — Thomas Jefferson

Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘Nice doggie’ until you can find a rock. — Will Rogers

Drive-in banks were established so most of the cars today could see their real owners. — E. Joseph Cossman

Duty is ours, results are God’s. — John Quincy Adams

Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody. — Franklin P. Adams

Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down. — Hector Berlioz

God heals, and the doctor takes the fees. — Benjamin Franklin

God is not on the side of any nation, yet we know He is on the side of justice. Our finest moments [as a nation] have come when we faithfully served the cause of justice for our own citizens, and for the people of other lands. — George W. Bush

Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment. — Barry LePatner

He had learned over the years that poor people did not feel so poor when allowed to give occasionally. — Lawana Blackwell

He that can have patience can have what he will. — Benjamin Franklin

He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money. — Benjamin Franklin

He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever. — Chinese Proverb

Here’s a tip to avoid death by celebrity: First off, get a life. They can’t touch you if you’re out doing something interesting. — Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine

Hollywood is a place where they place you under contract instead of under observation. — Walter Winchell

Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul. — Marilyn Monroe

How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few, his precepts! O! ’tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments. — Benjamin Franklin

I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don’t. — W. Somerset Maugham

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. — Thomas Jefferson

I can’t time stocks, I can’t time the economy. The one thing I can promise you is that the movie we’re watching in the economy has a happy ending. I just don’t know how long the movie will be. — Warren Buffet

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. — Albert Einstein

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be. — Douglas Adams

I recently phoned Rose Friedman and asked her what she thought about the attacks on her husband. She was mostly dismayed at how far off-course our country has veered under President Obama. “Is this the death of Milton’s ideas?” I hesitantly asked. “Oh no,” she replied, “But it is the death of common sense.” — Stephen Moore, WSJ

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. — Thomas Jefferson

I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it. — Thomas Jefferson

If A is success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut. — Albert Einstein

If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion. — George Bernard Shaw

If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error. — John Kenneth Galbraith

If all the world’s a stage, I want to operate the trap door. — Paul Beatty

If I turn out to be particularly clear, you’ve probably misunderstood what I’ve said. — Alan Greenspan

If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm. — Vince Lombardi

If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience. — John Cage

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to. — Dorothy Parker

If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting. — Benjamin Franklin

If you would know the value of money, go try to borrow some; for he that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing. — Benjamin Franklin

In finance, everything that is agreeable is unsound and everything that is sound is disagreeable. — Winston Churchill

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. — Thomas Jefferson

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress. — John Adams

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. — Albert Einstein

Irrigation of the land with seawater desalinated by fusion power is ancient. It’s called ‘rain’. — Michael McClary

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. — Sir Winston Churchill

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. — Sir Winston Churchill

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. — Albert Einstein

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. — Voltaire

It is not worth an intelligent man’s time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that. — G. H. Hardy

It’s so much easier to suggest solutions when you don’t know too much about the problem. — Malcolm Forbes

Knowledge is power, if you know it about the right person. — Ethel Mumford

Liberty without learning is always in peril; learning without liberty is always in vain. — John F. Kennedy

Literature is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to people who have none. — Jules Renard

Love is not blind – it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less. — Rabbi Julius Gordon

Make money your god and it will plague you like the devil. — Henry Fielding

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. — Peter Drucker

Money, therefore, the great wheel of circulation, the great instrument of commerce, like all other instruments of trade, though it makes a part and a very valuable part of the capital, makes no part of the revenue of the society to which it belongs; and though the metal pieces of which it is composed, in the course of their annual circulation, distribute to every man the revenue which properly belongs to him, they make themselves no part of that revenue. — Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

Never spend your money before you have it. — Thomas Jefferson

No man who ever held the office of president would congratulate a friend on obtaining it. — John Adams

No matter how rich you become, how famous or powerful, when you die the size of your funeral will still pretty much depend on the weather. — Michael Pritchard

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. — Albert Einstein

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances. — Thomas Jefferson

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn’t have to do it himself. — A. H. Weiler

Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature. — Kin Hubbard

One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory. — Rita Mae Brown

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. — Benjamin Franklin

say that a man must be certain of his morality for the simple reason that he has to suffer for it. — G. K. Chesterton

Saying what we think gives us a wider conversational range than saying what we know. — Cullen Hightower

Seeing ourselves as others see us would probably confirm our worst suspicions about them. — Franklin P. Adams

Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. — Jane Austen

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. — Bill Watterson

Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world. — Lily Tomlin

Talking to politicians about the economy is like talking with eight-year-olds about sex. They have heard all the words, but they haven’t a clue. — Michael Aronstein

The best defense against the atom bomb is not to be there when it goes off. — Anonymous

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern. — Lord Acton

The easiest way for your children to learn about money is for you not to have any. — Katharine Whitehorn

The English language was carefully, carefully cobbled together by three blind dudes and a German dictionary. — Dave Kellett

The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid. — Art Spander

The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax. — Albert Einstein

The last time somebody said, ‘I find I can write much better with a word processor.’, I replied, ‘They used to say the same thing about drugs.’ — Roy Blount Jr.

The mint makes it first, it is up to you to make it last. — Evan Esar

The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one. — Albert Einstein

The shortest distance between two points is under construction. — Noelie Altito

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. — Flannery O’Connor

The way to write American music is simple. All you have to do is be an American and then write any kind of music you wish. — Virgil Thomson

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object. — Thomas Jefferson

The word ‘politics’ is derived from the word ‘poly’, meaning ‘many’, and the word ‘ticks’, meaning ‘blood sucking parasites’. — Larry Hardiman

The world is governed more by appearances than realities, so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it. — Daniel Webster

The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank. — Dante Gabriel Rossetti

There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people. — Muhammad Ali

There’s so much pollution in the air now that if it weren’t for our lungs there’d be no place to put it all. — Robert Orben

Things are always different – the art is figuring out which differences matter. — Laszlo Birinyi

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. — Benjamin Franklin

Vote early and vote often. — Al Capone

Wagner’s music is better than it sounds. — Edgar Wilson Nye

We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are. — Anais Nin

We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate. — Thomas Jefferson

We’re all the same rank. I’m just the one sitting in the chair. — Ben Bernanke

When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn’t the slightest intention of putting it into practice. — Otto von Bismarck

When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers. — Oscar Wilde

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‘Present’ or ‘Not guilty.’ — Theodore Roosevelt

When you are in any contest you should work as if there were – to the very last minute – a chance to lose it. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform. — Mark Twain

Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody. — Benjamin Franklin

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others. — Samuel Johnson

Wish not so much to live long as to live well. — Benjamin Franklin

You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself. — Sam Levenson