Classic Quotes

• Vote for the man who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing.

                  Bernard Baruch: 1870-1965, American financier

Success

• Success is a journey, not a destination.

                  Author Unknown

• All you need in life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.

                        Mark Twain: 1835-1910, American writer, humorist

• Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.

                  Christopher Lasch: 1932-, U.S. historian

• If first you don't succeed, you're running about average.

                  Original Author Unknown

• I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.

                  Thomas Jefferson: 1743-1826, The 3rd President of the United States (1801-1809)

• I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: try to please everybody.

                  Herbert Bayard Swope: 1882-1958, American journalist

• If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.

                 W. C. Fields: 1880-1946, American comic actor

• A man's errors are his portals of discovery.

                   James Joyce: 1882-1941, Irish writer

Humor & wit

• When I was a boy, I was told that anybody could become President. I'm beginning to believe it.

                 Clarence Darrow (1857 -- 1938)

• The closest to perfection a person ever comes is when he fills out a job application form.

                 Original Author Unknown

• Don't go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing, it was here first.

                 Mark Twain: 1835-1910, American writer, humorist

• If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

                Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

• We are drawn to our television sets each April the way we are drawn to the scene of an accident.

                      Vincent Canby on the Academy Awards

• Why is it that if you talk to God, you're praying. But if God talks to you, you're schizophrenic?

                 Lily Tomlin

• A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of.

                Burt Bacharach

Happiness

• Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response.

                     H. Mildred Barthel

• Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

                Abraham Lincoln: 1809-1865, The 16th President of the United States (1861-1865)

• Remember happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely upon what you think.

                Dale Carnegie: 1888-1955, American educator

• Laugh and the world laughs with you;  Weep and you weep alone.

                Ella Wheeler Wilcox: 1850-1919, American poet

• The hours that make us happy make us wise.

                John Masefield: 1878-1967, British writer

• Of all the unhappy people in the world, the unhappiest are those who have not found something they want to do. True happiness comes to him who does his work well, followed by a relaxing and refreshing period of rest. True happiness comes from the right amount of work for the day.

                     Lin Yutang: 1895-1976, Chinese-born American writer

• Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value out of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

                     Mark Twain: 1835-1910, American writer, humorist

Love & Marriage

• American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.

                     Somerset Maugham: 1874-1965, British writer

• A man may be a fool and not know it -- but not if he is married.

                    H. L. Mencken: 1880-1956, American editor, critic

• A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.

               Michel de Montaigne: 1533-1592, French essayist

• A sound marriage is not based on complete frankness; it is based on a sensible reticence.

               Morris Leopold Ernst

Quotable gems

• Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.

                  Philip Dormer Stanhope: 1694-1773, British statesman, writer

• I must say that the intolerance of the young people appeals to me. It's a good sign when a youngster is temperamentally in revolt against the world in general. All those amongst my pupils who have gone far were natural rebels, born, as my teacher Renan puts it, "with an imprecation on their lips."

                   Roger Martin du Gard: 1881-1958, French writer

• You shouldn't take the fence down until you know the reason it was put up.

                  G. K. Chesterton: 1874-1936, British writer

• One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

                      Samuel Johnson: 1709-1784, British writer, lexicographer

• A person usually has two reasons for doing something: a good reason and the real reason.

                      J. P. Morgan: 1837-1913, American financier

• In calm water every ship has a good captain.

                       Swedish proverb