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Friday, August 30, 2013

In defense of Chartered Accountants

In defense of Chartered Accountants

My reply to the report in Today’s ET article on page 14. Article link given at the end of this write up. Article title

Companies Bill, 2012: Will auditors become a vanishing breed?

 

I read the article half an hour back and I felt that I must write this.

I am neither a Chartered Accountant nor from a family of Chartered Accountants nor a minister because my father happened to be a friend of Nehru family

It is pathetic that persons of the ilk of Sachin  Pilots are allowed to make sweeping remarks on existing administrative systems.

Well, all administrative systems require modifications and minor changes to suit to the changing scenario, or, to use a more acceptable modern jargon, to the paradigm shifts in business trends. Indeed these trends are changing at a greater speed than the shape of clouds.

However all must know that proper measurement and evaluation are the sine qua non of scientific approach to any activity. In a macro activity involving trade or corporate affairs with too many wings/departments/too many players/ too many decision making authorities etc it becomes imperative to monitor and check whether those fundamental scientific aspects namely measurement and evaluation are properly followed and wherever necessary to suggest change of course by the authorities who are technically qualified to do that, namely auditors.

The problem is this poor kid like many other kids in Congress ministers’ families who have been placed on high pedestal without any proper technical or academic qualification and devoid of any worthy experience are prone to such loose talks and statements. When providence pours the three Ps, namely power, position and pelf without any logic or effort on your part you cannot be expected to and you need not perceive things in the proper perspective because those three Ps indicated earlier compensate the necessity for perception, performance and proper functioning based on that.

So they cannot be expected to understand the role and significance of any decent, scientifically developed administrative procedures. They have grown with scant respect for any systems or systematic approaches as they have been spurned into a career of success surrounded by sycophants and servile bureaucrats.

It is also a sad fact that due to the wrong methods, bad practices of a few auditors there is wrong perception among the many half baked academicians/technocrats/scientists etc  who think that the profession of auditors  is safe guarded by the terminology ‘that the auditor has done his work to the best of his knowledge based on or as per the statements and documents shown to him’ and they also feel the profession of auditors is confined to dressing up balance sheets, educating the business man how to cover  up to avoid taxes, showing him the escape routes of non compliance etc. This is the handy work of some auditors and the wrong perception of the half baked public .The reality is different. For that matter some judges take money and decide the cases, there is even a very old saying which says “ a good lawyer knows the law and a great lawyer knows the judge”. Does that mean we do not need lawyers or judges?


There were many and there are a few politicians who have come up by doing real  social service, sound sense of economic development and through track record of able governance but there are some who have become even ministers by other means. Does that mean that we do not need ministers concerned with economic development to govern?

Entrepreneurial skills , management principles etc are creative enterprises and   they will always grow exponentially as any creative activity must, but then, any highly creative activity which impacts on the social life of human beings , likely to create irrational social imbalances, likely to harm the physical well being of human beings , likely to affect [corrupt] the mental/intellectual faculties of human beings etc have to be bridled and controlled by some logical and universally accepted control and monitoring mechanism. This is where professions like audit play a significant part.

Let me quote her two examples which are fresh in the memory of people living in Tamil Nadu as these two activities took  place within the last ten days.

A week back you might have read in the newspapers one chap in Tiruvallur created a history of sorts by operating a mobile Alcohol shop by carrying some forty bottles of liquor in his two wheeler and selling it to workers in their work place relieving them the trouble of going to liquor shops, he was arrested and is behind bars. Is that legally wrong, if yes, how? All that he did was doing door delivery for a fee. Imagine if one day a Flipkart or Ebay starts selling all types of liquor then this person would be the trend setter. Or probably seeing the revenue potential in it the government itself may start setting up alcohol vending machines everywhere. Why not?

Similarly another chap showed his entrepreneurial skills by picking up uncared for mentally ill patients loitering in the roads and made  them beg and ran a business wherein he earned somewhere around 1.5 lakhs per month. [He could not recruit Digvijay Singh because he was fortunately picked by  congress as its spokesperson].


People like Sachin pilots have perhaps been made to foul mouth such versions because the current Unscrupulous Political Affiliation is being troubled by CAG to such an extent that in Delhi the popular joke is Audit is the oldest profession because ‘Adam turned a leaf and made an entry’ as ministry after ministry is getting screwed up by CAG.

The media on its part gleefully uses both the magnifying glass and micro scope and projects the slides whenever it involves any other sector/profession whereas you just sniff to them about FDI in media, investigation into their misdeeds then  they will recoil like snail to pepper.



Wednesday, August 28, 2013

My 20 point observations on languages.


My 20 point observations on languages.

Do you agree? If not place your comments?

It applies to all languages though primarily it is a reaction to the message heighted in yellow [ in Tamil] which I received this morning.

Interesting! Didn't know these words existed!  
தமிழில் டீக்கு "தேநீர்',
காபிக்கு "குளம்பி' என்று
பெரும்பாலோருக்குத் தெரியும்.
மற்ற சில முக்கியமான உணவு
பொருட்களின் தமிழ்ப்பெயர்கள் அறிவோம்!

சப்பாத்தி - கோந்தடை
புரோட்டா - புரியடை
நூடுல்ஸ் - குழைமா
கிச்சடி - காய்சோறு, காய்மா
கேக் - கட்டிகை, கடினி
சமோசா - கறிப்பொதி, முறுகி
பாயசம் - பாற்கன்னல்
சாம்பார் - பருப்பு குழம்பு, மென்குழம்பு
பஜ்ஜி - தோய்ச்சி, மாவேச்சி
பொறை - வறக்கை
கேசரி - செழும்பம், பழும்பம்
குருமா - கூட்டாளம்
ஐஸ்கிரீம் - பனிக்குழையம், பனிக்கூழ்/பனிக்களி
சோடா - காலகம்
ஜாங்கிரி - முறுக்கினி
ரோஸ்மில்க் - முளரிப்பால்
சட்னி - அரைப்பம், துவையல்
கூல்ட்ரிங்க்ஸ் - குளிர் குடிப்பு
பிஸ்கட் - ஈரட்டி, மாச்சில்
போண்டா - உழுந்தை
ஸர்பத் - நறுமட்டு
சோமாஸ் - பிறைமடி
பப்ஸ் - புடைச்சி
பன் - மெதுவன்
ரோஸ்டு - முறுவல்
லட்டு - கோளினி
புரூட் சாலட் - பழக்கூட்டு
-----------------------------------------------------
தவறுகள் இருப்பின் சுட்டிக்காட்டி திருத்தவும்

Actually better off not knowing.

1] Reality is every language has grown enormously in stature due to some unique reason.

2] At a specific period in time because of the impact that the people using the language had on humanity languages have grown in importance.

3] The literature / scripts produced through that language were in great demand at a particular time for various reasons.

4] People manning the knowledge industry were using only  a particular language.

5] People needed to use a particular language at specific junctures for better survival.

6] All of a sudden a language spurred into prominence due to the predominance/ domination  of the people speaking that language in human activity.

7] With little bit of thinking you can conjure up examples and justifications for each of the above statements starting from the popularity of Sanskrit to Latin to growth of English, French, German to the demand for learning Chinese now.

8] Narrowing down the discussion to Tamizh [Tamil] language, which is the topic of discussion here, it was primarily rich in literature and vocabulary , mostly to do with spirituality, religion, hero worship or sycophancy [ the court poets praising the kings], preaching socio morals as an important part of religious way of living and many sciences which have lost their popularity like astrology, Sidha vaidyam, Siddhar padalkal [ occult experiences/observations of spiritually enlightened persons] etc along with the inevitable vocabulary meant to convey the native cultures and traditions which again were interwoven with activities indicated above. After castrating the language of its intrinsic ingredients how can you expect it to live energetically and dynamically?

9] Definitely no language has or can be expected to invent vocabulary for discoveries, trends, new commercial activities etc that are likely to happen at a future date at some part of the world which uses a totally different language.

10] But what any language which expects to survive and grow in stature can do/does is to adopt the word assigned to the new discovery in the language of land of discovery or the discoverer or  if more keen on developing its [particular language’s]  own status is to coin a word based on a very meaningful/relevant root so that there is an etymological reference and recognition of that word easily and while doing this one must pay attention to the nuances of synonyms to avoid misleading  connotations and also ensure to avoid ambiguity especially those which can lead to vulgar interpretation etc.

11] For example neither Tamil nor any of the languages in India could be said to have had vocabulary a century back for cyber activities, or in 15th century for aerial motored vehicles or submarines or optic fibre cables, please do not presume that I am trying to ill treat any Indian language on comparison with any foreign language.

12] I am equally aware that  on the flip side the western culture being psychologically forced to get obsessed with[ either  because of religion or  through socio-religio morals] SIN so much that they have never bothered to come with a word equivalent to PUNYA , the exact opposite of SIN. None of the words like virtue, good deed or salvation can be equated with PUNYA.


13] The Eskimos are said have more than 60 plus words for different forms of ice/ snow because it is a necessity as people living in Megalaya in India have many verbs for clouds and different types of grass as the clouds keep moving over the top the roofs, inside the house and they use different types of grass to soak the wetness caused by constant rains. [ incidentally the soft material used in broom stick all over the world are from a specific grass grown in Megalaya]. The word Megalaya itself means ‘cloud inside the rooms’ megam [cloud] aalayam [ inside]. 

14] All languages and words in all languages have a life of their own both meaning wise and vibration wise. So there is nothing wrong in using words from a foreign language as it is rather than distorting our own vocabulary according to the whims and fancies of a few linguistic fanatical academicians.

15] Similarly if the extensive usage of a particular language has gone out of vogue for some reason, probably and perhaps the usage of that language has fulfilled its purpose and has decided to give room for  the new languages which have come up to serve a new purpose in the present context.

16] Evolution need not necessarily always work through proliferation in all areas of life nor can we restrain variety through homogenization. In certain spheres evolution reduces the number of entities and this has been the case especially in languages which have been reduced from a few thousands some centuries back to a few hundreds now as it is perhaps a sign of bringing in as many people together through lesser number of  medium of communication.

17] So we would be better off adopting certain words from foreign languages rather than trying hard to resurrect some obscure vocabulary or coin words that are not  justifiable etymologically or likely to cause incorrigible ambiguity   



18] Coffee is Kottai vadineer kuzhambi-  it sounds as if some drink extracted after squeezing the balls of a goat.

Telegram is munda koovi - sounds awkward heard from far.

Deputy engineer  small irrigation - is thunai siruneerperunar -it really stinks.

19] புரூட் சாலட் - பழக்கூட்டு

Even here I can find fault kootu is compound kalavai is mixture. The synonyms matter a lot here.

In fruit salad it is random mixture of fruits and not any specific quantity of each fruit.

Where as when we mix cement and sand as per exact proportion in construction we say in Tamil manal simentu kalavai there it should be kootu.

20] We have allowed the gems of our language along with its culture to fade away due to politics; we have allowed the true history of our land to be substituted by false stories; we have forgotten the traditions which have carried in them eternally intrinsic values for life in all its three major aspects body, mind and soul; we have not bothered to document the scientific discoveries made by our forefathers; we have failed miserably to protect and promote things of which we must be proud of , so what is the point in parading words which have faded into obscurity.



Tuesday, August 27, 2013

SILLY SIGNS

SILLY SIGNS



Outside a country shop: "We buy junk and sell antiques."

In a New York restaurant: "Customers who consider our waitresses uncivil ought to see the manager."

Outside a muffler shop: "No appointment necessary. We'll hear you coming."

At a Santa Fe gas station: "We will sell gasoline to anyone in a glass container."

In the front yard of a funeral home: "Drive carefully, we'll wait."

In a non-smoking area: "If we see you smoking we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action."

In a jeweler’s shop: “Ears pierced while you wait.”                

A secondhand shop boasts: “We exchange anything - bicycles, washing machines etc. Why not bring your wife along and get a wonderful bargain?”

At the electric company: "We would be delighted if you send in your bill. However, if you don't, you will be."

In a clothing store: "Wonderful bargains for men with 16 and 17 necks."

In a Los Angeles dance hall: "Good clean dancing every night but Sunday."

Outside a radiator repair shop: "Best place in town to take a leak."

At an exclusive boutique: “No children aloud.”

On an electrician's truck: "Let us remove your shorts."

On a roller coaster: "Watch your head."

On a Tennessee highway: "When this sign is under water, this road is impassable."

At an Optometrist's Office: "If you don't see what you're looking for, you've come to the right place."

Outside an electrical shop: “Why smash your plates washing up? Let one of our dishwashers do it for you.”

At a car dealership: "The best way to get back on your feet - miss a car payment."


On a newly painted bench: “Wet paint. Watch it or wear it.”

On a music teacher's door: "Out Chopin."

In a Pennsylvania cemetery: "Persons are prohibited from picking flowers from any but their own graves."

At a pet shop claims: “Birds going cheep!”

On the wall of a Baltimore estate: "Trespassers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. --Sisters of Mercy"

On a long-established New Mexico dry cleaners: "38 years on the same spot."

In a Florida maternity ward: "No children allowed."

On a New York convalescent home: "For the sick and tired of the Episcopal Church."

In a funeral parlor: "Ask about our layaway plan."

In the window of a Kentucky appliance store: "Don't kill your wife.   Let our washing machine do the dirty work."

In the window of an Oregon store: "Why go elsewhere and be cheated when you can come here?"

On maternity room door: "Push, Push, Push."

In a Tacoma, Washington men's clothing store: "15 men's wool suits, $10. They won't last an hour!"

On the side of a garbage truck: "We've got what it takes to take what you've got."


 Outside a furniture shop: “We promise you the lowest prices and workmanship.”

In the window of a photographer's studio: “Out to lunch: if not back by five, out for dinner also.”

In front of a car wash: "If you can't read this, it's time to wash your car."

In a New York medical building: "Mental Health Prevention Center"

At a number of military bases: "Restricted to unauthorized personnel."

On a pet shop door: “No dogs allowed.”

On a Maine shop: "Our motto is to give our customers the lowest possible prices and workmanship."

Outside a hotel: "Help! We need inn-experienced people."

In the vestry of a New England church: "Will the last person to leave please see that the perpetual light is extinguished."

At an auto body shop: "May we have the next dents?"

On the door of a computer store: "Out for a quick byte."
On the grounds of a public school: "No trespassing without permission."

On a shopping mall marquee: "Archery Tournament -- Ears pierced"

On a display of "I love you only" Valentine cards: "Now available in multi-packs."

In a New York drugstore: "We dispense with accuracy."

In a butcher's shop: “These scales are accurate - no two weighs about it.”

In a fabric shop window: “Repairs and alterations done here. Dying arranged.”

At a London department store: “Bargain basement upstairs.”

In a dress shop window: “Don't stand outside and faint - come in and have a fit.”

In the offices of a loan company: "Ask about our plans for owning your home."

In a restaurant window: "Don't stand there and be hungry, come in and get fed up."

In a veterinarian's waiting room: "Be back in 5 minutes. Sit! Stay!"

In a health food shop window: “Closed due to illness.”

In a Maine restaurant: "Open 7 days a week and weekends."

On a repair shop door: “We can repair anything. (Please knock hard on the door - the bell doesn't work.)”

At a travel agency: “Why don't you go away?”

In a laundromat: “Automatic washing machines - please remove all your clothes when the light goes out.”


Top Ten Thoughts

Top Ten Thoughts



Number 10
Life is sexually transmitted.



Number 9
Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.



Number 8
Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.



Number 7
Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach a person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks.



Number 6
Some people are like a Slinky.....not really good for anything but you still can't help but smile when you shove them down the stairs.



Number 5
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.



Number 4
All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.



Number 3
Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars and a substantial tax cut saves you thirty cents?



Number 2
In the 60s, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.



AND THE NUMBER 1 THOUGHT :
We know exactly where one cow with Mad-cow-disease is located among the millions and millions of cows in America but we haven't got a clue as to where thousands of illegal immigrants and terrorists are located. Maybe we should put the Department of Agriculture in charge of immigration.

The Basic Principals of Operations Management

The Basic Principals of Operations Management



Validated daily by experiences of working folks everywhere…


Allen’s Axiom:
When all else fails, read the instructions.


Chisholm’s Law:
Anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.


Corrigan’s Theorem or “Jam Side Down”:
If there is more than one way in which a system can operate, it will usually operate the wrong way.


Finagle’s Law:
Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse.


Fitzgibbon’s Law:
Creativity varies inversely with the number of cooks involved with the broth.


Fitzgibbon’s Corollary:
The number of problems encountered during a project is directly proportional to N squared, where N is equal to the number of people involved.


Flaple’s Law of the Perversity of Inanimate Objects:
Any inanimate object, regardless of its composition or configuration, may be expected to perform at any time in a totally unexpected manner for reasons that are either entirely obscure or completely mysterious.


Gummidge’s Law:
The amount of expertise available for a given project varies in inverse proportion to the statement understood by the general public.


Gumperson’s Law:
The probability of a given event occurring is inversely proportional to its desirability.


Horner’s Five Thumb Postulate:
Experience varies directly with the value of the equipment ruined.


Kyrie Liason:
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, then you don’t understand the problem.


Maslow’s Maxim:
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat everything as though it were a nail.


Murphy’s Law:
If anything can go wrong – it will.


Occam’s Razor:
The simplest explanation of any phenomena is probably the correct one.


Parkinson’s Law:
The time required for a project varies to maintain the utilization of the manpower allocated close to one-hundred percent.


Patrick’s Theorism:
If the experiment works, you must be using the wrong equipment.


Perdin’s Law:
In a crisis that forces a choice to be made among alternative courses of action, most people will choose the worst one possible.


Porteous’s Proposition:
One million times nothing – is still nothing.


Richard’s Rule:
When all else fails, fake it.


Ross’s Law:
Never characterize the importance of a statement in advance.


Salute to Nixon (remember him?):
Quit when you’re still behind.


Shanahan’s Law:
The length of a meeting rises with the square of the number of people attending.


Sod’s Law (Prevails when Flaple’s Law does not hold):
In any given set of circumstances, events will combine to provide the maximum of inconvenience for the greatest number of people.


Skinner’s Constant:
That quantity which when multiplied times, divided by, added to, or subtracted from the answer you got – gives you the answer you should have gotten in the first place.  Also known as Finnegan’s Finagling Factor.


The Compensation Corollary:
The experiment may be considered a success if no more than fifty percent of the observed measurements must be discarded to obtain a correspondence with theory.


The Futility Factor:
No experiment is ever a complete failure.  It can always serve as a bad example.


The Ninth Law:
The simpler, smaller and less ambitious a project is – the harder it is to justify, the harder it is to implement and the less well it will perform.


Quotes that are stimulating

Short Quotes that are stimulating                                                                                       Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups.--John Kenneth Galbraith

Every person has the ability to improve the life of someone else. – Guy Kawasaki

When I die, I want to die like my grandfather-who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car. - Author Unknown

Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, “Where have I gone wrong?” Then a voice says to me, “This is going to take more than one night.” - Charlie Brown.


Were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults in the first. – Benjamin Franklin

It is wise to remember that you are one of those who can be fooled some of the time. - Dr. Laurence J. Peter

Don't stay in bed...unless you can make money in bed.--George Burns

No matter how bad things get, you got to go on living, even if it kills you. – Sholom Aleichem

If there were no God, there would be no atheists. – Gilbert K. Chesterton

Two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth; and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead. – Carl von Clausewitz

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value. – Albert Einstein

Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired. - Jules Renard

Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.--Erma Bombeck

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow you gotta put up with the rain. – Dolly Parton

You can’t start motoring up life’s road until you get your buns in gear. – Gene Simmons

Instead of getting married again, I'm going to find a woman I don't like and just give her a house. - Rod Stewart

Maybe there is no actual place called hell. Maybe hell is just having to listen to our grandparents breath through their noses when they're eating sandwiches. -
Jim Carrey.

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. – Albert Einstein

Many people die at twenty-five and aren’t buried until they’re seventy-five. – Benjamin Franklin

I intend to live forever - so far, so good. - Steven Wright

I've been accused of vulgarity. I say that's bullshit. - Mel Brooks.

Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat. - Alex Levine

God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. - Voltaire

I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning. - J.B. Priestly

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. - H. L. Mencken

You don't appreciate a lot of stuff in school until you get older. Little things like being spanked every day by a middle-aged woman: Stuff you pay good money for in later life. - Emo Phillips

It’s never too late to be what you might have been. – George Eliot

"I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members."- Groucho Marx

There's too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will. – Agatha Christie

The invention of the teenager was a mistake. Once you identify a period of life in which people get to stay out late but don't have to pay taxes - naturally, no one wants to live any other way. - Judith Martin

Know thyself. Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.--Ann Landers

The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. – Albert Einstein

When you’re finished changing, you’re finished. – Benjamin Franklin

The word “aerobics” came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it “Jumping up and down”. - Rita Rudner.

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. - Douglas Adams.

Find something you love to do and you’ll never have to work a day in your life. – Harvey Mckay

The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense. - Tom Clancy.

If your parents never had children, chances are you won't either. - Dick Cavett.

Live every day as though it is your last. Who knows? It might be! – Alexander King

Trees acquire strength by growing slowly and flexing with the pressures of nature. Us too… - Gene Simmons

It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word. – Andrew Jackson

If it weren't for electricity we'd all be watching television by candlelight. - George Gobal.

Never continue in a job you don't enjoy. If you're happy in what you're doing, you'll like yourself, you'll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined. - Johnny Carson

Men occasionally stumble on the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. – Sir Winston Churchill

You know, it's a long world. - Lawrence Welk

When angry count four; when very angry, swear. – Mark Twain

Advice for the day: If you have a lot of tension and you get a headache, do what it says on the aspirin bottle: "Take two aspirin" and "Keep away from children" - Author Unknown

Love is the answer - but while you're waiting for the answer sex raises some pretty good questions. – Woody Allen

Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.--Mark Twain

Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.--Will Rogers,

One thing they never tell you about child raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of a hat, you are expected to know your child's name and how old he or she is. – Erma Bombeck

Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers. - Socrates

Get the facts first. You can distort them later. – Mark Twain

If it weren't for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we'd still be eating frozen radio dinners. – Johnny Carson

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

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all art and science. - Albert Einstein

Human beings, vegetables, or comic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player. - Albert Einstein

Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died. - Erma Bombeck

Buy land, they're not making it any more. – Mark Twain

Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant?? I'm halfway through my fish burger and I realize, Oh my God.... I could be eating a slow learner. - Lynda Montgomery

Our perception of yesterday is the foundation for our expectations of tomorrow. – Gene Simmons

It’s hard to see your destination when you’re focused on the cracks in the sidewalk. – Gene Simmons

 When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me." – Emo Philips

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment. - Will Rogers

If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. - Will Rogers

There are three kinds of men. The ones that learn by reading.  The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence. - Will Rogers

The best things in life are not things!

Red meat is NOT bad for you. Now, blue-green meat, THAT'S bad for you!--Tommy Smothers

A good marriage can be ruined by poor communications – and by forgetting to put the lid back down. – Gene Simmons


Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. – Abraham Lincoln

Never kick a fresh cow pie on a hot day.--Harry S. Truman

What we have is pretty meaningless.  It’s what we are that counts. – Gene Simmons

If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there is a man on base. - Dave Barry

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. – Sir Winston Churchill


The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man. - Euripides


Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all.  The conscientious historian will correct these defects. - Herodotus


Everyone has a purpose in life.  Perhaps yours is watching television. – David Letterman


A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good. - Steven Wright
Death is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down. The difference between sex and death is that with death you can do it alone and no one is going to make fun of you. – Woody Allen

If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going.  - Professor Irwin Corey

I thought about making a fitness movie for folks my age and call it "Pumping Rust." – Unknown

Remember that happiness is as contagious as gloom. It should be the first duty of those who are happy to let others know of their gladness. – Maurice Maeterlinck

I never hated a man enough to give his diamonds back. - Zsa Zsa Gabor

Last week I stated this woman was the ugliest woman I had ever seen.  I have since been visited by her sister ....and now wish to withdraw that statement.
- Mark Twain

Failure is not the only punishment for laziness; there is also the success of others. - Jules Renard

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. – Albert Einstein

It takes only one drink to get me drunk.  The trouble is I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or the fourteenth. - George Burns

If you don’t know where you’re going, how are you going to know when you get there?  - Gene Simmons

My parents didn't want to move to Florida, but they turned sixty and that's the law. - Jerry Seinfeld

My Mom said she learned how to swim when someone took her out in the lake and threw her off the boat. I said, 'Mom, they weren't trying to teach you how to swim. - Paula Poundstone

I don’t know why people question the academic training of an athlete.  Fifty percent of the doctors in the country graduated in the bottom half of their classes. – Al McGuire

Not only is life a bitch, it has puppies. - Adrienne Gusoff

The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you have it made. - Unknown

What if there were no hypothetical questions? - Steven Wright

I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead. Not sick. Not wounded. Dead. – Woody Allen

Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating. – Carl von Clausewitz

A woman drove me to drink ... and I hadn't even the courtesy to thank her.
- W.C. Fields

Why is it that when a man talks dirty to a woman, it's sexual harassment, but when a woman talks dirty to a man, it's $3.95/minute? - Unknown

I was going to buy a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking, and then I thought: What the hell good would that do? - Ronnie Shakes

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men. - Martin Luther King Jr.

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, and half-shut afterwards. – Benjamin Franklin

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves. - Abraham Lincoln

Show me a man with both feet firmly on the ground, and I'll show you a man who can't get his pants off. - Steven Wright

Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects. - Will Rogers

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. - Bill Cosby

Santa Claus has the right idea - visit people only once a year. - Victor Borge

If life were fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators could be dead. - Johnny Carson

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. – Groucho Marx

Look for the ridiculous in everything, and you will find it. - Jules Renard

The trouble with life is that you're half-way through it before you realize it's a do-it-yourself thing. – Unknown

Violence and smut are of course everywhere on the airwaves. You cannot turn on your television without seeing them, although sometimes you have to hunt around. – Dave Barry

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. - Leo Tolstoy

There are good days and there are bad days, and this is one of them. - Lawrence Welk

Half the people you know are below average. – Steven Wright

Be careful about reading health books.  You may die of a misprint. - Mark Twain

When I was young we used to go skinny "dipping" now I just "chunky dunk." - Unknown

When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and
so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which
open for us. - Alexander Graham Bell

Borrow money from pessimists - they don't expect it back. – Steven Wright

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. – Mahatma Gandhi

We are here on Earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I don't know. – W. H. Auden

A study in the Washington Post says that women have better verbal skills than men. I just want to say to the authors of that study: "Duh." - Conan O'Brien

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. – Herm Albright

Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer. – Dave Barry

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook. – Thomas Jefferson

Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she'd come in and sink my boats. – Woody Allen

Magnetism is one of the Six Fundamental Forces of the Universe, with the other five being Gravity, Duct Tape, Whining, Remote Control, and The Force That Pulls Dogs Toward The Groins Of Strangers. – Dave Barry

I signed up for an exercise class and was told to wear loose-fitting clothing.  If I had any loose-fitting clothing, I wouldn't have signed up in the first place. – Unknown

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. – Thomas Jefferson


I have gotten that dreaded furniture disease ... that's when your chest is falling into your drawers! – Unknown

I just had an idea that went right over my head. - Lawrence Welk

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in. – Andrew Jackson

What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them? -Marilyn Pittman

I'm so unlucky that if I was to fall into a barrel of nipples I'd come out sucking my thumb. - Freddie Starr.

What would men be without women? Scarce, sir ... mighty scarce.  - Mark Twain

I was thinking about how a status symbol of today is those cell phones that everyone has clipped on. I can't afford one so I'm wearing my garage door opener. – Unknown

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him
absolutely no good. - Ann Landers


I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right. – Albert Einstein

The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread. - Steven Wright

Success is figuring out what God put you on this earth to do...And doing it. - Rhea Perry

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living.  The world owes you nothing.  It was here first. - Mark Twain

The cardiologist's diet: If it tastes good ... spit it out. - Unknown


Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines! - Steven Wright


You know, I spent a fortune on deodorant before I realized that people didn't like me anyway. – Unknown

I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered.  But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: "No good in a bed, but fine up against a wall". - Eleanor Roosevelt

USA Today has come out with a new survey: Apparently three out of four people make up 75 percent of the population. - David Letterman.

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. – Mahatma Gandhi


Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed. – Benjamin Franklin

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. – Albert Einstein


Some guy hit my fender, and I told him, 'Be fruitful and multiply,' but not in those words. – Woody Allen

There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. - Douglas Adams

Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar. - Drew Carey

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. - Elbert Hubbard

Until I was thirteen, I thought my name was 'shut up'. - Joe Namath

Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion. – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

I want to have children and I know my time is running out: I want to have them while my parents are still young enough to take care of them. - Rita Rudner

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

Have you noticed that whatever sport you're trying to learn, some earnest person is always telling you to keep your knees bent? – Dave Barry

Wouldn't you know it...Brain cells come and brain cells go, but FAT cells live forever. – Unknown

I go from stool to stool in singles bars hoping to get lucky, but there's never any gum under any of them. - Emo Phillips

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. – Groucho Marx

Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream. - Malcolm Muggeridge

A fast word about oral contraception. I asked a girl to go to bed with me, she said 'no'.  – Woody Allen

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret. – Ambrose Bierce

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former. – Albert Einstein

Remember in elementary school, you were told that in case of fire you have to line up quietly in a single file line from smallest to tallest. What is the logic in that? What, do tall people burn slower? - Warren Hutcherson

I am not sincere, even when I say I am not.
- Jules Renard

A rut is just a grave with both ends kicked out.  It’s not a good place to be. – Unknown

Whenever you have a minute I'd like to see you right now. - Lawrence Welk

Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. - Charles Schulz

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. – Eleanor Roosevelt

Courage is never to let your actions be influenced by your fears. – Arthur Koestler

If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets. - Mel Brooks

Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza. – Dave Barry

If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around. - Unknown

Is it my imagination, or do buffalo wings taste like chicken? - Steven Wright
The only kind of seafood I trust is the fish stick, a totally featureless fish that doesn't have eyeballs or fins. – Dave Barry

I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter. – Sir Winston Churchill

We'll try to cooperate fully with the IRS, because, as citizens, we feel a strong patriotic duty not to go to jail. – Dave Barry

The problem with the designated driver program, it's not a desirable job, but if you ever get sucked into doing it, have fun with it.  At the end of the night, drop them off at the wrong house. - Jeff Foxworthy

It's hard to be nostalgic when you can't remember anything. – Unknown

If the world was a logical place, men would ride horses sidesaddle. - Steven Wright

Do you know why they call it "PMS"?  Because “Mad Cow Disease" was taken. - Author Unknown, presumed dead

Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else. - Will Rogers

Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year and spends very little on office supplies. - Woody Allen

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all. – Dale Carnegie

I saw six men kicking and punching the mother-in-law. My neighbor said are you going to help?' I said “No, Six should be enough.” – Peter Kay

I never know how much of what I say is true. - Bette Midler

The future is much like the present, only longer. - Dan Quisenberry

With just a little effort, life can be more or less exceptionally tolerable.  – Gene Simmons

Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet? - Lily Tomlin

When your pet bird sees you reading the newspaper, does he wonder why you're just sitting there, staring at carpeting? – Unknown

I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not sure. - Steven Wright

To heal your body, you must first heal your spirit. – M. Scott Peck

There are two types of people--those who come into a room and say, “Well, here I am!” and those who come in and say, “Ah, there you are.” - Frederick L Collins

It is a scientific fact that your body will not absorb cholesterol if you take it from another person's plate. – Dave Barry

There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I'll get married again. - Clint Eastwood

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. - Douglas Adams

I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers. – Peter Kay

The genius of Man in our time has gone into jet-propulsion, atom-splitting, penicillin-curing, etc. There is none over for works of imagination; of spiritual insight or mystical enlightenment. I asked for bread and was given a tranquillizer. - Malcolm Muggeridge

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. - Mark Twain

Never fight an inanimate object. - P. J. O'Rourke

So what do we do?  Anything, something, so long as we just don’t sit there.  If we screw it up, start over.  Try something else.  If we wait until we’ve satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late. - Lee Iacocca

I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me. – Woody Allen

Doctor to patient: I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you are not a hypochondriac. – Unknown

The future, according to some scientists, will be exactly like the past, only far more expensive. - John Sladek

Defeat is simply a signal to press onward. – Helen Keller

If God had wanted us to be concerned for the plight of the toads, he would have made them cute and furry. – Dave Barry

Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow. - Jeff Valdez

I was walking down the street wearing glasses when the prescription ran out. - Steven Wright

I told the doctor I broke my leg in two places. He told me to quit going to those places. - Henny Youngman

Never let yesterday use up too much of today. - Will Rogers

Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone. - Anthony Burgess

I want to know God’s thoughts… the rest are details. – Albert Einstein

Now that food has replaced sex in my life, I can't even get into my own pants. - Unknown

I had amnesia once -- maybe twice. - Steven Wright

In Hollywood a marriage is a success if it outlasts milk. - Rita Rudner

Why does mineral water that 'has trickled through mountains for centuries' have a 'use by' date? – Peter Kay

I have a rock garden. Last week three of them died. - Richard Diran

Man can not live by bread alone.  At the very least, it requires the addition of a little peanut butter and jelly. – Unknown

For fast acting relief; try slowing down. - Lily Tomlin

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking. - H. L. Mencken

Women and cats do what they do; there is nothing a man can do about it.-Heinlein

I don't believe in the after life, although I am bringing a change of underwear. – Woody Allen

The really frightening thing about middle age is that you know you'll grow out of it. - Doris Day

Who had deceived thee so often as thyself? – Benjamin Franklin

An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out. - Will Rogers

What if you're in hell, and you're mad at someone, where do you tell them to go? – Unknown

There is never enough time, unless you're serving it. - Malcolm Forbes

A recent survey shows that the commonest form of marriage proposal these days consists of the words: "You're WHAT???" – Unknown

I don't think my parents liked me. They put a live teddy bear in my crib. – Woody Allen

Is French kissing in France just called kissing? – Peter Kay

A man's only as old as the woman he feels. - Groucho Marx

My husband and I are either going to buy a dog or have a child. We can't decide whether to ruin our carpet or ruin our lives. - Rita Rudner

I just bought a cured ham. Wonder what it had? – Unknown

A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. - Emo Phillips

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us. – Hermann Hesse

42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot. - Steven Wright

Maybe it's true that life begins at fifty, but everything else starts to wear out, fall out, or spread out.  - Phyllis Diller

Anger and intolerance are the twin enemies of correct understanding. – Mahatma Gandhi

All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. – Sean O'Casey

What's the use of happiness?  It can't buy you money. - Henny Youngman

If you are going through hell, keep going. – Sir Winston Churchill

All music is folk music.  I ain't never heard no horse sing a song. - Louis Armstrong

Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things in the world that just don't add up. - James Magary

I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault. – Unknown

If you want a place in the sun, you've got to expect a few blisters. - Abigail Van Buren

Scientists now believe that the primary biological function of breasts is to make males stupid. – Dave Barry

Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach a person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks. – Unknown

I've often wanted to drown my troubles, but I can't get my wife to go swimming. – Peter Kay

My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start. So far today, I have finished 2 bags of M and M's and a chocolate cake. I feel better already. – Dave Barry

Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp no one would eat? – Peter Kay

I like life. It's something to do. - Ronnie Shakes

Slight not what's near, while aiming at what's far. – Euripides

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

Students achieving Oneness will move on to Twoness. - Woody Allen

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to
do it. - Pablo Picasso

Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died. - Steven Wright

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. - Mark Twain

Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it. – Unknown

Whoever thought up the word "Mammogram"? Every time I hear it, I think I'm supposed to put my breast in an envelope and send it to someone. - Jan King

Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck. - George Carlin

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon. - Napoleon Bonaparte

You live and learn. At any rate, you live. - Douglas Adams

As the poet said, 'Only God can make a tree,' probably because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on. – Woody Allen
 
Don't use a big word where a diminutive one will suffice. - Unknown
 
If people knew how hard I worked at my art, they would not consider me a genius. – Michelangelo
 
Gravity is a contributing factor in nearly 73 percent of all accidents involving falling objects. – Dave Barry
 
99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name. - Steven Wright

I don't have a bank account, because I don't know my mother's maiden name. - Paula Poundstone
 
Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.– T. S. Eliot
 
Aristotle was famous for knowing everything. He taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain persons. - Will Cuppy
 
Hear and you forget; see and you remember; do and you understand. - Confucius
 
I was so naive as a kid I used to sneak behind the barn and do nothing. - Johnny Carson
 
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.  - Leo F. Buscaglia
 
I'm not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose... it'll be much harder to detect. - George Carlin
 
Live well – respire frequently. – Gene Simmons
 
Everyone is born with genius, but most people only keep it a few minutes. - Edgard Varese
 
I was thinking about old age and decided that it is when you still have something on the ball but you are just too tired to bounce it. – Unknown
 
Everything you can imagine is real. - Pablo Picasso
 
I think the world is run by 'C' students. - Al McGuire
 
What do people in China call their good plates? – Peter Kay

Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow - what a Ride!" - Peter Sage


"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reasons for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity." - Albert Einstein

 like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me. - Noel Coward

There are moments when everything goes well; don't be frightened, it won't last.
- Jules Renard

If you let your head get too big, it'll break your neck. - Elvis Presley

It is difficult to say who does us the most mischief, our enemies with the worst intentions or our friends with the best. – Unknown

If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee. - Abraham Lincoln

It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness. – Confucius

We are here and it is now. Further than that all human knowledge is moonshine. - H. L. Mencken

A lifetime is more than sufficiently long for people to get what there is of it wrong. - Unknown

The speed of time is one second per second. - Steven Wright

I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult. - Rita Rudner

Lawyers, I suppose, were children once. - Charles Lamb

Reminds me of my safari in Africa. Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had to live on nothing but food and water. - W. C. Fields

The Internet is the most important single development in the history of human communication since the invention of call waiting. – Dave Barry

There are two great days in a person's life -- the day we are born and the day we discover why. - William Barclay

The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age. - Lucille Ball

A goal is a dream with a deadline. - Napoleon Hill

If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Jaques Anatole Thibault

No matter what your past has been, you have a spotless future. -  Unknown

Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes. - Mickey Mouse

If a person owns a piece of land do they own it all the way down to the core of the earth? – Peter Kay

You must be the change you want to see in the world. - Gandhi

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future. - Niels Bohr

Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.) - Ambrose Bierce

The concept of two people living together for 25 years without a serious dispute suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep. – A.P. Herbert

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth.  Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes.  All is a miracle. - Thich Nhat Hanh

A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance of turning around three times before lying down. - Robert Benchley

The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat. - Napoleon Hill

Are you going to come quietly, or do I have to use earplugs? - Spike Milligan

Don't worry that children never listen to you. Worry that they are always watching you. – Robert Fulghum

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

When you're finally holding all the cards, why does everyone else decide to play chess? – Unknown

A good friend will come and bail you out of jail but, a true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "Damn...that was fun!" – Unknown

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome. - Jules W. Lederer

Old women with mobile phones look wrong. – Peter Kay

Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless. - Thomas A. Edison

What if this weren't a hypothetical question? - Unknown

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

A healthy male bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people’s patience. – John Updike

Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others. - Groucho Marx

You can't make footprints in the sands of time by sitting on your tush. – Unknown

The greatest of all mistakes is to do nothing because you can only do a little. Do what you can. - Sydney Smith

Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy. - Steven Wright

The thing that impresses me the most about America is the way parents obey their children. - King Edward VIII

To an adolescent, there is nothing in the world more embarrassing than a parent. – Dave Barry

Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you drink, don't drive. Don't even putt. - Dean Martin

If we are to reach real peace in this world ... we shall have to begin with the children. - Mohandas Gandhi

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. – Abraham Lincoln

The best car safety device is a rear-view mirror with a cop in it. - Dudley Moore

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career.  I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed.  I've failed over and over and over again in my life.  And that is why I succeed. – Michael Jordan

At 20 we worry about what others think of us; at 40, we don’t care what they think of us; at 60, we discover they haven’t been thinking of us at all.  – Bob Hope

Magnetism, as you recall from physics class, is a powerful force that causes certain items to be attracted to refrigerators. – Dave Barry

Camping is nature's way of promoting the motel business. – Dave Barry

I take my children everywhere, but they always find their way back home. - Robert Orben

God made man before woman so as to give him time to think of an answer for her first question. - Unknown

It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. - Benjamin E. Mayes

This is my simple religion.  There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy.  Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; philosophy is kindness. – Dalai Lama

My Dad used to say “always fight fire with fire”, which is probably why he got thrown out of the fire brigade. – Peter Kay

Anything the human mind can believe, the human mind can achieve. - Napoleon Hill

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance. – Unknown

So live that you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.  - Will Rogers

The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question. - Stephen Jay Gould

Sometimes, when I look at my children, I say to myself "Lillian, you should have remained a virgin." - Lillian Carter (mother of Jimmy Carter)

The great use for life is to spend it for something that will outlast it. - William James

Parents were invented to make children happy by giving them something to ignore. - Ogden Nash

My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people. - Orson Welles

I planted some bird seed. A bird came up. Now I don't know what to feed it. - Steven Wright

Love cures people -- both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it. - Karl A. Menninger

I always keep a supply of stimulant handy in case I see a snake--which I also keep handy. - W. C. Fields

Money can't buy you happiness, but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery. - Spike Milligan

Our job is to leave the world a little better than we found it.  Not the same… not worse… better. – Gene Simmons

What year did Jesus think it was? – Unknown

Mistakes show us what we need to learn. - Peter McWilliams

Did you ever notice how difficult it is to argue with someone who is not obsessed with being right? - Wayne W. Dyer

All progress depends on the unreasonable man. - George Bernard Shaw

A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done. - Dwight D. Eisenhower,

Dust is a protective coating for fine furniture. - Mario Burata

Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. - Susan Ertz

Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge. - Scott Adams

My favorite thing about the Internet is that you get to go into the private world of real creeps without having to smell them. - Penn Jillette

Men are from Earth, women are from Earth. Deal with it. – Unknown

When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure. - Peter Marshal

Dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you in the car, in case the need should arise for them to bark violently at nothing right in your ear. - Dave Barry

Every bloke has at some stage while taking a pee flushed half way through and then raced against the flush. – Peter Kay


Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. - Franklin P. Jones

It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. - Rod Serling

Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly - until you can learn to do it well. – Steve Brown

The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance. - Robert R. Coveyou

Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it. - Stephen Leacock

Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong. – Unknown

Things are only impossible until they're not. - Jean-Luc Picard

Irrigation of the land with seawater desalinated by fusion power is ancient. It's called 'rain'. - Michael McClary

My mother used to say that there are no strangers, only friends you haven't met yet. She's now in a maximum security twilight home in Australia. - Dame Edna Everage

Waste not fresh tears over old griefs. – Euripides

When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: You haven't! - Thomas Edison

Weather forecast for tonight: dark, continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning. - George Carlin

Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so. - Bertrand Russell

We understand why children are afraid of the darkness, but why are men afraid of the light? - Plato

It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it. - Steven Wright
A woman knows all about her children.  She knows about dentist appointments, soccer games, romances, best friends, location of friend’s houses, favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams.  A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house. – Matt Groening

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

Yesterday is a canceled check; tomorrow is a promissory note; today is the only cash you have—so spend it wisely. - Kay Lyons

I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much. -  Mother Theresa

My doctor gave me two weeks to live.  I hope they’re in August. – Ronnie Shakes

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for. – Socrates

Sometimes when you look in his eyes you get the feeling that someone else is driving. - David Letterman

Nothing lowers the level of conversation more than raising the voice. - Stanley Horowitz

I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence, but it comes from within. It is there all the time. - Anna Freud

The value of an idea lies in the using of it. - Thomas Edison

The best thing you can do is get good at being you. -  Dennis the Menace

Few things are more satisfying than seeing your children have teenagers of their own. – Doug Larson

You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they’re going – P.J. O’Rourke

It doesn't matter if you try and try and try again, and fail. It does matter if you try and fail, and fail to try again. - Charles F. Kettering

Discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen, and thinking what nobody else has thought. - Albert Szent-Gyorgi

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor.  Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. - Mark Twain

Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but doesn't get
you anywhere. - Unknown

Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men. - Kin Hubbard

God made man before woman so as to give him time to think of an answer for her first question. - Unknown

A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something. - Wilson Mizner

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

Happiness depends upon ourselves. -  Aristotle

I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn't like it. - Samuel Goldwyn

Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then. - Katharine Hepburn

I have opinions of my own -- strong opinions -- but I don't always agree with them. - George Bush

Sometimes the answer to prayer is not that it changes life, but that it changes you. – James Dillet Freeman

We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing. - George Bernard Shaw

After twelve years of therapy my psychiatrist said something that brought tears to my eyes. He said, 'No hablo ingles.' - Ronnie Shakes

Character is who you are when no one is watching – Unknown

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. - Vincent Van Gogh

Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature! - George Bernard Shaw

Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function. - Garrison Keillor

When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty. - Norm Crosby

Life is full of obstacle illusions. - Grant Frazier

Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall. - Oliver Goldsmith

A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on. - Samuel Goldwyn

Bureaucrats write memoranda both because they appear to be busy when they are writing and because the memos, once written, immediately become proof that they were busy. - Charles Peters

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain

Everyone rises to their level of incompetence. – Dr. Laurence J. Peter

A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it. - Bob Hope

It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others. - John Andrews Holmes

Few men of action have been able to make a graceful exit at the appropriate time. - Malcolm Muggeridge

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. - Henry David Thoreau

You can fool too many of the people too much of the time. - James Thurber

Reality is nothing but a collective hunch. - Jane Wagner

A true friend is someone who is there for you when he'd rather be anywhere else. - Len Wein

Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before. - Mae West

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian. - Dennis Wholey

Life is the movie you see through your own eyes. It makes little difference what's happening out there. It's how you take it that counts. - Denis Waitley

Learning to dislike children at an early age saves a lot of expense and aggravation later in life. - Robert Byrne

As you journey through life take a minute every now and then to give a thought for the other fellow. He could be plotting something. - Hagar the Horrible

It's not what you are that holds you back.  It's what you think you're not. - Denis Waitley

That's why many fail; because they don't get started. They don't go. They don't overcome inertia.  They don't begin. - W. Clement Stone

I don't have a photograph, but you can have my footprints. They're upstairs in my socks. - Groucho Marx

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. – Albert Einstein

If you want to work for world peace, go home and love your families. - Mother Teresa

There's no panic like the panic you momentarily feel when your hand or head is stuck in something. – Peter Kay

The only reason I have a kitchen is because it came with the house. – Unknown

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

An ounce of action is worth a ton of good intentions. - Michael Josephson

I hate the outdoors. To me the outdoors is where the car is. - Will Durst

If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astonish ourselves. - Thomas Edison

On performance: Do your best, then don t worry about it! - Kent Krive

The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time. - Friedrich Nietzsche

The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant – and let the air out of the tires. – Dorothy Parker

I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time. - Charles M. Schulz

If you are lonely when you are alone, you are in bad company. - Jean-Paul Sartre

I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day. - Abraham Lincoln

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. - ¬ Carl Jung

You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result. - Mahatma Gandhi

Familiarity breeds contempt - and children. - Mark Twain

My wife and I had words, but I didn't get to use mine. – Unknown

As a housewife, I feel that if the kids are still alive when my husband gets home from work, then hey, I've done my job. - Roseanne Barr

O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet. - Saint Augustine

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. - Douglas Adams

Success is a lousy teacher.  It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose. – Bill Gates

A fellow who is always declaring he's no fool usually has his suspicions. - Wilson Mizner

In a few minutes a computer can make a mistake so great that it would have taken many men many months to equal it. - Unknown

Two can live as cheaply as one, for half as long. - Steven Wright

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals. - Sir Winston Churchill

The chief problem about death, incidentally, is the fear that there may be no afterlife-a depressing thought, particularly for those who have bothered to shave. Also, there is the fear that there is an afterlife but no one will know where it's being held. – Woody Allen

Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step. -  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

If you are going to do something wrong, at least enjoy it. - Leo Rosten

Thousands of years ago cats were worshipped as gods - cats have never forgotten this. - Unknown

I don't necessarily agree with everything I say. - Marshall McLuhan

The earth is like a spaceship that didn't come with an operating manual. - Buckminster Fuller

Television enables you to be entertained in your home by people you wouldn't have in your home. - David Frost

Ours is a world where people don't know what they want and are willing to go through hell to get it. - Don Marquis

In politics, sincerity is everything.  Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made. -  Groucho Marx

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important. - Bertrand Russell

Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care. - William Safire

Half of being smart is knowing what you are dumb about. - Solomon Short

People are disturbed not by things, but by their perception of things. – Epictetus

There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking. - Thomas A. Edison

And that's the world in a nutshell, an appropriate receptacle. - Stan Dunn

My wife was afraid of the dark, saw me naked, and now she’s afraid of the light. – Rodney Dangerfield

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. - Arthur C. Clarke

There are two kinds of people, those who finish what they start and so on. - Robert Byrne

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

Even very young children need to be informed about dying.  Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child.  This will make threatening him with it much more effective. – P.J. O’Rourke

Don’t believe everything you think. – Maxine

As long as you stand in your own way, what does it matter what other obstacles you face? - Unknown

If God had really intended men to fly, he'd make it easier to get to the airport. - George Winters

Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better. - Ed Howe

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions. - Albert Einstein

I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination. - Jimmy Dean

God is not dead but alive and well and working on a much less ambitious project. - Unknown

Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway. - John Wayne

Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he’s buying – Fran Lebowitz

It's not how much you have that makes people look up to you, it's who you are. - Elvis Presley

There is no nobility in being superior to another person.  True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self. – Hindu proverb

The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing. – Jean-Baptiste Colbert

All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things. - Bobby Knight

I believe that people would be alive today if there were a death penalty. - Nancy Reagan

An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind. - Mahatma Gandhi

Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once. - Unknown

The trouble with jogging is that the ice falls out of your glass. - Martin Mull

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. - William James

God’s OK.  It’s his fan club that’s screwed up. – Mark Casoli

Trust your hunches. They're usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level. – Dr. Joyce Brothers

The naked truth is always better than the best dressed lie. – Ann Landers

I now realize that the small hills you see on ski slopes are formed around the bodies of forty-seven-year-olds who tried to learn snowboarding. – Dave Barry

It's kind of fun to do the impossible. - Walt Disney

he green Bay Packers never lost a football game. They just ran out of time. - Vince Lombardi

The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope. - Henry Ward Beecher

It is no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase “As pretty as an Airport” appear. - Douglas Adams

Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be. - George Sheehan

I had such an inferiority complex as a kid that even my imaginary playmate was ashamed to hang around with me. – Unknown

Life is not a spectator sport.  If you're going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion, you're wasting your life. - Jackie Robinson

There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up. - John Andrew Holmes

Little things affect little minds. - Benjamin Disraeli

I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that! - Tom Lehrer

I'm not a real movie star. I've still got the same wife I started out with twenty-eight years ago. - Will Rogers

Be a first-rate version of yourself, not a second-rate version of someone else. - Judy Garland

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else. - Winston Churchill

Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. - Jack Benny

When I look up into the night sky and gaze at the stars, I often wonder, “Is there intelligent life out there in the cosmos – or are they just like us?” – Unknown

One day at a time--this is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past, for it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come.  Live in the present, and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering. - Ida Scott Taylor

Everyone and everything around you is your teacher. – Ken Keyes, Jr.

I don't have anything against work. I just figure, why deprive somebody who really loves it. - Dobie Gillis

He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met. - Abraham Lincoln

A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. - Christopher Reeves

Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it. – Robert HeinLein

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. - Albert Einstein

Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what nerves let you do. - Bruce Crampton

A person of character takes as much trouble to discover what is right as the lesser men take to discover what will pay. -  Confucius

Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed. - Dale Carnegie

Seeing a murder on television... can help work off one's antagonisms. And if you haven't any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some. - Alfred Hitchcock

No one knows the origins of their metal coat hangers. – Peter Kay

Change your thoughts and you change your world. – Norman Vincent Peale

The goal of all inanimate objects is to resist man and ultimately defeat him. - Russell Baker

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move. - Douglas Adams

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. - Edgar Allan Poe

The weather is here, wish you were beautiful. – Unknown

The smaller the monkey the more it looks like it would kill you at the first given opportunity. – Peter Kay

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done. - Peter Ustinov

If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. – Benjamin Franklin


You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans. - Ronald Reagan

Men are strange.  When they wake up in the morning they want things like toast.  I don’t have these recipes. – Elayne Boosler

Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapeno's. What you do today, might burn your butt tomorrow. – Unknown

Don't you wish there were a control on the TV to turn up the intelligence? There's one marked 'Brightness,' but it doesn't work. - Gallagher

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. - General George S. Patton

Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having. - Ambrose Bierce

Misquotations are the only quotations that are never misquoted. - Hesketh Pearson

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

If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner. - Tallulah Bankhead

Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. - Maria Robinson

Never explain. Your friends do not need it and your enemies won’t believe you anyway. – Elbert Hubbard

Artificial Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. - Unknown

Some national parks have long waiting lists for camping reservations. When you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong. - George Carlin

If you think you can do something, you have a much better chance for success than if you wish you could. - Tom Kubistant

Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything. - Charles Kuralt

When someone tells you something defies description, you can be pretty sure he's going to have a go at it anyway. - Clyde B. Aster

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy. - Guilaume Apollinaire

It is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off. - Woody Allen

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. - Thomas Edison

There will be a time when loud-mouthed, incompetent people seem to be getting the best of you.  When that happens, you only have to be patient and wait for them to self-destruct.  It never fails. – Richard Rybolt

Let the early bird catch the worm.  I’m going to sleep in and have sausage and eggs. – Unknown

In the book of life's questions, the answers are not in the back. - Charles Schultz

The closest to perfection a person ever comes is when he fills out a job application form. - Stanley J. Randall

All happy people are grateful. Ungrateful people cannot be happy. We tend to think that being unhappy leads people to complain, but it s truer to say that complaining leads to people becoming unhappy. - Dennis Prager

Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough. - Og Mandino

Men show their character in nothing more clearly than by what they think laughable. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. - Peter De Vries

Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what nerves let you do. - Bruce Crampton

Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat. - John Lehman

Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy. - Groucho Marx

I have been all things unholy; if God can work through me, He can work through anyone. -  St Francis of Assisi

Shut out all of your past except that which will help you weather your tomorrows. – Sir William Osler

Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast, you also miss the sense of where you are going and why. - Eddie Cantor

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie - deliberate, contrived, and dishonest, but the myth - persistent, persuasive and realistic. - John F. Kennedy

A boy becomes an adult three years before his parents think he does, and about two years after he thinks he does. - Lewis B Hershey

Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit. – Napoleon Hill

Never play peek-a-boo 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

I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy. - J. D. Salinger

It may be those who do most, dream most. - Stephen Leacock

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you will help them become what they are capable of becoming. - Johann Von Goethe

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. - Albert Einstein

Getting caught is the mother of invention. - Robert Byrne

My circumstances do not make me what I am, they reveal who I have chosen to be. - Dr. Wayne Dyer

Women like silent men, they think they're listening. - George Carlin

Making money is a hobby that will complement any other hobbies you have, beautifully. – Scott Alexander

Nature gave us one tongue and two ears so we could hear twice as much as we speak. – Epictetus

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar. – Abraham Lincoln

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.  - Albert Schweitzer

Handle every stressful situation like a dog. If you can't eat it or play with it, pee on it and walk away. - Unknown

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

What happens in the mind of man is always reflected in the disease of his body. - René Dubos

Death is caused by swallowing small amounts of saliva over a long period of time. - George Carlin

The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it’s the same problem you had last year. – John Foster Dulles

Nobody is bored when he is trying to make something that is beautiful, or to discover something that is true. - William Inge

One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine. - Sir William Osler

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequence of any misfortune. - William James

Relationships are hard. It's like a full time job, and we should treat it like one. If your boyfriend or girlfriend wants to leave you, they should give you two weeks' notice. There should be severance pay and before they leave you, they should have to find you a temp. - Bob Ettinger

Now I know what a statesman is; he's a dead politician. We need more statesmen. - Bob Edwards

Never stop being creative. The more you practice, the more creative you become. Creativity spells success. - Alden James

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight.  Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward.  Your life will never be the same again. – Og Mandino

I knew that I was an unwanted baby when I saw that my bath toys were a toaster and a radio. – Joan Rivers

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor. – Henry David Thoreau

Never fear shadows.  They simply mean there's a light shining somewhere nearby. - Ruth Renkel

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

Girls are always running through my mind. They don't dare walk. - Andy Gibb

I hate quotations. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. - Carrie Fisher

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it. - Henry Ford

It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important.  You have to do the right thing.  It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there'll be any fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing.  You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result. – Gandhi

Perseverance is a great element of success. If you knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. - Groucho Marx

He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife. - Douglas Adams
Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him. – Aldous Huxley

Eat a live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day. – Unknown

Time is the coin of your life.  It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent.  Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you – Carl Sandburg

If you can't feed a hundred people, then just feed one. - Mother Teresa

There are 350 varieties of shark, not counting loan and pool. - L. M. Boyd

If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it. – Herodotus

Most people are so busy living they neglect to take the time to ask why. – Gene Simmons

Your rewards will be determined by the extent of your contribution, that is your service to others. - Earl Nightingale

When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy the only decent thing to do is die at once. – Samuel Butler

One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interest. – John Stewart Mill

What concerns me is not the way things are but rather the way people think things are. -  Epictetus

Snow and adolescence are the only problems that disappear if you ignore them long enough. – Earl Wilson

Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you. - Frank Lloyd Wright

The real winners in life are the people who look at every situation with an expectation that they can make it work or make it better. - Barbara Pletcher

A baby is born with a need to be loved and never outgrows it. - Frank A. Clark

I don't want to achieve immortality through my work... I want to achieve it through not dying. - Woody Allen

It is bad luck to be superstitious. - Andrew W. Mathis

If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail. If you can’t be the sun, be a star. It isn’t by size that you win or you fail, it’s by being the best of whatever you are. –Unknown

In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey

We have met the enemy and he is us. – Pogo (Walt Kelly)

I never took hallucinogenic drugs because I never wanted my consciousness expanded one iota. – Fran Lebowitz

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. – Bertrand Russell

If you’re going to do something tonight that you’ll be sorry for tomorrow – sleep late. – Henny Youngman

If there's no wind, row. -  Unknown

Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment. – Dale Carnegie

Until you walk a mile in another man’s moccasins you can’t imagine the smell. – Robert Byrne

Anger is a killing thing: it kills the man who angers, for each rage leaves him less than he had been before - it takes something from him. - Louis L'Amour

Life is something that happens when you can’t get to sleep. – Fran Lebowitz

Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress. - Alfred A. Montapert

Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States.  Ask any Indian. – Robert Orben

What's going on in the inside, shows on the outside. - Earl Nightingale

A man is literally what he thinks. - Abraham Lincoln

To do something, however small, to make others happier and better, is the highest ambition, the most elevating hope, which can inspire a human being. - John Lubbock

Man has to suffer. When he has no real afflictions, he invents some. - Jose Marti

Don’t take life so serious, son, it ain’t nohow permanent. – Pogo (Walt Kelly)

Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless. - Jamie Paolinetti

They certainly give very strange names to diseases. - Plato

I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses. - Victor Hugo

A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her. - David Brinkley

Argue for your limitations and they are yours. - Richard Bach

I feel like a fugitive from the law of averages. - William H. Mauldin

It matters not what road we take but rather what we become on the journey. - Michael E. Angier

The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. - John F. Kennedy

A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on. – Carl Sandburg

Like its politicians and its war, society has the teenagers it deserves. – Joseph Priestley

Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses. - Margaret Millar

My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me. – Benjamin Disraeli

Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley. - James Rogers

Most turkeys taste better the day after; my mother's tasted better the day before. - Rita Rudner

If we are forced, at every hour, to watch or listen to horrible events, this constant stream of ghastly impressions will deprive even the most delicate among us of all respect for humanity. – Cicero

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. - Steve Jobs

No matter where you go… there you are. – Buckaroo Banzai

Never raise your hand to your children; it leaves your midsection unprotected. – Robert Orben

I don't like people who are in politics for themselves and not for others. You want that, you can go into show business. - Elvis Presley

Every single one of us can do things that no one else can do - can love things that no one else can love. We are like violins. We can be used for doorstops, or we can make music. You know what to do. - Barbara Sher

My Grandmother is over eighty and still doesn’t need glasses.  Drinks right out of the bottle. – Henny Youngman

The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it. – Michelangelo

Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength. - Eric Hoffer

Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer.  - W. C. Fields

Spread love everywhere you go: First of all in your own house... let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile. - Mother Teresa

Eternity’s a terrible thought.  I mean, where’s it all going to end? – Tom Stoppard

Don't put the key to your happiness in someone else's pocket. – Unknown

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom. - General George Patton

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy. - Anne Frank

Triangular sandwiches taste better than square ones. – Peter Kay

That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong. - William J. H. Boetcker

Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed - there's so little competition. - Elbert Hubbard

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. - Harry S Truman

By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong. - Charles Wadworth

Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew. - Cicely Tyson

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

We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible. - Vince Lombardi

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence. - H. L. Mencken

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. - Jimi Hendrix

I was a vegetarian until I started leaning toward the light. – Rita Rudner

In the end, everything is a gag. - Charlie Chaplin

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” – Ronald Reagan

It is a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. - W. Somerset Maugham

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. - Jerome K. Jerome

If Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at age 22, it would have changed the history of music… and of aviation. – Tom Stoppard

The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your own arm. -  Swedish proverb

A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words. – Unknown

I got kicked out of ballet class because I pulled a groin muscle.  It wasn’t mine. – Rita Rudner

God doesn't require that we succeed; He only requires that we try. - Mother Theresa

Man's mind is not a container to be filled but rather a fire to be kindled. - Charles Kettering

Quality means doing it right when no one is looking. - Henry Ford

When someone is impatient and says, "I haven't got all day," I always wonder, How can that be? How can you not have all day? - George Carlin

You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, “My God, you're right! I never would've thought of that!” - Dave Barry

The future belongs to those who believe in their dreams. - Eleanor Roosevelt

If you raise your children to feel that they can accomplish any goal or task they decide upon, you will have succeeded as a parent and you will have given your children the greatest of all blessings. - Brian Tracy

The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found. - Calvin Trillin

Envy someone an' it pulls you down. Admire them and it builds you up. Which makes more sense? - Elvis Presley

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley

I'm at an age where I think more about food than I do about sex. Last week I put a mirror over my dining room table. - Rodney Dangerfield

A day without laughter is a day wasted. - Charlie Chaplin

Outside noisy, inside empty. -  Chinese Proverb

Being right half the time beats being half-right all the time. - Malcolm S. Forbes

Talk is cheap. Words are plentiful. Deeds are precious. - H Ross Perot

The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination. - John Schaar

Life is too important to take seriously. - Oscar Wilde

Having more money does not insure happiness. People with ten million dollars are no happier than people with nine million dollars. - Hobart Brown

Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure. - Thomas Edison

As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but Nature's sources never fail. Like a generous host, she offers her brimming cups in endless
variety, served in a grand hall, the sky its ceiling, the mountains its walls, decorated with glorious paintings and enlivened with bands of music ever playing. - John Muir

Never eat more than you can lift. – Miss Piggy

When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

I read a book on levitation the other day.  I couldn’t put it down. – Unknown

Somebody does somethin' stupid, that's human. They don't stop when they see it's wrong, that's a fool. - Elvis Presley

Some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible. - Doug Larson

Every person is the creation of himself, the image of his own thinking and believing. As individuals think and believe, so they are. - Karl Wilhelm von Humboldt

The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever. – Anatole France

Marriage has no guarantees. If that's what you're looking for, go live with a car battery. - Erma Bombeck

What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet. - Woody Allen

At a formal dinner party, the person nearest death should always be seated closest to the bathroom. - George Carlin

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do. - Henry Ford

Children are apt to live up to what you believe of them. - Lady Bird Johnson

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. - John Lennon

There is always a well-known solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong. - H. L. Mencken

Light travels faster than sound. That's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. – Unknown

Try?  There is no try.  There is only do or not do. – Yoda

One nice thing about egotists... they don't talk about other people. - Steven Wright

It's hard to beat a person who never gives up. - Babe Ruth

If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito. - Betty Reese

Our attitude toward life determines life's attitude towards us. - Earl Nightingale

Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement. – Snoopy (Charles M. Schulz)

I'm worried that the universe will soon need replacing. It's not holding a charge. - Edward Chilton

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom. - Thomas Jefferson

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

Money won't buy happiness, but it will pay the salaries of a huge research staff to study the problem. - Bill Vaughan

The best year-round temperature is a warm heart and a cool head. – Unknown

A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure. - Segal's Law

The trouble with talking too fast is you may say something you haven't thought of yet. – Ann Landers

Accomplishing the impossible means only that the boss will add it to your regular duties. – Doug Larson

As long as you can laugh at yourself you will never cease to be amused. – Unknown

Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe. - John Muir

Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger. - Franklin P. Jones

The greatest mistake a man can ever make is to be afraid of making one. - Elbert Hubbard

Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come. – Carl Sandburg

People with goals succeed because they know where they're going. - Earl Nightingale

I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after they're dead. - Samuel Goldwyn

Your thoughts control your life. - Robert Stuberg

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

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. - Mark Twain

Within the perfect situation, not everything is perfect. – Gene Simmons

When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself. – Plato

The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor. - Vince Lombardi

A mate gave me a photo & said, "Here's a pic of me when I was younger." Twonk! Every photo of you is when you were younger. – “Gene Hunt”

Like what you do, if you don't like it, do something else. - Paul Harvey

Joy doesn't exist in the world, it exists in us. – Benjamin Franklin

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly. - The Buddha

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. - Thomas Edison

People wait for opportunity to come along...yet it is there every morning. - Dennis the Menace

Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it. – Confucius

I've spent 95% of my money on women and drink....the rest of it I've wasted. – “Gene Hunt”

An overdose of praise is like 10 lumps of sugar in coffee; only a very few people can swallow it. - Emily Post

Worry is the misuse of imagination. – Unknown

I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity. – Tom Stoppard

The trouble with jogging is that, by the time you realize you’re not in shape for it, it’s too far to walk back. – Franklin P. Jones

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen all at once. – Albert Einstein

People are only what we believe them to be. – Gene Simmons

The first key to success is deciding exactly what it is you want in life. - W.L. Hunt

Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was. - Margaret Mitchell

Live so that when your children think of fairness and integrity, they think of you. - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

The greatest power that a person possesses is the power to choose. - J. Martin Kohe

If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it's another nonconformist who doesn't conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity. - Bill Vaughan

Speak what you feel, not what you ought to say. - William Shakespeare

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter. - e e cummings

The art of living deliberately is the art of examining this vast storehouse of beliefs, dropping the outmoded ones, consciously choosing those that serve your goals, and carefully crafting new ones in greatest alignment with your desires. - Richard Bishop

The trouble with being punctual is that nobody’s there to appreciate it. – Franklin P. Jones

If you obey all of the rules, you miss all of the fun. - Katherine Hepburn

I hate women because they always know where things are. – James Thurber

Most people tiptoe their way through life, hoping to make it safely to death. - Bob Proctor

Man's mind once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimension. - Oliver Wendell Holmes

The trouble with America is that there are far too many wide-open spaces surrounded by teeth. - Charles Luckman

Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat. - Mark Twain

Anyone who sleeps like a baby doesn’t have a baby! - Unknown

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. - Oscar Wilde

The country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer. – Will Rogers

Food is an important part of a balanced diet. - Fran Lebowitz

-Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Space isn’t remote at all. It’s only an hour’s drive away if your car could go straight upwards. – Fred Hoyle

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city. - George Burns

I've had a few arguments with people, but I never carry a grudge. You know why? While you're carrying a grudge, they're out dancing. - Buddy Hackett

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. - Mark Twain

Remember, no human condition is ever permanent. Then you will not be overjoyed in good fortune nor too scornful in misfortune. – Socrates

Excellence is the difference between what I do and what I am capable of. – Unknown

Why is it that most of the folks I know think “personal growth” is caused entirely by those second and third helpings of biscuits and gravy? – Gene Simmons

The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it. - Chinese Proverb

At home I have a map of the United States – actual size.  I spent all last summer folding it. – Steven Wright

Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch. - Robert Orben

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist. - Indira Gandhi

Human beings are seventy percent water, and with some the rest is collagen. - Martin Mull

God not only sends special angels into our lives, but sometimes He even sends them back again if we forget to take notes the first time! - Eileen Elias Freeman

Money and success don t change people; they merely amplify what is already there. - Will Smith

Life is never so bad at its worst that it is impossible to live; it is never so good at its best that it is easy to live. -  Unknown

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. - Eric Hoffer

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - The Buddha

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself. - Friedrich Nietzsche

I have noticed that the people who are late are often so much jollier than the people who have to wait for them. - E. V. Lucas

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them. - Samuel Butler

When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion. - Abraham Lincoln

Ask yourself this question: Is my attitude worth catching? – Anonymous

There’s only one direction you can coast. - Brian Tracy

Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something. – Robert Heinlein

Be yourself. Who else is better qualified? - Frank Giblin, II

After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed. - De La Lastra's Law

Human beings are the only creatures that allow their children to come back home. - Bill Cosby

I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it. - Rita Mae Brown