I must say I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go into the library and read a good book.
Groucho Marx (1890-1977) American comedian [b. Julius Henry Marx]
“King Leer,” Tele-Views (Sep 1950)
Commonly paraphrased: "I find television very educational. Every time someone switches it on, I go into another room and read a good book." A number of uses of this line by Marx are found around the same time frame, with variant wordings. See here for more discussion.
Quotations by:
Marx, Groucho
Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?
Groucho Marx (1890-1977) American comedian [b. Julius Henry Marx]
(Attributed)
Those are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others.
Groucho Marx (1890-1977) American comedian [b. Julius Henry Marx]
(Attributed)
I’m not crazy about reality, but it’s still the only place to get a decent meal.
Groucho Marx (1890-1977) American comedian [b. Julius Henry Marx]
(Attributed)
Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
Groucho Marx (1890-1977) American comedian [b. Julius Henry Marx]
(Attributed)
Quoted by Ever Star, "Inside TV," Greensboro Record (3 Nov 1954). Also attributed to Ambrose Bierce, Henry Ward Beecher, and Lawrence J. Peter. More research and discussion here.
He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.
Groucho Marx (1890-1977) American comedian [b. Julius Henry Marx]
(Attributed)
Whoever named it necking was a poor judge of anatomy.
Groucho Marx (1890-1977) American comedian [b. Julius Henry Marx]
(Attributed)
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Groucho Marx (1890-1977) American comedian [b. Julius Henry Marx]
(Misattributed)
Variant 1: "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies."
Variant 2: "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it wrongly, and applying unsuitable remedies."
While popularly attributed to Groucho, there is no clear evidence he used it. The earliest reference I could find attributing the main quote to him (without citation) is in Victor Braude, Braude's Second Encyclopedia of Stories, Quotations, and Anecdotes (1957).
While Bennett Cerf include a similar reference in his syndicated "Try and Stop Me" column in November 1964, it does not show up in his earlier anecdote books such as Try and Stop Me (1944), nor in his meta-collection of anecdotes, Bennett Cerf's Bumper Crop (1958).
Variant 2 above is attributed (without citation) to Sir Ernest Benn in Henry Powell Spring, What Is Truth? (1944). Wikiquote indicates reference to this can be found in a July 1930 newspaper, though without an actual confirming link.
It seems most likely (though not yet fully confirmed) that Benn used his version of the line first, then, with some slight tweaking of the words to fit American sensibilities ("wrongly" to "incorrectly," "unsuitable" to "wrong"), it was applied to a known wit of the period.
I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.
Groucho Marx (1890-1977) American comedian [b. Julius Henry Marx]
(Spurious)
Groucho (in 1962) denied ever using the phrase (attributed to him as early as 1941). The earliest, somewhat dubious instance of it found is in 1936, attributed to comedian Hugh Hubert. More here.
The trouble with writing a book about yourself is that you can’t fool around. If you write about someone else, you can stretch the truth from here to Finland. If you write about yourself the slightest deviation makes you realize instantly that there may be honor among thieves, but you are just a dirty liar.
Groucho Marx (1890-1977) American comedian [b. Julius Henry Marx]
Groucho and Me (1959)
I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.
Groucho Marx (1890-1977) American comedian [b. Julius Henry Marx]
Groucho and Me, ch. 26 “Foot in Mouth Disease” (1959)
(Source)
Variant: "I don't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member."
Different confidants of Groucho's attributed this resignation note to different organizations, though most think the resignation from the Friars Club or the Hillcrest Country Club. In his autobiography (the noted source), Grouch referred to it apocryphally as "the Delaney Club."
More discussion of this quotation: