The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.
Edward John Phelps (1822-1920) American diplomat, lawyer
Speech at Manor House (1899)
Cito rumpes arcum si habueris semper tensum, at si laxaris erit utilis cum voles
[You will soon break the bow if you keep it always stretched, but if you slacken it, it will be fit for use when you wish.]Phaedrus (15 BC-AD 50) Roman fabulist, poet
Fables, Book 3, #14, “Aesop Playing”
We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. Presumably the plans for our employment were being changed. I was to learn later in life that, perhaps because we are so good at organizing, we tend as a nation to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.
Charlton Ogburn, Jr. (1911-1998) American journalist, author
“Merrill’s Marauders: The truth about an incredible adventure,” Harper’s Magazine (Jan 1957)
In his 1959 book, The Marauders, Ogburn rephrased this as: "As a result, I suppose, of high-level changes of mind about how we were to be used, we went through several reorganizations. Perhaps because Americans as a nation have a gift for organizing, we tend to meet any new situation by reorganization, and a wonderful method it is for creating the illusion of progress at a mere cost of confusion, inefficiency and demoralization."
Sometimes incorrectly cited to Gaius Petronius Arbiter. For more on this quotation, see here.
BOB: How’s your head?
ELVIRA: I’ve never had any complaints.Cassandra Peterson (b. 1951) American comic actress [a.k.a. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark]
Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (with Sam Egan, Joel Paragon) (1988)
Most of us, when all is said and done, like what we like and make up reasons for it afterwards.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Soren F. Peterson
God does indeed forbid that we should make more of our virtues or our failings than is due. More than your due you shall not have of, neither praise nor blame.
Ellis Peters (1913-1995) English writer, translator [pseud. of Edith Mary Pargeter, who also wrote under the names John Redfern, Jolyon Carr, Peter Benedict]
The Rose Rent (1986)
The step from perfectly ordinary things into the miraculous seems to me so small, almost accidental, that I wonder why it astonishes you at all, or why you trouble to reason about it. If it were reasonable it could not be miraculous, could it?
Ellis Peters (1913-1995) English writer, translator [pseud. of Edith Mary Pargeter, who also wrote under the names John Redfern, Jolyon Carr, Peter Benedict]
The Holy Thief (1992)
If you don’t know where you’re going, you will probably end up somewhere else.
Lawrence J. Peter (1919-1990) American educator, management theorist
The Peter Principle (1969)
Going to church does not make you a Christian any more than going to the garage makes you a car.
Lawrence J. Peter (1919-1990) American educator, management theorist
(Attributed)
An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.
Lawrence J. Peter (1919-1990) American educator, management theorist
(Attributed)
In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.
Lawrence J. Peter (1919-1990) American educator, management theorist
The Peter Principle, ch. 1 (1969)
Psychiatry enables us to correct our faults by confessing our parents’ shortcomings.
Lawrence J. Peter (1919-1990) American educator, management theorist
(Attributed)
Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.
Lawrence J. Peter (1919-1990) American educator, management theorist
(Attributed)
An actuary is someone who brings a fake bomb on a plane because that decreases the chances that there will be another bomb on the plane.
Lawrence J. Peter (1919-1990) American educator, management theorist
(Attributed)
Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.
Lawrence J. Peter (1919-1990) American educator, management theorist
Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977)
Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear, but forgetting where you heard it.
Lawrence J. Peter (1919-1990) American educator, management theorist
The Peter Principle (1969)
Power is wonderful, and absolute power is absolutely wonderful.
H. Ross Perot (1930-2019) American entrepreneur, politician, reformer [Henry Ross Perot, Sr.]
Charlie Rose TV interview, PBS (18-Oct-1994)
They think if you sing a song of peace then you will have peace, but you will just become a singer.
Shimon Peres (1923-2016) Polish-Israeli politician, statesman
Interview in The Observer by Conal Urquhart (28 Sep 2003)
On Israel's Leftists. Source article. Quoted elsewhere as, "Many people think that if you sing a song of peace, you have peace. What you have is a concert."
English life, while very pleasant, is rather bland. I expected kindness and gentility and I found it, but there is such a thing as too much couth.
S. J. Perelman (1904-1979) American humorist, screenwriter [Sidney Joseph Perelman]
Quoted in Observer, London (24 Sep 1971)
Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody.
Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) English diarist, naval administrator
Diary (1665-11-09)
If you don’t want to be replaced by a machine, don’t act like one.
The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but hold hands.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Alexander Penney
I don’t require lust, sex, or classic beauty; I require trust, respect, and honesty. All else builds from there.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Oscar Pederson
Doubt is often the beginning of wisdom.
Dr. M. Scott Peck (1936-2005) American writer, behavioral scientist, philosopher
The Road Less Traveled (1978)
Evil people hate the light because it reveals themselves to themselves. … They will destroy the light, the goodness, the love in order to avoid the pain of self-awareness. … [E]vil is laziness carried to its ultimate, extraordinary extreme.
Dr. M. Scott Peck (1936-2005) American writer, behavioral scientist, philosopher
The Road Less Traveled (1978)
He o’er the words of Shakespeare
A hundred hours spent;
And found a million meanings
That Shakespeare never meant.Tom Pease (contemp.) American musician, storyteller, humorist
“The Critic”
BOSS KEAN: Sorry, Luke, I’m just doing my job. You gotta appreciate that.
LUKE: Calling it your job don’t make it right, Boss.Donn Pearce (1928-2017) American novelist, screenwriter
Cool Hand Luke (1967) [with Frank Pierson]
In the actual final script, the exchange goes:
BOSS KEAN: Ah'm jus' doin' mah job, Luke. You gotta appreciate that.
LUKE: Boss, when you do somethin' to me you better do it because you got to or want to ... but not because it's your damn job.
The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.
Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993) American preacher, writer
(Attributed)
I think it’s a great shame that ignorant and stupid people think that God is ignorant and stupid, too.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Joel Peak, Belief-L discussion list
Believing ourselves to be possessors of absolute truth degrades us: we regard every person whose way of thinking is different from ours as a monster and a threat and by so doing turn our own selves into monsters and threats to our fellows.
Octavio Paz (1914-1998) Mexican writer and diplomat
(Attributed)
The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.
Linus Pauling (1901-1994) American chemist and pacifist
(Attributed)
This isn’t right. This isn’t even wrong.
[Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch!]
Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958) American physicist
(Attributed)
Quoted by R. Peierls in “Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, 1900-1958,″ Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society (1960): “... a friend showed him the paper of a young physicist which he suspected was not of great value but on which he wanted Pauli’s views. Pauli remarked sadly ‘That’s not right. It’s not even wrong.’” More discussion here.
You don’t get to control any outcome, only every choice you make along the way.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Stephen C. Paul
Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.
George S. Patton (1885-1945) American soldier
(Attributed)
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
George S. Patton (1885-1945) American soldier
War As I Knew It, “Reflections and Suggestions” (1947)
I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.
George S. Patton (1885-1945) American soldier
(Attributed)
Pacifists would do well to study the Siegfried and Maginot Line, remembering that these defenses were forced; that Troy fell; that the wall of Hadrian succumbed; that the Great Wall of China was futile. In war, the only sure defense is offense.
George S. Patton (1885-1945) American soldier
(Attributed)
The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his.
George S. Patton (1885-1945) American soldier
(Attributed)
If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) French scientist and philosopher
(Attributed)
Experience makes us see an enormous difference between piety and goodness.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) French scientist and philosopher
(Attributed)
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious convictions.
[Jamais on ne fait le mal si pleinement et si gaiement, que quand on le fait par un faux principe de conscience.]
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) French scientist and philosopher
Pensées, ch. 14, Appendix: Polemical Fragments #895 (1669) [tr. Trotter (1910)]
(Source)
Also labeled as Part 2, Article 17, # 53. Sometimes also shown in slightly shorter French as "Jamais on ne fait le mal si pleinement et si gaiement que quand on le fait par conscience."
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:
- "We never do evil so fully and cheerfully as when we do it out of conscience." [#813 (#895), tr. Krailsheimer]
- "We never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when we do it out of conscience." [Miscellaneous Thoughts 7: Sellier #658/Lafuma #813, tr. Ariew]
- "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it conscientiously."
People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) French scientist and philosopher
On Mind and On Style
When I have occasionally set myself to consider the different distractions of men, the pains and perils to which they expose themselves at court or in war, whence arise so many quarrels, passions, bold and often bad ventures, etc., I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) French scientist and philosopher
Pensées #139 “Diversion” (1670)
(Source)
Alt. trans.: "I have often said that man's unhappiness springs from one thing alone, his incapacity to stay quietly in one room."
Alt. trans.: "All the trouble in the world is due to the fact that a man cannot sit still in a room."
We sometimes learn more from the sight of evil than from an example of good; and it is well to accustom ourselves to profit by the evil which is so common, while that which is good is so rare.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) French scientist and philosopher
(Attributed)
It appears from this, that whatever it may be of which we wish to persuade men, it is necessary to have regard to the person whom we wish to persuade, of whom we must know the mind and the heart, what principles he acknowledges, what things he loves
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) French scientist and philosopher
(Attributed)
The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. It is the heart which experiences God, and not the reason. This, then, is faith: God felt by the heart, not by the reason.
[Le coeur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connaît point. On le sent en mille choses. C’est le cœur qui sent Dieu, et non la raison. Voilà ce que c’est que la foi parfaite, Dieu sensible au cœur.]
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) French scientist and philosopher
Pensées (1670)
It has pleased God that divine verities should not enter the heart through the understanding, but the understanding through the heart.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) French scientist and philosopher
(Attributed)
Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
Cyril Northcote Parkinson (1909-1993) British historian and writer
Parkinson’s Law (1957)
The thing about monsters is, you want to kill them until you meet them, and when you meet them they don’t seem monstrous, and killing them begins to seem unkind.
Robert B. Parker (1932-2010) American writer
Crimson Joy (1988)
Nature hates a vacuum. If there are no things which are important, then things are assigned importance arbitrarily and defended at great risk. Because the risk validates the importance.
Robert B. Parker (1932-2010) American writer
Double Deuce (1992)
Most people I know, in fact, are a little afraid of flying. But you fly anyway because life’s too complicated if you don’t, and you don’t pay much attention, unless you’re phobic, to whether in fact you are afraid.
Robert B. Parker (1932-2010) American writer
Small Vices (1997)
Candy smiled at me a little. “Look,” she said. “You’re a good guy. I know you care about me, but you’re a white male, you can’t understand a minority situation. It’s not your fault.”
[…] When the beer came, I drank about a quarter of it and said to Candy, “Extend that logic, and we eventually have to decide that no one can understand anyone. Maybe the matter of understanding has been overrated. Maybe I don’t have to understand your situation to sympathize with it, to help you alter it, to be on your side. I’ve never experienced starvation either, but I’m opposed to it. When I encounter it, I try to alleviate it. I sympathize with its victims. The question of whether I understand it doesn’t arise.”
She shook her head. “That’s different,” she said.
“Maybe it isn’t. Maybe civilization is possible, if at all, only because people can care about conditions they haven’t experienced. Maybe you need understanding like a fish needs a bicycle.”
“You’re quite thoughtful,” she said, “for a man your size.”
“You’ve never been my size,” I said. “You wouldn’t understand.”
Lots of real creeps have self-respect. They just have a creepy version of it.
Robert B. Parker (1932-2010) American writer
A Savage Place (1981)
Too much positive is either scared or stupid or both. Reality is uncertain.
Robert B. Parker (1932-2010) American writer
Early Autumn (1981)