A man must properly pay the fiddler. In my case it so happened that a whole symphony orchestra had to be subsidized.

John Barrymore (1882-1942) American actor
(Attributed)
 
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Those who so glibly dismiss as “mere legal technicalities” the procedural guarantees of the Constitution limiting law-enforcement activities forget that nothing is more basic to civil liberty than freedom from arbitrary arrest and imprisonment by policemen who are masters, not servants, of the law. The most characteristic symbol of the police state is the ominous rap on the door at night. Freedom from the fear of that rap is the basic condition for the exercise of every other form of freedom.

Alan Barth (1906-1979) American journalist
The Rights of Free Men (1984)
 
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You never realize how short a month is until you pay alimony.

John Barrymore (1882-1942) American actor
(Attributed)
 
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Every man has a right to his opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.

Bernard Baruch (1870-1965) American businessman and statesman
(Attributed)

In Alfred Montapert (ed.), Distilled Wisdom (1964).
 
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We didn’t all come over on the same ship, but we’re all in the same boat.

Bernard Baruch (1870-1965) American businessman and statesman
(Attributed)
 
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The test and use of a man’s education is that he finds pleasure in the exercise of his mind.

jacques barzun
Jacques Barzun (1907-2012) French-American historian, educator, polymath
Saturday Evening Post, “Science vs the Humanities” (3 May 1958)
 
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The greatest blessing of our democracy is freedom. But in the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves.

Bernard Baruch (1870-1965) American businessman and statesman
Baruch, The Public Years (1960)

Full text.

In A Philosophy for Our Time (1954), Baruch wrote, "The only freedom man can ever have is the freedom to discipline himself."

Variant: "The greatest freedom man has is the freedom to discipline himself."

 
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The greatest weakness of most humans is their hesitancy to tell others how much they love them while they’re still alive.

Orlando A. Battista (1917-1995) Canadian-American chemist, aphorist
(Attributed)
 
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One of the most lasting pleasures you can experience is the feeling that comes over you when you genuinely forgive an enemy

Orlando A. Battista (1917-1995) Canadian-American chemist, aphorist
(Attributed)
 
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An error doesn’t become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.

Orlando A. Battista (1917-1995) Canadian-American chemist, aphorist
How to Enjoy Work and Get More Fun Out of Life (1957)
 
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The fellow who says he’ll meet you halfway usually thinks he’s standing on the dividing line.

Orlando A. Battista (1917-1995) Canadian-American chemist, aphorist
(Attributed)
 
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In necessary things, unity; in disputed things, liberty; in all things, charity.

Richard Baxter
Richard Baxter (1615-1691) English Puritan clergyman and writer
Motto
 
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I know it’s difficult for you to understand this now, Pete. But you’ve got the majority of your life ahead of you — and one day you’ll find that these high school years will be a tiny, distant memory. The scars, of course, are yours to keep forever.

Tom Batiuk (b. 1947) American cartoonist
Funky Winkerbean (2 Jun 2001)
 
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Dangers bring fears, and fears more dangers bring.

Richard Baxter
Richard Baxter (1615-1691) English Puritan clergyman and writer
Love Breathing Thanks and Praise (1681)
 
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Bilbo thought to kill the creature, but pity stayed his hand.
‘It’s a pity I’ve run out of bullets,’ he thought.

Henry N. Beard (b. 1945) American writer and humorist
Bored of the Rings, with Douglas C. Kenney
 
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I am convinced that the world is not a mere bog in which men and women trample themselves and die. Something magnificent is taking place here amidst the cruelties and tragedies, and the supreme challenge to intelligence is that of making the noblest and best in our curious heritage prevail.

Charles A Beard
Charles Beard (1874-1948) American historian
(Attributed)

In Will Durant, On the Meaning of Life (1932)
 
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Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad with power;
The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small;
The bee fertilizes the flower it robs;
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

Charles A Beard
Charles Beard (1874-1948) American historian
Summary of human history, in reply to George S. Counts
 
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Half the work that is done in this world is to make things appear what they are not.

Elias Root Beadle (1812-1879) American cleric, philosopher
(Attributed)
 
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Perennial: Any plant which, had it lived, would have bloomed year after year.

Henry N. Beard (b. 1945) American writer and humorist
Gardening: A Gardener’s Dictionary (1982)

with Roy McKie
 
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Boggies are an unattractive but annoying people whose numbers have increased rather precipitously since the bottom fell out of the fairy-tale market. Slow and sullen, and yet dull, they prefer to lead simple lives of pastoral squalor. They don’t like machines more complicated than a garrote, a blackjack, or a Luger, and they have always been shy of the ‘big folk’ or ‘biggers’ as they call us. As a rule they avoid us, except on rare occasions when a hundred or so will get together to dry-gulch a lone farmer or hunter. They seldom exceed three feet in height, but are fully capable of overpowering creatures half their size when they get the drop on them. … Their beginnings lie far back in the Good Ole Days when the planet was populated with the kind of colorful creatures you have to drink a quart of Old Overcoat to see nowadays.

Henry N. Beard (b. 1945) American writer and humorist
Bored of the Rings (1969) [with Douglas C. Kenney]
 
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I believe that, if ever I had to practice cannibalism, I might manage if there were enough tarragon around.

James Beard (1903-1985) American gastronome and writer
( 23 Jan. 1985)

Recalled on his death
 
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We cannot expect you to be with us all the time, but perhaps you could be good enough to keep in touch now and again.

Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham (1879-1961) British conductor
To a musician during a rehearsal
 
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ESTRAGON: I can’t go on like this.
VLADIMIR: That’s what you think.

Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) American playwright
Waiting for Godot (1952)
 
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You cannot avoid paradise. You can only avoid seeing it.

Charlotte Joko Beck (1917-2011) American Zen teacher
Everyday Zen (1989)

Full text.
 
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You’ve achieved success in your field when you don’t know whether what you’re doing is work or play.

Warren Beatty (b. 1937) American actor
(Attributed)
 
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Vigilance is not only the price of liberty, but of success of any sort.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
(Attributed)
 
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If men had wings and bore black feathers, few of them would be clever enough to be crows.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
(Attributed)
 
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Doctrine is nothing but the skin of truth set up and stuffed.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
Life Thoughts (1858)
 
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The ignorant classes are the dangerous classes. Ignorance is the womb of monsters.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit (1859)
 
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Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep burning, unquenchable.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
Notes from Plymouth Pulpit (1859)
 
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Mirth is God’s medicine. Everybody ought to bathe in it. Grim care, moroseness, anxiety — all this rust of life ought to be scoured off by the oil of mirth. It is better than emery. Every man ought to rub himself with it.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
Royal Truths (1862)
    (Source)
 
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Happiness is not the end of life, character is.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
Life Thoughts: Gathered from the Extemporaneous Discourses of Henry Ward Beecher (1858)
 
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Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anyone else expects of you.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
(Attributed)
 
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Riches are not an end of life, but an instrument of life.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit (1887)
 
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There is tonic in the things that men do not love to hear. Free speech is to a great people what the winds are to oceans … and where free speech is stopped miasma is bred, and death comes fast.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit (1887)
 
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Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
“Subtleties of Book Buyers,” Star Papers (1855)
 
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A man is only as good as what he loves.

Saul Bellow (1915-2005) Canadian-American writer
Seize the Day (1956)
 
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A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.

Saul Bellow (1915-2005) Canadian-American writer
To Jerusalem and Back (1976)
    (Source)
 
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SAGRAMORE: If there were aught I could say, aught I could do to save thee…
HANK: Well, ain’t there aught?
SAGRAMORE: Naught.

Edmund Beloin (1910-1992) American screenwriter, producer
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1949)

(book by Mark Twain)
 
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It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.

Robert Benchley (1889-1945) American humorist
(Attributed)


In Nathaniel Benchley, Robert Benchley, ch. 1 (1955)

 
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Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed be doing at that moment.

Robert Benchley (1889-1945) American humorist
(Attributed)


In Robert E. Drennan, The Algonquin Wits (1968)

 
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Anything I’ve ever done that ultimately was worthwhile … initially scared me to death.

(Other Authors and Sources)
Betty Bender
 
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Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

Texas Bix Bender
Texas Bix Bender (contemp.) American cowboy philosopher, announcer, actor, writer [stage name for Steve Arwood]
Don’t Squat with Yer Spurs On! (1992)
 
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The trouble is not that we are never happy — it is that happiness is so episodical.

Ruth Benedict (1887-1947) American anthropologist
An Anthropologist at Work, Journal (1912-1916), [ed. Margaret Mead] (1959)

Full text.
 
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If we justify war, it is because all peoples always justify the traits of which they find themselves possessed, not because war will bear an objective examination of its merits.

Ruth Benedict (1887-1947) American anthropologist
Patterns of Culture, I (1934)
 
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No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes. He sees it edited by a definite set of customs and institutions and ways of thinking.

Ruth Benedict (1887-1947) American anthropologist
Patterns of Culture, I (1934)
 
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I have made mistakes, but have never made the mistake of claiming I never made one.

James Gordon Bennett, Jr. (1841-1918) American editor, newspaper publisher
(Attributed)
 
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Happiness is like a cat — if you coax it or call it, it will avoid you; it won’t come. But if you pay no attention to it and go about your business, you will find it rubbing against your legs and jumping into your lap.

William J. Bennett (b. 1943) American politician, moralist
Commencement Address, George Mason University (22 May 1999)
    (Source)
 
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I don’t deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either.

Jack Benny (1894-1974) American comedian [b. Benjamin Kubelsky]
(Attributed)
 
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The worst sorrows in life are not in its losses and misfortune, but its fears.

A. C. Benson (1862-1925) English writer [Arthur Christopher Benson]
(Attributed)
 
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How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people.

E. F. Benson (1867-1940) English novelist, biographer, memoirist and short story writer [Edward Frederic Benson]
A Reaping, “March” (1909)

Full text. (Sometimes misattributed to Edward White Benson)
 
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He rather hated the ruling few than loved the suffering many.

Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) English jurist and philosopher
Comment on James Mill
    (Source)

In the journal of Caroline Fox (7 Aug 1840), regarding the father of John Stuart Mill. James Mill was a proponent of Bentham's philosophy. The observation was recalled in conversation with John Bowring, Bentham's executor.
 
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Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.

Bernard Berenson (1865-1959) Lithuanian-American art critic and historian
Notebook (1892)
 
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There is no obstacle which cannot be broken down by wills sufficiently keyed up, if they deal with it in time. There is thus no inescapable historic law.

Henri-Louis Bergson (1859-1941) French philosopher
The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, “Final Remarks” (tr. R. Ashley Audra and Cloudesley Brereton, 1935) (1932)
 
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The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.

Robertson Davies (1913-1995) Canadian author, editor, publisher
Tempest-tost (1951)

Commonly misattributed to Henri-Louis Bergson.
 
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