He who has learned to disagree without being disagreeable has discovered the most valuable secret of a diplomat.
Robert Estabrook (1918-2011) American journalist, editor, foreign correspondent
(Attributed)
I think it’s always a lot easier to come to firm decisions when we are ignorant. Once we start to learn something, things tend to become much more complicated and truth becomes much more difficult to come by.
Ralph Estling (1930-2007) British essayist and skeptic
(Attributed)
I care for riches, to make gifts
To friends, or lead a sick man back to health
With ease and plenty. Else small aid is wealth
For daily gladness; once a man be done
With hunger, rich and poor are all as one.Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Electra (413 BC)
Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.
Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Alexander [Ἀλέξανδρος], Frag. 44 (TGF) [Chorus?] (415 BC) [tr. Morgan]
(Source)
Slight not what’s near through aiming at what’s far.
Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Rhesus, 482
A man’s most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe.
Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Helen (412 BC)
It is a good thing to be rich, it is a good thing to be strong, but it is a better thing to be beloved of many friends.
Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
(Attributed)
Curiosity is the clay from which all knowledge is formed.
Mark Evanier (b. 1952) American writer
Groo, Mini-Series I, #3 (The Sage) (Mar. 1998)
This is the sort of bellowing profundity that earns a man the awe of one generation and the contempt of the next.
Bergen Evans (1904-1978) American educator, writer, lexicographer
The Dictionary of Quotations (1968)
Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.
Bergen Evans (1904-1978) American educator, writer, lexicographer
The Natural History of Nonsense, ch. 19 (1946)
The mere abhorrence of vice is not a virtue at all.
Bergen Evans (1904-1978) American educator, writer, lexicographer
The Dictionary of Quotations (1968)
That is the essence of a witch-hunt, that any questioning of the evidence or the procedures in itself constitutes proof of complicity.
Bergen Evans (1904-1978) American educator, writer, lexicographer
The Dictionary of Quotations (1968)
Even though eternity lies before us, this is the life in which the work of this life is to be done. The life that lies beyond will have its own work to do, its own decisions to be made, its own distance to travel.
Richard Louis Evans (1906-1971) American writer and radio commentator
(Attributed)
Don’t let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was.
Richard Louis Evans (1906-1971) American writer and radio commentator
(Attributed)
Many a friendship — long, loyal, and self-sacrificing — rested at first upon no thicker a foundation than a kind word.
Frederick W. Faber (1814-1863) British hymnist, theologian
(Attributed)
When you read a classic you do not see in the book more than you did before. You see more in you than there was before.
Clifton Fadiman (1904-1999) American critic, lecturer, editor
Any Number Can Play (1957)
To feel at home, stay at home. A foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It’s designed to make its own people comfortable.
Clifton Fadiman (1904-1999) American critic, lecturer, editor
(Attributed)
If you do the best you can, you will find, nine times out of ten, that you have done as well as or better than anyone else.
William Feather (1889-1981) American publisher, author
(Attributed)
Some of us might find happiness if we would quit struggling so desperately for it.
William Feather (1889-1981) American publisher, author
(Attributed)
I have found that the greatest help in meeting any problem with decency and self-respect and whatever courage is demanded, is to know where you yourself stand. That is, to have in words what you believe and are acting from.
William Faulkner (1897-1962) American novelist
Letter to David Kirk, Oxford, Miss. (8 Mar 1956)
(Source)
Intellectual brilliance is no guarantee against being dead wrong.
David Fasold (1939-1998) American salvage expert, amateur archaeologist
(Attributed)
No man is a failure who is enjoying life.
William Feather (1889-1981) American publisher, author
(Attributed)
Early morning cheerfulness can be extremely obnoxious.
William Feather (1889-1981) American publisher, author
(Attributed)
Beware of the person who can’t be bothered by details.
William Feather (1889-1981) American publisher, author
(Attributed)
So long as we are full of self, we are shocked at the faults of others. Let us think often of our own sin, and we shall be lenient to the sins of others.
François Fénelon (1651-1715) French theologian, poet, writer [François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon]
(Attributed)
With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousand miles closer to globular cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules, and still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no such thing as progress.
Ransom K. Ferm (contemp.)
(Attributed)
There are two possible outcomes: If the result confirms the hypothesis, then you’ve made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you’ve made a discovery.
Enrico Fermi (1901-1954) Italian-American physicist
(Attributed)
The inexperienced, and crackpots, and people like that, make guesses that are simple, but you can immediately see that they are wrong, so that does not count. Others, the inexperienced students, make guesses that are very complicated, and it sort of looks as if it is all right, but I know it is not true because the truth always turns out to be simpler than you thought.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
The Character of Physical Law, ch 7 “Seeking New Laws” (1965)
(Source)
Scientists take it for granted that it is perfectly consistent to be unsure — that it is possible to live and not know. But I don’t know whether everyone realizes that this is true.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
What Do You Care What Other People Think? (1988)
I have argued flying saucers with lots of people. … I was interested in this: they keep arguing that it is possible. And that’s true. It is possible. They do not appreciate that the problem is not to demonstrate whether it’s possible or not, but whether it’s going on or not. Whether it’s probably occurring or not, not whether it could occur.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
“Cargo Cult Science,” commencement address, California Institute of Technology (1974)
(Source)
Madam, there’s no such thing as a tough child — if you parboil them first for seven hours, they always come out tender.
W. C. Fields (1880-1946) American entertainer [b. William Claude Dukenfield]
(Attributed)
Everybody should believe in something. I believe I’ll have another drink.
W. C. Fields (1880-1946) American entertainer [b. William Claude Dukenfield]
(Attributed)
Goodwill is the one and only asset that competition cannot undersell or destroy.
Marshall Field (1834-1906) American merchant
(Attributed)
If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two weeks’ vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1879-1958) American author and essayist
(Attributed)
There is no point at which you can say, ‘Well, I’m successful now. I might as well take a nap.’
Carrie Fisher (1956-2016) American actress, writer
(Attributed)
Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite; and furthermore, always carry a small snake.
W. C. Fields (1880-1946) American entertainer [b. William Claude Dukenfield]
(Attributed)
It isn’t where you came from; it’s where you’re going that counts.
Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) American jazz singer
(Attributed)
in Kliment, Bud, Ella Fitzgerald: First Lady of American Song
Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.
Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) American jazz singer
(1987)
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) American writer [Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald]
“The Crack-Up,” Esquire (Feb 1936)
If you’re strong enough, there are no precedents.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) American writer [Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald]
The Crack-Up, “The Note-Books,” ed. Edmund Wilson (1945)
It seems to me that if we were all supposed to wind up in the same place, we would have been put there to begin with.
Nancy Flannigan (contemp.)
Belief-L
It is only when you recognize that you CAN do what Hitler did that you can consciously choose not to.
Joseph C. Fletcher (1905-1991) American ethicist
(Attributed)
Enlightened self-interest is a wonderful thing. Turning on the light can be hard.
Peter Flom (contemp.)
Belief-L (24 Jan. 2001)
The (to me) proper reason for treating people nicely is not so they will treat you nicely, but because it is, in a word, nicer to do so.
Peter Flom (contemp.)
Belief-L (24 Jan. 2001)
Money can’t buy happiness, but poverty can’t buy anything.
Peter Flom (contemp.)
Belief-L (6 Jun. 2001)
Money can’t buy happiness, but it can make misery a lot more comfortable.
Peter Flom (contemp.)
Belief-L (6 Jun. 2001)
I believe that the First Amendment should cover everything. Even the incredibly icky, distasteful stuff. Because if we let “them” start making ethical judgments, they might not stop until it’s nothing but Norman Rockwell and Hummel figurines.
Phil Foglio (b. 1956) American writer, cartoonist
(Attributed)
confirmed in private e-mail, 6-Sep-03
It isn’t what they say about you, it’s what they whisper.
Errol Flynn (1909-1959) Australian-American actor
(Attributed)
There are those who have thought that Winslow was the ideal form for life itself. Advanced civilizations who hold this theory, while interesting for a while, tend not to last very long. A very few civilizations have decided that Winslow is merely the ideal form for small fuzzy green aligators and never quite understood what all the fuss was about. They are usually exterminated in holy wars by their neighbors.
Phil Foglio (b. 1956) American writer, cartoonist
“Winslow” (1982)
Heroes come in many forms. Some are more frightening than others.
Phil Foglio (b. 1956) American writer, cartoonist
Bill & Barry – The Heterodyne Boys! (1987)
MINSK: Dis iz turnink into vun of dose plans … the kind vere ve kill everybody dot notices dot ve’s killin’ people?
GORB: It is?
MINSK: Uh huh. And how do dose alvays end?
GORB: De dirigible iz in flames, everyboddyz dead an’ I’ve lost my hat.
MINSK: Dot’s right. Und any plan vere you lose you hat iz?
GORB: A bad plan?
MINSK: Right again!Phil Foglio (b. 1956) American writer, cartoonist
Girl Genius, #6 (May-Jun. 2002)
We are living in a new culture, one of responsibility dodgers and corner cutters. Nobody cares if a thing is right or not. If you try to trace a poor job or craftsmanship back, you will find, inevitably, that nobody did it.
Robert Fontaine (contemp.)
(Attributed)
The one important think I have learnt over the years is the difference between taking one’s work seriously and taking oneself seriously. The first is imperative and the second disastrous.
Dame Margot Fonteyn (1919-1991) English dancer [b. Margaret Hookham]
Margot Fonteyn: An Autobiography (1976)
Don’t forget until too late that the business of life is not business, but living.
