Let this be one invariable rule of your conduct — Never to show the least symptom of resentment which you cannot to a certain degree gratify, but always to smile, where you cannot strike.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #312 (26 Mar 1754)
Quotations about:
impotence
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
A conference is a gathering of important people who, singly, can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done.
Fred Allen (1894-1956) American humorist [b. John Florence Sullivan]
Letter to William McChesney Martin (25 Jan 1940)
(Source)
The letter, to the then-President of the New York Stock Exchange, was written as an apology for a joke Allen had made about Wall Street, and was re-published in TIME magazine (4 Feb 1940).
Allen apparently used the line, and variations of it, at various times in his career. A variant more commonly quoted than the original shows up, without citation, in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations:
Committee -- A group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done.
It is only when the rich are sick that they fully feel the impotence of wealth.
Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, § 538 (1820)
(Source)
