Tag: Henry Louis Mencken

“The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.” – George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

“Silence is argument carried out by other means.” – Ernesto”Che”Guevara (1928-1967)

“Well done is better than well said.” – Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

“The average person thinks he isn’t.” – Father Larry Lorenzoni

“Heav’n hath no rage like love to hatred turn’d, Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn’d.” – William Congreve (1670-1729)

“A husband is what is left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted.” – Helen Rowland (1876-1950)

“Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century.” – Lewis Perelman

“Dogma is the sacrifice of wisdom to consistency.” – Lewis Perelman

“Sometimes it is not enough to do our best; we must do what is required.” – Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

“The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.” – Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

“There is a country in Europe where multiple-choice tests are illegal.” – Sigfried Hulzer

“Ask her to wait a moment – I am almost done.” – Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855), while working, when informed that his wife is dying

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” – Thomas Watson (1874-1956), Chairman of IBM, 1943

“I think it would be a good idea.” – Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), when asked what he thought of Western civilization

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

“I’m not a member of any organized political party, I’m a Democrat!” – Will Rogers (1879-1935)

“If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?” – Will Rogers (1879-1935)

“The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.” – Von Clausewitz (1780-1831)

“Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions – it only guarantees equality of opportunity.” – Irving Kristol

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” – Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

“The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C’, the idea must be feasible.” – A Yale University management professor in response to student Fred Smith‘s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” – H. M. Warner (1881-1958), founder of Warner Brothers, in 1927

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” – Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.” – Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899

“Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.” – Mark Twain (1835-1910)

“A pint of sweat saves a gallon of blood.” – General George S. Patton (1885-1945)

“After I’m dead I’d rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.” – Cato the Elder (234-149 BC, AKA Marcus Porcius Cato)

“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.” – Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

“Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.” – last words of Pancho Villa (1877-1923)

“The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935)

“The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.” – Tom Clancy

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” – Mark Twain (1835-1910)

“It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.” – Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), “The Prince”

“Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.” – Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

“The President has kept all of the promises he intended to keep.” – Clinton aide George Stephanopolous speaking on Larry King Live

“We’re going to turn this team around 360 degrees.” – Jason Kidd, upon his drafting to the Dallas Mavericks

“Half this game is ninety percent mental.” – Yogi Berra

“There is only one nature – the division into science and engineering is a human imposition, not a natural one. Indeed, the division is a human failure; it reflects our limited capacity to comprehend the whole.” – Bill Wulf

“There’s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.” – Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964)

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” – Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

“Write drunk; edit sober.” – Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

“I criticize by creation – not by finding fault.” – Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

“Love is friendship set on fire.” – Jeremy Taylor

“God gave men both a penis and a brain, but unfortunately not enough blood supply to run both at the same time.” – Robin Williams, commenting on the Clinton/Lewinsky affair

“My occupation now, I suppose, is jail inmate.” – Unibomber Theodore Kaczynski, when asked in court what his current profession was

“Woman was God’s second mistake.” – Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

“This isn’t right, this isn’t even wrong.” – Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958), upon reading a young physicist’s paper

“For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.” – Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

“Pray, v.: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.” – Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” – Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

“Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies.” – Voltaire (1694-1778) on his deathbed in response to a priest asking that he renounce Satan.

“Fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run.” – Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

“He would make a lovely corpse.” – Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.” – Irvin S. Cobb

“I worship the quicksand he walks in.” – Art Buchwald

“Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.” – Mark Twain (1835-1910)

“A poem is never finished, only abandoned.” – Paul Valery (1871-1945)

“We are not retreating – we are advancing in another Direction.” – General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964)

“If you were plowing a field, which would you rather use? Two strong oxen or 1024 chickens?” – Seymour Cray (1925-1996), father of supercomputing

“#3 pencils and quadrille pads.” – Seymoure Cray (1925-1996) when asked what CAD tools he used to design the Cray I supercomputer; he also recommended using the back side of the pages so that the grid lines were not so dominant.

“Interesting – I use a Mac to help me design the next Cray.” – Seymoure Cray (1925-1996) when he was told that Apple Inc. had recently bought a Cray supercomputer to help them design the next Mac.

“Your Highness, I have no need of this hypothesis.” – Pierre Laplace (1749-1827), to Napoleon on why his works on celestial mechanics make no mention of God.

“I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don’t need.” – Francois-Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), when asked how he managed to make his remarkable statues

“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.” – Mark Twain (1835-1910)

“The truth is more important than the facts.” – Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)

“Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.” – Wernher Von Braun (1912-1977)

“There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.” – Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein (1879-1955)