A pleasant illusion is better than a harsh reality.

How can you come to know yourself Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right away what you amount to.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All the men in my family were bearded, and most of the women.

W. C. Fields

It is like a voyage of discovery into unknown lands, seeking not for new territory but for new knowledge. It should appeal to those with a good sense of adventure.

Frederick Sanger

The best blood will at some time get into a fool or a mosquito.

Austin O'Malley

Once when I was lost . . . I saw a policeman and asked him to help me find my parents. I said to him, Do you think we'll ever find them? He said, I don't know kid . . . there are so many places they can hide.

Rodney Dangerfield

The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.

Samuel Johnson

We do not consider patriotism desirable if it contradicts civilized behavior.

Friedrich Durrenmatt

In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes.

John Kenneth Galbraith

In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.

Sir Winston Churchill

Used to be, conservatives revered the Average American, that Norman Rockwell oil painting of diner food, humble faith, honest toil, and Capraesque virtue.

James Wolcott

I must have got my detailed, obsessive streak from my father, who was an English teacher, because my mother wasn't like me at all.

Barbra Streisand

Losing faith in your own singularity is the start of wisdom, I suppose; also the first announcement of death.

Peter Conrad