Library Update: quotes archive
The Library Update is emailed each week to subscribers. Each issue contains an interesting or humourous quote. All the quotes used since 2000 are listed here. Subscribe to the Library Update.
- no.30
- Nothing sways the stupid more than arguments they can't understand. - Jean Francois Paul de Gondi (Cardinal de Retz), French churchman, writer of memoirs, and agitator (1613 – 1679).
- no.29
- Gold in its native state is but dull, unornamental stuff, and only lowborn metals excite the admiration of the ignorant with an ostentatious glitter. However, like the rest of the world, I still go on underrating men of gold and glorifying men of mica. - Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910).
- no.28
- If you improve or tinker with something long enough, eventually it will break or malfunction. - Arthur Bloch, writer, (1948 - ).
- no.27
- It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up. - Muhammad Ali, boxer (1948 - ).
- no.26
- Friends come and go but enemies accumulate. - Arthur Block, writer, (1948 - ).
- no.25
- Our heads are round so that thoughts can change direction. - Francis Picabia, painter and poet (1879-1953).
- no.24
- That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees. - Marcus Aurelius, Roman emporer, philosopher (121 - 180).
- no.23
- Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation. - Susan B. Anthony, reformer and suffragist (1820 - 1906).
- no.22
- I often quote myself. I find it adds spice to the conversation. - George Bernard Shaw, dramatist, author and Nobel Prize Laureate (1856 - 1950).
- no.21
- What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof. - Christopher Hitchens, author and journalist (1949 - ).
- no.20
- It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them. - Pierre Beaumarchais, French businessman and comic dramatist (1732 - 1799).
- no.19
- The ultimate sense of security will be when we come to recognize that we are all part of one human race. Our primary allegiance is to the human race and not to one particular color or border. - Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (1942 - ).
- no.18
- The telling of jokes is an art of its own, and it always rises from some emotional threat. The best jokes are dangerous, and dangerous because they are in some way truthful. - Kurt Vonnegut, novelist (1922 - 2007).
- no.17
- We have failed to grasp the fact that mankind is becoming a single unit, and that for a unit to fight against itself is suicide. - Havelock Ellis, physician, social reformer (1859 - 1939).
- no.16
- Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it. - Stephen Leacock, Canadian economist and humorist (1869 - 1944).
- no.15
- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is. - Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut, computer scientist and educator, (1953 - 1994).
- no.14
- The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers. - Dave Barry, "Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn", US columnist, humorist and Pulitzer Prize Laureate, (1947 - ).
- no.13
- One of the deepest impulses in man is the impulse to record, to scratch a drawing on a tusk or keep a diary, to collect sagas and heap cairns. This instinct as to the enduring value of the past is, one might say, the very basis of civilization. - John Jay Chapman, American author, (1862 - 1933).
- no.12
- Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. - Steve Jobs, US computer engineer and industrialist (1955 - ).
- no.11
- History studies not just facts and institutions, its real subject is the human spirit. - Numa Denis Fustel de Coulange, French historian, (1830 - 1889).
- no.10
- When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion. - Charles Percy Snow (Baron Snow), English physicist and novelist (1905 - 1980).
- no.9
- Snowboarding is an activity that is very popular with people who do not feel that regular skiing is lethal enough. I now realize that the small hills you see on ski slopes are formed around the bodies of forty-seven-year-olds who tried to learn snowboarding. - Dave Barry, author and columnist, (1947 - ).
- no.8
- Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes. - John LeCarre (David John Moore Cornwell), author (1931 - ).
- no.7
- When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice. - William James, psychologist and philosopher, (1842 - 1910).
- no.6
- Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted. - John Winston Ono Lennon, musician, author, peace activist (1940) - 1980).
- no.5
- On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time. - George Orwell, English essayist, novelist, and satirist (1903 - 1950).
- no.4
- Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience. - Oscar Wilde, (1854 - 1900), dramatist and author.
- no.3
- Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow. - Mark Twain, humorist, novelist, short story author, wit (1835 - 1910).
- no.2
- Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city. - George Burns, US actor, comedian, (1896 - 1996).
- no.1
- New Year's Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time. - James Agate, British diarist and critic, (1877 - 1947).