Quirky Quotes

The history of our race, and each individual’s experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal – Mark Twain

He who has made great moral progress ceases to pray – Immanuel Kant

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one – George Bernard Shaw

Fear prophets…and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them. – Umberto Eco

Some like to understand what they believe in. Others like to believe in what they understand. – Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

In Nature there are neither rewards nor punishments – there are consequences. – Robert G Ingersoll

For the skeptic there remains only one consolation: if there should be such a thing as superhuman law it is administered with subhuman inefficiency – Eric Ambler

Officials are the only guys who can rob you and then get a police escort out of the stadium. – Ron Bolton

But now I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terribly by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth. – Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian. - Dennis Whole

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. – Dr. Seuss

People won’t remember what you did. People won’t remember what you said. But people will always remember the way you made them feel. – Unknown

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend.  Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read. – Groucho Marx (Attributed)

An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it makes a better soup. – Bertrand Russell

Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it. – Henry David Thoreau

Vegetarianism is harmless enough, though it is apt to fill a man with wind and self-righteousness. – Sir Robert Hutchinson

Women have always been the strong ones of the world. The men are always seeking from women a little pillow to put their heads down on. They are always longing for the mother who held them as infants. – Coco Chanel

I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding. – Epicurus

Any fool can make history, but it takes a genius to write it. – Oscar Wilde

Music is everybody’s possession. It’s only publishers who think that people own it. – John Lennon

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. - Groucho Marx

Belief in the truth commences with the doubting of all those “truths” we once believed. –Friedrich Nietzsche

To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries. – Aldous Huxley

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. – Mark Twain

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame. – Oscar Wilde

Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses. – Plato

Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature. – Tom Robbins

Good resolutions are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account. – Oscar Wilde

The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. – Gloria Steinem

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t. – Mark Twain

The first duty of a man is to think for himself. – José Martí

I won’t tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world’s voice, or the voice of society. They matter a good deal. They matter far too much. But there are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely—or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now. Choose! – Oscar Wilde

One should always be drunk. That’s all that matters; that’s our one imperative need. [...] But with what? With wine, poetry, or virtue as you choose. But get drunk. – Charles Baudelaire

If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy. – Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. – Plato

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum…. – Noam Chomsky, The Common Good