Lazarus Long

Love your enemies: they'll go crazy trying to figure out what you're up to.

Love your neighbour, yet don't pull down your hedge.

— Benjamin Franklin

Lying is an indispensable part of making life tolerable.

— Bergan Evans

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood.

— Daniel Hudson Burnham

Man belongs wherever he wants to go.

— Wernher von Braun

Man has made his bedlam; let him lie in it.

— Fred Allen

Man has never reconciled himself to the ten commandments.

Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.

— Lily Tomlin

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.

— Oscar Wilde

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

— Samuel Butler (1835-1902)

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.

— William Hazlitt

Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else -- unless it is an enemy.

— Albert Einstein

Man's horizons are bounded by his vision.

Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.

— Sydney J. Harris

Many a family tree needs trimming.

Many a man that can't direct you to a corner drugstore will get a respectful hearing when age has further impaired his mind.

— Finley Peter Dunne

Many mental processes admit of being roughly measured. For instance, the degree to which people are bored, by counting the number of their fidgets. I not infrequently tried this method at the meetings of the Royal Geographical Society, for even there dull memoirs are occasionally read. [...] The use of a watch attracts attention, so I reckon time by the number of my breathings, of which there are 15 in a minute. They are not counted mentally, but are punctuated by pressing with 15 fingers successively. The counting is reserved for the fidgets. These observations should be confined to persons of middle age. Children are rarely still, while elderly philosophers will sometimes remain rigid for minutes altogether.

— Francis Galton, 1909

Many people are desperately looking for some wise advice which will recommend that they do what they want to do.

Many people are secretly interested in life.

Many people feel that if you won't let them make you happy, they'll make you suffer.

Many people feel that they deserve some kind of recognition for all the bad things they haven't done.

Many people resent being treated like the person they really are.

Many receive advice, few profit by it.

— Publilius Syrus

'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability.

— George Bernard Shaw

May those that love us love us; and those that don't love us, may God turn their hearts; and if he doesn't turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles so we'll know them by their limping.

May you die in bed at 95, shot by a jealous spouse.

Maybe Jesus was right when he said that the meek shall inherit the earth -- but they inherit very small plots, about six feet by three.

— Lazarus Long

"Maybe we can get together and show off to each other sometimes."

Meekness is uncommon patience in planning a worthwhile revenge.

Men ought to know that from the brain and from the brain only arise our pleasures, joys, laughter, and jests as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs and tears. ... It is the same thing which makes us mad or delirious, inspires us with dread and fear, whether by night or by day, brings us sleeplessness, inopportune mistakes, aimless anxieties, absent-mindedness and acts that are contrary to habit...

— Hippocrates "The Sacred Disease"

Men use thought only to justify their wrong doings, and speech only to conceal their thoughts.

— Voltaire

Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

— Susan Ertz

Mind your own business, then you don't mind mine.

Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans; it's lovely to be silly at the right moment.

— Horace

Modern man is the missing link between apes and human beings.

Modesty is a vastly overrated virtue.

— J.K. Galbraith

More are taken in by hope than by cunning.

— Vauvenargues

More people are flattered into virtue than bullied out of vice.

— R.S. Surtees

Most of our lives are about proving something, either to ourselves or to someone else.

Most of the fear that spoils our life comes from attacking difficulties before we get to them.

— Dr. Frank Crane

Most of your faults are not your fault.

Most people are too busy to have time for anything important.

Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and they are unable to think because they congenitally lack the equipment to do so, just as they congenitally lack the equipment to fly over the moon.

— H.L. Mencken

Most people can do without the essentials, but not without the luxuries.

Most people can't understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do.

— Turgenev

Most people deserve each other.

— Shirley

Most people feel that everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Most people have a furious itch to talk about themselves and are restrained only by the disinclination of others to listen. Reserve is an artificial quality that is developed in most of us as the result of innumerable rebuffs.

— W.S. Maugham

Most people have a mind that's open by appointment only.

Most people in this society who aren't actively mad are, at best, reformed or potential lunatics.

— Susan Sontag

Most people need some of their problems to help take their mind off some of the others.

Most people prefer certainty to truth.

Mother told me to be good but she's been wrong before.

Murder is always a mistake -- one should never do anything one cannot talk about after dinner.

— Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

My brain is my second favorite organ.

— Woody Allen

My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say. And then say it with the utmost levity.

— G.B. Shaw

My mind can never know my body, although it has become quite friendly with my legs.

— Woody Allen, on Epistemology

My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.

My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's.

— Oscar Wilde

My philosophy is: Don't think.

— Charles Manson

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

— Abraham Lincoln

Needs are a function of what other people have.

Neither spread the germs of gossip nor encourage others to do so.

Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel.

Never ask the barber if you need a haircut.

Never explain. Your friends do not need it and your enemies will never believe you anyway.

— Elbert Hubbard

Never face facts; if you do you'll never get up in the morning.

— Marlo Thomas

Never forget what a man says to you when he is angry.

Never get into fights with ugly people because they have nothing to lose.

Never insult an alligator until you've crossed the river.

Never kick a man, unless he's down.

Never leave anything to chance; make sure all your crimes are premeditated.

Never pay a compliment as if expecting a receipt.

Never speak ill of yourself, your friends will always say enough on that subject.

— Charles-Maurice De Talleyrand

Never tell a lie unless it is absolutely convenient.

Never trust anybody whose arm is bigger than your leg.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

Never, ever lie to someone you love unless you're absolutely sure they'll never find out the truth.

Nezvannyi gost'--khuzhe tatarina. [An uninvited guest is worse than the Mongol invasion]

— Russian proverb

Nice boy, but about as sharp as a sack of wet mice.

— Foghorn Leghorn

No character, however upright, is a match for constantly reiterated attacks, however false.

— Alexander Hamilton

No guest is so welcome in a friend's house that he will not become a nuisance after three days.

— Titus Maccius Plautus

No man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas.

No man is useless who has a friend, and if we are loved we are indispensable.

— Robert Louis Stevenson

No man would listen to you talk if he didn't know it was his turn next.

— E.W. Howe

No matter what happens, there is always someone who knew it would.

No one becomes depraved in a moment.

— Decimus Junius Juvenalis

No one can have a higher opinion of him than I have, and I think he's a dirty little beast.

— W.S. Gilbert

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

— Eleanor Roosevelt

No one can put you down without your full cooperation.

"No one gets too old to learn a new way of being stupid."

No one knows what he can do till he tries.

— Publilius Syrus

No one regards what is before his feet; we all gaze at the stars.

— Quintus Ennius

No one so thoroughly appreciates the value of constructive criticism as the one who's giving it.

— Hal Chadwick

No question is so difficult as one to which the answer is obvious.

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

No sooner said than done -- so acts your man of worth.

— Quintus Ennius

Nobody can be as agreeable as an uninvited guest.

Nobody ever forgets where he buried the hatchet.

— Kin Hubbard

Nobody is one block of harmony. We are all afraid of something, or feel limited in something. We all need somebody to talk to. It would be good if we talked to each other--not just pitter-patter, but real talk. We shouldn't be so afraid, because most people really like this contact; that you show you are vulnerable makes them free to be vulnerable too. It's so much easier to be together when we drop our masks.

— Liv Ullman

Nobody knows the trouble I've been.

Nobody knows what goes between his cold toes and his warm ears.

— Roy Harper

Nobody wants constructive criticism. It's all we can do to put up with constructive praise.

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner. Conscience makes egotists of us all.

— Oscar Wilde

Nothing shortens a journey so pleasantly as an account of misfortunes at which the hearer is permitted to laugh.

— Quentin Crisp

O Lord, grant that we may always be right, for Thou knowest we will never change our minds.

Objects are lost only because people look where they are not rather than where they are.

Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off your goal.

Oh this age! How tasteless and ill-bred it is.

— Gaius Valerius Catullus

Oh wearisome condition of humanity! Born under one law, to another bound.

— Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke

"Oh, yes. The important thing about having lots of things to remember is that you've got to go somewhere afterwards where you can remember them, you see? You've got to stop. You haven't really been anywhere until you've got back home. I think that's what I mean."

— Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"

Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill.

Old age is always fifteen years old than I am.

— B. Baruch

Old age is the harbor of all ills.

— Bion

Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man.

— Trotsky

Old age is too high a price to pay for maturity.

Old men are fond of giving good advice to console themselves for their inability to set a bad example.

— La Rochefoucauld, "Maxims"

On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are created jerks.

— H. Allen Smith, "Let the Crabgrass Grow"

One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least somebody's listening.

— Franklin P. Jones

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.

— Helen Keller

One family builds a wall, two families enjoy it.

One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.

— Henry Brook Adams

One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious.

— Chateaubriand (1768-1848)

One is often kept in the right road by a rut.

— Gustave Droz

One man tells a falsehood, a hundred repeat it as true.

One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention.

— Clifton Fadiman

One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people.

One of the large consolations for experiencing anything unpleasant is the knowledge that one can communicate it.

— Joyce Carol Oates

One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be so outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn't understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid. He was reknowned for being quite clever and quite clearly was so -- but not all the time, which obviously worried him, hence the act. He preferred people to be puzzled rather than contemptuous. This above all appeared to Trillian to be genuinely stupid, but she could no longer be bothered to argue about.

— Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

One of the pleasures of reading old letters is the knowledge that they need no answer.

— George Gordon, Lord Byron

One of the worst of my many faults is that I'm too critical of myself.

One would like to stroke and caress human beings, but one dares not do so, because they bite.

— Vladimir Il'ich Lenin

Only a fool has no doubts.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

— Laurence Peter

Only fools are quoted.

— Anonymous

Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial "we".

— Mark Twain

Only someone with nothing to be sorry for smiles back at the rear of an elephant.

Only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.

— Hannah Arendt

Only two of my personalities are schizophrenic, but one of them is paranoid and the other one is out to get him.

Optimism is the content of small men in high places.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Crack Up"

Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born to people you could not have possibly met.

— Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies"

Others can stop you temporarily, only you can do it permanently.

Others will look to you for stability, so hide when you bite your nails.

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing can ever be made.

— Immanuel Kant

Paranoia doesn't mean the whole world isn't out to get you.

Paranoia is heightened awareness.

Paranoia is simply an optimistic outlook on life.

Paranoid schizophrenics outnumber their enemies at least two to one.

Paranoids are people, too; they have their own problems. It's easy to criticize, but if everybody hated you, you'd be paranoid too.

— D.J. Hicks

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.

— Eric Hoffer

Patience is a minor form of despair, disguised as virtue.

— Ambrose Bierce, on qualifiers

Pelorat sighed. "I will never understand people." "There's nothing to it. All you have to do is take a close look at yourself and you will understand everyone else. How would Seldon have worked out his Plan -- and I don't care how subtle his mathematics was -- if he didn't understand people; and how could he have done that if people weren't easy to understand? You show me someone who can't understand people and I'll show you someone who has built up a false image of himself -- no offense intended."

— Asimov, "Foundation's Edge"

People (a group that in my opinion has always attracted an undue amount of attention) have often been likened to snowflakes. This analogy is meant to suggest that each is unique -- no two alike. This is quite patently not the case. People ... are simply a dime a dozen. And, I hasten to add, their only similarity to snowflakes resides in their invariable and lamentable tendency to turn, after a few warm days, to slush.

— Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies"

People are unconditionally guaranteed to be full of defects.

People don't change; they only become more so.

People love high ideals, but they got to be about 33-percent plausible.

— The Best of Will Rogers

People need good lies. There are too many bad ones.

— Bokonon, "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of the future.

People respond to people who respond.

People say I live in my own little fantasy world... well, at least they *know* me there!

— D.L. Roth

People seem to enjoy things more when they know a lot of other people have been left out on the pleasure.

— Russell Baker

People tend to make rules for others and exceptions for themselves.

People who claim they don't let little things bother them have never slept in a room with a single mosquito.

People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes.

— Abigail Van Buren

People who have no faults are terrible; there is no way of taking advantage of them.

People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they don't want it.

— Ogden Nash

People who make no mistakes do not usually make anything.

People who push both buttons should get their wish.

People who take cat naps don't usually sleep in a cat's cradle.

People who take cold baths never have rheumatism, but they have cold baths.

People who think they know everything greatly annoy those of us who do.

People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that Benjamin Franklin said it first.

People will do tomorrow what they did today because that is what they did yesterday.

People with narrow minds usually have broad tongues.

Perhaps the world's second worst crime is boredom. The first is being a bore.

— Cecil Beaton

Personifiers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but Mr. Dignity!

— Bernadette Bosky

Please don't put a strain on our friendship by asking me to do something for you.

Please don't recommend me to your friends-- it's difficult enough to cope with you alone.

Please forgive me if, in the heat of battle, I sometimes forget which side I'm on.

Practically perfect people never permit sentiment to muddle their thinking.

— Mary Poppins

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

— G.B. Shaw

Put your brain in gear before starting your mouth in motion.

Put your trust in those who are worthy.

Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are.

— Oscar Wilde

"Quite frankly, I don't like you humans. After what you all have done, I find being 'inhuman' a compliment."

— Spider Robinson, "Callahan's Secret"

Rarely do people communicate; they just take turns talking.

Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.

— Oscar Wilde, "The Importance of Being Earnest"

... relaxed in the manner of a man who has no need to put up a front of any kind.

— John Ball, "Mark One: the Dummy"

Remember: Silly is a state of Mind, Stupid is a way of Life.

— Dave Butler

Revenge is a form of nostalgia.

Revenge is a meal best served cold.

"Richard, in being so fierce toward my vampire, you were doing what you wanted to do, even though you thought it was going to hurt somebody else. He even told you he'd be hurt if..." "He was going to suck my blood!" "Which is what we do to anyone when we tell them we'll be hurt if they don't live our way." ... "The thing that puzzles you," he said, "is an accepted saying that happens to be impossible. The phrase is hurt somebody else. We choose, ourselves, to be hurt or not to be hurt, no matter what. Us who decides. Nobody else. My vampire told you he'd be hurt if you didn't let him? That's his decision to be hurt, that's his choice. What you do about it is your decision, your choice: give him blood; ignore him; tie him up; drive a stake through his heart. If he doesn't want the holly stake, he's free to resist, in whatever way he wants. It goes on and on, choices, choices." "When you look at it that way..." "Listen," he said, "it's important. We are all. Free. To do. Whatever. We want. To do."

— Richard Bach, "Illusions"

Rincewind looked down at him and grinned slowly. It was a wide, manic, and utterly humourless rictus. It was the sort of grin that is normally accompanied by small riverside birds wandering in and out, picking scraps out of the teeth.

— Terry Pratchett, "The Lure of the Wyrm"

Rudeness is a weak man's imitation of strength.

Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.

— George Orwell, "Reflections on Gandhi"

Sanity and insanity overlap a fine grey line.

Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind.

— Mark Harrold

Say no, then negotiate.

— Helga

Say something you'll be sorry for, I love receiving apologies.