“It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours.”
On the research bench
Under review
Lines we’ve flagged as commonly misquoted or misattributed and queued for a full source trace. Not yet verified — each links to the catalog entry that flagged it, and you can ▲ bump one up the queue. 257 in the queue.
“Where there's hope, there's life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again.”
“If a book is well written, I always find it too short.”
“Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint.”
“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.”
“Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.”
“But, said Alice, if the world has absolutely no sense, who's stopping us from inventing one?”
“How long is forever? Sometimes, just one second.”
“I am under no obligation to make sense to you.”
“If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there.”
“I'm not crazy. My reality is just different than yours.”
“Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.”
“The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.”
“Have I gone mad? I'm afraid so. You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”
“You know what the issue is with this world? Everyone wants a magical solution to their problem, and everyone refuses to believe in magic.”
“Stand for something or you will fall for anything. Today's mighty oak is yesterday's nut that held its ground.”
“You may go on and do so.”
“You can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!”
“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!”
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
“Have you ever been hurt and the place tries to heal a bit, and you just pull the scar off of it over and over again.”
“I knew someone had to take the first step and I made up my mind not to move.”
“You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right.”
“I did not get on the bus to get arrested. I got on the bus to go home.”
“Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome.”
“But I don't want to go among mad people, Alice remarked. Oh, you can't help that, said the Cat: we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.”
“One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others.”
“Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
“But when that white driver stepped back toward us, when he waved his hand and ordered us up and out of our seats, I felt a determination cover my body like a quilt on a winter night.”
“I had been pushed around all my life and felt at this moment that I couldn't take it anymore.”
“People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”
“Let Us Make a Special Effort to Stop Communicating with Each Other, So We Can Have Some Conversation”
“Just Close Your Eyes and Think of England”
“Cool Papa was so fast that he could turn off the light switch and get into bed before the room got dark.”
“Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you.”
“I have never thrown an illegal pitch. The trouble is some of my pitches were never seen by this generation until I came along.”
“At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.”
“If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.”
“Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your own family to read.”
“The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife.”
“I pay low wages. I can take advantage of that. We're going to be successful, but the basis is a very low-wage, low-benefit model of employment.”
“Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish.”
“There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”
“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
“Freedom is participation in power.”
“My Mind Is Made Up. Don't Confuse Me With the Facts”
“There Is No Greater Mistake than To Try To Leap an Abyss in Two Jumps”
“How Will You Get Robots to Pay Union Dues?" "How Will You Get Robots to Buy Cars?”
“I Did It For My Own Pleasure. Then I Did It For My Friends. Now I Do It For Money”
“So I close in saying that I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for”
“Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth”
“The Race Is Not Always to the Swift, Nor the Battle to the Strong; But That Is the Best Way to Bet”
“It pains me to see my old company, which has meant so much to America, on the ropes.”
“Safety doesn't sell.”
“We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff”
“A man has to have goals — for a day, for a lifetime — and that was mine, to have people say, 'There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived.'”
“If you don't think too good, don't think too much.”
“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.”
“You Just Chip Away Everything That Doesn't Look Like David”
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one.'”
“There are two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'Thy will be done.'”
“In dreams begins responsibility.”
“We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.”
“Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.”
“They Haven't Done Anything to My Book. It's Right There on the Shelf”
“Origin of a Theatrical Review: I Saw It Under Adverse Conditions. The Curtain Was Up”
“Let's win one for the Gipper”
“Football is a game played with arms, legs and shoulders but mostly from the neck up”
“The secret is to work less as individuals and more as a team. As a coach, I play not my eleven best, but my best eleven”
“When I Read About the Evils of Smoking, I Gave Up Reading”
“There is a Conspiracy of Silence Against Me. What Should I Do, Oscar?" "Join It”
“He had shoulder surgery on his elbow.”
“If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven't done anything today.”
“On this team, we're all united in a common goal: to keep my job.”
“The next flag they plant will be all white, and it'll be surrender.”
“They say a tie is like kissing your sister. I guess that is better than kissing your brother.”
“Melancholy Is the Pleasure of Being Sad”
“Insanity Is Hereditary. You Can Get It from Your Children”
“Niagara Falls: The First Great Disappointment in Married Life”
“Nobody Will Ever Win the Battle of the Sexes. There's Too Much Fraternizing with the Enemy”
“Our Host Certainly Is Outspoken" "Outspoken By Whom?”
“For this one virtue is not only the greatest, but is also the parent of all the other virtues.”
“Let the welfare of the people be the ultimate law.”
“Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever.”
“Laughter Would Be Bereaved If Snobbery Died”
“There Are Two Kinds of People, Those Who Do the Work and Those Who Take the Credit”
“Fathers Should Give the Gift of Time to Their Children”
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
“He who knows does not speak; he who speaks does not know.”
“Millions Are To Be Grabbed Out Here, and Your Only Competition Is Idiots”
“Absinthe: After the First Glass, You See Things As You Wish They Were”
“Any Idiot Can Face a Crisis; It's This Day-To-Day Living That Wears You Out”
“The Buck Stops Here”
“Give the People What They Want and They'll Come”
“The Male Libido is Like Being Chained to a Madman”
“Venice Streets Are Full of Water. Please Advise”
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.”
“My true religion is Kindness.”
“A Kiss Is A Trick of Nature to Stop Speech When Words Are Superfluous”
“Fanatic: One Who Can't Change His Mind and Won't Change the Subject”
“Money Can't Buy Love, But It Improves Your Bargaining Position”
“The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease”
“We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.”
“Did You Lose the Keys Here?" "No, But the Light Is Much Better Here”
“Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.”
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
“They Riot in the Streets Inflamed with Wild Notions; Their Morals Are Decaying”
“St Paul's Cathedral Is Amusing, Awful, and Artificial”
“The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done”
“It's hard not to play golf that's up to Jack Nicklaus standards when you are Jack Nicklaus.”
“The older you get the stronger the wind gets - and it's always in your face.”
“Why Don't You Carry a Wrist Watch Like Everyone Else?”
“Combining the Mount Wilson and Mount Palomar Telescopes Still Won't Be Enough”
“The Difficult We Do Immediately. The Impossible Takes a Little Longer”
“A Master in the Art of Living Makes Little Distinction Between His Work and His Play”
“The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment.”
“The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence.”
“Your true home is in the here and the now.”
“I Only Write When Inspiration Strikes. Fortunately It Strikes at Nine Every Morning”
“Everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them.”
“There's nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.”
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
“If Men Could Get Pregnant, Abortion Would Be a Sacrament”
“Figures Don't Lie, But Liars Do Figure”
“When you stop talking, you've lost your customer. When you turn your back, you've lost her.”
“I Had Six Theories About Bringing Up Children”
“You handle animals. You deal with people.”
“In a world of individuals, comparison is a senseless activity.”
“You will never win if you have to prove that you are the winner.”
“When I Wrote It, Only God and I Knew the Meaning; Now God Alone Knows”
“An Epigram is Only a Wisecrack That’s Played Carnegie Hall”
“I've always believed the British Open is one of the greatest championships in the world”
“Maybe you'll fail most of the time, but until you've dared to try and have brought off an impossible shot from the rough or from the water, you haven't really tasted the game”
“For the love of money is the root of all evil”
“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”
“Cooking Is Like Love. It Should Be Entered Into with Abandon or Not At All”
“Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room.”
“Don't fight forces, use them.”
“God, to me, it seems is a verb, not a noun, proper or improper.”
“Now there is one outstandingly important fact regarding Spaceship Earth, and that is that no instruction book came with it.”
“Eat a Live Frog Every Morning, and Nothing Worse Will Happen to You the Rest of the Day”
“If I Had a Single Flower for Every Time I Think of You, I Could Walk Forever in My Garden”
“A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken a new action”
“All personal breakthroughs begin with a change in beliefs”
“Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy”
“The quality of your life is the quality of your communication”
“None of This Nonsense about Women and Children First”
“It's Too Caustic" "To Hell With the Cost”
“This Book Fills a Much-Needed Gap”
“A Gentleman Is a Man Who Never Gives Offense Unintentionally”
“It's easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time.”
“Management is the most noble of professions if it's practiced well. No other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow.”
“The prediction of my disruption theory would be that Apple won't succeed with the iPhone. History speaks pretty loudly on that.”
“Gentlemen, You May Include Me Out”
“I Did Not Attend the Funeral, But I Sent a Nice Letter Saying I Approved of It”
“Even If You Win the Rat Race, You're Still a Rat”
“Meretricious and a Happy New Year”
“Substitute 'Damn' Every Time You're Inclined to Write 'Very'”
“Your Bald Head Feels as Smooth as My Wife's Cheek”
“The Graveyards Are Full of Indispensable Men”
“Believe Those Who Are Seeking the Truth; Doubt Those Who Find It”
“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.”
“Aeroplanes and Tanks Are Only Accessories to the Man and the Horse”
“A culture of discipline is not a principle of business, it is a principle of greatness.”
“For no matter what we achieve, if we don't spend the vast majority of our time with people we love and respect, we cannot possibly have a great life.”
“Good is the enemy of great.”
“It is better to first get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats, and then figure out where to drive.”
“There is a direct relationship between the absence of celebrity and the presence of good-to-great results.”
“Those who built the visionary companies wisely understood that it is better to understand who you are than where you are going, for where you are going will almost certainly change.”
“If We Should Have to Leave Our Bleached Bones on These Desert Sands in Vain, Then Beware the Anger of the Legions.”
“It Ain’t Over ’Til the Fat Lady Sings”
“Reorganizing is a Wonderful Method for Creating the Illusion of Progress while Actually Producing Confusion, Inefficiency, and Demoralization”
“'Dog Bites a Man' Is Not News. 'Man Bites a Dog' Is News”
“If You Can Read This, You've Come Too Close”
“Golf: Hit a Very Small Ball into an Even Smaller Hole, with Weapons Singularly Ill-Designed for the Purpose”
“I Hope He Will Bite My Other Generals and Make Them Mad, Too”
“Oh, the comfort—the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person—having neither to weigh thoughts, nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away”
“He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase”
“At Last She Sleeps Alone”
“The Only Time an Aircraft Has Too Much Fuel On Board Is When It Is On Fire”
“Only Monarchs, Editors, and People with Tapeworms Have the Right to Use the Editorial 'We'”
“Why Should Any Man Be Allowed to Buy a Printing Press and Disseminate Pernicious Opinions?”
“Do You Prefer Grass or Astroturf" "I Don't Know. I Never Smoked Astroturf”
“Comedy Is Tragedy Plus Time”
“But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”
“You Can Get Much Further with a Kind Word and a Gun than with a Kind Word Alone”
“Live Fast, Die Young, and Leave a Beautiful Corpse”
“French Have Taken Umbrage. English Have Taken Cognizance.”
“Everybody Steals in Commerce and Industry. I've Stolen A Lot Myself”
“I Rob Banks Because That's Where the Money Is”
“Confused on a Higher Level and About More Important Things”
“Three Things Can Happen When You Pass and Two of Them Are Bad”
“A Rainy Day, Lost Luggage, and Tangled Christmas Tree Lights”
“You Can Avoid Reality, But You Cannot Avoid the Consequences of Avoiding Reality”
“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.”
“She Is Too Fond of Books, and It Has Turned Her Brain”
“Know Your Lines and Don't Bump Into the Furniture”
“You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.”
“Revenge is a dish best served cold”
“Alone bad. Friend good.”
“Fire bad!”
“It's not personal, it's strictly business”
“Never take sides against the family”
“We belong dead.”
“What we have here is a failure to communicate.”
“You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!”
“The Market Can Remain Irrational Longer Than You Can Remain Solvent”
“There Is Nothing So Disastrous As a Rational Investment Policy In an Irrational World”
“If You Steal From One Author, It's Plagiarism; If You Steal From Many, It's Research”
“A Story Should Have a Beginning, a Muddle and an End”
“Drunk on the Idea That Love, Only Love, Could Heal Our Brokenness”
“If Tetris Has Taught Me Anything, It's That Errors Pile Up and Accomplishments Disappear”
“The Lion and the Gazelle”
“Capitalism: The Nastiest of Men for the Nastiest of Motives Will Somehow Work for the Benefit of All”
“Modern Man Drives a Mortgaged Car Over a Bond-Financed Highway on Credit-Card Gas”
“A Different World Cannot Be Built By Indifferent People”
“You Have To Kiss A Lot Of Frogs To Find Your Prince”
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
“He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.”
“A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”
“All we've got is cotton, and slaves and...arrogance.”
“Elementary, my dear Holmes, elementary.”
“Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.”
“Gentlemen, it's been a privilege flying with you.”
“Here's looking at you, kid.”
“He's dead, Jim.”
“I do wish we could chat longer, but I'm having an old friend for dinner.”
“I love you." / "I know.”
“If you build it, he will come.”
“I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!”
“I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse”
“It's alive! It's alive!”
“Leave the gun, take the cannoli”
“Let's work the problem, people. Let's not make things any worse by guessing.”
“Lips red as the rose, hair black as ebony, skin white as snow.”
“Lunch is for wimps.”
“Magic Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?”
“Momma says stupid is as stupid does.”
“Money never sleeps, pal.”
“No! Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try.”
“Nothin'. A handful of nothin'. You stupid mullet head. He beat you with nothin'.”
“Now I know what it feels like to be God!”
“Now you know why they call me 'Dirty Harry'. I get every dirty job that comes along.”
“People will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.”
“Round up the usual suspects.”
“Run, Forrest! Run!”
“So, eleven hundred men went in the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out, and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.”
“Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: To explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before.”
“There's no place like home.”
“This was no boating accident.”
“When a naked man is chasing a woman through an alley with a butcher knife and a hard-on, I figure he isn't out collecting for the Red Cross.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.”
“You can't handle the truth!”
“You're goddamn right I did!”
“You've a magnificent brain, Moriarty. I admire it.”
“Pressure is a privilege.”
Nothing under review matches that.
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