Dictionary De - En
De - Es
De - Pt| Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
| A drama critic is a person who surprises a playwright by informing him what he meant. -- Wilson Mizner | |
| No two persons ever read the same book. -- Edmund Wilson | |
| All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"--a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| April 1 This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| Behold, the fool saith, "Put not all thine eggs in the one basket"--which is but a manner of saying, "Scatter your money and your attention;" but the wise man saith, "Put all your eggs in the one basket and--WATCH THAT BASKET." -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| Consider well the proportions of things. It is better to be a young June-bug than an old bird of paradise. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave; it is merely a loose misapplication of the word. Consider the flea!--incomparably the bravest of all the creatures of God, if ignorance of fear were courage. Whether you are asleep or awake he will attack you, caring nothing for the fact that in bulk and strength you are to him as are the massed armies of the earth to a sucking child; he lives both day and night and all days and nights in the very lap of peril and the immediate presence of death, and yet is no more afraid than is the man who walks the streets of a city that was threatened by an earthquake ten centuries before. When we speak of Clive, Nelson, and Putnam as men who "didn't know what fear was," we ought always to add the flea--and put him at the head of the procession. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| Even the clearest and most perfect circumstantial evidence is likely to be at fault, after all, and therefore ought to be received with great caution. Take the case of any pencil, sharpened by any woman; if you have witnesses, you will find she did it with a knife; but if you take simply the aspect of the pencil, you will say that she did it with her teeth. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. -- "Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| Gratitude and treachery are merely the two extremities of the same procession. You have seen all of it that is worth staying for when the band and the gaudy officials have gone by. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs a step at a time. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar | |
| If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition. There was once a man who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal, complained that there were too many prehistoric toads in it. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| It is often the case that the man who can't tell a lie thinks he is the best judge of one. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse-races. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| October 12, the Discovery. It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| Remark of Dr. Baldwin's concerning upstarts: We don't care to eat toadstools that think they are truffles. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| Tell the truth or trump--but get the trick. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be mentioned with commoner things. It is chief of the world's luxuries, king by the grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took; we know it because she repented. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| There are three infallible ways of pleasing an author, and the three form a rising scale of compliment: 1, to tell him you have read one of his books; 2, to tell him you have read all of his books; 3, to ask him to let you read the manuscript of his forthcoming book. No. 1 admits you to his respect; No. 2 admits you to his admiration; No. 3 carries you clear into his heart. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| We know all about the habits of the ant, we know all about the habits of the bee, but we know nothing at all about the habits of the oyster. It seems almost certain that we have been choosing the wrong time for studying the oyster. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| When angry, count four; when very angry, swear. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know who have gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| I use not only all the brains I have, but all those I can borrow as well. -- Woodrow Wilson | |
| Engram, n.: 1. The physical manifestation of human memory -- "the engram." 2. A particular memory in physical form. [Usage note: this term is no longer in common use. Prior to Wilson and Magruder's historic discovery, the nature of the engram was a topic of intense speculation among neuroscientists, psychologists, and even computer scientists. In 1994 Professors M. R. Wilson and W. V. Magruder, both of Mount St. Coax University in Palo Alto, proved conclusively that the mammalian brain is hardwired to interpret a set of thirty seven genetically transmitted cooperating TECO macros. Human memory was shown to reside in 1 million Q-registers as Huffman coded uppercase-only ASCII strings. Interest in the engram has declined substantially since that time.] -- New Century Unabridged English Dictionary, 3rd edition, 2007 A.D. | |
| gossip, n.: Hearing something you like about someone you don't. -- Earl Wilson | |
| I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy. -- Fred Allen [Also attributed to S. Clay Wilson. Ed.] | |
| I respect faith, but doubt is what gives you an education. -- Wilson Mizner | |
| Once Again From the Top Correction notice in the Miami Herald: "Last Sunday, The Herald erroneously reported that original Dolphin Johnny Holmes had been an insurance salesman in Raleigh, North Carolina, that he had won the New York lottery in 1982 and lost the money in a land swindle, that he had been charged with vehicular homicide, but acquitted because his mother said she drove the car, and that he stated that the funniest thing he ever saw was Flipper spouting water on George Wilson. Each of these items was erroneous material published inadvertently. He was not an insurance salesman in Raleigh, did not win the lottery, neither he nor his mother was charged or involved in any way with vehicular homicide, and he made no comment about Flipper or George Wilson. The Herald regrets the errors." -- "The Progressive", March, 1987 | |
| If you steal from one author it's plagiarism; if you steal from many it's research. -- Wilson Mizner | |
| The good oxymoron, to define it by a self-illustration, must be a planned inadvertency. -Wilson Follett | |
| Adam was but human--this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| Be nice to people on the way up, because you'll meet them on your way down. -- Wilson Mizner | |
| If man is only a little lower than the angels, the angels should reform. -- Mary Wilson Little | |
| Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one was, that they escaped teething. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| All of us should treasure his Oriental wisdom and his preaching of a Zen-like detachment, as exemplified by his constant reminder to clerks, tellers, or others who grew excited by his presence in their banks: "Just lie down on the floor and keep calm." -- Robert Wilson, "John Dillinger Died for You" | |
| God help those who do not help themselves. -- Wilson Mizner | |
| If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments. -- Earl Wilson | |
