Quotes
Quotes about Wit
Christ didn't waste his time trying to change the social order. Christ spent all his time fighting sin. Therefore it behooves the witnesses of Christ to say that we do not have to abolish capitalism and establish socialism or communism, that sin can flourish under those systems as well. Christianity is not opposed to any social order, but to sin.
People get so in the habit of worry that if you save them from drowning and put them on a bank to dry in the sun with hot chocolate and muffins they wonder whether they are catching cold.
Anger begins with folly, and ends with repentance.
You are at enmity with yourself.
Sin brought death, and death will disappear with the disappearance of sin.
You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
I think it's only in a crisis that Americans see other people. It has to be an American crisis, of course. If two countries fight that do not supply the Americans with some precious commodity, then the education of the public does not take place. But when the dictator falls, when the oil is threatened, then you turn on the television and they tell you where the country is, what the language is, how to pronounce the names of the leaders, what the religion is all about, and maybe you can cut out recipes in the newspaper of Persian dishes.
People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?
It contains a misleading impression, not a lie. It was being economical with the truth.
Voluptuaries, consumed by their senses, always begin by flinging themselves with a great display of frenzy into an abyss. But they survive, they come to the surface again. And they develop a routine of the abyss: "It's four o clock. At five I have my abyss... ".
The art of losing isn't hard to masters; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
If you are planning on doing business with someone again, don't be too tough in the negotiations. If you're going to skin a cat, don't keep it as a house cat.
Oh, great. This is going to be like shooting baskets with Magic Johnson watching. [On watching Independence Day with President Clinton]
He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. â¢Edmund Burke Which fiddle-strings is weakness to expredge my nerves this night!
He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
Success and failure are both difficult to endure. Along with success come drugs, divorce, fornication, bullying, travel, meditation, medication, depression, neurosis and suicide. With failure comes failure.
A wise neuter joins with neither, but uses both as his honest interest leads him.
Stream of the living world Where dash the billows of strife!-- One plunge in the mighty torrent Is a year of tamer life! City of glorious days, Of hope, and labour and mirth, With room and to spare, on thy splendid bays For the ships of all the earth!
Silent, grim, colossal, the Big City has ever stood against its revilers. They call it hard as iron; they say that nothing of pity beats in its bosom; they compare its streets with lonely forests and deserts of lava. But beneath the hard crust of the lobster is found a delectable and luscious food. Perhaps a different simile would have been wiser. Still nobody should take offence. We would call nobody a lobster with good and sufficient claws.
George Washington, with his right art upraised, sits his iron horse at the lower corner of Union Square. . . . Should the General raise his left hand as he has raised his right, it would point to a quarter of the city that forms a haven for the oppressed and suppressed of foreign lands. In the cause of national or personal freedom they have found refuge here, and the patriot who made it for them sits his steed, overlooking their district, while he listens through his left ear to vaudeville that caricatures the posterity of the proteges.
If there ever was an aviary overstocked with jays it is that Yaptown-on-the-Hudson, call New York. Cosmopolitan they call it, you bet. So's a piece of fly-paper. You listen close when they're buzzing and trying to pull their feet out of the sticky stuff. "Little old New York's good enough for us"--that's what they sing.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of exiles.
Some day this old Broadway shall climb to the skies, As a ribbon of cloud on a soul-wind shall rise, And we shall be lifted, rejoicing by night, Till we join with the planets who choir their delight, The signs in the streets and the signs in the skies Shall make a new Zodiac, guiding the wise, And Broadway make one with that marvelous stair That is climbed by the rainbow-clad spirits of prayer.
Lo! body and soul!--this land! Mighty Manhattan, with spires, and The sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships; The varied and ample land,--the South And the North in the light--Ohio's shores, and flashing Missouri, And ever the far-spreading prairies, covered with grass and corn. - Walt Whitman,
Ill news is wing'd with fate, and flies apace.
