FastSaying

Pessimists try to convince you the world sucks, optimists already know it does and smile anyway.


Jonathan Harnisch

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past.
LEWIS MUMFORD Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past.
LEWIS MUMFORD Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past
LEWIS MUMFORD [A] pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant.
REX STOUT Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been acc...
THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Life belongs to optimists. Pessimists are just viewers. Making it real, starts with our attitude.
CATHY BURNHAM MARTIN Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimi...
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the p...
G. B. STERN Pessimists are toxic. I love optimists - and by that, I don't mean people who are unable to see ...
IVANKA TRUMP While there are still more optimists than pessimists, this is the least optimistic that CFOs have be...
JOHN GRAHAM While there are still more optimists than pessimists, this is the least optimistic that CFOs have be...
JOHN GRAHAM Men are always optimists when they look inwards, and pessimists when they look around them.
OUIDA I thought all my life that optimists and pessimists pass away the same way, so why be a pessimist?
SHIMON PERES The positive numbers still mean that optimists are outnumbering pessimists, even when companies cons...
ATSUSHI TAKEDA Some people are optimists. Some people are pessimists. I'm just a realist who believes that some thi...
C. JOYBELL C. Pessimists see the glass as half empty even though it's full. Optimists see the glass as half filled...
PIA FAJELAGUTAN One of the greatest gifts in this world is the ability to make others smile. - The Unauthorized Auto...
J.E.B. SPREDEMANN if you lack the virtue of patience, try being a programmer-it sucks and rocks
JOSEPH ANNANG SOWAH Sometimes you're afraid to fall in love with a chick, but she sucks you in anyway.
SAMMY HAGAR Before you try to convince anyone else, be sure you are convinced, and if you cannot convince yourse...
JOHN H. PATTERSON You know what sucks about sorry? It's the worst word in the world. Because it always happens after y...
BRIGID KEMMERER Definitely not—you optimists just can't understand that a depressed person doesn't want you to try...
BRANDON SANDERSON Life takes action. Pessimists say it can't be done so they do nothing. Optimists say it will be done...
THOMAS J. POWELL Sometimes your simple smile means a whole world to some people. A smile does not cost anything. Smil...
JOHN B. BEJO Pessimists have already begun to worry about what is going to replace automation
JOHN TUDOR As a bull market turns into a bear market, the new pros turn into optimists, hoping and praying the ...
ROBERT KIYOSAKI Let optimists rule the world.
LAURYN HILL You already know everything, all ayahuasca does is remind you, it makes you aware of the infinite yo...
GERARD ARMOND POWELL I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES I will be the first to admit that I am a pessimist by nature. It is, after all, the wisest way to be...
TAMAR MYERS I was warned about you, you know."
And with that half-smile that wrecked me, Noah said, "But yo...
MICHELLE HODKIN The most powerful way to convince the interviewer that you can do the job is to show how much you al...
GUY KAWASAKI ...studies show that in general, optimists die ten years earlier than pessimists."
"I find that...
SUSIN NIELSEN You know, it's not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the w...
JAMES A. BALDWIN Only God, Jonathan and the baby know what happened. I think if they could find something, he'd (Fost...
KATIE ADAMS You know, it's not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world...
JAMES BALDWIN It sucks being judged by the world instead of your close friends or family. I try to just realise th...
KYLIE JENNER Convince yourself that everything is alright. Cause it already is.
PETE YORN Listen, smile, agree, and then do whatever the fuck you were gonna do anyway.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR. If you know something is true, you don’t need to convince anyone of it. If you are trying to convi...
ALAN COHEN Think twice before you try to convince someone by killing the truth.
MOHITH AGADI Don’t cry,nyonda,” he murmured.
Phillipa took a deep breath. “What does that mean, anyway...
SUZANNE ENOCH Billings sucks, dude. It's so far away, and everybody was coming from Missoula anyway, so it made mo...
CHRIS HENRY Try smiling at people, you never know how one smile can affect their day.
BENJAMIN BAYANI Know the Power of your Smile, it can conquer the world.
MAHRUKH Life sucks then you get a boyfriend then it sucks even more then you break up it sucks less then you...
FELICITY "CHEEZ' CALDWELL To convince people to back your idea, you've got to sell it to yourself and know when it's t...
JAMES CAMERON I'm not a big texter anyway. I'm really slow at it and so I try to avoid it to avoid embarra...
CALLAN MCAULIFFE Listen, smile, agree.. Then do whatever you were gonna do anyway.
ANONYMOUS With a practical joke, you do one of two things. You convince people that something exists when it d...
CHRIS LAMB If you left a child like Jonathan to it, he'd play on the computer all of the time and drift off int...
KAREN SIMMONS Action is a powerful thing. When you smile through your sadness, it can completely change your outlo...
LETICIA RAE I keep moving ahead, as always, knowing deep down inside that I am a good person and that I am worth...
JONATHAN HARNISCH Forget about being impressive and commit to being real. Because being real is impressive!
JONATHAN HARNISCH I have schizophrenia. I am not schizophrenia. I am not my mental illness. My illness is a part of me...
JONATHAN HARNISCH The strongest people are not those who show strength in front of the world but those who fight and w...
JONATHAN HARNISCH You can’t be beaten by something you laugh at.
JONATHAN HARNISCH I’d wish it were easier to not allow other people’s pasts to create my own present.
JONATHAN HARNISCH There is something about being loved and protected by a parent (or guardian) knowing that I can be l...
JONATHAN HARNISCH Love me, hate me, hurt me or kill me. I keep fighting.
JONATHAN HARNISCH You’ve got to reach bedrock to become depressed enough before you are forced to accept the reality...
JONATHAN HARNISCH How simple it is to acknowledge that all the worry in the world could not control the future. How si...
JONATHAN HARNISCH Will Shatner, Jonathan Frakes of Star Trek have already put novels out.
BRUCE BOXLEITNER Pessimists are not boring. Pessimists are right. Pessimists are superfluous.
ELIAS CANETTI Living a Life in Sin Sucks! It Sucks the Life Out of You!
DEBRA ROBERTS I ain't going to give them [anything] — I already threw most of it in the trash anyway.
BARRY COHEN Use every person's skill set to the fullest. Both optimists and pessimists contribute. An optimist i...
RAMESH LOHIA AND SURBHI LOHIA It doesn't matter if you try and try and try again, and fail. It does matter if you try and fail...
CHARLES KETTERING Smile. Give Earth the biggest smile you've got. See every glimmer of light in the scariest, darkest ...
LANA M. H. WILDER Find something you love to do, your passion. Try to become the best at it and let the world know tha...
STEVEN MONACO There's just something obvious about emptiness, even when you try to convince yourself otherwise.
SARAH DESSEN Pessimists believe that the world is as bad as they fear it might be. They are often too afraid to l...
TERENCE T. GORSKI You always try to know what you need, try to manage the game given the game situation, ... and I thi...
BILL BELICHICK To see all pessimists as pessimists is to be a pessimist.
MOKOKOMA MOKHONOANA I mean, reality sucks. The world is a cancer, and shits so bad it’s scary. Everything’s filthy. ...
MITCH LUCKER If you are a believer you are not supposed to begin to convince God to use you. God already desires ...
SUNDAY ADELAJA All men have one refuge, a good friend, with whom you can weep and know that he does not smile.
MENANDER I hope it does, anyway.
DAVID REUTIMANN How do you make me smile when it seems like there’s nothing in the whole world to smile about?
PAULA STOKES Know that the world really does revolve around You and You live in a world of infinite possibilities...
DR.'S RICK AND SUSANN CRAWFORD It is the greatest art of the devil to convince us he does not exist.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE You know, I don't think my music is important, I don't think it's changing the world, I ...
SUFJAN STEVENS To smile when you are defeated means your defeat is already defeated!
MEHMET MURAT ILDAN Guard yourself from things and people that will try to convince you that your life is not good enoug...
C.S. LEWIS And our pessimists think this has taken too long. Our pessimists believe that too many Americans hav...
JOHN LINDER Fortune does favor the bold and you'll never know what you're capable of if you don't try.
SHERYL SANDBERG There are too many weirdos in this world already. Everyone's trying to be different. If you really w...
MJ CHRISTINE Be generous with your smile and try not to frown.
And you will see my children; your smile will...
BENNY BELLAMACINA Once you get to the bar, don't wave. Try to make eye contact with the bartender. Be nice about it an...
ROB LORENC There is nothing in the world more stubborn than a corpse: you can hit it, you can knock it to piece...
ALEXANDER HERZEN The sight of cancer-ridden lungs and yellowing teeth may reinforce a non-smoker's decision not to li...
MAURICE PTITO Only optimists commit suicide, optimists who no longer succeed at being optimists. The others, havin...
EMIL M. CIORAN Dreams hit the fan? Life unexpectedly take a turn for the worst? Here’s what you do:

Fi...
RICHIE NORTON Disability is not what we see or appear, it is all about not doing what one really wanted to do...
SEAL THE SMILE As a director, when you embrace a project, you try to understand as much as you can about its world,...
DAVID MACKENZIE If it does, then great. If not, you know, we'll try again. That was a great way to start off the Big...
EMILY BROWN The most confused you will ever get is when you try to convince your heart and spirit of something y...
SHANNON L. ALDER I get it," said Link. "Even if it wrecks everything, even if you know you're gonna get busted, somet...
KAMI GARCIA What does my smile look like now? Vivi wondered. Can you reclaim that free-girl smile, or is it like...
REBECCA WELLS Here's my definition of a great beach read - a fabulous story that sucks me in like a black hole...
DOROTHEA BENTON FRANK

More Jonathan Harnisch

I keep moving ahead, as always, knowing deep down inside that I am a good person and that I am worth...
JONATHAN HARNISCH Forget about being impressive and commit to being real. Because being real is impressive!
JONATHAN HARNISCH I have schizophrenia. I am not schizophrenia. I am not my mental illness. My illness is a part of me...
JONATHAN HARNISCH The strongest people are not those who show strength in front of the world but those who fight and w...
JONATHAN HARNISCH You can’t be beaten by something you laugh at.
JONATHAN HARNISCH I’d wish it were easier to not allow other people’s pasts to create my own present.
JONATHAN HARNISCH There is something about being loved and protected by a parent (or guardian) knowing that I can be l...
JONATHAN HARNISCH Love me, hate me, hurt me or kill me. I keep fighting.
JONATHAN HARNISCH You’ve got to reach bedrock to become depressed enough before you are forced to accept the reality...
JONATHAN HARNISCH How simple it is to acknowledge that all the worry in the world could not control the future. How si...
JONATHAN HARNISCH The first comic book I ever read was an issue of 'Legion of Super-Heroes' where the earth wa...
JONATHAN HICKMAN I know, especially in my family, people's feelings get hurt over the tiniest things. I'm sur...
JONATHAN KRISEL The biggest markets for my books outside the UK are France and Italy, and those are the two countrie...
JONATHAN COE If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it.
JONATHAN WINTERS I love improvisation. You can't blame it on the writers. You can't blame it on direction. Yo...
JONATHAN WINTERS It's not whether you win or lose, it's how many people remember you when you die.
JONATHAN ROSS These people are real to me, and situations keep coming up where their emergence feels natural. It&#...
JONATHAN KELLERMAN I collect primarily ceramics but also black-and-white photography and some bits of contemporary.
JONATHAN ANDERSON I grew up, as I joke around, in the 'People's Republic of Charlestown' in the city of Bo...
JONATHAN TUCKER I reassure all Nigerians and the international community of our firm commitment to free, fair and cr...
GOODLUCK JONATHAN All Nigerians of voting age are free to vote based on their convictions. It is our duty to defend an...
GOODLUCK JONATHAN One thing that I know and I feel Nigerians will celebrate is continuity and peace.
GOODLUCK JONATHAN We want to refocus Nigeria to make sure that basic infrastructure is provided. The environment is cr...
GOODLUCK JONATHAN I've always affirmed, nobody's ambition is worth the blood of any Nigerian.
GOODLUCK JONATHAN When you talk about the oil wealth you compare nations. There are some nations with less than five m...
GOODLUCK JONATHAN In my early days in school, I had no shoes, no school bags. There were days I had only one meal... I...
GOODLUCK JONATHAN Well-trained medical doctors and engineers leave Nigeria to the developed countries. We want to reve...
GOODLUCK JONATHAN We will bring justice to the savage terrorists known as Boko Haram. They will be defeated.
GOODLUCK JONATHAN We want to lead a country where people will be less greedy. Where people will know that the commonwe...
GOODLUCK JONATHAN The argument about zoning and the presidency of Nigeria is like the philosophical argument of the eg...
GOODLUCK JONATHAN My brothers and sisters, we are all winners. In this context there is no victor and no vanquished. W...
GOODLUCK JONATHAN When I started caregiving, I was not on very firm ground. My first marriage had dissolved. I was wor...
JONATHAN EVISON One person's car is another person's scenery.
JONATHAN IVE I toured Ontario in the winter of '48, in a touring company of The Drunkard, in which I played t...
JONATHAN FRID Some years ago there was a study to discover the most stressful occupation. It turned out not to be ...
JONATHAN SACKS When we look at the flowers, we suddenly forget so many important things. We forget that all flowers...
JONATHAN MABERRY My dad started taking me to Winnipeg games when I was 3 or 4. As a kid, I loved Wayne Gretzky, and I...
JONATHAN TOEWS I think whenever anyone asked me why I wanted to be a hockey player, that's where it all started...
JONATHAN TOEWS I'd love to have a proper sailing boat and go around the world.
JONATHAN POWELL In my third novel there is an actual black hole that swallows everything you love.
JONATHAN LETHEM Which European leader today would not relish the wonder-working powers of a Moses? Budget deficit? U...
JONATHAN SACKS The build-up of personal and collective debt in America and Europe should have sent warning signals ...
JONATHAN SACKS If you grow up in the South Bronx today or in south-central Los Angeles or Pittsburgh or Philadelphi...
JONATHAN KOZOL I never set out to intentionally hurt any player and never enticed any teammate to intentionally hur...
JONATHAN VILMA The Futurists believed in the machine, in making a great big fuss, in being young. For a brief momen...
JONATHAN GALASSI That test should not be about ratings. What should weigh is the knowledge that a public broadcaster ...
JONATHAN DIMBLEBY Anyone who thinks that you become a journalist or broadcaster in order to be a wallflower needs to t...
JONATHAN DIMBLEBY Promises and Pye-Crusts, are made to be broken.
JONATHAN SWIFT O Grub Street! how do I bemoan thee, whose graceless children scorn to own thee! . Yet thou hast gre...
JONATHAN SWIFT Style may defined as the proper words in the proper places.
JONATHAN SWIFT During an open water swim, it's easy to lose your direction. With all the splash, it can be quit...
JONATHAN BROWNLEE I have a cameo in every movie. In '50/50,' I'm in the back of the bus.
JONATHAN LEVINE Buttons, for me, are very sculptural things, and they are so fascinating.
JONATHAN ANDERSON I wrote '33 Men' in eight weeks. Not only was it a combination of simultaneously writing and...
JONATHAN FRANKLIN Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into teams... but thereby makes us go blind to objective real...
JONATHAN HAIDT If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it.
JONATHAN WINTERS The pen is mightier than the sword, but no match for the accountant.
JONATHAN GLANCEY We have just enough religion to make us hate but not enough to make us love one another.
JONATHAN SWIFT Necessity is the mother of invention, it is true, but its father is creativity, and knowledge is the...
JONATHAN SCHATTKE There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.
JONATHAN SWIFT Vision: the art of seeing things invisible.
JONATHAN SWIFT We are limited, not by our abilities, but by our vision.
JONATHAN SWIFT The Viennese wash everything. Where else in the world does the government hire public servants to wa...
JONATHAN CARROLL In thinking about religion and society in the 21st century, we should broaden the conversation about...
JONATHAN SACKS When I was teaching in the 1960s in Boston, there was a great deal of hope in the air. Martin Luther...
JONATHAN KOZOL If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a sco...
JONATHAN SWIFT He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be pu...
JONATHAN SWIFT Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right, nor do Two Rights Make a Left.

Which ever side you think i...
JONATHAN BAILEY If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scou...
JONATHAN SWIFT Since our technology is really just an extension of ourselves, we don’t have to have contempt for ...
JONATHAN FRANZEN Happiness is a perpetual possession of being well deceived.
JONATHAN SWIFT The latter part of a wise person's life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and false op...
JONATHAN SWIFT Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.
JONATHAN SWIFT Your notions of friendship are new to me; I believe every man is born with his quantum, and he canno...
JONATHAN SWIFT Two friendships in two breasts requires The same aversions and desires.
JONATHAN SWIFT I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the ...
JONATHAN SWIFT In the school of political projectors, I was but ill entertained, the professors appearing, in my ju...
JONATHAN SWIFT The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance and never to keep his w...
JONATHAN SWIFT A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart.
JONATHAN SWIFT I beg people not to accept the seasonal ritual of well-timed charity on Christmas Eve. It's blas...
JONATHAN KOZOL I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy ch...
JONATHAN SWIFT Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches to conceive how others can be in want.
JONATHAN SWIFT If the scandal of Jesus was that He was always touching the wrong people and inviting the wrong peop...
JONATHAN MARTIN The true art of government consists in not governing too much.
JONATHAN SHIPLEY The lack of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.
JONATHAN SWIFT The most positive men are the most credulous.
JONATHAN SWIFT Real love is always chaotic. You lose control; you lose perspective. You lose the ability to protect...
JONATHAN CARROLL Belief is best when uncomplicated by reason.
JONATHAN TOM More mony is put into prisons than into schools. That, in itself, is the description of a nation ben...
JONATHAN KOZOL May you live every day of your life.
JONATHAN SWIFT Every good writer I know needs to go into some deep, quiet place to do work that is fully imagined. ...
JONATHAN FRANZEN Everyone always wants to know how you can tell when it's true love, and the answer is this: when the...
JONATHAN TROPPER Can you define "plan" as "a loose sequence of manifestly inadequate observations and conjectures, he...
JONATHAN STROUD A footman may swear; but he cannot swear like a lord. He can swear as often: but can he swear with e...
JONATHAN SWIFT A short story is a sprint, a novel is a marathon. Sprinters have seconds to get from here to there a...
JONATHAN CARROLL Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
JONATHAN SWIFT Your language indicates──and limits──what you think.
JONATHAN PRICE Freedom is an illusion. It always comes at a price. Thinking
JONATHAN STROUD The stories that bind us, Halli. The stories we live by, that dictate what we do and where we go. Th...
JONATHAN STROUD Looks?” the skull said. “Who cares about that? It’s superficial. Outward appearance doesn’t ...
JONATHAN STROUD Oh, we'll suffer in silence. You've given us plenty of practice at that.
JONATHAN STROUD Because you're unique . You shine like a beacon, attracting the attention of all dark things." It ch...
JONATHAN STROUD Nothing could keep me from you. Nothing in life or Death...
JONATHAN STROUD I'ts how I want to remember him, the way he was that night: with horrors up ahead and horrors at our...
JONATHAN STROUD Well, I make that one murder victim, one police interrogation and one conversation with a ghost,” ...
JONATHAN STROUD Death is fugitive; even when you're watching for it, the actual instant somehow slips between your f...
JONATHAN STROUD Well, when you're being held at gunpoint by a geriatric madman in a metal skirt, you've kind of hit ...
JONATHAN STROUD God rest her soul and may she never walk at night
JONATHAN STROUD A dozen more questions occurred to me. Not to mention twenty-two possible solutions to each one, six...
JONATHAN STROUD One magician demanded I show him an image of the love of his life. I rustled up a mirror.
JONATHAN STROUD According to some, heroic deaths are admirable things. I've never been convinced by this argument, m...
JONATHAN STROUD Zealots: Wild eyed persons afflicted with incurable certainty about the workings of the world, a cer...
JONATHAN STROUD Then again, Solomon was human. And that meant he was flawed (Go on, take a look at yourself in the m...
JONATHAN STROUD Besides, if you're going to die horribly, you might as well do it with style.
JONATHAN STROUD More ghosts have been created in bedrooms than anywhere else.
JONATHAN STROUD Strange how close the darkness is, even when things seem brightest. Even in the glare of a summer no...
JONATHAN STROUD Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.
JONATHAN SWIFT Don't set your wit against a child.
JONATHAN SWIFT Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and speakers because, whoever shares his thoughts with ...
JONATHAN SWIFT It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffee-house for the voice of the kingdo...
JONATHAN SWIFT Necessity is the mother of invention, it is true -- but it's father is creativity, and knowledge is ...
JONATHAN SCHATTKE Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance.
JONATHAN SWIFT If there are amazing graces on this earth, I believe that they are these good children sent to us by...
JONATHAN KOZOL The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet w...
JONATHAN SWIFT Complaint is the largest tribute Heaven receives.
JONATHAN SWIFT Rebukes are easy from our betters,
From men of quality and letters;
But when low dunces will ...
JONATHAN SWIFT What some people invent the rest enlarge.
JONATHAN SWIFT All human race would be wits. And millions miss, for one that hits.
JONATHAN SWIFT Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you pleas...
JONATHAN SWIFT In church your grandsire cut his throat; to do the job too long he tarried: he should have had my he...
JONATHAN SWIFT Better belly burst than good liquor be lost.
JONATHAN SWIFT We are so fond on one another because our ailments are the same.
JONATHAN SWIFT Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as in books it is generally the wor...
JONATHAN SWIFT Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.
JONATHAN SWIFT What makes literature interesting is that it does not survive its translation. The characters in a n...
JONATHAN MILLER Coffee makes us severe, and grave, and philosophical.
JONATHAN SWIFT Living in cities is an art, and we need the vocabulary of art, of style, to describe the peculiar re...
JONATHAN RABAN One of the very best rules of conversation is to never, say anything which any of the company wish h...
JONATHAN SWIFT And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to...
JONATHAN SWIFT Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.
JONATHAN KOZOL Ambition often puts Men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same positio...
JONATHAN SWIFT The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.
JONATHAN SWIFT I wasn't driven into medicine by a social conscience but by rampant curiosity.
JONATHAN MILLER For the rest,
Whatever we have got has been by infinite labor, and search, and ranging through e...
JONATHAN SWIFT We have a choice: to plow new ground or let the weeds grow.
JONATHAN WESTOVER I went to Washington to challenge the soft bigotry of low expectations,
JONATHAN KOZOL What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not do we are told expressly.
JONATHAN SWIFT I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning.
JONATHAN SWIFT One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.
JONATHAN SWIFT When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in ...
JONATHAN SWIFT 'Tis an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery's the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men...
JONATHAN SWIFT She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on with a pitch folk.
JONATHAN SWIFT One of the oddest features of western Christianized culture is its ready acceptance of the myth of t...
JONATHAN RABAN I will venture to affirm, that the three seasons wherein our corn has miscarried did no more contrib...
JONATHAN SWIFT It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before, may legally be done again: a...
JONATHAN SWIFT Come, agree, the law's costly.
JONATHAN SWIFT There's none so blind as they that won't see.
JONATHAN SWIFT Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own; wh...
JONATHAN SWIFT Brutes find out where their talents lie;
A bear will not attempt to fly,
A foundered horse w...
JONATHAN SWIFT Over emphatic negatives always suggest that what is being denied may be what is really being asserte...
JONATHAN RABAN But when a Man
JONATHAN SWIFT Pretense is the overrating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to.
JONATHAN SWIFT There are two sorts of hypocrites; ones that are deceived with their outward morality and external r...
JONATHAN EDWARDS Attitudes to museums have changed. If it had Marilyn Monroe's knickers or Laurence Olivier's jockstr...
JONATHAN MILLER Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected.
JONATHAN EDWARDS I said there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words ...
JONATHAN SWIFT Invention is the talent of youth, as judgment is of age.
JONATHAN SWIFT Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth,...
JONATHAN SWIFT I wont quarrel with my bread and butter.
JONATHAN SWIFT I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.
JONATHAN SWIFT It was a bold person that first ate an oyster.
JONATHAN SWIFT A bad forgery's the ultimate insult.
JONATHAN GASH Promises and pie crusts are made to be broken.
JONATHAN SWIFT But you think that it is time for me to have done with the world, and so I would if I could get into...
JONATHAN SWIFT She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on her with a pitchfork.
JONATHAN SWIFT Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same positi...
JONATHAN SWIFT And he gave it for his opinion, "that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, ...
JONATHAN SWIFT I warrant you lay abed till the cows came home.
JONATHAN SWIFT Faith, that's as well said as if I had said it myself.
JONATHAN SWIFT Forget regret, or life is yours to miss.
JONATHAN LARSON Reason is a very light rider, and easily shook off.
JONATHAN SWIFT There's an enduring American compulsion to be on the side of the angels. Expediency alone has never ...
JONATHAN RABAN What she doesn't say is just as important as what she does say -- but there's so much more of it. I ...
JONATHAN KATZ Nor do they trust their tongue alone, but speak a language of their own; can read a nod, a shrug, a ...
JONATHAN SWIFT I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
JONATHAN SWIFT As blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a...
JONATHAN SWIFT How we apples swim.
JONATHAN SWIFT Instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnis...
JONATHAN SWIFT Convey a libel in a frown. And wink a reputation down!
JONATHAN SWIFT For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.
JONATHAN SWIFT The worthiest people are the most injured by slander, as is the best fruit which the birds have been...
JONATHAN SWIFT Modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.
JONATHAN SWIFT They say fingers were made before forks, and hands before knives.
JONATHAN SWIFT What some invent the rest enlarge.
JONATHAN SWIFT I heard the little bird say so.
JONATHAN SWIFT A prince, the moment he is crown'd, Inherits every virtue sound, As emblems of the sovereign p...
JONATHAN SWIFT Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought.
JONATHAN SWIFT So, naturalists observe, a flea Has smaller fleas that on him prey; And these have smaller sti...
JONATHAN SWIFT A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.
JONATHAN SWIFT In all distresses of our friends We first consult our private ends; While Nature, kindly bent ...
JONATHAN SWIFT