Sir John Mortimer quote: "The worst fault of the working classes is telling their children they're not going to succeed, saying: There is life, but it's not for you."

When you get to my age life seems little more than one long march to and from the lavatory.
SIR JOHN MORTIMER

Like childhood, old age is irresponsible, reckless, and foolhardy. Children and old people have ever...
SIR JOHN MORTIMER

There's more of yourself in a book than a play. that's why we know all about Dickens and not much a...
SIR JOHN MORTIMER

The shelf life of the modern hardback writer is somewhere between the milk and the yogurt.
SIR JOHN MORTIMER

The main aim of education should be to send children out into the world with a reasonably sized anth...
SIR JOHN MORTIMER

I don't believe in children's books. I think after you've read Kidnapped, Treasure Island, and Huckl...
SIR JOHN MORTIMER

We don't know much about the human conscience, except that it is soluble in alcohol.
SIR JOHN MORTIMER

The freedom to make a fortune on the stock exchange has been made to sound more alluring than freedo...
SIR JOHN MORTIMER

'Irritable Judges suffer from a bad case of premature adjudication.'
SIR JOHN MORTIMER

Farce is tragedy played at a thousand revolutions per minute.
SIR JOHN MORTIMER

Farce is tragedy played at a thousand revolutions per minute.
JOHN MORTIMER

To escape jury duty in England, wear a bowler hat and carry a copy of the Daily telegraph.
JOHN MORTIMER

I suppose that writers should, in a way, feel flattered by the censorship laws. They show a primitiv...
JOHN MORTIMER

All the flower children were as alike as a congress of accountants and about as interesting.
JOHN MORTIMER

The freedom to make a fortune on the stock exchange has been made to sound more alluring than freedo...
JOHN MORTIMER

There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward.
JOHN MORTIMER

I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an...
JOHN MORTIMER

Attack the medical evidence. Remember the jury's full of rheumatism and arthritis and shocking gastr...
JOHN MORTIMER

The worst fault of the working classes is telling their children they're not going to succeed, sayin...
JOHN MORTIMER

No brilliance is required in law, just common sense and relatively clean fingernails.
JOHN MORTIMER

The greatest horrors of our world, from the executions in Iran to the brutalities of the IRA, are co...
JOHN MORTIMER

Children can spot pomposity, insincerity and self-regard a mile off and are the best possible antido...
JOHN MORTIMER

Champagne socialist
JOHN MORTIMER

The worst fault of the working classes is telling their children they're not going to succeed.
JOHN MORTIMER

The love which moves the world, according to common Christian belief, is God's love and the love...
MORTIMER ADLER

I went to dinner with my mother-in-law and I just realized I was talking in sound bites to her and e...
EMILY MORTIMER

For the baby boomer generation, a home is now seen not as the cornerstone of advancement but a ball ...
MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN

The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as long as...
MORTIMER ADLER

A man's as old as he's feeling. A woman as old as she looks.
MORTIMER COLLINS

There is one difference between a tax collector and a taxidermist -- the taxidermist leaves the hide...
MORTIMER CAPLAN

Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.
MORTIMER CAPLAN

There was an ape in the days that were earlier, Centuries passed and his hair became curlier; ...
MORTIMER COLLINS

Americans cannot maintain their essential faith in government if there are two Americas, in which th...
MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN

In English we must use adjectives to distinguish the different kinds of love for which the ancients ...
MORTIMER ADLER

It is love rather than sexual lust or unbridled sexuality if, in addition to the need or want involv...
MORTIMER ADLER

Natural erosion had reduced the critical barrier islands in the Gulf, the result of the destruction ...
MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN

Love without conversation is impossible.
MORTIMER ADLER

We are selfish when we are exclusively or predominantly concerned with the good for ourselves. We ar...
MORTIMER ADLER

The ultimate end of education is happiness or a good human life, a life enriched by the possession o...
MORTIMER ADLER

Love can be unselfish, in the sense of being benevolent and generous, without being selfless.
MORTIMER ADLER

We just have to keep doing what we're doing. We're really playing well right now. We have to keep it...
ANDREA MORTIMER

We definitely play well together. We're good friends off the court, too.
ANDREA MORTIMER

Sometimes it changes your mentality a little, but I try not to think about it. I just still try to p...
ANDREA MORTIMER

It's surprising. I really wasn't expecting it. It's cool that Bethany and I both made it. It was a g...
ANDREA MORTIMER

When we ask for love, we don't ask others to be fair to us-but rather to care for us, to be cons...
MORTIMER ADLER

We acknowledge but one motive - to follow the truth as we know it, whithersoever it may lead us; but...
MORTIMER ADLER

Love consists in giving without getting in return; in giving what is not owed, what is not due the o...
MORTIMER ADLER

An educated person is one who, through the travail of his own life, has assimilated the ideas that m...
MORTIMER ADLER

Aristotle uses a mother's love for her child as the prime example of love or friendship.
MORTIMER ADLER

Friendship is a very taxing and arduous form of leisure activity.
MORTIMER ADLER

It's a hard thing to do, to be given a script, and know that you've got to turn up on the fi...
EMILY MORTIMER

I had friends at school, but I was never part of a gang and I dreamed of that sense of belonging to ...
EMILY MORTIMER

Not to engage in the pursuit of ideas is to live like ants instead of like men.
MORTIMER ADLER

I'm always sort of anticipating life being difficult, but on a basic level, that's sort of o...
EMILY MORTIMER

These days the American dream of home ownership has turned into a nightmare for millions of families...
MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN

You have to allow a certain amount of time in which you are doing nothing in order to have things oc...
MORTIMER ADLER

The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we live...
MORTIMER ADLER

A man's as old as he's feeling. A woman as old as she looks.
MORTIMER COLLINS

Death a friend that alone can bring the peace his treasures cannot purchase, and remove the pain his...
MORTIMER COLLINS

Friendship is a very taxing and arduous form of leisure activity
MORTIMER ADLER

I am a good mother and I feel proud about it.
EMILY MORTIMER

Freud's view is that all love is sexual in its origin or its basis. Even those loves which do no...
MORTIMER ADLER

I decided law was the exact opposite of sex; even when it was good, it was lousy.
MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN

The telephone book is full of facts, but it doesn't contain a single idea.
MORTIMER ADLER

I find the selectivity of erotic love - the choice of this man or this woman - much more intelligibl...
MORTIMER ADLER

I did my homework and didn't go out much, and had a very highly developed kitsch fantasy life wh...
EMILY MORTIMER

In idling, the motor's running, but you're letting your mind take in anything. Things pop in...
MORTIMER ADLER

Idling is important. Most people don't know how. They're afraid of it. This explains why the...
MORTIMER ADLER

In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how man...
MORTIMER ADLER

Ask others about themselves, at the same time, be on guard not to talk too much about yourself
MORTIMER ADLER

O, to bring back the great Homeric time, The simple manners and the deed sublime: When the wis...
MORTIMER COLLINS

There is one difference between a tax collector and a taxidermist - the taxidermist leaves the hide.
MORTIMER CAPLIN

Ask others about themselves, at the same time, be on guard not to talk too much about yourself.
MORTIMER ADLER

Aristotle uses a mother's love for her child as the prime example of love or friendship.
MORTIMER ADLER

The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we cont...
MORTIMER ADLER

Freud's view is that all love is sexual in its origin or its basis. Even those loves which do not ap...
MORTIMER ADLER

There is only one situation I can think of in which men and women make an effort to read better than...
MORTIMER ADLER

Inquiry not only begins with wonder, but usually ends with it also.
MORTIMER ADLER

One of the embarrassing problems for the early nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith w...
MORTIMER ADLER

After a trip to Mexico [in 1984]... I fell ill... The illness was protracted... I suffered a mild de...
MORTIMER ADLER

Office life taught me to be tolerant, lazy and a good gossip.
BOB MORTIMER

Millions of public workers have become a kind of privileged new class - a new elite, who live better...
MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN

Vic, have you farted?
(Vic: No).
What, never?
BOB MORTIMER

I thought it was a neat thing they did. We had a small remembrance here at school on Friday. In smal...
JERRY MORTIMER

We love even when our love is not requited.
MORTIMER ADLER

You have a tough crowd to please. If you arrive with something that doesn't piss anybody off, then y...
RICHARD MORTIMER

As you travel around medieval England you will come across a sport described by some contemporaries ...
IAN MORTIMER

The odd thing is if you asked me to do the accent now I would find it very difficult unless I was al...
EMILY MORTIMER

Love wishes to perpetuate itself. Love wishes for immortality.
MORTIMER ADLER

Lots of people there seemed to be in denial, in absolute denial, of death - everybody's pretendi...
EMILY MORTIMER

Unless we love and are loved, each of us is alone, each of us is deeply lonely.
MORTIMER ADLER

Doing press is like eating at McDonald's: while it's going on it's vaguely enjoyable - y...
EMILY MORTIMER

One of the aims of sexual union is procreation - the creation by reproduction of an image of itself,...
MORTIMER ADLER

I already feel a bit annoyed at myself for writing screenplays. It's a bit, I don't know, mo...
EMILY MORTIMER

We must have given them eight points on second chance shots.
JERRY MORTIMER

Leisure is not synonymous with time. Nor is it a noun. Leisure is a verb. I leisure. You leisure.
MORTIMER ADLER

The telephone book is full of facts, but it doesn't contain a single idea.
MORTIMER ADLER

Theories of love are found in the works of scientists, philosophers, and theologians.
MORTIMER ADLER

It's dangerous talking about yourself too much because you find yourself talking in sound bites.
EMILY MORTIMER

Conjugal love, or the friendship of spouses, can persist even after sexual desires have weakened, wi...
MORTIMER ADLER

The unique danger today is the possibility that we may face longer-term stagnation as a consequence ...
MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN

There is only one situation I can think of in which men and women make an effort to read better than...
MORTIMER ADLER

Work is toil: what one does only to earn a living. If it gives pleasure, it is leisure.
MORTIMER ADLER

Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men.
MORTIMER ADLER

In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how man...
MORTIMER ADLER

If one wants another only for some self-satisfaction, usually in the form of sensual pleasure, that ...
MORTIMER ADLER

Ultimately, we wish the joy of perfect union with the person we love.
MORTIMER ADLER

Men value things in three ways: as useful, as pleasant or sources of pleasure, and as excellent, or ...
MORTIMER ADLER

I was terribly shy when I was growing up, I really wasn't confident with other people and I thin...
EMILY MORTIMER

Los Angeles is like a beauty parlor at the end of the universe.
EMILY MORTIMER

I wake up early. At 6:30 A.M., I'm at my most optimistic.
EMILY MORTIMER

I think half the time I just assume I don't really know what I'm doing - you have to do that...
EMILY MORTIMER

I think that you can get more passionate about somebody the longer you're with them and the more...
EMILY MORTIMER

To get art nowadays, in cinema or books or anything, that grapples with the possibility of a meaning...
EMILY MORTIMER

51st State was one that I loved doing because the character was so out there, and in a way I was sad...
EMILY MORTIMER

I think we probably will end up in America because he would be giving up much more to come and live ...
EMILY MORTIMER

I borrowed my friend's car the other day in an attempt to persuade my husband that we needed a c...
EMILY MORTIMER

Normal people, who can be good people but do bad things, are very interesting to me, and people that...
EMILY MORTIMER

I must have been a really pretentious little girl.
EMILY MORTIMER

Breakfast is my favorite meal. I cook a big one for everyone - bacon and eggs. I own a lot of eggcup...
EMILY MORTIMER

I want any excuse to come home. My dad is not a spring chicken any more. If anyone says, 'Go buy...
EMILY MORTIMER

My dad had this philosophy that if you tell children they're beautiful and wonderful then they b...
EMILY MORTIMER

This strategy has a lot of teeth.
JEFF MORTIMER

If you share too much, the world will copy you.
JEFF MORTIMER

People are after simplicity now. They learned over the past five years or so that investing isn't as...
JEFF MORTIMER

The surprise of the quarter was really the strength of small-cap market when most pundits were sayin...
JEFF MORTIMER

Schwab Hedged Equity has a core belief: There is an upward drift to the stock market.
JEFF MORTIMER

I decided law was the exact opposite of sex; even when it was good, it was lousy
MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN

Tact is the art of convincing people that they know more than you do
RAYMOND MORTIMER

Once a women has given you her heart you can never get rid of the rest of her.
SIR JOHN VANBRUGH

Look you, Amanda, you may build Castles in the Air, and fume, and fret, and grow thin and lean, and ...
SIR JOHN VANBRUGH

If women were humbler, men would be more honest.
SIR JOHN VANBRUGH

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to ...
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK

In truth, people can generally make time for what they choose to do; it is not really the time but t...
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK

Youth, what man's age is like to be, doth show; We may our ends by our beginnings know.
SIR JOHN DENHAM

Don't be afraid of showing affection. Be warm and tender, thoughtful and affectionate. Men are more ...
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK

A wise system of education will at last teach us how little man yet knows, how much he has still to ...
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK

The want of a thing is perplexing enough, but the possession of it, is intolerable.
SIR JOHN VANBRUGH

Virtue is its own reward. There's a pleasure in doing good which sufficiently pays itself.
SIR JOHN VANBRUGH

Who fears not to do ill fears the name, And free from conscience, is a slave to fame.
SIR JOHN DENHAM

A wise system of education will at last teach us how little man yet knows, how much he has still to...
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK

Music and dancing (the more the pity) have become so closely associated with ideas of riot and debau...
SIR JOHN HERSCHEL

The absolute fundamental aim is to make money out of satisfying customers.
SIR JOHN EGAN

Planning is an unnatural process; it is much more fun to do something. The nicest thing about not pl...
SIR JOHN HARVEY

Ambition is like love, impatient both of delays and rivals.
SIR JOHN DENHAM

What we see depends mainly on what we look for.
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK

A happy family is but an earlier heaven.
SIR JOHN BOWRING

We must not sit still and look for miracles; up and doing, and the Lord will be with thee. Prayer an...
SIR JOHN ELIOT

Sunsets are so beautiful that they almost seem as if we were looking through the gates of Heaven.
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK

Your character will be what you yourself choose to make it.
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is ...
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK

Our duty is to believe that for which we have sufficient evidence, and to suspend our judgment when ...
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK

'Tis expectation makes a blessing dear;Heaven were not Heaven, if we knew what it were.
SIR JOHN SUCKLING

When we have done our best, we should wait the result in peace.
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK

Zeal without knowledge is the sister of folly.
SIR JOHN DAVIES

Search not to find things too deeply hid; Nor try to know things whose knowledge is forbid.
SIR JOHN DENHAM

Secrecy is the badge of fraud.
SIR JOHN CHADWICK

Before buying anything, it is well to ask if one could do without it.
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK

Nor ought a genius less than his that writ attempt translation.
SIR JOHN DENHAM

It horrifies me that ethics is only an optional extra at Harvard Business School.
SIR JOHN HARVEY

You may build castles in the air, and fume, and fret, and grow thin and lean, and pale and ugly, if ...
SIR JOHN VANBRUGH

I never had but one intrigue yet: but I confess I long to have another. Pray heaven it end as the fi...
SIR JOHN VANBRUGH

There is in every human heart Some not completely barren part, Where seeds of truth and love might g...
SIR JOHN BOWRING

We are never like angels till our passion dies.
SIR JOHN DENHAM

Books should to one of these fours ends conduce, for wisdom, piety, delight, or use.
SIR JOHN DENHAM

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of w...
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK

Self-respect is the cornerstone of all virtue.
SIR JOHN HERSCHEL

Deeds are males, words females are.
SIR JOHN DAVIES

I kept on digging the hole deeper and deeper looking for the treasure chest until I finally lifted ...
SIR JOHN DENHAM

You prove but too clearly that seeking to know Is too frequently learning to doubt. [Fr., Vous...
SIR JOHN DENHAM

Uncertain ways unsafest are, And doubt a greater mischief than despair.
SIR JOHN DENHAM

Night was our friend, our leader was Despair.
SIR JOHN DENHAM

Darkness our guide, Despair our leader was.
SIR JOHN DENHAM

Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
SIR JOHN HARRINGTON

'Tis the most certain sign, the world's accurst That the best things corrupted, are the worst; ...
SIR JOHN DENHAM

Best fishing in troubled waters.
SIR JOHN HARRINGTON

Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmas...
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK

Good manners and soft words have brought many a difficult thing to pass
SIR JOHN VANBRUGH

My mind tells me to give up, but my heart won't let me.
SIR JOHN VANBRUGH

Her feet beneath her petticoat, Like little mice, stole in and out, As if they feared the ligh...
SIR JOHN SUCKLING

The four most dangerous words in investing are 'This time it's different.'
SIR JOHN TEMPLETON

For what made that in glory shine so long But poets' Pens, pluckt from Archangels' wings?
SIR JOHN DAVIES

The reason of a resolution is more to be considered than the resolution itself.
SIR JOHN HOLT

Virtue is its own reward. There's a pleasure in doing good which sufficiently pays itself.
SIR JOHN VANBRUGH

Youth, what man's age is like to be, doth show; We may our ends by our beginnings know.
SIR JOHN DENHAM

We often hear of people breaking down from overwork, but in nine out of ten they are really sufferin...
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK

Let us consider the reason of the case. For nothing is law that is not reason.
SIR JOHN POWELL

Happiness is a thing to be practiced, like the violin.
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK

The age, wherein he lived was dark; but he Could not want sight, who taught the world to see.
SIR JOHN DENHAM

Much like a subtle spider, which doth sit In middle of her web, which spreadeth wide: If aught...
SIR JOHN DAVIES

O, could I flow like thee! and make thy stream My great example, as it is my theme; Though de...
SIR JOHN DENHAM

A tailor, though a man of upright dealing,-- True but for lying,--honest but for stealing,-- D...
SIR JOHN HARRINGTON

People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.
SIR JOHN DENHAM

Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.
SIR JOHN DENHAM

Actions of the last age are like almanacs of the last year.
SIR JOHN DENHAM

Nothing happens until something moves.
SIR JOHN DENHAM

There was a man bespake a think, Which when the owner home did bring, He that made it did refu...
SIR JOHN DAVIES

The only real talent Miss Day possesses is that of being absolutely sanitary: her personality untouc...
SIR JOHN SIMON

Virtue is its own reward. There's a pleasure in doing good which sufficiently pays itself.
SIR JOHN VANBRUGH

Repentance for past crimes is just and easy; but sin-no-more's a task too hard for mortals
SIR JOHN VANBRUGH

The worst fault of the working classes is telling their children they're not going to succeed, saying: There is life, but it's not for you.

Copied!

Sir John Mortimer

The worst fault of the working classes is telling their children they're not going to succeed, saying: There is life, but it's not for you.

Sir John Mortimer

Share:

Related

More Sir John Mortimer