Famous Quotes & Sayings

Charles Trevelyan

If the Irish once find out that there are any circumstances in which they can get free government grants, we shall have a system of mendicancy [begging] such as the world never knew”. After a million had starved to death he stated “The great evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people.

Charles Trevelyan

The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people.

Charles W. Chesnutt

Selfishness is the most constant of human motives. Patriotism, humanity, or the love of God may lead to sporadic outbursts sweep away the heaped-up wrongs of centuries; but they languish at times, while the love of self works on ceaselessly, unwearyingly,burrowing always at the very root of life, and heaping up fresh wrongs for other centuries to sweep away.

Charles Dudley Warner

I am convinced that the majority of people would be generous from selfish motives, if they had the opportunity.

Charles de Gaulle

The Jews remain what they have been at all times: an elite people, self-confident and domineering.

Charles de Lint

By enlarging your knowledge of things, you will find your knowledge of self is enlarged.

Charles Dickens

The world belongs to those who set out to conquer it armed with self confidence and good humour.

Charles Dickens

All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else's manufacture, is reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin of my own make, as good money!

Charles Caleb Colton

Alas! how has the social spirit of Christianity been perverted by fools at one time, and by knaves and bigots at another; by the self-tormentors of the cell, and the all-tormentors of the conclave!

Charles Dickens

The talker has found a hearer but not a listener; and though he may talk his very best for his own sake, you will find that his mental movements are erratic: they have no fixed centre and no definite object. His talk is like the water of a canal whose banks have given way, which rolls aimlessly hither and thither, without fulfilling any useful function, though it is the same water which was so helpful and serviceable, when it was confined within clearly marked limits by the restraining force of its earthy boundaries.

Alan Watts

You can't get wet from the word 'water.'

Alan Watts

Of course, you can’t force your mind to be silent. That would be like trying to smooth ripples in water with a flatiron. Water becomes clear and calm only when left alone.

Don Cheadle

Water is an issue, and, clearly, what's happening with the filth in our environment and the levels of carbon monoxide in our atmosphere are the really scary issues right now, the very troubling ones.

David Miliband

I abhor anything that constitutes torture. Water-boarding, its perfectly clear to me it is torture. I never supported extraordinary rendition to torture, always said that Guantanamo should be closed. There is no clash of ideals and pragmatism there.

David Knopfler

My faith, inasmuch as I have any, is more like a kind of Joseph Campbell thing, and even that frequently finds itself tested to oblivion in siren waters.

Dave Barry

Sir,” James asked, “what are we going to do?” “We’re going to look for water,” said Alf. “And food?” said Tubby Ted. “Water first,” said Alf. “We can go days without food.” “We can what?” Tubby Ted shouted.

Dave Barry

Turbulence: This is what pilots announce that you have encountered when your plane strikes an object in midair. You'll be flying along, and there will be an enormous, shuddering WHUMP, and clearly the plane has rammed into an airborne object at least the size of a water buffalo, and the pilot will say, "Folks, we're encountering a little turbulence." Meanwhile they are up there in the cockpit trying desperately to clean water buffalo organs off the windshield.

Dave Barry

I shared this insight with some other boat owners, and they all agreed that, definitely, putting your boar into the water is asking for trouble. Most of them have had their boats sitting in their driveways long enough to be registered historical landmarks.

Charles Dickens

Try to do unto others as you would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes. It is much better that they should fail than you should.

Charles Spurgeon

Dear friends, whenever you want to understand a text of Scripture, try to read the original

Charles Spurgeon

The great reason why we have so little good preaching is that we have so little piety. To be eloquent one must be in earnest; he must not only act as if he were in earnest, or try to be in earnest, but be in earnest.

Alan Watts

A myth is an image in terms of which we try to make sense of the world.

Alan Watts

But we try to pretend, you see, that the external world exists altogether independently of us.

Alan Watts

Hurrying and delaying are alike ways of trying to resist the present.

Alan Parsons

That Beatle euphoria has always been there, and it's hard to be in a room with a Beatle and try to be totally natural. You never shake that off.

Alan Moore

I try to do things in comics that cannot be repeated by television, by movies, by interactive entertainment.

Alan Arkin

Improvisation sometimes seemed more like jazz than acting, like verbal jazz, with the actors playing a theme back and forth, and then introducing another theme, incorporating it, somehow trying to work their way all together to a meaning of some kind, or at least a conclusion.