Famous Quotes & Sayings

Robin McLeavy

When you take a character seriously, there's more room for comedy because you're not aware of how absurd you are.

Michael Leunig

Einstein was a great advocate of the notion that good ideas look absurd at the beginning. Camus expressed a similar view.

Dennis Hastert

unless the federal government adopts New Orleans as its ward and pays all its bills for the next 20 years--an unlikely to absurd proposition--the place won't be rebuilt.

Kurt Braunohler

I think we get stuck in routines so easily that when an absurd moment in life seems to be there for no reason, it wakes you up out of your everyday pattern. You pull back and look at life a little bit wider because of that one weird thing you weren't expecting.

Kurt Braunohler

I was writing this really long joke about the smell of poop, and I was like, 'What am I doing with my life?' I started to think about why I was a comedian, and then I came up with a reason for existence, which is: inserting absurdity or stupidity into strangers' lives in order to make the world a better place.

Reggie Watts

I like that feeling of discombobulation that comes in creating an absurd world that doesn't make sense. 'Monty Python' does a good job of it; 'Bugs Bunny,' too.

Lauren Willig

Like everyone else, I grew up loving the Anne books, but L.M. Montgomery is so much more. Like Jane Austen, she has an eye for the absurd and a gift for the 'mot juste.'

Stephan Pastis

It seems so absurd to get really mad with a cartoonist over a comic strip. It's sort of like getting in a fight with a circus clown outside your house. It's not going to end well.

Ken Watanabe

About half the scripts sent to me feature characters I just can't identify with, particularly one-dimensional businessmen or, if it's a comedy, some absurd 10-year-old Japanese stereotype, some role related to IT or business... There's no point in getting mad about it; it's just the way things are.

Charles Spurgeon

Said will be a little ahead, but done should follow at his heel.

David McCullough

It was an utterly phenomenal achievement.

Clive Davis

Unplugged debuting at number one is yet another amazing milestone achievement for Alicia, ... That makes it three in a row -- three out of three. You just can't beat that! What makes it extra special is the live format of Unplugged for the true musician -- the public really has to be passionate about the artist and the music to buy the album in these numbers.

Caleb Dolan

We are pretty intent on opening more campuses in North Carolina because the achievement gap is so great, whether you are talking about the difference between blacks and whites or the difference between eastern North Carolina and Chapel Hill.

Alexis Strauss

We are pleased to celebrate this achievement with the Navajo Nation. We'll continue to work together to protect and restore vital water resources on tribal land.

Chad Latch

There are some high-caliber teams here and placing anywhere in the top six is a great accomplishment. Matt Stephenson wrestled really well and was in every match. It's a good point in the season for Matt to realize that he can wrestle well at a tournament like this.

Samuel Smiles

''Where there is a will there is a way.'' is an old true saying. He who resolves upon doing a thing, by that very resolution often scales the barriers to it, and secures its achievement. To think we are able, is almost to be so -- to determine upon attainment is frequently attainment itself.

Michael Gove

Unfortunately, the real achievements of children on the ground became debased and devalued because Labor education secretaries sounded like Soviet commissars praising the tractor production figures when we know that those exams were not the rock-solid measures of achievement that children deserve.

Heather Watts

Misty Copeland is making history. During American Ballet Theatre's current season at the Metropolitan Opera House, Copeland will alight on that storied Lincoln Center stage, making her New York debut as the Swan Queen in the iconic masterpiece Swan Lake - a crowning achievement for any dancer, regardless of the color of her skin.

Charles Caleb Colton

Ambition is to the mind what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower by reason of our blindness.

Charles Caleb Colton

The blindness of bigotry, the madness of ambition, and the miscalculations of diplomacy seek their victims principally amongst the innocent and the unoffending. The cottage is sure to suffer for every error of the court, the cabinet, or the camp. When error sits in the seat of power and of authority, and is generated in high places, it may be compared to that torrent which originates indeed in the mountain, but commits its devastation in the vale.

Charles Caleb Colton

All who have been great and good without Christianity would have been much greater and better with it. If there be, amongst the sons of men, a single exception to this maxim, the divine Socrates may be allowed to put in the strongest claim. It was his high ambition to deserve, by deeds, not by creeds, an unrevealed heaven, and by works, not by faith, to enter an unpromised land.

Alan Hansen

It's incredible considering the public perception that he was tight fisted and he was more than prudent, and lacked ambition to take Tottenham to where the fans wanted them to be.

Aiden Wilson Tozer

We have our ambition for the future and God. And thus we put God as a plus sign after something else we want.

Chogyam Trungpa

There seems to be a hypnotic quality to ambition and speed, so that you feel that you are standing still just because you want to go so fast. You might actually be getting close to your goal.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

You can have ambition But not too much You should aim to be successful But not too successful Otherwise you will threaten the man

David Morrissey

I always try to put myself in the way of surprise as much as possible. My ambition is to keep challenging myself. I like that journey of discovery.

David Nevins

I have very simple ambitions. If I can just not be boring, I'm ahead of the game. It's hard in television. I think you get enormous reward from the audience. Just give them something they didn't see coming, and you get enormous points.

Charles Sturt

Mount Harris is of basaltic formation, but I could not observe any columnar regularity in it, although large blocks are exposed above the ground. The rock is extremely hard and sonorous.

Charles Spurgeon

Inconsistent professors are the greatest stumbling blocks to the spread of the cause of Christ!

Alan Moore

Through my blue fingers, pink grains are falling, haphazard, random, a disorganized stream of silicone that seems pregnant with the possibility of every conceivable shape… But this is illusion. Things have their shape in time, not space alone. Some marble blocks have statues within them, embedded in their future.

David Guterson

I became paralyzed as an artist with writer's block.

Cesar Pelli

The World Trade Center was for me not only out of scale vertically, but it was also out of scale in plan. It occupied several blocks that were all massed together.

Camille Paglia

Man has traditionally ruled the social sphere; feminism tells him to move over and share his power. But woman rules the sexual and emotional sphere, and there she has no rival. Victim ideology, a caricature of social history, blocks women from recognition of their dominance in the deepest, most important realm. ?

Caitlin Thomas

money ... is only important when you have none; and though it may not be everything, it goes a very long way towards blocking up the winter draft of age.

Carl Lewis

I found the emotion that as an athlete you block out, and it really helped me to understand myself as a person. I'm a really emotional person and it helped make me a better person.

Carl Hiaasen

There is no writer's block in a newsroom. There's only unemployment block.

Charles Caleb Colton

There were moments of despondency when Shakespeare thought himself no poet, and Raphael no painter; when the greatest wits have doubted the excellence of their happiest efforts.

Charles Dickens

Of little worth as life is when we misuse it, it is worth that effort. It would cost nothing to lay down if it were not.

Charles Spurgeon

The repetition of small efforts will accomplish more than the occasional use of great talents.

Alan Bishop

There hasn't been a true breakdown or effort to break Thai music into genres. They're not into dicing and slicing everything up.

Alan Bennett

All the effort went into getting there and then I had nothing left. I thought I'd got somewhere, then I found I had to go on.

Al Ries

If you want to build a brand, you must focus your branding efforts on owning a word in the prospect's mind. A word that nobody else owns.

Akio Morita

If we do our best and make efforts, a peaceful and great future will become ours without fail. Whether we succeed or not depends on the strength of our resolve and the amount of our endeavor.

Aiden Wilson Tozer

In an effort to get the work of the Lord done we often lose contact with the Lord of work.

Childe Hassam

These small shows were decidedly a success. The exhibitions were not too large to be seen easily. It was not an effort, as larger collections of pictures usually are.

Charles Dickens

Every failure teaches a man something, if he will but learn.

Charles Simmons

Uncalled for excuses are practical confessions.

Al Neuharth

Everyone should fail in a big way at least once before reaching forty.

Bryan Ferry

It's not a very high failure rate if you choose people that you really like the sound of.

Carter G. Woodson

If Liberia has failed, then, it is no evidence of the failure of the Negro in government. It is merely evidence of the failure of slavery.

Louis C. K.

I think you have to try and fail, because failure gets you closer to what you're good at.

Mark Cuban

It doesn't matter how many times you fail. It doesn't matter how many times you almost get it right. No-one is going to know or care about your failures, and neither should you. All you have to do is learn from them and those around you. All that matters in business is that you get it right once. Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

You can't climb the ladder of success...

Denis Waitley

Forget about the consequences of failure. Failure is only a temporary change in direction to set you straight for your next success.

Wole Soyinka

Books and all forms of writing have always been objects of terror to those who seek to suppress the truth.

Walter Kirn

There are two different forms of storytelling: Novels tend to come from the inside of a character, and movies tend to look at them from the outside in relation to others in their world.

Ramakrishna

Many are the names of God and infinite the forms through which He may be approached.

Alice Morse Earle

Our Puritan forefathers, though bitterly denouncing all forms and ceremonies, were great respecters of persons; and in nothing was the regard for wealth and position more fully shown than in designating the seat in which each person should sit during public worship.

Walter Kirn

Horror and panic themselves are forms of violence, and diminishing them, restricting their dimensions, is itself a civilizing act.

Karl Ove Knausgaard

Life develops, changes, is in motion. The forms of literature are not.

Dennis Campbell

We are looking at a variety of forms in which investment could take place. There are no specific items that I'm in a position to discuss.

Andy Serkis

I want to link together ancient forms of storytelling and the future.

Chuck Palahniuk

The bright future is that readers are accepting more varied forms of stories.

Charles Caleb Colton

The greatest genius is never so great as when it is chastised and subdued by the highest reason.

Charles Caleb Colton

Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom, but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance.

Charles Caleb Colton

The drafts which true genius draws upon posterity, although they may not always be honored so soon as they are due, are sure to be paid with compound interest in the end.

Charles Caleb Colton

Genius in one grand particular is like life. We know nothing of either but by their effects.

Charles Dickens

Eccentricities of genius.

Camille Paglia

The male orientation of classical Athens was inseparable from its genius. Athens became great not despite but because of its misogyny.

Camille Paglia

Sappho and Emily Dickinson are the only woman geniuses in poetic history.

William Shakespeare

There is none but he Whose being I do fear; and under him My genius is rebuked, as it is said Mark Antony's was by Caesar.

Bob Packwood

Historically, the Republicans have been geniuses at throwing away advantages.

Charles Dickens

Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human nature .

Alan Watts

The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless.

Chip Kidd

Yes, Garnett Grey was an Architect. Were a psychoanalyst to approach him from behind, tap his shoulder, and say 'Humanity,' Garrett'd spin and respond, without hesitation, 'Solvable'.

Chinua Achebe

We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own.

Chinua Achebe

We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n'ani ji onwe ya: 'He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.'

David Mitchell

Anticipating the end of the world is humanity's oldest passtime

David Mitchell

Your turn has come to sift through the dreck of humanity for rare specks of originality

David Mitchell

The better organized the state, the duller its humanity.

David Kim

Our identity was bestowed upon us by God and when humanity rebelled against God, we were divorced from the source of our identity. In this vacuum, work can wrongfully become the source of our identity wreaking havoc on our lives and work. Work was never meant to carry the weight of our identity.

Edward Everett

Ever the characteristic manners of cowardice.

Graham Boyd

Whether the police or a school want to search or seize a person, it has to be done in a manner that's reasonable. There was no reason to suspect any single person in that hallway, yet every single person in there was forced, with no choice, and seized by police in a completely unreasonable manner.

William Gilbert

He combines the manners of a Marquis with the morals of a Methodist.

Ali ibn Abi Talib

There is no nobility with bad manners.

Curtis Mayfield

As a kid, sometimes you have nobody to turn to. I could always go back to some of the sermons and talk to myself in a righteous manner and put that in a song.

Albert Chee

We are continually working to get the refinery back up in as quick and as safe a manner as we can.

Alan McCoy

We are operating in a manner that we unfortunately must do, under the circumstances." ()

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The greater person is one of courtesy.

Sidney Altman

We are very fortunate to be recognized here in such an extraordinary manner for work that we enjoy.

Catherine Deneuve

On Belle de Jour, the producer was very protective. It was very hard for me.

Michael Keaton

There are certainly producers I hang with and directors I hang with and actors I hang with.

Bob Lutz

You cannot buy a bad automobile any more from any producer. We have to do more products not because we're looking at a particular segment, but because it's a great vehicle.

Nell Newman

I always sought out organic produce because to me it always tasted better; the quality was better - if you got it fresh.

Richard Thomas

We're manning up production as much as we can, ... We can only produce so many.

Max Bukovac

We're going to produce some runs, and I would be surprised if we didn't.

Jim Thomas

With nanotechnology, you can produce steel that's 100 times stronger but six times lighter.

Robert M. Pirsig

It's the dualistic ways of looking at things that produces the evil.

Mike Nichols

The producers want us to sell, sell, sell. That's my little joke. That's what we do by day; by night, we're artists.

Mark Langan

This ranks up there with the worst I've seen. There (were) feces throughout the house, urine-stained carpets, urine-stained sheets, trash throughout the house.

Sean Fleming

He is the type of wrestler who can be ranked in the state and do some big things in tournaments.

Zac Sandvig

To come up here and shut out a ranked team like this is really something.

Rodney Tention

Give them credit. They compete. That's why they're ranked No. 5 (now 4). They toughened up when they got down.

Tom Perkins

If that happened, it would rank right up there with anything else I've done in my career.

Bill Castle

We've got a bulls-eye on us. I think we're ranked because of tradition and our past. Everyone comes after you.

Jonny Moroni

To be ranked sixth internationally our first time out was pretty great.

George Crooks

Marysville is ranked in the state and they have seven state qualifiers back. That's going to be a tough one.

Bill Richards

Northwestern is always very good. They are ranked 51st in the nation.

Russ Feingold

should disqualify you from being on the Supreme Court.

Henry Bonilla

We may not be able to control the Supreme Court... but we can control the money.

Rand Paul

Just because a majority of the Supreme Court declares something to be 'constitutional' does not make it so.

Bill Cowher

For us to come in here and do what we did, it took a supreme effort.

Christine Pelosi

With Citizens United, the Supreme Court's declaration that corporations are people, the whims of one can silence the voices of millions.

Hillary Clinton

I want a Supreme Court that will stick with Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose, and I want a Supreme Court that will stick with marriage equality.

Elizabeth Gilbert

God is an experience of supreme love.

Henry Ford

Experience is the thing of supreme value".

Denzel Washington

Talent comes from God. If you have been given some, then value it, cultivate it, work and develop it.

Dick Cavett

Greatly talented performers don't know - often spectacularly - what's best for them, don't know what their talents really are, and don't know what's just plain wrong for them.

Edgar Degas

It's easy to have talent at 20 but what is difficult is to have talent at 50.

Charlie Kaufman

I'm not a celebrity. I'm intentionally and defiantly not a celebrity. I don't have any interest in it. I don't have any talent for it. I keep my personal life out of my public life as cleanly as I can.

Billy Wagner

You have to be mentally 'there.' Your talent is there, but you have to be mentally there, too.

Ben Affleck

I just feel like sometimes I'm a force to be dealt with. My talents are sometimes overused and also sometimes underused. It's not easy being me.

Anton Chekhov

Brevity - the sister of talent.

Elyse Bogaert

We're getting better and have a ton of talent. We're trying to just get things down.

Brenda Ueland

Everybody is talented because everybody who is human has something to express.

Kate Winslet

I feel very strongly that 'curves' are natural, womanly and real.

Hilary Swank

She was a woman very out of her time,

Oriana Fallaci

The most humiliating thing a woman can be is a coquette.

George Granville

Of all the plagues with which the world is cursed, / Of every ill, a woman is the worst.

Ian Gray

It is not so far-fetched for a 63-year-old woman to be with an 18-year-old boy.

Peter Stringfellow

You're only as old as the woman you feel.

Traci Bingham

He said she was beautiful. And that he'd never been with a woman so beautiful.

Ian Mcewan

Shall there be womanly times? Or shall we die?

Ona Solomon

I'm a woman of mystery. I can do anything but skinny.

Charles Caleb Colton

Women generally consider consequences in love, seldom in resentment.

Charles Caleb Colton

Pleasure is to women what the sun is to the flower; if moderately enjoyed, it beautifies, it refreshes, and it improves; if immoderately, it withers, deteriorates and destroys.

Charles Caleb Colton

Modesty is the richest ornament of a woman ... the want of it is her greatest deformity.

Charles Caleb Colton

A high degree of intellectual refinement in the female is the surest pledge society can have for the improvement of the male.

Charles Caleb Colton

The plainest man who pays attention to women, will sometimes succeed as well as the handsomest man who does not.

Charles Caleb Colton

Women that are the least bashful are often the most modest.

Charles Caleb Colton

Women do not transgress the bounds of decorum so often as men; but when they do, they go greater lengths.

Charles Dickens

She's the sort of woman now,' said Mould, . . . 'one would almost feel disposed to bury for nothing: and do it neatly, too!

Alan Jay Lerner

You see what happens today. Women act like men and want to be treated like women.