Famous Quotes & Sayings

Charles Dickens

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty.

Charles Dickens

Minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled, ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort.

Charles Caleb Colton

He [the miser] falls down and worships the god of this world, but will have neither its pomps, its vanities nor its pleasures for his trouble.

Charles Caleb Colton

The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.

Charles Caleb Colton

Power. like the diamond, dazzles the beholder, and also the wearer; it dignifies meanness; it magnifies littleness; to what is contemptible, it gives authority; to what is low, exaltation. To acquire it, appears not more difficult than to be dispossessed of it when acquired, since it enables the holder to shift his own errors on dependents, and to take their merits to himself. But the miracle of losing it vanishes, when we reflect that we are as liable to fall as to rise, by the treachery of others; and that to say "I am" is language that has been appropriated exclusively to God!

Charles Caleb Colton

There is no quality of the mind, or of the body, that so instantaneously and irresistibly captivates, as wit. An elegant writer has observed that wit may do very well for a mistress, but that he should prefer reason for a wife. He that deserts the latter, and gives himself up entirely to the guidance of the former, will certainly fall into many pitfalls and quagmires, like him who walks by flashes of lightning, rather than the steady beams of the sun.

Charles Caleb Colton

Let us not be too prodigal when we are young, nor too parsimonious when we are old. Otherwise we shall fall into the common error of those, who, when they had the power to enjoy, had not the prudence to acquire; and when they had the prudence to acquire, had no longer the power to enjoy.

Charles Dickens

You fear the world too much,' she answered gently. 'All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off, one by one, until the master passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?

Charles Dickens

Around and around the house the leaves fall thick, but never fast, for they come circling down with a dead lightness that is sombre and slow.

Cary Grant

I improve on misquotation.

Michael Dell

We are seeing a substantial improvement in the availability of flat-panel screens (from) two months ago,

Kevin Toney

The reason for his improvement was the work he put in in the weight room during the off-season.

Ron Dickerson

What we're looking for right now is improvement every week, ... We could go 0-10 or 10-0, as long as our kids get better every week. That's our goal.

Nick Zito

We're getting close. I like that. We usually find a length or two (improvement) when we come to Kentucky. He's got to be first or second. That's what we need.

Andra Davis

We're better. But there's still a lot of room for improvement.

David Williams

We knew this was not an overnight fix. That's not realistic. We're not at all panicky. I have seen improvement.

Brian Tracy

All improvement in your life begins with an improvement in your mental pictures.

Patty Vavra

She had a monster throw. It was remarkable improvement in a year's time or less.

Mayor Barse

We are looking for the removal of radioactive materials instead of sealing it. This is a Vineland issue.

Ken Banks

We'd like to do more of these instead of ships. If people go back to these over time, they'll see them develop.

Ross Levin

We're spooning money into the market now instead of dumping it in.

Martin Brodeur

We're going to shadow a line instead of one player.

Matt Pfau

When we get open, we shoot right away, instead of taking a look at where the goalie is at and placing the ball. (Scoring) is going to come as the season goes.

Melissa Dennett

We would settle and think that it was OK instead of going, going, going.

Kelly Clark

Unfortunately, it went 9 yards instead of 10.

Norma McCorvey

They could have been nice to me instead of treating me like an idiot." ()

Odette Annable

If women just got into it a little more, then the world would be happier. Instead of stabbing each other behind the back, just get into a fight, and then everything is out in the open.

Charles Dickens

"There is no deception now, Mr. Weller. Tears," said Job, with a look of momentary slyness, "tears are not the only proofs of distress, nor the best ones."

Charles Dickens

"I know quite enough of myself," said Bella, with a charming air of being inclined to give herself up as a bad job, "and I don't improve upon acquaintance..."

Charles Stross

I wanted an agent who would actually sell stuff. After two British agents failed comprehensively, I was reading Locus (the SF field's trade journal) and noticed a press release about an experienced editor leaving her job to join an agent in setting up a new agency. And I went "aha!" - because what you need is an agent who knows the industry but who doesn't have a huge list of famous clients whose needs will inevitably be put ahead of you. So I emailed her, and ... well, 11 years later I am the client listed at the top of her masthead!

Charles Stross

What I read: while I'm writing, I tend to go off reading fiction for relaxation - especially the challenging stuff. It's too much like the day job.

Alan Watts

It's time to question a job or career move when it seems like most energy is devoted to making things appear other than what they really are.

Alan Parker

Film-making is a physically hard job.

Alan Patricof

I got my first job the old-fashioned way: I took an elevator to the top floor of many buildings and walked down floor by floor on the stairs going into every firm and asking the receptionist if she knew of any jobs available.

Alan Rickman

One thing I will say - my job gets harder and harder. The more you understand about what you are capable of, the less the instrument can do it physically. It's an inverse equation, if that's the right phrase. I just slammed those two words together. It sounded right.

Alan Rickman

I have a photograph at home of Fred Astaire from the knees down with his feet crossed. It's kind of inspiring because it reminds me his feet were bleeding at the end of rehearsals. Yet when you watch him, all you see is freedom. It's a reminder of what the job is about in general, not just being in musicals.

Bob Mould

I don't like the dislocation of being away for months at a time. It's not conducive to having a life.

David Rockefeller

It is true that I am often startled and even angered and repulsed by the strange directions and provocative content of new forms that seem to pop up every few months.

Bruce Smith

We were blazing. Six months after we opened, 9/11 happened.

Alan Trammell

Losing gets old. It's just been a heck of a month, to be honest with you.

Gary Griffin

Whether it takes two months or two weeks whatever,

Barbra Streisand

I'm a terrible lip-syncer anyway because I have to be in the moment, and I can't lip-sync to something I recorded three months before.

Delta Goodrem

If I get a cold, it lasts for a month.

Dianna Agron

There was this project I really wanted before 'Glee' and I didn't get cast - I went in about 13 times and I was so bummed when I didn't get it. But then a month later I got cast on 'Glee,' and I felt like it was meant to happen.

Shimon Peres

The pope said he will go in the first months of next year.

Charles Stanley

If we walk in the Spirit daily, surrendered to His power, we have the right to expect anything we need to hear from God. The Holy Spirit living within us and speaking to us ought to be the natural, normal lifestyle of believers.

Charles Spurgeon

He that is ashamed to speak the truth has need to be ashamed of himself.

Charles Spurgeon

When it is the Lord’s work in which we rejoice, we need not be afraid of being too glad.

Alan Greenspan

The need for values is inbred. Their content is not.

Alan Bennett

I can walk. It's just that I'm so rich I don't need to.

Al Sharpton

When you're dealing with boycotts, you don't need everyone. You just need enough to be effective.

Al Pacino

I don't need bodyguards. I'm from the South Bronx.

Aiden Wilson Tozer

We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him we need no more seek Him.

Aiden Wilson Tozer

The best way to prove that a stick is crooked is to set a straight one beside it. No words need to be spoken.

Charles Caleb Colton

Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.

Alan Greenspan

Excessive optimism sows the seeds of its own reversal.

Alan Greenspan

History demonstrates that participants in financial markets are susceptible to waves of optimism. Excessive optimism shows the seeds of its own reversal in the form of imbalances that tend to grow over time.

Chogyam Trungpa

The courage to work with ourselves comes as basic trust in ourselves, as a sort of fundamental optimism.

David Myers

Success requires enough optimism to provide hope and enough pessimism to prevent complacency.

Cesar Pelli

Construction is a matter of optimism; its a matter of facing the future with confidence.

Madeleine Albright

What distinguishes Americans from many people in the world is our kind of endemic optimism.

Arnold Bennett

Pessimism, when you get used to it, is just as agreeable as optimism.

Bob Iger

What I've really learned over time is that optimism is a very, very important part of leadership.

Charles Caleb Colton

It is astonishing how much more anxious people are to lengthen life than to improve it; and as misers often lose large sums of money in attempting to make more, so do hypochondriacs squander large sums of time in search of nostrums by which they vainly hope they may get more time to squander.

Charles Dickens

A multitude of people and yet solitude.

Charles Dickens

My faith in the people governing is, on the whole, infinitesimal; my faith in the people governed is, on the whole, illimitable.

Charles Dickens

Others had been a little wild, which was not to be wondered at, and not very blamable; but, he had made a lamentation and uproar which it was dangerous for the people to hear, as there is always contagion in weakness and selfishness.

Charles Dickens

Mrs. Boffin and me, ma'am, are plain people, and we don't want to pretend to anything, nor yet to go round and round at anything because there's always a straight way to everything.

Charles Dickens

Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.

Charles Dickens

I have heard it said that as we keep our birthdays when we are alive, so the ghosts of dead people, who are not easy in their graves, keep the day they died upon.

Charles Dickens

Some people are nobody's enemies but their own

Charles Soule

Superman/Wonder Woman, people expected, I guess, a lot of romance, or maybe something that wasnt emotionally deep. Who knows?

Alan Mollohan

I have never, not once, violated my public trust.

S. Hughes

Where there is muck to be raked, it must be raked,and the public must know of it, that it may mete out justice....

David Duchovny

If my work was good enough, I would never have to do publicity.

Carl Andre

Americans understand better than the Europeans and the English that any publicity is good.

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

I know where there is more wisdom than is found in Napoleon, Voltaire, or all the ministers present and to come - in public opinion.

Robert Reich

When times are tough, public employees should have to make the same sacrifices as everyone else.

Robert Reich

Public employees should have the right to bargain for better wages and working conditions, just like all employees do.

Sharon Stone

My personal style and public style are very different. When I go out, I play dress up.

Brendan Behan

There's no bad publicity except an obituary.

Martin Jacques

The cost to Tata of purchasing Land Rover and Jaguar may have been small, but its wider symbolic significance is enormous.

Richard Petty

They said, 'Well, it can be done, but we'll have to do it a different way (rather than purchasing the series).' So here we are.

Tom Mitchell

It's a wholesale review of the county's purchasing code.

Rodel Natividad

It's your temporary "wants" purchasing your unnecessary "needs".

Emily Oster

All's fair in love and purchasing.

Diane Ackerman

Not much is known about alligators. They don't train well. And they're unwieldy and rowdy to work with in laboratories.

Mike Day

We've been here three years in a row ... we're the most experienced team left.

Jim Shannon

We've won three in a row now. We're getting better. This is the time of year you like to see that. We feel like we're starting to turn the corner.

Rich Bixby

We didn't play well, but I will take it. To get to Troy three years in a row is special.

Catriona Matthew

To start with three birdies in a row was perfect,

Ryan Howard

Wow, two wins in a row at home? That's big isn't it?

Ned Yost

We need two in a row to get us over the hump.

Brandon Makela

That's two wins in a row for us.

James Patterson

...Drifting downstream in a row boat doesn't count against your life span.

Bryan Clay

I train six to seven hours every single day. I wake up six days a week and know that it's going to be the same thing.

Bam Margera

Actually, I've always wanted to be a professional skateboarder ever since I was about six.

Anthony Trollope

There is no human bliss equal to twelve hours of work with only six hours in which to do it.

Linda Price

We're going to be with them a lot for at least the first six months, then slowly wean them. We're not just going to throw them into an apartment.

Bob Eastwood

Sixty is just a number. I don't feel 60.

Jessie Pettit

Six times now, huh. That's not too bad.

Michael R. Bloomberg

We have six weeks to go, ... With your help, we can make it happen.

Chauncey Billups

We didn't play that great, but we got it done. Sixty wins, that sounds good.

Ahna O'Reilly

When you're six years old, you do not appreciate that you're living in the Alps. My sisters and I, all we wanted was to go to Disneyland.

Larry Morandi

Legislators are going to have a tough time striking that balance.

Chris Shelton

I'm striking out way too much. I'm not making any adjustments, either.

Scott Gomez

It's like striking out in baseball. It's a long way back to the bench.

Steve Squyres

We're not going to take any risks. It's a big crater in terms of diameter, but really shallow. It's nothing like Endurance.

Willis Reed

We would still have been here if we could have come to terms with the union.

Robert Kazinsky

There are always things you wish you could've done better, and there are always things that you wish would've turned out a different way in terms of storyline, which you're not in charge of.

Lars Larsen

I never think in terms of gold, currency, diamonds. I'm not clever enough for that.

Steven Patrick Morrissey

For me to think in terms of employing security seems ostentatious.

H. L. Mencken

For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.

Craig Venter

Traditional ways of distinguishing populations are irrelevant in terms of genetic code.

Hallie Ephron

Everyone thinks when they start writing that they can't do it. I was lucky. My sister Delia was the most important person in terms of encouraging me.

Al Pacino

Explain to me what Italian-American culture is. We've been here 100 years. Isn't Italian-American culture American culture? That's because we're so diverse, in terms of intermarriage.

David Fuhrer

We started out sluggish. But they are just cool. They had it under control. I think I worried more than they did.

Bobby Jindal

I'm not worried about where Barack Obama is from. I'm worried about where he's going.

Steve Mariucci

Man, if we're worried about him, we got a real problem, seriously. If anybody's going to be jacked up it's probably going to be him. I'm not worried about him. They're probably doing worse than we are.

Craig Fairbrass

I've never Worried about being typecast - I've only ever Worried about being not cast!

Elizabeth Edwards

I'm not worried about me or what's going to happen to me.

Donald Berwick

I am worried about the potential effect of casinos on communities.

J. Horton

We were all kind of worried about him. But we had to go on with the game.

Wislawa Szymborska

You know, I'm worried about Szymborska. I wish she would stop smoking.

Pat Riley

One thing I'm not worried about is our rebounding.