Famous Quotes & Sayings

Charles de Gaulle

Nothing more enhances authority than silence. It is the crowning virtue of the strong, the refuge of the weak, the modesty of the proud, the pride of the humble, the prudence of the wise, and the sense of fools. To speak is to . . . dissipate one's strength; whereas what action demands is concentration. Silence is a necessary preliminary to the ordering of one's thoughts.

Charles de Lint

Only fools think they're wise; the rest of us just muddle through as we can.

Charles Dickens

He was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset

Charles Dickens

This reminds me, Godmother, to ask you a serious question. You are as wise as wise can be (having been brought up by the fairies), and you can tell me this: Is it better to have had a good thing and lost it, or never to have had it?

Charles Caleb Colton

A wise man may be duped as well as a fool; but the fool publishes the triumph of the deceiver.

Charles Caleb Colton

It is a common observation that any fool can get money; but they are not wise that think so.

Charles Caleb Colton

If martyrdom is now on the decline, it is not because martyrs are less zealous, but because martyr-mongers are more wise. The light of intellect has put out the fire of persecution, as other fires are observed to smoulder before the light of the same.

Charles Caleb Colton

The art of declamation has been sinking in value from the moment that speakers were foolish enough to publish, and hearers wise enough to read.

Charles Caleb Colton

Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.

Charles Dickens

In seasons of pestilence, some of us will have a secret attraction to the disease--a terrible passing inclination to die of it.

Charles Dickens

Nobody near me here, but rats, and they are fine stealthy secret fellows.

Alan Watts

Really, the fundamental, ultimate mystery -- the only thing you need to know to understand the deepest metaphysical secrets -- is this: that for every outside there is an inside and for every inside there is an outside, and although they are different, they go together.

Alan Watts

Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we're not alone.

Alan Patricof

The secret now is to be disciplined. It's so easy to get carried away with things valued on the hereafter.

Alan Paton

But when the dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret.

Al Oerter

There's no substitute for work. There are no shortcuts. There are no secrets.

Akio Morita

There is no secret ingredient or hidden formula responsible for the success of the best Japanese companies.

Don Bluth

I cannot explain why they made that sequel to Secret of NIMH. Because they claim that it the original didn't make money, so what was the enthusiasm to make a sequel?

David Pogue

I travel a ridiculous amount, so I've thought a lot about, and spent a lot of time refining, what I carry and how I carry it.

Bear Grylls

I've had so many injuries in my life that it's ridiculous.

Edward Abbey

Some lives are tragic, some ridiculous. Most are both at once.

Napoleon Bonaparte

From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.

Lord Shaftesbury

Nothing is more ridiculous than ridicule.

Laura Bush

I think it's ridiculous. It's a ridiculous comment, that's what I think.

Barbara Kingsolver

I thought: this is how life is, ridiculous beyond comprehension.

Donald Judd

If a chair or a building is not functional … it is ridiculous.

Daniel Craig

I'm obsessive enough about getting fit, it's ridiculous. I'm 40 now, and I've got to stop doing it soon. I have to start getting fat and old!