Famous Quotes & Sayings

Natalie Massenet

Contrary to popular belief, I'm not always trying to stand out.

Leo Nikolaevich

There are people who when they meet a rival, no matter in what, at once shut their eyes to everything good in him and see only the bad. There are others who on the contrary try to discern in a lucky rival the qualities that have enabled him to succe

P. J. O'Rourke

Libertarianism is a way of measuring how the government and other kinds of systems respect the individual. At the core of libertarianism is the idea that the individual is sacrosanct and that anything that's done contrary to the well-being of the individual needs some pretty serious justification.

Elliot Perlman

I know that at literary festivals I'm speaking mostly to middle-class women, who frequently vote in a way that is contrary to how I'd like them to vote.

Gustave Courbet

When we see men of worth, we should think of equalling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inward and examine ourselves.

Stuart Scott

I'm blind in my left eye. Contrary to what people say, it is not a glass eye, so I have to protect my eyes at all cost.

Wallace Shawn

Contrary to the popular misconception, the actor is not necessarily a specialist in imitating or portraying what he knows about other people. On the contrary, the actor may simply be a person who's more willing than others to reveal some truths about himself.

Ha-Joon Chang

Contrary to what professional economists will typically tell you, economics is not a science. All economic theories have underlying political and ethical assumptions, which make it impossible to prove them right or wrong in the way we can with theories in physics or chemistry.

Ellen G. White

God gave our first parents the food He designed that the race should eat. It was contrary to His plan to have the life of any creature taken. There was to be no death in Eden. The fruit of the trees in the garden was the food man's wants required.

David Shuster

Many conspiracies are not criminal, even conspiracies that involve slamming somebody.

Bernhard Goetz

I would, without any hesitation, shoot a violent criminal again.

Bernhard Schlink

So I was still guilty. And if I was not guilty because one cannot be guilty of betraying a criminal, then I was guilty of having loved a criminal.

Stephen Flynn

We have no idea who's in the ports. And many of the folks who come in to service the ports, that drive the trucks back and forth, are people who don't have very distinguished backgrounds. May have criminal backgrounds.

Terry Ebbert

We have no criminal justice system functioning today.

Ralph Brown

We have some criminals out there. That's why we have lights and security people at Wal-Mart.

Craig Montgomery

We want Occidental Park to be a place where more people of all incomes gather, and where criminal behaviors are displaced by positive behaviors.

Jim Harper

What we're seeing is just the start of a trend in which government prosecutors will use (Internet) search results in criminal investigations.

Luis Carrillo

What he did was totally irresponsible, unprofessional and went into criminal conduct. Justice demands that he be arrested.

Tom Bissell

My fiction-writing DNA shows in how I think about prose, how I think about the page, how I think nonfiction stories should work. And every piece of nonfiction I write, I want it to have fictional texture.

Christian McKay

It's more difficult playing a real-life person than a fictional character - you can go easy on yourself with a fictional character.

Cary Fukunaga

I began writing fictional stories and little screenplays when I was in fifth grade.

Allan Gurganus

When I grew up, there were locked cabinets in public libraries. You needed parental permission if you were under eighteen. I was let down by the overblown reputations of some hardcore fictional works.

Mark Billingham

More than 100 years after he first appeared, Holmes remains the template for the fictional detective.

Annie Baker

I'm really trying to stop setting my plays in this one fictional town in Vermont.

David Guterson

I was totally absorbed in the real world, the politics, the history, the news, and I just couldn't find my way into the fictional world... When I finally could return to writing the novel, it was in fits and starts.

Bob Woods

The story could be set in some fictional place, but it wasn't. They made it personal. They plopped it down in a specific place. People in a small town take a lot of pride in who they are, and that's not who they are. This isn't New York. And then set it in 1963, right? In 1963, they'd make fun of a man if he wore shorts.

Julia Glass

I'm a fictional monogamist - I can only work on one thing at a time - but each novel starts growing in my head when I'm about midway through the previous novel.

Charles Caleb Colton

If that marvellous microcosm, man, with all the costly cargo of his faculties and powers, were indeed a rich argosy, fitted out and freighted only for shipwreck and destruction, who amongst us that tolerate the present only from the hope of the future, who that have any aspirings of a high and intellectual nature about them, could be brought to submit to the disgusting mortifications of the voyage?

Charles Simmons

Live only for today, and you ruin tomorrow.

Alan Watts

What we see as death, empty space, or nothingness is only the trough between the crests of this endlessly waving ocean. It is all part of the illusion that there should seem to be something to be gained in the future, and that there is an urgent necessity to go on and on until we get it. Yet just as there is no time but the present, and no one except the all-and-everything, there is never anything to be gained—though the zest of the game is to pretend that there is.

Alan Watts

Don't hurry anything. Don't worry about the future. Don't worry about what progress you're making. Just be entirely content to be aware of what is.

Al Stewart

Louis Armstrong playing trumpet on the Judgment Day.

Chogyam Trungpa

Humans are the only animals that try to dwell in the future. You don't have to purely live in the present situation without a plan, but the future plans you make can only be based on the aspects of the future that manifest within the present situation.

China Mieville

You can't see the future, there's no such thing. It's all bets. You'll never get the same answer from two seers. But that doesn't mean either of them's wrong.

David Miliband

...the science is getting worse faster than the politics is getting better

David Rakoff

In my brief glimpse of what is to come I realize how little I care to witness it. I have seen the future and I'm fairly relieved to say, it looks nothing like me.

John Adams

We're not going to put someone in a position where it's going to be harmful of their performance this weekend, but at the same time the team will represent itself proudly.

Kurt Vonnegut

If you can do no good, at least do no harm.

Ron Pollack

What the president is proposing is warmed-over, stale soup but with a recipe that is going to be harmful to the majority of Americans.

Tim Ruskell

We're going to take it slow and see how Ken goes. There's still more testing. We would never want to do anything that would harm him as we go forward.

Arianna Huffington

We all have this place in us, a place of strength, harmony and wisdom, but most of the time we don't live there How can we course-correct faster? How can we encourage each other to live in that place more?

Samuel Johnson

Lexicographer. A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.

Bashar al-Assad

Israeli interests are not necessarily in harmony with the American interests.

Suzanne Fields

That's what Major League Baseball's steroid scandal was all about, the hidden harm in competitive sports that sends the wrong message to the young.

Christina Gallach

Solana says those responsible at the local, political and religious level must prevent any repetition of such acts, which can only harm the image of peaceful Islam.

Mike Holmgren

Where I am impressed even more with him this year is his pass protection,

Diane Keaton

I hadn't been that impressed with someone since I worked with Meryl Streep.

Peter Gould

Sgt. Palmer was very impressed with Genghis. Once his papers were in order and he passed his physical, we went off to patrol school,

Sidney Blumenthal

Sidney did more than fine. Everyone is impressed at how Sidney stayed low key.

Sue Peet

She really impressed me as our captain. She really stepped up and made everyone feel okay. She didn't show disappointment (after losing in the finals) and she let her teammates know how proud she was of them.

Fernando Meirelles

She impressed me because she knew even more than me about the character.

Jim Magagna

We've been just impressed with the way he has reached out to us as an organization. I think he very seriously sought our input as to what the university could do to better serve the needs of agriculture.

Nat Harrington

We've been impressed and proud of the schools and students who have responded graciously and generously. Many students have spent their own lunch money and hard-earned savings to give to the victims of the storm.

Jim Oberdorf

She should be very good. She impressed me last year.

William Shakespeare

A right judgment draws us a profit from all things we see .

Baltasar Gracian

Hope is a great falsifier. Let good judgment keep her in check.

John Brady

Let's be honest, what are we? Twelve and five? We've played 17 games. I think we ought to reserve those kind of judgments and statements to much later down the road.

Jane Fonda

I've worked really, really hard on myself to not be judgmental.

Barbara Deming

I learned always to trust my own deep sense of what I should do, and not just obediently trust the judgment of others - even others better than I am.

Lawrence Eagleburger

Milosevic, who in my judgment is a liar and a thief and a scoundrel,

Barbara Sher

Being judgmental about your own behavior is actually another cop-out because it makes you feel as though you're doing something virtuous.

Ed Durkin

Shareholders will be able to make better judgments about compensation, and that can translate into how you vote for directors.

Arlen Specter

What you've had here . . . is not a rush to judgment -- it's a stampede to judgment,

Charlotte Bronte

It is one of my faults, that though my tongue is sometimes prompt enough at an answer, there are times when it sadly fails me in framing an excuse; and always the lapse occurs at some crisis, when a facile word or plausible pretext is specially wanted to get me out of painful embarrassment.

Ransom Antoine

When we were up by 10, I thought we had it, but we couldn't get it together. We had the mental lapse that we normally have.

Jay Christie

We really have to chock this one up to a lapse in procedures.

Ben Gordon

We can't come out and have all these lapses. If they get two, at worst we're going into overtime. It was just a mental lapse on our part.

Alice Stewart

The first priority is to make sure the people have what they need and that there is not a lapse in their coverage.

Steve Burtt

You can't get flustered. They were right picking us as the first team in the conference. We have the pieces to the puzzle to put this thing together. We just had a lapse tonight.

Tom Hollander

If you're actually being paid to be miserable, and to be as miserable as you can be, that's a very fortunate thing, if you're prone to occasional lapses of spirit.

Vijender Singh

I have prepared myself to be at my peak in London. But in the Olympics, there are so many factors. You need to stay alert all the time, and a lapse of concentration, even for a second, will let you down.

Charles Dickens

Then idiots talk....of Energy. If there is a word in the dictionary under any letter from A to Z that I abominate, it is energy. It is such a conventional superstition, such parrot gabble! What the deuce!....But show me a good opportunity, show me something really worth being energetic about, and I'll show you energy.

Charles Caleb Colton

Subtract from the great man all that he owes to opportunity, all that he owes to chance, and all that he gained by the wisdom of his friends and the folly of his enemies, and the giant will often be seen to be a pygmy.

Charles Caleb Colton

Fortune, like other females, prefers a lover to a master, and submits with impatience to control; but he that wooes her with opportunity and importunity will seldom court her in vain.

Charles Caleb Colton

The road to glory would cease to be arduous if it were trite and trodden; and great minds must be ready not only to take opportunities but to make them.

Charles Spurgeon

Our extremities are God's opportunities.

Charles Spurgeon

When facing the apparent denial of my request, God gave me the opportunity to honor him by trusting His Word.

Alan Moore

I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it wasn’t for the opportunities the library gave me.

Alan Moore

It does not do to rely too much on silent majorities, Evey, for silence is a fragile thing, one loud noise, and its gone. But the people are so cowed and disorganised. A few might take the opportunity to protest, but it'll just be a voice crying in the wilderness. Noise is relative to the silence preceding it. The more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap. Our masters have not heard the people's voice for generations, Evey and it is much, much louder than they care to remember.

Alan Green

I want to be able to open up the really good treasures of the Church and Christianity to people, and that's not going to be achieved by shouting at them to convert or they'll go to hell. It's about giving them an opportunity to reimagine Christianity.

David Sanborn

I just kinda like playing. I don't necessarily go on tour to promote my albums. I'm on the road all the time. The fact that I have a new record is out is a coincidence.

Bryan Ferry

Get down with your old Allman Bros. records!

Carl Hiaasen

My driving record is not exemplary, but I have never had a speeding ticket over 100 m.p.h. I can say that unequivocally.

Noel Redding

It was rehearsing in the studio, at which point they were setting up the sound, and once we'd got the thing together they'd actually record it, without us knowing sometimes!

Bo Bice

I didn't have a lot to do with the first record.

Blake Shelton

I've always had just enough success to buy me some more tour dates and another record.

Bill Parcells

You are what your record says you are.

Beyonce Knowles

I wanted to sell a million records, and I sold a million records. I wanted to go platinum; I went platinum. I've been working nonstop since I was 15. I don't even know how to chill out.

Dee Dee Warwick

They told me I should be making my own records. So I figured, 'why not?

Tony Fratto

We're always willing to talk about how to make reports like this as useful as possible.

Nigel Cameron

Certainly, if these reports are true, it's a tragedy for science.

John Felmy

What you have is an important set of steps in terms of these are high-temperature, high-pressure facilities. And that's if you have not had any damage, and we know from preliminary reports that's not the case.

Shaharyar Khan

We have seen these reports and we are trying to find out whether he has said these things.

Gary Mickelson

There have been reports of higher-than-usual absenteeism at some locations.

Mickey Loomis

We've had firsthand reports that it's a mess.

Arthur Helps

Vague injurious reports are no men's lies, but all men's carelesness.

Larry Jensen

Even if the reports are good, I'm still not going in unless I have to.

Susan Johnson

In Illinois, there are very scattered reports of true influenza.

Chief Joseph

Cursed be he that scalps the reputation of the dead.

William Shakespeare

You have lost no reputation at all, unless you repute yourself such a loser.

Elizabeth Arden

Repetition makes reputation.

Charles Dudley Warner

The tenure of a literary reputation is the most uncertain and fluctuating of all.

Baltasar Gracian

Work is the price which is paid for reputation.

Ariel Pink

I get to live down my reputation for being cantankerous if I slowly evolve towards being a really good live show.

Desiderius Erasmus

Concealed talent brings no reputation.

Blaise Pascal

The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.

Sydney Smith

Avoid shame, but do not seek glory; nothing so expensive as glory.

Charles Dickens

It is well for a man to respect his own vocation whatever it is and to think himself bound to uphold it and to claim for it the respect it deserves

Charles Caleb Colton

The only things in which we can be said to have any property are our actions. Our thoughts may be bad, yet produce no poison; they may be good, yet produce no fruit. Our riches may be taken away by misfortune, our reputation by malice, our spirits by calamity, our health by disease, our friends by death. But our actions must follow us beyond the grave; with respect to them alone, we cannot say that we shall carry nothing with us when we die, neither that we shall go naked out of the world.

Dave Barry

I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me.

C. Wright Mills

Prestige is the shadow of money and power. Where these are, there it is. Like the national market for soap or automobiles and the enlarged arena of federal power, the national cash-in area for prestige has grown, slowly being consolidated into a truly national system.

Bryan Singer

What we call evil doesn't necessarily deserve any kind of respect or understanding, by any means; it just deserves an acknowledgement of its complexity so we can better understand it - so we can help prevent it.

Cary Grant

Probably no greater honor can come to any man than the respect of his colleagues.

Carole King

I think Madonna has a great deal of intelligence and capability. I have a lot of respect for her. She's taken her career and maximized it with intelligence and creativity.

Denis Waitley

Understand that you, yourself, are no more than the composite picture of all your thoughts and actions. In your relationships with others, remember the basic and critically important rule: If you want to be loved, be lovable. If you want respect, set a respectable example!

Edward Gibbon

I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.

Edward Gibbon

Rational confidence [is] the just result of knowledge and experience.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

If you don’t find the time, if you don’t do the work, you don’t get the results.

Jason Terry

We accomplished most of our goals, and now it's time to put it all together. The results will be sweet if we do.

Bob Riley

When money follows results - we will get more results for our money

Bill Walsh

Concentrate on what will produce results rather than on the results, the process rather than the prize.

Romeo Crennel

When we get the results on that, we'll let you know.

John Baumann

We're just getting our first results back. So far, so good.

Alexandra Adornetto

Find x if (x)=2sin3x,over the domain -2piX=Beth 'Stop goofing around!',I said. 'I'm not! I'm stating the truth.You're my solution to everything',Xavier replied. 'The end result is always you.X always equals Beth.

Timothy Noah

Presidential election results in 2008 and 2012 clarified that talk radio was not, in fact, running the country.

Harland Braun

We want the LAPD to investigate Robert Blake. The more they investigate, the more they'll find out he didn't do it.

Kenneth Branagh

I did 'Celebrity' by Woody Allen. I did 'The Gingerbread Man' with Robert Altman. These were big talents.

Chin Han

I got to act with my childhood film idol, Robert Redford, and that's a gift in itself.

Daryl Sabara

I don't know why there hasn't been a 'Spy Kids' cartoon. You have to bring that up to Robert Rodriguez and see what he has to say. That would be an interesting thing to do with this series.

Maggie Smith

I loved Robert Altman, so gentle yet naughty! And Julian Fellowes writes so beautifully.

David Edwards

I was 22 years old when I met Robert Johnson. I was there the night he was poisoned.

Anupam Kher

There are many brilliant actors, including our own Dilip Kumar, but Robert de Niro is something else.

Robert B. Parker

Would you care to publish this? Sincerely, Robert B. Parker.

Katherine Harris

You know, I think it's so important that Roberts is confirmed. And so we've insisted, we've promoted, we've cajoled, advocated for his confirmation.