Famous Quotes & Sayings

David McCullough

History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.

David McCullough

No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read.

C. Wright Mills

History is the shank of the social sciences.

Cesare Pavese

For women, history does not exist. Murasaki, Sappho, and Madame Lafayette might be their own contemporaries.

Cary Grant

Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant.

E. Hicks

When you think about it, history is made to be broken. That's the way we look at it.

Kurt Vonnegut

History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.

Kurt Vonnegut

History! Read it and weep!

Edward Gibbon

But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.

Charles Caleb Colton

None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them; such persons covet secrets as a spendthrift covets money, for the purpose of circulation.

Charles Caleb Colton

Alas! What is man? Whether he be deprived of that light which is from on high, of whether he discard it, a frail and trembling creature; standing on time, that bleak and narrow isthmus between two eternities, he sees nothing but impenetrable darkness on the one hand, and doubt, distrust, and conjecture, still more perplexing, on the other. Most gladly would he take an observation, as to whence he has come, or whither he is going; alas, he has not the means: his telescope is too dim, his compass too wavering, his plummet too short.

Charles Caleb Colton

None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.

Charles Caleb Colton

We ask advice but we mean approbation.

Charles Caleb Colton

Worldly wisdom dictates to her disciples the propriety of dressing somewhat beyond their means, but of living somewhat within them.

Charles Caleb Colton

He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool.

Charles Caleb Colton

It is not every man that can afford to wear a shabby coat; and worldly wisdom dictates to her disciples the propriety of dressing somewhat beyond their means, but of living somewhat within them,--for every one, sees how we dress, but none see how we live, except we choose to let them. But the truly great are, by universal suffrage, exempted from these trammels, an may live or dress as they please.

Charles Dickens

Constancy in love is a good thing; but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy in every kind of effort.

Charles Sturt

The main consideration with those who, possessing some capital, propose to emigrate as the means of improving their condition, is, the society likely to be found in the land fixed on for their future residence.

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?

Lorraine Toussaint

I have read every book in the 'Dune' series and every Anne Rice book.

Laurel Lea

A disease and its treatment can be a series of humiliations, a chisel for humility.

Alan Ball

What the series is all about is: We die. So while we're here, let's live fully.

James Van Der Beek

When you're the lead of a series, things happen around you, and you react to them.

Mike Birbiglia

Louis C.K. directs his show, which is very much like a series of short films.

Brea Grant

'The Invisibles' by Grant Morrison is my favorite series of all time.

Courtney Gains

I like the movie 'Das Boot,' the German film made in the '80s. I found out it was a series that was made into a film for the U.S.

Christopher Golden

'Baltimore' the series is inspired by all kinds of things, from 'Moby Dick' to 'Dracula.'

Christy Romano

Developing a series is a next step for me.

Charles Dickens

Marley was dead, to begin with ... This must be distintly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.

Alan Rickman

The point about a great story is that it's got a beginning, a middle and end.

Alan Rickman

It is an ancient need to be told stories. But the story needs a great storyteller. Thanks for all of it, Jo.

Alan Rickman

I like it when stories are left open.

Alan Moore

This is an IMAGINARY STORY...aren't they all?

Alan Moore

Everybody has their story to tell.

Alan Ball

I really love storytelling, and I love the stories as they reveal themselves. It's an incredibly nourishing process; it's probably the closest I come to having a religion.

Chris Cleave

Our stories are the tellers of us.

Chris Cleave

We cannot choose where to start and stop. Our stories are the tellers of us.

Charles Caleb Colton

It has been well observed that the tongue discovers the state of the mind no less than that of the body; but in either case, before the philosopher or the physician can judge, the patient must open his mouth.

Charles Caleb Colton

There are prating coxcombs in the world who would rather talk than listen, although Shakespeare himself were the orator, and human nature the theme!

Alan Watts

People often say to me, 'I understand what you are talking about intellectually, but I don't really feel it, I don't realize it,' and I am apt to reply, 'I wonder whether you do understand it intellectually, because if you did you would also feel it.'

Alan Watts

We have somehow conned ourselves into the notion that this moment is ordinary. This now moment, in which I'm talking and you're listening, is eternity.

Alan Rickman

If you spend any time in Los Angeles, there's only one topic of conversation.

Alan Rickman

What is it about actors? God knows I get bored with actors talking about themselves.

Alan Moore

I genuinely like the people I meet at signings or the bits of public talking that I do.

Alan Greenspan

I don't know where the stock market is going, but I will say this, that if it continues higher, this will do more to stimulate the economy than anything we've been talking about today or anything anybody else was talking about.

Alain Resnais

It was repugnant, but it was the only way to communicate.