Famous Quotes & Sayings

Michael Cunningham

People are more than you think they are. And they're less, as well. The trick lies in negotiating your way between the two.

Meyer Lansky

Don't lie,Tell one lie,then you gotta tell another lie to compound on the first.

Mark Twain

A railroad is like a lie you have to keep building it to make it stand.

Mark Twain

Evolution is a blind giant who rolls a snowball down a hill. The ball is made of flakes-circumstances. They contribute to the mass without knowing it. They adhere without intention, and without foreseeing what is to result. When they see the result they marvel at the monster ball and wonder how the contriving of it came to be originally thought out and planned. Whereas there was no such planning, there was only a law: the ball once started, all the circumstances that happened to lie in its path would help to build it, in spite of themselves.

Mark Twain

As soon as a man recognizes that he has drifted into age, he gets reminiscent. He wants to talk and talk; and not about the present or the future, but about his old times. For there is where the pathos of his life lies - and the charm of it. The pathos of it is there because it was opulent with treasures that are gone, and the charm of it is in casting them up from the musty ledgers and remembering how rich and gracious they were.

Mark Twain

Deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie - I found that out.

Mark Twain

It is often the case that a man who can't tell a lie thinks he is the best judge of one.

Mark Twain

You can't pray a lie -- I found that out.

Mark Twain

It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive.

Mark Twain

George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.

Mark Twain

When a library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me.

Mark Twain

Carlyle said 'a lie cannot live.' It shows that he did not know how to tell them.

Mark Twain

It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.

Mark Twain

Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Mark Twain

In this age of inventive wonders all men have come to believe that in some genius' brain sleeps the solution of the grand problem of aerial navigation-and along with that belief is the hope that that genius will reveal his miracle before they die, and likewise a dread that he will poke off somewhere and die himself before he finds out that he has such a wonder lying dormant in his brain. We all know the air can be navigated-therefore, hurry up your sails and bladders-satisfy us-let us have peace.

Mark Twain

A little lie can travel half way 'round the world while Truth is still lacing up her boots.

Mark Twain

A half-truth is the most cowardly of lies.

Mary Ritter Beard

The origin of the labor movement lies in self-defense ...

Mary Renault

One might have supposed that the true act of love was to lie together and talk.

Mary Roach

The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. Most of your time is spent lying on your back. The brain has shut down. The flesh begins to soften. Nothing much new happens, and nothing is expected of you.

Mary Roberts Rinehart

Used to move so much, every time the chickens saw the team put in the wagon, they'd lie down on their backs and hold their legs up to be tied!

Martin Gardner

If you ask me to tell you anything about the nature of what lies beyond the phaneron… my answer is “How should I know?”… I am not dismayed by ultimate mysteries… I can no more grasp what is behind such questions as my cat can understand what is behind the clatter I make while I type this paragraph.

Martin Farquhar Tupper

To despond is to lie ungrateful beforehand. Be not looking for evil. Often thou drainest the gall of fear while evil is passing by thy dwelling.

Martin Farquhar Tupper

There is a limit to enjoyment, though the sources of wealth be boundlessAnd the choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation.

Martin Farquhar Tupper

If the mind is wearied by study, or the body worn with sickness,It is well to lie fallow for a while, in the vacancy of sheer amusement ;But when thou prosprest in health, and thine intellect can soar untired,To seek uninstructive pleasure is to slumber on the couch of indolence.

Martin Farquhar Tupper

To-morrow is that lamp upon the marsh, which a traveller never reacheth; To-morrow, the rainbow's cup, coveted prize of ignorance; To-morrow, the shifting anchorage, dangerous trust of manners; To-morrow, the wrecker's beacon, wily snare of the destroyer. Reconcile conviction with delay, and To-morrow is a fatal lie; Frighten resolutions into action, To-morrow is a wholesome truth.

Martin Farquhar Tupper

Lies can destroy, but not create.

Martin Farquhar Tupper

It is well to lie fallow for a while.

Marquis de Sade

Never lose sight of the fact that all human felicity lies in man's imagination, and that he cannot think to attain it unless he heeds all his caprices. The most fortunate of persons is he who has the most means to satisfy his vagaries.

Marquis de Sade

Happiness lies only in that which excites, and the only thing that excites is crime.

Marquis de Sade

this is what happens to the plans of humans, it is when they make them in the midst of their pleasures that death cuts the thread of their days without pity, and in the midst of life, without ever concerning themselves with this fatal moment, living as though they were to exist for ever, they disappear into the obscure cloud of immortality, uncertain of the fate which lies in store for them.

Marquis de Sade

True happiness lies in the senses, and virtue gratifies none of them.

Mario Vargas Llosa

A novel which persuades us of its truth is true however full of lies it may be