The Greatest Quotes of all Time

 

This list contains the funniest and most profound

thoughts from the greatest personalities of all time. While many were

borrowed from from Peggy Anderson's book, Great

Quotes from Great Leaders, many more

have been collected from a great number of different sources.

Several of them are popular sound-bites and cliche's

today. It's interesting to know where they originated. Also, many

quotes from contemporary leaders are really paraphrasings of older quotes.

THE FUNNIEST QUOTES OF ALL TIME:

David Mamet (1947-?

Famous American playwright and director.)

Old

age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance.

Mae West (1930s

movie star famous for her double entendres and pushing the limits of censorship.)

I believe in

censorship... I made a fortune out of it.

When I'm good, I'm very

good. When I'm bad I'm better.

Too much of a good

thing can be wonderful.

When choosing between

two evils, I always like to try the one I haven't tried before.

She's the kind of girl

who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong.

It's not the men in my

life that count, it's the life in my men.

When women go wrong,

men go right after them.

Ten men waiting for me

at the door? Send one home... I'm tired.

Albert Einstein (Physicist, 1879 - 1955)

 

The hardest thing in

the world to understand is the income tax.

The difference between

stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.

Science is a wonderful

thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.

 

Scott Adams (Cartoonist

- paraphrased from a comment made in his April 11, 2010 Dilbert

cartoon strip)

The greatest injustice

is using the

law to keep justice at bay.

General Douglas

MacArthur ( American General, 1880

- 1964)

Whoever said the pen

is mightier than the sword never encountered automatic weapons.

Eugene McCarthy

(American politician, 1916 - 2005):

The only thing that

saves us from bureaucracy is its inefficiency.

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), in response to a

newspaper article in which he had been mistakenly reported to have

died. In fact it was a relative of his. Many subtle variations of

this quote are attributed to him. Some were the result of

paraphrasing by publishers, others by Mr. Clemens himself. Over the

years several famous actors have used this quote when their deaths

have been erroneously supposed. I believe the most famous may have

been when Clayton Moore, the TV Lone Ranger, sent it in a telegram to

Johnny Carson after Mr. Carson mentioned on his late night show that

he thought Mr. Moore had passed away.

Oscar Wilde (British

playwrite, 1854-1900):

A man can't be too

careful in his choice of enemies.

Youth is wasted on the

young. (Some sources credit this to George Bernard Shaw).

Always forgive your

enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

Fashion is a form of

ugliness so intolerable we have to alter it every six months.

I can resiste

everything but temptation.

Experience is the name

everyone gives to their mistakes.

The only way to get rid

of temptation is to yield to it.

Thomas Edison

(Considered that greatest inventor of all time, 1846

- 1931):

I haven't failed. I've

just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

Ludwig Feuerbach:

(1804-1872; German philosopher, theologian and author.)

Man created God in his

own image.

Charles De Gaulle (French

general and statesman, 1890 - 1979):

The graveyards are full

of indispensable men.

Children today are

tyrants. They contradict thier parents, gobble their food, and

tyrannize their teachers.

Socrates (Greek [Athenian]

philosopher, 470-399 B.C.)

Come

quickly! I am tasting stars!

Dom Perignon (French benadictine

monk, 1638-1715) at the moment of his discovering champagne.

Winston Churchill

(British politician, 1874-1965):

He has all the virtues

I dislike and none of the vices I admire.

An appeaser

is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.

George Carlin (Popular American

stand-up comedian, social critic, actor, and author, 1937 - 2008):

Some people see the

glass half full. Others see it half empty. I see a glass that's twice

as big as it needs

to be.

The popular, but short-lived, Maverick

television series of the early sixties often had Bret Maverick (James

Garner) quoting pieces of sage advice from his "Old Pappy."

The best of these was:

"If you don't git

while the gittin's good, you're gunna get got."

Lazarus Long

(Longest lived human science fiction character, 1912 - ? {ranges from

2125 to 4000}, (From the author Robert Heinlein):

Never appeal to a man's

better nature - he might not have one. Invoking his self interest

gives you more leverage.

Delusions are often

functional. A mother's opinions about her children's beauty,

goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keeps her from drowning them at birth.

A poet who reads his

verse in public may have other nasty habits.

An elephant: A mouse

built to government specifications.

A committee is a life

form with six or more legs and no brain.

"I came, I saw,

SHE conquered." (The original Latin seems to have been garbled.)

A skunk is better

company than a person who prides himself on being "frank."

Never underestimate the

power of human stupidity.

Be wary of strong

drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors - and miss.

Will Rogers (American cowboy,

comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer and

actor and one of the best-known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s,

1879 - 1935):

(The genius of his quotes are that they need to

be read twice: the first time for their humor, a second to pick out

the practical advice hidden behind the joke.)

 

Don't squat with your

spurs on.

Good judgment comes

from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

Lettin' the cat outta

the bag is a whole lot easier'n puttin' it back in.

If you're ridin' ahead

of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's

still there.

If you get to thinkin'

you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.

After eating an entire

bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up

until a hunter came along and shot him. The moral: When you're full

of bull, keep your mouth shut.

There's two theories to

arguin' with a woman. Neither one works.

When you give a lesson

in meanness to a critter or a person, don't be surprised if they

learn their lesson.

The quickest way to

double your money is to fold it over and put it back in your pocket.

Never miss a good

chance to shut up.

And finally, a few of my own humble offerings:

Wayne M. Schmidt: (Engineer, webmaster, 1951-?)

Humanity's

behavior suggests intelligence is an evolutionary dead end.

A little abuse keeps the

joints loose.

When debating which is superior, dogs or

cats, I believe their behavior suggests the following: Man

domesticated dogs - cats

domesticated man.

Greed has a short memory.

The

inspiration for this quote came in 2015 as mortgage lenders and the

government started making it easier for people to buy houses, the

same policies that lead to the catastophic 2007 housing collapse.

People don't own money any

more... we just rent it from Walmart.

It's

not unreasonable to expect people to act with consideration for

others, but sadly, it is unrealistic.

An

unfortunate side effect of human compassion is that it's enabled

fools to propagate.

Humanity

diminishes itself every time it allows greatness to be forgotten

simply because it's gone out of style. NEW!!!