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Archives - May 2004

May 1, 2004

Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters.

– Margaret Halsey

May 2, 2004

I envy people who drink --- at least they know what to blame everything on.

– Oscar Levant

May 3, 2004

I think we are drawn to dogs because they are the uninhibited creatures we might be if we weren't certain we knew better.

– George Bird Evans

May 4, 2004

No one wants advice -- only corroboration.

– John Steinbeck, THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT

May 5, 2004

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

– Peter Ustinov

May 6, 2004

Look at life through the windshield, not the rear-view mirror.

– Byrd Baggett

May 7, 2004

Getting divorced just because you don't love a man is almost as silly as getting married just because you do.

– Zsa Zsa Gabor

May 8, 2004

A poem is never finished, only abandoned.

– Paul Valery

May 9, 2004

A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials, heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine, desert us when troubles thicken around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavour by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.

– Washington Irving

May 10, 2004

Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.

– Aaron Levenstein

May 11, 2004

Sin is a dangerous toy in the hands of the virtuous. It should be left to the congenitally sinful, who know when to play with it and when to let it alone.

– H. L. Mencken

May 12, 2004

Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist.

– Michael Levine, LESSONS AT THE HALFWAY POINT

May 13, 2004

The Internet is so big, so powerful and pointless that for some people it is a complete substitute for life.

– Andrew Brown

May 14, 2004

Live TV died in the late 1950s, electronic bulletin boards came along in the mid-1980s, meaning there was about a 25-year gap when it was difficult to put your foot in your mouth and have people all across the country know about it.

– Mark Leeper

May 15, 2004

Consciously or unconsciously, every one of us does render some service or other. If we cultivate the habit of doing this service deliberately, our desire for service will steadily grow stronger, and will make, not only our own happiness, but that of the world at large.

– Gandhi

May 16, 2004

Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.

– Ben Hecht

May 17, 2004

Do not let yourselves be discouraged or embittered by the smallness of the success you are likely to achieve in trying to make life better. You certainly would not be able, in a single generation, to create an earthly paradise. Who could expect that? But, if you make life ever so little better, you will have done splendidly, and your lives will have been worthwhile.

– Arnold Toynbee

May 18, 2004

There are two means of refuge from the misery of life --- music and cats.

– Albert Schweitzer

May 19, 2004

The nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other people.

– Lucille S. Harper

May 20, 2004

The hard part about being a bartender is figuring out who is drunk and who is just stupid.

– Richard Braunstein

May 21, 2004

When I can no longer bear to think of the victims of broken homes, I begin to think of the victims of intact ones.

– Peter DeVries

May 22, 2004

Live within your income, even if you have to borrow money to do so.

– Josh Billings

May 23, 2004

The more you say, the less people remember. The fewer the words, the greater the profit.

– Fénelon

May 24, 2004

Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury.

– Edwin Hubbel Chapin

May 25, 2004

Don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drive into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.

– Samuel Johnson

May 26, 2004

A little public scandal is good once in a while. It takes the tension out of the news.

– Beryl Pfizer

May 27, 2004

Truth is not exciting enough to those who depend on the characters and lives of their neighbors for all their amusement.

– George Bancroft

May 28, 2004

The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully.

– Walter Lippmann

May 29, 2004

Technology makes it possible for people to gain control over everything, except over technology.

– John Tudor

May 30, 2004

Self-reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one's own person is its ultimate reward.

– Patricia Sampson

May 31, 2004

Chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people. Action, self-reliance, the vision of self and the future have been the only means by which the oppressed have seen and realized the light of their own freedom.

– Marcus Garvey