Selected Quotes

"Active Chess? What does that make me, the Passive World Champion? "
   --Gary Kasparov, Commenting on 'Active Chess' with 30 minutes per side for the entire game

"There is only enough time to iron your cape, then back to the sky for you. "
   --Jason Harley, DARPA

"I put forth an amendment that outlaws the depositing of sperm anywhere other than in a woman‘s vagina. "
   --Constance Johnson, State Senator, Oklahoma, The Daily Show, April 11, 2012

"Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. "
   --Ayn Rand, Francisco D'Anconia in Atlas Shrugged

"In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to liberty "
   --Thomas Jefferson

"The edge... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people that really know where it is are the ones that have gone over. "
   --Hunter S. Thompson

"I would feel real trapped in this life if I didn't know I could commit suicide at any time. "
   --Hunter S. Thompson

"No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun - for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax - This won't hurt "
   --Hunter S. Thompson, Suicide note, 2005

"After your unfortunate experience with what you unkindly called tyranny, you Americans created a system which was designed, as I understand, not to work. "
   --Sir Peter Westmacott, Ambassador to the United States, 'Wait Wait Don't Tell Me' 20120825

"Nancy Reagan to Miles Davis, a guest at a White House dinner: “What have you done go get invited to a White House dinner”?
“I‘ve changed the course of music five or six times. What have you done but sleep with the President?“ "
   --Miles Davis

"Mormanism it seems to me, objectively is just a little bit more idiotic than Christianity is. It has to be. It is Christianity plus some very stupid ideas. "
   --Sam Harris, Sam Harris - Discusses Mitt Romney and Mormonism (on Youtube.com)

"What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof. "
   --Christopher Hitchens

"Q: If God does not exist, what then is the purpose of life? A: Well, I can only answer for myself. What cheers me up? I suppose mainly gloating over the misfortunes of other people. Yes, I guess that has to be it. Mainly, crowing over the misery of others. It doesn‘t always work, but it never completely fails. And then there’s irony. Sex can have diminishing returns, but it’s amazing. No, that‘s pretty much it. Then it’s clear onto the grave. "
   --Christopher Hitchens, “Does God Exist?” debate 20081028

"Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. "
   --Sir Ernest Shackleton, Fabled advertisement

"So, if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for. "
   --George Mallory

"“They‘re all idiots.“ “They‘ve been Knighted.“ “That makes it official then.“ "
   --Lionel & Bertie, The King's Speach

"Anyway, she gave us a good tour and we saw this tabernacle here and this here and so on and then at one point she said, “I just want to tell you a little about the church of the Latter Day Saints.” And we all politely stood and then she said how in the afterlife all families will be reunited. You‘ll be with your families forever, so I put my hand up and said, “What happens if you‘ve been good?” And she said, “Could you leave please?” "
   --Stephan Fry

"De gustibus non est disputandum; In matters of taste, there can be no disputes "
   --Latin Maxim

"My dear, I used to think I was serving humanity and I pleasured in the thought. Then I discovered humanity does not want to be served. On the contrary, it resents any attempt to serve it. So now I do what pleases Jubal Harshaw "
   --Robert A. Heinlein, spoken by Jubal Harshaw in Stranger in a Strange Land

"Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy — in fact, they are almost incompatible; one emotion hardly leaves room for the other "
   --Robert A. Heinlein, spoken by Jubal Harshaw in Stranger in a Strange Land

"Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own. "
   --Robert A. Heinlein, spoken by Jubal Harshaw in Stranger in a Strange Land

"The great chess grandmaster Alexander Alekhine was once asked by a playful interviewer whether he preferred the queen on the board or on the bed. ""It depends,"" he replied, ""on the position."" "
   --Alexander Alekhine

"Talk about something else that‘s falling from the sky and that is an asteroid. What‘s coming our way? Is this an effect of, perhaps, of global warming or is this just some meteoric occasion? "
   --CNN Anchor Deb Feyerick, Asked of Bill Ney, on air (about) Feb. 10, 2013

"When I signed the bill, I included a statement with the admonition that “enactment of this legislation should not, despite the fierce and at times divisive rhetoric surrounding it, be understood to provide an excuse for discrimination.“ Reading those words today, I know now that, even worse than providing an excuse for discrimination, the law is itself discriminatory. It should be overturned. "
   --Bill Clinton, Washington Post, 20130307

"I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble. "
   --Helen Keller