Growing wiser on the wisdom (or stupidity) of others
Released under a Creative Commons license Daniel Johnson, Jr.. Some Rights Reserved.
Everything written here is my personal opinion and not that of any employer or client, past or present.

Thursday, July 31, 2003

Famous Quotations

Within this site, you can find

I found the links in one of the referrer logs.

"I think it's the biggest crowd we've ever played to, so it is a fantastic buzz." -- Mick Jagger, Rolling Stones frontman, on the estimated 450,000 people who attended the SARS benefit rock festival in Toronto, billed as the biggest paid-admission concert ever in North America. Link via Reuters - Notable Quotes.

"Hope and imagination are the only consolations for the disappointments and sorrows of experience." -- Italo Calvino

Wednesday, July 30, 2003

"Woe to him who doesn't know how to wear his mask, be he king or pope!" -- Luigi Pirandello

Monday, July 28, 2003

"If a dog jumps in your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer." -- Alfred North Whitehead (1861 - 1947), via Dog News

"Life.....is a series of dogs." -- George Carlin (1937 - ), via Dog News

"You can buy a pretty good dog with a lot of money, but you can't buy the wag of its tail." -- Josh Billings (1818 - 1885), via Dog News

"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." -- Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967), via Dog News

"One cannot really enjoy speed to the absolute limit if there's a destination involved." -- Stirling Moss

"A conscience is something that hurts us when everything else feels terrific." -- via the markerboard at the therapist's office

"I love you, not only for what you are, But for what I am when I am with you." -- Roy Croft, via DiscipleForum.com

Sunday, July 27, 2003

"The enemy of the best is often the good." -- Stephen R. Covey

"Good order is the foundation of all things." -- Edmund Burke

"The quality of your attention determines the quality of other people's thinking." -- Nancy Kline

Saturday, July 26, 2003

"I think this is the biggest accolade you can be given because it means your fans have gone out and bought your records. And that's why we make records - for our public." -- Sir Elton John, 3/16/1999 at the launch of the RIAA® Diamond® Award, via Recording Industry Association of America's Gold & Platinum page

"The only true performance is the one which attains madness." -- Mick Jagger

Thursday, July 24, 2003

"Diversity raises the intelligence of groups." -- Nancy Kline

"This isn't a movie about horses. This is a movie about people." -- Gary Ross, filmmaker and director of the upcoming horse-racing epic "Seabiscuit," via Reuters Oddly Enough - Notable Quotes

"Put me in the game... Because it's not going down right now." -- Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, on his desire to purchase the NBA's New York Knicks, who stumbled to a 37-45 record last season, via Reuters Oddly Enough - Notable Quotes

"I'm a person who hasn't had a relationship in a very long time and hasn't had sex for over a year so I find my personal life really boring." -- Angelina Jolie in The Philadelphia Inquirer, via Reuters Oddly Enough - Notable Quotes

Wednesday, July 23, 2003

Leadership | "The leader's unending responsibility must be to remove every detour, every barrier to ensure that vision is first clear, then real." -- Jack Welch

"I never realized it when I was a student, but after I became a teacher, everything changed and my world was never the same." -- Ganns Dean, Superblessed, the July 21, 2003 post

"When there is no hope left, we fight to reflect our emptiness and lack of vision." -- Jesse Jackson, Joker in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"As a Christian and as a president who was severely provoked by international crises, I became thoroughly familiar with the principles of a just war, and it is clear that a substantially unilateral attack on Iraq does not meet these standards." -- Jimmy Carter, Joker in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"The next president will need to undo the work of this band of radicals currently controlling our foreign policy -- who view the Middle East as a laboratory for their experiments in democracy-building, where no such traditions exist." -- Howard Dean, 2 of Diamonds in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"I despise him [President Bush]... It is an embarrassing time to be an American. It really is. It's humiliating." -- Jessica Lange, 2 of Hearts in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"We're trying to get one man, right? And we're going to kill tens of thousands of people to get him. It seems like a pretty inefficient way to do things." -- Ted Turner, 3 of Clubs in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq we would not be doing this." -- Rep. Jim Moran, 3 of Diamonds in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"I feel that George Bush's actions are desecrating the America that I grew up in and believed in. He is making us an imperialist government. He is choosing to replace heads of state and government he doesn't like." -- Ed Asner, 3 of Hearts in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"I don't know if a country where the people are so ignorant of reality and of history, if you can call that a free world." -- Jane Fonda, on America, 4 of Clubs in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"What it's going to mean for our stability as a nation, for terrorism, for the economy, I can't imagine. I think the entire world is going to be united against us." -- Jane Fonda, on Operation Iraqi Freedom, 4 of Clubs in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"The president has demonstrated his resolve to go to war, but has provided no reason to do at this time, and no reason why war is the only answer." -- Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, 4 of Diamonds in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"I have not changed my mind one iota. We should not be in Iraq without United Nations support." -- Walter Cronkite, 5 of Clubs in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"Unilateral military action by the United States against Iraq is unjustified, unwarranted and illegal." -- Rep. Dennis Kucinich, 5 of Diamonds in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"This is a racist and imperialist war. The warmongers who stole the White House (you call them 'hawks,' but I would never disparage such a fine bird) have hijacked a nation's grief and turned it into a perpetual war on any non-white country they choose to describe as terrorist." -- Woody Harrelson, 5 of Hearts in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"How did we get to a place where much of the world thinks that George Bush is more evil that Saddam Hussein? How did this happen?" -- Lesley Stahl, 6 of Clubs in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"Far from being a threat to the United States, or any other people, Iraq has been a victim of U.S. aggression for 12 years." -- Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General, 6 of Diamonds in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"[U.S. leaders are a] stupid lot [who launched one of the] dirtiest wars [without] taking into account any humanitarian principles." -- The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran, 6 of Spades in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"Imperialist greed is what 'regime change' in Iraq and 'anticipatory self-defense' are all about, and all of the rest of the Bush administration's talk about security and democracy is a bunch of malarkey." -- Robert Scheer, 7 of Clubs in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"Fighting for oil and those dicatorships that prop up the politics of oil is not worthy of the loss of one more American life." -- Rep. Marcy Kaptur, 7 of Diamonds in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"Among people I know, nobody was for the war." -- Mary McGrory, 8 of Clubs in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"[Osama bin Laden has] been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. We haven't done that. How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?" -- Senator Patty "Osama Mama" Murray, 8 of Diamonds in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"My trip here is to personally record the human face of the Iraqi people so that their blood, along with that of American soldiers, would not be invisible on my own hands." -- Sean Penn, 8 of Hearts in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"I think that people are standing mute, and I remember the rabbi in the March on Washingtom program. He said that the greatest sin of all in the Nazi era was silence. He had been in a concentration camp for many years. People have got to, they must speak up now or forever hold their peace." -- Helen Thomas, 9 of Clubs in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"I think unleashing 3,000 smart bombs against the city of Baghdad in the first several days of the war... to me, if those were unleashed against the San Francisco Bay Area, I would call that an act of extreme terrorism." -- Rep. Pete Stark, 9 of Diamonds in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"Clearly, the American war planners misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces... And I personally do not understand how that happened, because I've been here many times and in my commentaries on television I would tell the Americans about the determination of the Iraqi forces, the determination of the government, and the willingness to fight for their country." -- Peter Arnett, 10 of Clubs in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"I just don't believe that you bomb women and children in order to enforce [the U.N. resolution on Iraq]." -- Rep. Charlie Rangel, 10 of Diamonds in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"Cloaked in patriotism and our doctrine of spreading democracy throughout the world, our fundamentalism is business, the unfettered spread of our economic interests throughout the globe. Our resistance to this war should be our resistance to profit at the cost of human life." -- Susan Sarandon, 10 of Hearts in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"I put this [flag pin] on as a modest riposte to men with flags in their lapels who shoot missiles from the safety of Washington think tanks, or argue that sacrifice is good as long as they don't have to make it... I put it on to remind myself that not every patriot thinks we should do to the people of Baghdad what bin Laden did to us." -- Bill Moyers, Jack of Clubs in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"The president of the United States will lie to the American people in order to get us into war." -- Rep. "Baghdad" Jim McDermott, Jack of Diamonds in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"So, they haven't been able to confirm reports that he [Saddam] was taken to Tikrit, and then Mosul, and then hopefully to Syria." -- Katie Couric, Queen of Clubs in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"I have absolutely no regret about my vote on this war... We could have probably brought down that statue for a lot less." -- Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Queen of Diamonds in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"Saddam Hussein did not bomb the World Trade Center... Ignore the obvious influence on the Bush administration of such special interests as the oil industry, the chemical companies, the logging industry, just to name a few." -- Barbara Streisand, Queen of Hearts in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"I don't see us winning the war. We have made enemies of 1 billion Muslims." -- Gore Vidal, King of Clubs in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"Instead of persuading the dissenters at home and abroad, the administration by its harsh rhetoric is driving the wedge deeper." -- Senator Teddy Kennedy, King of Diamonds in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"Everyone we met in Baghdad talks the Saddam line, including these women. They are Iraq's version of liberated women, the educated elite of Baghdad: teachers and doctors, architects and diplomats who meet once a month at this art gallery and restaurant. They are all Saddam supporters, and they don't trust the American government." -- Dan Rather, Ace of Clubs in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"Today I weep for my country. No more is the image of America one of strong yet benevolent peacekeeper... We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance." -- Senator Robert "KKK" Byrd, Ace of Diamonds in NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels

"Our position is no matter what the circumstances, France will vote 'no'." -- Jacques Chirac, NewsMax.com's Ace of Spades in the Deck of Weasels

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

"At my lemonade stand I used to give the first glass away free and charge five dollars for the second glass. The refill contained the antidote." -- Emo Phillips, via Come On, Get Lively

Abortion | "Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born." -- Ronald Reagan, via Come On, Get Lively

"He's too busy not running for mayor of New York City to be not running for governor of California." -- Jim Kennedy, spokesman for Bill Clinton, on whether the former President would run in a recall election to oust Gray Davis, via U.S. Newswire

"Today in most fields I know, the struggle is about creativity and innovation. There is no script." -- Robert B. Shapiro

"A great deal of talent is lost in this world for want of a little courage." -- Sydney Smith (1771-1845), English essayist and clergyman, via Kevin M. Young

"One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries." -- A.A. Milne, via Ian's Messy Desk

Monday, July 21, 2003

"As parents, the most important thing we can do is read to our children early and often. Reading is the path to success in school and life. When children learn to love books, they learn to love learning." -- Laura Bush

"We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done." -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sunday, July 20, 2003

"One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty councils." -- Woodrow Wilson

Saturday, July 19, 2003

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." -- Anaïs Nin

"We talk about everything (with) brutal honesty ... And when you do that nothing's left to chance." -- Jennifer Lopez, actress-singer, in a Reader's Digest interview, on her relationship with fiance and "Gigli" co-star, Ben Affleck

Friday, July 18, 2003

"A man is never so on trial as in the moment of excessive good fortune." -- Lew Wallace

Thursday, July 17, 2003

"Each one of us, in his timidity, has a limit beyond which he is outraged." -- Man Ray

Wednesday, July 16, 2003

"The act of putting into your mouth what the earth has grown is perhaps the most direct interaction with the earth." -- Frances Moore Lappë

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Questionable Quotes

I've noticed a few on their list that I had placed in this blog. Guess I need to update the blog, huh?

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

"I rent everything, other than the gift of life itself, which was given to me without any predictable lease, a gift that can be withdrawn at any time." -- Jerzy Kosinski

"This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown aside with great force." -- Dorothy Parker

Thanks to Andrew Careaga for the link. He also mentions a link to more Dorothy Parker quotes.

"I would walk around Sunset (Blvd.) thinking someone would just discover me on the street. People used to pull over and go, 'Can I give you a ride?' ... I didn't realize they thought I was a hooker." -- Daryl Hannah, actress, on her early days as a teen-aged ingenue in Los Angeles, in Back Stage, via Reuters Notable Quotes

"... it's a lot of God and a lot of sex. Some rebirth, stagnation and death and some hope." -- Courtney Love, rock musician, on her upcoming solo album, "America's Sweetheart," in Billboard, via Reuters Notable Quotes

"I've talked with George Bush's top Republican strategists, and they just say he doesn't stand a chance. All I would say to them is they don't know Arnold. You can never underestimate him." -- George Butler, Filmmaker, on the chances of his friend Arnold Schwarzenegger running for governor in California, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle, via Reuters Notable Quotes

"Keith Richards has been a hero forever and ever. It wasn't an imitation. It was more kind of a salute to him." -- Johnny Depp, telling The Boston Globe how the Rolling Stone guitarist provided inspiration of Depp's buccaneer character in "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," via Reuters Notable Quotes

Monday, July 14, 2003

''There probably won't be a lot more things I do where the character is, like, a virginal, innocent, sexually naive kind of guy. Only because being 28, it's just getting laughable to me.'' -- Tobey Maguire, actor, the boyish ''Spider-Man'' star, speaking to Time magazine about his first big role as a man playing a mature man in the upcoming film ''Seabiscuit.'' Link via Reuters' Notable Quotes

"Perhaps we're too embarrassed to change or too frightened of the consequences of showing that we actually care. But why not risk it anyway? Begin today! Carry out an act of kindness, with no expectation of reward or punishment. Safe in the knowledge that one day, someone somewhere might do the same for you." -- Princess Diana, via 100 Things About Anne

"This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness." -- Dalai Lama, via 100 Things About Anne

"A kind word is like a spring day." -- Russian proverb, via 100 Things About Anne

"The level of our success is limited only by our imagination and no act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted." -- Aesop, via 100 Things About Anne

"Do the work, but don't be the work." -- Jenny L. Berger, aka The Creative Tech Writer

"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important." -- Bertrand Russell, via The Creative Tech Writer

"There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden, or even your bathtub." -- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

"If you work 20 hours a day, your product will be crap." -- George Colony, Chairman and CEO, Forrester Research, First Impression, Fast Company, link via Fred Sampson

Sunday, July 13, 2003

"Nothing is so hard to understand as that there are human beings in this world besides one's self and one's own set." -- William Dean Howells

Saturday, July 12, 2003

"Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long." -- George Bernard Shaw, link via cara.bloggedup.com

Success | "Once we find the fruits of success, the taste is nothing like we had anticipated." -- William Inge

Friday, July 11, 2003

"Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy, if possible." -- Stonewall Jackson

Thursday, July 10, 2003

"If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater, suggest that he wear a tail." -- Fran Lebowitz (1950 - ), via Dog News

"If you can dream it -- you can do it." -- Walt Disney, from the markerboard at the doctor's office

"It is vain to do with more what can be done with less." -- William of Ocean, Philosopher, Discover magazine February 2003, Vol. 24, No. 2, p. 12

"Those who do not stop asking silly questions become scientists." -- Leon Lederman, Physicist, Discover magazine February 2003, Vol. 24, No. 2, p. 12

"To encourage literature and the arts is a duty which every good citizen owes to his country." -- George Washington

"The wise man will leave written words behind." -- Epicurus, via The Classics Cafe: Biblioblog, Confessions of a Bibliophile and Avowed Pottermaniac

"Water is the wine of architecture." -- Ada Louise Huxtable

Wednesday, July 09, 2003

"Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living." -- Mother Jones

"He was treated as though he was guilty of the worst crimes and crucified without a trial by people with no accountability. It's a disgrace. Everything they did to him was appalling." -- Roger Daltrey, singer for The Who, on bandmate Pete Townshend, now a registered sex offender for accessing a child porn Web site, in Britain's Daily Telegraph, link via Reuter's Notable Quotes

"Any time we heard Barry White, we knew we needed to stay out of the living room, that (my parents) were having their time." -- Yolanda Williams, a 32-year-old Barry White fan, during a Los Angeles service for the late soul crooner, link via Reuter's Notable Quotes

Monday, July 07, 2003

"I was basically slamming dope and then going on stage. That's a very immature life, if you think about it." -- Perry Farrell, Jane's Addiction vocalist, on his youthful decadence link via Reuters - Notable Quotes

"The trouble with life isn't that there is no answer, it's that there are so many answers." -- Ruth Benedict

Sunday, July 06, 2003

"You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance." -- Ray Bradbury

Friday, July 04, 2003

"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." -- Nathan Hale

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." -- The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies in Congress, July 4, 1776

"A little nonsense now and then is treasured by the best of men." -- Phil Donahue

Thursday, July 03, 2003

"The most wonderful thing in life is to be delirious and the most wonderful kind of delirium is being in love." -- Yevgeny Zamyatin

Courage | "Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear -- not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward, it is not a compliment to say it is brave; it is merely a misapplication of the word." -- Mark Twain, via The Perils of Amway, concluded

"The only thing infinite is our capacity for self-deception." -- Bob Carroll, via The Perils of Amway, concluded

"Make something of your life, boy, let me into your mind." -- Queensryche, "Operation : Mindcrime", via The Perils of Amway, continued

"The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing; and when men succeed in this they are always praised rather than condemned. But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes." -- Niccolo Machiavelli, via Terror, Greed, and Salvation

Wednesday, July 02, 2003

"The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper." -- Eden Phillpotts

"We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same." -- Anne Frank

Ability | "If you can walk, you can dance; if you can talk, you can sing." -- African Proverb

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." -- Albert Einstein

Wealth | "The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money." -- Anonymous

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." -- Carl Sagan

Napoleon Hill on perseverance

"Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit." -- Napoleon Hill

"Find the seed at the bottom of your heart and bring forth a flower." -- Shigenori Kameoka

"Life is constantly providing us with new funds, new resources, even when we are reduced to immobility. In life's ledger there is no such thing as frozen assets." -- Henry Miller

"Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own;
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow, do the worst, for I have lived today."

-- John Dryden

"When there is enough food for eight, there is enough for ten." -- Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Molière

"Don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars." -- Casey Robinson

"If I can rejoice for a moment,
Death at an early age would still be a long life."

-- Yüan Mei

"There are no ordinary moments." -- Dan Millman

"All our talents increase in the using, and every faculty, both good and bad, strengthens by exercise." -- Anne Brontë

"Happy thou art not;
For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get;
And what thou hast, forgett'st."

-- William Shakespeare

"I find that I can have no enjoyment in the World but the continual drinking of Knowledge." -- John Keats

"What one has, one ought to use; and whatever he does, he should do with all his might." -- Cicero

"Opportunities are often things you haven't noticed the first time around." -- Catherine Deneuve

"Let your hook always be cast. In the stream where you least expect it, there will be a fish." -- Ovid

"The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Often a mighty man is the humblest of creatures and a humble man is the mightiest of creatures." -- Abu Abdullah Muhammad al-Harithi al-Baghdadi al-Mufid

Tuesday, July 01, 2003

"No tool is more beneficial than intelligence. No enemy is more harmful than ignorance." -- Abu Abdullah Muhammad al-Harithi al-Baghdadi al-Mufid

"There are three kinds of men:

  • The ones that learn by reading.
  • The few who learn by observation.
  • The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence."
-- Will Rogers

"Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment." -- Will Rogers

"Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier'n puttin' it back." -- Will Rogers

"If you're riding' ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there." -- Will Rogers

"The quickest way to double your money is to fold it and put it back in your pocket." -- Will Rogers

"If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." -- Will Rogers

"Always drink upstream from the herd." -- Will Rogers

"Never miss a good chance to shut up." -- Will Rogers

"Never kick a cow chip on a hot day." -- Will Rogers

"Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco." -- Will Rogers

"There are two theories to arguing with a woman...neither works." -- Will Rogers

"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." -- Will Rogers