Aphorisms Galore!

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Aphorisms Galore! lets you Feed Your Wit by browsing, searching, submitting, and discussing aphorisms and witty sayings by famous and not-so-famous people.

Welcome! The computer thought you might be interested in these aphorisms today, taking into account things like their recent popularities and how new they are to the collection:

tiny.ag/toiqhdlg  ·  submitted 1997

Anybody who wants the presidency so much that he'll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office.

David Broder, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/jgjax6rp  ·  submitted 1999

Take a chance and you may lose. Take not a chance and you have lost already.

Søren Kierkegaard, in Success and Failure

tiny.ag/vmqykh2c  ·  submitted 1997

Catch-22 (paperback)

The Lord gave us farmers two strong hands so we could grab as much as we could with both of them.

Joseph Heller, Catch-22, in Work and Recreation

tiny.ag/mydapq7x  ·  submitted 1999 by Megan

To accomplish great things, you must not only act but also dream, not only dream but also believe.

Anatole France, in Success and Failure

tiny.ag/5gcdbjbx  ·  submitted 1997

Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration.

Thomas Alva Edison, in Work and Recreation

tiny.ag/o7yghtxb  ·  submitted 1999

1984 (paperback)

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four. If that is granted, all else follows.

George Orwell, 1984, in Happiness and Misery

tiny.ag/jwhevbgo  ·  submitted 1997

My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed.

Christopher Morley, in Science and Religion

tiny.ag/tmupilkz  ·  submitted 1997

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

Albert Einstein, in Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/ircejxuc  ·  submitted 1997

You can get more of what you want with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word.

Al Capone, in War and Peace

tiny.ag/nxwvhtlg  ·  submitted 1997

Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.

Timothy Leary, in Men and Women

tiny.ag/cgydzmit  ·  submitted 1997

To know is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

Confucius, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/6thfwduq  ·  submitted 1999

Romance is built on illusion, and when we love someone, we love the illusion they have created for us.

Roger Ebert, (from review of Boys Don't Cry, Oct. 22, 1999), in Love and Hate

tiny.ag/w4s36qc2  ·  submitted 1997

A friend might well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Love and Hate

tiny.ag/uvpjrb6x  ·  submitted 1997

Desperation is like stealing from the mafia: you stand a good chance of attracting the wrong attention.

Doug Horton, in Success and Failure

tiny.ag/qiy9xdhn  ·  submitted 1997

To "be" means to be related.

Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity, 1933 (4th ed., 1958), in Science and Religion and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/wtukmszr  ·  submitted 1997

A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.

Robert Frost, in Wealth and Poverty

tiny.ag/otueqvds  ·  submitted 1997

A man who seeks truth and loves it must be reckoned precious to any human society.

Frederick the Great, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/p6bwfqfr  ·  submitted 1997

Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

P. J. O'Rourke, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/nvfl7j9k  ·  submitted 1997

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.

Howard Aiken, in Success and Failure

tiny.ag/qn3ryz0y  ·  submitted 1998

Freedom is not the right to live as we please, but the right to find how we ought to live in order to fulfill our potential.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Wisdom and Ignorance