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/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/oxoy2gsu  ·  submitted 1997

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Winston Churchill, in Success and Failure

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/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/5gcdbjbx  ·  submitted 1997

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

Thomas Alva Edison, in Work and Recreation

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/950guyxd  ·  submitted 1997

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

Winston Churchill, in Success and Failure

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/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/nxwvhtlg  ·  submitted 1997

Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.

Timothy Leary, in Men and Women

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/w4s36qc2  ·  submitted 1997

A friend might well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Love and Hate

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/i0nu42ok  ·  submitted 1997

The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense.

Tom Clancy, in Art and Literature

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/8bpf0foj  ·  submitted 1997

I am become death, shatterer of worlds.

Robert J. Oppenheimer, (quoting the Bhagavadgita after witnessing the first nuclear explosion), in War and Peace

tiny.ag/mglnajv0  ·  submitted 1997

It is impossible to love and be wise.

Francis Bacon, in Love and Hate

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

tiny.ag/soebrnq6  ·  submitted 1997

Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.

Sam Brown, (Washington Post, 1977), in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/iobj0muk  ·  submitted 1997

Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.

Lillian Hellman, in Altruism and Cynicism