From Aesop's Fables:

• Any excuse will serve a tyrant. 'The Wolf and the Lamb'
• Appearances are often deceiving. 'The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing'
• Don't count your chickens before they are hatched. 'The Milkmaid and Her Pail'
• Familiarity breeds contempt. 'The Fox and the Lion'
• It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds. 'The Jay and the Peacock'
• Kindness effects more than severity. 'The Wind and the Sun'
• No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. 'The Lion and the Mouse'
• Slow and steady wins the race. 'The Hare and the Tortoise'
• The gods help them that help themselves. 'Hercules and the Waggoner'
• United we stand, divided we fall. 'The Four Oxen and the Lion'

[A mass] medium, so called because it is neither rare nor well done. -- Ernie Kovacs, quoted in Leslie Halliwell, 'The Filmgoer's Book of Quotes'

'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all. -- Samuel Butler, 'The Way of All Flesh'

640K ought to be enough for anybody. -- Bill Gates, 1981

A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking big money. -- US Senator Everett M. Dirksen

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. -- William Blake, 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell'

A little neglect may breed great mischief . . . for the want of a nail the shoe was lost; for the want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for the want of a horse the rider was lost. -- Benjamin Franklin, 'Poor Richard's Almanac'

A lot of fellows nowadays have a B.A., M.D., or Ph.D. Unfortunately, they don't have a J.O.B. -- ``Fats'' Domino, attributed

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. -- Francis Bacon, 'Essays'

Ability is of little account without opportunity. -- Napoleon Bonaparte

Advances are made by those with at least a touch of irrational confidence in what they can do. -- Joan L. Curcio

After finding no qualified candidates for the position of principal, the school board is extremely pleased to announce the appointment of David Steele to the post. -- Philip Streifer, Superintendent of Schools, Barrington, Rhode Island

Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value. -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem. -- Martin Luther King, Jr., 'Strength to Love'

All's fair in love and war. -- Francis Edward Smedley, 'Frank Fairlegh'

An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. -- Victor Hugo, 'Histoire d'un crime'

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke, 'The Lost Worlds of 2001

Being a lot smarter than the people around you will not make rich but it will help you find new and exciting ways to fail. -- Mensa member Rick Zeeman

Believe you can and you're halfway there. -- Theodore Roosevelt

Blessed is he who has found his work. Let him ask no other blessedness. -- Thomas Carlyle, 'Past and Present'

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving in words evidence of the fact. -- George Eliot, 'Impressions of Theophrastus Such'

But what... is it good for? -- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese. -- Former French President Charles De Gaulle

Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons. -- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago. -- Bernard Berenson, 'Notebook', 1892

Damn the torpedoes! Captain Drayton, go ahead. Jouett, full speed! -- David Farragut, 'Battle of Mobile Bay', Aug. 5, 1864

Delay always breeds anger, and to protract a great design is often to ruin it. -- Cervantes, 'Don Quixote'

Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy. -- Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten. -- B. F. Skinner, 'Education in 1984'

Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that. -- Norman Vincent Peale

Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others. -- Winston Churchill

Everything that can be invented has been invented. -- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899. (Also attributed to Bishop Wright, Orville's father, in a plea to Congress to close the patent office)

Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid. -- Francis Bacon, 'Of Ceremonies and Respects'

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. -- Bertrand Russell, 'An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish'

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled. -- Richard P. Feynman, 'What Do You Care What Other People Think?'

Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. -- Thomas Alva Edison, 'Life'

Given a choice between two explanations, choose the simplest, the explanation which requires the fewest assumptions. -- Occam's Razor, named after William of Occam.

Half of the harm that is done in this world Is due to people who want to feel important. -- T. S. Eliot, 'The Cocktail Party'

Half the world does not know how the other half lives. -- Rabelais, 'Pantagruel'

Half this game is ninety percent mental. -- Philadelphia Phillies manager Danny Ozark

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches. -- George Bernard Shaw, 'Man and Superman'

Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. -- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest. -- Alexander Pope, 'An Essay on Man'

I confess that in 1901, I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty years. -- Wilbur Wright - 1908

I don't make predictions. I never have and I never will. -- Tony Blair, PM of England

I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting. -- Ronald Reagan

I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short. -- Pascal, 'Lettres provinciales'

I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year. -- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law. -- David Dinkins, New York City Mayor, answering accusations that he failed to pay his taxes.

I know this - a man got to do what he got to do. -- John Steinbeck, 'The Grapes of Wrath'

I never did a day's work in my life, it was all fun. -- Thomas Edison

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper. -- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in 'Gone With The Wind.'

I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body. -- Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky basketball forward

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen. - John Steinbeck

If I had eight hours to fell a tree, I'd spent four hours sharpening my axe. -- Abraham Lincoln

If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it just may be a duck. -- Walter Reuther, attributed by William Safire, 'Safire's Political Dictionary'

If our Universe was created according to a grand plan, we need to fire the planner! -- Keith Cowan

If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will come to the hill. -- Francis Bacon, 'Of Boldness'

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. -- Marcus Aurelius, 'Meditations'

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. -- Derek Bok, President of Harvard University

If you would be a real seeker after truth, you must at least once in your life doubt, as far as possible, all things. -- René Descartes, 'Discourse on Method'

If your idea cannot be expressed in simple words in a single paragraph, go back and rethink your idea. -- Rick Zeeman

Ignorance of the law excuses no man. -- John Selden, ``Judgments,'' in 'Table Talk'

Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert Einstein, 'On Science'

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. -- Albert Einstein

In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. -- Laurence J. Peter, 'The Peter Principle'

Innocence is ashamed of nothing. -- Jean Jacques Rousseau, 'Émile'

Is it a fact, or have I dreamt it - that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time? -- Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'The House of the Seven Gables'

It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself. -- Eleanor Roosevelt

It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory. -- W. Edwards Denning

It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem. -- G. K. Chesterton, "The Point of a Pin," in 'The Scandal of Father Brown'

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. -- Warren Buffett

It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. -- Lewis Carroll, 'Through the Looking-Glass'

Large streams from little fountains flow, Tall oaks from little acorns grow. -- David Everett, 'Lines written for a school declamation'

Live out of your imagination, not your history. -- Stephen Covey

Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction. -- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

Love means never having to say you're sorry. -- Erich Segal, 'Love Story'

Management's job is to improve the system. -- W. Edwards Deming

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. -- Thomas Edison

Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live. -- Margaret Fuller, 'Summer on the Lakes'

Metaphysics is almost always an attempt to prove the incredible by an appeal to the unintelligible. -- H. L. Mencken, 'Minority Report'

Money is like an arm or leg: use it or lose it. -- Henry Ford, 'The New York Times', Nov. 8, 1931

More men are killed by overwork than the importance of the world justifies. -- Rudyard Kipling, 'The Phantom 'Rickshaw'

Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone. -- Albert Einstein, 'The Evolution of Physics'

My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition. -- Indira Gandhi

Nature's mighty law is change. -- Robert Burns, 'Let Not Women E'er Complain'

Never let the fear of striking out get in your way. -- Babe Ruth

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common. -- John Locke, 'Essay Concerning Human Understanding'

Nice guys finish last. -- Leo Durocher

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a part of the continent, a part of the main. -- John Donne, 'Devotions XVII'

No man should be in public office who can't make more money in private life. -- Thomas E. Dewey

Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in. -- Gustave Flaubert, 'Sentimental Education'

Nothing succeeds like success. -- Alexandre Dumas, 'Ange pitou'

O, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive! -- Sir Walter Scott, 'Marmion'

One gives nothing so freely as advice. -- La Rochefoucauld, 'Maxims'

One must learn by doing the thing; though you think you know it, you have no certainty until you try. -- Sophocles, 'Trachiniae'

One picture is worth a thousand words. -- Fred R. Barnard in 'Printer's Ink,' March 10, 1927.