Lewis Black

The reason you should go to Las Vegas is because, for only the second time, the second time, ever, they have rebuilt Sodom and Gomorrah. It's back!! And you have the opportunity to see it before it turns to salt. And you wanna get out there before the Christian Right finds out what we're up to and shits all over it.

I'd rather go ice fishing, which is the dumbest thing a man can do. You're sitting essentially in an out house and it's 30 below. You've cut a hole in the ice, and you're fishing for fish that you shouldn't eat, ‘cause any fish that is down there is fucking stupid.

Health clubs aren't healthy. In New York City, which has the most stairs of anywhere in the country, people pay money to go to a health club and use a stair master. When you live in a city, that has nothing but stairs and you pay money to use special stairs, that is not healthy behavior. It's fucking PSYCHOTIC!

I was home alone watching George Bush speak on television. So it was just really the two of us. And as I listened to him, I realized, that one of us... was nuts! And for the first time ever, I went, "Wow, it's not me!"

FEMA I always thought was a bone here in your ass.

I don't know if you noticed, but our two-party system is a bowl of shit looking in the mirror at itself.

I would love to have the faith to believe that the world was created in seven days... but I have thoughts... and that can really fuck up the faith thing, just ask any Catholic priest.

Laurence J. Peter

In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.

Incompetence plus incempetence equals incompetence.

Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.

The only valid rule about the proper length of a statement is that it achieve its purpose effectively.

Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.

If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.

The habitually punctual make all their mistakes right on time.

Television has changed the American child from an irresistible force into an immovable object.

When you see yourself quoted in print and you're sorry you said it, it suddenly becomes a misquotation.

Noel Coward

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me. 

It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. 

I love criticism just so long as it's unqualified praise. 

It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. 

I have always paid income tax. I object only when it reaches a stage when I am threatened with having nothing left for my old age - which is due to start next Tuesday or Wednesday. 

If you must have motivation, think of your paycheck on Friday. 

Extraordinary how potent cheap music is. 

The higher the building the lower the morals. 

We have no reliable guarantee that the afterlife will be any less exasperating than this one, have we? 

I don't believe in astrology. The only stars I can blame for my failures are those that walk about the stage. 

I've sometimes thought of marrying - and then I've thought again. 

Work is much more fun than fun. 

I'm not a heavy drinker, I can sometimes go for hours without touching a drop. 

Success took me to her bosom like a maternal boa constrictor. 

Someday I suspect, when Jesus has definitely got me for a sunbeam, my works may be adequately assessed. 

Mona Lisa looks as if she has just been sick, or is about to be. 

My body has certainly wandered a good deal, but I have an uneasy suspicion that my mind has not wandered enough. 

There's always something fishy about the French. 

That strange feeling we had in the war. Have you found anything in your lives since to equal it in strength? A sort of splendid carelessness it was, holding us together. 

Just say the lines and don't trip over the furniture.

Edward Weston

Photography suits the temper of this age - of active bodies and minds. It is a perfect medium for one whose mind is teeming with ideas, imagery, for a prolific worker who would be slowed down by painting or sculpting, for one who sees quickly and acts decisively, accurately. 

Photography to the amateur is recreation, to the professional it is work, and hard work too, no matter how pleasurable it my be. 

Anything that excites me for any reason, I will photograph; not searching for unusual subject matter, but making the commonplace unusual. 

My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, for the camera's eye may entirely change my idea. 

Now to consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk. Such rules and laws are deduced from the accomplished fact; they are the products of reflection. 

Consulting the rules of composition before taking a photograph, is like consulting the laws of gravity before going for a walk. 

I see no reason for recording the obvious. 

I was extravagant in the matter of cameras - anything photographic - I had to have the best. But that was to further my work. In most things I have gone along with the plainest - or without. 

There is nothing like a Bach fugue to remove me from a discordant moment... only Bach hold up fresh and strong after repeated playing. I can always return to Bach when the other records weary me. 

Sir Walter Scott

O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive! 

One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name. 

Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above: For love is heaven, and heaven is love. 

The race of mankind would perish did they cease to aid each other. We cannot exist without mutual help. All therefore that need aid have a right to ask it from their fellow-men; and no one who has the power of granting can refuse it without guilt. 

Teach you children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary. 

All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education. 

Success or failure in business is caused more by the mental attitude even than by mental capacities. 

A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect. 

Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life. 

'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark our coming, and look brighter when we come. 

He that climbs the tall tree has won right to the fruit, He that leaps the wide gulf should prevail in his suit. 

For success, attitude is equally as important as ability. 

O! many a shaft, at random sent, Finds mark the archer little meant! And many a word, at random spoken, May soothe or wound a heart that's broken! 

To be ambitious of true honor, of the true glory and perfection of our natures, is the very principle and incentive of virtue. 

He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles. 

What is a diary as a rule? A document useful to the person who keeps it. Dull to the contemporary who reads it and invaluable to the student, centuries afterwards, who treasures it. 

What I have to say is far more important than how long my eyelashes are. 

Thomas Carlyle

A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge. 

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. 

He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything. 

No pressure, no diamonds. 

A laugh, to be joyous, must flow from a joyous heart, for without kindness, there can be no true joy. 

If you look deep enough you will see music; the heart of nature being everywhere music. 

Music is well said to be the speech of angels. 

Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct. 

A man's felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessing of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind. 

A strong mind always hopes, and has always cause to hope. 

Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world. 

Every noble work is at first impossible. 

Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. 

Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness; on the confines of the two everlasting empires, necessity and free will. 

I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom. 

Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains. 

Reform is not pleasant, but grievous; no person can reform themselves without suffering and hard work, how much less a nation. 

Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will. 

A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune's inequality exhibits under this sun. 

Alexander Pope

To err is human; to forgive, divine. 

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. 

No one should be ashamed to admit they are wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that they are wiser today than they were yesterday. 

Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed was the ninth beatitude. 

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul. 
 

No woman ever hates a man for being in love with her, but many a woman hate a man for being a friend to her. 

Act well your part, there all the honour lies. 

Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe. 

Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul. 

The difference is too nice - Where ends the virtue or begins the vice. 

Genius creates, and taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius; without taste, genius is only sublime folly. 

And die of nothing but a rage to live. 

The most positive men are the most credulous. 

For Forms of Government let fools contest; whatever is best administered is best. 

Wit is the lowest form of humor. 

The proper study of Mankind is Man. 

Education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined. 

Fools admire, but men of sense approve. 

Edmund Burke

All that's necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing. 

You can never plan the future by the past. 

Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it. 

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. 

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist. 

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. 

It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do. 

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion. 

By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation. 

Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all. 

Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation. 

Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none. 

Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing. 

There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination. 

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe. 

Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair. 

It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare. 

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words. 

Love does not dominate; it cultivates. 

Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever. 

The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone. 

What is important in life is life, and not the result of life. 

Divide and rule, the politician cries; unite and lead, is watchword of the wise. 

Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago. 

Do not give in too much to feelings. A overly sensitive heart is an unhappy possession on this shaky earth. 

A man's manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait. 

Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest. 

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image. 

A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude. 

Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing. 

Trust yourself, then you will know how to live. 

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own. 

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking. 

H. P. Lovecraft

I am disillusioned enough to know that no man's opinion on any subject is worth a damn unless backed up with enough genuine information to make him really know what he's talking about. 

If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences. 

The most merciful thing in the world... is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. 

Bunch together a group of people deliberately chosen for strong religious feelings, and you have a practical guarantee of dark morbidities expressed in crime, perversion, and insanity. 

The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind. 

We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight. 

Heaven knows where I'll end up - but it's a safe bet that I'll never be at the top of anything! Nor do I particularly care to be. 

I never ask a man what his business is, for it never interests me. What I ask him about are his thoughts and dreams. 

I fear my enthusiasm flags when real work is demanded of me. 

Toil without song is like a weary journey without an end. 

Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time. 

The process of delving into the black abyss is to me the keenest form of fascination. 

There be those who say that things and places have souls, and there be those who say they have not; I dare not say, myself, but I will tell of The Street.