The very word "secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society;
and we are as a people inherently and historically
opposed to secret societies,
to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.
- John F. Kennedy
Most people's historical perspective
begins with the day of their birth.
- Rush Limbaugh
Liar is a strong word, but we are all liars.
Not in the sense of intentionally speaking untruths,
but in the sense of carrying so much historical
and emotional baggage that none of us is believable.
To lie means to speak an untruth,
and virtually everything that comes out of our mouth
is an untruth - an opinion, an assumption,
a point-of-view based on our past.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All men and women are born, live, suffer and die;
what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams,
whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things,
and what we do to make them come about.
We do not choose to be born.
We do not choose our parents.
We do not choose our historical epoch,
the country of our birth,
or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing.
We do not, most of us, choose to die;
nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death.
But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live.
- Joseph Epstein
One cannot have wisdom without perspective,
but once gaining perspective, one attains wisdom.
Wisdom is the ability to view every situation
as each person who is in any way affected
by that situation might view it.
Wisdom benefits from having a knowledge of history,
and therefore a historical perspective,
as well from as having the perspective of imagination -
the realm of the what-might-be
inhabited by futurists and science-fiction writers.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
After all, science is essentially international,
and it is only through lack of the historical sense
that national qualities have been attributed to it.
- Marie Curie
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt
towards people whom we personally dislike.
- Oscar Wilde
Life is like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute -
only the last couple seconds are fatal,
but most people are scared to death the whole way down.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training,
for it trains people as to how they should think.
- Arthur Schopenhauer
When two people decide to get a divorce,
it isn't a sign that they "don't understand" one another,
but a sign that they have, at last, begun to.
- Helen Rowland
Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands?
And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry.
- John Lennon
Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.
- Mark Twain
I think you're the opposite of a paranoid.
I think you go around with the insane delusion that people like you.
- the Woody Allen movie Deconstructing Harry
I wanted to see exotic Vietnam, the jewel of Southeast Asia.
I, uh, I wanted to meet interesting
and stimulating people of an ancient culture,
and kill them.
- the movie Full Metal Jacket
Half the people you know are below average.
- Anonymous
Some cause happiness wherever they go;
others whenever they go.
- Oscar Wilde
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it.
- Mark Twain
Too bad all the people who know how to run this country
are busy running taxicabs or cutting hair.
- George Burns
Half the world is composed of idiots,
the other half, of people clever enough
to take indecent advantage of them.
- Walter Kerr
One good reason to only maintain a small circle of friends
is that three out of four murders
are committed by people who know the victim.
- George Carlin
Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
- Albert Einstein
We make our friends; we make our enemies;
but God makes our next-door neighbor.
- Gilbert (G. K.) Chesterton
The Lord prefers common-looking people.
That is why he makes so many of them.
- Abraham Lincoln
In critical moments men sometimes see
exactly what they wish to see.
- the character Spock of the television series Star Trek
People say conversation is a lost art;
how often I have wished it were.
- Edward R. Murrow
Most people with low self-esteem have earned it.
- George Carlin
You know your god is man-made when he
hates all the same people you do.
- Anonymous
There is no use whatsoever trying to help
people who do not help themselves.
You cannot push anyone up a ladder
unless he is willing to climb himself.
- Andrew Carnegie
Most of what we call management consists of
making it difficult for people to get their work done.
- Peter F. Drucker
If you're going to tell people the truth,
be funny or they'll kill you.
- Billy Wilder
Religion is regarded by the common people as true,
by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out
in a war fought with the atomic bomb.
Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth will be killed.
- Albert Einstein
These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert,
to fleece the people.
- Abraham Lincoln
Unless they share our opinions,
we seldom find people sensible.
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Too many people spend money they haven't earned,
to buy things they don't want,
to impress people they don't like.
- Will Rogers
I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man,
and I hate people like that!
- Tom Lehrer
Be smarter than other people, just don't tell them so.
- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
In religion and politics, people's belief's and convictions
are in almost every case gotten at second hand,
and without examination
- Mark Twain
Oh, you weak, beautiful people
who give up with such grace.
What you need is someone to take hold of you -
gently, with love, and hand your life back to you.
- Tennessee Williams
The church is always trying to get other people to reform;
it might not be a bad idea to reform itself a little,
by way of example.
- Mark Twain
Some people are so heavenly minded
that they are no earthly good.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
He who loves 50 people has 50 woes;
he who loves no one has no woes.
- The Buddha
All people know the same truth.
Our lives consist of how we chose to distort it.
- the Woody Allen movie Deconstructing Harry
You can safely assume that you've
created God in your own image
when it turns out that God hates
all the same people you do.
- Anne Lamott
"But I don't want to go among mad people," said Alice.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the cat. "We're all mad here."
- Lewis Carroll
Join the army. Visit strange and exotic places.
Meet fascinating people. And kill them.
- Anonymous
Thinking is what most people resort to after all else fails.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money
they don't have for something they don't need.
- Will Rogers
There are two kinds of people,
those who do the work,
and those who take the credit.
Try to be in the first group;
there is less competition there.
- Indira Gandhi
The whole problem with the world is that
fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves,
but wiser people so full of doubts.
- Bertrand Russell
The most important service rendered
by the press and the magazines
is that of educating people
to approach printed matter with distrust.
- Samuel Butler
Knowing your own darkness is the best method
for dealing with the darknesses of other people.
- Carl Jung
Being a leader is like being a lady,
if you have to go around telling people you are one, you aren't.
- Margaret Thatcher
The trouble with having an open mind, of course,
is that people will insist on coming along
and trying to put things in it.
- Terry Pratchett
An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe in it.
- Don Marquis
Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people
by the people for the people.
- Oscar Wilde
Always do the right thing.
It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
- Mark Twain
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems,
but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
- Herm Albright
People living their lives for you on TV;
They say they're better than you, and you agree.
- Jewel
When dealing with people, remember you are
not dealing with creatures of logic,
but creatures of emotion.
- Dale Carnegie
Contrary to general belief,
I do not believe that friends are necessarily
the people you like best,
they are merely the people who got there first.
- Peter Ustinov
I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another
and I know there are people in the world
that do not love their fellow human beings
and I HATE people like that.
- Tom Lehrer
Common looking people are the best in the world:
that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.
- Abraham Lincoln
I was wise enough to never grow up
while fooling most people into believing I had.
- Margaret Mead
To go against the dominant thinking of your friends,
of most of the people you see every day,
is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform.
- Theodore H. White
People who think they know everything
are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
- Isaac Asimov
A common denominator of all religions is that
they have the power to bring out the best and the worst in people.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Smile, it makes people wonder what you are thinking.
- Anonymous
History is the version of past events
that people have decided to agree upon.
- Napoleon Bonaparte
I only wish that ordinary people
had an unlimited capacity for doing harm;
then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.
- Socrates
People who want to share their religious views with you
almost never want you to share yours with them.
- Dave Barry
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All materials & writings are copyright © Jonathan Lockwood Huie, except for quotes and other specifically identified material which belong to their respective copyright holders if applicable.