Quotes Dictionary

[Khyron1144]

I know we already have a quotes list thread, but I thought it'd be kind of cool to format it as a quotation dictionary sorted by topic with topics in alphabetical order (with two important exceptions). If you have a quote that you feel belongs here PM me with it or send it by email.

For alphabetization purposes articles and spaces are not taken into consideration. For example: If you want to find a quote about the world, look for it under W for world rather than T for the even though it will be listed as The World.


Beginnings
Whatever you do or dream you can do- begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.
-Johann Goethe

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.
-Semisonic, "Closing Time"

Can't say I've ever been too fond of beginnings, myself. Messy little things.
-Atropos in The Sandman The Kindly Ones, written by Neil Gaiman

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A
Action
Action taken without thought is like giving an egg a navel.
-Tar Gibbons in Aliens Ate My Homework by Bruce Coville

Adhesive
Dogbert: how do you like your new book- "The History of Glue"?
Dilbert: I couldn't put it down.
-A Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams reprinted in The Joy of Work by Scott Adams


Advice
YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE MAD
TO WORK HERE BUT IT HELPS
-a coffee mug in Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

My advice: Just keep moving straight ahead. Every now and then you find yourself in a different place.
-George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring the Porkchops?

If you trust in yourself and believe in your dreams and follow your star, you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy.
-Miss Tick in The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

You ought to
Take your medication everyday
Be a good dog
Live life in a wonderful way.
-Everclear, "Normal Like You"

Afterlife
Reincarnation is my only hope.
-Asok, the intern in Dilbert by Scott Adams

It may be that we have all lived before and died, and this is Hell.
-A. L. Prusick

Souls were believed to spend the “here, there, and after” in Ethiopia.
-an anonymous student quoted in Non Campus Mentis compiled by Professor Anders Henrikson

Hundreds of people must die in this city every day. I bet they don't have this trouble. They just shut their eyes and wake up being born as someone else, or in some sort of heaven, or I suppose, possibly some sort of hell. Or they go and feast with the gods in their hall, which has never seemed a particularly great idea- gods are all right in thier way, but not the kind of people a decent man would want to have a meal with. The Yen Buddhists think you just become very rich. Some of the Klatchians religions say you go to a lovely garden full of young women, which doesn't sound very religious to me...
Windle found himself wondering how you applied for Klathcian nationaluty after death.
-Windle Poons's thoughts regarding life after death in Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett.

Agriculture
Cube Farmer: I reckon I’ll have to put this one down so he won’t reproduce. Sorry.
Wally: No problem; I hear that a lot.
-Random Acts of Management, a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams

Ambition
Someday I will be so powerful that secretaries will have to explain why they laugh at me.
-Asok, the Intern in Random Acts of Management, a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams

America
To get its edge back, I think what America really needs is evil. Intense, unalloyed, concentrated evil.
-George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring The Porkchops

Answers
It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.
-James Thurber

I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind! The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building.
-Charles Schulz

There ain’t no answer. There ain’t going to be any answer. There never has been an answer. That’s the answer.
-Gertrude Stein

Apes
What an ugly beast is the ape, and how like us.
-Cicero

To an engineer, everyone looks like a chimp.
-Dilbert in Words You Don’t Want To Hear During Your Annual Performance Review, a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams

Authority
You show me the people who control the money, the land, and the weapons, and I’ll show you the people in charge.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

Or shut up and be a victim of authority.
-Green Day, “Warning”

If we could just find out who’s in charge, we could kill him.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

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B
Battle Cries
Children, pull on your tights! And give them heck!
-Reggie in Amelia Rules! by Jimmy Gownley

Members of G. A. S. P.! The ‘Force” is with us! The enemy’s gate is down! But a Shadow rises in the East! Which seeks to be the ultimate power in the universe! But by the power of G. A. S. P., we have the power! Yet with great power comes great responsibility! And though Ninja are a superstitious and cowardly lot, we must be Daredevils, the men without fear! Who boldly go where no one has gone before! And when we go, we go in search of Truth, Justice, and the American Way! For the Ninjas must know the truth! For the truth is out there!
-Reggie in Amelia Rules! by Jimmy Gownley

Spoon!
-The Tick

Beer
Always store beer in a dark place.
-Robert Anson Heinlein

Isn't beer best thing to have when you're hurtling through endless space!?!
-Krut in "The Dream is Dead- Gone, Shot Off, All Squashed Flat", Beautiful Stories For Ugly Children issue #30, written by Dave Louapre

Betting
The race may not be to the swift nor the victory to the strong, but that's how you bet.
-Damon Runyon

In a fight between you and the world, bet on the world.
-Franz Kafka

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C
Capital Punishment
“Do you really think all this deters crime, Mr. Trooper?” he said.
“Well, in the generality of things I’d say it’s hard to tell, given that it’s hard to find evidence of crimes not committed,” said the hangman, giving the trapdoor a final rattle. “But in the specificality, sir, I’d say it’s very efficacious.”
“Meaning what?” said Moist.
“Meaning I’ve never seen someone up here more’n once, sir.”
-conversation between Moist von Lipwig, a condemned con man, and Mr. Trooper, the hangman, in Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

Capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of human life.
-Orrin Hatch

Career Disappointments
I take beautiful pictures of men, flowers, landscapes, rocks, jazz musicians, and other things, but the public is more interested in the women I shoot. It’s not the end of the world. That’s just the way it is.
-Marco Glaviano, Sirens

Children
A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

All children are essentially criminal.
-Dennis Diderot

Pre-adolescence is a rough ride for anyone.
-The Tick in The Tick: “The Tick vs. Brainchild”

Clothing
One must commit acts of the highest treason only when dressed in the most resplendent finery.
-Sebastian O in Sebastian O written by Grant Morrison

The dandy has one unique advantage over the common herd. No matter what the situation, he will always be more exquisitely dressed than his enemies. Therefore, he has already triumphed.
-Sebastian O in Sebastian O written by Grant Morrison

Conformity
Well I try my best to be just like I am,
But everybody wants you to be just like them.
-Bob Dylan, “Maggie’s Farm”

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Courage
Fortune favors the audacious.
-Erasmus

A man with outward courage dares to die.
A man with inward courage dares to live.
-Lao-tzu

We must dare, and dare again, and go on daring.
-Georges Danton

Fear always springs from ignorance.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

The principal act of courage is to endure and withstand dangers doggedly rather than to attack them.
-Thomas Aquinas

You got no guts--and you, you're a dead man!
-Sting (the wrestler)

I dare because I care.
-The Tick in The Tick: “The Tick vs. Brainchild”

Culture
When one has more substance than culture, one is a rustic; when one has more culture than substance, one is a literatus. Only when one has both substance and culture is one an exemplary person.
-Analects of Confucius 6:18 as presented in The Essential Confucius translated by Thomas Cleary


Cynics, Cynicism
The cynics are right nine times out of ten.
-H. L. Mencken

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D
Dairy
Well, it's certainly uncontaminated by cheese.
-Mr. Mousebender, portrayed by John Cleese on Monty Python's Flying Circus in “The Cheese Shop” sketch

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
-G. K. Chesterton

"Me, I really like my cheese sandwiches."
-Johnny the Bull

Death
Life is tranquil and death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
-Isaac Asimov

In the long run we are all dead.
-John Maynard Keynes

After I’m dead I’d rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.
-Cato the Elder

The worms crawl in,
And the worms crawl out.
The ones that go in
Are lean and thin;
The ones that come out
Are fat and stout.
Your eyes fall in,
And your teeth fall out;
Your brains come tumbling down your snout.
Be merry my friends;
Be merry.
-“Worms”, a traditional folk song as performed by the Pogues

Decapitation
Winfield goes back to the wall. He hits his head on the wall and it rolls off! It's rolling all the way back to second base! This is a terrible thing for the Padres!
-Jerry Coleman

Desire
Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
-Susan Ertz

Discoveries
The Doctors X-rayed my head and found nothing.
-Dizzy Dean

Drugs
The Prozac doesn't do it for me anymore.
-Everclear, "Normal Like You"

I'll bet there aren't too many people hooked on crack who can play the bagpipes.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

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E
Education
The learned are seldom pretty fellows, and in many cases their appearance tends to discourage a love of study in the young.
-H. L. Mencken

Effort
One must always try, Arthur.
-The Tick, The Tick: “The Tick vs. Brainchild”

Equality
The power of equality
Is not yet what it ought to be.
-Red Hot Chili Peppers, "The Power of Equality"

Everything is equal and therefore unimportant. For example, there is no way for me to say that my acts are more important than yours, or that one thing is more essential than another, therefore all things all things are equal and by being equal they are unimportant.
-Don Juan, as quoted in A Seperate Reality: Further converstions with Don Juan by Carlos Castenada

Ethics
I know I’m doing something right when my business practices gag a rat.
-Dogbert in a Dilbert strip by Scott Adams

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F
Fairness
My mom was fair. You never knew whether she was going to swing with her right or her left.
-Herb Caen

Faith
If people have no faith, I don’t know what they are good for. Can a vehicle travel without a link to a source of power?
-Analects of Confucius 2:22 as presented in The Essential Confucius translated by Thomas Cleary

Footwear
I had no shoes and I felt sorry for myself until I met a man with no feet. I took his shoes. Now I feel better.
-George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops

If the shoe fits, get another one just like it.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

Freedom
I'm gonna get free
I'm gonna get free
I'm gonna get free
Rid into the sun.
-The Vines, "Get Free"

This is a free country. Live like you wanna live, baby. Yeah, ain't nobody gonna knock it, darling.
-Chuck Berry, a spoken comment during a live performance of "My Ding-A-Ling"

Freedom of Expression
I doubt I'll be alive tomorrow, Lord. On that basis I find it particularly easy to say exactly what I think...
-Lucien in The Sandman The Kindly Ones written by Neil Gaiman

If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.
-Noam Chomsky

Asok: The great thing about free speech is that I can criticize the government.
Pointy-haired Boss: I’d fire you.
Asok: I mean outside of work.
Pointy-haired Boss: I’d fire you for that too.
Asok: May I express enjoyment of my pastry?
Pointy-haired Boss: It’s a free country.
-A Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams collected in When Body Language Goes Bad

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G
Genetics
Genetics rolls strange dice on the green baize of life.
-Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett


God
How can I believe in God when just last week I go my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?
-Woody Allen

If god exists, his motives are certainly unfathomable.
-Avatar, God's Debris by Scott Adams

What sort of arrogance assumes God is like people?
-Avatar, God's Debris by Scott Adams

If there is a supreme being, he’s crazy.
-Marlene Dietrich

Trust in Allah, but tie your camel.
-Arabian Proverb

Why attack God? He may be as miserable as we are.
-Erik Satie

God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of his own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of the other players^*, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.
^* ie. everybody.
-Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Good Omens


Gratitude
I'd thank you if I weren't so evil!
-Charles a.k.a. Brainchild, The Tick: “The Tick vs. Brainchild”

Growing Up
My friends say I should act my age;
What's my age again?
-Blink 182, "What's My Age Again"

When I see the price that you pay,
I don't wanna grow up.
I don't ever wanna be that way,
And I don't wanna grow up.
Seems like folks turn into things
That they never want;
The only thing to live for is today.
-Tom Waits (although the Ramones cover may be more well-known), "I Don't Want to Grow Up"

Well I guess this is growing up.
-Blink 182, "Dammit"

No one should take themselves so seriously.
With many years ahead to fall in line.
Why would you wish that on me?
I never wann act my age.
What's my age again?
Blink 182, "What's My Age Again?"

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H
Heroes, Heroism, Heroics
One murder makes a villain, millions a hero.
-Beilby Porteus

There was a stir when they climbed up into the chilly morning air, followed by a few boos and even some applause. People were strange like that. Steal five dollars and you were a petty thief. Steal thousands of dollars and you were either a government or a hero.
- Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

Honesty
It is annoying to be honest to no purpose.
-Ovid

Humor
Laughter is the very best medicine.
Remember that when your appendix bursts next week.
-Weird Al Yankovic, "Your Horoscope For Today"

Those who are humorless should not be taken seriously. They take themselves so seriously, they leave no room for others to do likewise.
-Anton Szandor LaVey, Satan Speaks!

Only a fool mistakes laughter for humor and fashion for style.
-Anton Szandor LaVey, Satan Speaks!

The Gods too are fond of a joke.
-Aristotle

I suppose if we couldn’t laugh at things that don’t make sense, we couldn’t react to a lot of life.
-Hobbes, The Days Are Just Packed, a Calvin and Hobbes collection by Bill Waterson

For every ten jokes, thou hast got an hundred enemies.
-Laurence Sterne

Wit is educated insolence.
-Aristotle

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I[/b]
Ichthyology
It's my dead fish, and I'll do what I wish.
-Bucky Katt, Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley

Oh I wish I wish I hadn't killed that fish.
-Homer Simpson, The Simpsons

Identity Crises
Dennis Rodman, take off that plaid! We ain't got no green-haired Scotsman where I come from!"
-Roddy Piper (Rodrick Toombs)

Ignorance
The nicest thing about anything is not knowing what it is.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

Not only do I not know what’s going on, I wouldn’t know what to do about it if I did.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

Tell me why
You Want to be blind.
-Everclear, "Normal Like You"

Innovation
I took the first woman-in-a-bathing-suit-with-sand shot back in 1976 or ’77. Until then, everybody was painstakingly brushing every little grain of sand off the models’ bodies. I remember it was one of the biggest jobs when shooting bathing suits; it was almost impossible to get all the sand off. We used to have assistants and editorial assistants with brushes and paper- anything that could be used to take all the sand away. This took forever, but nobody ever thought to leave it there.
-Marco Glaviano, Sirens

Intelligence
The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.
-Goethe

Too clever is dumb.
-German proverb

There are some things only intellectuals are crazy enough to believe.
-George Orwell

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools talk because they have to say something.
-Plato

Insanity
No sane man will dance.
-Cicero

To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.
-Oscar Wilde

Those who dance are considered insane by those who can’t hear the music.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

He’s either going crazy or writing verse.
-Horace, Satirae

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J
Judgment
I worry about my judgment when anything I believe in or do regularly begins to be accepted by the American public.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

Justice
Exemplary people understand matters of justice; small people understand matters of profit.
-Analects of Confucius 1:16 as presented in The Essential Confucius translated by Thomas Cleary

Once you make it past the scales and the blindfold... Justice is a woman with a sword.
-Victoria in Y: The Last Man Book 2: Cycles Written by Brian K. Vaughan

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K
Kindness
I’m starting to get more compassionate. I gotta watch that.
-George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops

Knowledge
The trouble with most of us is that we know too much that ain't so.
-Mark Twain

Everyone is ignorant, only in different subjects.
-Will Rogers

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L
Laughter
On the other hand, I choose to live, and to laugh, not because it matters, but because that choice is the bent of my nature.
-Don Juan, as quoted in A Seperate Reality: Further converstions with Don Juan by Carlos Castenada

While mad laughter was always part of a witch's stock-in-trade in necessary circumstances, this was insane mad laughter, the worst kind.
-Terry Pratchett, Maskerade

The Law
Law is a bottomless pit.
-John Arbuthnot

When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken.
-Benjamin Disraeli

No intelligent man has any respect for an unjust law. Nor does he feel guilt for breaking it.
-Brian Smith in To Sail Beyond The Sunset by Robert A. Heinlein


Life
There is more to life than increasing its speed.
-Mahatma Gandhi

Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
-Samuel Butler

For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life.
-William Blake

People who see life as anything other than pure entertainment are missing the point.
-George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.
-George Santayana

Life is what happens while you are making other plans.
-John Lennon

The trouble with life in the fast lane is that you get to the other end in an awful hurry.
-John Lennon

It is not true that life is one damn thing after another –it is one damn thing over and over.
-Edna St. Vincent Malay

Pointy-Haired Boss: Every employee will wear a button that says "I'm Empowered."
Asok: I don't want to.
Pointy-Haired Boss: You have to.
Wally: That was everything you need to know about life in one package.
-A Dilbert comic strip in When Body Language Goes Bad by Scott Adams

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.
-Marcus Aurelius

Why torture yourself when life will do it for you?
-Laura Walker

Lists
Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.

Four be the things I’d been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.

Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.

Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.
-Dorothy Parker, “Inventory”

Logic
My favorite part was when he yelled, "Stop ruining my slogan's with your logic!"
-Wally quoting the Pointy-Haired Bossed in a Dilbert strip by Scott Adams reprinted in Thriving On Vague Objectives

Love
Love is love’s reward.
-John Dryden

It's all right to tell me
What you think about me.
I won't try to argue
Or hold it against you.
I Know that you're leaving;
You must have your reasons.
-Blink-182, "Dammit"

By the time you swear you’re his,
Shivering and sighing.
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying-
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.
-Dorothy Parker, “Unfortunate Coincidence”

And maybe I'll see you,
At a movie sneak preview;
You'll show up and walk by,
On the arm of that guy,
And I'll smile,
And you'll wave,
And pretend that it's okay.
This charade, it won't last.
-Blink-182, "Dammit"

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M
Management
Nothing is more critical to your happiness than learning to manage your boss. The alternative can be a disaster. If your boss tries to turn the tables and manage you, the next thing you know, you'll be doing moronic things in return for money.
-Scott Adams, The Joy of Work

As far as I can tell every layer of management exists for the sole purpose of warning us about the layer above.
-Alice, a Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams reprinted in The Joy of Work by Scott Adams

A retarded chimpanzee can drink a case of beer and still perform most management functions.
-Scott Adams, Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel

Being a midlevel manager is like being a fisherman, except instead of having an efficient fishing tool, such as a fishing pole or a net or dynamite, you have to talk the fish into surrendering.
-Scott Adams, Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel

Marketing
For example, scholars have long debated why the pyramids are pointy. One theory is that the Pharaoh’s marketing department designed the pyramids in the shape of their own heads.
-The Joy of Work by Scott Adams

Another theory is that the marketing department came up with the name “pyramids,” and everyone agreed that it sounded like something pointy.
-The Joy of Work by Scott Adams

To me, it’s obvious that marketing wasn’t responsible for the shape of the pyramids. In those days, if your only skill was marketing, your contribution to major construction projects was in the capacity of tile grout.
-The Joy of Work by Scott Adams

It took thousands of years before people who had no useful skills realized they could earn money by wearing nice clothes and designing deceptive brochures.
-The Joy of Work by Scott Adams

Mediocrity
Only the mediocre are always at their best.
-Jean Giraudoux

Meetings
Maybe meetings have become a lifeform capable of calling themselves and thus reproducing via human hosts.
-Dilbert in When Body Language Goes Bad, a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams

Dilbert: I just had a good meeting.
Dogbert: Maybe it just didn’t last long enough to reveal the incompetence of the attendees.
Dilbert: That’s what I call a good meeting.
Dogbert: I’m having a bad meeting.
-When Body Language Goes Bad, a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams

Miracles
"Sounds like a miracle to me," croaked Brutha. "Just because you can explain it doesn't mean it's not still a miracle."
-Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

Modern Times
Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.
-Ovid, Born 43 B.C., Died AD 17

O tempora! O mores!
[Translates to: What an age! What moral standards!]
-Cicero, Born 106 B.C., Died 43 B.C.

Oh, this age! How tasteless and ill-bred it is!
-Catullus, Born 84 B.C. Died 54 B.C.

Our ignorance of history makes us libel our own times. People have always been like this.
-Gustave Flaubert, Born December 21, 1821, Died May 8, 1880

Things are more like they are now than they have ever been.
-former President Gerald R. Ford

Everything is still the same. It’s just a little different now.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

Monarchy
The only thing known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle. He reasoned like this: you can't have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously. Presumably, he said, there must be some elementary particles -kingons, or possibly queons- that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if, in mid-flight, they stike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expounded because, at that point, the bar closed.
-Terry Pratchett, Mort

Kings were always killing one another or being killed.
-Terry Pratchett, Mort

Since it was clear that being king was no picnic it was amazing that half the cast were apparently trying to become one.
-Terry Pratchett, Mort

Money
This looks like a job for legal tender.
-The Tick, The Tick: “The Tick vs. Brainchild”

A man can’t get rich if he takes proper care of his family.
-Navajo saying

No one can earn a million dollars honestly.
-William Jennings Bryan

This week I kicked off the "Wally Compensation Equilibrium Project." My goal is to lower the quality of my work until it is consistent with my salary. I'd go on, but I just achieved equilibrium.
-Wally, a Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams reprinted in The Joy of Work by Scott Adams

Monkeys
Pointy-haired Boss: Have you ever seen monkey brains?
Wally: Once, when you flared your nostrils.
When Body Language Goes Bad, a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams

Yorick, your monkey has problems. He tried to have sex with my arm last night!
-Agent 355 in Y The Last Man Book 1: Unmanned, written by Brian K. Vaughn

Motivation
Why do I even bother trying to moralify these people?
Pointy-haired Boss in a Dilbert comic by Scott Adams reprinted in Positive Attiitude

Music
Music is essentially useless, as life is.
-George Santayana

Only sick music makes money today.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

Without music, life would be a mistake.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

White people fucked up the blues.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

Anything too stupid to be spoken is sung.
-Voltaire

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N
Nebraska
Nebraska is proof that Hell is full and the dead walk the earth.
-Liz Winston

Necessity
In order to preserve your self-respect, it is sometimes necessary to lie and cheat.
-Robert Byrne

How can one part be more important if each part is completely necessary?
-Avatar, God’s Debris by Scott Adams

Normality
I don't want to be
Normal like you.
-Everclear, "Normal Like You"

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O
Oddly Prescient
I think the world is run by C students.
-Al McGuire (at least a few years before George W. Bush became president)

Men have become tools of their tools.
-Henry David Thoreau (a good number of years before the computer or the automobile)

Now we are trying to get unemployment to go up and I think we're going to succeed.
-former President Ronald Reagan at a 1982 GOP fundraiser

Originality
Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.
-T. S. Eliot

Good Swiping is an art in itself.
-Jules Feiffer

Outsiders
I’m an outsider by choice, but not truly. It’s the unpleasantness of the system that keeps me out. I’d rather be in, in a good system. That’s where my discontent comes from: being forced to choose to stay outside.
-George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring The Porkchops

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P
Pain
They cannot hurt you unless you let them.
-Everclear, "One Hit Wonder"

Peace
My name is peace
This is my hour
Can I get
Just a little bit of power?
-Red Hot Chili Peppers, "The Power of Equality"

People
I’ve always been interested in people, but I’ve never liked them.
-Somerset Maugham

Most people are not particularly good at anything.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

People who didn't need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn't need people.
-Terry Pratchett, Maskerade

I prefer people with imagination: dictators, serial killers, schizophrenics, assassins, skinheads, druglords, violent bikers, devil worshippers. To me, these are the interesting people.
-George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring The Porkchops

Persistence
We'll keep on fighting until the end.
-Queen, "We Are the Champions"

We'll keep on farting until the end.
-Mondegren of above lyric in 'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy And Other Misheard Lyrics by Gavin Edwards

Perspective
In the eyes of the dragon, Saint George was doubtless a monster. But, as we know, the opinions of that unfortunate creature count for very little given its overwhelming defeat. It is the fate of monsters to be forever on the losing side.
-Sebastian O, Sebastian O by Grant Morrison

Philosophers
Plato was a bore.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal.
-Leo Tolstoy

Plato invented reality.
-an anonymous student quoted in Non Campus Mentis compiled by Professor Anders Henrikson


No madman has ever dreamed up anything so weird that some philosopher will not say it.
-Varro, Fragmenta

Politics
There is no distinctly American criminal class -except congress.
-Mark Twain

Political history is far too criminal of a subject to be a fit thing to teach children.
-W. H. Auden

If politicians and scientists were lazier, how much happier we should all be.
-Evelyn Waugh

Sticking with what they think has never helped political leaders.
-Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares

The word bipartisan usually means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried on.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

Possessions
You tell me that you've got everything you want
And your bird can sing
But you don't get me, you don't get me

You say you've seen seven wonders and your bird is green
But you can't see me, you can't see me

When your prized possessions start to wear you down
Look in my direction, I'll be round, I'll be round

When your bird is broken will it bring you down?
You may be awoken, I'll be round, I'll be round
-The Beatles, "And Your Bird Can Sing

Positive Thinking
If everyone in the world sat quietly at the same time, closed their eyes and concentrated as hard as they could on peace and goodwill, all the killing and cruelty in the world would continue. And probably increase.
-George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?

I have a new philosophy. I'm going to dread one day at a time.
-Charles Schulz

Prayer
Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
-Mark Twain

If God listened to every shepherd's curse, our sheep would all be dead.
-Russian Proverb

God seems to have left the receiver off the hook.
-Arthur Koestler

Probability
Scientists have calculated that the chances of of anything so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one.
But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.
-Terry Pratchett, Mort

Problems
Yes, I think we got a problem.
-Everclear, "So Much For the Afterglow"

The problem is you... problems.
-The Sex Pistols, "Problems"

The problem is you, Rob Lowe.
-Mondegren of above lyric in 'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy And Other Misheard Lyrics by Gavin Edwards

Publishing
And he dreamed the dream of all those who publish books, which was to have so much gold in your pockets that you would have to employ two people just to hold your trousers up.
Terry Pratchett, Maskerade

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Q
Quotes
This isn't much of a quote book if I'm in it.
-Richard Dowd

I really didn't say everything I said.
-Yogi Berra

“What’s the quote from? It’s very meaningful without, er, meaning very much.”
“I think it’s just a quote,” said Sacharissa.
-An exchange between William de Worde and Sacharissa Crisplock in The Truth by Terry Pratchett

It's a sorry man who can not invent an Oscar Wilde quote to fit his situation.
-Oscar Wilde

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R
Race
Red, Black, or White
This is my fight.
-Red Hot Chili Peppers, "The Power of Equality"

Reality
This is indeed a disturbing universe.
-Maggie Simpson, The Simpsons voiced by James Earl Jones

We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
-Thomas Alva Edison

Words such as dimension and field and infinity are nothing more than conveniences for mathematicians and scientists. They are not descriptions of reality, yet we accept them as such because everyone is sure someone else knows what the words mean.
-Avatar, God's Debris by Scott Adams

Every generation of humans believed it had all the answers it needed, except for a few mysteries assumed would be solved at any moment. And they all believed their ancestors were simplistic and deluded. What are the odds that you are the first generation of humans who will understand reality?
-Avatar, God's Debris by Scott Adams

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
-Mark Twain

Reality is a collective hunch.
-Lilly Tomlin and Jane Wagner

Why is it like this? Why isn’t everything different?
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

Reason, Sense, Rationality
I’ll not listen to reason. Reason always means what someone else has to say.
-Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Reasons
"Anyway, that's just an explanation," said Om. "It's not a reason"
-Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

Regret
Calvin: I’d say I’ve had a pretty good life so far. In fact, looking back, I have only one regret.
Hobbes: What’s that?
Calvin: I regret I wasn’t born with opposable toes.
-The Days Are Just Packed, a Calvin and Hobbes collection by Bill Waterson

Religion
Wally: I believe God created the Earth because he hates people. And I believe coffee tastes better if you stir it with your finger.
Dilbert: It sounds like a lonely religion.
Wally: They all start that way.
-Random Acts of Management, a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams

Every day people are staying away from the church and going back to God.
-Lenny Bruce

I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

I've got a welt
From the Bible Belt.
-Red Hot Chili Peppers, "The Power of Equality"

I’m the only member of my religion but I have ambitious plans for brainwashing.
-an anonymous worker in When Body Language Goes Bad, a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams

Judyism was the first monolithic religion. It had one big god named “Yahoo.”
-an anonymous student quoted in Non Campus Mentis compiled by Professor Anders Henrikson

Deism was the belief that God made the world and then stepped on it.
-an anonymous student quoted in Non Campus Mentis compiled by Professor Anders Henrikson


Rules
The Eleventh Commandment: Don't get caught.
- Robert Anson Heinlein

Any fool can make a rule.
-Henry David Thoreau

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S
Sales
If a man smiles all the time he's probably selling something that doesn't work.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

Sarcasm
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.
-Dorothy Parker, “Comment”

Sex
He’d noticed that sex bore some resemblance to cookery. It fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were really hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination- but at the end of the day they’d settle quite happily for eggs and chips, if it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato.
-Commander Vimes’s thoughts on sex and cookery in The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett

Shallowness
Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
-Oscar Wilde

Siege Weaponry
When you have a fat friend, there are no seesaws, only catapults.
-Demetri Martin

Simile
So let's just say that Ankh-Morpork is as full of life as an old cheese on a hot day, as loud as a curse in a cathedral, as bright as an oil slick, as colorful as a bruise and as full of activity, bustle, and sheer exuberant busyness as a dead dog on a termite mound.
-Terry Pratchett, Mort

Brother Preptil, the master of music, had described Brutha's voice as putting him in mind of a disappointed vulture arriving too late at the dead donkey.
-Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

Dogbert: Ratbert, sometimes a good wine has to age before it is perfect.
Ratbert: So… I’ll get smarter over time?
Dogbert: To the extent that you are like a grape.
-A Dilbert strip by Scott Adams reprinted in Positive Attitude

(Outer) Space, Space Travel, The Space Program
My fellow astronauts...
- former Vice President Dan Quayle, whose involvement in the space program was minimal to non-existent

And isn't space the best thing to hurtle through!?!
-Mojo, in "The Dream is Dead- Gone, Shot Off, All Squashed Flat", Beautiful Stories For Ugly Children issue #30, written by Dave Louapre

Urinating on other planets was one of the simple pleasures that made space travel worthwhile.
-"The Dream is Dead- Gone, Shot Off, All Squashed Flat", Beautiful Stories For Ugly Children issue #30, written by Dave Louapre

Souls
I'll swallow your soul.
-Santa, Billy and Mandy Save Christmas

Success
Why does success make me hate humanity?
-Dilbert in a Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams reprinted in the collection titled Thriving On Vague Objectives

Suicide
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
-Dorothy Parker, “Résumé”

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T
Time
Time I had some time alone.
-R.E.M., "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)"

Time I had some Tylenol.
-Mondegren of above lyric in 'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy And Other Misheard Lyrics by Gavin Edwards

Travel
Being here is a lot like being lost, Arthur.
-The Tick, The Tick: “The Tick vs. Brainchild”

"Where did you say your business was?" said Lezek. "Is it far?"
NO FURTHER THAN THE THICKNESS OF A SHADOW, said Death. WHERE THE FIRST PRIMAL CELL WAS, THERE WAS I ALSO. WHERE MAN IS, THERE AM I. WHEN THE LAST LIFE CRAWLS UNDER FREEZING STARS, THERE WILL I BE.
"Ah," said Lezek, "you get about a bit, then."
-Terry Pratchett, Mort

Triumph
This calls for the Billy-was-right-dance.
-Billy, Billy and Mandy Save Christmas

Troubles
Pick your heart up off the ground,
Though I’m sure it weighs a ton.
You’re no better or no worse
Than any mother’s son.
-The Dropkick Murphys, “The Gang’s All Here”

We’re all fucked. It helps to remember that.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

When you don’t have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it’s sex. When you have both, it’s health. If everything is simply jake, then you’re frightened of death.
-J. P. Donleavy

Truth
When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.
-George Bernard Shaw

Calvin: See, the problem with fine art is that it's supposed to express original truths. But who likes originality and truth?! Nobody! Life's hard enough without it! Only an idiot would pay for it! But popular art knows the custmomer is always right! People wnat more of what they already know they like, so popular art gives it to 'em!
Hobbes: And how are the movie sequels this summer?
Calvin: Great! Man, there's nothing I hate more than paying five bucks and having to deal with some new plot.
-A Calvin and Hobbes comic strip in The Days Are Just Packed by Bill Waterson

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U
Unemployment
The trouble with unemployment is that the minute you wake up in the morning you're on the job.
-Slappy White

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V
Virtue
There are no monks in my band
There are no saints in this land
I'll be doing all I can
If I die an honest man.
-Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Funky Monks"

Just below the dome, staring down from their niches were statues of the virutes: Patience, Chastity, Silence, Charity, Hope, Tubso, Bisonomy^*, and Fortitude.
^*Many cultures practice neither of these in the hustle and bustle of the modern world because no one can remember what they are.
-Going Postal, Terry Pratchett

I am repelled by wholesomeness.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

Vortexes, Swirling
I love it when there's a swirling vortex.
-Billy, Billy and Mandy Save Christmas

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W
Weasels
Dilbert: I used to think I might like some people I hadn't met. But now I think they're weasels too.
Dogbert: How about a wide-eyed and innocent child who loves you unconditionally?
Dilbert: Tiny weasels.
- A Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams reprinted in the collection, Words You Don't Want To Hear during Your Annual Performance Review

People are weasels.
-Scott Adams, Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel

Witchcraft, Witches, Witching, etc
A witch never has matching crockery.
-Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

You were there, you had the hat, you did the job. That was a basic rule of witchery: It’s up to you.
-Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

Young women should not go alone on dark nights, even in Oxfordshire. But any prowling maniac would have had more than his work cut out if he had accosted Anathema Device. She was a witch, after all. And precisley because she was a witch, and therefore sensible, she put little faith in protective amulets ands spells; she saved it all for a foot-long bread knife which she kept in her belt.
-Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Good Omens

Women, Females, Girls, Ladies
Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.
-Groucho Marx

Words
When ideas fail, words come in handy.
-Goethe

I think we've outgrown the word gripe. When everyone has automatic weapons, a word like gripe is sort of irrelevant.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

There should be some things we don't name, just so we can sit around all day and wonder what they are.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

Work
Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart give yourself to it.
-Buddha

Working-class people “look for work.” Middle-class people “try to get a job.” Upper-middle-class people “seek employment.”
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

We’re all amateurs; it’s just that some of us are more professional about it than others.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings

And it all meant this: that there are hardly an excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot be easily duplicated by a normal, kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.
-Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

I'd rather staple a skunk to my forehead and go to a tradeshow for banjo makers. And yet, it's still better than working, so count me in.
-Carol, the secretary, in a Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams reprinted in the collection, When Body Language Goes Bad

Always be smarter than the people who hire you.
-Lena Horne

The World
The world is a madhouse, so it's only right that it is patrolled by armed idiots.
-Brendan Behan

The world is our school for spiritual discovery.
-Paul Brunton

We’re a planet of nearly six billion ninnies living in a civilization that was designed by a few thousand amazingly smart deviants.
-Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle

You have the vanity to believe you live in two worlds, but that is only your vanity. There is but one single world for us. We are men, and must follow the world of men contentedly.
-Don Juan, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castenada

He's got the whole world in his hands.
-Traditional, "He's Got The Whole World in His Hands"

He's got the whole world in his pants.
-Mondegren of above lyric in He's Got The Whole World in His Pants And More Misheard Lyrics by Gavin Edwards

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X
Xenophobia
The metric system is the tool of the devil!
-Abraham J Simpson, The Simpsons

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Y
Yaks
Our yaks are really large
And they smell like rotting beef carcasses...
And we have to clean up after them.
"Kilted Yaksmen Anthem" from the album Ren & Stimpy You Eediot, lyrics by John Kricfalusi & Bob Camp, music by Charlie Brissette, sung by Billy West, Bob Camp, Charlie Brissette, and members of the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles

I have to piss like a yak.
-Mojo in "The Dream is Dead- Gone, Shot Off, All Squashed Flat", Beautiful Stories For Ugly Children issue #30, written by Dave Louapre

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Z
Zen
Wally: I take the Zen approach of having no friends and doing no work. Hence, perfect balance.
Dilbert: Where did you get that definition of Zen?
Wally: I used to read, but it's faster to make up stuff.
-A Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams rerpinted in the collection titled Thriving On Vague Objectives

Zoos
Did you know that the zoo can ban you for life if they catch you using a hibachi?
-Pointy-haired Boss, Random Acts of Management a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams

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Endings
If you have something of importance to say, for God's Sake start at the end.
-Sarah Jeanette Duncan

Give me a good ending any time. You know where you are with an ending.
-Atropos, The Sandman The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman

And now my story is ended.
I think it is time I should quit.
If any of you feel offended,
Stick your head in a barrel
Of sh...aving cream.
-Benny Bell, "Shaving Cream"

In the end, everything is a gag.
-Charlie Chaplin

In the end, only kindness matters.
-Jewel, "Hands"