Library Update: quotes archive
The Library Update is emailed each week to subscribers. Each issue contains an interesting or humourous quote. All the quotes used since 2000 are listed here. Subscribe to the Library Update.
Quotes 2002
- no.50
- What I don't like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day. - Phyllis Diller
- no.49
- Compassion is the basis of morality. - Arnold Schopenhauer, philosopher (1788-1860)
- no.48
- Without darkness there are no dreams. - Karla Kuban, novelist.
- no.47
- We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like? - Jean Cocteau, author and painter (1889-1963)
- no.46
- All the world is a laboratory to the inquiring mind. - Martin H. Fischer (1879-1962)
- no.45
- There was never a genius without a tincture of madness. - Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)
- no.44
- My library, Was dukedom large enough. - William Shakespeare, poet and dramatist (1564-1616)
- no.43
- They are subversive. You think they're just sitting there at the desk, all quiet and everything. They're like plotting the revolution. I wouldn't mess with them. - Michael Moore talking about librarians.
- no.42
- There are two kinds of fool. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." - John Brunner, science fiction writer (1934-1995)
- no.41
- A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return. - Salman Rushdie, writer (1947- )
- no.40
- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of discussion. - Plato, philosopher (427-347 BCE)
- no.39
- none
- no.38
- I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library. - Jorge Luis Borges, writer (1899-1986)
- no.37
- "Nothing contributes so much to tranquilizing the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye." - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, author (1797-1851)
- no.36
- Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation. - Henry Ward Beecher, preacher and writer (1813-1887)
- no.35
- The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things. - Plato, philosopher (427-347 BCE)
- no.34
- Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned. - Buddha (c. 566-480 BCE)
- no.33
- Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. - Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
- no.32
- To be well informed, one must read quickly a great number of merely instructive books. To be cultivated, one must read slowly and with a lingering appreciation the comparatively few books that have been written by men who lived, thought, and felt with style. - Aldous Huxley, writer (1894-1963)
- no.31
- Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have had years and years of training can, using only their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in the history of the world." - Dave Barry, columnist.
- no.30
- I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers. - A Bit of Fry and Laurie.
- no.28
- Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. - Thomas Edison, inventor (1847-1931)
- no.27
- Worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due. - William R. Inge, clergyman, scholar, and author (1860-1954)
- no.26
- TV is chewing gum for the eyes. - Frank Lloyd Wright, architect (1867-1959)
- no.25
- A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. - Greek proverb
- no.24
- If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it? - Albert Einstein
- no.23
- ...and if you take cranberries and stew them like apple sauce, it tastes much more like prunes than rhubarb does. - Grouch Marx
- no.22
- It's not the strongest species that survive, not the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change. - Charles Darwin
- no.21
- What is art? Nature concentrated. - Honore de Balzac, novelist (1799-1850)
- no.20
- The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases." - Carl Gustav Jung, psychiatrist and psychologist (1875-1961)
- no.19
- Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company. - George Gordon Byron, poet (1788-1824)
- no.18
- Remember when life's path is steep to keep your mind even. - Horace, poet and satirist (65-8 BCE)
- no.17
- Not all those that wander are lost. - J.R.R. Tolkien, novelist and philologist (1892-1973)
- no.16
- Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance. - Confucius, philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)
- no.15
- An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)
- no.14
- The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists. - Japanese proverb
- no.13
- Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
- no.12
- So many gods, so many creeds, So many paths that wind and wind, While just the art of being kind is all the sad world needs. - Ella Wheeler Wilcox, poet (1850-1919)
- no.11
- The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears. - John Vance Cheney, poet (1848-1922)
- no.10
- I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers. - Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet and artist (1883-1931)
- no.9
- Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe. - Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)
- no.8
- Until it is kindled by a spirit as flamingly alive as the one which gave it birth a book is dead to us. Words divested of their magic are but dead hieroglyphs. - Henry Miller, novelist (1891-1980)
- no.7
- Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it. - Mark Twain, author and humourist (1835-1910)
- no.6
- In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. - Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, and musician (1875-1965)
- no.5
- What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness? - Jean Jacques Rousseau, philosopher and author (1712-1778)
- no.4
- Every man is a damned fool for at least five minutes every day. Wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit. - Elbert Hubbard, author, editor, printer (1856-1915)
- no.3
- A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book. - Irish proverb
- no.2
- Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves. - James Matthew Barrie, author (1860-1937)
- no.1
- To understand your parents' love, bear your own children. - Chinese proverb