"This is the most important thing I will ever say to you. The human mind is the ultimate testing device. You can take all the notes you want on the technical data, anything you forget you can look up again, but this must be engraved on your hearts in letters of fire. There is nothing, nothing, nothing, more important to me in the men and women I train then their absolute personal integrity. Whether you function as welders or inspectors, the laws of physics are implacable lie detectors. You may fool men. You will never fool metal. That’s all."
— Lois McMaster Bujold (Falling Free)

"I divide my officers into four classes as follows: the clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can be made under certain circumstances of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite nerve and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous."
— Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord

"In July, 1950, one news commentator rather plaintively remarked that warfare had not changed so much, after all. For some reason, ground troops still seemed to be necessary, in spite of the atom bomb. And oddly and unfortunately, to this gentleman, man still seemed to be an important ingredient in battle. Troops were still getting killed, in pain and fury and dust and filth. What happened to the widely-heralded pushbutton warfare where skilled, immaculate technicians who never suffered the misery and ignominy of basic training blew each other to kingdom come like gentlemen?
In this unconsciously plaintive cry lies the buried a great deal of the truth why the United States was almost defeated.
Nothing had happened to pushbutton warfare; its emergence was at hand. Horrible weapons that could destroy every city on Earth were at hand—at too many hands. But, pushbutton warfare meant Armageddon, and Armageddon, hopefully, will never be an end of national policy.
Americans in 1950 rediscovered something that since Hiroshima they had forgotten: you may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life—but if you desire to defend it, protect it and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men in the mud. "
— T.R. Fehrenbach

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
— Theodore Roosevelt

"REAL WORLD:
6 Steps to Planning:

1. Euphoria
2. Disillusionment
3. Confusion
4. Find the Guilty
5. Condemn the Innocent
6. Distinguish the Uninvolved"
— --Armed Forces Staff College Pub 1, Joint Staff Officers’ Guide, 1st Ed, app IV-I

"Whenever all men are...hastening to be slaves or tyrants we make Liberalism the prime bogey. "
— --C.S Lewis, Screwtape Letter #25

"Sure, we'll have fascism in America, but it'll come disguised as one-hundred-percent Americanism."
— --Sen. Huey P. (The Kingfish) Long (1893-1935)

"Once I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: "No good in a bed, but fine up against a wall."
— Eleanor Roosevelt

"The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species. I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries."
— Carl Sagan (Cosmos)

"I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library. For an impoverished child whose family could not afford to buy books, the library was the open door to wonder and achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I had the wit to charge through that door and make the most of it. Now, when I read constantly about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that the door is closing and that American society has found one more way to destroy itself."
— Isaac Asimov (I, Asimov: A Memoir)

"I know now why men who have been to war yearn to reunite. Not to tell stories or to look at old pictures. Not to laugh or weep on one another's knee. Comrades gather because they long to be with men who once acted their best."
— --Michael Norman in These Good Men: Friendships Forged in War

"Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc.

(We gladly feast on those who would subdue us.)

"
— --motto of the Addams Family, in The Addams Family (1991)

"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived."
— George S. Patton Jr.

"The real issues I don't think most people touch. The Clinton jokes are all about Monica Lewinsky and all that stuff and not about the important things, like the fact that he wouldn't ban landmines...I'm not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirize George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporize them. And that's not funny....OK, well, if I say that, I might get a shock laugh, but it's not really satire."
— --Tom Lehrer, interview in the Sydney Morning Herald, 28 Feb 03

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible."
— T. E. Lawrence (Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph)

"Never let 'em see you ache. That's what Mr. Mayer used to say. Or was it ass? Never let 'em see your ass."
— --Doris Mann in Postcards from the Edge, novel and screenplay by Carrie Fisher

"When I went to college, I lived on campus, and the guys I hung out with made the characters in Revenge of the Nerds look like the Rat Pack in 1962. I, myself made that kid Booger look like Remington Steele."
— --Dennis Miller in I Rant, Therefore I Am

"On one side you have book burners, Congressional wives and Pat Robertson. On the other side, you have vulgar comedians, foul-mouthed rap groups and Dennis Hopper—all your choices should be so easy."
— --Sandra Bernhard

"I don't judge others. I say, if you feel good with what you're doing, let your freak flag fly."
— Sarah Jessica Parker

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."
— Albert Einstein

"The question is: can you do anything with crap? Obviously, the answer is yes--we’re in our fourteenth season."
— --Red Green

"Every generation has the obligation to free men's minds for a look at new worlds...to look out from a higher plateau than the last generation. "
— --astronaut Lt Col Ellison S. Onizuka

"Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.
But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants "just a few minutes of your time, please—this won't take long." Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time—and squawk for more!
So learn to say No—and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.
(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because it is "expected" of you.)"
— Robert A. Heinlein (Time Enough for Love)

"Ken, we had a deal. I defeat the invasions from outer space, you get the buses running on time."
— --The 8th Doctor to London Mayor Ken Livingstone, in The Tomorrow Windows, by Jonathon Morris

"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people."
— Eleanor Roosevelt

"Unfortunately, a superabundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares"
— --Sir Peter Ustinov, CBE

"I was particularly stunned by the casting of [Tom] Cruise, who is no more my Vampire Lestat than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler. "
— Anne Rice

"I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies in a fight. But my friends, my goddamned friends, they're the ones who keep me walking the floor at nights! "
— Warren G. Harding

" I’ve…seen things…you people…wouldn’t believe…attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion…I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate…all those…moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain…time to die..."
— --Roy Batty in Blade Runner, screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples

"Adam Maitland: What are your qualifications?
Betelgeuse [suddenly calm, speaking in a very cultured voice]: Ah. Well...I attended Juilliard...I'm a graduate of the Harvard business school. I travel quite extensively. I lived through the Black Plague [façade starts to slip] and had a pretty good time during that. I've seen The EXORCIST ABOUT A HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN TIMES, AND IT KEEPS GETTING FUNNIER EVERY –SINGLE--TIME I SEE IT!--NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT YOU'RE TALKING TO A DEAD GUY! NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK? You think I'm qualified?
"
— --from Beetlejuice, screenplay by Tim Burton, Michael McDowell, Larry Wilson and Michael Skaaren

"Son, murder is wrong. Killing people is unfortunately sometimes necessary. Learn the difference, and if you’re not comfortable with it, find a new line of work."
— --Aramis 307, passing wisdom to a rookie member of the force

"…I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind...

to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein (1929)"
— Albert Einstein

"Speech on the Internet can be unfiltered, unpolished, and unconventional, even emotionally charged, sexually explicit, and vulgar- in a word, 'indecent,' in many communities. But we should expect such speech to occur in a medium in which citizens from all walks of life have a voice. We should also protect the autonomy that such a medium confers to ordinary people as well as media magnates."
— --District Judge Stewart Dalzell, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of PA, in ACLU vs. Re

"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells."
— Dr. Seuss

"You can call me a fat, balding, talentless old queen who can't sing—but you can't tell lies about me"
— --Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE

"I know that my early life was at one and the same time so common as to be unremarkable, and so strange as to be the stuff of fiction. I know of course that this is how all human lives are, but that it is only given to a few of us to luxuriate in the bath of self-revelation, self-curiosity, apology, revenge, bafflement, vanity and egoism that goes under the name Autobiography. You have seen me at my washpot scrubbing at the grime of years: to wallow in a washpot may not be the same thing as to be purified and cleansed, but I have come away from this very draining, highly bewildering and passionately intense few months feeling slightly less dirty. Less dirty about the first twenty years of my life, at least. The second twenty, now that is another story. "
— --Stephen Fry, in Moab is My Washpot (1997)

"In some situations I was difficult, in odd moments impossible, in rare moments loathsome, but at my best unapproachably great."
— Oscar Levant

"In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation."
— --Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1988)

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
— George Orwell

"…Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I don't know what will go first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity. We're more popular than Jesus now. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me. …"
— John Lennon

"“Oh, bother!,” said Pooh, as Piglet came back from the dead."
— David Weber

"There's no good reason to change a Neil Simon line. The day that I'm funnier than Neil Simon, Hell will be a very chilly place."
— Jason Alexander