Jo > Jo's Quotes

“Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.”
― Mark Twain

“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“A person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was getting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn't ever going to grow dim or doubtful.”
― Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Abroad

“There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.”
― Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson

“Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.”
― Mark Twain

“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”
― Mark Twain, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World

“Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.”
― Mark Twain

“Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.”
― Mark Twain

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“My tastes are simple: I am easily satisfied with the best.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“If you are going through hell, keep going.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
― Winston Churchill

“Never, never, never give in!”
― Winston S. Churchill

“A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”
― Winston Churchhill

“It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
― Winston Churchill, Never Give In! The Best of Winston Churchill's Speeches

“Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.”
― Winston Churchill

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“If you cannot read all your books...fondle them---peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them, at any rate, be your acquaintances.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“The price of greatness is responsibility.”
― Winston Churchill

“Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”
― Winston Churchill, The River War