# Pithy quotes **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 26, 2006, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149 "2006-09-26T00:21:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149/41 "2006-09-27T02:29:23Z")
“No man is a hero to his valet.” “If I had to choose between betraying my friend and betraying my country, I hope that I would have the courage to betray my country.” ---
**Author:** ![Balduran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cc9497/32.png) [@Balduran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balduran)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149/42 "2006-09-27T03:07:07Z")
“So make like siamese twins and split [pause] then one of you die.” Peter Griffin, Family Guy, telling somebody to get lost. ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149/43 "2006-09-27T03:41:48Z")
With all due respect, I must argue again for the quote I gave. It is such a wonderful example of a rule widely considered compelling, which has yet gone wrong. Please reconsider. Thanks, jsh ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149/44 "2006-09-27T06:01:38Z")
[QUOTE=Voltaire] Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. [/QUOTE] Pithy and all too apropos these days. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149/45 "2006-09-27T06:14:20Z")
The _cost_ of living keeps going up and the _chance_ of living keeps going down. **Flip Wilson** ---
**Author:** ![scott62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@scott62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scott62)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149/46 "2006-09-27T12:10:15Z")
I can’t remember who said this to me but I found it funny at the time: “A Freudian slip is where you say one thing and mean your mother” ---
**Author:** ![grimpixie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecb155/32.png) [@grimpixie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grimpixie)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149/47 "2006-09-27T12:35:13Z")
“The most beautiful sound in the world is that of children playing out of earshot” **Cornelius De Jager** ---
**Author:** ![Butterscotch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dc4da7/32.png) [@Butterscotch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Butterscotch)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149/48 "2006-09-27T12:42:42Z")
These are all from Terry Pratchett, he’s a wiz! > [@](#): > > “And therefore education at the University mostly worked by the age-old method of putting a lot of young people in the vicinity of a lot of books and hoping that something would pass from one to the other, while the actual young people put themselves in the vicinity of inns and taverns for exactly the same reason.” > [@](#): > > It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It’s called living. > [@](#): > > He moved in a way that suggested he was attempting the world speed record for the nonchalant walk. > [@](#): > > They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it’s not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. > [@](#): > > Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up. > [@](#): > > The little flickering part of his brain that was still sparking coherent thought through the fog of mind-numbing terror that filled Colon’s head was telling him that he was so far out of his depth that the fish had lights on their noses. ---
**Author:** ![Jayrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Jayrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayrot)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149/49 "2006-09-27T17:27:21Z")
“The world is my country, science is my religion.” –Christiaan Huygens ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149/50 "2006-09-27T17:38:25Z")
[QUOTE=scott62] I can’t remember who said this to me but I found it funny at the time: “A Freudian slip is where you say one thing and mean your mother” [/QUOTE] Cliff Claven on _Cheers_. “I’m not afraid of dying. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” Woody Allen Reporter: “What do you think of Western civilization?” Mohandas Gandhi: “I think it would be a good idea.” ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149/51 "2006-09-27T18:23:52Z")
“We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead. nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson “I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” - James Madison “It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.” - James Madison “A page of history is worth a volume of logic.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. “The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions.” - James Russell Lowell “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” - John F. Kennedy “No matter how cynical I get, it’s impossible to keep up.” - Lily Tomlin ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149/52 "2006-09-27T18:34:00Z")
[QUOTE=Beadalin] I loves me some Just So Stories, by Rudyard Kipling. \*: [/QUOTE] A lot of Kipling’s prose sticks in my head like a pithy quote, even if it’s just dialogue between characters. This one, by Bagheera to Mowgli, in particular: “I was born among men, and it was among men that my mother died—in the cages of the king’s palace at Oodeypore. It was because of this that I paid the price for thee at the Council when thou wast a little naked cub. Yes, I too was born among men. I had never seen the jungle. They fed me behind bars from an iron pan till one night I felt that I was Bagheera—the Panther—and no man’s plaything, and I broke the silly lock with one blow of my paw and came away.” Maybe the reason a piece of writing like this is so memorable is because his prose reads like poetry and has a distinct, brain-lodging rhythm. ---
**Author:** ![kelly5078](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/6f9a4e/32.png) [@kelly5078](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kelly5078)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149/53 "2006-09-27T22:39:20Z")
Kind of like the Terry Pratchett quote above, but less priggish: > [@John Lennon](#): > > Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149/54 "2006-09-28T00:06:19Z")
“It is better to copulate than never.” – Lazarus Long ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149/55 "2006-09-28T00:07:25Z")
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” – H.L. Mencken ---
**Author:** ![Rhiannon8404](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhiannon8404/32/17929_2.png) [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149/56 "2006-09-28T00:17:00Z")
“A man is never so tall as when he stoops to help a child.” ~ Abraham Lincoln Wonderful quote and nice example of paradox. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149/57 "2006-09-28T00:25:34Z")
“An ignorant person is one who doesn’t know what you have just found out.” “The best way out of a difficulty is through it.” – Will Rogers ---
**Author:** ![Sonia\_Montdore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Sonia\_Montdore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sonia_Montdore)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149/58 "2006-09-28T01:45:50Z")
[QUOTE=js\_africanus] “This is the sort of English up with which I cannot put.” —Winston Churchill [/QUOTE] IIRC, what Churchill said was, “That is is the sort of arrant pedantry up with which I shall not put.” ---
**Author:** ![Sonia\_Montdore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Sonia\_Montdore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sonia_Montdore)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149/59 "2006-09-28T01:46:55Z")
“Beware of enterprises that require new clothing” - Henry David Thoreau. ---
**Author:** ![Nic2004](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@Nic2004](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nic2004)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149/60 "2006-09-28T01:49:48Z")
_I do, I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, and was in no way fair comment, and was motivated purely by malice, and I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you, or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future._ Archie Leach (John Cleese) **A Fish Called Wanda** [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-quotes/374149.md?page=4)