Favourite quotations

[Cyril Haearn]

Another unattributed political quote there's no evidence for - it's also attributed to a range of other people.

I suppose it is like all those which are wrongly attributed to Churchill or Oscar Wilde. They are widely thought to be the sort of quip they would make.

One cannae prove that someone did NOT say/write something, right?
I sometimes think Mark Twain wrote enough clever things for a whole language
..
Any orphaned quotes may be attributed to me

[Mike Sales]

To an interviewer,
"It's hard being black. You ever been black? I was black once, when I was poor."

[kylecycler]

Found this on Jan Heine's 'Off the Beaten Path' blog:

“You don’t want to give people what they want. Give them something they didn’t know that they wanted.”

Ruth Reichl, former editor of Gourmet.

[Ray]

I've just bought a bike from Rose Bikes of Germany. The documents, instructions etc came in a zip case, on the back of which was printed:

"ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BIKE SIDE OF LIFE".

OK, it's marketing, and maybe not entirely original, but it did make me smile. I've always been struck by the English on the Rose website, and their excellent response to queries (in English). To be able to play with words in another language is quite impressive. And if they're Python fans, I'm even more impressed. Oh, and the bike's excellent!

[Carpediem]

“Life is what happens to you while your busy making other plans “
Is a thoughtful line from John Lennons’ great song Beautiful Boy.
Not sure he didn’t steal the line from somebody else or not.
Can anybody shed any light.

[Ben@Forest]

Found this on Jan Heine's 'Off the Beaten Path' blog:

“You don’t want to give people what they want. Give them something they didn’t know that they wanted..

Henry Ford reputedly said, 'If I'd asked people what they wanted they'd have said a faster horse.' Though there's no evidence he did say that, it's a good line.

[andrec]

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule."

H L Mencken.

[colin54]

“Life is what happens to you while your busy making other plans “
Is a thoughtful line from John Lennons’ great song Beautiful Boy.
Not sure he didn’t steal the line from somebody else or not.
Can anybody shed any light.

Allen Saunders in a 1957 Readers Digest article according to this ,if correct...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Saunders
It could be right, the Readers Digest was popular here in the '50's and 60's wasn't it ?

[Audax67]

Peter Watts' novel Firefall (omnibus of Blindsight and Echopraxia) is a wonderful source of pithy quotations, e.g.:

All animals are under stringent selection pressure to be as stupid as they can get away with - Pete Richardson & Robert Boyd

To concentrate on Heaven is to create Hell - Tom Robbins (another of my favourite authors)

Why should Man expect his prayer of mercy to be heard when he shows no mercy to what is under him? - Pierre Troubetzkoy

Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness as created them - everybody's favourite Albert

When profit and utility are in the balance, peace and beauty haven't got a prayer - August Backhammer.

(OK, I cheated with the last one.)

[Spinners]

"There's no press here," said Boris.