“The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys. “
Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office, 1876

Once the game is over, the King and the pawn go back in the same box.
Italian Proverb

He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it – namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain.
Mark Twain (1835 – 1910), “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”, Chapter 2

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.
Gustave Flaubert (1821 – 1880)

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
Jerome K. Jerome (1859 – 1927)

Artificial Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
Unknown

Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
Flannery O’Connor (1925 – 1964)

Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.
Ronald Reagan (1911 – 2004)

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950)

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900 – 1944)

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
H. L. Mencken (1880 – 1956)

A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece.
Ludwig Erhard (1897 – 1977)

The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
Voltaire (1694 – 1778)

A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool.
Joseph Roux

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.
Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973)

People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news.
A. J. Liebling (1904 – 1963)

Saying what we think gives us a wider conversational range than saying what we know.
Cullen Hightower