Inst Quotes & Sayings

Packed with fascinating personal perspective and testimony, Michael Takiffs A Complicated Man wholly justifies its title. The book is far more than a kaleidoscopic oral biography of President Bill Clinton. Aspect by aspect, it guides us through the struggles of postmodern America, as the most ambitious baby boomer of his generation seeks to modernize the Democratic Party-and, as in a Greek drama, is fated to be destroyed. Veritably, an all-American saga, with a cast of thousands-favorable and unfavorable. — Nigel Hamilton

My name," he said, "is Slartibartfast." Arthur — Douglas Adams

[Naaman] dipped himself," it says, "seven times in Jordan." It was not for nothing that Naaman of old, when suffering from leprosy, was purified upon his being baptized, but as an indication to us. For as we are lepers in sin, we are made clean by means of the sacred water and the invocation of the Lord from our old transgressions, being spiritually regenerated as new-born babes, even as the Lord has declared: "Except a man be born again through water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. — Irenaeus Of Lyons

It's really clear to me that you can't hang onto something longer than its time. Ideas lose certain freshness, ideas have a shelf life, and sometimes they have to be replaced by other ideas. — Alan Alda

You long to be seen and approached and understood and to get into mischief, to stir everything up and see if it won't boil over and if God won't come down and grab you by the hair. Well, there is no God. You might as well be God. — Anne Rice

I give interracial couples a look. Daggers. They get uncomfortable when they see me on the street. — Spike Lee

When language is used without true significance, it loses its purpose as a means of communication and becomes an end in itself. — Karl Jaspers

Between 2 and 3 in the morning of the 19th inst. I was aroused by the cry that the enemy was upon us. — Richard Francis Burton

The most sure method of subjecting yourself to be deceived is to consider yourself more cunning than others. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Diluting the money supply with paper is the moral equivalent of diluting the milk supply with water. — Henry Hazlitt

I have been battering away at Saturn, returning to the charge every now and then. I have effected several breaches in the solid ring, and now I am splash into the fluid one, amid a clash of symbols truly astounding. When I reappear it will be in the dusky ring, which is something like the state of the air supposing the siege of Sebastopol conducted from a forest of guns 100 miles one way, and 30,000 miles the other, and the shot never to stop, but go spinning away round a circle, radius 170,000 miles. — James Clerk Maxwell

If you take Darwin's theory and extend it to its logical end, it can be used to justify a number of very horrendous things. — Kirk Cameron

Abandonment of slavery is also the banishment of the chimera of security. The world will not change overnight, and liberation will not happen unless individual women agree to be outcasts, eccentrics, perverts, and whatever the powers-that-be choose to call them. — Germaine Greer

It seemed to him there was never much time with women. Before you could look at one twice, you were into an argument, and they were telling you what was going to happen. — Larry McMurtry

How necessary it is to cultivate a spirit of joy. It is a psychological truth that the physical acts of reverence and devotion make one feel devout. The courteous gesture increases one's respect for others. To act lovingly is to begin to feel loving, and certainly to act joyfully brings joy to others which in turn makes one feel joyful. I believe we are called to the duty of delight. — Dorothy Day

Son, it ain't that flag we've got a gredge ag'inst, it's the fellers that air bidin' under her now. They're our middlin'-meat, or will be when the fusees start poppin'. But that flag's all hunky-dory. Come to that, she's ez much our'n ez she is ther'n. She's fell into bad company for the time bein', that's all. And it ain't her fault, ez I can see it and ez all here sees it. So let her flaunt! — Irvin S. Cobb