Rotarian Quotes & Sayings

People often tell me I could be a great man. I'd rather be a good man. — John F. Kennedy Jr.

In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you. — Mortimer J. Adler

He talked to her as people commonly do talk in society - all sorts of nonsense, but nonsense to which he could not help attaching a special meaning in her case. — Leo Tolstoy

At first there would be an American cast to the congress, almost Rotarian in its forms and ceremonies, then the closer-knit European vitality would fight through, and finally the Americans would play their trump card, the announcement of colossal gifts and endowments, of great new plants and training schools, and in the presence of the figures the Europeans would blanch and walk timidly. — F Scott Fitzgerald

If we really want to love, if we really want to live, we must love until it hurts ... No Rotarian whose motto is Service Above Self, I think, should call himself a Rotarian if he does not make time to serve ... If we love, we begin to serve — Mother Teresa

Whether or not patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, national security can be the last refuge of the tyrant. — Robert Walker, Baron Walker Of Gestingthorpe

No other sporting event can compare with a good Series. The Super Bowl is a three-hour interruption in a week of drink and Rotarian parties. — Roger Kahn

In Oakland, he saw two slum children sword fighting on a slag heap. In Palo Alto, a puffy fop in bursting jodhpurs shouted from the door of a luxurious stable, "My horse is soiled!" While one chilly evening in Union Square he listened to a wild-eyed young woman declaim that she had seen delicate grandmothers raped by Kiwanis zombies, that she had seen Rotarian blackguards bludgeoning Easter bunnies in a coal cellar, that she had seen Irving Berlin buying an Orange Julius in Queens. — Thomas McGuane

To want a job that exercises a man's capacities in an enterprise useful to society, is utopian anarcho-syndicalism; it is labor invading the domain of management. No labor leader has entertained such a thought in our generation. Management has the "sole prerogative" to determine the products. — Paul Goodman

The first Rotarian was the first man to call John the Baptist Jack. — H.L. Mencken

Whatever the reason, American Muslims appear far less inclined to support the global jihad than their European counterparts. — Timothy Noah

The silence accentuates the beauty of him. The beauty of this first boy of theirs. — Melina Marchetta

When I was in pre-production for Trees Lounge, I was hearing the cinematographer talking with the production designer about colours and this and that, and feeling like I was losing control. — Steve Buscemi

Serena has spent her life fighting fiction the way good soldiers fight - intent on detecting its presence, harassing it, suppressing it - but I have to find a way to show her she's mistaken her enemy, to explain to her that whoever suppresses fiction destroys life, and that everything disappears with it, all love, all desire. If the past is an invention, it's not such a big deal. After all, the future's an invention, and no one finds that hard to accept. — Enrique De Heriz

Saying 'I'm sorry' is saying 'I love you' with a wounded heart in one hand and your smothered pride in the other. — Richelle E. Goodrich

I don't care about probabilities. If something were one-in-a-million, I would wonder if the one had found me. It's the uncertainty that's torture. — Jackie Lea Sommers