Scribners Magazine Quotes & Sayings

They said it couldn't be done, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way. — Casey Stengel

When simplicity of character and the sovereignty of ideas is broken up by the prevalence of secondary desires, the desire of riches, of pleasure, of power, and of praise, - and duplicity and falsehood take place of simplicity and truth, the power over nature as an interpreter of the will, is in a degree lost; new imagery ceases to be created, and old words are perverted to stand for things which are not; a paper currency is employed, when there is no bullion in the vaults. In — Ralph Waldo Emerson

[There] are cases where there is no dishonesty involved but where people are tricked into false results by a lack of understanding about what human beings can do to themselves in the way of being led astray by subjective effects, wishful thinking or threshold interactions. These are examples of pathological science. These are things that attracted a great deal of attention. Usually hundreds of papers have been published upon them. Sometimes they have lasted for fifteen or twenty years and then they gradually die away. — Irving Langmuir

To possess your soul in patience, with all the skin and some of the flesh burnt off your face and hands, is a job for a boy compared with the pains of a man who has lived pretty long in the exhilarating world that drugs or strong waters seem to create and is trying to live now in the first bald desolation created by knocking them off. — Charles Edward Montague

When a peasant has a baby girl, the family puts up a vegetable every year and gives the jars to her when she's married. This — Mark Kurlansky

Do not ever fear your enemies, who attack you relentlessly,
But do ever be afraid of the friends who flatter you habitually.
[231] - 4 (Thoughts) — Munindra Misra

If you have the power to hit people over the head whenever you want, you don't have to trouble yourself too much figuring out what they think is going on, and therefore, generally speaking, you don't. Hence the sure-fire way to simplify social arrangements, to ignore the incredibly complex play of perspectives, passions, insights, desires, and mutual understandings that human life is really made of, is to make a rule and threaten to attack anyone who breaks it. This is why violence has always been the favored recourse of the stupid: it is the one form of stupidity to which it is almost impossible to come up with an intelligent response. It is also of course the basis of the state. — David Graeber

I could be stranded in any town in the United States with ten cents and within an hour make $20 with the shell game. — W.C. Fields

I'm not buried in that plot, Karoline. Some woman claiming to be me from the future is."
"Why do they call it a plot, anyway?"
"Because this is how every story ends. — Brian K. Vaughan

Flattery is all right so long as you don't inhale. — Adlai E. Stevenson

There is only one ingredient for innovation and that is the power of the human mind. As long as a company is able to attract, enable, empower and retain the best of the brightest, it will have a play. As long as the leadership of companies ensure that the physically and mentally tired mind that leaves office at whatever 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm or 9:00 pm comes back mentally and physically reenergised and enthusiastic to add significant value to the customer next morning, the job is done. — N. R. Narayana Murthy

[We] administered testosterone to men; instead of sharing money, they become selfish. Interestingly, high testosterone males are also more likely to use their own money to punish others for being selfish. — Paul J. Zak

We must have the time to create strict rules so that property is not sold by Communist managers for a low price. They often get payments under the table to sell to the first bidder. This does not build public support for a market economy. — Vaclav Klaus