Sir Richard Quotes & Sayings

My main reason for scepticism about the Huxley/Sagan theory is that the human brain is demonstrably eager to see faces in random patterns, as we know from scientific evidence, on top of the numerous legends about faces of Jesus, or the Virgin Mary, or Mother Teresa, being seen on slices of toast, or pizzas, or patches of damp on a wall. This eagerness is enhanced if the pattern departs from randomness in the specific direction of being symmetrical. — Richard Dawkins

The theory of the determination of wages in a free market is simply a special case of the general theory of value. Wages are the price of labour. — Sir John Richard Hicks

Maybe she was a wallflower. There was no shame in that. Especially not if one enjoyed being a wallflower. — Julia Quinn

The deal is this. You be the hero. Come down here. Unarmed. Come inside with your hands on your head. I'll let everybody go. Then I'll blow your fucking head off. Sir. How's that for a deal? You buy it? — Richard Bachman

The best of all monopoly profits is a quiet life. — Sir John Richard Hicks

I hope you like Guiness, Sir. I find it a refreshing alternative to food. — Richard Dean Anderson

He didn't know if there was a word to describe what he felt in that moment, how he saw the lines of his own heart when her eyes met his. — Julia Quinn

You've got to admire Sir Richard Branson. He is a completely different style of businessman to me, but you have got to admire what he has achieved. — Alan Sugar

We ought to define a man's income as the maximum value which he can consume during a week, and still expect to be as well off at the end of the week as he was at the beginning. — Sir John Richard Hicks

The newspapers! Sir, they are the most villainous - licentious - abominable - infernal - Not that I ever read them - no - I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper. — Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Anthropologically informed works, from Sir James Frazer's Golden Bough to Pascal Boyer's Religion Explained or Scott Atran's In Gods We Trust, fascinatingly document the bizarre phenomenology of superstition and ritual. Read such books and marvel at the richness of human gullibility. But that is not — Richard Dawkins

As an editor, I must often tell writers that their stories "do not fit our present needs." But there are times when I want to reply: "Sir, I would not trust you to write a ransom note." — Richard Conniff

At the embassy for supper - quail in broth and oysters - Lady Browne remembered my father, whom she'd met at Queen Elizabeth's court. Yet one name only was on the tongue of Sir Richard: William Cavendish, newly made marquess. This gentleman, he reported between oysters, had recently fled to Hamburg after losing badly with a regiment raised near York. A master horseman and fencer, and one of the richest men in England, he wrote plays - oyster - collected viols - oyster - "his particular love in music" - and was by all accounts - oyster - affable and quick. — Danielle Dutton

Pain is never ennobling, only degrading. And do not be afraid, sir, that there will ever be too little of it in the world to spare mankind its "purification". There will always be human groans enough to fill the sails of that argument. But I am a practical Christian. Unlike you, sir, I relieve suffering, wherever I see it. Your ladies would not object to warm baths, to mitigate labour pains? To opium? It is the same prinicple. — Richard Gordon

I have seen humility in many of the finest leaders I have met the world over. And indeed, it is embodied in the warm, engaging and quintessentially successful spirit of Sir Richard Branson. — Naveen Jain

Sir Thomas More: Why not be a teacher? You'd be a fine teacher; perhaps a great one.
Richard Rich: If I was, who would know it?
Sir Thomas More: You; your pupils; your friends; God. Not a bad public, that. — Robert Bolt

I have always believed that the way you treat your employees is the way they will treat your customers, and that people flourish when they are praised. Sir — Richard Branson

When have I, when have I ever forced anyone to do anything, he starts to say: but Richard cuts in, "No, you don't, I agree, it's just that you are practiced at persuading, and sometimes it's quite difficult, sir, to distinguish being persuaded by you from being knocked down in the street and stamped on."
-Richard (?) nee Cromwell to Thomas Cromwell,358 — Hilary Mantel

You're Beau Wyndham! Well, I'll be damned!'
'The prospect,' said Sir Richard, bored, 'leaves me unmoved — Georgette Heyer

Some one called Sir Richard Steele the "vilest of mankind," and he retorted with proud humility, "It would be a glorious world if I were. — Christian Nestell Bovee

O Lord, Sir - when a heroine goes mad she always goes into white satin. — Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Sir Richard Glendale lifted the fatal paper, read it, and saying, 'Now all is indeed over,' handed it to Maxwell, who said aloud, 'Black Colin Campbell ... — Walter Scott

The art of living deliberately is the art of examining this vast storehouse of beliefs, dropping the out-moded ones, consciously choosing those that serve your goals, and carefully crafting new ones in greatest alignment with your desires. — Sir Richard Bishop

Sir Richard Branson is probably the best communicator ever. He was an inspiration for me - contrary to some reports, we've never done business together, although we did discuss an aviation venture very early on. I don't think easyJet competes with Virgin - we're in different areas. — Stelios Haji-Ioannou

Hello, sir. Yes ... Uh-huh ... Yes ... You say that you want to bury your aunt with a Christmas tree in her coffin? Uh-huh ... She wanted it that way ... I'll see what I can do for you, sir. Oh, you have the measurements of the coffin with you? Very good ... We have our coffin-sized Christmas trees right over here, sir. — Richard Brautigan

Richard Rogers was lecturing at Wethersfield, Essex, someone told him, "Mr. Rogers, I like you and your company very well, but you are so precise." To which Rogers replied, "O Sir, I serve a precise God. — Leland Ryken

I believe, sir,' said Richard Swiveller, taking his pen out of his mouth, 'that you desire to look at these apartments. They are very charming apartments, sir. They command an uninterrupted view of - of over the way, and they are within one minute's walk of - of the corner of the street. — Charles Dickens

Sir Isaac Newton, renowned inventor of the milled-edge coin and the catflap!"
"The what?" said Richard.
"The catflap! A device of the utmost cunning, perspicuity and invention. It is a door within a door, you see, a ... "
"Yes," said Richard, "there was also the small matter of gravity."
"Gravity," said Dirk with a slightly dismissed shrug, "yes, there was that as well, I suppose. Though that, of course, was merely a discovery. It was there to be discovered." ... "You see?" he said dropping his cigarette butt, "They even keep it on at weekends. Someone was bound to notice sooner or later. But the catflap ... ah, there is a very different matter. Invention, pure creative invention. It is a door within a door, you see. — Douglas Adams

Some of the most serious fallacies of traditional economics have been due to confusion between optimum and equilibrium conditions; the apparent influence of Dr. Pangloss upon the development of economic thought is for the most part nothing but pure intellectual error. — Sir John Richard Hicks

Sir Richard sighed. "Rid yourself of the notion that I cherish any villainous designs upon your person," he said. "I imagine I might well be your father. How old are you?"
"I am turned seventeen."
"Well, I am nearly thirty," said Sir Richard.
Miss Creed worked this out. "You couldn't possibly be my father!"
"I am far too drunk to solve arithmetical problems. Let it suffice that I have not the slightest intention of making love to you. — Georgette Heyer

Nobody's ever called me Sir Richard. Occasionally in America, I hear people saying Sir Richard and think there's some Shakespearean play taking place. But nowhere else anyway. — Richard Branson

The television anchorman Dan Rather turns up in rag-top native drag in Afghanistan, the surrogate of our culture with his camera crew, intrepid as Sir Richard Burton sneaking into Mecca. — Lance Morrow

The great Sir Isaac Newton, He once made a valid proclamation, That the forces equal to a nominated mass, when multiplied by acceleration That was the law of motion. — Richard Digance

Sir Richard Steele has observed, that there is this difference between the Church of Rome and the Church of England: the one professes to be infallible, the other to be never in the wrong. — Charles Caleb Colton

As an astronomer in the true sense of the term, Sir John Herschel stood before all his contemporaries. Nay, he stood almost alone. — Richard A. Proctor

It's just that you are practiced at persuading, and sometimes it's quite difficult, sir to distinguish being persuaded by you from being knocked down in street and stamped on.
Pg.406 — Hilary Mantel

Try everything once. Except incest and folk dancing.' Sir Thomas Beecham — Richard Branson

'Sir' Richard Branson may be the Julian Assange of British business, in that both believe the world revolves around them. Hence Branson's decision to set up an air service between Manchester and London, above the route of the train line that's been taken from him. — Simon Hoggart

I must confess the language of symbols is to me
A Babylonish dialect
Which learned chemists much affect;
It is a party-coloured dress
Of patch'd and piebald languages:
'T is English cut on Greek and Latin,
Like fustian heretofore on satin. — Sir Richard Phillips

Swaggering in the coffee-houses and ruffling it in the streets were the men who had sailed with Frobisher and Drake and Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Hawkins, and Sir Richard Granville; had perhaps witnessed the heroic death of Sir Philip Sidney, at Zutphen; had served with Raleigh in Anjou, Picardy, Languedoc, in the Netherlands, in the Irish civil war; had taken part in the dispersion of the Spanish Armada, and in the bombardment of Cadiz; had filled their cups to the union of Scotland with England; had suffered shipwreck on the Barbary Coast, or had, by the fortune of war, felt the grip of the Spanish Inquisition; who could tell tales of the marvels seen in new-found America and the Indies, and, perhaps, like Captain John Smith, could mingle stories of the naive simplicity of the natives beyond the Atlantic, with charming narratives of the wars in Hungary, the beauties of the seraglio of the Grand Turk, and the barbaric pomp of the Khan of Tartary. — William Shakespeare

Writing allows me the time to travel and see the world, which is what I always wanted to do. I'd really like to have been Sir Richard Francis Burton, but it's the wrong century. — Alan Dean Foster

I see now that there is a great deal in what Aunt Almeria says. She considers that there are terrible pitfalls in Society."
Sir Richard shook his head sadly. "Alas, too true!"
"And vice," said Pen awfully. "Profligacy, and extravagance, you know."
"I know."
She picked up her knife and fork again. "It must be very exciting," she said enviously. — Georgette Heyer

It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers. — Charles Dickens

Investment is a flighty bird which needs to be controlled. — Sir John Richard Hicks

I am compliance itself - when I am not thwarted; - no one more easily led - when I have my own way. — Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Acting is rare. You can be rehearsing Ibsen with Sir Richard Eyre and suddenly he has to take a call on his mobile telling him his friend Arthur Miller has died. Or you can come back from a job on the Isle of Man to be told by your agent you're going straight out to South Africa on another shoot. There's not even any time to wash your pants. — Jamie Sives

We should employ our passions in the service of life," Sir Richard Steele wrote, "not spend life in the service of our passions. — Joan D. Chittister

Dont play any notes. Notes are for babies. — Sir Richard Bishop

There is much of economic theory which is pursued for no better reason than its intellectual attraction; it is a good game. We have no reason to be ashamed of that, since the same would hold for many branches of mathematics. — Sir John Richard Hicks

This whole Psalm offers itself to be drawn into these two opposite propositions: a godly man is blessed, a wicked man is miserable; which seem to stand as two challenges, made by the prophet: one, that he will maintain a godly man against all comers, to be the only Jason for winning the golden fleece of blessedness; the other, that albeit the ungodly make a show in the world of being happy, yet they of all men are most miserable. - Sir Richard Baker, 1640 — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

But there stands the sword of my ancestor Sir Richard Vernon, slain at Shrewsbury, and sorely slandered by a sad fellow called Will Shakspeare, whose Lancastrian partialities, and a certain knack at embodying them, has turned history upside down, or rather inside out. — Walter Scott

Bluebell: Please, sir, I'm only a little [car] and I've left all my petrol on the grass. So if you don't mind eating the grass, sir, while I give this lady a ride-
Hazel: Bluebell, shut up! — Richard Adams