The Quotations Archive currently contains 1744 quotations.

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A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.

-- Roald Dahl

To decide, to be at the level of choice, is to take responsibility for your life and to be in control of your life.

-- Abbie M. Dale

Marriage is a matter of give and take, but so far I haven't been able to find anybody who'll take what I have to give.

-- Cass Daley

I'm at the age where food has taken the place of sex in my life. In fact, I've just had a mirror put over my kitchen table.

-- Rodney Dangerfield

If it were weren't for pickpockets, I'd have no sex life at all.

-- Rodney Dangerfield

Defeat never comes to any man until he admits it.

-- Josephus Daniels

Show my head to the people, it is worth seeing.

-- Georges Danton, to his executioner

He didn't say that. He was reading what was given to him in a speech.

-- Richard Darman, director of OMB, explaining why President Bush wasn't following up on his campaign pledge that there would be no loss of wetlands

History repeats itself; that's one of the things that's wrong with history.

-- Clarence Darrow

The first half of our life is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.

-- Clarence Darrow

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it.

-- Clarence Darrow

The wit of a graduate student is like champagne. Canadian champagne.

-- Robertson Davies

I had ambition, by which sin

The angels fell;

I climbed, and step by step, oh Lord,

Ascended into Hell

-- W. H. Davies, Ambition

I'd marry again if I found a man who had 15 million and would sign over half of it to me before the marriage and guarantee he'd be dead within a year.

-- Bette Davis

Sex is God's joke on human beings.

-- Bette Davis

It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us.

-- Peter De Vries

There are times when parenthood seems nothing but feeding the mouth that bites you.

-- Peter De Vries

You have to stay in shape. My grandmother, she started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She's 97 today and we don't know where the hell she is.

-- Ellen DeGeneres

When I can no longer bear to think of the victims of broken homes, I begin to think of the victims of intact ones.

-- Peter DeVries

It is not good enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.

-- Rene Descartes

Love is an ocean of emotions entirely surrounded by expenses.

-- Lord Dewar

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

-- Thomas Dewar

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

-- Philip K. Dick

...the fog is rising.

-- Emily Dickinson, dying words

Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.

-- Emily Dickinson

I've been asked to say a couple of words about my husband, Fang. How about "short" and "cheap"?

-- Phyllis Diller

Never go to bed angry. Stay up and fight.

-- Phyllis Diller

The multitude is always in the wrong.

-- Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon, 1684

Life is a succession of lessons enforced by immediate reward, or, oftener, by immediate chastisement.

-- Ernest Dimnet

I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law.

-- David Dinkins, New York City Mayor, answering accusations that he failed to pay his taxes.

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.

-- Paul Dirac

I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I have ever known.

-- Walt Disney

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.

-- Benjamin Disraeli

It destroys one's nerves to be amiable everyday to the same human being.

-- Benjamin Disraeli

It is easier to be critical than correct.

-- Benjamin Disraeli

Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.

-- Benjamin Disraeli

Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.

-- Benjamin Disraeli

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

-- Benjamin Disraeli

What we anticipate seldom occurs: but what we least expect generally happens.

-- Benjamin Disraeli

The average Ph.D thesis is nothing but the transference of bones from one graveyard to another.

-- Frank J. Dobie, A Texan in England, 1945

Honolulu, it's got everything. Sand for the children, sun for the wife, sharks for the wife's mother.

-- Ken Dodd

More than kisses, letters mingle souls.

-- John Donne

No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

-- John Donne, Meditation XVII

If God does not exist, then everything is permitted.

-- Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Devils

The soul is healed by being with children.

-- Fyodor Dostoyevski

Education is the state-controlled manufacture of echoes.

-- Norman Douglas

In all recorded history there has not been one economist who has had to worry about where the next meal would come from.

-- Peter F. Drucker

Joy is but the sign that creative emotion is fulfilling its purpose.

-- Charles Du Bos

How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it.

-- Alexandre Dumas fils

I prefer the wicked rather than the foolish. The wicked sometimes rest.

-- Alexandre Dumas pere

Any intelligent woman who reads the marriage contract, and then goes into it, deserves all the consequences.

-- Isadora Duncan

Trust everybody, but cut the cards.

-- Finley Peter Dunne

Many a man that could rule a hundherd millyon sthrangers with an ir'n hand is careful to take off his shoes in the front hallway whin he comes home late at night.

-- Finley Peter Dunne, Mr. Dooley On Making A Will, 1919

Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active.

-- Leonardo da Vinci

Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.

-- Leonardo da Vinci, Notebooks

Honor the ocean of love.

-- George de Benneville

Democracy is the name we give the people whenever we need them.

-- Marquis de Flers Robert and Arman de Caillavet

Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire.

-- Jean de La Fontaine

Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire.

-- François de La Rouchefoucauld

It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.

-- François de La Rouchefoucauld

There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand imitations.

-- François de La Rouchefoucauld

Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?

-- François de La Rouchefoucauld

Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of the consequences.

-- François de La Rouchefoucauld, Maxims, 1665

Marriage is a lottery in which men stake their liberty and women their happiness.

-- Madame de Rieux

Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.

-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.

-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

We cease loving ourselves if no one loves us.

-- Mme de Staël