best quotations about
Ineffectiveness |
46 quotes | Visits: 3,556 |
Quotations
The remedy is worse than the disease. — Francis Bacon, 1561-1626, English philosopher 6 likes | |
The young leading the young, is like the blind leading the blind: they will both fall into the ditch. — Lord Chesterfield, 1694-1773, English statesman & writer 6 likes | |
If I had a province to punish, I would let it be governed by philosophers. — Friedrich II, 1712-1786, Emperor of Prussia [1740-1786] 6 likes | |
Let me tell you the one thing I have against Moses. He took us forty years into the desert in order to bring us to the one place in the Middle East that has no oil! — Golda Meir, 1898-1978, Israeli Prime Minister 5 likes | |
If God hadn't rested on Sunday, He would have had time to finish the world. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1927-2014, Colombian writer 5 likes | |
He was one of those men who think that the world can be saved by writing a pamphlet. — Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-1881, British Prime Minister 4 likes | |
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. — Winston Churchill, 1874-1965, British Prime Minister, Nobel 1953 4 likes | |
When all is said and done, more is said than done. — Lou Holtz, 1937-, American football coach 4 likes | |
There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all. — Peter Drucker, 1909–2005, Austrian management guru 3 likes | |
If any organism fails to fulfil its potentialities, it becomes sick. — William James, 1842-1910, American philosopher 3 likes | |
Suppose you succeed in breaking the wall with your head. And what, then, will you do in the next cell? — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec, 1906-1966, Polish author of maxims 3 likes | |
As we are human, we can't do what we can't do; as we're neurotic, we can't do what we can. — Mignon McLaughlin, 1913-1983, American magazine editor 3 likes | |
Things refuse to be mismanaged long. — Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1884, American philosopher 2 likes | |
To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. 2 likes | |
If you do too much, it’s going to lose its effectiveness. | |
Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good. | |
In this country, where we are all so tragically self-taught… | |
So much freedom, in Art, to do so little! | |
Whatever failures I have known, whatever errors I have committed, whatever follies I have witnessed in private and public life have been the consequence of action without thought. — Bernard Baruch, 1870-1965, American businessman & statesman | |
If the military administration was well done, there would be no unknown soldier. | |
Our Age of Anxiety is, in great part, the result of trying to do today’s jobs with yesterday’s tools! — Marshall McLuhan, 1911-1980, Canadian academic & media theorist | |
War remains the decisive human failure. — John Kenneth Galbraith, 1908-2006, American-Canadian economist | |
In recent times no problem has been more puzzling to thoughtful people than why, in a troubled world, we make such poor use of our affluence. — John Kenneth Galbraith, 1908-2006, American-Canadian economist | |
Intellectuals are cynical and cynics have never built a cathedral. | |
The worst wall of all is a door that you do not have the key to. | |
Wherever there's injustice, oppression, and suffering, America will show up six months late and bomb the country next to where it's happening. | |
After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done. — H.L. Mencken, 1880-1956, American columnist & cultural critic | |
To a crazy ship, all winds are contrary. | |
Reading the Socratic dialogues one has the feeling: what a frightful waste of time! What's the point of these arguments that prove nothing and clarify nothing? |
Quotes in Verse
Yet we’re sure to fail. Up there, high on the walls, the dirge has already begun. — Constantine Kavafy, 1868-1933, Greek poet ‐ Trojans 3 likes | |
[He] tried to start an intrigue, do something, come up with a plan; but he failed pitifully and was reduced to nothing. — Constantine Kavafy, 1868-1933, Greek poet ‐ Orophernis 3 likes | |
What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you? |
Funny Quotes
I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder. — Steven Wright, 1955-, American comedian 7 likes | |
A committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing, but who, as a group, can meet and decide that nothing can be done. — Fred Allen, 1894-1956, American comedian 6 likes | |
Sex at age 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope. — George Burns, 1896-1996, American comedian 5 likes | |
Egypt: Where the Israelites would still be if Moses had been a bureaucrat. — Laurence J Peter, 1919-1990, Canadian writer & educator 3 likes | |
God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die. — Bill Watterson, 1958-, American cartoonist 2 likes |
Ancient Greek
Of all men’s miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have no power. Εχθίστη δε οδύνη εστί των εν ανθρώποισι αύτη, πολλά φρονέοντα μηδενός κρατέειν. — Herodotus, 480-420 BC, Ancient Greek historian, the “ father of History” 5 likes | |
The grapes are sour. Όμφακες εισίν. — Aesop, 620-560 BC, Ancient Greek fabulist (The Fox and the Grapes) 4 likes | |
For things with no benefit do not try in vain. Τα μηδέν ωφελούντα μη πόνει μάτην. — Aeschylus, 525-456 BC, Ancient Greek tragedian ‐ Prometheus Bound 3 likes | |
False words do not bear fruit. Ουκ εξάγουσιν καρπόν οι ψευδείς λόγοι. — Sophocles, 496-406 BC, Ancient tragic poet 3 likes | |
It is acceptable to fail, it is not acceptable to be negligent. Ατυχείν έξεστιν, αμελείν ουκ έξεστιν. 3 likes | |
Spending efforts for things you shouldn't, you will be inadequate for things you should. Δαπανώμενος εφ’ α μη δει, ολίγος έση εφ’ α δει. — Isokrates, 436-338 BC, Ancient Greek rhetorician 3 likes | |
To dare the impossible is no mark of a wise man. Το τολμάν δ' αδύνατ' ανδρός ου σοφού. — Euripides, 480-406 BC, Ancient Greek tragedian ‐ Helen 2 likes |
Proverbs
One swallow does not make a summer. 3 likes | |
The hole is big but the patch is small. 3 likes |