"A clay pot sitting in the sun will always
be a clay pot. It has to go through the white heat of the
furnace to become porcelain." Mildred W. Struven
"The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I
am, then I can change." Carl Rogers
"I'll not listen to reason. Reason is always what someone
else has got to say." Elizabeth C.
Gaskell
"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I
admire." Winston Churchill
"A modest little person, with much to be modest about."
Winston Churchill
"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries
with great pleasure." Clarence Darrow
"He has never been known to use a word that might send a
reader to the dictionary." William Faulkner (about Ernest
Hemingway)
"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from
big words?" Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)
"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste
no time reading it." Moses Hadas
"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of
any man I know." Abraham Lincoln
"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't
it." Groucho Marx
"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter
saying I approved of it." Mark Twain
"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his
friends." Oscar Wilde
"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new
play, bring a friend... if you have one." George Bernard
Shaw to Winston Churchill
"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second, if
there is one." Winston Churchill, in response
"I feel so miserable without you, it's almost like having
you here." Stephen Bishop
"He is a self-made man and worships his creator." John
Bright
"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's
nothing trivial." Irvin S. Cobb
"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness
in others." Samuel Johnson
"He had delusions of adequacy." Walter Kerr
"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt." Robert
Redford
"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the
sum of human knowledge." Thomas Brackett Reed
"He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker
forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them."
James Reston (about Richard Nixon)
"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded
easily." Charles, Count Talleyrand
"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." Forrest
Tucker
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever
they go." Oscar Wilde
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts, for
support rather than illumination." Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
"He has Van Gogh's ear for music." Billy Wilder
" I’d give my right arm to be ambidextrous" unknown
To get more quotations, one of the oldest sites on the web
is QUOTATIONS.COM
And of course, a current
master of twisting common phrases to create humorous
expressions: Steven Wright
including:
"On the other hand -- there are five fingers".