FastSaying

"If you don't mind me asking," came the bell-like tones of the Golden Diana, "I'd like to know where you got that City Hall brogue. I did not know that Liberty was necessarily Irish." "If ye'd studied the history of art in its foreign complications, ye'd not need ask," replied Mrs. Liberty, "If ye wasn't so light and giddy ye'd know that I was made by a Dago and presented to the American people on behalf of the French Government for the purpose of welcomin' Irish immigrants into the Dutch city of New York. 'Tis that I've been doing night and day since I was erected."


O. Henry (pseudonym of William Sydney Porter)

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More O. Henry (pseudonym of William Sydney Porter)

Inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence.
O. HENRY (PSEUDONYM OF WILLIAM SYDNEY PORTER) You'd think New York people was all wise; but no, they can't get a chance to learn. Every thing's ...
O. HENRY (PSEUDONYM OF WILLIAM SYDNEY PORTER) If there ever was an aviary overstocked with jays it is that Yaptown-on-the-Hudson, call New York. ...
O. HENRY (PSEUDONYM OF WILLIAM SYDNEY PORTER) George Washington, with his right art upraised, sits his iron horse at the lower corner of Union Sq...
O. HENRY (PSEUDONYM OF WILLIAM SYDNEY PORTER) New York is the Caoutchouc City. . . . They have the furor rubberendi.
O. HENRY (PSEUDONYM OF WILLIAM SYDNEY PORTER) In dress, habits, manners, provincialism, routine and narrowness, he acquired that charming insolen...
O. HENRY (PSEUDONYM OF WILLIAM SYDNEY PORTER) Far below and around lay the city like a ragged purple dream. The irregular houses were like the b...
O. HENRY (PSEUDONYM OF WILLIAM SYDNEY PORTER) Well, little old Noisyville-on-the-Subway is good enough for me. . . . Me for it from the rathskell...
O. HENRY (PSEUDONYM OF WILLIAM SYDNEY PORTER) Silent, grim, colossal, the Big City has ever stood against its revilers. They call it hard as iro...
O. HENRY (PSEUDONYM OF WILLIAM SYDNEY PORTER) If man knew how women pass the time when they are alone, they'd never marry.
O. HENRY PORTER She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim owner...
O. HENRY PORTER A burglar who respects his art always takes his time before taking anything else.
O. HENRY PORTER It was beautiful and simple as all truly great swindles are.
O. HENRY PORTER You can't appreciate home till you've left it, money till it's spent, your wife till she's joined a ...
O. HENRY PORTER This formal fool, your man, speaks naught but proverbs, And speak men what they can to him he'll a...
HENRY PORTER Plain-dealing is a jewel, and he that useth it shall die a beggar
HENRY PORTER A burglar who respects his art always takes his time before taking anything else.
HENRY PORTER You can't appreciate home till you've left it, money till it's spent, your wife till she's joined a ...
HENRY PORTER There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.
O. HENRY By nature and doctrines I am addicted to the habit of discovering choice places wherein to feed.
O. HENRY The Venturer is one who keeps his eye on the hedgerows and wayside groves and meadows while he trave...
O. HENRY I never have time to read now. I did all my reading before I was twenty.
O. HENRY It couldn't have happened anywhere but in little old New York.
O. HENRY It'll be a great place if they ever finish it.
O. HENRY Whenever he saw a dollar in another man's hands he took it as a personal grudge, if he couldn...
O. HENRY East is East, and West is San Francisco, according to Californians. Californians are a race of peopl...
O. HENRY When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard.
O. HENRY Inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence.
O. HENRY By rights you're a king. If I was you, I'd call for a new deal.
O. HENRY It brings up happy old days when I was only a farmer and not an agriculturist.
O. HENRY If men knew how women pass the time when they are alone, they'd never marry.
O. HENRY I have been called 'The American De Maupassant.' Well, I never wrote a filthy word in my lif...
O. HENRY She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim owner...
O. HENRY Write what you like; there is no other rule.
O. HENRY What else can you expect from a town that's shut off from the world by the ocean on one side and New...
O. HENRY Turn up the lights. I don't want to go home in the dark.
O. HENRY The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate.
O. HENRY It is said that love makes the world go 'round - the announcement lacks verification. It's w...
O. HENRY Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words wh...
O. HENRY Turn up the lights. I don't want to go home in the dark.
O. HENRY Life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
O. HENRY We may achieve climate, but weather is thrust upon us.
O. HENRY All of us have to be prevaricators, hypocrites, and liars every day of our lives; otherwise the soci...
O. HENRY Bohemia is nothing more than the little country in which you do not live. If you try to obtain citiz...
O. HENRY The people of the State of Texas consist principally of men, women, and children, with a sprinkling ...
O. HENRY She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim owne...
O. HENRY It couldn't have happened anywhere but in little old New York.
O. HENRY Life is made up of sobs, sniffles and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
O. HENRY It was beautiful and simple, as truly great swindles are.
O. HENRY A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.
O. HENRY Whenever he saw a dollar in another man's hands he took it as a personal grudge, if he couldn't take...
O. HENRY Of habit, the power that keeps the earth from flying to pieces; though there is some silly theory of...
O. HENRY No friendship is an accident.
O. HENRY Take it from me - he's got the goods.
O. HENRY If men knew how women pass the time when they are alone, they'd never marry.
O. HENRY She had
become so thoroughly annealed into his life that she was like the
air he breathed-...
O. HENRY He had the artistic metempsychosis which is half drunk when sober and looks down on airships when st...
O. HENRY It was beautiful and simple as all truly great swindles are.
O. HENRY I wanted to paint a picture some day that people would stand before and forget that it was made of p...
O. HENRY The Give and Take Athletic Association lived up to its name. The hall of the association in Orchard ...
O. HENRY My arm is weighted by the huge pile of clothing she’s hung over it. A moment of clarity comes over...
DAWN O'PORTER What's the use of worrying? It never was worth while, so Pack up your troubles in your old kit...
GEORGE ASAF (PSEUDONYM OF GEORGE HENRY POWELL) A daily tip for getting ahead... Get the hell out of bed!!
WILLIAM COLT PORTER Paris is worth a mass
HENRY OF NAVARRE What is research, but a blind date with knowledge.
WILLIAM HENRY The eyes shout what the lips fear to say.
WILLIAM HENRY Keep a secret, it's your slave. Tell it, and it's your master.
WILLIAM HENRY Another damned, thick, square book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble!
WILLIAM HENRY It just proves what I've always believed. You can't let any one person take hold of your dreams; you...
WILLIAM HENRY Nature gave women too much power; the law gives them too little.
WILLIAM HENRY Look at an infantryman's eyes and you can tell how much war he has seen
WILLIAM HENRY Tell the FBI that the kidnappers should pick out a judge that Nixon wants back.
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS Ive often thought that if our zoning boards could be put in charge of botanists, of zoologists and g...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS There are only two choices: A police state in which all dissent is suppressed or rigidly controlled;...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS The truth is that a vast restructuring of our society is needed if remedies are to become available ...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS Any test that turns on what is offensive to the communitys standards is too loose, too capricious, t...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS One aspect of modern life which has gone far to stifle men is the rapid growth of tremendous corpora...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS Man is about to be an automaton; he is identifiable only in the computer. As a person of worth and c...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS The purpose of the University of Washington cannot be to produce black lawyers for blacks, Polish la...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS The search for static security -- in the law and elsewhere -- is misguided. The fact is security can...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS Those who already walk submissively will say there is no cause for alarm. But submissiveness is not ...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS The constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS The great and invigorating influences in American life have been the unorthodox: the people who chal...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful priva...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS The privacy and dignity of our citizens are being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Ta...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS This means we must subject the machine technology to control and cease despoiling the earth and fill...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS Thus if the First Amendment means anything in this field, it must allow protests even against the mo...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS It is our attitude toward free thought and free expression that will determine our fate. There must ...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS We must realize that todays Establishment is the new George III. Whether it will continue to adhere ...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS Violence has no constitutional sanction; and every government from the beginning has moved against i...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS The use of violence as an instrument of persuasion is therefore inviting and seems to the discontent...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degre...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS Literature should not be suppressed merely because it offends the moral code of the censor.
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS The association promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bil...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience that hissed ...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we ne...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; ...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS The way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth.
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS The great and invigorating influences in American life have been the unorthodox: the people who chal...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS No patent medicine was ever put to wider and more varied use than the Fourteenth Amendment.
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS The 5th Amendment is an old friend and a good friend. one of the great landmarks in men's strugg...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight ...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight ...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS It is vain to do with more what can be done with less.
WILLIAM OF OCCAM Manners maketh man.
WILLIAM OF WYKEHAM Rejoicing not in the many but in the probity of the few, we toil for truth alone.
WILLIAM OF CONCHES [They say] "We do not know how this is, but we know that God can do it." You poor fools! God can m...
WILLIAM OF CONCHES Because they know not the forces of nature, and in order that they may have comrades in their ignora...
WILLIAM OF CONCHES Plurality should not be posited without necessity.
WILLIAM OF OCCAM So, rather than appear foolish afterward, I renounce seeming clever now.
WILLIAM OF BASKERVILLE The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct.
WILLIAM OF OCKHAM When you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the ...
WILLIAM OF OCKHAM Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.
GEORGE ORWELL (PSEUDONYM OF ERIC BLAIR) To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than laughter.
FRANCOISE SAGAN (PSEUDONYM OF FRANCOISE QUOIREZ) The history of every individual man should be a Bible.
NOVALIS (PSEUDONYM OF FREDERICK VON HARDENBURG) A sweet voice, a little indistinct and muffled, which caresses and does not thrill; an utterance wh...
GEORGE SAND (PSEUDONYM OF MME. DUDEVANT) A man is not a wall, whose stones are crushed upon the road; or a pipe, whose fragments are thrown ...
GEORGE SAND (PSEUDONYM OF MME. DUDEVANT) The shortest and surest way of arriving at real knowledge is to unlearn the lessons we have been tau...
HENRY IV OF ENGLAND Patriotism must be founded on great principals and supported by great virtue.
HENRY IV OF ENGLAND A creature not too bright nor good For human nature's daily food.
WILLIAM III WILLIAM OF ORANGE Not seldom clad in radiant vest Deceitfully goes forth the dawn, Not seldom evening in the wes...
WILLIAM III WILLIAM OF ORANGE No check, no stay this streamlet fears: How merrily it goes! 'Twill murmur on a thousand years...
WILLIAM III WILLIAM OF ORANGE Every bullet has its billet.
WILLIAM III WILLIAM OF ORANGE For Gods sake, do not drag me into another war! I am worn down, and worn out, with crusading and def...
SYDNEY SMITH To love and be loved is the great happiness of existence.
SYDNEY SMITH The writer does the most good who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least t...
SYDNEY SMITH He told me that Francis Crick and Jim Watson had solved the structure of DNA, so we decided to go ac...
SYDNEY BRENNER Everybody's trying to make blockbusters.
SYDNEY POLLACK A good marriage is at least 80 percent good luck in finding the right person at the right time. The ...
SYDNEY SMITH No man can ever end with being superior who will not begin with being inferior.
SYDNEY SMITH What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?
SYDNEY SMITH Feast of Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists), 1660 The grea...
SYDNEY SMITH Good friends are good for your health.
SYDNEY SMITH Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goals.
SYDNEY SMITH One of the best methods of rendering study agreeable is to live with able men, and to suffer all th...
SYDNEY SMITH We shall generally find that the triangular person has got into the square hole, the oblong into th...
SYDNEY SMITH Oh, herbaceous treat! 'Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat; Back to the world he'd turn hi...
SYDNEY SMITH We cultivate literature on a little oat-meal.
SYDNEY SMITH The most curious offspring of shame is shyness.
SYDNEY SMITH A wise man struggling with adversity is said by some heathen writer to be a spectacle on which the ...
SYDNEY SMITH To know yourself, see how others do, to know others look into your own heart.
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SYDNEY SMITH It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little. Do what you can.
SYDNEY SMITH How can a bishop marry? How can he flirt? The most he can say is I will see you in the vestry after ...
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SYDNEY SMITH The main question to a novel is -- did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did yo...
SYDNEY SMITH Among the smaller duties of life I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising wher...
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Be what Nature ...
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SYDNEY SMITH A nation grown free in a single day is a child born with the limbs and the vigor of a man, who would...
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SYDNEY SMITH Find fault when you must find fault in private, and if possible sometime after the offense, rather t...
SYDNEY SMITH Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It was not reasoned into him, and cannot be reasoned...
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SYDNEY SMITH The dearest things in the world are our neighbor's eyes; they cost everybody more than anything else...
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