Moses Hadas
Ernst Heinrich Haeckel
James Hagerty
J. B. S. Haldane
H. R. Haldeman
Ludovic Halevy
Alexander Hamilton
William Hamilton
Hannibal
Larry Hardiman
Warren G. Harding
G. H. Hardy
Alan Harrington
Michael Harrington
Sydney J. Harris
William Henry Harrison
Nathanial Hawthorne
Friedrick August von Hayek
William Hazlitt
Edward Heath
Mitch Hedberg
Jascha Heifetz
Cynthia Heimel
Heinrich Heine
Robert Heinlein
Werner Heisenberg
Joseph Heller
Lillian Hellman
Claude Adrien Helvetius
Ernest Hemingway
June Henderson
Henry IV
Matthew Henry
O. Henry
Patrick Henry
Katherine Hepburn
Heraclitus
Jack Herbert
Herodotus
Michael Hesettine
William Edward Hickson
Cullen Hightower
Hillel
Chester Bomar Himes
Hippocrates
Tom Hirshfield
Alfred Hitchcock
Adolf Hitler
Thomas Hobbes
Eric Hoffer
Lancelot Hogben
Quintin Hogg
John Andrew Holmes
Oliver Wendell Holmes
John Holt
Lou Holtz
Arthur Honegger
Herbert Hoover
Anthony Hope
Bob Hope
Harry L. Hopkins
Edgar Watson Howe
William Dean Howells
Elbert Hubbard
Kin Hubbard
Bob Hudson
Helen Hudson
Victor Hugo
David Hume
Hubert H. Humphrey
Robert Maynard Hutchins
Aldous Huxley
� 2000 E-mail me
This book fills a much needed gap.
The belief in freedom of the will is inconsistent with the truth of evolution. Modern philosophy shows clearly that the will is never really free in man or animal, but determined by the organization of the brain; and that in turn acquires its individual character by the laws of heredity and the influence of environment.
The myth of the conception and birth of Jesus Christ is mere fiction, and is at the same stage of superstition as a hundred other myths of other religions.
Nothing is constant but change! All existence is a perpetual flux of "being and becoming"! That is the broad lesson of the evolution of the world.
One day I sat thinking, almost in despair; a hand fell on my shoulder and a voice said reassuringly: "Cheer up, things could get worse." So I cheered up and, sure enough, things got worse.
Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it is awfully hard to get it back in.
No news is good news.
A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.
Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy.
The passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without restraint.
Permanent alliance, intimate connection with any part of the foreign world is to be avoided.
A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.
The point is to get so much money that money's not the point anymore.
We will either find a way or make one.
The word "politics" is derived from the word "poly," meaning "many," and the word "ticks," meaning "blood sucking parasites."
America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration.
It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
Death is an imposition on the human race and no longer acceptable.
The time has come for men to turn into gods or perish.
For the urban poor the police are those who arrest you. In almost any slum there is a vast conspiracy against the forces of law and order.
People who are much to sensitive to demand of cripples that they run races ask of the poor that they get up and act just like everyone else in the society.
Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.
When I hear somebody sigh, "Life is hard," I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?"
All the measures of the Government are directed to the purpose of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.
No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.
The power which a multiple millionaire, who may be my neighbor and perhaps my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest fonctionnaire possesses who wields the coercive power of the state, and on whose discretion it depends whether and how I am to be allowed to live or to work.
An orator can hardly get beyond commonplaces: if he does he gets beyond his hearers.
The art of pleasing consists in being pleased.
Abhorrence of apartheid is a normal attitude, not a policy.
The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how good I get, I'll never be as good as a wall.
No matter what side of an argument you're on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other side.
When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth.
When an individual endeavors to lift himself above his fellows, he is dragged down by the mass, either by means of ridicule or of calumny.
Sleep is good, death is better; however, it would have been best never to have been born.
Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it.
An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject and how to avoid them.
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22.
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth-decay in His divine system of creation?
It is best in the theatre to act with confidence no matter how little right you have to it.
Cynicism is an unpleasant way of telling the truth.
I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions.
To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves.
Pleasure and pain are the only springs of action in man, and always will be.
Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.
Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination.
It's easy to identify people who can't count to ten. They're in front of you in the supermarket express lane.
I want there to be no peasant so poor in all my realm that he will not have a chicken in his pot every Sunday.
All this and heaven too.
Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man's starving.
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.
The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the full light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become.
We all admire the wisdom of those who come to us for advice.
In peace sons bury fathers, but war violates the order of nature, and fathers bury sons.
I am humble enough to recognize that I have made mistakes, but politically astute enough to know that I have forgotten what they are.
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
Those who agree with us may not always be right, but we admire their astuteness.
What is hateful to thyself do not do to another. This is the whole Law, the rest is Commentary.
Any man's a coward who won't die for what he believes.
To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy.
Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases.
Everything in excess is opposed to nature.
The second assault on the same problem should come from a totally different direction.
Actors are cattle.
What luck for rulers that men do not think.
The German people have no idea of the extent to which they have been gulled in order to be led.
Today Germany is ours, and tomorrow the whole world.
Success is the sole earthly judge of right or wrong.
Leisure is the mother of philosophy.
Good, and evil, are names that signify our appetites, and aversions; which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different.
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we cannot hope to obtain excellence.
Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or worthlessness, we are almost impervious to fear.
Fear of becoming a has-been keeps some people from becoming anything.
It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.
Democracy will not be salvaged by men who talk fluently, debate forcefully, and quote aptly.
Do not confuse biology and religion--one is a science to be proved or disproved, the other is a life to be lived.
It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.
Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so.
The most enlightened judicial policy is to let people manage their own business in their own way.
The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.
I feel like a dime among a lot of pennies.
Pretty much, all the honest truth-telling is done by children.
Great cases like hard cases make bad law.
The character of every act depends on the circumstances in which it is done. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.
If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought--not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.
A man's mind streched by a new idea can never go back to its original dimensions.
Greatness is not where we stand, but in what direction we are moving. We must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it--but sail we must, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.
We learn to do something by doing it. There is no other way.
You're never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you're never as bad as they say when you lose.
Don't tell your problems to people. 80% don't care; and the other 20% are glad you've got them.
There is no doubt that the first requirement for a composer is to be dead.
Older men declare war. But it is the youth who must fight and die.
Economy is going without something you do want in case you should, someday, want something you probably won't want.
A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it.
Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle.
You know you are getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.
People don't eat in the long run, they eat every day.
Instead of loving your enemy, treat your friend a little better.
The sounder your argument, the more satisfaction you get out of it.
You may easily play a joke on a man who likes to argue--agree with him.
When a friend is in trouble, don't annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it.
Some people can stay longer in an hour than others can in a week.
The friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you.
If you cannot answer a man's argument, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.
Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them.
The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.
Never explain--your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.
Life is just one damned thing after another.
One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy to be called an idea at all.
Nothing's as mean as giving a little child something useful for Christmas.
Folks that blurt out just what they think wouldn't be so bad if they thought.
We'd all like to vote for the best man, but he's never a candidate.
Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny.
I haven't been wrong since 1961, when I thought I made a mistake.
Looks are so deceptive that people should be done up like food packages with the ingredients clearly labeled.
Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.
Nothing else in the world is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.
Be a philosopher; but amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.
The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.
Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.
There are not enough jails, not enough policemen, not enough courts to enforce a law not supported by the people.
I say the time has come to walk out of the shadow of states' rights and into the sunlight of human rights.
Whenever I feel like exercise I lie down until the feeling passes.
The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consists in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different.
That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.
Too much consistency is as bad for the mind as it is for the body. Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead.
The end cannot justify the means for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced.
That all men are equal is a proposition to which, at ordinary times, no sane human being has ever given his assent.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.
Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.
Religion, it seems to me, can survive only as a consciously accepted system of make-believe.
