—Lao Tzu
%
If men are not afraid to die,
it is of no avail to threaten them with death.
If men live in constant fear of dying,
And if breaking the law means a man will be killed,
Who will dare to break the law?
There is always an official executioner.
If you try to take his place,
It is like trying to be a master carpenter and cutting wood.
If you try to cut wood like a master carpenter,
you will only hurt your hand.
—Lao Tzu, "Tao Te Ching"
%
In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, delve deep into the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
In speech, be true.
In work, be competent.
In action, be careful of your timing.
—Lao Tzu
%
Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.
—Lao Tzu
%
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
—Lao Tzu
%
The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers
there will be.
—Lao Tzu
%
Words have divided man from woman,
one from another, this from that,
until only sages know how to put things together.
Without words, without even understanding,
lovers find each other.
...The moment of finding is always a surprise,
like meeting an old friend never before known.
—Lao Tzu, "Tao Te Ching"
%
Having something to say is overrated.
—Adair Lara
%
He looked at me as if I were a side dish he hadn't ordered.
—Ring Lardner
%
A kind of Batman of contemporary letters...
—Philip Larkin on Anthony Burgess
%
A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience.
—Doug Larson
%
Accomplishing the impossible means only that the boss will add it to your
regular duties.
—Doug Larson
%
If all the cars in the United States were placed end to end, it would
probably be Labor Day Weekend.
—Doug Larson
%
If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there'd be
a shortage of fishing poles.
—Doug Larson
%
If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something
to do with a shortage of flowers.
—Doug Larson
%
Some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart
enough to know they were impossible.
—Doug Larson
%
The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to
throw a snowball.
—Doug Larson
%
The cat could very well be man's best friend but would never stoop to
admitting it.
—Doug Larson
%
The reason people blame things on previous generations is that there's
only one other choice.
—Doug Larson
%
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
—Christopher Lasch
%
The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in
determination.
—Tommy Lasorda
%
Music is the vernacular of the human soul.
—Geoffrey Latham
%
All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty
recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but
the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream
with open eyes, to make it possible.
—T. E. Lawrence
%
You can't teach seven foot.
—Frank Layton, Utah Jazz basketball coach, when asked why he had
recruited a seven-foot-tall auto mechanic
%
Visits always give pleasure: if not on arrival, then on the departure.
—Edouard Le Berquier
%
It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that
matters in the end.
—Ursula K. Le Guin
%
To light a candle is to cast a shadow.
—Ursula K. Le Guin
%
Advertising: the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough
to get money from it.
—Stephen Leacock
%
I detest life-insurance agents; they always argue that I shall some day
die, which is not so.
—Stephen Leacock
%
Newspapermen learn to call a murderer "an alleged murderer" and the King
of England "the alleged King of England" to avoid libel suits.
—Stephen Leacock
%
Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.
—Frank Leahy
%
There are three side effects of acid: enhanced long-term memory, decreased
short-term memory, and I forget the third.
—Timothy Leary
%
Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.
—Timothy Leary
%
You can always pick up your needle and move to another groove.
—Timothy Leary
%
People don't ask for facts in making up their minds. They would rather
have one good, soul-satisfying emotion than a dozen facts.
—Robert Keith Leavitt
%
All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in
fact, barely presentable.
—Fran Lebowitz
%
Educational television should be absolutely forbidden. It can only lead to
unreasonable disappointment when your child discovers that the letters of
the alphabet do not leap up out of books and dance around with royal-blue
chickens.
—Fran Lebowitz
%
Food is an important part of a balanced diet.
—Fran Lebowitz
%
Life is something to do when you can't get to sleep.
—Fran Lebowitz
%
My favorite animal is steak.
—Fran Lebowitz
%
Nature is by and large to be found out of doors, a location where, it
cannot be argued, there are never enough comfortable chairs.
—Fran Lebowitz
%
Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born
to people you could not have possibly met.
—Fran Lebowitz
%
Stand firm in your refusal to remain conscious during algebra. In real
life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra.
—Fran Lebowitz
%
The telephone is a good way to talk to people without having to offer them
a drink.
—Fran Lebowitz
%
People find life entirely too time-consuming.
—Stanislaw Lec
%
When smashing monuments, save the pedestals—they always come in
handy.
—Stanislaw Lec
%
When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath
your feet.
—Stanislaw Lec
%
You must first have a lot of patience to learn to have patience.
—Stanislaw Lec
%
Physics isn't a religion. If it were, we'd have a much easier time raising
money.
—Leon Lederman
%
Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very
pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love
grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning
and unquenchable.
—Bruce Lee
%
God is love, but get it in writing.
—Gypsy Rose Lee
%
Duty, then is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all
things. You cannot do more; you should never wish to do less.
—Robert E. Lee
%
It is well that war is so terrible, or we should get too fond of it.
—Robert E. Lee
%
Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.
—John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy, 1981-1987
%
Be prepared, and be careful not to do your good deeds when there's no one
watching you.
—Tom Lehrer
%
I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate
people like that!
—Tom Lehrer
%
I wish people who have trouble communicating would just shut up.
—Tom Lehrer
%
On my income tax 1040 it says "Check this box if you are blind." I wanted
to put a check mark about three inches away.
—Tom Lehrer
%
Plagiarize, plagiarize,
Let no man's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
Don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize.
Only be sure to call it research.
—Tom Lehrer
%
Speaking of love, one problem that recurs more and more frequently these
days, in books and plays and movies, is the inability of people to
communicate with the people they love; husbands and wives who can't
communicate, children who can't communicate with their parents, and so
on. And the characters in these books and plays and so on (and in real
life, I might add) spend hours bemoaning the fact that they can't
communicate. I feel that if a person can't communicate, the very least he
can do is to shut up!
—Tom Lehrer
%
...the Boy Scouts of America, those little bas—tions of
democracy...
—Tom Lehrer
%
I'm not into working out. My philosophy: No pain, no pain.
—Carol Leifer
%
A dream will always triumph over reality, once it is given the chance.
—Stanislaw Lem
%
You climb to reach the summit, but once there, discover that all roads
lead down.
—Stanislaw Lem
%
A lie told often enough becomes the truth.
—Vladimir Lenin
%
It is true that liberty is precious—so precious that it must be
rationed.
—Vladimir Lenin
%
All we are saying is give peace a chance.
—John Lennon
%
I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I
believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe
that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was
right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong.
—John Lennon
%
Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.
—John Lennon
%
Time you enjoy wasting was not wasted.
—John Lennon
%
We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first, rock
'n' roll or Christianity.
—John Lennon
%
I like being single. I'm always there when I need me.
—Art Leo
%
Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination
when awake?
—Leonardo da Vinci
%
Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't immune to
bullets
—Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, "Dr. Who"
%
New York... when civilization falls apart, remember, we were way ahead of
you.
—David Letterman
%
New York now leads the world's great cities in the number of people around
whom you shouldn't make a sudden move.
—David Letterman
%
There's no business like show business, but there are several businesses
like accounting.
—David Letterman
%
Traffic signals in New York are just rough guidelines.
—David Letterman
%
USA Today has come out with a new survey—apparently, three out of
every four people make up 75% of the population.
—David Letterman
%
Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.
—Oscar Levant
%
I am no more humble than my talents require.
—Oscar Levant
%
I envy people who drink. At least they have something to blame everything
on.
—Oscar Levant
%
So little time and so little to do.
—Oscar Levant
%
There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this
line.
—Oscar Levant
%
Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.
—Oscar Levant
%
What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of
us left.
—Oscar Levant
%
Somewhere on this globe, every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth
to a child. She must be found and stopped.
—Sam Levenson
%
Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what
they conceal is vital.
—Aaron Levenstein
%
The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right
questions.
—Claude Levi-Strauss
%
The world began without man, and it will complete itself without him.
—Claude Levi-Strauss
%
Ask a man which way he is going to vote, and he will probably tell
you. Ask him, however, why, and vagueness is all.
—Bernard Levin
%
You can fool all the people all of the time if the advertising is right
and the budget is big enough.
—Joseph E. Levine
%
History is the short trudge from Adam to atom.
—Leonard Louis Levinson
%
Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.
—C. S. Lewis, "The Four Loves"
%
"Fools!" said the man, stamping his foot with rage. "That is the sort of
talk that brought me here, and I'd better have been drowned or never
born. Do you hear what I say? This is where dreams—dreams, do you
understand—come to life, come real. Not daydreams; dreams."
There was about half a minute's silence and then, with a great clatter of
armour the whole crew were tumbling down the main hatch as quick as they
could, flinging themselves on the oars to row as they had never rowed
before; and Drinian was swinging round the tiller, and the boatswain was
giving out the quickest stroke that had ever been heard at sea. For it had
taken everyone just that half-minute to remember certain dreams they had
had—dreams that make you afraid of going to sleep again—and to
realize what it would be like to land in a country where dreams come
true.
—C. S. Lewis, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader"
%
Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another,
"What! You too? I thought I was the only one!"
—C. S. Lewis
%
Long before history began we men have got together apart from the women
and done things. We had time.
—C. S. Lewis, "The Four Loves"
%
Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you
want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not
even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little
luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin
of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless,
airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become
unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
—C. S. Lewis
%
Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way
of selling goods, especially if the goods are worthless.
—Sinclair Lewis
%
People will buy anything that is one to a customer.
—Sinclair Lewis
%
God created man in His own image, says the Bible; philosophers reverse the
process: they create God in theirs.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
%
He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage—he won't
encounter many rivals.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
%
Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at
all.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
%
Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including
our own.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
%
A real diplomat is one who can cut his neighbor's throat without having
his neighbor notice it.
—Trygve Lie
%
I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write
faster than anybody who can write better.
—A. J. Liebling
%
I was born because my mother needed a fourth for meals.
—Beatrice Lillie
%
If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless
manner, you have learned how to live.
—Lin Yutang
%
Avoid popularity if you would have peace.
—Abraham Lincoln
%
He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever
met.
—Abraham Lincoln
%
He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.
—Abraham Lincoln
%
I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and by men who
are equally certain that they represent the divine will. I am sure that
either the one or the other is mistaken in the belief, and perhaps in some
respects, both.
I hope it will not be irreverent of me to say that if it is probable that
God would reveal his will to others on a point so connected with my duty,
it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me.
—Abraham Lincoln
%
I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what
his grandson will be.
—Abraham Lincoln
%
I'm a slow walker, but I never walk back.
—Abraham Lincoln
%
If I knew what brand [of whiskey] he drinks, I would send a barrel or so
to my other generals.
—Abraham Lincoln, on General Grant
%
If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
—Abraham Lincoln
%
If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please
bring me some coffee.
—Abraham Lincoln
%
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in
your years.
—Abraham Lincoln
%
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few
virtues.
—Abraham Lincoln
%
It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a
sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in
all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too,
shall pass away."
—Abraham Lincoln
%
Knavery and flattery are blood relations.
—Abraham Lincoln
%
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's
character, give him power.
—Abraham Lincoln
%
People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they
like.
—Abraham Lincoln, in a book review
%
So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great
war.
—Abraham Lincoln, on meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe
%
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
—Abraham Lincoln
%
The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in
effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the
Declaration not for that, but for future use.
—Abraham Lincoln
%
The ballot is stronger than the bullet.
—Abraham Lincoln
%
The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is the reason that He makes
so many of them.
—Abraham Lincoln
%
There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is
nothing good in war. Except its ending.
—Abraham Lincoln, "The Savage Curtain," "Star Trek"
%
'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove
all doubt.
—Abraham Lincoln
%
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see
it tried on him personally.
—Abraham Lincoln
%
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all
the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
—Abraham Lincoln
%
Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to
sleep after.
—Anne Morrow Lindbergh
%
My passport photo is one of the most remarkable photographs I have ever
seen—no retouching, no shadows, no flattery—just stark me.
—Anne Morrow Lindbergh
%
Where all men think alike, no one thinks very much.
—Walter Lippmann
%
I've heard when girls meet 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys, they throw up
on them and faint. I wouldn't want to get thrown up on.
—Jonathan Lipnicki, 10-year-old actor, on why he does not envy
young stars with heartthrob status
%
I'm not a god, I was misquoted.
—Lister, "Red Dwarf"
%
If man is only a little lower than the angels, the angels should
reform.
—Mary Wilson Little
%
Politeness is half good manners and half good lying.
—Mary Wilson Little
%
Would he go to heaven? Pray perpetually in glory with the saints and the
angels? And if he did, how would he keep from being bored? Would God
forgive him for being bored in His presence?
—Brian Boru (Morgan Llywelyn, "Lion of Ireland")
%
I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their
thoughts.
—John Locke
%
The world's as ugly as sin, and almost as delightful.
—Frederick Locker-Lampson
%
If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with
enthusiasm.
—Vince Lombardi
%
You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
—Jack London
%
Since everything in life is but an experience perfect in being what it is,
having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may
well burst out in laughter.
—Long Chen Pa
%
Part of being sane is being a little bit crazy.
—Janet Long
%
Tax reform means "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind the
tree."
—Russell Long
%
Thought takes man out of servitude, into freedom.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
%
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us
by what we have done.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
%
I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch
where it itches.
—Alice Roosevelt Longworth
%
If you can't say anything good about someone, sit right here by me.
—Alice Roosevelt Longworth
%
The secret of eternal youth is arrested development.
—Alice Roosevelt Longworth
%
Life is like a sewer—you only get out of it what you put into it.
—Barry B. Longyear
%
I'm furious about the Women's Liberationists. They keep getting up on
soapboxes and proclaiming that women are brighter than men. That's true,
but it should be kept quiet or it ruins the whole racket.
—Anita Loos
%
It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet
hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young.
—Konrad Lorenz
%
The average person thinks he isn't.
—Father Larry Lorenzoni
%
Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.
—Joe Louis
%
I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has
printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top.
—Professor Lowd, English, Ohio University
%
Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and gives us nothing in return.
—James Russell Lowell
%
It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of
man is tested.
—James Russell Lowell
%
I have noticed that the people who are late are often so much jollier than
the people who have to wait for them.
—E. V. Lucas
%
A woman's best protection is a little money of her own.
—Clare Boothe Luce
%
Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail,
no one will say, "She doesn't have what it takes." They will say, "Women
don't have what it takes."
—Clare Boothe Luce
%
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home, but unlike charity, it
should end there.
—Clare Boothe Luce
%
Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, and lessens the
frictions of social contacts.
—Clare Boothe Luce
%
Money can't buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while
you're being miserable.
—Clare Boothe Luce
%
Nature abhors a virgin—a frozen asset.
—Clare Boothe Luce
%
No good deed goes unpunished.
—Clare Boothe Luce
%
Politicians talk themselves red, white, and blue in the face.
—Clare Boothe Luce
%
They say that women talk too much. If you have worked in Congress you know
that the filibuster was invented by men.
—Clare Boothe Luce
%
There is nothing like a good dose of another woman to make a man
appreciate his wife.
—Clare Boothe Luce
%
By protracting life, we do not deduct one jot from the duration of
death.
—Titus Lucretius Carus
%
What is food to one, is to others bitter poison.
—Titus Lucretius Carus
%
At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his
thumb with a hammer.
—Marshall Lumsden
%
We can lie in the language of dress or try to tell the truth; but unless
we are naked and bald, it is impossible to be silent.
—Alison Lurie
%
Superstition, idolatry, and hypocrisy have ample wages, but truth goes
a-begging.
—Martin Luther
%
Cynicism—the intellectual cripple's substitute for intelligence.
—Russell Lynes
%
Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for
it.
—Russell Lynes
%
I didn't know how babies were made until I was pregnant with my fourth
child.
—Loretta Lynn