Notable Notes on Quotable Quotes

It’s the greatest memorial any man, or woman, can have. That single phrase or sentence that everyone will remember forever, commonly called a quote.

The greatest quotes seem to be those that are unscripted and unrehearsed, ad libbed and off the cuff, if you like. It also helps to be famous to be remembered for those few little words.

If you do make it to the quotation hall of fame you will be in the company of a group of luminaries as diverse as Shakespeare, Mae West, François Voltaire, Ralph Waldo Emerson and John F. Kennedy.

A good quote appears to be comical, inspirational, philosophical or observational or it can even be a good way of executing a ‘put down’, so if anyone could combine all these themes in one quote they really have got it made.

These themes are put to good use in the following quotations.

Groucho Marx. (Julius Henry Marx. 1890 – 1977)

• “Marriage is a wonderful institution, that is of course if you like living in an institution.”                                    
•  “I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a good book.”

• “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.”

• “I drink to make other people interesting.”

• “Women should be obscene and not heard.”

Spike Milligan. (Terence Alan Milligan. 1918 – 2002)

• “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all the people some of the time, which is just long enough to be president of the United States.”

• “Money can’t buy you happiness, but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.”

• “I’m not afraid of dying, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

• “Contraceptives should be used on every conceivable occasion.”

• “Many people die of thirst but the Irish are born with one.”

• “Chopsticks are one of the reasons the Chinese never invented custard.”

Oscar Wilde. (Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde. 1854 – 1900)

• “I love acting. It is so much more real than life.”

• “America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.”

• “Always forgive your enemies, nothing annoys them so much.”

• “Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”

• “A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”

Abraham Lincoln. (1809 – 1865)