page U-Z

Good politics are often inextricably intertwined.

- Morris Udall

 

Do not look upon this world with fear and loathing. Bravely face whatever the gods offer.

- Morihei Ueshiba

 

Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.

- Samuel Ullman

 

Where there is joy there is creation. Where there is no joy there is no creation: know the nature of joy.

- Upanishads

 

Talent without genius isn't much, but genius without talent is nothing whatsoever.

- Paul Valery

 

The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.

- Paul Valery

 

Serious people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious.

- Paul Valery

 

An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it.

- Paul Valery

 

He who is calm disturbs neither himself nor others.

- The Vatican Sayings, Epicurus

 

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you have now was once among the things you only hoped for.

- The Vatican Sayings, Epicurus

 

It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.

- The Vatican Sayings, Epicurus

 

The term "incorporeal" is properly applied only to the void, which cannot act or be acted on. Since the soul can act and be acted upon, it is corporeal.

- The Vatican Sayings, Epicurus

 

Men imagine that celestial bodies are divine yet ascribe to them purposes inconsistent with divinity; and they anticipate eternal suffering after death. Peace of mind follows freedom from such fears, and will be gained if we trust to our immediate feelings and sensations.

- The Vatican Sayings, Epicurus

 

We do not so much need the help of our friends as the confidence of their help when in need.

- The Vatican Sayings, Epicurus

 

Freedom is the greatest fruit of self-sufficiency.

- The Vatican Sayings, Epicurus

 

Necessity is an evil; but there is no necessity for continuing to live subject to necessity.

- The Vatican Sayings, Epicurus

 

The Vice Presidency is sort of like the last cookie on the plate. Everybody insists he won't take it, but somebody always does.

- Bill Vaughan

 

Consciousness of our powers augments them.

- Vauvenargues

 

It's all very well to be happy for others, but when are you going to live your life for yourself? What would you do if you didn't believe in your self imposed limitations? Stop working so hard to cover up what you lack. Start living the dream that you have been denying for so long. There are people out there for whom you are complete and perfect. Find them and let them celebrate and nurture you and your dreams.

- Vicky

 

It is not enough to succeed; others must fail.

- Gore Vidal

 

Half the American population no longer reads newspapers: plainly, they are the clever half.

- Gore Vidal

 

I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it.

- Voltaire

 

The great questions are those an intelligent child asks and, getting no answers, stops asking.

- George Wald

 

Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting.

- Karl Wallenda

 

To carry a grudge is like being stung to death by one bee.

- William Walton

 

Flatter me, and I may not believe you.
Criticize me, and I may not like you.
Ignore me, and I may not forgive you.
Encourage me, and I may not forget you.

- William Arthur Ward

 

The greatest failure is the failure to try.

- William Arthur Ward

 

All glory comes from daring to begin.

- Eugene F. Ware

 

In this world of misery, disease, old age, and death, there is no other protection, refuge or help than our own practise of the truth. Others are powerless; as we sow we reap.

- Quoted by Warren in 'Jainism'

 

The sports page records people's accomplishments; The front page nothing but their failures.

- Jutice Earl Warren

 

Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.

- Edith Warton

 

Yet my deepest bond has not been to any country.
The homeland of the mind has no boundaries.
Books stand open like houses.
Nobody is foreign.

- Ionna-Veronika Warwick

 

Success is not measured by th position one has reached in life, rather by the obstacles overcome while trying to succeed.

- Booker T. Washington

 

I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

- Booker T. Washington

 

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.

- George Washington

 

Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation for 'tis better to be alone than in bad company.

- George Washington

 

We keep, in science, getting a more and more sophisticated view of our essential ignorance.

- Warren Weaver

 

Man alone can enslave man.

- Simone Weil

 

A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.

- Simone Weil

 

Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.

- H. G. Wells

 

The past is but the beginning of a beginning, and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn.

- H. G. Wells

 

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.

- H. G. Wells

 

The most powerful agent of growth and transformation is something much more basic than any technique: a change of heart.

- John Welwood

 

The purpose of life is to fight maturity.

- Dick Werthimer

 

When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.

- Mae West

 

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what a feminist is, I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat

- Rebecca West

 

Death cannot stop true love. It can only delay it for a while.

- Westley

 

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

- Edith Wharton

 

None are so empty as those who are full of themselves.

- Benjamin Whichcote

 

Two and two continue to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five.

- James McNeil Whistler

 

I have occasionally had the exquisite thrill of putting my finger on a little capsule of truth, and heard it give the faint squeak of mortality under my pressure.

- E.B. White

 

It is easier for a man to be loyal to his club than to his planet; the bylaws are shorter, and he is personally acquainted with the other members.

- E.B. White

 

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

- E.B. White

 

We grow tyrannical fighting tyranny. The most alarming spectacle today is not the spectacle of the atomic bomb in an unfederated world, it is the spectacle of the Americans beginning to accept the device of loyalty oaths and witchhunts, beginning to call anybody they don't like a Communist.

- E.B. White

 

As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left us in a bad time.

- E.B. White

 

Half a man's life is devoted to what he calls improvements, yet the original had some quality which is lost in the process.

- E.B. White

 

I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today.

- William Allen White

 

It is a false dichotomy to think of nature and man. Mankind is that factor in nature which exhibits in its most intense form the plasticity of nature.

- Alfred North Whitehead

 

A good listener is a good talker with a sore throat.

- Katherine Whitehorn

 

Find out what you like doing best and get someone to pay you for doing it.

- Katherine Whitehorn

 

Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.

- Walt Whitman

 

I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends.

- Walt Whitman

 

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, and what I assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

- Walt Whitman

 

The fruition of beauty is no chance of hit or miss... it is inevitable as life.

- Walt Whitman

 

Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels.

- Faith Whittlesey

 

Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

- Oscar Wilde

 

Ninety-nine percent of the people in the world are fools and the rest of us are in great danger of contagion.

- Thorton Wilder

 

We grow a little every time we do not take advantage of somebody's weakness.

- Bern Williams

 

We have no assurance that half-truth will make us free.

- Roger J. Williams

 

Children are happy because they don't yet have a file in their minds called "All the Things That Could Go Wrong." They don't have a mind-set that puts "Things to Fear" before "Things to Love." Unless we can be like little children, we can't enter into the kingdom of heaven; unless we can be like little children, we can't be happy. Children are happy because they don't have all the "facts" yet.

- Marianne Williamson

 

Only the winners decide what were war crimes.

- Gary Wills

 

If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.

- Earl Wilson

 

Being your own man does not mean taking advantage of anyone else.

- Flip Wilson

 

Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.

- Woodrow Wilson

 

I use not only all the brains I have, but all I can borrow.

- Woodrow Wilson

 

Liberty has never come from government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance.

- Woodrow Wilson

 

Provision for others is a fundamental responsibility of human life.

- Woodrow Wilson

 

One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty councils. The thing to do is supply light and not heat.

- Woodrow Wilson

 

I am the modern, intelligent, independent-type woman. In other words, a girl who can not get a man.

- Shelley Winters

 

If a man has a talent and cannot use it, he has failed. If he has a talent and uses only half of it, he has partly failed. If he has a talent and learns somehow to use the whole of it, he has gloriously succeeded, and won a satisfaction and a triumph few men ever know.

- Thomas Wolfe

 

A cult is a religion with no political power.

- Thomas Wolfe

 

We all have ability. The difference is how we use it.

- Stevie Wonder

 

Dreams never hurt anybody if he keeps working right behind the dream to make as much of it come real as he can.

- Frank W. Woolworth

 

The doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his client to plant vines.

- Frank Lloyd Wright

 

Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.

- Frank Lloyd Wright

 

Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities.

- Frank Lloyd Wright

 

You can't have everything. Where would you put it?

- Steven Wright

 

A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her ears.

- Woodrow Wyatt

 

God must hate the common people, because he made them so common.

- Philip Wylie

 

The sweetest of all sounds is praise.

- Xenophon

 

Better never to have met you
In my dream
Than to wake and reach
For hands that are not there.

- Otomo No Yakamochi

 

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

- William Butler Yeats

 

A half truth is a whole lie.

- Yiddish proverb

 

Try? There is no try. There is only do or do not do.

- Yoda

 

The greatness of a man can nearly always be measured by his willingness to be kind.

- G. Young

 

If you're going to do something tonight that you'll be sorry for tomorrow, sleep late.

- Henny Youngman

 

A good rest is half the work.

- Yugoslav Proverb

 

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.

- Lin Yutang

 

Time is never wasted when you're wasted all the time.

- Catherine Zandonella

 

It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!

- Emiliano Zapata

 

You can't be a Real Country unless you have a BEER and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.

- Frank Zappa

 

If enlightenment is not where you are standing, where will you look?/

- Zen Saying

 

When your bow is broken and your last arrow spent, then shoot, shoot with your whole heart.

- Zen Saying

 

Being a philosopher, I have a problem for every solution.

- Robert Zend

 

As a final incentive before giving up a dificult task, try to imagine it successfully accomplished by someone you violently dislike.

- K. Zenios

 

Don't criticize what you can't understand.

- Robert Zimmerman

 

The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.

- Emile Zola