“But despite the current, almost mystical belief in communication-as-problem-solving – talk doesn’t always help.”
Lillian Breslow Rubin Worlds of Pain: Life in the Working-Class Family
“I definitely am going to take a course on time management… just as soon as I can work it into my schedule.”
“Louis Boone (1914-65), American critic” quoted in Cy Charney The Salesperson’s Handbook
“You should never try to teach a pig to sing: it can’t be done, and it annoys the pig.”
Letter from Matthew Horan of Fort Smith, Arkansas in National Review Dec. 30, 1991, quoting the opinion of H. Franklin Waters, Chief Judge of the Western District of Arkansas in Robertson v White, 633 F. Supp. 954, 959 (W.D. Ark 1986). [How’s that for a detailed, even pedantic reference?]
“Like a true philosopher, Flambeau had no aim in his holiday; but, like a true philosopher, he had an excuse. He had a sort of half purpose, which he took just so seriously that its success would crown the holiday, but just so lightly that its failure would not spoil it.”
G.K. Chesterton Favorite Father Brown Stories
“Education, even democratic education, will not remove international conflict, because conflict is rooted in the morally ambiguous nature of man.”
Ernest W. Lefever, Ethics And United States Foreign Policy
“There are two levers for moving men; interest and fear."
Widely attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte online but I have not found a specific attribution (mind you, I once worked for someone who said “There are two ways of motivating people – one is fear and I’ve forgotten the other” and the funny thing is, he was a great boss. But I was afraid of incurring his justified displeasure.)
“I indulged in what the Germans call Grübeleien, a word difficult to translate, connoting aimless broodings focused on oneself, with the outside world serving only as a resonance box for unbridled egoism.”
Nicolas Slonimsky Perfect Pitch (about time he spent in a sanatorium as a teen).
“To do nothing is in everyone’s power.”
Samuel Johnson widely quoted online (for instance at https://www.azquotes.com/quote/828498)