QOTD category archive

Emile Borel:

Whatever the progress of human knowledge, there will always be room for ignorance, hence for chance and probability.

Robert Bloch:

The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone else he can blame it on.

Charles A. Reich:

The American dream was not, at least at the beginning, a rags-to-riches type of narrow materialism.

Alan Turing:

We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.

Paul Samuelson:

Every good cause is worth some inefficiency.

Kerry Greenwood:

“People,” sighed Jane. “I’ll never understand them.”

“They are not logical,” agreed Phryne.

Greenwood, Kerry, Murder and Mendelssohn (Scottscale, AZ: Poisoned Pen Press, 2014), p. 120

Kerry Greenwood:

The coroner thought that evil people had organic brain damage or some other physical disease. Phryne did not think so, and neither did Robinson. Some coots were just naturally evil . . . .

Greenwood, Kerry, Murder in the Dark (Scottsdale, AZ: Poisoned Pen Press, 2009), p. 239.

James Whistler:

It takes a long time for a man to look like his portrait.

David Brewster:

It is a more rational belief that man may become a brute than that a brute may become a man . . . .

I. F. Stone:

Rich people march on Washington every day.

Montserrat Lombard, as Philomena Bell:

Philomena: Seb said it’s the modern disease.

Inspector Barnaby: What?

Philomena: Chronic dissatisfaction.

Thomas Szasz:

Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic.

Kerry Greenwood, who makes words dance:

The newly promoted Peace’s youthful enthusiasm occasionally filled (Detective Inspector Minton) with a sense of how old and cynical he had become. Without noticing. One day he just woke up and there he was, old and cynical and getting short of hair.

Greenwood, Kerry, Death by Water (Scpttsdale, AZ: Poisoned Pen Press, 2010), p. 199.

John Locke:

I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.

Margaret MacMillan:

Dictators, perhaps because they know their own lies so well, have usually realised the power of history. Consequently, they have tried to re-write, deny, or destroy the past.

Ricky Gervais:

There’s no difference between fame and infamy now. There’s a new school of professional famous people that don’t do anything.

Arnold J. Toynbee:

The human race’s prospects of survival were considerably better when we were defenceless against tigers than they are today when we have become defenceless against ourselves.

Geraldine Brooks:

We are not the only animal that mourns; apes do, and elephants, and dogs. Yet we are the only one that tortures.

Martin Rees:

When I discover I’m wrong, I change my mind. What do you do?

Kerry Greenwood:

Phryne had no use for guilt. It prevented sensible action.

Greenwood, Kerry, Queen of the Flowers (Scottsdale, AZ: Poisoned Pen Press, 2008), p. 150.