Curious Quotations
D
- "From that victory they never recovered."
- George Dangerfield (British journalist and historian. 1904–1986), referring to the British Liberal Party.
- I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't,
because if I liked it I'd eat it, and I just hate it.
- Clarence Darrow (US lawyer and writer. 1857–1938)
- "A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn`t there."
- Charles Darwin (British naturalist and author of "On the Origin of Species". 1809–1882)
- "Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do."
- Edgar Degas (French painter and sculptor. 1834–1917)
- "Sense perceptions are sense deceptions."
- Rene Descartes (French rationalist Philosopher and mathematician. 1596–1650) Motto.
- "Politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians"
- Charles De Gaulle (French soldier and president of France. 1890–1970)
- "Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word."
- Charles De Gaulle
- "Probability does not exist."
- Bruno De Finetti (Italian Probabilist, Statistician. 1906–1985)
- "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the age of incredulity, it was
the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way"
- Charles Dickens (British author. 1812–1870) A Tale of Two Cities (1859).
- "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
- Benjamin Disraeli (British Prime Minister 1868, 1874–80; novelist. 1804–1801) Attributed to Disreali by Mark Twain in "Autobiography" (1924, vol1).
- "Like alll great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen."
- Benjamin Disraeli
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"Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the curesed thing will come to mind every minute."
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russian author. 1821–1881) Winter Notes on Summer Impressions (1863).
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"It is a sign of Dickens's greatness that there is almost nothing one can say about him of which the opposite is not also true."
- Robert Douglas-Fairhurst (UK author and academic) Becoming Dickens: The Invention of a novelist (2011).
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"Depend upon it there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace"
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (British author. 1859–1930), 'A Case of Identity', 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' (1891).
- "Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now."
- Bob Dylan (Pseudonym of Robert Zimmerman. US Folk-singer and songwriter. 1941–), from the track, 'My Back Pages', on the album 'Another Side of Bob Dylan' (1964).
- "To live outside the law, you must be honest."
- Bob Dylan, from the track, 'Absolutely Sweet Marie', on the album 'Blonde on Blonde' (1966).
This lyric is similar to a line by Striling Sillipant in the 1958 film The Lineup: "When you live outside the law, you have to eliminate dishonesty"
- "She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan, from the track, 'Love Minus Zero/No Limit', on the album 'Bringing It All Back Home' (1965).
To read more curious quotations, please select a letter from the alphabet below.