Curious Quotations
F
- "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
- William Faulkner (US author. 1897–1962) Requiem for a Nun, 1951.
- "A philosopher once said, 'It is necessary for the very existence of science that the same conditions always produce the same result.' Well, they don't!"
- Richard Feynman (US physicist. 1918–1988), Lecture: "The Character of Physical Law - Part 6 Probability and Uncertainty – The Quantum Mechanical View of Nature" at Cornell University in 1964.
[See video.]
- "Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald (American author. 1896–1940)
- "People can have it any colour - so long as it's black."
- Henry Ford (American industrialist. 1863–1947) Ford is reputed to have made this remark
about the Model T Ford, which was first produced in 1909. By 1925 a range of colours were available.
- "Exercise is bunk. If you are healthy, you don't need it. If you are sick, you shouldn't take it."
- Henry Ford
- Chance is the pseudonym God uses when He'd rather not sign His own name.
- Anatole France (Pseudonym of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault; French writer. 1844–1924)
- "If a man could have half his wishes,
he would double his troubles."
- Benjamin Franklin (American statesman, printer, scientist, and writer. 1706–90)
- "Half the truth is often a great lie."
- Benjamin Franklin
- "Success has ruined many a man."
- Benjamin Franklin
- "Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure,
when he is really selling himself a slave to it."
- Benjamin Franklin
- "The existance of profound disbelief is an indication that the memories are real."
- Renee Fredrickson , Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse.
- "Let us consider the polarity of love and hate.... Now, clinical observation shows not only that love is with unexpected regularity accompanied by hate (ambivalence), and not only that in human relationships hate is frequently a forerunner of love, but also that in many circumstances hate changes into love and love into hate."
- Sigmund Freud (Austrian psychiatrist, founder of psychoanalysis. 1856–1939) The Ego and the Id, Hogarth, 1947.
[See Karl Kraus quote on psychoanalysis.]
- "It is a cliché that most clichés are true, but then like most clichés, that cliché is untrue."
- Stephen Fry (British comedian, author, actor and director. 1957–)
To read more curious quotations, please select a letter from the alphabet below.