Under the Microscope Prof William RevilleThis week I offer you a selection of outstanding quotations, mostly from a collection compiled by Prof Gabriel Robins*.
"God gave men both a penis and a brain, but unfortunately not enough blood supply to run both at the same time." Robin Williams, commenting on the Clinton/Lewinsky affair.
"I worship the quicksand he walks in." Art Buchwald.
"The difference between 'involvement' and 'commitment' is like an eggs-and-ham breakfast: the chicken was 'involved' - the pig was 'committed'." Unknown.
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." Napoleon Bonaparte.
"I'll moider da bum." Heavyweight boxer Tony Galento, when asked what he thought of William Shakespeare.
"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." Martin Luther King Jr (1929-1968).
"If you think you can or you think you can't, your right." Henry Ford (1863-1947).
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." Oscar Wilde (1854-1900).
"I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves." Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951).
"It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid." George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950).
"The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time." George Bernard Shaw.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965).
"When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite." Sir Winston Churchill.
"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains." Sir Winston Churchill.
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." Voltaire (1694-1778).
"Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies." Voltaire on his deathbed in response to a priest asking that he renounce Satan.
"He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death." H H Munro (Saki) (1870-1916).
"I've had a wonderful time, but this wasn't it." Groucho Marx (1895-1977).
"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good." Samuel Johnson (1709-1784).
"There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread." Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948).
"I think it would be a good idea." Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization.
"When you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900).
"Sometimes when reading Goethe I have the paralysing suspicion that he is trying to be funny." Guy Davenport.
"Things should be explained as simply as possible, but no simpler." Albert Einstein (1879-1955).
"What do you take me for, an idiot?" General Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970), when a journalist asked him if he was happy.
"The graveyards are full of indispensable men." Charles de Gaulle.
"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book - I'll waste no time reading it." Moses Hadas (1900-1966).
"I have read your book and much like it." Moses Hadas.
"You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty." Sacha Guitry (1885-1957).
"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?" Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865).
* http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/quotes.html.
William Reville is associate professor of iochemistry and director of microscopy at University College Cork