WORDS OF WISDOM

 
"Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved."
- W. Somerset Maugham.

"Always live in the ugliest house on the street - then you don't have to look at it"
- David Hockney.

"The secret of charm is bullshit."
- Tyrone Power.

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."
- Oscar Wilde.

"Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint you can on it."
- Danny Kaye.

"Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories."
- Arthur C. Clarke.

"If people knew how hard I have had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn't seem wonderful at all."
- Michelangelo.

"A cynic is a person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."
- Oscar Wilde.

"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
- Mark Twain.

"Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same."
- Oscar Wilde.

"One should always be in love. This is the reason one should never marry."
- Oscar Wilde.

"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion."
- Arthur C. Clarke.

"Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected."
- Oscar Wilde.

"If you describe things as better than they are, you are considered to be a romantic; if you describe things as worse than they are, you will be called a realist; and if you describe things exactly as they are, you will be thought of as a satirist."
- Quentin Crisp.

"It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple: one must be a woman manly, or a man womanly."
- Virginia Woolf.

"There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror."
- W. Somerset Maugham.

"The most exciting thing is not doing it. If you fall in love with someone and never do it, it's much more exciting."
- Andy Warhol.

"If male homosexuals are called 'Gay', then female homosexuals should be called 'Ecstatic'."
- Shelly Roberts.

"They gave me a medal for killing a man, and a discharge for loving one."
- Sergeant Leonard Matlovich.

"More people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, my friends, that is true perversion."
- Harvey Milk.

"The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read."
- Oscar Wilde.

"I must be the luckiest man in the world. Not only am I bisexual, I am also Welsh."
- John Osborne.

"I never know how much of what I say is true."
- Bette Midler.

"It's funny the way most people love the dead. Once you are dead, you are made for life."
- Jimi Hendrix.

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."
- Oscar Wilde.

"The English like eccentrics. They just don't like them living next door."
- Julian Clary.

"A true friend stabs you in the front."
- Oscar Wilde.

"A narcissist is someone better looking than you are."
- Gore Vidal.

"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose."
- Janis Joplin.

"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."
- Oscar Wilde.

"Dream as if you'll live forever; live as if you'll die tomorrow."
- James Dean.

"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."
- Oscar Wilde.

"What is a friend? A friend is a single soul dwelling in two bodies."
- Aristotle.

"Success is a great deodorant. It takes away all your past smells."
- Elizabeth Taylor.

"Wit is educated insolence."
- Aristotle.

"A little too much is just enough."
- Jean Cocteau.

"A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies."
- Oscar Wilde.

"I've never looked through a keyhole without finding someone was looking back."
- Judy Garland.

"It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors."
- Oscar Wilde.

"I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human."
- David Bowie.

"What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing."
- Aristotle.

"I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet, there would be no more wars."
- E. M. Forster.

"There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."
- Oscar Wilde.

"Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan's egg."
- Hans Christian Anderson.

"There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the other is to read Pope."
- Oscar Wilde.

"Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice."
E. M. Forster.

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror."
- Oscar Wilde.

"Live fast, die young, and leave a good looking corpse."
- James Dean.

"The gods too are fond of a joke."
- Aristotle.

"I am not young enough to know everything."
- Oscar Wilde.

"On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points."
- Virginia Woolf.

"It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating."
- Oscar Wilde.

"They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."
- Andy Warhol.

"Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes, they forgive them."
- Oscar Wilde.

"He never chooses an opinion; he just wears whatever happens to be in style."
- Leo Tolstoy.

"The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues."
- Elizabeth Taylor.

"To regret one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development. To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's life. It is no less than a denial of the soul."
- Oscar Wilde.

"We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?"
- Jean Cocteau.

"There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating - people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing."
- Oscar Wilde.

"This is the first age that's ever paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one."
- Arthur C. Clarke.

"Friendship is much more tragic than love. It lasts longer."
- Oscar Wilde.

"You can neither win nor lose if you don't run the race."
- David Bowie.
 

"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much."
- Oscar Wilde.

"Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else."
- Judy Garland.

"The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one."
- Oscar Wilde.

"Money pads the edges of things . . . "
- E. M. Forster.

"It is bad enough that people are dying of AIDS, but no one should die of ignorance."
- Elizabeth Taylor.

"If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style."
- Quentin Crisp.

"Sex is God's joke on human beings."
- Bette Davis.

"I love playing bitches. There's a lot of bitch in every woman - a lot in every man."
- Joan Crawford.

"My sexuality has never been a problem to me but I think it has been for other people."
- Dusty Springfield.

"There are so many qualities that make up a human being...by the time I get through the things I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant."
- Paul Newman.

"I've done an awful lot of stuff that's a monument to public patience."
- Tyrone Power.
 

"Some of the most moral men I know are homosexuals."
- Dr. Evelyn Hooker.

"I'd rather be Black than Gay because when you're Black you don't have to tell your mother."
- Charles Pierce.

"The world is coloured in by your own hearts."
- River Phoenix.

"I think people should be free to engage in any sexual practices they choose; they should draw the line at goats though."
- Elton John.

"If I hadn't been a woman, I'd have been a drag queen."
- Dolly Parton.

"God gave us a penis and a brain, but only enough blood to run one at a time."
- Robin Williams.

"Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down."
- Oprah Winfrey.
 

"I may not be good, but I've got guts!"
- Liberace.

"Blackpool has the potential to be a Las Vegas on heat."
- Basil Newby.

"Colour, creed, sex, sexuality . . . these are but part of a whole. It is the whole that counts."
- R. N. Taber. (link.)