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Quotes of the day 1

Found at verba-volant.net and at The Quotations Page.
Translations into Afrikaans by Dirk Laurie

Did you know that Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784) is - after Shakespeare - the most quoted man?
On second marriages: "The triumph of hope over experience."
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
Such seems to be the disposition of man, that whatever makes a distinction produces rivalry
There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified and new prejudices to be opposed
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure

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There is no doubt that I have lots of words inside me; but at moments, like rush-hour traffic at the mouth of a tunnel, they jam.
John Updike

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Groucho Marx

I have difficulty with the notion that art must be challenging.
Paul Emsley

Beauty is the promise of happiness.
Stendhal

She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.
Dorothy Parker

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
Oscar Wilde

I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don't.
W. Somerset Maugham

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
Dr. Seuss

Anything too stupid to be said is sung.
Voltaire

I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
Umberto Eco

Si vis doceri, doce
Marcus Tullius Cicero
if you want to learn, then teach
as jy wil leer, onderrig dan

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
George Orwell

Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.
Leonardo da Vinci

Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.
Doug Larson

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.
Gustave Flaubert

An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.
Aldous Huxley

Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.
Oscar Wilde

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.
Blaise Pascal

The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them. - Sir William Bragg

Public speaking is the art of diluting a two-minute idea with a two-hour vocabulary.
Evan Esar

El libro es una de las posibilidades de felicidad que tenemos los hombres
Jorge Luis Borges
A book is one of the fonts of joy available to us

Wer seinen Stil verbessert, verfeinert die eigene Gedankenarbeit
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
English - to improve one's style means to improve one's way of thinking

To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worthwhile. The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter.
Aleister Crowley

The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school
George Bernard Shaw

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
GK Chesterton

So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.
Peter Drucker

The price of freedom of religion, or of speech, or of the press, is that we must put up with a good deal of rubbish.
Robert Jackson

When a thing has been said and well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.
Anatole France

Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought
Kettery is maar net 'n ander woord vir vryheid van denke
Graham Greene

My way of joking is to tell the truth. It is the funniest joke in the world.

George Bernard Shaw

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
Thomas Mann
found at The Quotations Page

A painter is a man who paints what he sells; an artist, on the other hand, is a man who sells what he paints
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
'n skilder is iemand wat skilder wat hy verkoop; 'n kunstenaar, aan die ander kant, is iemand wat verkoop wat hy skilder
Hace falta mucho, mucho tiempo para ser joven
Pablo Picasso
It takes a very long time to become young

O mundo não é verdadeiro, mas é real
Fernando Pessoa (1879 - 1955)
The world is not true, but it's real
Die wêreld is nie waar nie, maar dit is werklik

There's no curse greater than an idea propagated by violence
Ezra Pound (1879 - 1955)
Daar is geen vloek groter as 'n idee voortgedryf deur geweld nie

Picasso es pintor, yo también; Picasso es español, yo también; Picasso es comunista, yo tampoco
Salvador Dalí
Picasso is schilder, ik ook; Picasso is Spanjaard, ik ook; Picasso is communist, ik ook niet
Picasso is a painter, so am I; Picasso is Spanish, so am I; Picasso is a communist, neither am I

La saggezza non sta nel distruggere gli idoli, sta nel non crearne mai
Umberto Eco
Wisdom has less to do with destroying idols than in never creating them in the first place
Wysheid sit nie in die vernietiging van afgode nie, dit sit daarin om hulle nooit te skep nie.

Il faut se garder des premiers mouvements, parce qu'ils sont presque toujours honnêtes
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand - Périgord
Afrikaans - 'n Mens moet oppas vir eerste reaksies, want hulle is byna altyd reg
Dutch - wantrouw de eerste ingevingen, want zij zijn bijna altijd juist
English - mistrust first impulses; they are nearly always good
German - misstraut den ersten Eingebungen; sie sind fast immer richtig

It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, 'always do what you are afraid to do'
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Es handelte sich wirklich um einen guten Rat, den man einem jungen Mann einst gab: 'tue immer das, was dir Angst macht'

No one gossips about other people's secret virtues
Bertrand Russell
Niemand skinder oor ander mense se geheime deugde nie
Niemand lästert über die versteckten Tugenden der anderen.

L'obbedienza è un vizio al quale cedere fa sempre molto comodo
Don Lorenzo Milani
Gehoorsaamheid is 'n ondeug waarvoor dit altyd maklik is om te swig
Giving in to the vice of obedience is always comfortable
Gehorsam ist ein Laster, dem zu frönen immer recht einträglich ist

She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.
Dorothy Parker

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
Oscar Wilde

I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don't.
W. Somerset Maugham

Autobiography is an unrivaled vehicle for telling the truth about other people.
Philip Guedalla

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.
G. K. Chesterton

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty - a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture.
  - Bertrand Russell

Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember
Oscar LevantHuman beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
Douglas Adams

Die lewe is n lied, met 'n paar vals note.
Gunther Bratke
Life is like a song - with a few false notes.

Hope is tomorrow's veneer over today's disappointment.
Evan Esar

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities.
Dr. Seuss

El infierno y el paraíso me parecen desproporcionados. Los actos de los hombres no merecen tanto
Jorge Luis Borges
Heaven and hell seem out of proportion to me: the actions of men do not deserve so much
Die hel en die hemel lyk vir my disproporsioneel: die optrede van mense verdien nie soveel nie

The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made
Groucho Marx
Die geheim van sukses is eerlikheid en regverdige optrede. As jy beide kan voorgee, het jy dit reggekry

There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.
Pablo Picasso

Hace falta mucho, mucho tiempo para ser joven
Pablo Picasso
It takes a very long time to become young

Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?
Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
Aesop

The salary of the chief executive of a large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself.
John Kenneth Galbraith

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Demokrasie stel verkiesing deur die onbevoegde menigte in die plek van aanstelling deur die korrupte enkele

A multinational is closer to totalitarianism than any other human institution
Noam Chomsky
'N multinasionale maatskappy is veel nader aan totalitarisme as enige ander menslike instelling

I am not young enough to know everything
Oscar Wilde
Ek is nie jonk genoeg om alles te weet nie

The poor go to war to fight and die for the whims, wealth and excesses of others
Plutarch
Die armes gaan oorlog toe om te veg en te sterf vir die grille, rykdom en eksesse van ander

All exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation
Bertrand Russell
Alle eksakte wetenskappe word gedomineer deur die idee van benadering

Disarmament conferences amount to fire prevention exercises by pyromaniacs
John Osborne (1929 1994)
Ontwapeningskonferensies is vergelykbaar met brandprevensieoefeninge vir pyromanes

In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
Dutch - om een lid van onbesproken gedrag van een kudde schapen te zijn, dient men, eerst en vooral, schaap te zijn
English - in order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep
German - um ein tadelloses Mitglied einer Schafherde sein zu können, muss man vor allem selber ein Schaf sein

Wisdom is getting rid of the unnecessary
Lin Yutang
Wysheid is om weg te doen met die onnodige

We are what we repeatedly do
Aristotle
Ons is dit, wat ons herhaaldelik doen
Nous sommes ce que nous faisons de manière répétée
Wir sind was wir regelmäßig tun

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
Edgar Allan Poe
Dié wat bedags droom, is bewus van baie dinge wat ontsnap aan dié wat net snags droom
Wer tagsüber träumt, weiß viele Dinge, die dem, der nur nachts träumt, entgehen

Don't wait for the right opportunity: create it
George Bernard Shaw
Moenie vir die regte geleentheid wag nie: skep dit

There's only one good, Knowledge, and only one evil, Ignorance
Socrates
Die enigste goeie ding is Kennis, en die enigste slegte, Onkunde
Es gibt nur ein Gutes: das Wissen; und nur ein Böses: die Unwissenheit

La paix n'est pas un don de Dieu à ses créatures. C'est un don que nous nous faisons les uns aux autres
Elie Wiesel
Afrikaans - Vrede is nie 'n gawe van God aan sy skepsels nie. Dis 'n geskenk wat ons aan mekaar gee.
English - peace is not God's gift to his creatures, peace is our gift to each other German - der Frieden ist kein Geschenk Gottes an die Menschheit, sondern ein Geschenk, das die Menschen sich untereinander machen

Maybe this world is another planet's hell
Aldous Huxley
Dalk is hierdie wêreld 'n ander planeet se hel

L'amour fait des fous, le mariage des cocus, le patriotisme des imbéciles malfaisants
Paul Léautaud
Love makes us crazy, marriage cuckolds and patriotism cruel imbeciles
Die liefde maak van ons dwase, die huwelik bedriegdes, patriotisme wrede idiote

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