r_harvey

Misquotations

You've heard these lines a hundred times, but probably wrong. Sages often retell their best lines, each telling a little sharper, 'til they're on history's edge (like thinking of what we should have said at the party, only when driving home).

" California is a fine place to live -- if you happen to be an orange."
- Fred Allen

" A billion here, a couple of billion there, first thing you know it adds up to be real money."
- Everett McKinley Dirksen, former US Senator

" Don't fire until you can see the whites of their eyes."
" Don't one of you shoot until you see the whites of their eyes."
- General Israel Putnam, June 17, 1775, at the Battle of Bunker Hill (only one quote is accurate)

" As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
- Albert Einstein

" ... Like making the transition from driving on the left side of the road to the right -- a little bit at a time."
- George Will, writer/comentator

" Nothing is certain but death and taxes."
" Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."
- Benjamin Franklin (both versions are acceptable)

" Candy,
Is dandy,
But Liquor,
Is quicker."
- Ogden Nash, poet

" No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent."
- Abraham Lincoln

" Fold it five-ways and stick it where the moon don't shine."
- Tennessee Williams, writer

" The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
- President Franklin D. Roosevelt

" First they ignore you,
then they laugh at you,
then they fight you,
then you win."
- Mahatma Gandhi

" There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."
- Benjamin Disraeli, former British Prime Minister (often attributed to Mark Twain)

" Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all"
- Alfred Lord Tennyson, writer

" Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to."
- Mark Twain, writer

" Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come."
- Carl Sandburg, writer

" We have met the enemy and he is us."
- Walt Kelly, cartoonist, in Pogo

" Sure, 90% of science fiction is crud. That's because 90% of everything is crud."
- Theodore Sturgeon, science fiction writer

" He can't walk and chew gum at the same time."
- Attributed to President Lyndon Johnson in reference to Hubert Humphrey, but the origin of that line was me -- really, when I was quite young in Southern California (and my proof is that I never use it anymore. I also came up with the "delusions of adequacy" line, but nobody remembers... that's fine, really. No, honestly.)

" Neither a borrower nor a lender be, For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry."
- William Shakespeare, in Hamlet (Often attributed to Benjamin Franklin)

~~We don't need no stinkin' badges~~
The bandits begin: " We are the Federales. You know, the mounted police." Humphrey Bogart, as Fred C. Dobbs, asks: " If you're the police, where are your badges?" . . . " Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinkin' badges."
- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (the misquotation was popularized in Blazing Saddles)

~~Play it again, Sam~~
" You played it for her, you can play it for me. Play it! Play it, Sam. Play `As Time Goes By.'"
- Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca

~~Better here than Philadelphia~~
" On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia."
- W. C. Fields, juggler, writer, actor

CADE " I thank you, good people--there shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers and worship me their lord."
DICK: " The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."
CADE: " Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? That parchment, being scribbl'd o'er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings; but I say ‘tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since. How now! Who's there?"
- William Shakespeare, in the second part of King Henry The Sixth, ACT IV, SCENE II.