Quotes and anectdotes from the wise to the foolish, and the courageous to the drunk

best

There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it ill behaves any of us to find fault with the rest of us.

This is the precept by which I have lived: Prepare for the worst expect the best and take what comes.

When love is at its best, one loves so much that he cannot forget.

You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.

By all these lovely tokens September days are here, With summer's best of weather And autumn's best of cheer.

Man's wisdom is his best friend folly his worst enemy.

Memories are like mulligatawny soup in a cheap restaurant. It is best not to stir them.

Scouting rises within you and inspires you to put forth your best.

Everyone enjoys doing the kind of work for which he is best suited.

Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

God always gives His best to those who leave the choice with him.

He who laughs best today, will also laughs last.

I can not believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.

I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.

In the last analysis, even the best man is evil: in the last analysis, even the best woman is bad.

Infinite striving to be the best is man's duty it is its own reward. Everything else is in God's hands.

It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.

It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.

It is not enough to do your best you must know what to do, and then do your best.

Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.

My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

Perhaps nature is our best assurance of immortality.

Sculpture is the best comment that a painter can make on painting.

The best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a writer.

The best doctor is the one you run to and can't find.

The best morale exist when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it's usually lousy.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.

The best way to sell yourself to others is first to sell the others to yourself.

The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.

The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

Compromise is the best and cheapest lawyer.

Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.

Do the best you can, and don't take life too serious.

Every Body has so good an Opinion of their own Understanding as to think their own way the best.

Fairest and best adorned is she Whose clothing is humility.

For what is love itself, for the one we love best? An enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love.

God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.

He who has done his best for his own time has lived for all times.

Health is the thing that makes you feel that now is the best time of the year.

Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.

I am easily satisfied with the very best.

If a man does his best, what else is there?

In this world you've just got to hope for the best and prepare for the worst and take whatever God sends.

It is no use saying, 'We are doing our best.' You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.

It is not best that we should all think alike it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.

Men are like wine - some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age.

Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry always gets the best of the argument.

Prosperity is the best protector of principle.

Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

The best augury of a man's success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.

The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

The best is the enemy of the good.

The best protection any woman can have... is courage.

The best way out of a difficulty is through it.

The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.

The man with the best job in the country is the vice-president. All he has to do is get up every morning and say, 'How is the president?'

The only failure one should fear, is not hugging to the purpose they see as best.

The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

The short words are best, and the old words are the best of all.

The waste basket is the writer's best friend.

The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don't let it get the best of you.

There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.

Use what talents you possess the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.

We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend.

We have the best government that money can buy.

You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know.

You'll live. Only the best get killed.

Culture is the habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why.

Home is the place we love best and grumble the most.

It is with rivers as it is with people: the greatest are not always the most agreeable nor the best to live with.

Love is the best thing in the world, and the thing that lives the longest.

Some women feel the best cure for a broken heart is a new beau.

The splendid discontent of God With chaos made the world. And from the discontent of man The worlds best progress springs.

You must capture and keep the heart of the original and supremely able man before his brain can do its best.

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.

We do not look in our great cities for our best morality.

You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.

After all it is those who have a deep and real inner life who are best able to deal with the irritating details of outer life.

Go right straight down the road, to do what is best, and to do it frankly and without evasion.

I will give you the best I have.

Old friends are best.

Sleep is good, death is better but of course, the best thing would to have never been born at all.

A girl's legs are her best friends... but even the best of friends must part.

A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.

As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.

Clever men are good, but they are not the best.

Do not have evil-doers for friends, do not have low people for friends: have virtuous people for friends, have for friends the best of men.

Expect the best, Prepare for the worst.

He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most. God will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us.

I always prefer to believe the best of everybody, it saves so much trouble.

I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.

It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen.

It is our best work that God wants, not the dregs of our exhaustion. I think he must prefer quality to quantity.

One man's ways may be as good as another's, but we all like our own best.

The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.

The best revenge is massive success.

The creed of a true saint is to make the best of life, and to make the most of it.

A man's best fortune, or his worst, is his wife.

A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation.

Age appears to be best in four things old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.

Enthusiasm is the best protection in any situation. Wholeheartedness is contagious. Give yourself, if you wish to get others.

Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.

Fatigue is the best pillow.

Golf is so popular simply because it is the best game in the world at which to be bad.

Honesty is the best policy.

Hunger is the best pickle.

I think that making love is the best form of exercise.

It's a funny thing about life if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

Lay this unto your breast: Old friends, like old swords, still are trusted best.

Man, being reasonable, must get drunk the best of life is but intoxication.

My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can.

Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me.

Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.

No man fails who does his best.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.

Set up another case bartender! The best thing for a case of nerves is a case of Scotch.

The best argument I know for an immortal life is the existence of a man who deserves one.

The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep.

The best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself.

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.

The best thing about giving of ourselves is that what we get is always better than what we give. The reaction is greater than the action.

The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?

The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success.

The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.

The wildest colts make the best horses.

The worst men often give the best advice.

There is an infinite difference between a little wrong and just right, between fairly good and the best, between mediocrity and superiority.

This is the patent age of new inventions for killing bodies, and for saving souls. All propagated with the best intentions.

Though bachelors be the strongest stakes, married men are the best binders, in the hedge of the commonwealth.

To give anything less than your best, is to sacrifice the gift.

To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.

We can best help you to prevent war not by repeating your words and following your methods but by finding new words and creating new methods.

When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.

Yet, it is true, poetry is delicious the best prose is that which is most full of poetry.

You may call God love, you may call God goodness. But the best name for God is compassion.

If a man is dumb, someone is going to get the best of him, so why not you? If you don't, you're as dumb as he is.

It's human nature to gripe, but I'm going ahead and doing the best I can.

One must not make oneself cheap here - that is a cardinal point - or else one is done. Whoever is most impertinent has the best chance.

Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions in the past.

Those who know the least obey the best.

When a man's best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem.

The things I want to know are in books my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read.

The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.

There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.

Toleration is the best religion.

When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.

Every job is good if you do your best and work hard. A man who works hard stinks only to the ones that have nothing to do but smell.

Music is the best means we have of digesting time.

The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.

The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.

The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow and the men who lend.

The man who has done his best has done everything.

A boy's story is the best that is ever told.

A man's friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.

Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world.

Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.

Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them.

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil in its worst state, an intolerable one.

How long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it?

I do the very best I know how - the very best I can and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.

I never had a policy I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.

I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.

It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.

Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains.

Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best stage, is but a necessary evil in its worst state an intolerable one.

Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.

The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.

The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.

The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.

The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.

The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.

The best way to turn a woman's head is to tell her she has a beautiful profile.

The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity.

A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.

A woman's best protection is a little money of her own.

After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working.

But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.

Faith in oneself is the best and safest course.

God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.

I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.

Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.

The best things and best people rise out of their separateness I'm against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.

The best way out is always through.

The best way to know God is to love many things.

Work hard, stay positive, and get up early. It's the best part of the day.

The best of artists has no conception that the marble alone does not contain within itself.

Those men get along best with women who can get along best without them.

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very fast.

We reproach people for talking about themselves but it is the subject they treat best.

America is the best half-educated country in the world.

One of the rarest things that a man ever does, is to do the best he can.

The best medicine I know for rheumatism is to thank the Lord that it ain't gout.

The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.

The making of friends who are real friends, is the best token we have of a man's success in life.

'Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems.

A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one - they show one another off to the best advantage.

A problem is a chance for you to do your best.

But men are men the best sometimes forget.

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

He who knows best knows how little he knows.

Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are reduced so low as that.

Living well is the best revenge.

One of the best temporary cures for pride and affectation is seasickness a man who wants to vomit never puts on airs.

That best portion of a man's life, his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.

The best portion of a good man's life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.

The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.

The best thing about animals is that they don't talk much.

The best time for you to hold your tongue is the time you feel you must say something or bust.

The best time I ever had with Joan Crawford was when I pushed her down the stairs in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his own way.

The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency.

The human body is the best picture of the human soul.

The humblest painter is a true scholar and the best of scholars the scholar of nature.

A Boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore If God did exist, he would have to be abolished.

Autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay.

Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.

For Forms of Government let fools contest whatever is best administered is best.

From now until the end of time no one else will ever see life with my eyes, and I mean to make the best of my chance.

Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by the letting of a little water.

I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

I may be as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.

If I'm honest I have to tell you I still read fairy-tales and I like them best of all.

In matters of conscience, first thoughts are best. In matters of prudence, last thoughts are best.

It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.

It might be said now that I have the best of both worlds. A Harvard education and a Yale degree.

It's best to have failure happen early in life. It wakes up the Phoenix bird in you so you rise from the ashes.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.

Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.

Our best thoughts come from others.

Party-spirit at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.

Science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.

The age of a woman doesn't mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.

The best effort of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence.

The best men of the best epochs are simply those who make the fewest blunders and commit the fewest sins.

The best place a person can die, is where they die for others.

The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk.

The best road to progress is freedom's road.

The best thing commercially, which is the worst artistically, by and large, is the most successful.

The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.

The best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

The best way to keep your friends is not to give them away.

The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all.

We are all of us failures, at least, the best of us are.

We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.

Woman's at best a contradiction still.

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

Education alone can conduct us to that enjoyment which is, at once, best in quality and infinite in quantity.

Grow old with me! The best is yet to be.

Live daringly, boldly, fearlessly. Taste the relish to be found in competition - in having put forth the best within you.

The man who has done his level best... is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure.

What good mothers and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their babies is usually best after all.

The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.

When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.

I did my best, and God did the rest.

A woman knows by intuition, or instinct, what is best for herself.

Choose your companions from the best Who draws a bucket with the rest soon topples down the hill.

He who keeps his cool best wins.

I feel sorry for people who don't drink. They wake up in the morning and that's the best they're going to feel all day.

Laughter is not a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is the best ending for one.

Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.

Mechanization best serves mediocrity.

One of the best things that ever happened to me is that I'm a woman. That is the way all females should feel.

Our best successes often come after our greatest disappointments.

People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.

The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.

The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.

Cynical realism is the intelligent man's best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation.

For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.

Good humor is one of the best articles of dress one can wear in society.

I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.

I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.

If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance.

It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.

It is best to love wisely, no doubt but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.

My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.

Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.

Our most intimate friend is not he to whom we show the worst, but the best of our nature.

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.

Soap and water and common sense are the best disinfectants.

That government is best which governs least.

That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best - make it all up - but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way.

The best part of the art of living is to know how to grow old gracefully.

The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.

The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.

The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.

Those that despise people will never get the best out of others and themselves.

To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best.

My 'fear' is my substance, and probably the best part of me.

The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught.

Thinking well to be wise: planning well, wiser: doing well wisest and best of all.

To give and then not feel that one has given is the very best of all ways of giving.

Disney has the best casting. If he doesn't like an actor he just tears him up.

Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.

That they may have a little peace, even the best dogs are compelled to snarl occasionally.

The best sermon is preached by the minister who has a sermon to preach and not by the man who has to preach a sermon.

The prizes go to those who meet emergencies successfully. And the way to meet emergencies is to do each daily task the best we can.

Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.

Blondes make the best victims. They're like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.

Do not make best friends with a melancholy sad soul. They always are heavily loaded, and you must bear half.

Employees make the best dates. You don't have to pick them up and they're always tax-deductible.

He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles.

I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.

I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help - and God's.

Land really is the best art.

Look your best - who said love is blind?

Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.

The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.

The best vision is insight.

The best way to hold a man is in your arms.

The best way to keep one's word is not to give it.

A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in.

An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her.

Being a blockhead is sometimes the best security against being cheated by a man of wit.

Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and idleness, its opposite, never brought a man to the goal of any of his best wishes.

In politics, strangely enough, the best way to play your cards is to lay them face upwards on the table.

In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something not altogether displeasing to us.

Of all the home remedies, a good wife is best.

Speak when you are angry - and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret.

The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes.

The compensation of a very early success is a conviction that life is a romantic matter. In the best sense one stays young.

We should often blush for our very best actions, if the world did but see all the motives upon which they were done.

We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them.

We would all like to vote for the best man but he is never a candidate.

The best intelligence test is what we do with our leisure.

The splinter in your eye is the best magnifying-glass.