All Quotes

"Facts don't care about your feelings."

"One assault on the world of facts was launched some time ago from the direction of the theory of knowledge. This campaign was primarily waged by those who aimed to discredit the empiricist belief that our world consists of sense data capable of being directly perceived and uncontentiously described. It would not be too much to say that by now this particular dogma of empiricism has fallen into very general disrepute. Scarcely anyone nowadays believes in the possibility of building up structures of factual knowledge on foundations purporting to be wholly independent of our judgements."

"Besides being assailed by epistemologists, the world of facts has been undermined in recent times by developments within the theory of meaning. The cardinal assumption of positivistic philosophies of language was that all meaningful statements must refer to facts, and thus that the meanings of sentences must be given by the method of verifying the assertions contained in them."

"Here lies W. C. Fields. I would rather be living in Philadelphia."

"Never give a sucker an even break."

"And it ain't a fit night out for man nor beast."

"She's all dressed up like a well-kept grave."

"Who knows what's funny?"

"I'd rather have two girls at twenty-one each, than one girl at forty-two."

"Some contemptible scoundrel stole the cork from my lunch ..."

"Whilst traveling through Afghanistan, we lost our corkscrew. Had to live on food and water for several days."

"Was I in here last night and did I spend a twenty-dollar bill? (the bartender replies: Yes) Oh, what a load is off my mind. I thought I LOST it! it"

"I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. That's the one thing I'm so indebted to her for. (Variant: 'Twas a woman who drove me to drink. I never had the courtesy to thank her.)"

"[To a waitress]] I didn't squawk about the steak, dear. I merely said I didn't see that old horse that used to be tethered outside here."

"I never voted for anybody. I always voted against."

"Back in my rummy days, I would tremble and shake for hours upon arising. It was the only exercise I got."

"Don't say you can't give up drinking. It's easy. I've done it a thousand times."

"The story goes that a polite young lady journalist invited him to lunch at Chasen's in hope of a story. Lunch in his case was a liquid affair, and left him uncommunicative. Noticing the passion with which he shooed away the hovering waiter with the ice water jug, she seized an opening. "Mr. Fields, could you tell me the reason for your well-known aversion to water?" "Delighted, my dear," he replied with suddenly increased bonhomie. "Never touch the stuff—very unhealthy. Fish fuck in it.""

"It was a woman who drove me to drink—and you know, I never bothered to thank her."

"No water—I never touch water. Fish make love in it."

"Anyone who hates children and dogs can't be all bad."

"If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit."

"Bill Fields walked in the first day, reeking of liquor. He came over and apologized to me. Understand, I was in awe of his talents. I said, "Mr. Fields, on you it smells like eau de cologne," and he brightened up. A very sweet egomaniac."

"On the sauce, his saloon talk is wiser than My scholar's treatise. On the con, he outwits Himself, and yet portrays his downward spiral into Beefsteak mines, mansions in the Grampian Hills, Dollars falling from a sky blue as a copper chip. His mordant eye schemes afresh from every reverse. Why this sudden rapport with his profound failure To eat ice cream neatly, refill a flask unnoticed, Escape the flypaper floor of Baby Leroy's molasses? Jargon-mouthed, rum-rank-breathed, reprobate uncle. Your legacy of irrascible, bulbous disrepute is Far sweeter, I swear, than Phyllis's daffodils. W.C., I am staring you in the eye tonight. Only the gunning cars and lonely trains Punctuate our confrontation, you and I, Two confidence men on confidential terms."

"I wonder if I could have been here before as I drive up the Roman road the Theater seems familiar — perhaps I headed a legion up that same white road... I passed a chateau in ruins which I possibly helped escalade in the middle ages. There is no proof nor yet any denial. We were, We are, and we will be."

"Through the travail of the ages, Midst the pomp and toil of war, Have I fought and strove and perished Countless times upon this star. In the form of many people In all panoplies of time Have I seen the luring vision Of the Victory Maid, sublime."

"I have sinned and I have suffered, Played the hero and the knave; Fought for belly, shame, or country, And for each have found a grave. I cannot name my battles For the visions are not clear, Yet, I see the twisted faces And I feel the rending spear."

"I have fought with gun and cutlass On the red and slippery deck With all Hell aflame within me And a rope around my neck."

"So as through a glass, and darkly The age long strife I see Where I fought in many guises, Many names, but always me. And I see not in my blindness What the objects were I wrought, But as God rules o'er our bickerings It was through His will I fought. So forever in the future, Shall I battle as of yore, Dying to be born a fighter, But to die again, once more."

"Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory."

"Of all the many talks I had in Washington, none gave me such pleasure as that with you. There were two reasons for this. In the first place, you are about my oldest friend. In the second place, your self-assurance and to me, at least, demonstrated ability, give me a great feeling of confidence about the future … and I have the utmost confidence that through your efforts we will eventually beat the hell out of those bastards — "You name them; I'll shoot them!""

"Sometimes I think your life and mine are under the protection of some supreme being or fate, because, after many years of parallel thought, we find ourselves in the positions we now occupy."

"I finished the Koran – a good book and interesting."

"The publicity I have been getting, a good deal of which is untrue, and the rest of it ill considered, has done me more harm than good. The only way you get on in this profession is to have the reputation of doing what you are told as thoroughly as possible. So far I have been able to accomplish that, and I believe I have gotten quite a reputation from not kicking at peculiar assignments."

"The more I see of Arabs the less I think of them. By having studied them a good deal I have found out the trouble. They are the mixture of all the bad races on earth, and they get worse from west to east, because the eastern ones have had more crosses."

"It is rather interesting how you get used to death. I have had to go to inspect the troops in which case you run a very good chance — or I should say a reasonable chance — of being bombed or shot at from the air, and shelled or shot at from the ground. I had the same experience every day which is for the first half-hour the palms of my hands sweat and I feel depressed. Then, if one hits near you, it seems to break the spell and you don't notice them any more. Going back in the evening over the same ground and at a time when the shelling and bombing are usually heavier, you become so used to it you never think about it."

"I find that moral courage is the most valuable and most usually absent characteristic."

"Few men are killed by bayonets, but many are scared by them. Having the bayonet fixed makes our men want to close. Only the threat to close will defeat a determined enemy."

"A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood."

"Now in war we are confronted with conditions which are strange If we accept them we will never win. Since being realistic, as in mundane combats fistic We will get a bloody nose and that's a sin."

"Stanzas 4 and 5 of "Absolute War", as quoted in The Patton Papers 1940-1945 (1996) edited by Martin Blumenson, p. 492: For in war just as in loving You must keep on shoving Or you'll never get your reward. For if you are dilatory In the search for lust or glory You are up shitcreek and that's the truth, Oh, Lord. So let us do real fighting, Boring in and gouging, biting. Let's take a chance now that we have the ball. Let's forget those fine firm bases In the dreary shell-raked spaces, Let's shoot the works and win! Yes win it all."

"Some goddamn fool once said that flanks have got to be secure. Since then sonofabitches all over the globe have been guarding their flanks. I don't agree with that. My flanks are something for the enemy to worry about, not me. Before he finds out where my flanks are, I'll be cutting the bastard's throat."

"Son, only a pimp in a Louisiana whore-house carries pearl-handled revolvers. These are ivory."

"Ont krut förgås inte så lätt."

"Ont skall med ont fördrivas."

"Orsak nog till krig, när man måste värja sig."

"Osvuret är bäst."

"Otack är världens lön."

"Pengar luktar inte."

"Pengar växer inte på träd."