A Quorum of Pithy Quotes for Pandemic Quarantine!
Selected by Christopher Kent, April 2020
Given the current bizarre circumstances we’re all living under, we could use a bit of wit and wisdom. I’ve been collecting funny and insightful quotes since my early 20s. (In fact, 24 of my favorite quotes ended up in my popular song Piece of the Puzzle, which you can hear in the Fan Favorites section of this website’s home page!) Since I have a rather large collection of choice quotes at my disposal, I thought it would be fun to select a group of them to cheer us up and perhaps inspire a bit of reflection.
I’ve divided these selected quotes into 10 topics: surviving solitude; tolerating family; remaining philosophical; concerns about the future; home-schooling; staying safe; watching the world around us misbehaving; being helpful to others; pondering our pets; and maintaining your sense of humor.
Enjoy!
Surviving Solitude
“Enjoy what you have.”
— proverb
“I’ve had a wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.”
— Groucho Marx
“Just because you’re miserable doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy your life.”
— Annette Goodheart
If you go long enough without a bath even the fleas will leave you alone.”
— Ernie Pyle
“Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts.”
— Dhammapada (the sayings of the Buddha)
“Do what you can with what you have, where you are.”
— Theodore Roosevelt
“Researchers have discovered that chocolate produces some of the same reactions in the brain as marijuana… The researchers also discovered other similarities between the two, but they can’t remember what they are.”
— Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today Show
“Nothing makes it easier to resist temptation than a proper upbringing, a sound set of values, and witnesses.”
— Franklin P. Jones
“Forever is a long time, but not as long as it was yesterday.”
— Dennis H’Orgnies
“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
— Joseph Brodsky
“Books had instant replay long before televised sports.”
— Bern Williams
Tolerating Family
“Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family … in another city.”
— George Burns
“Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day. Wisdom consists of not exceeding that limit.”
— Elbert Hubbard
“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.”
— Chinese epigram
“Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.”
— Robert Benchley
“Mincing your words makes it easier if you have to eat them later.”
— Franklin P. Jones
“All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you. You may succeed in making another feel guilty of something by blaming him, but you won’t succeed in changing whatever it is about you that is making you unhappy.”
— Wayne Dyer, Your Erroneous Zones
“Some people suffer in silence louder than others.”
— Morrie Brickman
“To pass air is human; to forgive, divine.”
— Anon
“Murder is for the unimaginative.”
— Charles Xavier, founder and mentor of the X-men
“The first sign of maturity is the discovery that the volume knob also turns to the left.”
— “Smile” Zingers in the Chicago Tribune
“If it’s painful for you to criticize your friends, you’re safe in doing it; if you take the slightest pleasure in it, that’s the time to hold your tongue.”
— Alice D. Miller
“It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”
— Bozo the Clown
Remaining Philosophical
“The only person who likes change is a wet baby.”
— John Bradshaw
“What do you take me for— an idiot?”
— Charles DeGaulle, when asked if he was happy
“How can one tell when one is living in the dark ages?”
— Albert Jay Nock
“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
— Albert Einstein
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
— Hanlon’s Razor
“There are two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.”
— Indira Ghandi
“Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”
— Mark Twain
“Life is a lot like high school, if you’re not careful.”
— Lynn Yost
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.”
— Helen Keller
“Forgive, oh Lord, my little jokes on Thee, and I’ll forgive Thy great big one on me.”
— Robert Frost
“When you’re skating on thin ice, you may as well tap dance.”
— Bryce Courtenay
Concerns About the Future
“Those of you who have some trepidation about the future will not be disappointed.”
— Richard Lindstrom, MD
“I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something.”
— Jackie Mason
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
— Alan Kay
“While there is a chance of the world getting through its troubles, I hold that a reasonable man has to behave as though he were sure of it. If at the end your cheerfulness is not justified, at any rate you will have been cheerful.”
— H.G. Wells
Home Schooling
“Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.”
— Malcolm Forbes
“Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?”
— Hobbes, Calvin and Hobbes
“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.”
— Henry Ford
“Expect people to be better than they are; it helps them to become better. But don’t be disappointed when they are not; it helps them to keep trying.”
— Merry Browne
“[Kids] don’t remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.”
―Jim Henson
Staying Safe
“May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.”
— George Carlin’s farewell salutation
“Never do card tricks for the people you play poker with.”
— author unknown
“If we could just get everyone to close their eyes and visualize world peace for an hour, imagine how serene and quiet it would be until the looting started.”
— author unknown
Watching the World Around Us Misbehaving
“To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your principles.”
— author unknown
“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
— Mark Twain
“Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public’s mind.”
— General William Westmoreland during the Vietnam war
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
— Margaret Mead
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
— Voltaire
Helping Others
“People will forget what you said; people will forget what you did; but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
— Maya Angelou
“You must operate from strength, not from weakness. When you stand on a firm shore, you can extend your arm to the man that is in quicksand. You cannot help him by leaping into the quicksand with him, for surely both of you will go down, and he will not thank you.”
— Jane Roberts (Quoted in “Conversations With Seth”)
“You cannot truly heal or help another person; you can only provide, at the best of times, an environment within which others can heal and find themselves.”
— Lynn V. Andrews
“Once each day, when you feel a need for appreciation, understanding, courtesy, respect, love or attention, give it to someone else.”
— Dan Millman
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”
— G.K.Chesterton
Pondering our Pets
“In order to maintain a well— balanced perspective, the person who has a dog to worship him should also have a cat to ignore him.”
— Peterborough Examiner
“When dogs leap onto your bed, it’s because they adore being with you. When cats leap onto your bed, it’s because they adore your bed.”
— Alisha Everett
“A dog is an employee; a cat is freelance.”
— George Mikes
“If dogs could talk, it would take a lot of fun out of owning one.”
— Andy Rooney
Maintaining Your Sense of Humor
“Laughter is like changing a baby’s diaper — it doesn’t permanently solve any problems, but it makes things more acceptable for a while.”
— Anonymous
“When people are laughing, they’re generally not killing one another.”
— Alan Alda
“He who laughs, lasts.”
— Mary Pettibone Poole
“Humor does not diminish the pain — it makes the space around it get bigger.”
— Allen Klein
“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.”
— Herm Albright
“If you’re going to able to look back on something and laugh about it, you might as well laugh about it now.”
— Marie Osmond
“After God created the world, He made man and woman. Then, to keep the whole thing from collapsing, He invented humor.”
— Guillermo Mordillo
“Happy is the person who can laugh at himself. He will never cease to be amused.”
— Habib Bourguiba