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

Authors by Name: P

Satchel Paige (9)

Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it don't matter.

Thomas Paine (31)

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

Olof Palme (2)

For us democracy is a question of human dignity. And human dignity is political freedom.

Emmeline Pankhurst (2)

Trust in God - she will provide.

George Papandreou (3)

My hope is that we will turn Greece into maybe the most transparent country in the world with everything on the web.

Paracelsus (4)

The art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician. Therefore the physician must start from nature, with an open mind.

Theodore Parker (2)

Politics is the science of urgencies.

Gilbert Parker (4)

The real business of life is trying to understand each other.

Charles Henry Parkhurst (4)

Faith is a kind of winged intellect. The great workmen of history have been men who believed like giants.

C. Northcote Parkinson (4)

In politics people give you what they think you deserve and deny you what they think you want.

Blaise Pascal (57)

All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.

Boris Pasternak (3)

At the moment of childbirth, every woman has the same aura of isolation, as though she were abandoned, alone.

Louis Pasteur (4)

Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world.

Walter Pater (3)

All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.

George S. Patton (20)

If you tell people where to go, but not how to get there, you'll be amazed at the results.

Jean Paul (18)

Age does not matter if the matter does not age.

Pope Paul VI (7)

In youth the days are short and the years are long. In old age the years are short and day's long.

Linus Pauling (3)

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

Cesare Pavese (5)

The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies.

Ivan Pavlov (2)

Appetite, craving for food, is a constant and powerful stimulator of the gastric glands.

Anna Pavlova (5)

No one can arrive from being talented alone, work transforms talent into genius.

James Payn (2)

In England, literary pretence is more universal than elsewhere from our method of education.

Octavio Paz (5)

Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone.

Norman Vincent Peale (11)

When you pray for anyone you tend to modify your personal attitude toward him.

Lester B. Pearson (5)

The choice, however, is as clear now for nations as it was once for the individual: peace or extinction.

Charles Peguy (4)

Freedom is a system based on courage.

William Penn (15)

For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity.

Samuel Pepys (4)

Mighty proud I am that I am able to have a spare bed for my friends.

S. J. Perelman (2)

Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century.

Alan Perlis (7)

You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.

Laurence J. Peter (21)

Slump, and the world slumps with you. Push, and you push alone.

Roger Tory Peterson (3)

Birds are indicators of the environment. If they are in trouble, we know we'll soon be in trouble.

Petrarch (3)

Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.

William Lyon Phelps (6)

The fear of life is the favorite disease of the 20th century.

Wendell Phillips (14)

Today it is not big business that we have to fear. It is big government.

Jean Piaget (4)

I have always detested any departure from reality, an attitude which I relate to my mother's poor mental health.

Francis Picabia (3)

The world is divided into two categories: failures and unknowns.

Pablo Picasso (29)

It takes a long time to become young.

Mary Pickford (3)

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down.

Albert Pike (5)

What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.

Kenneth L. Pike (4)

Without a possibility of change in meanings human communication could not perform its present functions.

Zebulon Pike (3)

You have already disarmed my men without my knowledge, are their arms to be returned or not?

Luigi Pirandello (3)

The history of mankind is the history of ideas.

Camille Pissarro (2)

I began to understand my sensations, to know what I wanted, at around the age of forty - but only vaguely.

William Pitt (2)

Unlimited power corrupts the possessor.

Max Planck (2)

It is not the possession of truth, but the success which attends the seeking after it, that enriches the seeker and brings happiness to him.

Pliny the Elder (5)

Grief has limits, whereas apprehension has none. For we grieve only for what we know has happened, but we fear all that possibly may happen.

Plutarch (17)

The wildest colts make the best horses.

Edgar Allan Poe (19)

Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.

Henri Poincare (5)

The mind uses its faculty for creativity only when experience forces it to do so.

Michael Polanyi (2)

The process of philosophic and scientific enlightenment has shaken the stability of beliefs held explicitly as articles of faith.

James K. Polk (3)

The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government.

William Pollard (2)

It is the responsibility of leadership to provide opportunity, and the responsibility of individuals to contribute.

Jackson Pollock (4)

Every good painter paints what he is.

Channing Pollock (4)

No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after eating one peanut.

Alexander Pope (43)

Health consists with temperance alone.

Karl Popper (6)

No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.

Antonio Porchia (4)

He who does not fill his world with phantoms remains alone.

Emily Post (2)

Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.

Dennis Potter (5)

The strangest thing that human speech and human writing can do is create a metaphor. That is an amazing leap, is it not?

Ezra Pound (8)

A great age of literature is perhaps always a great age of translations.

Orson Pratt (3)

God is the King. In him exists all legal authority.

Steve Prefontaine (3)

A race is a work of art that people can look at and be affected in as many ways they're capable of understanding.

Munshi Premchand (3)

Beauty doesn't need ornaments. Softness can't bear the weight of ornaments.

Elvis Presley (19)

I happened to come along in the music business when there was no trend.

Jacques Prevert (2)

An orange on the table, your dress on the rug, and you in my bed, sweet present of the present, cool of night, warmth of my life.

J. B. Priestley (9)

The greatest writers of this age... are aware of the mystery of our existence.

Matthew Prior (2)

For, when with beauty we can virtue join, We paint the semblance of a form divine.

Marcel Proust (18)

Everything great in the world comes from neurotics. They alone have founded our religions and composed our masterpieces.

Manuel Puig (11)

I like the beauty of Faulkner's poetry. But I don't like his themes, not at all.

Mario Puzo (3)

Finance is a gun. Politics is knowing when to pull the trigger.