"Every sentence will sound better if it is related to Benjamin Franklin" (A. Lincoln, 1862)

Famous quotes and witty expressions are rhetorical tools that, when used correctly, can enrich and improve speeches and lectures. It's important to be careful not to treat a famous sentence as a backup for an argument (so what if Freud said it? Does that mean it's true?) but you can certainly use them to add interest to the opening or create a refreshing pause in the middle of a long lecture.

 

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1.  Either you write something worth reading, or you do something worth writing about. (Benjamin Franklin)
2. After all is said and done, it turns out that much more is said than done
3. If only God would give me a clear sign. Like depositing a large sum of money in my name in an account in Switzerland, (Woody Allen)
4. If I were two-faced, would I wear this face (Abraham Lincoln)
5. There is no such thing, a moral book or an immoral book. A book can be well written, or badly written. That's all. (Oscar Wilde)
6. I have no assets, only dreams of bequeathing to the next generation a better, more peaceful world - a pleasant world to live in. (Yitzhak Rabin)
7. I do not believe that the same God who gifted us with intelligence, curiosity and creativity meant that we would give up using them (Galileo Galilei)
8. I am not ready to go to heaven if there are no cigarettes there. (Mark Twain).
9. I'm not young enough to know everything (Oscar Wilde)
10. An alcoholic is someone who drinks like you. -Thomas Dylan.
11. If you have nothing good to say about anyone come and sit by my side
12. If people stop imitating my music, I'll have to start worrying. (Frank Zappa)
13. If you don't ask, you don't get. (Mahatma Gandhi)
14. If you didn't succeed on the first try, probably skydiving is not for you, (Steven Wright)
15. May we never compromise out of fear, and never be afraid to compromise (John Canadian)
16. We will plant for our children, just as our ancestors preserved the tradition for us. Our life is a moment in the eternity of our people, this moment has its own commitment. (Benjamin Ze'ev Herzl)
17. I never forget faces, but in your case I would be happy to be an exception (Grousho Marks)
18. I live to laugh, and laugh to live. (Milton Berle)
19. I'm not a member of an organized political party, I'm a Democrat (Will Rogers)
20. I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals; I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants (A. Whitney Brown)
21. I take my children everywhere, but they always find their way back home, (Robert Urban)
22. I would kill for a Nobel Peace Prize, (Steven Wright)
23. I compromise and compromise until I get what I want, (Levi Eshkol)
24. People read books for two reasons: to enjoy reading, and to be proud of it (Bertrand Russell)
25. The United States is like a vast ocean. When you light a fire under it, there is no limit to the energy it can generate. ( Winston Churchill)
26. You know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake (Bob Hope)
27. In America, anyone can become president. That's one of the risks you take when you live here (Adlai Stevenson)
28. In the long run we all die (C. Maynard Keynes)
29. Between men and women - one small difference - long live the small difference! (French proverb.)
30. Without my lawyer, I would still be in jail. Everything Goes Faster When Two People Dig (Joe Martin)
31. When you go to the woman - don't forget to take the whip (Friedrich Nietzsche)
32. People get married because the government can't be to blame for everything
33. A banker lends you an umbrella when the sun is shining, and demands it back when it starts to rain (Mark Twain).
34. Unlimited amounts of money flow in the veins of war. (Cicero)
35. When you win you deserve champagne; When losing - you need it. (Napoleon Bonaparte)
36. In California they don't throw away the trash - they turn it into TV shows, (Woody Allen)
37. In theory there is no difference between theory and reality, but in inventions there is (Jean van de Sanfecho)
38. Redheads bring bad luck (Clint Eastwood)
39. Even when you write a row of zeros - it's still zero. (Ayn Rand)
40. The only person in the world I would really like to meet is me (Oscar Wilde).
41. The average person thinks he is not like that (Father Larry Lorenzoni)
42. Love is blind and the lovers do not see the ridiculous acts of madness that they themselves do. ( William Shakespeare)
43. The Irish gave the Scots the Wrath of the Pipes as a joke. The Scots haven't caught her yet (Oliver Hereford)
44. Faith does not uproot mountains, but places them in places where there are no mountains at all. (Friedrich Nietzsche)
45. His ignorance is truly encyclopedic (Aba Even)
46. I noticed that people who are late always seem more cheerful than the people who waited for them (Lux)
47. The problem with being punctual is that there is no one there to appreciate it
48. The road to peace is lined with telescopic intentions (Amnon Lipkin Shahak)
49. The difference between engagement and obligation is like an egg and bacon sandwich. The chicken was involved, but the pig is committed (JD Edwards)
50. The difference between a saint and a sinner is that a saint has a past, and a sinner has a future. (Oscar Wilde)
51. The only proof that intelligent aliens do exist is that they have never tried to communicate with us, Bill Watterson
52. He was so educated that he knew how to say horse in seven languages and so stupid that he bought a cow to ride on (Dale Carnegie)
53. Life is hard. They're harder if you're stupid (John Wayne)
54. The dream is the gatekeeper of sleep. (Sigmund Freud)
55. Doubt the movement of heat, doubt truth as a lie, but never please doubt love. ( William Shakespeare)
56. Television made dictatorship impossible and democracy intolerable. (Shimon Peres)
57. The intention for man to be happy was not included in the plan of creation (Sigmuend Freud)
58. I wish it were possible to assemble all humanity in one body, that I could embrace them all. (Rabbi Kook)
59. The next war, like the war after it, like the one before it, was meant to end wars. (David L. George)
60. The tension is unbearable. I hope it lasts, (Oscar Wilde)
61. The reason people protest against wearing fur coats and not against leather jackets is that old women are much easier to bully than bikers
62. The world is not only stranger than we imagine, it is a stranger place than we can imagine (Albert Einstein)
63. Politics is too serious a matter to be left in the hands of politicians (Charles de Gaulle.)
64. The Palestinians never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity (Abba Even)
65. Be sure to vote early and vote a lot (El Capone)
66. The sun never sees the shadow. (Leonardo da Vinci)
67. Hope is the dream of the awake people. (Aristotle)
68. And if there are beautiful souls who crook their noses, then let their noses be crooked. (Menachem Begin)
69. It doesn't matter if you were born in a duck coop, if you hatched from a swan egg. (Hans Christian Andersen)
70. Old age is not so bad if you consider the alternative, Maurice Chevalier
71. My right to swing my fist ends where your snout begins (Oliver Wendell Holmes)
72. I like the company of animals the most, they don't ask questions and don't criticize. (George Eliot)
73. A day without laughter is a day wasted (Charlie Chaplin)
74. There are three types of people in the world: those who know how to count and those who don't
75. He has the ability to put the most words into the least idea (Abraham Lincoln)
76. When people do not respect us, we are hurt by it, and yet, deep down, no man respects himself (Mark Twain)
77. Every morning I wake up and look at the Forbes ranking of the richest people in America. If my name is not on the list I get up to work
78. All our science, when measured against reality, is primitive and childish, and even so, it is the most precious thing we have. (Albert Einstein)
79. Any fool can complain and criticize, most fools really do (Benjamin Franklin)
80. When I was a kid I prayed every night for a new bike, until I realized that God, in his great wisdom, doesn't work that way, so I stole a pair and prayed that he would forgive me (Amo Phillips)
81. When I was young I smoked my first cigarette and kissed my first young lady that day. Since then I don't waste a single moment on a cigarette (Arturo Toscanini)
82. It is not important what the gentile says - what the Jew does is important ( Ben Gurion)
83. Not all chemicals are bad. Without hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, an essential ingredient in beer, (Dave Barry)
84. Not everything that can be calculated is important, and not everything that is important can be calculated (Albert Einstein)
85. I don't understand what kind of people are going to be sailors. To be in a ship is to be in a prison, with a chance of drowning (Samuel Johnson)
86. Not only is there no God, even parking in Manhattan is hard to find (Woody Allen)
87. Eskimos have 49 different words for snow, probably because they have so much of it. The English language has more than 50 words to define an idiot
88. Copying from one is plagiarism, copying from three is research (Wilson Mitsner)
89. stop smoking? - There is nothing easier than that. I've done it thousands of times! (Mark Twain).
90. We Israelis have a strong grudge against Moses who led us for 40 years in the desert to the only place in the Middle East that does not have oil (Golda Meir)
91. Sometimes you meet someone and you are sure that you would have been loved in a previous incarnation. After two weeks together, you understand why you didn't keep in touch with her for 2000 years... (Woody Allen)
92. It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but he couldn't stop then, because I was already too famous. (Robert Benchley)
93. A critic is like someone who knows the road, but doesn't know how to drive (Kenneth Tynan)
94. What is history if not a legend agreed upon by all? (Napoleon Bonaparte)
95. Research is what I do when I don't know what I'm doing (Warner von Braun)
96. He who does not expect to speak will be blessed. Because he will never be disappointed. (Benjamin Franklin).
97. A recession is when your neighbor lost his job, a crisis is when you lose your job (Harry S. Truman)
98. A crisis is a situation where you can't say 'let's forget about the whole thing'
99. A mathematician is a device that turns coffee into theories
100. Marriage for love is a new thing. In the past, a man would marry when he needed an additional work animal. (Woody Allen).
101. The end of the good was good, and that of the bad was bad. This is the essence of fiction. (Oscar Wilde)
102. Many editors are failed writers, and so are many writers (TS Eliot)
103. What does a candle give up when it lights another candle?
104. Fanat is a person who will not let you change his mind nor change the subject ( Winston Churchill)
105. Soft in years is not soft in wisdom. (Sophocles)
106. Drinking tea prevents stroke, it also works the other way around, tea drinking prevents stroke
107. You'll go farther with a gun and a good word than just a good word (Al Capone)
108. Live every day like it's your last, one day you'll be right, Jeremy Schwartz
109. Your job is to help all fascists die for their country (General Patton)
110. Ninety percent of success is arriving on time. (Woody Allen)
111. Ninety-nine percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name (Ehud Olmert)
112. Smart people make up sayings and less smart people repeat them
     

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