Selected comparison quotes

1. How the sting of poverty, or small means, is gone when one keeps house for one's own comfort and not for the comfort of one's neighbors.

2. Don't compare me with Jesus. He is a great master, a great master...

3. Schweitzer in the Congo did not derive more moral credit than Larkin did for living in Hull.

4. Is there life in other families?

5. What the hell has Hoover got to do with it? Besides, I had a better year than he did.

6. I was the Marlon Brando of my generation.

7. I think the original, 'They're the next Jane's Addiction' things that people said about us in the beginning have been pretty much wiped out.

8. While the collateral consequences of drugs such as cocaine are indisputably severe, they are not unlike those which flow from the misuse of other, legal, substances.

9. Remember when we was young, everybody used to have these arguments about who's better, Michael Jackson or Prince? Prince won!

10. I, for one, will not have [the Vietcong] insulted by any comparison to the forces of Zarqawi, the Fedayeen Saddam, and the criminal underworld now arrayed against us. These depraved elements are the Iraqi Khmer Rouge.

11. The entire 'my art is better than your art' thing really gets under my skin. The fact of the matter is: Your art IS better than my art... at being what it is. So what? It just so happens that my art is better than your art, at being what it is.

12. People are usually made Dames for virtues I do not possess.

13. The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater is our desire to be like others.

14. Nothing is as obnoxious as other people's luck.

15. A man that hath no virtue in himself, ever envieth virtue in others. For men's minds, will either feed upon their own good, or upon others' evil; and who wanteth the one, will prey upon the other; and whoso is out of hope, to attain to another's virtue, will seek to come at even hand, by depressing another's fortune.

16. The growth of New England was a result of the aggregate efforts of a busy multitude, each in his narrow circle toiling for himself, to gather competence or wealth. The expansion of New France was the achievement of a gigantic ambition striving to grasp a continent. It was a vain attempt.

17. I love the pride whose measure is its own eminence and not the insignificance of someone else.

18. I've been to war. I've raised twins. If I had a choice, I'd rather go to war.

19. I don't know why you're talking about Sweden. They're the neutral one. They don't have an army.

20. Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.

21. Hitler is lonely. So is God. Hitler is like God.

22. The Oscar Wilde of Welfare State gentility.

23. People have criticized me because my security detail is larger than the president's. But you must ask yourself: are there more people who want to kill me than who want to kill the president? I can assure you there are.

24. I am clearly more popular than Reagan. I am in my third term. Where's Reagan? Gone after two! Defeated by George Bush and Michael Dukakis no less.

25. If you're a singer you lose your voice. A baseball player loses his arm. A writer gets more knowledge, and if he's good, the older he gets, the better he writes.

26. I am the astronaut of boxing. Joe Louis and Dempsey were just jet pilots. I'm in a world of my own.

27. It would be hard to name a more certain sign of poor self-esteem than the need to perceive some other group as inferior.

28. Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine.

29. Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

30. Some things are better than sex, and some are worse, but there's nothing exactly like it.

31. Those Russians. They did worse things when they entered Pomerania than we ever did in Russia.

32. One of the challenges you will face is finding a job in our depressed economy, ... In fact, the chances of finding a job are about as good as finding weapons of mass destruction in the Iraqi desert -- slim and none, and slim just left the building.

33. Who does not see that we are likely to ascertain the distinctive significance of religious melancholy and happiness, or of religious trances, far better by comparing them as conscientiously as we can with other varieties of melancholy, happiness, and trance, than by refusing to consider their place in any more general series, and treating them as if they were outside of nature's order altogether?

34. The true pleasure of life is to live with your inferiors.

35. Housework is a breeze. Cooking is a pleasant diversion. Putting up a retaining wall is a lark. But teaching is like climbing a mountain.

36. Being nice to people is, in fact, one of the incidental tenets of Christianity (as opposed to other religions whose tenets are more along the lines of 'kill everyone who doesn't smell bad and doesn't answer to the name Mohammed').

37. 'If someone says, 'Hey, I ran 100 miles this week. How far did you run?' Ignore him! What the hell difference does it make? The magic is in the man, not the 100 miles.'

38. Through Plato Aristotle came to believe in God, but Plato never attempted to prove His reality. Aristotle had to do so. Plato contemplated Him; Aristotle produced arguments to demonstrate Him. Plato never defined Him, but Aristotle thought God through logically and concluded with entire satisfaction to himself that He was the Unmoved Mover.

39. A man looking at a hippopotamus may sometimes be tempted to regard a hippopotamus as an enormous mistake; but he is also bound to confess that a fortunate inferiority prevents him personally from making such mistakes.

40. Hamlet is egotism as it appears to itself, and Don Quixote is egotism as it appears to the detached observer.

41. A camel makes an elephant feel like a jet plane.

42. She has more goodness in her little finger, than he has in his whole body.

43. When I read something saying I've not done anything as good as Catch-22 I'm tempted to reply, 'Who has?'

44. Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.

45. The movies were custard compared to politics.

46. The critical task is necessarily comparative, and younger people do not truly know what is new.

47. I found there was only one way to look thin. Hang out with fat people.

48. We are no longer the same, you wiser but not sadder, and I sadder but not wiser, for wiser I could hardly become without grave personal inconvenience, whereas sorrow is a thing you can keep adding to all your life long, is it not, like a stamp or an egg collection, without feeling very much the worse for it, is it not.

49. No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned ... A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.

50. 'Maybe the country doesn't pray for me like they do for Sachin Tendulkar, but I know I'm on a good wicket as well.'

51. Like two single gentlemen rolled into one.

52. You see, its been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been more compatible to us than Christianity. why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness? (Quoted by Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pg. 115)

53. Don't judge yourself by somebody else's standards. You will always lose.

54. Reality is apparent when one ceases to compare. - There is 'what is' only when there is no comparison at all, and to live with what is, is to be peaceful.

55. There 's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away.

56. Mad Dog Time is the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time. Oh, I've seen bad movies before. But they usually made me care about how bad they were. Watching Mad Dog Time is like waiting for the bus in a city where you're not sure they have a bus line...Mad Dog Time should be cut into free ukulele picks for the poor.

57. I wish you were my sister. I'd teach you to have some confidence in yourself. The different people are not like other people, but being different is nothing to be ashamed of. Because other people are not such wonderful people. They're one hundred times one thousand. You're one times one! They walk all over the earth. You just stay here. They're common as - weeds, but - you - well, you're - Blue Roses!

58. I don't like the place at all. It's all wrong. An imposition on the Landscape. I reckon that Stonehenge was build by the contemporary equivalent of Microsoft, whereas Avebury was definitely an Apple circle.

59. There are some of the problems there that America sees associated with the lack of economic inclusion - family breakdown, gang behavior, and racial tensions. I get the sense that in Europe they are much more concerned about these issues than in the United States.

60. Every man in the world is better than someone else and not as good as someone else.

61. Whatever we saw in October 1941, cannot be compared to anything that we had seen prior, when our forces retreated from the Dniepr borders. Now, things like this no longer happen. Now, we can frown by ourselves.

62. Here's another question I have. How come when it's us, it's an abortion, and when it's a chicken, it's an omelet? Are we so much better than chickens all of a sudden? When did this happen, that we passed chickens in goodness. Name 6 ways we're better than chickens. See, nobody can do it! You know why? 'Cause chickens are decent people. You don't see chickens hanging around in drug gangs, do you? No. You don't see a chicken strapping some guy into a chair and hooking up his nuts to a car battery, do you? When's the last chicken you heard about come home from work and beat the shit out of his hen, huh? Doesn't happen, 'cause chickens are decent people.

63. Making Movies is better than cleaning toilets.

64. Egos appear by setting themselves apart from other egos.

65. 'You're not Dostoevsky,' said the citizeness, who was getting muddled by Koroviev.

66. 'He could very well be the Duke Ellington of Rock 'n' Roll.'

67. Picasso es pintor, yo tambien; Picasso es espanol, yo tambien; Picasso es comunista, yo tampoco.

68. Looking as like...as one pea does like another.

69. Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day: Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.

70. Look at that crust. Looks like Limp Bizkit isn't just the name of a band anymore.

71. No matter how hard we try, sex isn't as good as sweet corn. (quoting Garrison Keillor)

72. Behold -- the human eyeball. Okay, it's a kettle grill with a fancy paint job. Just work with me here for one second, okay, people?

73. Martin Scorsese likes to make films about the mob, and I happen to like to make films about food.

74. You're like Tony Robbins, if he was a big, scary Frankenstein-looking... You're exactly like Tony Robbins.

75. Of course there was a Great House at Allington. How otherwise should there have been a Small House?

76. Dorion, ridiculing the description of a tempest in the 'Nautilus' of Timotheus, said that he had seen a more formidable storm in a boiling saucepan.

77. She's as good as the other Hepburn.

78. If Barack Obama was a state he'd be California. I mean, think about it: diverse, open, smart, independent, oppose tradition, innovative, inspiring, dreamer, leader.

79. America is an outstandingly dangerous place. Consider this: every year in New Hampshire a dozen or more people are killed crashing their cars into moose. Now correct me if I am wrong, but this is not something that is likely to happen to you on the way home from Sainsbury's.

80. His chess technique is nearly a miracle. In their youth, only a few players could handle the endgame so precisely. Only two such players are known to me, Smyslov and Capablanca.

81. There's no doubt in my mind that if Bruce Lee had gone into pro boxing, he could easily have ranked in the top three in the lightweight division or junior-welterweight division.

82. I never stood in front of another human who was as quick as him. He not only had the quickness but he had the inner confidence to muster the conviction to do so. I've seen others who had the speed but lack conviction or vice versa. He was like Ali, he had both. I stood before both of these men, so I know.

83. Bruce was like the Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali in his prime, somebody who stood above everyone else. It's not that the other martial artists weren't good. It's just that this guy was great.

84. The soul of Hogarth has migrated into the body of Dickens.

85. Hitler was a tuned in guy.

86. Voltaire's philosophical tale 'Micromegas' is also considered a 'classic of early science fiction.' It's very well known and easily accessible, and it's easy to read in the original. But in comparison to Cyrano's novel, it is tame.

87. Ethel and Bernard returned from their Honymoon with a son and hair a nice fat baby called Ignatius Bernard. They soon had six more children four boys and three girls and some of them were twins which was very exciting. The Earl only got two rarther sickly girls called Helen and Marie because the last one looked slightly french.

88. So I make Bryant Gumbel look like Malcolm X, huh mutha fucka.

89. 'I think that guitarist from Queensryche looks a hell of a lot like Jamie Lee Curtis.'

90. RP: You have the only job in the world where people line up to hug you. Davey: Well, me and the Pope. RP: Are you crazy? You can't hug the pope. He's inside the bubble. Davey: Are you sure you can't hug the Pope? Hey, everyone, does anyone know if you're allowed to hug the Pope?

91. Oh, please! I wish I had her body! [when called a Madonna impersonator]

92. In regione caecorum rex est luscus.

93. Can't I another's face commend, And to her virtues be a friend, But instantly your forehead lowers, As if her merit lessen'd yours?

94. You know, Bush is always comparing me to Elvis in sort of unflattering ways. I don't think Bush would have liked Elvis very much, and that's just another thing that's wrong with him.

95. 'Even as a young man, that's what Presley sounded, like a man. I wasn't of a culture nor a region that found Presley appealing, and I've never seen a Presley movie through but, a few years ago when in a tribute to him various modern singers covered some of his originals, followed, or enclosed by, his versions of the same songs, I was struck by how much fuller, deeper, and richer his were.'

96. I suspect it is this Camelot view that leads Miss Croce to be rather unfair to Gene Kelly...I should say the difference starts with their bodies. If you compare Kelly to Astaire, accepting Astaire's debonair style as perfection then, of course, Kelly looks bad. But in popular dance forms, in which movement is not rigidly codified, as it is in ballet, perfection is a romantic myth or a figure of speech, nothing more. Kelly isn't a winged dancer; he's a hoofer and more eartbound. But he has warmth and range as an actor...Astaire's grasshopper lightness was his limitation as an actor - confining him to perennial gosh-oh-gee adolescence;; he was always and only a light comedian and could function only in fairytale vehicles.

97. He's the greatest dancer who ever lived--greater than Nijinsky.

98. But when you're in a picture with Astaire, you've got rocks in your head if you do much dancing. He's so quick-footed and so light that it's impossible not to look like a hay-digger compared with him.

99. I work bigger. Fred's style is intimate. I'm very jealous of that when I see him on the small screen. Fred looks so great on TV. I'd love to put on white tie and tails and look as thin as him and glide as smoothly. But I'm built like a blocking tackle.

100. Montserrat Cabelle is sensational. She has that same kind of emotion as Aretha Franklin. The way she delivers a song is so very natural. It's a very different gift.