Scott > Scott's Quotes

“Without knowing it the girl was arguing on the side of the world's expert criminologists, who hold that to destroy an offender cannot benefit society so much as to redeem him.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Flying Girl

“I'm not a girl. I'm a genius. ”
― Joanna Russ, The Female Man

“I bid the chords sweet music make,
And all must follow in my wake.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“To pretend, I actually do the thing: I have therefore only pretended to pretend.”
― Jacques Derrida

“Maybe we are all cabinets of wonders.”
― Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret

“The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.”
― Wole Soyinka

“The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms you would never see the true beauty of their carvings.”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“You see things; you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?”
― George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah

“As they passed the rows of houses they saw through the open doors that men were sweeping and dusting and washing dishes, while the women sat around in groups, gossiping and laughing.

What has happened?' the Scarecrow asked a sad-looking man with a bushy beard, who wore an apron and was wheeling a baby carriage along the sidewalk.

Why, we've had a revolution, your Majesty -- as you ought to know very well,' replied the man; 'and since you went away the women have been running things to suit themselves. I'm glad you have decided to come back and restore order, for doing housework and minding the children is wearing out the strength of every man in the Emerald City.'

Hm!' said the Scarecrow, thoughtfully. 'If it is such hard work as you say, how did the women manage it so easily?'

I really do not know,' replied the man, with a deep sigh. 'Perhaps the women are made of cast-iron.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Marvelous Land of Oz

“That proves you are unusual," returned the Scarecrow; "and I am convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones. For the common folks are like the leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Land of Oz

“No thief, however skillful, can rob one of knowledge, and that is why knowledge is the best and safest treasure to acquire.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Lost Princess of Oz

“Imagination has brought mankind through the Dark Ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity. Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. So I believe that dreams - day dreams, you know, with your eyes wide open and your brain-machinery whizzing - are likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to create, to invent, and therefore to foster civilization.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Lost Princess of Oz

“My people have been wearing green glasses on their eyes for so long that most of them think this really is an Emerald City.”
― L. Frank Baum, Oz: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

“To be angry once in a while is really good fun, because it makes others so miserable. But to be angry morning, noon and night, as I am, grows monotonous and prevents my gaining any other pleasure in life.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Emerald City of Oz

“I've married a man who owns nine cows," said Jinjur to Ozma, "and now I am happy and contented and willing to lead a quiet life and mind my own business."

"Where is your husband?" asked Ozma.

"He is in the house, nursing a black eye," replied Jinjur, calmly. "The foolish man would insist upon milking the red cow when I wanted him to milk the white one; but he will know better next time, I am sure.”
― L. Frank Baum, Ozma of Oz

“Oh, if Shakespeare says it, that's all right.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Master Key

“One can be ugly in looks, but lovely in disposition.”
― L. Frank Baum, Tik-Tok of Oz

“No Queen with a frozen heart is fit to rule any country.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Scarecrow of Oz

“If we didn't want anything, we would never get anything, good or bad. I think our longings are natural, and if we act as nature prompts us we can't go far wrong.”
― L. Frank Baum, Tik-Tok of Oz

“If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.”
― Lenny Bruce

“In any case, frequent punishments are a sign of weakness or slackness in the government. There is no man so bad that he cannot be made good for something. No man should be put to death, even as an example, if he can be left to live without danger to society.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

“The primitive idea of justice is partly legalized revenge and partly expiation by sacrifice. It works out from both sides in the notion that two blacks make a white, and that when a wrong has been done, it should be paid for by an equivalent suffering. It seems to the Philistine majority a matter of course that this compensating suffering should be inflicted on the wrongdoer for the sake of its deterrent effect on other would-be wrongdoers; but a moment's reflection will shew that this utilitarian application corrupts the whole transaction. For example, the shedding of blood cannot be balanced by the shedding of guilty blood. Sacrificing a criminal to propitiate God for the murder of one of his righteous servants is like sacrificing a mangy sheep or an ox with the rinderpest: it calls down divine wrath instead of appeasing it. In doing it we offer God as a sacrifice the gratification of our own revenge and the protection of our own lives without cost to ourselves; and cost to ourselves is the essence of sacrifice and expiation.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Androcles and the Lion

“Adventure is worthwhile in itself.”
― Amelia Earhart

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”
― Herman Melville

“Words dazzle and deceive because they are mimed by the face. But black words on a white page are the soul laid bare.”
― Guy de Maupassant

“Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.”
― John Locke

“I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn't of much value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them. ”
― Boris Pasternak

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
― Euripides, The Bacchae

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest