Missilelaneous

If the automobile had followed the same development as the computer, a Rolls Royce would today cost one hundred dollars, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.
— Robert Caingely, from Info World, in The Quotable Investor, p. 73.

We are told that the love of money itself is the root of all evil; but money itself is one of the most useful contrivances ever invented: it is not its fault that some people are foolish . . . or miserly enough to be fonder of it than of their own souls.
— George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), The Intelligent Woman’s Guide . . . Fascism, in Ibid., p. 84.

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use?
— Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, in Ibid., p. 97.

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), in Ibid., p. 169.

Behold the fool saith, “Put not all thine eggs in one basket” — which is but a manner of saying, “Scatter your money and your attention”; but the wise man saith, “Put all your eggs in one basket and — WATCH THAT BASKET.”
— Mark Twain, Pudd’in Head Wilson, in Ibid., p. 204.

“That was lovely, having breakfast here,” she told him, “it was wonderful of you to think of it.” “Charmed, I am sure,” said Freytog, in a rather stagey manner. Mrs. Treadwell moved away again, from the thread of human nearness, of feeling. If she stayed to listen, she knew she would weaken little by little, she would warm up in spite of herself, perhaps in the end identify herself with the other, take on his griefs and wrongs, and if it came to that, feel finally guilty as if she herself had caused them; yes, and he would believe it too, and blame her freely. It had happened too often, could she not learn at last? All of it was no good, neither for the confidant nor listener. There was no cure, no comfort, tears change nothing and words can never get at the truth. No, don’t tell me any more about yourself, I am not listening, you cannot force my attention. I don’t want to know you, and I will not know you. Let me alone.
— Katherine Anne Porter, Ship of Fools, p. 142.