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What's green, hangs on a wall and whistles? [A Herring]

Leo Rosten

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Leo Rosten
Age: 88 †
Born: 1908
Born: January 1
Died: 1997
Died: January 1
Lexicographer
Linguist
Novelist
Political Scientist
Screenwriter
Writer
Lodz
Leo Calvin Rosten
Green
Wall
Whistles
Herring
Hangs

More quotes by Leo Rosten

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Money can't buy happiness, but neither can poverty.
Leo Rosten
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The first printed mention of bagels... is to be found in the Community Regulations of Kracow, Poland, for the year 1610 which stated that bagels would be given as a gift to any woman in childbirth.
Leo Rosten
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Everyone, in some small sacred sanctuary of the self, is nuts.
Leo Rosten
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Her cooking suggested she had attended the Cordon Noir.
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I came to believe it not true that the coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man only one. I think it is the other way around: It is the brave who die a thousand deaths. For it is imagination, and not just conscience, which doth make cowards of us all. Those who do not know fear are not truly brave.
Leo Rosten
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In the dark colony of night, when I consider man's magnificent capacity for malice, madness, folly, envy, rage, and destructiveness, and I wonder whether we shall not end up as breakfast for newts and polyps, I seem to hear the muffled cries of all the words in all the books with covers closed.
Leo Rosten
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The purpose of life is not to be happy, the purpose of life is to matter.
Leo Rosten
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Where was it ever promised us that life on this earth can ever be easy, free from conflict and uncertainty, devoid of anguish and wonder and pain? … The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.
Leo Rosten
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The love of money is the source of an enormous amount of good the fact that the good is a by-product of the selfish pursuit of riches has nothing to do with its indisputable value.
Leo Rosten
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The fellow who laughs last may laugh best, but he gets the reputation of being very slow-witted.
Leo Rosten
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If you are going to do something wrong, at least enjoy it.
Leo Rosten
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Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined.
Leo Rosten
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If at first you don't succeed, before you try again, stop to figure out what you did wrong.
Leo Rosten
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Words must surely be counted among the most powerful drugs man ever invented.
Leo Rosten
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The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that, perhaps, is what makes him different from others.
Leo Rosten
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Hope is ambiguous, but fear is precious.
Leo Rosten
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Machines certainly can solve problems, store information, correlate, and play games - but not with pleasure.
Leo Rosten
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O, to be sure, we laugh less and play less and wear uncomfortable disguises like adults, but beneath the costume is the child we always are, whose needs are simple, whose daily life is still best described by fairy tales.
Leo Rosten
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Where there is too much, something is missing.
Leo Rosten
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Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.
Leo Rosten