Faculty Center for Excellence in Teaching

The Following are the quotes on ASSESSMENT:

"Sir, I didn't deserve the grade you gave me on this test." "Do you know a lower one?"
-- Milton Berle, Unknown , Unknown

"You look at this and see gun parts. I look at it and see a craft project." --Head cheerleader to bank robbing gang.
-- movie "Sugar and Spice", Unknown , Unknown

... life is not a multiple choice test, it's an open-book essay exam.
-- Alan Blinder (Princeton), Unknown , Unknown

...institutional assessment efforts should not be concerned about valuing what can be measured but, instead, about measuring that which is valued.
-- Banta, T. W., Lund, J. P., Black, K. E., & Oblander, F. W., Assessment in practice: Putting principles to work on college campuses. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.p. 5, 1996

...the most important things we need to manage can't be measured.
-- W. Edwards Deming, Unknown , Unknown

42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

640k ought to be enough for anybody
-- Bill Gates, Unknown , 1981

90% of all statistics are made up.
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

A curved line is the loveliest distance between two points.
-- Mae West, Unknown , born August 17, 1892

A fool must now and then be right by chance.
-- William Cowper, Conversation. Line 96., Unknown

A mighty maze! But not without a plan.
-- Alexander Pope, Unknown , Unknown

A science is any discipline in which the fool of this generation can go beyond the point reached by the genius of the last generation.
-- Max Gluckman, Unknown , Unknown

A survey says that American workers work the first three hours every day just to pay their taxes. So that's why we can't get anything done in the morning: We're government workers!
-- Jay Leno, Unknown , Unknown

A teacher is a person who knows all the answers but only when she asks the questions.
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

A teacher's day is one-half bureaucracy, one-half crisis, one-half monotony, and one-eightieth epiphany. Never mind the arithmetic.
-- Susan Ohanian, Unknown , Unknown

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.
-- Charles Dickens, Unknown , Unknown

According to a new survey, women say they feel more comfortable undressing in front of men than they do undressing in front of other women. They say that women are too judgmental, where, of course, men are just grateful.
-- Jay Leno, Unknown , Unknown

Actions speak louder than words.
-- Theodore Roosevelt, Unknown , Unknown

All assessment is a perpetual work in progress.
-- Linda Suske, Unknown , May 3, 2005

Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

An approximate answer to the right question is worth a good deal more than an exact answer to an approximate question.
-- J. W. Tukey, Unknown , Unknown

An English hospital sent letters to its student nurses congratulating them on passing their exams, and telling them that they were fired because there were no permanent jobs to offer them. Had they failed their exams, they could have stayed on the job for another six months to prepare to retake them.
-- Mason, Eileen., Great Book of Funny Quotes. NY: Sterling Publishing, 1993.

And the test of great teaching is not merely the dissection of truth. It can also be the ability and the willingness to package that truth and deliver it to the people who need it most.
-- James C. Howell, Servants, Misfits, and Martyrs: Saints and Their Stories. Nashville, TN: Upper Room Books. p. 93, 1999

Another thing he told his customers was that one of the great accounting unknowns of the modern age was how to value knowledge. It was an exciting field.
-- Jane Smiley, Moo. New York: Fawcett Columbine. P. 33, 1995

Any genuine teaching will result, if successful, in someone's knowing how to bring about a better condition of things than existed earlier.
-- John Dewey, Unknown , Unknown

Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, knows how difficult it is.
-- Willa Cather, 1873-1947, The Song of the Lark, 1915

As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in public schools.
-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

At the beginning of each lecture I say, 'Here's a set of events unexplainable by common sense, and I promise you'll be able to solve this mystery at the end of class.'
-- Robert Cialdini, quoted in Jaffe, E. "Those who can, teach." APS Observer, 17(9), p. 22, 2004

At the end of your life you will never regret not having passed one more test, winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a friend or a parent.
-- Barbara Bush, b. 1925, in Toby Cole and Helen Krich, Actors on Acting, 1970

Basic Law of Construction: Cut it large and kick it into place.
-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

Beauty is in the details.
-- German proverb, Unknown , Unknown

Because learning does not consist only of knowing what we must or we can do, but also of knowing what we could do and perhaps should not do.
-- Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose, Unknown

Before the curse of statistics fell upon mankind we lived a happy, innocent life, full of merriment and go and informed by fairly good judgment.
-- Hilaire Belloc, Unknown , Unknown

Better to understand a little than to misunderstand a lot.
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

Bureaucrats write memoranda both because they appear to be busy when they are writing and because the memos, once written, immediately become proof that they were busy.
-- Charles Peters, Unknown , Unknown

By their fruits you will know them.
-- Matthew 7:16, The Bible, Unknown

Church ain't out 'til the fat lady sings.
-- Southern USA Saying, Unknown , Unknown

Context is always as relevant as concept.
-- Terry Olson, Focus on Faculty, Vol 15(2), Brigham Young University Faculty Center, 2005

Crawling still gets you there.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

Deans can count but they can't read.
-- Old Saying, Unknown , Unknown

Description of a grade: An inadequate report of an inaccurate judgment by a biased and variable judge of the extent to which a student has attained an undefined level of mastery of an unknown proportion of an indefinite material.
-- P. Dressel, p. 12 "Grades: One more tilt at the windmill." in A.W. Chickering (Ed.), Bulletin. Memphis: Memphis State U. Center for the Study of Higher Education, Dec. 1983

Do not judge others, and God will not judge you...The measure you use for others is the one that God will use for you.
-- Luke 6:37-38, Unknown , Unknown

Doctors and scientists said that breaking the four-minute mile was impossible, that one would die in the attempt. Thus, when I got up from the track after collapsing at the finish line, I figured I was dead.
-- Roger Bannister, Unknown , Unknown

Don't just live the length of your life, live the width of it as well.
-- Diane Ackerman, Unknown , Unknown

Don't presume that I will respond in a logical or rational manner.
-- on a Button, Unknown , Unknown

Drugs have taught an entire generation of American kids the metric system.
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

Education...has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.
-- G.M. Trevelyan, Unknown , Unknown

Ever notice that anyone going slower than you is an idiot, but going faster is a maniac?
-- George Carlin, Unknown , Unknown

Every piece of the puzzle that doesn't fit gets you closer to the answer.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

Every time you swim out to the rock, it gets a little closer.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.
-- Erica Jong, Unknown , Unknown

Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.
-- Charles Caleb Colton, Unknown , Unknown

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.
-- Vernon Law, Unknown , Unknown

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again.
-- F. P. Jones, Unknown , Unknown

Fear is a question: What are you afraid of, and why? Just as the seed of health is in illness, because illness contains information, your fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if you explore them.
-- Marilyn Ferguson, Unknown , Unknown

Fear is what prevents the flowering of the mind.
-- J. Krishnamurti, On Education., Unknown

Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures.
-- Jessamyn West, Unknown , Unknown

For every complex question there is a simple answer -- and it's wrong.
-- H.L. Mencken, Unknown , Unknown

For so it is, O Lord my God, I measure it! But what it is I measure, I do not know.
-- St. Augustine, Unknown , Unknown

Four be the things I'd been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt
-- Dorothy Parker, "Inventory," Enough Rope, 1927

General notions are generally wrong.
-- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, letter, March 1710

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
-- Thomas A. Edison, Unknown , Unknown

Getting lost teaches you how to read a map.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

Given particular subject matter or a particular concept, it is easy to ask trivial questions or to lead the child to ask trivial questions. It is also easy to ask impossibly difficult questions. The trick is to find the medium questions that can be answered and take you somewhere. This is the big job of teachers and textbooks.
-- David Page, Unknown , Unknown

God is in the details.
-- Mies Van Der Rohe, Unknown , Unknown

He doesn't know the meaning of the word fear. In fact, I just saw his grades and he doesn't know the meaning of a lot of words.
-- Bobby Bowden, Florida State footballer, on player Reggie Herring, Unknown , Unknown

He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot, but don't let that fool you -- he really is an idiot.
-- Groucho Marx, Unknown , 1895-1977

He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts-- for support rather than illumination.
-- Andrew Lang, Unknown , Unknown

Hear this, O Job; stop and consider the wondrous works of God.
-- Job 37:14, Unknown , Unknown

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…"
-- Robert Browning, Unknown , Unknown

How to be a good teacher: Teach the basic subject. Have an atmosphere conducive to learning. Hold the student accountable for progress. Have performance standards.
-- Colonel Patrick Harrington, USMC, Unknown , Unknown

Human beings do not carry civilization in their genes. All that we do carry in our genes are certain capacities-- the capacity to learn to walk upright, to use our brains, to speak, to relate to our fellow men, to construct and use tools, to explore the universe, and to express that exploration in religion, in art, in science, in philosophy.
-- Margaret Mead, 1901-1978, "Human Nature Will Flower If--" in the New York Times Magazine, April 19, 1964

I am never afraid of what I know.
-- Anna Sewell, Black Beauty, 1877

I believe five out of four people have trouble with fractions.
-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

I can measure the motion of bodies but I cannot measure human folly.
-- Sir Isaac Newton, Unknown , Unknown

I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails.
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.
-- Samuel Butler, Unknown , born December 4, 1835

I don't divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures, those who make it or those who don't. I divide the world into learners and non-learners.
-- Benjamin Barber, Unknown , Unknown

I just read about a schoolteacher who got hurt. She was grading papers on a curve!
-- Milton Berle, Unknown , Unknown

I keep six honest serving men. They taught me all I knew. Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.
-- Rudyard Kipling, Unknown , Unknown

I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.
-- Golda Meir, Unknown , Unknown

I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may, --light, shade, perspective will always make it beautiful.
-- John Constable, Unknown , Unknown

I tawt I taw a putty tat.
-- Tweety Bird, Warner Bros. cartoon, 1942

I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers.
-- A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Unknown , Unknown

I think the success of any school can be measured by the contribution the alumni make to our national life.
-- John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Unknown , 1917-1963

I think the world is run by C students.
-- Al McGuire, Unknown , Unknown

I took an IQ test and the results were negative.
-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy next to me.
-- Woody Allen, from the movie Annie Hall, Unknown

I would die happy if I knew that on my tombstone could be written these words, “This man was an absolute fool. None of the disastrous things that he reluctantly predicted ever came to pass!”
-- Lewis Mumford, To National Book Awards Committee, 'My Works and Days' Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979

I yam what I yam.
-- Popeye, cartoon, 1930s

I'm not bald, I'm a person of scalp.
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific.
-- Lilly Tomlin, Unknown , Unknown

If a student submits a paper that is good enough to be published, maybe it has.
-- Dr. Jefferson D. Caskey, Unknown , c.1977-8

If it's zero degrees outside today and it's supposed to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold is it going to be?
-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

If somebody has a bad heart, they can plug this jack in at night as they go to bed and it will monitor their heart during the night, and in the morning, when they wake up dead, there'll be a record.
-- Mark S. Fowler, Unknown , Unknown

If the brain were simple enough for us to understand it, we would be too simple to understand it.
-- Ken Hill, Unknown , Unknown

If the shoe fits, it's probably your size.
-- Fortune Cookie, Unknown , Unknown

If the shoe fits, you’re not allowing for growth.
-- Robert Coons, Unknown , Unknown

If you can't forecast accurately, forecast often
-- Proverb, Unknown , Unknown

If you don't inspect i, you might as well not expect it.
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

If you keep missing, get closer to the basket.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

If you torture data sufficiently, it will confess to almost anything.
-- Fred Menger, Chemistry professor, (1937- )

If you want to zoom down the expert slope tomorrow, you have to fall down the bunny slope today.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

Ignorance is salvageable but stupid is forever.
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

Ignorance never settles a question.
-- Fortune Cookie, Unknown , Unknown

Immortal gods! how much does one man excel another! What a difference there is between a wise person and a fool!
-- Terence, Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. (232.), Unknown

In assessment, "the perfect is the enemy of the good." Let's keep striving for the good.
-- Tom Angelo, Unknown , Unknown

In examinations those who do not wish to know ask questions of those who cannot tell.
-- Sir Walter Raleigh, Unknown , Unknown

In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: they must be fit for it; they must not do too much of it; and they must have a sense of success in it.
-- John Ruskin, Unknown , Unknown

Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major categories--those that don't work, those that break down, and those that get lost.
-- Russell Baker, Unknown , born August 14, 1925

Information can’t be put in any container that isn’t leaky.
-- Spider Robinson, Unknown , Unknown

Inside every C+ student is a B- student trying to get out.
-- Art Peterson, Unknown , Unknown

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien, Unknown , Unknown

It doesn't count if your swing is going the highest if you're getting pushed.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

It feels a lot colder when you're shoveling snow than when you're building a snow fort.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it.
-- Johann von Goethe, Unknown , Unknown

It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.
-- Descartes, Unknown , Unknown

It is up to us to change our community by holding ourselves accountable, and the politicians we elect accountable, to making a positive difference in all our communities...Get involved. Stop blaming others. Look in the mirror and ask yourself: What have I done today to make this country better?
-- Sam Sanchez, commentary aired on WAMU-FM, Washington, D.C. and quoted in Feb 15, 1995, The Washington Spectator, Unknown

It's easier to see the mistake on someone else's paper.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

It's no exaggeration to say that the undecideds could go one way or another.
-- George Bush, Sr., U.S. President, Unknown , Unknown

It's not enough to be able to spell "magnificence" in your bedroom. You have to be able to spell it at the microphone during the spelling bee.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

Junior was being chided for his low grades. Little Robert, who lived a few doors away, was held up as an example. "Robert doesn't get C's and D's does he?" asked his father. "No," Junior admitted, "but he's different. He has very bright parents."
-- Jacob M. Braude, Unknown , Unknown

Know thyself.
-- Thales, Unknown , Unknown

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.
-- C.G. Jung, Unknown , Unknown

Life IS a multiple choice test, only we first have to think up the possible choices, of which there are at a large, if not infinite number for each problem, and then we must choose among them.
-- Mike Chejlava, Unknown , Unknown

Life is a test. It is only a test. If this were your actual life, you would have been given better instructions.
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

Life is not measured by the amount of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

Like Olympic medals and tennis tropies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else.
-- Robert Graves, Unknown , Unknown

Look at the footprints you've made.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

Love consists in overestimating the difference between one woman and another.
-- George Bernard Shaw, Unknown , born July 26, 1856

Make assessment a vision worth working toward.
-- Thomas Angelo, Unknown , Unknown

Make no judgments where you have no compassion.
-- Anne McCaffrey, Unknown , Unknown

Measure not the work Until the day's out and the labour done, Then bring your gauges.
-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Unknown , 1806-61

Measure twice. Cut once.
-- American Proverb, Unknown , Unknown

Measurements are not to provide numbers but insight.
-- Ingrid Bucher, Unknown , Unknown

Never accept the initial premise of the opposition.
-- John W. Campbell, Unknown , Unknown

Never lose sight of the fact that the most important yardstick of your success will be how you treat other people-- your family, friends, and coworkers, and even strangers you meet along the way.
-- Barbara Bush, Unknown , Unknown

Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.
-- Sandra Carey, Unknown , Unknown

Never test the depth of the water with both feet.
-- email humor, Unknown , Unknown

Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.
-- Zelda Fitzgerald, Unknown , Unknown

Nobody notices it when your zipper is up, but everyone notices when it's down.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

Nos numerus sumus et fruges consumere nati. (We are just statistics, born to consume resources.)
-- Horace, Epistles I.2, Unknown

Old teachers never die, they just grade away.
-- Henny Youngman, Unknown , Unknown

On those who overanalyze his music: When you tear the wings off a butterfly, it is no longer a butterfly
-- Claude Debussy, Unknown , Unknown

One measure of a civilization, either of an age or of a single individual, is what that age or person really wishes to do. A man's hope measures his civilization. The attainability of the hope measures, or may measure, the civilization of his nation and time.
-- Ezra Pound, Unknown , 1885-1972

One of the things that has helped me as much as any other is not how long I am going to live, but how much I can do while living.
-- George Washington Carver, Unknown , Unknown

One of the things that Ivar knew about Mrs. Walker was that she would only tell him what she knew if he asked the right question, so he spent a portion of his time meditating over what he might ask Mrs. Walker and how he might phrase the question.
-- Jane Smiley, Moo. New York: Fawcett Columbine. P. 20., 1995

One out of every three Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of two of your best friends. If they are OK, then it must be you.
-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

Only the mediocre can always be at their best.
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
-- Boston-NY AIDS Ride., Unknown , c2000

Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.
-- Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, DC, Unknown , Unknown

Plain women know more about men than beautiful ones do.
-- Katharine Hepburn, Unknown , Unknown

Please provide the date of your death.
-- from an IRS letter, Unknown , Unknown

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.
-- Niels Bohr, born October 7, 1885, Unknown

Pride is what we have. Vanity is what others have.
-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

Remember half the people you know are below average.
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

Rubric derives from the Latin word for "red." In the Roman Church the books for religious ceremonies are printed with some lines black and some red. The black print indicates words to be spoken (prayers, etc.) and the red lines tell the celebrant "what to do" and these lines are not to be read. A rubric, in short, is a protocol for conducting a religious ceremony.
-- Bob Leamnson, POD@listserv.nd.edu, 2001, Tuesday, October 16

Since these mysteries exceed my grasp, I shall pretend to have organized them.
-- Jean Cocteau, Unknown , born July 5, 1889.

Some people are addicted to gambling, daytime television, romance novels. Not me. I am addicted to the bathroom scale. There is no greater authority.
-- Judith Burman, Unknown , Unknown

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
-- Misattributed to Sigmund Freud, Unknown , Unknown

Speed, quality, price. Pick any two.
-- James M. Wallace, Unknown , Unknown

Success is not to be measured by income but by influence, not by power but by personality, not by capital but by character.
-- Stephen W. Gilman, U. of Wisconsin, Unknown , Unknown

Teachers assess to test; educators assess to assist learning.
-- Dave Carter, handout: Assessment - Why We Do It How We Do..., June 2002

Technology is not about tools, it deals with how Man works.
-- Peter Drucker, Unknown , Unknown

Ten minutes is short if it's a recess and long if it's a punishment.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

The advantages of being a statistician: You can legally comment on someone’s posterior distribution. You don’t have to be right, just close. You always wanted to learn the Greek alphabet anyway. Being deviant is normal.
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.
-- Chinese Proverb, Unknown , Unknown

The boughs of no two trees ever have the same arrangement. Nature always produces individuals; She never produces classes.
-- Lydia Maria Child, Unknown , Unknown

The color of truth is gray.
-- Andre' Gide, Unknown , Unknown

The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
-- Adlai Stevenson, Unknown , Unknown

The decent docent doesn't doze; He teaches standing on his toes. His students dassn’t doze and does, And that’s what teaching is and was.
-- David McCord, What Cheer, Unknown

The difference between perception and fact is that fact changes.
-- Ron Krouch, Unknown , Unknown

The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?" The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?" The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?" The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"
-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

The Great Cliché: Don't worry about it. It won't be on the exam. The Truth: I can't do this problem either.
-- Art Peterson, Unknown , Unknown

The Great Cliché: This will definitely be on the exam. The Truth: Will somebody please wake up?
-- Art Peterson, Unknown , Unknown

The heart is deceitful above all things ... who can understand it?
-- Jeremiah 17:9, Unknown , Unknown

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
-- Albert Einstein, Unknown , Unknown

The lasting measure of good teaching is what the individual student learns and carries away.
-- Stanford Erickson, Unknown , Unknown

The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.
-- Alfred Hitchcock, Unknown , born August 13, 1899

The longer the test the better you feel when it's over.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

The measure of love is to love without measure.
-- St. Francis de Sales, Unknown , Unknown

The most important questions in life are unanswerable--but approachable.
-- Jamie McKenzie, Unknown , Unknown

The only completely consistent people are dead.
-- Aldous Huxley, Unknown , Unknown

The only difference between a good shot and a bad shot is whether it goes in or not.
-- Charles Barkley, Unknown , Unknown

The opera ain't over till the fat lady sings.
-- Often misattributed. Origins are unknown. There is an old Southern saying, "Church ain't out 'til the fat lady sings.", Unknown , Unknown

The path you're on looks different when you turn around.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

The play was a great success, but the audience was a disaster.
-- Oscar Wilde, Unknown , Unknown

The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they are okay, then it's you.
-- Rita Mae Brown., Unknown , Unknown

The teacher can always tell when you did your homework on the bus.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

The way a question is asked limits and disposes the ways in which any answer to it--right or wrong--may be given.
-- Susanne K. Langer, Unknown , Unknown

There are 3 kinds of people: those who can count & those who can't.
-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

There are no limits to the power of the human mind to construct new meaning from experience.
-- Novak and Gowin, Unknown , 1984

There are one-story intellects, two-story intellects, and three-story intellects with skylights. All fact collectors, who have no aim beyond their facts, are one-story men. Two-story men compare, reason, generalize, using the labors of the fact collectors as well as their own. Three-story men idealize, imagine, predict - their best illumination comes from above, through the skylight.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Unknown , Unknown

There are only 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

There are three things that are extremely hard: Stell, a diamond, and to know one's self.
-- Benjamin Franklin, Unknown , Unknown

There are two types of students who ask to do extra credit: those who do not need it and those who will not complete it.
-- Art Peterson, Unknown , Unknown

There is always something larger or smaller.
-- Anaxagoras, Unknown , Unknown

There is more difference within the sexes than between them.
-- Ivy Compton-Burnett, Unknown , Unknown

There is much difference between imitating a good man and counterfeiting him.
-- Poor Richard’s Almanac, Unknown , Unknown

There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.
-- Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1881

There's an idea going about that the human race basically understands how the universe works. Not you and me, obviously, but scientists perhaps, or experts. Regrettably, this is not the case. In the words of Thomas Edison, the man who didn't invent the lightbulb, "We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything."
-- John Lloyd, Introduction to "The Book of General Ignorance", 2006

They aren't making mirrors like they use to.
-- Tallulah Bankhead, Unknown , Unknown

Things are seldom what they seem, skim milk masquerades as cream
-- Sir William Schwenck Gilbert, Unknown , Unknown

This man I was going with asked me for my finger measurements. I thought he was going to buy me a ring for Christmas, but he gave me a bowling ball.
-- Phyllis Diller, Unknown , born July 17, 1917

Three hops get you just as far as one leap.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

To measure up to all that is demanded of him, a man must overestimate his capacities.
-- Fortune Cookie, Unknown , Unknown

To really know a man, observe his behavior with a woman, a flat tire, and a child.
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

To teachers, students are the end products, -- all else is a means. Hence there is but one interpretation of high standards in teaching: standards are highest where the maximum number of students-- slow learners and fast learners alike-- develop to their maximal capacity.
-- Joseph Seidlin, Unknown , Unknown

To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

To those of you who recieved honors, awards and distinctions, I say well done. And to the "C" students. I say: You, too, can be president of the United States.
-- George W. Bush, Unknown , Unknown

True genius can be identified by the fact that its expression changes the world into something it has never been before.
-- David Gerrold, Unknown , Unknown

Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.
-- Giordano Bruno, Unknown , Unknown

Truth is the glue that holds government together.
-- Gerald Ford, Unknown , Unknown

Two people go into an empty room and later three people come out. A biologist says, "They reproduced." A physicist says, "Measurement error." A mathematician says, "Now if someone goes into the room, it'll be empty."
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Unknown , Unknown

We distinguish the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is the one who makes great demands upon himself, and the latter who makes no demands on himself.
-- Jose Ortega Y Gasset, Unknown , Unknown

We don't know who we are until we see what we can do.
-- Martha Grimes, Unknown , Unknown

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have done.
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Unknown , Unknown

We measure success and depth by length of time, but it is possible to have a deep relationship that doesn't always stay the same.
-- Barbara Hershey, Unknown , Unknown

We see things not as they are, but as we are. Our perception is shaped by our precious experiences.
-- Dennis Kimbro, Unknown , Unknown

We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?
-- Lee Iacocca, Unknown , Unknown

What gets measured, gets managed.
-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

What is time? If I am not asked, I know; if I am asked, I don't.
-- St. Augustine, Unknown , Unknown

What lies before us and what lies beyond us is tiny compared to what lies within us.
-- Henry David Thoreau, Unknown , Unknown

What we believe in is what works.
-- Bill Clinton, Unknown , Unknown

What we must decide is perhaps how we are valuable, rather than how valuable we are.
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald, Unknown , Unknown

Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good.
-- Charlotte Whitton, 1896-1975, Canada Month, June 1963

When everyone is somebody, then no one’s anybody.
-- W.S. Gilbert, Unknown , Unknown

When I came home and showed my mother my report card with a mark of 98 in arithmetic, she wanted to know who had gotten the other two points.
-- Sam Levenson, Unknown , Unknown

When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap.
-- Cynthia Heimel, "Lower Manhattan Survival Tactics" in Village Voice, Unknown

When we have done our best, we should wait the result in peace.
-- J. Lubbock, Unknown , Unknown

When you do not know what you are doing, do it neatly.
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

Why do we insist on measuring it with a micrometer when we mark it with chalk and cut it with an ax?
-- Peter Ewell, Unknown , Unknown

With the dead there is no rivalry, with the dead there is no change.
-- Lord Macaulay, Unknown , Unknown

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible
-- Frank Zappa, Unknown , Unknown

Worrying about seat time is worrying about the wrong end of the student.
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad.
-- Aldous Huxley, Unknown , Unknown

You believe in the goodness of mankind.
-- Fortune Cookie, Unknown , Unknown

You can ask a question and look stupid, or not ask a question and be stupid.
-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

You can observe a lot just by watching.
-- Yogi Berra, Unknown , Unknown

You have to stay in shape. My mother started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She's 97 now and we have no idea where she is.
-- Ellen DeGeneres, Unknown , Unknown

You listen to the audience. The audience is wrong individually and always right collectively. If they don't laugh, it isn't funny. If they cough, it isn't interesting. If they walk out, you are in trouble.
-- Peter Stone, scriptwriter, Unknown , Unknown

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