It Has Been Said

IT HAS BEEN SAID and collected by ROBERT A. GELFAND* "Had he never been emperor, no one would have doubted his ability to reign."—Tacitus "Natural man has only two primal passions: to get and to beget."—Sir William Osler "It is very disagreeable to seem reserved, and very dangerous not to be."—Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield "A man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes."—T. H. Huxley "A little inaccuracy saves a world of explanation."—C. E. Ayres "There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision."—William James "The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss."—Thomas Carlyle "We are never so happy or unhappy as we think."—François, Duc de la Rochefoucauld "If we only wanted to be happy it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are."—Montesquieu "What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves."—George Santayana *Department of Clinical Research, Central Research Division, Pfizer Inc., Eastern Point Road, Croton, Connecticut 06340. Material appearing under this title is collected with the aim of making the serious a bit less serious, the ponderous a bit less heavy, and the reading hours a bit more fun. Toward this goal we invite a guest editor of this feature for each issue. Will readers volunteer to share their senses of humor by collecting or recollecting items that have brought smiles to their faces? We invite your participation. Originals are also welcome. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 35, 1 ¦ Autumn 1991 125 "It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place."—H. L. Mencken "We sometimes imagine we hate flattery, but we only hate the way we are flattered."—La Rochefoucauld "Impotent hatred is the most horrible of all emotions; one should hate nobody whom one cannot destroy."—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe "The girl who can't dance says the band can't play."—Yiddish proverb "I have so much to do that I am going to bed."—Savoyard proverb "He that leaveth nothing to chance will do few things ill, but he will do very few things."—George Savile, Marquis of Halifax "None think the great unhappy but the great."—Edward Young "There may be said to be two classes of people in the world: those who constantly divide the people of the world into two classes, and those who do not."—Robert Benchley "The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it."—Dr. Samuel Johnson "What men usually ask of God when they pray is that two and two not make four."—Anonymous "Nothing is so useless as a general maxim."—Thomas Babington Macaulay " 'For example' is not proof."—Yiddish proverb "Those who know the least obey the best."—George Farquhar "People count up the faults of those who are keeping them waiting."—French proverb "One learns taciturnity best among people without it, and loquacity among the taciturn."—Johann Paul Friedrich Richter "He who does not enjoy solitude will not love freedom."—Arthur Schopenhauer "When are men most useless, would you say? / When they can't command and can't obey."—Goethe "Man is constrained to be more or less social by his mode of propagation."—George Santayana 126 M Has Been Said "It is seldom that the miserable can help regarding their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable."—George Elliot "Woman inspires us to great things, and prevents us from achieving them."—Alexandre Dumas "Women who are either indisputably beautiful or indisputably ugly are best flattered upon the score of their understandings."—Chesterfield "Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little."—Dr. Samuel Johnson "The lover thinks oftener of reaching his mistress than does the husband of guarding his...