776 Stupidest Things Ever Said (16 page)

“Indignantly Condemn the Wang-Chan-Chiang-Yao Gang of Four.”

Come to think of it, why wait until May to visit Memphis? April is the month the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in the city.

[After a nuclear attack] … so far as the balance of payments is concerned, our results show exports consistently exceeding imports by amounts varying from about 150 to 200 percent.

Equal goes it loose.

Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave.

I desire the Poles carnally.

We pray for MacArthur’s erection.

1. At the rise of the hand of the policeman, stop rapidly. Do not pass him or otherwise disrespect him.
   

2. If pedestrian obstacle your path, tootle horn melodiously. If he continue to obstacle, tootle horn vigorously and utter vocal warning such as “Hi, Hi.”
   

3. If wandering horse by roadside obstacle your path, beware that
   he do not take fright as you pass him. Go soothingly by, or stop by roadside till he pass away.
   

4. If road mope obstacle your path, refrain from pass on hill or round curve. Follow patiently till road arrive at straight level stretch. Then tootle horn melodiously and step on, passing at left and waving hand courteously to honorable road mope in passing.
   

5. Beware of greasy corner where lurk skid demon. Cease step on, approach slowly, round cautiously, resume step on gradually.
   

   from an official Japanese guide for English-speaking drivers, 1936
   

When two trains approach each other at a crossing, they shall both come to a full stop and neither shall start up until the other has gone.

If you come to a fork in the road, take it.

A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?

There is today in the United States as much forest as there was when Washington was at Valley Forge.

When you see one redwood, you’ve seen them all.

I don’t believe a tree is a tree and if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all.

A real lady who has given unwittingly of her philosophy to the nation.

Remember Lincoln, going to his knees in times of trial in the Civil War and all that stuff. You can’t be. And we are blessed. So don’t feel sorry for—don’t cry for me, Argentina.

That fellow is a crook. His word isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

I don’t want to tell you any half-truths unless they’re completely accurate.

There are two kinds of truth. There are real truths and there are made-up truths.

If I told you the truth, I’d be a hypocrite.

The honorable member did not want the truth; the honorable member had asked for facts.

[The Holocaust] was an obscene period in our nation’s history … this century’s history…. We all lived in this century. I didn’t live in this century.

You know, I’ve always wondered about the taping equipment. But I’m damn glad we have it.

Several of the Rev. Dr. Mudge’s friends called upon him yesterday, and after a conversation the unsuspecting pig was seized by the hind leg, and slid along a beam until he reached the hot-water tank…. Thereupon he came forward and said that there were times when the feelings overpowered one, and for that reason he would not attempt to do more than thank those around him for the manner in which such a huge animal was cut into fragments was simply astonishing. The doctor concluded his remarks, when the machine seized him and in less time than it takes to write it the pig was cut into fragments and worked up into delicious sausage. The occasion will be long remembered by the doctor’s friends as one of the most delightful of their lives. The best pieces can be procured for tenpence a pound, and we
are sure that those who have sat so long under his ministry will rejoice that he has been treated so handsomely.

[Students and their ancestors] have been coming to the land now called the United States for millennia.

Resolved unanimously with one dissenting voice.

There’s a lot of uncertainty that’s not clear in my mind.

OPSDEP: Short for Operations Deputy. By JCS charter, the Army representative is the DCSOPS. However, the ADCSOPS (JA), who is the DEPOPSDEP, may act for the OPSDEP on all joint matters. The use of the term OPSDEP also includes DEPOPSDEP. OPSDEPs or DEPOPSDEPs can approve papers for the JCS.

The fact that my father was President and Chief Justice of the United States was a tremendous help and inspiration in my public career.

A lot of guys said it was fate that stopped it. Probably I would have been dead if it went over.

Ron Ziegler: So it was a really terrific year except for the downside.

Questioner: What downside?

Ziegler: Watergate.

The country is not in good condition.

It [unemployment insurance] provides prepaid vacations for a segment of our country which has made it a way of life.

Now we are trying to get unemployment to go up and I think we’re going to succeed.

The right to suffer is one of the joys of a free economy.

When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment results.

Steve Balboni (Kansas City Royals player):

Commentator:

Steve Balboni:

There’s someone warming up in the bull pen, but he’s obscured by his number.

Q: Do the Broncos have your number, Christian?

A: Do they have my number. I don’t know. Do they have a guy with the number 35?

We received yesterday morning from an unknown source whose immense generosity is well known to us …

Bison, elk, and puma are now extinct in the city of Macon.

I’ve tasked Bill. I’ve said, “Bill, work the problem.”

I have said that the court usurpated its authority.

You’d better caveat that statement.

I would like the government to do all it can to mitigate, then, in understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, our tasks will be solved.

No wonder we lost the war.

I have definitional problems with the word “violence.” I don’t know what the word “violence” means.

We’re finally going to wrassle to the ground this giant orgasm that is just out of control.

It takes a virile man to make a chicken pregnant.

I’m not indecisive. Am I indecisive?

Mr. Asquith was like a drunken man walking along a straight line—the further he went the sooner he fell.

This is not a conventional war. We have to forget propriety.

If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war.

It made me nostalgic for arms talks and violence—it’s a great dialectic.