“Life is too long to say anything definitely; always say perhaps.”

— Leo Tolstoy , book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Leo Tolstoy 456

Russian writer 1828–1910

Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist

Source: Sloppy Firsts

“When people say there is too much violence in [my books], what they are saying is there is too much reality in life.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

New York Times (27 July 1980)

“Women are always saying,"We can do anything that men can do." But Men should be saying,"We can do anything that women can do.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

“An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a definite proposition… A contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says."

No, it's not…”

Graham Chapman (1941–1989) English comedian, writer and actor

“As long as you're billed as a comedian, I guess you can say anything.”

Tom Lehrer (1928) American singer-songwriter and mathematician

Quotes from interviews, Insider Audio interview (1997)
Context: I remember when Richard Pryor said something about how in South Africa, all the black people should pick up guns and kill all the white people, and they went right on with the interview, and nobody stopped him on that. "Oh good old Richard, what a card." As long as you're billed as a comedian, I guess you can say anything.

“The intervals of time that separate the fossils are so huge that we cannot say anything definite about their possible connection through ancestry and descent.”

Henry Gee (1962) British paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and editor

In Search of Deep Time—Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life, by Henry Gee, 1999, p. 23.

“I just want to say to the kids out there watching: You can do anything you want in life. Unless Jay Leno wants to do it too.”

Conan O'Brien (1963) American television show host and comedian

“I can't say or explain anything. Pictures don’t come from your head but from life... I am always looking for life. All that escapes thought or will-power.”

Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter

short quotes, 2 April 1967; p. 63
1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

“We come too late to say anything which has not been said already.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Tout est dit, et l'on vient trop tard depuis plus de sept mille ans qu'il y a des hommes qui pensent.
Aphorism 1; Variant translation: Everything has been said, and we have come too late, now that men have been living and thinking for seven thousand years and more.
Les Caractères (1688), Des Ouvrages de l'Esprit

“People who take things too literally don't get much of anything from my teaching. By never saying anything I mean, I say a great deal. I never mean anything I say under oath. I never mean exactly what I say. Not even this. You have to read between the words.”

John Sloan (1871–1951) American painter

In John Sloan on Drawing and Painting. Mineola NY: Dover Publications, 2000. Originally published in 1939 as The Gist of Art, p. 7.
The Gist of Art (1939)

“Life is too long to say anything definitely; always say perhaps.”

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Leo Tolstoy 456

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