“To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.”
Source: Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility
Journal entry (4 March 1906); as published in Souvenirs and Prophecies: the Young Wallace Stevens (1977) edited by Holly Stevens, Ch. 8
“To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.”
Source: Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility
“The petty economies of the rich are just as amazing as the silly extravagances of the poor.”
As quoted in The Successful Toastmaster: A Treasure Chest of Introductions, Epigrams, Humor, and Quotations (1966) by Herbert Victor Prochnow, p. 466
To the Cuckoo, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“My dear hands. Farewell, my poor hands.”
Quoted in Sergei Bertensson and Jay Leyda Sergei Rachmaninoff: A Lifetime in Music (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002) p. 381.
Said on February 27, 1943, during his last illness, after having said that he would never be able to play again.
Speech to Conservative Party Conference (8 October 1982) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105032
First term as Prime Minister
“Say what you will, but you’re never prepared for the surprise attack.”