brains quotes

F E Smith is very clever, but sometimes he lets his brains go to his head. 36

- Margot Asquith
Quoted in The Wit of the Asquiths (published1974).

For an actress to be a success she must have the face of Venus, the brains of Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, thememoryof Macaulay, thefigure of Juno, and thehide of a rhinoceros.

- Ethel Barrymore
Quoted in George  Jean Nathan The Theatre in the Fifties (1953).

I want to know a butcher paints, A baker rhymes for his pursuit, Candlestick-maker much acquaints His soul with song, or, haply mute, Blows out his brains upon the flute.

- Robert Browning
  'Shop', stanza 21.

Give me a manwith big hands and big feet and no brains and I'll make a golfer out of him.

-Walter Hagen
Quoted in Michael Hobbs The Golf Quotation Book (1992).

Not huffy, or stuffy, not tiny or tall, But fluffy, just fluffy, with no brains at all.

- SirA(lan) P(atrick) Herbert
  Of women.'I Like Them Fluffy'.

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains And the women come out to cut up what remains Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An'go to your Gawd like a soldier.

- (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
  'TheYoung British Soldier'.

So this gentleman said a girl with brains ought to do something more with them besides think.

- Anita Loos
  Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, ch.1.

'Slavery's a thing thet depends on complexion, It's God's law thet fetters on black skins don't chafe; Ef brains wuz to settle it (horrid reflection!) Wich of our onnable body'd be safe?'

-James Russell Lowell
  'The Debate in the Sennit', in the Boston Courier, 3 May, collected in The Biglow Papers: First Series (1848), no. 5.

Thus you see, Sir, that these people are not so unpolished as we represent them.'Tis true, their magnificence is of a different taste from ours, and perhaps of a better. I am almost of opinion, they have a right notion of life. They consume it in music, gardens, wine, and delicate eating, while we are tormenting our brains with some scheme of politics, or studying some sciencetowhichwe canneverattain, or, if we do, cannot persuade other people to set that value upon it we do ourselves† We die or grow old before we can reap the fruit of our labours.Considering what short-lived weak animals men are, is there any study so beneficial as the study of present pleasure?

- Lady Mary Wortley ne  e Pierrepoint Montagu
c.1716  Collected in Lord Wharncliffe (ed)  The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1837).

To curle on the ice, does greatly please, Being a manly Scottish exercise; It clears the Brains, stirs up the Native Heat, And gives a gallant appetite for Meat.

- DrAlex Penecuik
  Quoted in Colin Jarman The Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

Know that famous proverb? When the prick stands up, the brains get buried in the ground!

- Philip Milton Roth
  Portnoy's Complaint,'Cunt Crazy'.

Me having no education, I had to use my brains.

- Bill (William) Shankly
Quoted in David PickeringThe Cassell Soccer Companion (1994)

Brains are not everything.

- George Bernard Shaw
  Rev Samuel Gardner. MrsWarren's Profession, act1.

His big tears, for he wept well, Turned to mill-stones as they fell. And the little children, who Round his feet played to and fro, Thinking every tear a gem, Had their brains knocked out by them.

- Percy Bysshe Shelley
  Of Fraud (ie, Lord Eldon).'The Mask of Anarchy'.

Jazz will endure just as long as people hear it through their feet instead of their brains.

-John Philip Sousa
c.1920  Attributed.

For God's sake give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself!

- Robert Louis Stevenson
Virginibus Puerisque,'Crabbed Age andYouth'.

The difference between a fast bowler and a good fast bowler is not extra muscle but extra brains.

- Fred (Frederick Sewards) Trueman
  FreddieTrueman's Book of Cricket.

Chumps always make the best husbands.When you marry, Sally, grab a chump. Tap his forehead first, and if it rings solid, don't hesitate. All the unhappy marriages come from the husbands having brains.What good are brains to a man? They only unsettle him.

-Plum
  TheAdventures of Sally, ch.10.