Top 206 Quotes & Sayings by Norm MacDonald - Page 3

Chastity is oftener owing to diffidence and shame, than to fortitude of reason or virtue.

Your worst and most dangerous enemy is the person that injures you under the pretensions of friendship.

Most men appear wiser in their doubts than in their belief.

Few people love with the violence they hate.

A suspicious person is the rival of him that deceives, both seem to practice a knowledge of cunning device, and equable sense of disengenuous merit.

You ever hear guys with small cocks talk about sex? Can't talk about it enough. They even got poems. They'll say, 'It's not the motion of the ocean, it's the boat of the lotion.' I've even heard variants..., it's not the tree or the size, it's the axe that you wax.' It's a whole sub-genre of poetry now that's taught in many of our finer institutions.

The beginning of wisdom is the knowledge of folly.

The character of giving advice often makes us accountable for the conduct of those we advise.

I've shown people Richard Pryor who've never seen him, and most of them don't like him.

Envy, like a false mirror, distorts the symmetry of the sweetest form.

I want you to buy this pit bull. This will protect your valuables.' I don't own anything very valuable. If I buy the pit bull, that would be the most valuable thing I own. I'd have to buy something to protect it then.

It is the folly of weak-minded people, to imagine they are what flattery or conceit represents them; and that it is useless for them to be what they are not, since they seem already to have acquired the reputation of it.

The soul is never perfectly secure from the influence of passion; the occasional tranquility she seems to enjoy, is rather relaxation than imperturbable triumph.

In giving advice, aptitude is often less to be considered, than seasonableness.

Most men will go farther to give advice than to follow their own opinion.

I can't be naturalistic enough to make it sound real. So instead, I just wander around aimlessly knowing that I'll be funny enough with stream of consciousness until I get to the actual explosively funny part.

Pulp Fiction is a, uh, gritty, urban satire. Pump Friction is a uh-uh, a bunch of uh, dudes and ladies having dirty sex.

There is a very prevalent tenet with youth, that good company is every thing desirable, and that bad is even better than none.

We advise others better than ourselves.

A proper disposition of time leaves a man at leisure in the very bustle of affairs; without delaying the attention of his concerns to the last or giving them unnecessary application at first: it affords a season for everything by affording everything its proper season.

Love is an artful arrangement of artless pretensions, whereby we labor to appear innocent in what we desire to be most cunning.

I just got back from New York. You ever been there? There was a big gay parade going on there when I was there, and I never been to one of them, and I like a parade. I always like a parade. So, I go there, and it turns out, it's just a bunch of gay guys.

Proper respect to others is the most prudent rule of directing the measure of reverence due to ourselves.

Some men are tempted to violate secrecy from the uneasiness secrecy gives them, and others, merely to impress you with the extent of their confidence.

A readiness to excuse some faults, shows a disposition to commit others.

I don't care for sex. I find it an embarrassing, dull exercise. I prefer sports, where you can win.

There's no such thing, of course, as an old-fashioned gay guy. They're the most decadent people.

All that weak people learn from disappointment, is less confidence in future enterprise.

If you desire praise or esteem, endeavor to merit it.

We are happy at the respect others pay our favorites, because we consider it a lively confirmation of our own choice, and as so much homage reflected on ourselves.

The standard of morals is as variable as morals themselves; of which every nation has a different code, and every custom a different reading.

During misfortunes, nothing aggravates our condition more, than to be esteemed deserving of them.

There hasn't been an original voice in stand-up since Sam Kinison.

None seem to bear the imputation of supposed guilt with greater intolerance than such as are, on other occasions, obviously culpable of vice or crime.

I have a little bit of an out-of-body experience where I enjoy the scenario, and I really do like seeing a crowd turn into a mob, and I do nothing to stop it. People can become really dangerous.

A capacity for hating the object of desire is, perhaps, the best cure for love in cases of disappointment.

When people told the audience that [Sam Kinison] was good, he was accepted after that.

It's a very odd thing with Hollywood, where you do stand-up, you're good at it, then they go, "How would you like to be a horrible actor?" Then you say, "All right, that sounds good. I'll do that."

In love, first please the eye, then win the heart.

Generally I don't like traveling around saying the exact same thing. I don't think that's a very good thing to do with your life.

I generally have a real strong idea or a strong punchline, and I just try to get to it by rambling around, as I don't like to memorize words.

This would have been a great game to watch if we didn't have any money on it.

It is easier to hate those we love, than love those whom we have hated.

This is a thing I read by a scientist... it said scientists now say that a man thinks about sex once every 7.3 seconds. Now, I know what I think every 7.3 seconds. It's just a bunch of meaningless gibberish.

The reason we have few friends in adversity, is, because we have no true ones in prosperity.

I had a show that people thought used a laugh track. It wasn't; it was the real audience going crazy after everything that resembled a joke, that they could technically call a joke.

They that are virtuous from principle may receive confidence in every capacity; but they that are so from custom or habit, are capable of trust only in matters of ordinary and settled occurrence.

I don't have any ambition.

Happiness is less regulated by external circumstances than inward enjoyment. Whoever is happy in the satisfaction of himself feels imperturbable felicity; but he, who trusts entirely to the world for the disposition of his peace, must inevitably participate [in] many privations and disappointments.

The vanity of being asked advice often makes us confirm the opinion of those that consult us.

The most frequent cause of regret for what we have done is because its effects interfere with what we would do.

I completely understand why a businessman would fire me from 'Saturday Night Live'. Because he was seeing Jay Leno kill 10 minutes a night, doing his monologue with wall-to-wall laughs and applause, then I do 10 minutes a week to, sometimes, breathtaking silence. He's just listening for the laughs.

The man that does not fear punishment, little regards crime.

I guess [Richard] Pryor was that good. I never saw him in a theater, but I imagine he was that good, because he was such a phenomenal actor.

Laws, however divine in origin and institution, would be found of little coercion among men, were the administration of them not committed to mortals.

Never raise expectations in others that you cannot realize: promise is less pleasing than disappointment is vexatious.

I started on 'Saturday Night Live' the same time Conan started on 'Late Night.' We just had a relationship because I would be upstairs in the studio and whenever he couldn't get a guest - which was often back then since he was just starting out - he would just call me down to be a guest.

Were there no fools, there would be no flatterers.

Last Christmas, I got the worst gift a guy ever gave me. He gave me a lottery ticket... what's the guy even thinking there. Here you go... nothing! Merry Christmas! It's nothing!

The Rolling Stones reunited for a twenty-fifth anniversary tour last week. Keith Richards said that he's happy to continue to do what he's been doing for the past twenty-five years: cheating death.