Practical Joker Quotes

I'm a traveling practical joker. That's my line of work. ~ Colin Mochrie

I'd worked with Marlon [Brando] a couple of times, and he was a practical joker. He was far more interested in getting jokes out than getting the words out. We laughed all the time. ~ Johnny Depp

My father, the practical joker, did not care for practical jokes on himself; he did not encourage the practice in me. ~ Lincoln Steffens

As for Iago's jealousy, one cannot believe that a seriously jealous man could behave towards his wife as Iago behaves towards Emilia, for the wife of a jealous husband is the first person to suffer. Not only is the relation of Iago and Emilia, as we see it on stage, without emotional tension, but also Emilia openly refers to a rumor of her infidelity as something already disposed of.

Some such squire it was
That turned your wit, the seamy side without
And made you to suspect me with the Moor.

At one point Iago states that, in order to revenge himself on Othello, he will not rest till he is even with him, wife for wife, but, in the play, no attempt at Desdemona's seduction is made. Iago does not encourage Cassio to make one, and he even prevents Roderigo from getting anywhere near her.

Finally, one who seriously desires personal revenge desires to reveal himself. The revenger's greatest satisfaction is to be able to tell his victim to his face – "You thought you were all-powerful and untouchable and could injure me with impunity. Now you see that you were wrong. Perhaps you have forgotten what you did; let me have the pleasure of reminding you."

When at the end of the play, Othello asks Iago in bewilderment why he has thus ensnared his soul and body, if his real motive were revenge for having been cuckolded or unjustly denied promotion, he could have said so, instead of refusing to explain. ~ W.H. Auden

The average human being is a perverse creature; and when he isn't that, he is a practical joker. The result to the other person concerned is about the same: that is, he is made to suffer. ~ Mark Twain

Elvis was, at least the times I was around him, Elvis was a practical joker. He was always, had some little mischievous something going. ~ Jackie DeShannon

Practical jokes are a demonstration that the distinction between seriousness and play is not a law of nature but a social convention which can be broken, and that a man does not always require a serious motive for deceiving another.

Two men, dressed as city employees, block off a busy street and start digging it up. The traffic cop, motorists and pedestrians assume that this familiar scene has a practical explanation – a water main or an electric cable is being repaired – and make no attempt to use the street. In fact, however, the two diggers are private citizens in disguise who have no business there.

All practical jokes are anti-social acts, but this does not necessarily mean that all practical jokes are immoral. A moral practical joke exposes some flaw of society which is hindrance to a real community or brotherhood. That it should be possible for two private individuals to dig up a street without being stopped is a just criticism of the impersonal life of a large city where most people are strangers to each other, not brothers; in a village where all inhabitants know each other personally, the deception would be impossible. ~ W.H. Auden

A few dauntless souls even enter the chemist's -- that shamelessly anatomical chemist's, whose wares do not figure in school manuals on the practical uses of rubber. ~ Radclyffe Hall

Magick should be used for spiritual evolution and mystical insight; but I am here to tell you that practical magick does work. ~ Jason Miller

Such a weapon goes far beyond any military objective and enters the range of very great natural catastrophes. By its very nature it cannot be confined to a military objective but becomes a weapon which in practical effect is almost one of genocide ~ Enrico Fermi

If it be true, as I believe it is, that morality is dependent upon religion, then religion is not only the most practical thing in the world, but the first essential. ~ William Jennings Bryan

Women are not as sentimental as men, and are not so easily touched with the unspoken poetry of nature, being less poetical, and having less imagination; they are more fitted for practical affairs, and would make fewer failures in business. ~ Charles Dudley Warner

But [in bureaucracies], too, decision making takes place in a world full of unceratinties. Any actual system of information processing, planning and control will never be optimal but merely practical, applying rote responses to recurrent problems and employing a variety of contingency tactics to deal with unforeseen events. ~ Manuel De Landa

About his madmen Mr. Lecky was no more certain. He knew less than the little to be learned of the causes or even of the results of madness. Yet for practical purposes one can imagine all that is necessary. As long as maniacs walk like men, you must come close to them to penetrate so excellent a disguise. Once close, you have joined the true werewolf.

Pick for your companion a manic-depressive, afflicted by any of the various degrees of mania - chronic, acute, delirious. Usually more man than wolf, he will be instructive. His disorder lies in the very process of his thinking, rather than in the content of his thought. He cannot wait a minute for the satisfaction of his fleeting desires or the fulfillment of his innumerable schemes. Nor can he, for two minutes, be certain of his intention or constant in any plan or agreement. Presently you may hear his failing made manifest in the crazy concatenation of his thinking aloud, which psychiatrists call "flight of ideas." Exhausted suddenly by this
riotous expense of speech and spirit, he may subside in an apathy dangerous and morose, which you will be well advised not to disturb.

Let the man you meet be, instead, a paretic. He has taken a secret departure from your world. He dwells amidst choicest, most dispendious superlatives. In his arm he has the strength to lift ten elephants. He is already two hundred years old. He is more than nine feet high; his chest is of iron, his right leg is silver, his incom ~ James Gould Cozzens

David ran through concrete advantages. And then set aside the practical. The pragmatist was gone, replaced by the poet and mystic. ~ Geraldine Brooks

The particular skill that allows you to talk your way out of a murder rap, or convince your professor to move you from the morning to the afternoon section, is what the psychologist Robert Sternberg calls "practical intelligence." To Sternberg, practical intelligence includes things like "knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it, and knowing how to say it for for maximum effect. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

I know of nothing in all drama more incomparable from the point of view of art, nothing more suggestive in its subtlety of observation, than Shakespeare's drawing of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. They are Hamlet's college friends. They have been his companions. They bring with them memories of pleasant days together. At the moment when they come across him in the play he is staggering under the weight of a burden intolerable to one of his temperament. The dead have come armed out of the grave to impose on him a mission at once too great and too mean for him. He is a dreamer, and he is called upon to act. He has the nature of the poet, and he is asked to grapple with the common complexity of cause and effect, with life in its practical realisation, of which he knows nothing, not with life in its ideal essence, of which he knows so much. He has no conception of what to do, and his folly is to feign folly. Brutus used madness as a cloak to conceal the sword of his purpose, the dagger of his will, but the Hamlet madness is a mere mask for the hiding of weakness. In the making of fancies and jests he sees a chance of delay. He keeps playing with action as an artist plays with a theory. He makes himself the spy of his proper actions, and listening to his own words knows them to be but 'words, words, words.' Instead of trying to be the hero of his own history, he seeks to be the spectator of his own tragedy. He disbelieves in everything, including himself, and yet his doubt helps hi ~ Oscar Wilde

All faults or defects, from the slightest misconduct to the most flagitious crime, Pantocyclus attributed to some deviation from perfect Regularity in the bodily figure, caused perhaps (if not congenital) by some collision in a crowd; by neglect to take exercise, or by taking too much of it; or even by a sudden change of temperature, resulting in a shrinkage or expansion in some too susceptible part of the frame. Therefore, concluded that illustrious Philosopher, neither good conduct nor bad conduct is a fit subject, in any sober estimation, for either praise or blame. For why should you praise, for example, the integrity of a Square who faithfully defends the interests of his client, when you ought in reality rather to admire the exact precision of his right angles? Or again, why blame a lying, thievish Isosceles when you ought rather to deplore the incurable inequality of his sides?

Theoretically, this doctrine is unquestionable; but it has practical drawbacks. In dealing with an Isosceles, if a rascal pleads that he cannot help stealing because of his unevenness, you reply that for that very reason, because he cannot help being a nuisance to his neighbours, you, the Magistrate, cannot help sentencing him to be consumed - and there's an end of the matter. But in little domestic difficulties, where the penalty of consumption, or death, is out of the question, this theory of Configuration sometimes comes in awkwardly; and I must confess that occasionally when one o ~ Edwin A. Abbott

Few can contemplate without a sense of exhilaration the splendid achievements of practical energy and technical skill, which, from the latter part of the seventeenth century, were transforming the face of material civilization, and of which England was the daring, if not too scrupulous, pioneer. ~ E.F. Schumacher

Racial injustice around the world. Poverty. War. When man solves these three great problems he will have squared his moral progress with his scientific progress. And, more importantly, he will have learned the practical art of living in harmony. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

I like to wear shoes that are cool but also practical. The same goes for bags. Your bag is a big deal in New York. You can't just carry around a little clutch, because you don't have a car or anywhere to stash things during the day, so you need to carry your whole life with you. That's why I like big, chunky bags with lots of compartments. ~ Zoe Kravitz

Defining OO as based on the use of class hierarchies and virtual functions is also practical in that it provides some guidance as to where OO is likely to be successful. ~ Bjarne Stroustrup

Confidence makes you strong, not proud.
Composure makes you tough, not timid.
Courage makes you bold, not arrogant.
Prudence makes you practical, not intolerant.
Respect makes you honorable, not weak.
Humility makes you modest, not spineless.
Silence makes you prudent, not feeble.
Meekness makes you gentle, not helpless.
Kindness makes you caring, not vulnerable.
Charity makes you compassionate, not spineless.
Mercy makes you sympathetic, not fragile.
Patience makes you cautious, not powerless.
Piety makes you noble, not bigoted.
Loyalty makes you trustworthy, not foolish.
Justice makes you fair, not vengeful.
Integrity makes you strong, not stern.
Chastity makes you disciplined, not narrow.

Wealth makes you prominent, not selfish.
Power makes you influential, not self centered.
Honor makes you important, not narcissistic.
Fame makes you privileged, not spoiled.
Servitude makes you respectable, not sycophantic.
Self-control makes you dignified, not self-righteous.
Discipline makes you focused, not obsessed.
Imagination makes you special, not odd.
Pleasure makes you happy, not corruptible.
Goodness makes you saintly, not narrow.
Faith makes you spiritual, not obstinate.
Love makes you mystical, not religious.
God makes you transcendent, not ordinary. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Dean 'Ruckus' Cole was a different kind of asshole to Baron 'Vicious' Spencer. He fucked you over with a polite smile on his face. In that sense, he was the Joker. In his mix of confidence, cockiness, good looks, and money, there was a dash of insanity thrown in. Enough to let you know that he meant every word he said. ~ L.J. Shen

But guilt is guilt. It doesn't go away. It can't be nullified. It can't even be fully understood, I'm certain - it's roots run too deep into private and long-standing karma. About the only thing that saves my neck when I get to feeling this way is that guilt is an imperfect form of knowledge. Just because it isn't perfect doesn't mean that it can't be used. The hard thing to do is to put it to practical use, before it gets around to paralyzing you. ~ J.D. Salinger

For it seemed to me that much more truth could be found in the reasonings which a man makes concerning matters that concern him than in those which some scholar makes in his study about speculative matters. For the consequences of the former will soon punish the man if he judges wrongly, whereas the latter have no practical consequences and no importance for the scholar except that perhaps the further they are from common sense the more pride he will take in them, since he will have had to use so much more skill and ingenuity in trying to render them plausible. ~ Rene Descartes

Go Green, Live Rich is the ultimate toolkit for greening the planet and our wallets at the same time. No one does a better job than David Bach in showing us the practical strategies for how to enjoy living sustainably. ~ Terry Tamminen

Well, anyhow, the practical outcome of all these damn democratic ideas, is that men of our quality -- yes, damn it! we have a quality -- excuse themselves from the hard and thankless service they owe -- not to the crowd, Dick, but to the race. (Much good it will do is to shirk like that in the long run.) We will not presume, we say, no. We shrug our shoulders and leave the geese, the hungry sheep, the born followers, call them what you will, to the leaders who haven't our scruples. The poor muts swallow those dead old religions no longer fit for human consumption, and we say 'let 'em.' They devour their silly newspapers. They let themselves be distracted from public affairs by games, by gambling, by shows and coronations and every soft of mass stupidity, while the stars in their courses plot against them. We say nothing. Nothing audible. We mustn't destroy the simple faith that is marching them to disaster. We mustn't question their decisions. That wouldn't be democratic. And then we sit here and say privately that the poor riff-raff are failing to adapt themselves to those terrible new conditions -- as if they had had half a chance of knowing how things stand with them. They are shoved about by patriotisms, by obsolete religious prejudices, by racial delusions, by incomprehensible economic forces. Amid a growth of frightful machinery... ~ H.G. Wells

Gratitude is a "nice" habit to adopt, warming your heart and all, but the Kumbaya effect is just the beginning. Gratefulness goes wayyyyyyy beyond the momentary feeling good, offering plenty of long-term and "practical" benefits we may never have intuited. ~ Kelly Corbet

Could it be that despite all the years I spent in medical school and residency training acquiring specialized knowledge and practical skills, that this expertise mattered little to my patients' overall health? ~ Damon Tweedy

I seek speed, clarity, and a practical approach in people I mingle and work with. I can't see myself working in films that stretch beyond maximum four months. ~ Ravi Teja

It is a quaint comment on the notion that the English are practical and the French merely visionary, that we were rebels in arts while they were rebels in arms. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

When a joker dies, the joke remains. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

It is hard to think of practical applications of the black hole. Because practical applications are so remote, many people assume we should not be interested. But this quest to understand the world is what defines us as human beings. ~ Yuri Milner

ISTPs have a vested interest in practical and applied science, especially in the field of mechanics. ~ Isabel Briggs Myers

Alice's robes were seasonal. She hadn't exactly planned
it that way, but that's how it evolved. In winter there was a long,
warm, deep purple terry-cloth robe. In spring she changed to a new
blue-and-white cotton kimono. In summer there was a white chenille
bathrobe with a pattern on it, and in the fall she wore a cotton robe her
husband had bought her as a surprise gift. They were useful, practical
garments, but when she thought about it, she realized she wore them as
much for the feelings and memories they evoked as much as their physical
comfort. When I told her I thought her robes had become like temple
garments, she smiled,Yes. ~ Robert Fulghum

Because peace is a fruit of the Spirit, we are dependent upon the Spirit's work in our lives to produce the desire and the means to pursue peace. But we are also responsible to use the means He has given us and to take all practical steps to attain both peace within and peace with others. ~ Jerry Bridges

Sometimes I really think people ought to have to pass a proper exam before they're allowed to be parents. Not just the practical, I mean. ~ Terry Pratchett

I think the American people would be compassionate and practical. But we need to be talking about assimilation as well, something that is politically incorrect, I know, to say that people should learn English, should learn American exceptionalism, shouldn't come here to use our freedoms to undermine the freedoms we give to everybody. But there's nothing wrong with saying people who want to come here should want to be Americans. ~ Bobby Jindal

Nature had once produced an Englishman whose domed head had been a hive of words; a man who had only to breathe on any particle of his stupendous vocabulary to have that particle live and expand and throw out tremulous tentacles until it became a complex image with a pulsing brain and correlated limbs. Three centuries later, another man, in another country, was trying to render these rhythms and metaphors in a different tongue. This process entailed a prodigious amount of labour, for the necessity of which no real reason could be given. It was as if someone, having seen a certain oak tree (further called Individual T) growing in a certain land and casting its own unique shadow on the green and brown ground, had proceeded to erect in his garden a prodigiously intricate piece of machinery which in itself was as unlike that or any other tree as the translator's inspiration and language were unlike those of the original author, but which, by means of ingenious combination of parts, light effects, breeze-engendering engines, would, when completed, cast a shadow exactly similar to that of Individual T - the same outline, changing in the same manner, with the same double and single spots of sun rippling in the same position, at the same hour of the day. From a practical point of view, such a waste of time and material (those headaches, those midnight triumphs that turn out to be disasters in the sober light of morning!) was almost criminally absurd, since the greatest masterpiece of ~ Vladimir Nabokov

The big problem, again, wasn't insanity, but that people's brains were much too big and untruthful to be practical. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

It gave her a feeling of her own power, to make something practical and beautiful just by using her own skill and creativity. It inspired her. ~ Kate Jacobs