Top quotes by Clare Boothe Luce

Money can't buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you're being miserable. Votes: 17

Advertising has done more to cause the social unrest of the 20th century than any other single factor. Votes: 15

Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, and lessens the frictions of social contacts. Votes: 15

Male supremacy has kept woman down. It has not knocked her out. Votes: 14

It is matrimonial suicide to be jealous when you have a really good reason. Votes: 12

Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, 'She doesn't have what it takes'; They will say, 'Women don't have what it takes.' Votes: 12

Greta Garbo: A deer in the body of a woman, living resentfully in the Hollywood zoo. Votes: 10

A man has only one escape from his old self: to see a different self in the mirror of some woman's eyes. Votes: 9

In politics women type the letters, lick the stamps, distribute the pamphlets and get out the vote. Men get elected. Votes: 9

There are no hopeless situations; there are only men who have grown hopeless about them. Votes: 9

The politicians were talking themselves red, white and blue in the face. Votes: 8

Communism is the opiate of the intellectuals - With no cure except as a guillotine might be called a cure for dandruff. Votes: 8

Bombs know no ism but barbarism. The laws that successfully govern a peaceful and democratic society do not interfere with the only law bombs know, which is the law of gravity. Votes: 8

Censorship, like charity, should begin at home, but, unlike charity, it should end there. Votes: 7

In the final analysis there is no other solution to man's progress but the day's honest work, the day's honest decision, the day's generous utterances, and the day's good deed. Votes: 7

Politicians talk themselves red, white, and blue in the face. Votes: 7

They say that women talk too much. If you have worked in Congress you know that the filibuster was invented by men. Votes: 7

You know, that's the only good thing about divorce; you get to sleep with your mother. Votes: 6

Nature abhors a virgin - a frozen asset. Votes: 6

Watergate is the great liberal illusion that you can have public virtue without private morality. Votes: 5

A man's home may seem to be his castle on the outside; inside is more often his nursery. Votes: 5

The oppressed never free themselves - they do not have the necessary strengths. Votes: 4

I refuse the compliment that I think like a man, thought has no sex, one either thinks or one does not. Votes: 3

Women know what men have long forgotten. The ultimate economic and spiritual unit of any civilization is still the family. Votes: 2

But if God wanted us to think with our wombs, why did he give us a brain. Votes: 2

If old age means a crown of thorns, the trick is to wear it jauntily. Votes: 2

I know all about violence and physical abuse because my first husband used to beat me severely when he got drunk. Once, I can remember coming home from a party and walking up our vast marble staircase at the Fifth Avenue house while he was striking me. I thought, If I just gave him one shove down the staircase I would be rid of him forever. Votes: 2

my definition of the ideal man is 'that particular man with whom a woman happens to be in love at that particular time. Votes: 2

Middle age is the way you would feel about summer if you knew there would never be another spring. Votes: 2

I don't have a warm personal enemy left. They've all died off. I miss them terribly because they helped define me. Votes: 2

You know, I have had a terrible life. I married two men I really didn't like. My only daughter was killed in a car accident. My brother committed suicide. Has my life been a life for anyone to envy? Votes: 0

Communism is the opiate of the intellectuals. Votes: 0

the only time travelers are really gay is when they are traveling for no good reason at all. Votes: 0

H. L. Mencken told me once that he answered all his mail, pleasant and unpleasant, with just one line, 'You may be right.' That's the way I feel now. It is in the realm of possibility, just barely, that I could be the one who's wrong. Votes: 0

Rich women are not too put upon by their children. You don't have to do all the things for a child that those women who had to stay at home did. My Ann had a French governess who took care of her until she was twelve years old and went off to boarding school. Votes: 0

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Votes: 0

Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there. Votes: 0

[On the Democratic Party:] Its leaders are always troubadors of trouble; crooners of catastrophe ... A Democratic President is doomed to proceed to his goals like a squid, squirting darkness all about him. Votes: 0

They [Democrats] are the troubadours and the crooners of catastrophe. Votes: 0

When a man can't explain a woman's actions, the first thing he thinks of is the condition of her uterus. Votes: 0

There is nothing like a good dose of another woman to make a man appreciate his wife. Votes: 0

The women who inspired this play deserved to be smacked across the head with a meat ax and that, I flatter myself, is exactly what I smacked them with. Votes: 0

Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount. Votes: 0

A woman's best protection is a little money of her own. Votes: 0

No good deed goes unpunished. Votes: 0

They say women talk too much. If you have worked in Congress you know that the filibuster was invented by men. Votes: 0

Technological man can't believe in anything that can't be measured, taped, or put into a computer. Votes: 0

The main thing is to get what little happiness there is out of life in this wartorn world because ‘these are the good old days’ now. Votes: 0

Enemies may seek our destruction, but they also keep us on our toes and often help us figure out who we are and what we stand for. Votes: 0

What generally passes for 'thought' among the majority of mankind is the time one takes out to rearrange one's prejudices. Votes: 0

Remember, whenever a Republican leaves one side of the aisle and goes to the other, it raises the intelligence quotient of both parties. Votes: 0

There aren't many women now I'd like to see as President - but there are fewer men. Votes: 0

If men had to bear babies, there'd never be more than one child in a family. Votes: 0

Rome is the city above all cities which loses most of its meaning to those who do not bring to it some historical sense, a decent knowledge of art, and a good amount of time. Rome therefore is particularly disturbing to an American. Votes: 0

all history shows that the hand that cradles the rock has ruled the world, not the hand that rocks the cradle! Votes: 0

I wish I were a virgin again. The only fun I ever had was holding out. Votes: 0

Guns know no policy except destruction. Votes: 0

I can't avoid writing. It's a sort of nervous tic I have developed since I gave up needlepoint. Votes: 0

All autobiographies are alibi-ographies. Votes: 0

Know what Freud wrote in his diary when he was 77? "What do women want? My God, what do they want?" Fifty years this giant brain spends analyzing women. And he still can't find out what they want. So this makes him the world's greatest expert on female psychology? Votes: 0

Time comes when every man's got to feel something new--when he's got to feel young again, just because he's growing old. Women are just the same. But when we get that way we change our hairdress. Or get a new cook. Votes: 0

If you ever manage to make a fool of me, I'll deserve what I get. Votes: 0

I don't think my position unusual for a woman. I'm following a perfectly natural urge to do what I like. Votes: 0

You see few people here in America who really care very much about living a Christian life in a democratic world. Votes: 0

Since the birth of our nation, the steady performance of the Marine Corps in fighting America's battles has made it the very symbol of military excellence. The Corps has come to be recognized worldwide as an elite force of fighting men, renowned for their physical endurance, for their high level of obedience, and for the fierce pride they take, as individuals, in the capacity for self discipline. Votes: 0

Home is where you hang your architect. Votes: 0

I am for lifting everyone off the social bottom. In fact, I am for doing away with the social bottom altogether. Votes: 0

But if God had wanted us to think just with our wombs, why did He give us a brain? Votes: 0

To put a woman on the ticket would challenge the loyalty of women everywhere to their sex, because it would be made to seem that the defeat of the ticket meant the defeat for a hundred years of women's chance to be truly equal with men in politics. Votes: 0

[In politics] no good deed goes unpunished Votes: 0

Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, lessens the friction of social contacts. . . . It is only in lies, wholeheartedly and bravely told, that human nature attains through words and speech the forebearance, the nobility, the romance, the idealism, that-being what it is-it falls so short of in fact and in deed. Votes: 0

A woman can produce what no man can: a child. Votes: 0

Women do generally manage to love the guys they marry more than they manage to marry the guys they love. Votes: 0

No woman has ever so comforted the distressed or distressed the comfortable. on Eleanor Roosevelt. Votes: 0

I hope I shall have ambition until the day I die. Votes: 0

Nature abhors a vacuum, even in the heads of statesmen. Votes: 0

I have never met a man [in the military], in or out of uniform, who ever said, "Let's use the missiles." They are even more terrified that the Bishops, because a great many of them don't expect to go to Heaven, which at least the Bishops do. Votes: 0

Young men still desire women as much as ever, even though they don't want to marry them as much. Votes: 0

A great man is one sentence. Votes: 0

Autobiography is mostly alibiography. Votes: 0

It is ridiculous to think that you can spend your entire life with just one person. Three is about the right number. Yes, I imagine three husbands would do it? Votes: 0

If a woman's got any instincts, she feels when her husband's off the reservation. Votes: 0

Women can't have an honest exchange in front of men without having it called a cat fight. Votes: 0

The best defense against a powerful and positive dynamic ideology is neither verbal attack nor criticism, which are useful, but to set up an equally powerful and dynamic ideology against it. Votes: 0

[On Vice-President Henry A. Wallace:] Much of what Mr. Wallace calls his global thinking is, no matter how you slice it, still globaloney. Votes: 0

Thoughts have no sex. Votes: 0

I was wondering today what the religion of the country is - and all I could come up with is sex. Votes: 0

I don't have any warm personal enemies. All the SOBs have died. Votes: 0