Anecdote Quotes - page 2

Throughout time painting has alternately been put to the service of the Church, the State, arms, individual patronage, scientific phenomena, anecdote and decoration ... all the marvelous works that have been painted, whatever the sources of inspiration, still live for us because of absolute qualities they possess in common. (Man Ray)
Though music is the chief excellence of the Neapolitans, Naples has produced some good Painters. Luca Giordano, and Salvator Rosa, were both of them born here : the latter, to judge by a ridiculous anecdote that is told of him, was a man of wit, as well as a painter. View quote
Peter Beckford
Beautiful credit The foundation of modern society. Who shall say that this is not the golden age of mutual trust, of unlimited reliance upon human promises That is a peculiar condition of society which enables a whole nation to instantly recognize point and meaning in the familiar newspaper anecdote, which puts into the mouth of a distinguished speculator in lands and mines this remark -- ''I wasn't worth a cent two years ago, and now I owe two millions of dollars.'' View quote
Mark Twain
The eighteenth-century polymath Thomas Young was the last person to have read all the books published in his lifetime. That means that he would've read all the Shakespeare and all the Greek and Roman classics and all the theology and all the philosophy and all the science. But the same man today, a man who had read all the books published today, would've had to've read all Dan Brown's novels, two volumes of Chris Moyles' autobiography, The World According to Clarkson by Jeremy Clarkson, The World according to Clarkson II by Jeremy Clarkson, The World according to Clarkson III by Jeremy Clarkson... his mind would be awash with bad metaphors and unsustainable, reactionary opinion; one long anecdote about the time that Comedy Dave put a pound coin in the urinal. In short, the man who had read everything published today would be more stupid than a man who had read nothing. That's not a good state of affairs. View quote
Stewart Lee