A play should give you something to think about. When I see a play and understand it the first time, then I know it can't be much good.
T. S. Eliot

The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.
T. S. Eliot

We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.
George Orwell

Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.
George Orwell

Obviously I faced the possibility of not returning when first I considered going. Once faced and settled there really wasn't any good reason to refer to it.
Amelia Earhart

Fugitive slaves were rare then, and as a fugitive slave lecturer, I had the advantage of being the first one out.
Frederick Douglass

I had rather be first in a village than second at Rome.
Julius Caesar

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
P. J. O'Rourke

The first step toward finding God, Who is Truth, is to discover the truth about myself: and if I have been in error, this first step to truth is the discovery of my error.
Thomas Merton

The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.
Salvador Dali

It is good taste, and good taste alone, that possesses the power to sterilize and is always the first handicap to any creative functioning.
Salvador Dali

I'd much rather be a woman than a man. Women can cry, they can wear cute clothes, and they're the first to be rescued off sinking ships.
Gilda Radner

Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.
Blaise Pascal

If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole?
Blaise Pascal

The improvement of understanding is for two ends: first, our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others.
John Locke

Born again?! No, I'm not. Excuse me for getting it right the first time.
Dennis Miller

I think being funny is not anyone's first choice.
Woody Allen

For the first half of geological time our ancestors were bacteria. Most creatures still are bacteria, and each one of our trillions of cells is a colony of bacteria.
Richard Dawkins

A person is always startled when he hears himself called old for the first time.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

The first time you marry for love, the second for money, and the third for companionship.
Jackie Kennedy