Top 100 Schiff Quotes
#1. An epic subject requires a writer of epic skill and scope, and we have a perfect pairing in Cleopatra and Stacy Schiff. Absorbing and illuminating, this new biography will endure.
Jon Meacham
#2. Richard Schiff is a really good baseball player. It's surprising because he looks exhausted.
Bradley Whitford
#3. Well Bill Martin and Mike Schiff were the creators and they knew we had to do a family show. Everybody came at it from the angle of having been a kid and a teenager.
Donal Logue
#4. I am grateful to Stacy Schiff first of all because she can write a sentence-because she offers us her scholarship with wit, clarity, and grace. Once again, she has done what only the best writers can do: she has made the world new, again.
Tracy Kidder
#5. Families are like puzzles. They fit together in a certain way, and if one piece is missing, it throws everything off.
Richard Schiff
#6. But even race-neutral policies and recruitment efforts designed to achieve greater diversity are, in the end, not race neutral.
Adam Schiff
#7. Ancient history is oddly short on incorrect omens.
Stacy Schiff
#8. Nabokov complained he was afflicted with total recall, an affliction of which he could be miraculously cured by the presence of a biographer.
Stacy Schiff
#9. The Gulf states are happy for us to fight and die. That's good for everybody, but the Americans fighting and dying.
Adam Schiff
#10. We have believed in any number of things - the tooth fairy, cold fusion, and benefits of smoking, the free lunch - that turn out not to exist. We all subscribe to preposterous beliefs; we just don't know yet which ones they are.
Stacy Schiff
#11. It did what a foreign adventure is supposed to do-it made the mundane thrilling.
Stacy Schiff
#12. Things disturb us in the night. Sometimes they are our consciences. Sometimes they are our secrets. Sometimes they are our fears, translated from one idiom to another.
Stacy Schiff
#13. Here you have an incredibly ambitious, accomplished woman who comes up against some of the same problems that women in power come up against today. Cleopatra plays an oddly pivotal role in world history as well; in her lifetime, Alexandria is the center of the universe, Rome is still a backwater.
Stacy Schiff
#14. Cleopatra was on a political mission to save her country and her power, but what we remember about her are these two famed seductions, which are a matter of politics, not a matter of love.
Stacy Schiff
#15. The strength in gold is revealing the general weakness in the dollar.
Peter Schiff
#16. In fact, the converse is true: At a time when the United States has been called on for a level of moral leadership, vision and inspiration not seen since World War II, we cannot afford to dissemble about crimes against humanity.
Adam Schiff
#17. What got us out of the depression was capitalism, and we would have gotten out a lot quicker had the government not intervened.
Peter Schiff
#18. Minimum wage laws make it illegal for a worker to accept a job that pays less, even if the worker needs that job.
Peter Schiff
#19. The Fed is the biggest enemy of this economy. In fact, Ben Bernanke, as far as I'm concerned, he's public enemy No. 1. We're never going to have a recovery while this guy's in charge.
Peter Schiff
#20. When a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil.
Stacy Schiff
#21. A good-sized Ptolemaic vessel could carry three hundred tons of wheat down the river. At least two such ships made the trip daily - with wheat, barley, lentils - to feed Alexandria alone.
Stacy Schiff
#22. Printing money is merely taxation in another form. Rather than robbing citizens of their money, government robs their money of its purchasing power.
Peter Schiff
#23. I was doing a play out in L.A. 20-some-odd years ago called 'Goose and Tomtom' by David Rabe, and somebody saw it and the next thing I know I'm doing the table read of the film version of 'Glengarry Glen Ross' with Al Pacino and Jack Lemmon - one of the great films of our generation.
Richard Schiff
#24. It can be argued that the U.S. brokerage and investment banking industry has transformed the modern American stock market into nothing more than a mechanism for transferring wealth from shareholders to management.
Peter Schiff
#25. We have ample testimony to her sense of humor; Cleopatra was a wit and a prankster. There is no cause to question how she read Herodotus's further assertion that Egypt was a country in which the women urinate standing up, the men sitting down.
Stacy Schiff
#26. But it is equally incontrovertible that if our intelligence gathering process is seriously flawed, we had better find out and find out fast if we are to avoid another Sept. 11.
Adam Schiff
#27. When the dollar collapses, it's not doing it in a vacuum. If the dollar loses value, it's doing so relative to some other currency. So the purchasing power that we lose, somebody else gets.
Peter Schiff
#28. Our failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq thus far has been deeply troubling, and our intelligence-gathering process needs thorough and unbiased investigation.
Adam Schiff
#29. Romans marveled that in Egypt female children were not left to die; a Roman was obligated to raise only his first-born daughter.
Stacy Schiff
#30. As incandescent as was her personality, Cleopatra was every bit Caesar's equal as a coolheaded, clear-eyed pragmatist, though what passed on his part as strategy would be remembered on hers as manipulation.
Stacy Schiff
#31. The best that can be said of the Alexandrian War is that Caesar acquitted himself brilliantly in a situation in which he stupidly found himself.
Stacy Schiff
#32. Winning the war on terrorism will also require a level of moral clarity that can provide a vision for struggling people and nations everywhere.
Adam Schiff
#33. You have to scuba dive in the Alexandrian harbor if you want to see what remains of the lighthouse of Cleopatra's day, and the water in the Alexandrian harbor is not really something you want to come into contact with.
Stacy Schiff
#34. It is notable that when she is not condemned for being too bold and masculine, Cleopatra is taken to task for being unduly frail and feminine.
Stacy Schiff
#36. What we know about Cleopatra's looks is based purely on her coin portraits. Engraving was imperfect, and that when you are a ruler and you ask for a coin to be engraved with your likeness on it, you are probably trying to project a certain air of authority.
Stacy Schiff
#37. The left-wing agenda wants us to think that the reason there was a depression was because the government didn't do anything. That's not true.
Peter Schiff
#38. While our country has made great strides in breaking down the barriers which for so long denied equal opportunity to all Americans, we are not yet the beautiful symphony of brotherhood of Dr. King's dream.
Adam Schiff
#39. Perhaps the most important reason to be skeptical of government inflation numbers is that the government, like a fox campaigning to guard a hen house, has many reasons to be disingenuous. As the world's largest debtor, the Federal Government is inflation's primary beneficiary.
Peter Schiff
#40. It is production that creates purchasing power, not the printing press!
Peter Schiff
#41. And in this community, as in all others, the Golden Rule still applies - we must be act toward other nations as we would have them act towards America.
Adam Schiff
#42. Terrific. Now to win a larceny trial all we have to do is prove how the universe ends.
Adam Schiff
#43. From every ancient source, we have testimony to Cleopatra's irresistible charm, as Plutarch has it, to her ability to speak many languages including, as he puts it, the language of flattery and essentially, to be able to turn people to her will - really a great political genius, in that respect.
Stacy Schiff
#44. If suffering through four years of hellishly misguided big government is the price we pay for true reform, it may in the end be worth it.
Peter D. Schiff
#45. Of course, women have long exercised influence behind the scenes. A few thousand years ago this drove Aristotle to distraction: 'What difference does it make whether women rule or the rulers are ruled by women? The result is the same.'
Stacy Schiff
#46. Euphemisms, vague terminology or calls for discussions with Turkey to get at the truth are just some of the dodges Congress and the administration have used to avoid Turkish discomfort with its Ottoman past.
Adam Schiff
#47. Strangely enough, politics may just be the one realm in which having kids imposes no penalty on women. Kids are practically a necessity. For scientists, or Supreme Court justices, or chief executives, or the woman who wants to learn to fly F-l8s off an aircraft carrier, it works differently.
Stacy Schiff
#48. The president [Barack Obama] is not willing to send in apaches and spotters if the Iraqis say they don't want them and if it means that these Shia mobilization forces are going to be going after and trying to kill Americans.
Adam Schiff
#49. The prompt assimilation of that intelligence will be essential if we are to avoid another September 11th.
Adam Schiff
#50. Much has changed since the end of the Cold War that augurs well for the survival of our nation.
Adam Schiff
#51. No one in the modern world controls the wealth or territory that Cleopatra did.
Stacy Schiff
#52. A woman can never be too rich or too thin, but until very, very recently, she could be too powerful, for which - if she wasn't smart enough to camouflage herself - she generally paid the price.
Stacy Schiff
#53. Some argue that recognition of the genocide has become even more problematic now, when the world is at war with terrorism and the United States cannot afford to offend the sensibility of our Turkish ally.
Adam Schiff
#54. And when they have done their job, America must look after and honor its veterans.
Adam Schiff
#55. The real story of Detroit [ ... ] can be summed up in seven words. Private enterprise built it, government destroyed it.
Peter Schiff
#56. There is simply no way to sustain an economy based on consumer credit.
Peter Schiff
#57. We must either reduce the number of our engagements or increase the number of our troops.
Adam Schiff
#58. Often President Obama's worst critics are Senator Obama and candidate Obama.
Peter Schiff
#59. A commanding woman versed in politics, diplomacy, and governance; fluent in nine languages; silver-tongued and charismatic, Cleopatra nonetheless seems the joint creation of Roman propagandists and Hollywood directors.
Stacy Schiff
#60. Plutarch gave her nine languages, including Hebrew and Troglodyte, an Ethiopian tongue that - if Herodotus can be believed - was unlike that of any other people; it sounds like the screeching of bats.
Stacy Schiff
#61. It was rare to find a member of the family who did not liquidate a relative or two, Cleopatra VII included.
Stacy Schiff
#62. The art of speaking," it was later said, "depends on much effort, continual study, varied kinds of exercise, long experience, profound wisdom, and unfailing strategic sense.
Stacy Schiff
#63. The way Steven Spielberg sees the world has become the way the world is communicated back to us every day.
Stephen Schiff
#64. Notwithstanding these setbacks, the dream of a beautiful American orchestra goes on, and I share Dr. King's faith that each year we move inexorably closer to a magnificent opening night.
Adam Schiff
#65. Insofar as there is an anxiety of influence for a biographer, it may be that each new book is undertaken in reaction to the previous book.
Stacy Schiff
#66. No biographical subject is ever on hold with the orthodontist. If there's a dry spell, it's your job to curtail or eliminate it.
Stacy Schiff
#67. The interesting thing about Cleopatra is that she is such a shape-shifter. I mean through history we've all molded her to our times and our places. So there's room for a movie for her, but I don't think it will hew to the book.
Stacy Schiff
#68. The witch hunt stands as a cobwebbed, crowd-sourced cautionary tale, a reminder that - as a minister at odds with the crisis noted - extreme right can blunder into extreme wrong.
Stacy Schiff
#69. A tremendous number of people come to the country legally, but overstay their visas. And there has to be a far stronger mechanism for being able to track down people, have overstayed their visas, to have a responsibility for who they're coming to visit or stay with.
Adam Schiff
#70. It was tough doing 'Underneath the Lintel' in New Jersey in the wintertime, but rewarding. Those audiences were lively and interactive. On-stage was great, but off-stage was difficult.
Richard Schiff
#71. When a woman teams up with a snake a moral storm threatens somewhere.
Stacy Schiff
#72. I am one of the lucky ones; believe me, I haven't forgotten that.
Richard Schiff
#73. There was good reason why Cleopatra's subjects viewed time as a coil of endless repetitions.
Stacy Schiff
#74. Each year on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birth, America has the opportunity to reflect on our nation's progress towards the realization of his dream.
Adam Schiff
#75. Keynesians are to economics what witch doctors are to medicine.
Peter Schiff
#76. People should have an escape valve for their money, their assets. If you have substantial financial assets, the government is going to confiscate the purchasing power of those assets and spend it.
Peter Schiff
#77. I can't write a line without music - it provides just the right amount of distraction to keep me focused. Clearly, I still miss the noisy roommates.
Stacy Schiff
#78. Witchcraft tied up loose ends, accounting for the arbitrary, the eerie, and the unneighborly.
Stacy Schiff
#79. The surplus wealth we have gained to some extent at least belongs to our fellow beings; we are only the temporary custodians of our fortunes, and let us be careful that no just complaint can be made against our stewardship.
Jacob Schiff
#80. Power has for so long been a male construct that it distorted the shape of the first women who tried it on, only to find themselves in a sort of straitjacket.
Stacy Schiff
#81. By the time Florence Nightingale got her neurotic hands on Cleopatra, she had been mangled beyond recognition by both history and literature.
Stacy Schiff
#82. And in the absence of facts, myth rushes in, the kudzu of history.
Stacy Schiff
#83. Women enjoyed rights in Egypt they would not again enjoy for more than 2,000 years. They owned ships, ran vineyards, filed lawsuits, practiced medicine. Their husbands supported them after divorce. Their power was unprecedented.
Stacy Schiff
#84. We still have a problem here in this country of access to airports and airplanes [for terrorists].
Adam Schiff
#85. I fell in love with my wife twenty years ago. I am only now, it seems, getting it through my very thick skull how lucky I am.
Richard Schiff
#86. Printing money creates inflation, which weakens an economy. Unfortunately, this kind of common-sense thinking never seems to penetrate academic circles.
Peter Schiff
#87. We will not let terrorists change our way of life; we will not live in fear; and we will not undermine the civil liberties that characterize our Democracy.
Adam Schiff
#88. Americans are blessed with great plenty; we are a generous people and we have a moral obligation to assist those who are suffering from poverty, disease, war and famine.
Adam Schiff
#89. At the very top state institutions, like UCLA, Berkeley and the University of Texas, however, the trend of downward minority enrollment remains persistent and discouraging.
Adam Schiff
#90. I don't think there is ever objective biography. Our vision of our subject is always shaped by who we are. So I do, of course, think the biographer's view is always something to keep in mind.
Stacy Schiff
#91. Confidence by itself, unless it has a valid basis, can get us into trouble.
Peter Schiff
#92. Neither the University of Michigan nor its law school uses a quota system.
Adam Schiff
#93. We should be worried about protecting the homeland. I think that policy is changing, should change and will change.
Adam Schiff
#94. Although every step must be taken to protect against a chemical or biological attack in America, our nation would survive the use of those weapons as we did when anthrax was mailed to our Capitol and other targets.
Adam Schiff
#95. As always, an educated woman was a dangerous woman.
Stacy Schiff
#96. Blind passion was one thing, all-knowing intimacy a rarer commodity.
Stacy Schiff
#97. For talk is evil: It is light to raise up quite easily, but it is difficult to bear, and hard to put down. No talk is ever entirely gotten rid of, once many people talk it up: It too is some god." - HESIOD
Stacy Schiff
#98. Cleopatra had one great advantage. She lived at a time when female sovereigns were not anomalies. And when women enjoyed rights they would not again enjoy for another 2,000 years. You could call them early feminists, if I may use a dirty word.
Stacy Schiff
#99. I went out to the desert where Cleopatra camped out with her mercenary army. It's a desolate outpost. Nothing has changed since her day. You realize how far she had to travel. Not only is it a good 150 miles against the current, you can't take a ship.
Stacy Schiff
#100. At some point, the dollar has to give. You can't just keep printing money, and monetizing debt, and buying bonds, without the dollar imploding.
Peter Schiff
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