favorite quotes

[pokerfan]

If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?
- Carl Sagan

It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.
- Richard Feynman

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
- Napoleon Bonaparte

The real obscenity of life is the repression of a natural, life assertive act like sex, and the calm acceptance of a diseased, destructive act like war.
- Lenny Bruce

Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them.
- John von Neumann

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
- Bertrand Russell

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
- Thomas Jefferson

I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it never inconvenienced me a bit.
- Mark Twain

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that precious jewel.
- Patrick Henry

Justice will not come to Athens until those who are not injured are as indignant as those who are injured.
- Thucydides

I object to you. I object to intellect without discipline. I object to power without constructive purpose.
- Spock

[redqueen]

1. First one that came to mind:

Johnny: Was I bored? No, I wasn't fuckin' bored. I'm never bored. That's the trouble with everybody - you're all so bored. You've had nature explained to you and you're bored with it, you've had the living body explained to you and you're bored with it, you've had the universe explained to you and you're bored with it, so now you want cheap thrills and, like, plenty of them, and it doesn't matter how tawdry or vacuous they are as long as it's new as long as it's new as long as it flashes and fuckin' bleeps in forty fuckin' different colors. So whatever else you can say about me, I'm not fuckin' bored.

- from the movie Naked

[kayakjohnny]

2. Jack London.

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

[pokerfan]

4. I like that one

Reminds me of Tolkien: "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

[kayakjohnny]

5. Nice. And for me also,

virtually anything Emerson ever wrote.

Or said.

Or thought.

[pokerfan]

6. Another one...

Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
Susan Ertz

And along the same lines....

The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever.
- Anatole France

The belief in immortality has always seemed cowardly to me. When very young I learned that all things die, and all that we wish of good must be won on this earth or not at all.
- Anne Smedley

I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.
- Woody Allen

[mcctatas]

3. I love quotes...

some of my favorites:

"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious."
Oscar Wilde

"Half of life is fucking up the other half is dealing with it." Henry Rollins


He had a mind like Aristotle and a form like mortal sin.
Eleanor from The Lion In Winter

Sanity is a cozy lie.
Susan Sontag

"Wisconsinites can run in snow better than hookers can run in heels" my sweet darling daughter

[sarge43]

10. Henry's tribute to Eleanor

He married out of love, a woman out of legend. Not in Alexandria or Rome or Camelot has there been such a queen.

[mikita]

7. frank zappa

The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.


No truer words.

Mikita

[Initech]

9. My favorite Zappa quote:

"We cant really be dumb if we're just following God's orders, after all, he wrote this book. And in the book it says that God created man to be just like him. So if we're dumb, then God is dumb. And maybe a little ugly on the side."

[YankeyMCC]

8. "Discontentment is only...

... the fear of missing something. Content is the knowledge that you aren't missing a thing worth-while." Louise Dickenson Rich

Another good one:

"Believe me, when you're dealing with infectious alien mind parasites, I always find primitive is best." Ilia Volyova, "Revelation Space" Alistair Reynolds

[rurallib]

11. one that keeps me going every day:

"Never say that one man cannot make a difference. In the end it has always been one man."
I don't even know who said it. The first time I heard it it was credited to anthropologist Margaret Mead.

[SteppingRazor]

12. I've got a ton of favorites, but here's the ones I have in the quotes section on my Facebook page:

"Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. " -- Mark Twain

"How I stand vis-à-vis the law at any given moment depends on the law. The law can change from state to state, from nation to nation, from city to city. I guess I have to go by a higher law. ... I consider myself a road man for the lords of karma." -- Hunter S. Thompson

"Raise a toast to Saint Joe Strummer. I think he might've been our only decent teacher." -- The Hold Steady