Post some of the best quotes you've ever read

[WillParkinson]

"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

[av8rdave]

1. One of my favorite Vonnegut quotes:

"If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind."

God, I miss him.

[kayakjohnny]

2. I've always loved this one. Someone sent it to me because they believed I live this way...

"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 function of man is to live, not to exist.

I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.

I shall use my time."


— Jack London

[HopeHoops]

3. "It is easier to apologize than to get permission"

- Commodore Grace Hopper, the driving force behind the creation of COBOL (and think what you will of the language, it was the first compiled language ever created).

[amerikat]

28. I asked god to get me a bike.

But I knew it didn't work like that. So I stoled a bike, and asked for forgiveness.

[DebJ]

30. Is this why computer programmers never adequately test

their programs with live users before inflicting them upon us? LOL.

[kentauros]

4. "I can’t prove it, but I can say it."

Stephen Colbert

:D

[Deep13]

5. "Question with boldness the very existence of God." Thomas Jefferson

[cyberswede]

6. "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend...

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx

[nolabear]

25. OOPS! Posted this too before reading. Love that man.

[Ineeda]

7. Robert F. Kennedy, 1966....still brings tears to my eyes:

“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring these ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance—-Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than courage in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change the world which yields most painfully to change.”
Excerpt from the “Ripple of Hope” speech
South Africa, June 6, 1966

[tblue]

49. Oh how I love and miss him.

Had not read that one. Thanks!

[BurtWorm]

8. "You don't even live once."

That's from Karl Kraus, a brilliant and highly influential Viennese aphorist of the early 20th Century.

Here are a few more insightful comments of his:


"How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print."

"Journalist: a person without any ideas but with an ability to express them; a writer whose skill is improved by a deadline: the more time he has, the worse he writes."

"The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so that they believe they are as clever as he."

"A woman occasionally is quite a serviceable substitute for masturbation. It takes an abundance of imagination, to be sure."

"My unconscious knows more about the consciousness of the psychologist than his consciousness knows about my unconscious."

http://www.theabsolute.net/minefield/kraus.html#quotes

[Arkansas Granny]

9. "I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person."

This apparently paraphrases a line from Shakespeare, "I would challenge to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed!"

[gratuitous]

10. War is God's way of teaching Americans geography

Me? I'd just buy everyone a fucking globe.

The first part of the quote is the incomparable Ambrose Bierce. The second part is pure gratuitous.

[kentauros]

12. I have a globe!

And an upside-down world map :D

[mitchum]

11. Redd Foxx: "Heroes are not born, they are cornered"

Joe Namath: "Nothing hurts when you're winning"
Marcus Aurelius: "What is the nature of a thing?"

[Capn Sunshine]

13. I'm re reading "Wealth of Nations"

"Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another."

Adam Smith

[cwydro]

57. I'll add to that:

Man is the only animal that blushes, or needs to.

Mark Twain

[RainDog]

14. the current sig line of FirstLight

"We only become what we Are... by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that which others have made of us." - Sartre

[Deep13]

15. MLK: ...

Nothing in all the World is More Dangerous Than Sincere Ignorance and Conscientious Stupidity.

[pacalo]

16. "Simplicity is a virtue that will hide almost anything."

That's actually from the movie "The Two Mrs. Greenvilles" but I loved the line enough to remember it. It was said by Claudette Colbert's character to her "hussy" daughter-in-law, played by Ann-Margret, in regard to the latter's overly-lavish society party.

[Burma Jones]

17. On a lighter note:

"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not."

Yogi Berra or Albert Einstein....

[jobycom]

18. An unexamined life is not worth living--Socrates. Know thyself--debated.

[vixengrl]

39. Two of my own favorites right there--

for me, the quote "An unexamined life is not worth living" has become a more general "The unexamined belief system is not worth having". Maybe a person is too near to their own life story to understand everything within it, but if one chooses to live by any set of principles--that person must try to grasp the consequences and the basis of those principles as applied.

Also, "know thyself" is a great moral starter--sort of along the line of "Be true to yourself, and then it must follow as the night the day...." Well it does happen that if you admit to yourself where you are coming from, you can be more up-front about what you want and less sidewise about approaching people.

Two good quotes!

[ohiosmith]

19. I may be drunk but you're crazy. I'll be sober tomorrow but you'll be crazy the rest of your life.

W.C. Fields.

[rug]

20. Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake. - Napoleon

[frogmarch]

21. Terry Pratchett quote

Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.

[hobbit709]

22. "Stupidity is the only universal capital crime

and sentence is carried out immediately with no hope of appeal" Robert Heinlein

[guitar man]

36. Delete

Wrong place

[guitar man]

37. Aarrgh!!

Delete

[Bennyboy]

23. Fuck em if they can't take a joke....

Jerry Garcia.

[nolabear]

24. "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. In side of a dog it's too dark to read."

Groucho.

[applegrove]

26. "There are two types of people in the world; those who think there are only two types

of people in the world and those who don't". (Unknown...from an economics book from the Dalhousie Library in Halifax NS).

[OmahaBlueDog]

27. "The truth is rarely pure and never simple" (Oscar Wilde from "The Importance of Being Earnest")

:toast:

[Tuesday Afternoon]

29. from Marcus Aurelius -

Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live.

[jobycom]

42. You forgot the third thing...

"And if you can't, throw poo at them!"

Okay, that's more of a Jobycom addendum based on observations in GD... :rofl: Yours is better. :)

[Tuesday Afternoon]

53. lord, joby

:rofl:

Marcus is better ;)

[AllenVanAllen]

31. "It is not the strongest of the species that survives,

nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” ~ Charles Darwin

[RagAss]

32. "You are the God you do not believe in".....me

[madinmaryland]

33. "I am not a crook" Richard M. Nixon.

:rofl:

[Brother Buzz]

34. "If elected, I will win." - Pat Paulsen

Another nugget from the late great perpetual presidential hopeful, Pat Paulsen:

"I've upped my standards. Now, up yours."

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Y_2G-fzrrRA/Rxj68FR1gaI/AAAAAAAAADY/ihtEQgI_gjE/s320/Pat+Paulsen+Smothers+Brothers.jpg

[guitar man]

35. And if I were your husband

... I would drink it!!

Winston Churchill

and I like the one in my sig a lot too :rofl:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

41. If you were my husband...

I would poison your drink!

The lady that Winston Churchill was retorting to, above!

I don't remember her name...

:hi:

[sarge43]

56. Lady Nancy Astor

First woman elected to Parliament. She and Churchill went rounds; they loathed one another.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

59. Thanks! I could not remember...

[guitar man]

38. See if you like this one

" What we are dealing with is people too stupid to realize that the sequel to Atlas Shrugged is The Grapes Of Wrath"

guitar man -2010

[jobycom]

40. That's my new favorite!

:applause:

[Capn Sunshine]

45. Whoa yeah!

:thumbsup:That has national bumper sticker writen all over it. Run with it

[vixengrl]

43. Never whistle while you're pissing.

I got that from The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Wilson and Shea. It's great advice. If you're doing any job--do that thing. Don't drive and use a cell phone. Don't read the stock ticker on some cable show while you're writing a letter. Don't compose your suicide note while you're thinking of reasons to live, or talk up the merits of anarchy while trying to push for better government.

When I drive, or am at work, or eating, I drive, work, or eat, or make love or whatever, I'm doing the hell out of whatever I'm about at the moment I'm doing it.

As a result, I steadily find I watch less t.v. Which is probably to the collective good.

[Lindsey]

44. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens

can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever does. Margaret Mead

[AsahinaKimi]

46. I simply love this one..

"Holding forth this sword I cut vacuity in twain; In the midst of the great fire, a stream of refreshing breeze!"- - Shiaku Nyudo, Samurai 1333 ad


He may have been an ancestor of mine.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

47. Oh, that is beautiful!

How cool that he might have been your ancestor...

[Duer 157099]

48. "My sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating"

[tblue]

50. Mark Twain:

Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficulties and obscurities now.

The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them.

There was never a throne which did not represent a crime.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

51. Oscar Wilde, etal.

"Work is the curse of the drinking class" -- Oscar Wilde

Mankind will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. -- Denis Diderot

Men never do evil so cheerfully and efficiently as when they do it from from religious conviction. - -Blaise Pascal

Dibble's First Law of Sociology: Some do, and some don't.

I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin. - Oscar Levant

First God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards. - Mark Twain

Where first they burn books, eventually they burn people. -- Heinrich Heine


Either this wallpaper goes, or I go. -- Allegedly Oscar Wilde's last words.


I have some ancient deadly wallpaper in my house that is like that!


I have the simplest of tastes. I am always satisfied with the best. -- Oscar Wilde

[REP]

52. If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion. - GB Shaw

Animals are my friends. I don't eat my friends. - GB Shaw

No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public - HL Mencken

[MajorChode]

54. Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.

[sarge43]

55. Murphy's Law and O'Toole's Amendment

Anything that can go wrong, will.

Usually at the worst possible time.

[raccoon]

58. "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will."

--Frederick Douglass

"To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead".

--Thomas Paine

"The easiest person to deceive is oneself."

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1828.

"If you watch TV news, you know less about the world than if you just drank gin straight from the bottle."
- Garrison Keillor

"The utility of regret is limited to changing how you do things in the future. When it becomes self-flagellation, it has lost utility and the regret itself becomes something to regret."
--Found on Usenet


"When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist."
--Dom Helder Camara

[Bennyboy]

60. Ken Kesey...

In any given situation there are way more dumb people than smart people" Ken Kesey

[cloudbase]

61. One from Emo Philips

“You don't appreciate a lot of stuff in school until you get older. Little things like being spanked every day by a middle aged woman: Stuff you pay good money for in later life.”

And one from Butch Hancock

Growing up in Lubbock, Texas I learned two things: One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in hell, and that sex is the most disgusting thing in the world so you should save it for someone you love.