Do you have a favorite quotation?
 

One of my hobbies is collecting quotations. I find that quotations are often stimulating and help me think about things in a new manner or highlight how I feel about an issue.

Do you have a favorite quotation, or one that you use as a refrence or life motto?

I think one of my favorite quotes is currently in my signature. I'll go ahead and share more of my favorites.

"What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

"Man is the artificer of his own happiness." (Henry David Thoreau)

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." (Theodore Geisel \ Dr. Seuss)

Hopefully this thread will have enough responses I can get some new material to copy down and perhaps someone will find inspiration in a quote left here.

Okay I got a good one that I like... I have no idea who said it I just picked it up somewhere.

"At least once every week. And by 'once every week', I really mean when I get a chance. And by 'when I get a chance', I really mean never."

This is kind of an anti-inspirational quote but I find it funny so maybe it will make you smile

You've probably heard this one, but it is my favorite.

"There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living." Thoreau

You could always nail a meatball to your knee.

doesnt everyone have their favorite quote in their sig? haha

I had this humongous text file packed with collected quotes, but my hard drive crashed and I lost everything, sadly. (if only I had collected some proverbs in there about back-ups...)

Thankfully, I started a new text file anyway :D
Here's one that I like, even though it doesn't really apply to daily life:
"To win any battle, you must fight as if you were already dead." - Musashi
Well I suppose it kind of does, if you don't take it literally.

and another one:
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."
-Socrates (470 BC - 399 BC)

and one more:
"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just." - Abraham Lincoln

"It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

I like that quote in your sig line willravel

I've always liked this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: "My country is the world, and my religion is to do good."

I'm a simple kind of a guy, so my favorite quotes(in my sig) reflect that.

Two of my other favorites are "Don't argue with an idiot, someone wacthing may not be able to tell the difference"
and
"It's better to sit there quietly and appear stupid than to open your mouth and remove all doubt"

Sorry, I don't know the authors execpt, Simon and Garfunkel.

Thank you! It took me a while to settle on a line that made me laugh.
Excelent quote!

One of my personal favorites, that I've used for years...

"Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in high heels"

i do not regret the things i did, but those i did not do...

fuck the fuckin' fuckers is right up there for me.

"Luck, is when opportunity meets preparation."

I don't know who said it, but I love it.

I put "Popularity is but glory's small change." in my High School Yearbook graduation photo. It's a Victor Hugo quote.

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

My absolute favorite, though, is an excerpt from a movie, Love Actually:

heh. Oscar Wilde is a brimming fountain of quotes.

I like what is purported to be his last words, spoken from his death bed:

"The wallpaper in here is dreadful. One of us must go..."

"The secret to a succesful marriage?... one hemisphere each." -Willie Rushton.

"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever" -Napoleon Bonaparte (Could you tell I liked this one?)

"The cynics are right nine times out of ten." - Henry Louis Mencken

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

mine is down in my sig. What is really amazing is that this was a letter a letter that Tompson wrote home after being fired for his essay about the Kentucky Durby in the the late 1950s.

Here's a few that I like:

"Adversity introduces a man to himself." - Anonymous

"We cannot learn without pain." - Aristotle

"In doing your work in the great world, it is a safe plan to follow a rule I once heard on the football field: Don't flinch, don't fall; hit the line hard." - Theodore Roosevelt

Now THAT, I like. :thumbsup:


and mine?
True friendship is like china.
Costly, rich and rare.

Once broken, it can be mended
But the crack is always there.

"I got muscles in my ass, so I hump fast."

-Saafir

Don't compromise yourself. You're all you've got. --Janis Joplin

Time you enjoyed wasting, was not wasted. -John Lennon

I also came across this Jimi Hendrix quote the other day that I really liked.

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. --Jimi Hendrix

Better men have died for better things than this. All we can do is the job, and leave the hero-sorting to someone else.

Proper preperation and planning prevents piss-poor performance.

Do you want your grand-kids to talk about you to their friends, or listen to what their friend's grandfather did? Either way, the world keeps going on.

I was going to say something inspirational, but you dumb-asses won't remember it anyway. Just remember your training, and remember that I am right behind you.

--All words spoken by my loving Sergeant, all in times of adversity.

"I never let school interfere with my education" - Mark Twain

"What the *bleep* is the internet!?" Jay, from Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back

"Just tryin' to be myself. Better me than someone else." House of Large Sizes (one of the greatest bands to ever come out of the state of Iowa)

"There's a fine line between clever and stupid." Nigel Tuffnel

"The people love the autocracy and could never function without it." Nicholai Alexandrovich Romanov, Emperor of Russia, c. 1903

"I believe in 2 things: sex and death..... and death won't leave me nauseous." Woody Allen

"I have been addicted to many things in my life, money, drugs, booze, women, fame and gave them up for the most addictive thing I have ever known.... peace of mind."

The only common denominator in all of your failed relationships is you... despair.com

Shared happiness is double happiness, shared sorrow is halfed. (or something like that) Swedish proverb

"They misunderestimated me." Bush, Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000


"I've got just as much baggage as the person in the seat next to me, but mine's mostly carry-on..." me :D

I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. -George Best.

I used to go missing a lot... Miss Canada, Miss United Kingdom, Miss World. -George Best.

Be careful what you wish for. You may get it.

And

May you live in interesting times.

Probably seen in previous posts, but here goes:

"Behind every successful organization stands at least one person who knows the secret of how to keep the managers away from anything truly important.''

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." ..... Mark Twain

"You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, France is accusing the US of arrogance and Germany doesn't want to go to war."

"The probability of one person being right increases in a direct porportion to the intensity with which others try to prove him wrong"

"There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 500SL convertible."

"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier." [Rudyard Kipling]

"Sometimes - in order to have a good time, you've got to be a good time" - yournamehere has it as their sig, though i'm not sure if that's where I got it from originally.

There are several others I really like but can't recall at the moment. Good thread. :)

You want quotes? Well, here are a "few" :lol: from my own quote database (there are plenty more, believe it or not!). They reveal many things about me, actually. Hope you aren't too bored... :)

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
-Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

Beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing there's a field:
I'll meet you there.
- Rumi

The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over its government.
-Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.
-Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher (1889-1951)

It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us.
-Peter De Vries, novelist (1910-1993)

The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself.
-Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
-Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)

Who is content with nothing possesses all things.
-Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux, poet (1636-1711)

A nation, like a tree, does not thrive well till it is engrafted with a foreign stock.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
-Nelson Mandela

Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.
-Paulo Freire, educator (1921-1997)

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
-Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)

It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars.
-Garrison Keillor, radio host and author (1942- )

The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.
-Thomas Babington Macaulay, author and statesman (1800-1859)

-----

And, certainly my favorite quote for quite some time, applicable to just about everything in life, including Wal-Mart's "low prices"... :rolleyes:

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
-Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy the yacht right next door.
David Lee Roth.

Insanity is just anger put to good use.

Even if one's head were to be suddenly cut off, he should be able to do one more action with certainty. The last moments of Nitta Yoshisada are proof of this . Had his spirit been weak, he would have fallen the moment his head was severed. Recently, there is the example of Ono Doken. These actions occurred because of simple determination. With martial valor, if one becomes like a revengeful ghost and shows great determination, though his head is cut off, he should not die.

-Hagakure





“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that's bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they're afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's all in how you carry it. That's what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.”

-Jim Morrison

"Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship.”

-Yoda

I'll post more as they come to mind :)

"Dream as if you'll live forever, and live as if you'll die tomorrow."
- James Dean

Plus my unknown signature quote is a classic for me.

'Logic is only the beginning of wisdom." Spock

"Trust in Allah, but count your change." Arab Proverb

"Women want the one man that can give them everything they desire. Men, on the other hand, want every woman who can give them the one thing they desire." Unknown

"The difference between men and women is that, if given the choice between saving the life of an infant or catching a fly ball, a woman will automatically choose to save the infant, without even considering if there's a man on base." - Dave Barry

"Beer is proof that God loves us and want's us to be happy."
"Fart Proudly." Ben Franklin

"Water? Water!? Fish F*uck in water." WC Fields

"I love children, but I don't think I could finish a whole one." - Unknown

"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society " Twain

"I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability "- wilde

the one in my sig is by Skanderbeg(I doubt that people know who he is)

“Unless you assume a God, the question of life’s purpose is meaningless.” - Bertrand Russell

"Just keep on the road, you're the white line"- John Lennon

This one?
"Skanderbeg fought in many battles and most of them ended with victory."

* Battle of Ujebardha
* Battle of Torviolli
* Battle of Drin
* Siege of Berat
* The first siege of Kruja
* The second siege of Kruja
* The third siege of Kruja
* The fourth siege of Kruja
* The fall of Kruja
* Siege of Shkodra
busy man for someone who died age 63

That's the one, ironically he died of natural causes, and albania is now mostly muslim. As a teenager he was handed over to the ottomans to ensure that the local rules remained loyal. He became a general in the ottoman army where he got the name iskender bey(Lord Alexander), he defected back to his home land after a battle in Hungary turned catholic and fought the ottomans for the rest of his life, defeating two sultans in battle.

Here is another good one I found recently.

"When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere." (Francois de La Rochefoucauld)

This is much like one of my favorite. I read it as a statement made by Sherelock Holmes in one of Sir Arther Conan Doyle's mysteries. The wording was just slightly different "When you have eliminated the possible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

"Never argue with an idiot ... they will drag you down to thier level and beat you with experience"

"What life boils down to is trying to do 1 thing right in this world. You spend your life trying hard not to fuck that one thing up, no matter how hard you want to..... and in the end, the day you die, your kids are there fucking it up."

Life is like a naked woman, we focus on the tits, ass and pussy because they give us pleasure but we totally ignore the mind until the she says, "I'm just a lay to you, I'm leaving." Then we have no pleasure or a conscience to keep us from getting ourselves into trouble.

Both belong to my first GA sponsor.

"It's not that I'm so smart , it's just that I stay with problems longer."
- Albert Einstein

"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."
- Will Rogers

"The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot."
- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

"Some day my boat will come in, and with my luck I'll be at the airport."
- Anonymous (boy if this one isn't the story of my life)

"gravity is an unforgiving motherfucker........"

"No matter how far a jackass travels, it will never come back a horse."

and the last one was reinforced this holiday season:

"Remember that your best option with in-laws is to marry an orphan..."

"If sex is a pain in the ass, you're doing it wrong"

I'm not sure where that came from, I just remember it from a friend's profile a few years ago

Oh man, I love to collect quotes from movies, authors, and intelectuals. Unfortunately I never kept track of who quoted a lot of these words:

I'll make him an offer he can't refuse.
It's not personal, It's strictly business.
What happens when a man goes through his own portal?
After reading this we are all dumber because of it. I will receive no points and may God have mercy on our soul.
I can pretty much park a garbage truck in a closet if I have to.
Mantovani? They feed Mantovani to insomniacs who don't respond to strong drugs!
Without pain, without sacrifice, we would have nothing.
Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity.
Help! Help! I'm being oppressed! Violence inherent in the system! Violence inherent in the system!
I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight... razor... and surviving.
Sparkling Muscatel. One of the finest wines of Idaho.
Look at 'em, ordinary fucking people, I hate 'em.
"It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.
If you're talking like a bitch, I'm gonna slap you like a bitch!
Esmerelda: What is your name? Butch: Butch. Esmerelda: What does it mean? Butch: I'm American, honey, our names don't mean shit.
Why do we feel it's necessary to yak about bullshit in order to become comfortable?
If my answers frighten you then you should cease asking scary questions
You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else.
*After losing a hockey ball from the roof* Dante: Are there any balls down there? Jay: About the biggest pair you ever seen, dingleberry!
There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad.
I have a memory like an elephant. In fact, elephants often consult me.
Whether you can hear it or not The Universe is laughing behind your back.
I've been very lonely in my isolated tower of indecipherable speech.
Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something.
I would love to stay here and talk with you... but I'm not going to.
Dip dip dive so-socialize, Open up your ears and clean out your eyes, if you learn to love you're in for a surprise, It could be nice to be alive.
Thanks, now we are all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view, really.
The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.
That's thirty minutes away. I'll be there in ten.
I don't know what your problem is, but I'll bet it's hard to pronounce.
Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
I have plenty of talent and vision - I just don't care.
A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
You remind me of when I was young and stupid.
What am I?? Flypaper for freaks?!
If I had wanted your website to make noise I would have licked my finger and rubbed it across the monitor.
I'm not being rude, you're just insignificant.
We are civilized human beings, not wild beasts. We are what we choose to be.
I'm already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth.
If there is hope, it lies in the proles.
I will cherish the initial misconceptions I had about you.
Too much trippin' and my soul's worn thin.
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off.
Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
How about never? Is never good for you?
Slight disorientation after prolonged system uptime is normal for new Linux users. Please do not adjust your browser.
No, my powers can only be used for good.
I'm really easy to get along with once you people learn to worship me.
Read my lips, no new Texans.
You sound reasonable...Time to up my medication.
Capitalism isn't failing; our government has just herded us into a corporatist economy.
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network.
I'll try to be nicer if you'll try being smarter.
I'm out of my mind, feel free to leave a message...
I don't work here. I'm a consultant.
NASCAR = go fast, turn left.
Who me? I just wander from room to room.
My toys! My toys! I can't do this job without my toys!
It is one thing to show a man he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.
It might look like I'm doing nothing, but on the cellular level I'm quite busy.
At least I have a positive attitude about my destructive habits.
Tookie, Tookie!
You are validating my inherent mistrust of strangers.
I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.
Government is the only business uniquely authorized the use of deadly force to sell it's product.
Someday, you'll look back on this, laugh nervously and then change the subject.
Stupidity, like hydrogen, is one of the basic building blocks of the Universe.
Its not pretty being easy - but it's a job someone dirty has to do.
"I am, I exist" is necessarily true every time it is uttered by me or concieved in my mind.
Now there goes someone who's about as sharp as a sack full of wet mice.
If everything's under control, you're going too slow.
In politics stupidity is not a handicap.
I came, I saw, I conquered.
You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.
I don't even know what street Canada is on.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
My goal is simple. It is complete understanding of the universe, why it as it is and why it exists at all.
It's all fun and games, until someone loses an eye.
I would never belong to a group that would accept someone like me as a member.
Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don't know.
Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
In California, they don't throw their garbage away - they make it into TV shows.
He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot.
Sorry, I wasn't paying attention to you, I was too busy looking at my own words.
an eye for an eye, and the whole world goes blind. - Ghandi
Don't look now, but there's one too many in this room and I think it's you.
A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers - and this is the basis of all human morality.
Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.
But peace does not rest in the charters and covenants alone. It lies in the hearts and minds of all people. So let us not rest all our hopes on parchment and on paper, let us strive to build peace, a desire for peace, a willingness to work for peace in the hearts and minds of all of our people. I believe that we can. I believe the problems of human destiny are not beyond the reach of human beings.
He's dead, Jim!
If you were plowing a field, which would you rather use? Two strong oxen or 1024 chickens?
This is a revolution, dammit! We're going to have to offend SOMEbody!
How right I am, How wrong they are.
With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels.
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.
This is the business we chose.
Everybody just stay calm. The situation is under control.
I think The Matrix is so popular because it shows hackers with possibilities only dreamed of by most geeks... the possibility of getting laid.
Warning! Assholes are closer than they appear!
Communism is brainless; capitalism is heartless.
If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.
I love the smell of napalm in the morning... Smells like victory.
Black holes are where God divided by zero.
When I was here, all I could think of was being there. When I was there, all I could think of was getting back.
Anything is possible given time and money.
I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
A reasonable man tries to adapt to the world around him. An unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all change is dependant upon the actions of unreasonable men.
The court ruled it legal to fuck the voters by running out the clock, and demonstrated how to do it.
Relax, my old man is a TV repairman, he's got an ultimate set of tools. I can fix it.
I criticize by creation - not by finding fault.
Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.
Some people see things as they are and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not.
I believe in America. America has made my fortune.

If it wasn’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.- Lewis Black

Here are a few of my favs...

"The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds." (R.D. Laing)

"The surest way to reveal one's character is not through adversity but by giving them power." (Abraham Lincoln)

"So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work." (Peter Drucker)

"When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds. Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world." (the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali)

lessons are repeated until they are learned

And Norman Swartzkopf (spelling) said something like this when asked during the Gulf War if he thought he was playing God by judging. He said "Our job isn't to judge; that's God's job. Our job is just to arrange the meeting."

Here are a few from author Douglas Adams:

"The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be." (Douglas Adams)

"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others." (Douglas Adams)

"A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.'" (Douglas Adams)

longest day has an end

all things must pass

onward and onward

Though I don't desire to live it, I love this one by Anais Nin:

“I do not want to be the leader. I refuse to be the leader. I want to live darkly and richly in my femaleness. I want a man lying over me, always over me. His will, his pleasure, his desire, his life, his work, his sexuality the touchstone, the command, my pivot. I don’t mind working, holding my ground intellectually, artistically; but as a woman, oh, God, as a woman I want to be dominated. I don’t mind being told to stand on my own feet, not to cling, be all that I am capable of doing, but I am going to be pursued, fucked, possessed by the will of a male at his time, his bidding.”

I also like this one, a lot:

"I was born that way. I have had these feelings, these longings, all of my life. It is not unnatural. I am not sick because I feel this way. I do not need to be helped. I do not need to be cured. What I need, and what all of those who are like me need, is your understanding and your compassion. We have not injured you in any way, and yet we are scorned and attacked. And all because we are different. What we do is no different from what you do. We talk and laugh, we complain about work, and we wonder about growing old. We talk about our families and we worry about the future and we cry with each other when things seem hopeless. All of the loving things that you do with each other, that is what we do and for that we are called misfits, and deviants, and criminals. What right do you have to punish us? What right do you have to change us? What makes you think you can dictate how people love each other?"




"I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up DOES rejoice. Still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone. I guess I just miss my friend. "

Red, The Shawshank Redemption

"Human language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to when all the while we want to move the stars to pity"

Gustave Flaubert



Gilda

“I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the future but by the past. “
- Patrick Henry

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."
-Robert Frost

"Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too--even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling."
- Morrie Schwartz, Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.

How often misused words generate misleading thoughts.

-Herbert Spencer


Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.

-Albert Einstein

Cause it's easier: Einstein Quotes

Searched, didn't find this one.

P.T. Barnum, of circus fame, said "There is a sucker born every minute".

It reminds me to try to be one of the other folks born during my minute.

"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines."

"It's a trap!" - Admiral Akbar.

Find something you love and do it till it kills you

"If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect an answer you don't want to hear."

"There is a thin line between genius and insanity and i am quite happy with a foot firmly set on either side... " ~:)

"Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often." (Mae West)

I have a very long list of these collected as well, but I'll just share the two that are on my mind lately:

"I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center."

~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.


"Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it."

~Christopher Morley

"Hurled into hell, he was unbeaten. A third of God's angels he had led with him, and straightway he incited man to rebel against God, and gained for himself and hell the major portion of all the generations of man. Why was he beaten out of heaven? Because he was less brave than God? less proud? less aspiring? No! A thousand times no! God was more powerful, as he said, Whom thunder hath made greater. But Lucifer was a free spirit. To serve was to suffocate. He preferred suffering in freedom to all the happiness of a comfortable servility. He did not care to serve God. He cared to serve nothing. He was no figurehead. He stood on his own legs. He was an individual."

-Jack London

Here's a couple I really like:

"If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today." - E. Joseph Cossman

"Turn your face to the sun, and the shadows fall behind you." - Maori proverb

"If you can't win, make the fellow ahead of you break the record." - Unknown

"To the non-believer, no proof is possible. To the believer, no proof in necessary."

Might have been the other way around. Can't be bothered finding the actual quote. Sleep now.

To err is Human, but to really fuck something up.....requires a computer

Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important.
Eugene McCarthy

I'm not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information.
Bill Watterson

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
Abraham Lincoln

Murpheys Law proves if it can go wrong it will go wrong and at the worst possible time. Murphey rocks.

My favorite quote from a very successful (Forbes 500) billionaire businessman that I know:

A spouting whale gets harpooned

So for those of you who don't know, I work at a drug/alcohol treatment center for adolescents. I have an office there, and there is a space on my office door for a 5"x5" piece of paper. Most of the counselors and others in the office have messages, quotes, or drawings in their spaces. I'm looking for a quote I can incorporate into some artwork--and my requirements for this quote are that it be motivational, uplifting, inspiring, and most importantly, appropriate. If any of you have suggestions, I would really appreciate it--and you can either post them here or PM me your ideas.

Use My Sig....heh

I can imagine Newton sitting down and working out his laws of motion and figuring out the way the universe works and with him, a cat wandering around. The reason we had no idea how cats worked was because, since Newton, we had proceeded by the very simple principle that essentially, to see how things worked, we took them apart. If you try to take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have in your hands is a nonworking cat. Life is a level of complexity that almost lies outside our vision; is so far beyond anything we have any means of understanding that we just think of it as a different class of subject, a different class of matter; "life," something that had a mysterious essence about it, was God-given-and that's the only explanation we had. The bombshell comes in 1859 when Darwin publishes the Origin of Species. It takes a long time before we really get to grips with this and begin to understand it, because not only does it seem incredible and thoroughly demeaning to us, but it's yet another shock to our system to discover that not only are we not the centre of the universe and we're not made of anything, but we started out as some kind of slime and got to where we are via being a monkey. It just doesn't read well.
-Douglas Adams The Salmon of Doubt

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."

"The best way to escape from your problems is to solve them."

onesnowyowl: A lot of the sigs here are quite good. Not mine though, it's just amusing.

"Don't Look for opportunities, make them." - Wedding Crashers, Rule 113

"The computer won't really be human until it can make a mistake, then cover up by blaming another hapless machine." - unkown

" Every time history repeats itself the price goes up." - Thomas Bailey, Historian

"what would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?" - unkown

"The road to Heaven is the same length from all directions." - Raphael Hytholoday

I found this one only today.

Made me laugh.....

Here's a story about the boys at the altar
Some of them came between me and my halter
But I don't think the good lord would mind
I was callin' his name the whole time!

(Avenue D)

Capitalism is man exploiting man. Socialism is the other way around.

'The simplest answer is usually the correct one' - Paraphrased Occams Razor.

'Screw you guys, i'm going home' - Cartman

'Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.' - Verse 3, Charge of the Light Brigade, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

'Blame the French' - Me

Were you trying to remember this one?

"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite." (John Kenneth Galbraith)

It’s the friends you can call up at four a.m. that matter.
Marlene Dietrich
(this one came to me this morning, at about 3:00am...:D

Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed.
Michael Pritchard

Lex iniusta non est lex

An unjust law is no law at all

"We don't see things as they are. We see them as we are." (Anais Nin)

This is the quotation I ended up selecting for my door. I think it's a really apt quote for kids in recovery to see.

Yay! Glad this thread helped you. :)

And, to stay on topic...

"Love is an irresistable desire to be irresistably desired." (Robert Frost)

"When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends." (Japanese Proverb)

God gave you two ears and only one mouth....Use them respectively!

"Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh." (W. H. Auden)

Please see my signature.

The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done.
George Carlin

Not very deep, but it cracks me up.

I'm going to go with the obvious, and say check my sig :p There have been a LOT of inspiring and amusing quotes here though, keep em coming!

If it ain't broke -- don't fix it!

In my sig:

"Don't let the bastards grind you down"
"I am what I am and that's all that I am" (Popeye was a great yogi!)

I believe it was "Vinager" Joe Stillwell who put that in the faux Latin "Illegitimati non carbovndvm". One for the ages.

"When people believe in boundaries, they become part of them." (Don Cherry)

"If they want you to print it, it's propaganda. If they don't want you to print it, it's news"- Lord Beaverbrook

"It is futile to try and make my insides feel how your outside looks."

-a drunk

Just found this one and absolutely love it:

"Translation is the art of erasing oneself in order to speak in another's voice."

David Cole

Never pet a burning dog

"Pessimist is a word used by optimist to describe someone who sees the world for what it really is!!"

"Wisest is he who knows what he does not kno"

see my sig!!!!! Tupac