frogza

There are quite a few quotes that I love, by a variety of people. It's refreshing to be reading along and find that someone out there thinks the same way I do and had the ability to sum it up so well. Here are a few of my favorites, what are yours?

My respect for individuals is a respect for their right to be, to live, to explore their own potentialities, to find their own salvation, to achieve what dignity they can. It is not an indiscriminate enthusiasm for the general level of human performance. Great talent and the high virtues are thinly dispersed and no intensity of democratic sentiment will change that fact.
D. Sutton

The world is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy to those who feel.
Horace Walpole

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years
Mark Twain

Some go through life getting free rides; others pay full fare and something extra to take care of the free riders. Some of the free riders are those who make an art of 'knowing the angles', others are rascals, others lazy; but some really need help and could not ride unless they rode free. I don't spend much time worrying about the free riders; but I am a full-fare man, first and last
D. Sutton

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man bit one thing: the last of the human freedoms-to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
Victor Frankl


The sentimentalist fallacy is to shed tears ove abstract justice and generosity, beauty, etc., and never know these qualities when you meet them on the street, because the circumstances make them vulgar.
William James

Do this, do not do this; otherwise I will throw you into prison. Say that, and yours ceases to be a government over rational beings. Nay, rather, say, Zeus has ordained, do this; if you do not so, you will be punished, you will suffer injury. What kind of injury? No injury but that of not doing what you ought;you willdestry the man of fidelity in you, the man of honor, the man of decent behaiour. You need not look for greater injuries than these.
Epictetus

JustDisGuy

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein

"Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare the truth thou hast, that all may share; be bold, proclaim it everywhere. They only live who dare." - Voltaire

"Look to this day, for it is life. The very life of life. In its brief course lie all the verities and realities of existence - the bliss of growth, the splendor of action, the glory of power. For yesterday is but a dream, and tomorrow only a vision but today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to this day." - Sanskrit proverb

"It is far better to keep your mouth shut and be thought to be a fool, than to open
it and prove it beyond all reasonable doubt." - Unknown

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"Act as if the future of the universe depends on what you do, while laughing at yourself for thinking that your actions make any difference."

lite campfire

"keep an open mind and people will put garbage in it"-Albert Einstein
(probably falsely attributed wherever I read it, but it's still funny)

thingstodo

General Scwatzkoff - and I know I butchered the spelling of his name, but you know who I mean, said something like this when asked if it was his job to judge Saddam and his army:

It's God's job to judge, our job is just to arrange the meeting.

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If you're wringing your hands you can't roll up your shirt sleeves.

Stangers have the best candy.

warrrreagl

"Rookies should conduct a search before posting something that already exists in multiple forms."

--- Warrrreagl

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Living is easy with eyes closed.

KnifeMissile

In light of my most recent thread, I thought this quote is appropriate:

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."
- H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

amire

I've always been a fan of "failure is not an option," spoken by Gene Kranz. This pretty much embodies the spirit of NASA in the 1960's. Despite technological problems, the Apollo 1 fire, being behind the Russians initially, etc., NASA poured its heart and soul into the Apollo program and got the job done. I can't STAND failure, so this quote describes the way I feel towards my day-to-day challenges.

[edit]Heh, I just noticed that it's in my sig (I'm usually just a forum observer). You can see that it's certainly meant a lot to me.