Finding Solace in Favourite Quotes: Escaping Despair with Words of Wisdom

[EugP]

"I'm not trying to knock you out, I just know I will" - Chuck Lidell

I'm a huge UFC fan, and pretty much a genera MMA fan, so this is probably one of the greatest things I've ever heard.

 

[rewebster]

I can't place why this came to mind, but it came to mind while I was mediating the other day-






“Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.”

http://thinkexist.com/quotation/oh-the_comfort-the_inexpressible_comfort_of/170845.html


-(no,.. wait,.. I meant..---meditating)

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?

- Gandhi

Naturally, the common people don't want war ... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.

- Hermann Goering

Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent

- Issac Asimov

am going to explain to you why we went to war. Why mankind always does to war. It is not social or political. It is not countries that go to war, but men. It is like salt. Once one has been to war, one has salt for the rest of one's life. Men love war because it allows them to look serious. Because it is the one thing that stops women from laughing at them. Night fell again. There was war to the south, but our sector was quiet. The battle was over. Our casualties were some thirteen thousand killed--thirteen thousand minds, memories, loves, sensations, worlds, universes--because the human mind is more a universe than the universe itself--and all for a few hundred yards of useless mud.

- John Fowles, "The Magus"

Anyone, who truly wants to go to war, has never truly been there before!

- Larry Reeves

Once and for all the idea of glorious victories won by the glorious army must be wiped out. Niether side is glorious. On either side they're just frightened men messing their pants and they all want the same thing - not to lie under theearth, but to walk upon it - without crutches.

- Peter Weiss

La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid

- Pierre Ambroise Francois Choderios de LaClos (1741-1803

Revenge is a dish best served cold, unless my French deserts me.

History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.

- Ronald Reagan

How vast those Orbs must be, and how inconsiderable this Earth, the Theatre upon which all our mighty Designs, all our Navigations, and all our Wars are transacted, is when compared to them. A very fit consideration, and matter of Reflection, for those Kings and Princes who sacrifice the Lives of so many People, only to flatter their Ambition in being Masters of some pitiful corner of this small Spot.

- Christiaan Huygens, (1629 –1695), In Humanity

How this feels is I'm just another task in God's daily planner: The Renaissance pencilled in for right after the Dark Ages. The Information Age is scheduled immediately after the Industrial Revolution. Then the Post-Modern Era, then The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Famine. Check. Pestilence. Check. War. Check. Death. Check. And between the big events, the earthquakes and tidal waves, God's got me squeezed in for a cameo appearance. Then maybe in thirty years, or maybe next year, God's daily planner has me finished.

- Chuck Palahniuk, In Philosophy

"One of the main reasons that it is so easy to march men off to war," says Ernest Becker, is that "each of them feels sorry for the man next to him who will die."

Annie Dillard

There's a graveyard in northern France where all the dead boys from D-Day are buried. The white crosses reach from one horizon to the other. I remember looking it over and thinking it was a forest of graves. But the rows were like this, dizzying, diagonal, perfectly straight, so after all it wasn't a forest but an orchard of graves. Nothing to do with nature, unless you count human nature.

Barbara Kingsolver

In peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war the fathers bury their sons.

Croesus

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.

David Friedman

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

Eleanor Roosevelt

I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a method of settling international disputes.

General Douglas MacArthur I hate war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatreds it arouses, for the dictatorships it puts in the place of democracies, and for the starvation that stalks after it. I hate war, and never again will I sanction or support another.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable, even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.

Jeanette Rankin

Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.

Omar N. Bradley

The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.

Howard Thurman

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

Thomas Jefferson

War quotes from the wise.

 

[ranger]

I always get a kick out of these kinds of discussions:

"By the way, I always felt that hell might not be such a bad place after all: it would be populated with people of at least a somewhat higher average IQ than heaven. It wouldn't get dull, that's for sure.
~Arto (sciforums)

"Yup looks like all the rational thinkers will go to hell – should provoke some really good debates without interruptions from the idiots who will have gone upstairs. So I’ll see you in hell"
~Cris (sciforums) in response to the above (Arto)

 

[Ivan Seeking]

In my house, we used a smoke alarm as an oven timer - Murphy Brown

 

[fourier jr]

(for all the Canadians)
With the National Policy in ruins, the tariff failing to generate sufficient employment, the West empty, Ontario in revolt, and discontent rife in Manitoba and Nova Scotia, the Old Chieftan rose to the occasion. A time of grave national crisis required strong, imaginative leadership. The Macdonald government resonded by falsifying the 1890-91 census returns, bribing the statistician to exaggerate the number of factories and hands employed. In one riding the census takers were given instructions to include in the list of factories all blacksmiths, shoemakers and artisans engaged in handicraft production. In another, 72 new industries were reported as having begun since 1881 -- in fact not a single one existed. To increase the apparent population, the names of people who had moved to the US were carefully reported as still present in Canada. -- RT Naylor

 

[Astronuc]

"Going barefoot is the practice of not wearing shoes, socks, or other foot covering." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot

For those who might miss the exceedingly obvious.

Well, were would we be without Wikipedia!?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I don't believe in the lesser of two evils. I believe in the evil of two lessers. - a buddy speaking of the field of 2008 Presidential candidates.

 

[morphism]

J'ai toujours fait une prière à Dieu, qui est fort courte. La voici: "Mon Dieu, rendez nos ennemis bien ridicules!" Dieu m'a exaucé.
- Voltaire

The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
- Samuel Johnson

And on the more humorous side:

Dressed like he's ready to run a marathon. Fitting because his class is long-winded.
- Professor evaluation

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The money don't matter... as long as I'm getting it. - Groucho Marx

 

[Ki Man]

Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation. -R. Feynman

 

[mgb_phys]

From which we know that Feynman considered himself a physicist not a mathematician.

 

[morphism]

From which we know that Feynman considered himself a physicist not a mathematician.

And that he must've been having quite the masturbation sessions!

 

[ranger]

In light of all the unprofessionalism and incompetence shown by the Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA) and the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) and its management, I've been hearing a couple of comments over and over again:

"F*ck the MTA"
~More than half of New York City.

"The MTA is F*cking up"
~More than half of New York City.

http://www.mta.info/alert/images/alerthomenyct-sm.gif

 

[Ivan Seeking]

"I will not be right back after this message" - requested as an epitaph by Merv Griffin.

This reminded me of the epitaph seen on two headstones during a recent funeral: "See you soon"

 

[Ivan Seeking]

"I don't think the military would lie about anything because they are too worried about their public image" - a noted UFO conspiracy theory debunker.

Sometimes the debunkers are more naive than the true-believers.

 

[Astronuc]

"Hey, this is real science. We get to make stuff up."

Mentioned during a recent project meeting.

 

[turbo]

Einstsin in a memoriam on the death of Ernst Mach:

"How does it happen that a properly endowed natural scientist comes to concern himself with epistemology? Is there no more valuable work in his specialty? I hear many of my colleagues saying, and I sense it from many more, that they feel this way. I cannot share this sentiment. ... Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such an authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens. Thus they come to be stamped as 'necessities of thought,' 'a priori givens,' etc. The path of scientific advance is often made impassable for a long time through such errors. For that reason, it is by no means an idle game if we become practiced in analyzing the long common place concepts and exhibiting those circumstances upon which their justification and usefulness depend, how they have grown up, individually, out of the givens of experience. By this means, their all-too-great authority will be broken."

Any person who aspires to the title of "scientist" cannot claim that title if they have not wrestled with these demons. They are many, and they are very foundational.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Today, from Craigslist:

The bathroom at the Minnesota airport
The bathroom at the park
The bathroom at the rest stop
...

 

[josht]

"If you are always looking down, you will never see what lies above you."
- C.S. Lewis

 

[moe darklight]

"You are right in demanding that an artist should take an intelligent attitude to his work, but you confuse two things: solving a problem, and stating a problem correctly. It is only the second that is obligatory for the artist."

— Anton Chekhov

meanwhile, the poor scientist must worry about both .

"-Ésa es natural condición de mujeres -dijo don Quijote-: desdeñar a quien
las quiere y amar a quien las aborrece. Pasa adelante, Sancho."

(my attempt at a translation):
"That is a natural condition of women," said Don Quixote: "to disdain the ones who love them, and love the ones who hate them. Now, go on, Sancho."

— Miguel De Cervantes

 

[fargoth]

The Church of the SubGenius® has some great quotes in their Pamphlets:

YOU MUST BE SAVED
-- EVEN IF IT KILLS YOU!

ETERNAL SALVATION
-- OR TRIPLE YOUR MONEY BACK

LIVE WITH YOUR SINS!
-- "Bob" Dobbs Can Show You How!

THIS INCREDIBLE NEW FAITH, AUTHORIZED TO BLASPHEME BY THE GODS THEMSELVES, IS THE FIRST ALL-PURPOSE BELIEF SYSTEM TO BE COMPATIBLE WITH MOST MAJOR WORLD RELIGIONS AND MANY WEIRD CULTS -- WITHOUT EXPENSIVE INTERFACES!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=189126860809168021&q=ivan+stang&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5746465052705276656

and now, for something completely different...

'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!

I'm not just talking about my wife, I'm talking about my LIFE, I can't seem to get that through to you. I'm not just talking about one person, I'm talking about everybody. I'm talking about form. I'm talking about content. I'm talking about interrelationships. I'm talking about God, the devil, Hell, Heaven. Do you understand... FINALLY?
-Harding (one flew over the cuckoo's nest)

"his name was Robert Paulson"
and
"I just wanted to destroy something beautiful"
-fight club

and finaly, i'd like to quote a song:
Whenever life gets you down, Mrs Brown
And things seem hard or tough
And people are stupid obnoxious or daft
And you feel that you've had quite enough...

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles per hour
It's orbiting at nineteen miles per second, so it's reckoned
The Sun that is the source of all our power
The Sun, and you, and me, and all the stars that we can see
Are traveling at a million miles per day
In an outer spiral arm at forty thousand miles per hour
In the galaxy we call the Milky Way

The galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick
But out by us it's just three thousand light years wide
We're thirty thousand light years from Galactic Central Point
We go 'round every two hundred million years
And our galaxy is only one of millions and billions
In this amazing and expanding universe

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whiz
The fastest it can go
The speed of light, you know
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is
So, remember when you're feeling down and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And hope that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space
'Cause it's bugger all down here on Earth

heres the video

(i know it's too much... i got carried away =P)

 

[Ivan Seeking]

GQ magazine interviewer: Do you miss the President?

Donald Rumsfeld: Mmmmmm, no.
________________________________________

"What is the greatest threat facing us now? People will say it's terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the great threat we are facing?" - Colin Powell

 

[Astronuc]

Putting reseach and science in context.

It's the birthday of naturalist and science writer Stephen Jay Gould, (books by this author) born in New York City (1941). He was five years old when his father took him to the Museum of Natural History, and he saw his first dinosaur skeleton, a 20-foot high tyrannosaurus. He went on to study geology and paleontology and wrote his dissertation on an extinct land snail native to the Bahamas. He once said that his research on the taxonomy of the snail was of interest to about eight people in the world, but, he said, "Those eight people really care."

In 1974, he was offered a job writing a monthly column for Natural History magazine. He decided that his guiding focus in the column would be the theory of evolution, but aside from that, he would write about whatever he was interested in, from the history of Mickey Mouse to the unreliability of IQ tests. His essays were collected in books such as The Panda's Thumb (1980) and The Flamingo's Smile (1985), and he became one of the most famous scientists in America. He believed he was successful simply because he tried to be a good writer. He said, "So many scientists think that once they figure it out, that's all they have to do, and writing it up is just a chore. I never saw it that way; part of the art of any kind of total scholarship is to say it well.''

Stephen Jay Gould said, "Homo sapiens [are] a tiny twig on an improbable branch of a contingent limb on a fortunate tree."

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2007/09/10/#monday

 

[Moridin]

"Science is the poetry of reality" - Richard Dawkins

"Reason and the respect for evidence are the source of our progress; our safeguard against fundamentalists and those who profit from obscuring the truth. We live in dangerous times when superstition is on the rise and rational science is under attack" - Richard Dawkins

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The US ambassador to Iraq [Crocker] on the future of Iraq: "My confidence is under control".

 

[Math Jeans]

Woman: Sir Winston! You're drunk!
Winston: Yes madam, and you're ugly, and in the morning, I shall be sober.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The Russian military has successfully tested what it described as the world's most powerful non-nuclear air-delivered bomb...

Unlike a nuclear weapon, the bomb doesn't hurt the environment, he added...

http://www.hfxnews.ca/index.cfm?sid=61671&sc=89

 

[Astronuc]

"Semper gumby" - "Always flexible". Well, you'd have to know the context to appreciate the humor.

a play on "Semper Fi" short for "Semper fidelis" - "Always faithful"

 

[B. Elliott]

"Think yourself a puny form when within yourself the Universe is folded." - Sufis

"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it seems like two hours, that's relativity." - Albert Einstein