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

[FrancisZ]

"Be ashamed to die, until you have won some victory for humanity"--Horace Mann

 

[Helios]

"Freedom of speech means you have the right to yell MOVIE in a crowded fire station." --Abbie Hoffman

 

[Oberst Villa]

"Our country doesn't need your fireworks. Or maybe you're making rockets for an attempt on the life of our leader ?"

Unknown NKVD interrogator, talking to Sergei Korolev in 1938. In 1957, Korolev became father of the Sputnik.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

"They are called missiles, not hittiles. That's why we shoot two of them"
--- F-15 Pilot

 

[Oberst Villa]

"They are called missiles, not hittiles. That's why we shoot two of them"
--- F-15 Pilot

Can't resist a little smartass remark: The British actually called one of them a "Hittile" (the Rapier , surface-to-air). Normal anti-aircraft missiles use a proximity fuse and a big-as-can-be warhead to bring an aircraft down even with a near miss. But the Rapier's designers (initially) equipped it only with an impact fuse and a small warhead, because they were so confident in its ability to actually HIT the target - hence the name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapier_missile <= (I know that "Rapier_missile" makes it look as if I'm talking nonsense, but look at the page, the Mk1 was actually called "Hittile". Honestly ! )

 

[Andre]

I know that story too, Oberst, anyway, seen on another forum:

"You only find complete unanimity in a cemetary."
--- Abel Aganbegyan, economist, 1987

"I tend to disagree with that"
--- Zombie

 

[Ivan Seeking]

What do you have when you take the greed out of Wall Street?
...
...
Pavement

- Robert Reich, Former Sec of Labor [D]

 

[Astronuc]

To be with the one who cares for you,
who understands every fibre of your being,
and who would not abandon you in even the most desperate of circumstances,
that is the most precious relationship a person can have,
and it is a treasure to cherish.

Rephrased from a passage in Brisingr by Christopher Paolini

 

[Astronuc]

"When one teaches, two learn." Robert Half

"When one teaches others, one also learns" rephrased of a quote by David Lodge, and probably observed by K'ung Fu Tzu

 

[FrancisZ]

"Talkative tailors yarn on till the end of twine."--Anonymous.

 

[jimmy.neutron]

"Would you mind not shooting at the thermonuclear weapons!" - Vic Deakins (John Travolta) in Broken Arrow

 

[kasse]

Don't pray in my school, and I won't think in your church


Unknown

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours


Stephen Roberts

You're basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend

Richard Jeni

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Epicurus

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes

Gene Roddenberry

You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep-seated need to believe.

Carl Sagan

 

[Phrak]

"Mother, where are my shoes?" -A. Einstein

 

[Ivan Seeking]

"I don't lie awake at night worrying that I might lose. I lie awake worrying that I might win" - Barack Obama

 

[B. Elliott]

You can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug, especially when its waving a razor sharp hunting knife in your eye.

- Hunter S. Thompson

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Fair Trade:

"The Chinese sell us poison toys and tainted food, and we sell them toxic securities"
- Paul Krugman

 

[Ivan Seeking]

"The Dow is like riding a roller coaster, but you vomit your money" - Colbert

 

[LightbulbSun]

Bertrand Russell

"If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way."

"A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand."

"Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric."

"I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."

"I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine."

"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted."

"It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this."

"Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so."

"Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on Earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man."

"No one gossips about other people's secret virtues."

"Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man."

"Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country."

"Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination."

"The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."

"There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it."

"Too little liberty brings stagnation and too much brings chaos."

"War does not determine who is right - only who is left."

"Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality."

"When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others. It is much more nearly certain that we are assembled here tonight than it is that this or that political party is in the right. Certainly there are degrees of certainty, and one should be very careful to emphasize that fact, because otherwise one is landed in an utter skepticism, and complete skepticism would, of course, be totally barren and completely useless."

"Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact."

"A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not be endured with patient resignation."

"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important."

"One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways."

"To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead."

"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible."

"We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice, and another which we practice but seldom preach."

"It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it is true."





Socrates

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is a habit."

"By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher."

"Death may be the greatest of all human blessings."

"Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love."

"Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity."

"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance."

"Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions; but those who kindly reprove thy faults."

"The unexamined life is not worth living."

 

[DaveC426913]

...and all of those are your favourites?

 

[LightbulbSun]

...and all of those are your favourites?

Yes. It's hard to decide.

 

[Redbelly98]

3 quotes that go together, all from U.S. presidents:

“Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light”
-- George Washington

It is closer to the truth to believe nothing than to believe what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson (paraphrased)

"We know Saddam has these weapons."
-- George W. Bush

 

[Ivan Seeking]

"'Drill baby drill'? I don't like having my teeth drilled. And I don't like baby dentists!" - SNL

 

[Ivan Seeking]

"Party boobytrap" is a palindrome. - an observation by BobG

Palinode
noun: A poem in which the author retracts something said in an earlier poem

 

[turbo]

"The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me." Chris Buckley

 

[hagopbul]

you die hero ,or you live long enough to become the felon

or the venal

 

[Ivan Seeking]

On my block, a lot of people walk their dogs, and I always see them walking
along with their little poop bags, which to me is just the lowest function of
human life. If aliens are watching this through telescopes, they're going to think
the dogs are the leaders. If you see two life forms, one of them's making a
poop, the other one's carrying it for him, who would you assume was in charge?

- Seinfeld

 

[Ivan Seeking]

You know, I played high school football for four years, and this is the first time that I've been on the field

---Sen. Lindsey Graham; speaking from a high school football field.

 

[Redbelly98]

"Party boobytrap" is a palindrome. - an observation by BobG

Excuse me. Did you say Palin-drome?

 

[OmCheeto]

We still don't believe in evolution... Except in your case.

a christian acquaintance of mine

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The practice of registering dead people to vote:

"Representation without respiration" - Mayor Daley, of Chicago