nismaratwork said:
I've been collecting quotes for years...
What a coincidence! So do I. For a time I kept the quotes somewhat organized but at this point it's sort of a free-for-all.
You will find some quotes from PFers, including one from Evo.
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America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
- Abraham Lincoln
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I know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military is a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.
I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.
- Barack Obama, October, 2002
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16903253/page/2/
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Love is fleeting but stuff lasts forever. I want to keep my stuff.
Marriage? It would be easier to just find a woman that I don’t like and buy her a house.
Robert Novak? I love Robert Novak. He has one of the finest minds of the 12th century.
- Paul Begala
We can say how many of a million suns may rise, but as for ours I fear the morn. - me
“The trouble with our times,” Paul Valéry said, “is that the future is not what it used to be.”
Leaders of the future must have:
Inner mastery; a central, compelling purpose rooted in moral values; a capacity to persuade; skills in working within the system; a fast start; a strong, effective team; and a passion that inspires others to keep the flame alive.
- David Gergen, Eyewitness to Power
In the 24th century, there will be no hunger, there will be no greed, and all of the children will know how to read. – Gene Roddenberry
Originally Posted by motai
Poetry is mightier than the sword/spear/halberd/lance/pistol/assault rifle/club/etc.
As your assailant comes down upon you, instead of resisting with force, you confuse them by reciting ambiguous poetry such as Pushkin's The Bronze Horseman, and while they are scratching their heads and trying to figure out the general theme and underlying morals of the poem, you'd make your getaway .
Though that is rather unlikely.
This is quite a well established fact. It's the very reason that the war-cry was invented. The first mention of a war cry was by Homer, in his Illiad. As the greeks charged the Trojan lines, the Trojan war poets began to recite their verses, but unexpectedly, all the greeks let loose with a collective cry of "Λα Λα Λα δεν μπορεί να σας ακούσει!", which translates roughly as "La la la, can't hear you!" The poets were slaughtered, and the Trojans forced to retreat behind the city walls.
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Politicians are just lawyers gone bad - Integral
The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts."
Edmund Burke
Originally Posted by Evo
Nothing gets your toe to tapping more than an accordion.
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Occam's razor probably creates as much confusion as it dispels. But then again, Occam never what he is usually attributed having said:
"Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem." or "Entities should not be multiplied more than necessary."
His actual words were:
"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate" or "Plurality should not be posited without necessity."
This is good practical advise, as is "Do not multiply entities unnecessarily" and "Of two competing theories or explanations, all other things being equal, the simpler one is to be preferred.", which is another saying he did not say.
While occasionally useful, these principles have no scientific validity. You may as well say a screwdriver is more valid than a pipe wrench because it has fewer moving parts – Chronos at PF
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Eddington once said, proof is the alter on which mathematicians self-flaggelate themselves.
But somehow, the choice one makes affects one’s outlook and direction of attack. If one has to consider new physics one should be open to both points of view. In the unlikely event that there is new physics, one does not want to miss it because one had the wrong mind set. - John D. Anderson; Study of the anomalous acceleration of Pioneer 10 and 11
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/gr-qc/pdf/0104/0104064.pdf
To paraphrase Santayana: Newspapers ignorant of history are condemned to reprint it
Creative research is having confidence in nonsense. Burt Rutan; Black Sky The Race for Space. 10/12/04
Ghosts were people too.
Every thought that you have, and every feeling that you have, is conditioned by what you believe to be real. --- Fred Alan Wolf
“The old saying that ‘man fears time, but time fears the [Egyptian] pyramids’ is not true… One day, archeologists may even argue, that the pyramids never even existed”. -- Arthur C. Clark. On Ancient Puzzles – The Discovery Channel..
“A mummy is something that never stops giving.” – a noted archeologist
"In the counsels of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together."
---- President Eisenhower - January 1961
'If one wishes to obtain a definite answer from Nature one must attack the question from a more general and less selfish point of view.' Max Planck (1858-1947)
"Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused."
Researchers in Fairbanks Alaska announced last week that they have discovered a superconductor which will operate at room temperature. -- unknown
"I hate your thoughts, Sir, but I am ready to give up my life for your right to express them"... Voltaire in one of his letters:
People think that scientists like to understand things. Really though, scientists like to not understand things because that gives us something to do. ----Prof. Lawrence M. Krauss
Grabel's law: 2 is not equal to 3 - not even for large values of 2.
When the Baath party was finally ejected from his town, and when asked what he wanted now that Hussein’s people were gone, one old Iraqi gent responded: “Democracy, whiskey, and sexy”.
I would rather have a regimen of German soldiers in front of me than a legion of French soldiers behind me. - General Patton
The electron is not as simple as it looks.
-- (William) Lawrence Bragg, British Physicist(1890-1971)
I know that this defies the law of gravity, but, you see, I never studied
law. -Bugs Bunny
Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances.
-- Dr. Lee De Forest, inventor of the vacuum tube and father of
television.
@A: Dyson, Freeman J.
@Q: We have learned that matter is weird stuff. It is weird enough,
so that it does not limit God's freedom to make it do what he pleases.
@R: Ch. 1, p. 8, _Infinite in All Directions: Gifford lectures given at
Aberdeen, Scotland, April-November 1985_; edited by the author (Harper &
Row, New York, 1988).
"One thing they don't tell you about doing experimental physics is that
sometimes you must work under adverse conditions ... like a state of
sheer terror." -- W. K. Hartmann
“The second law of thermodynamics holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the Universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations - then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation - well, those experimentalists do bungle things up sometimes. but if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope;
there is nothing to do but to collapse in deepest humiliation.”
-------- Arthur S. Eddington (British Astrophysicist, 1882-1944) in The nature of the Physical World (1928)
The Doctoral student Ilse Rosenthal-Schneider asked Einstein in 1919 how he would have reacted if his general theory of relativity had not been confirmed experimentally that year by Arthur Eddington and Frank Dyson.
His answer was: "Then I would feel sorry for the good Lord. The theory is orrect anyway."
Fermi was asked what characteristics physics Nobelists had in common.
He answered, "I cannot think of a single one, not even intelligence."
Enrico Fermi, Italian physicist, 1901-1954 (Phys Today, Oct 1994, pg70)
I love only nature, and I hate mathematicians. - Richard Feynman (1918-1988)
Physics is to Math what Sex is to Masturbation
--Richard Feynman
What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in
the third or fourth year of graduate school... It is my task to convince
you not to turn away because you don't understand it. You see my physics
students don't understand it... That is because I don't understand it.
Nobody does.
Feynman, Richard P. (1918-1988) b. Far Rockaway, New York
Richard P. Feynman, QED, The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, Penguin
Books, London, 1990, p 9. (1) \ Nobel Lecture, 1966
@A: Murray Gell-Mann
@Q: Niels Bohr brainwashed a whole generation of physicists into
believing that the problem [of the interpretation of quantum mechanics]
had been solved fifty years ago.
@R: Acceptance speech Noble Price (1976)
When in trouble,
When in doubt,
Run in circles,
Scream and Shout!
"[Smart Experimentalist]: 'Yeah, it is reminiscent of what distinguishes the good theorists from the bad ones. The good ones always make an even number of sign errors, and the bad ones always make an odd number.'"-Anthony Zee, Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell
"To those who say that the soldiers are fighting so that we have the right to protest: If that's what they're fighting for, then they should be glad that somebody is using that right."
“I have only made this longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.“
(Pascal, 1657)
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
-Bertrand Russell
A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn't there
--Charles R. Darwin
Of course we know the Iraqis have weapons of mass destruction. We have the receipts." -Dick Cheney
But I simply refuse to consider myself of the same species as those disgusting hairless hominids!
Now give me that banana!
"He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice."
-Albert Einstein
'There must be no barriers for freedom of inquiry. There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors.'
J. Robert Oppenheimer
(1904-1966)
I want to sit with the rich dummies." Quote from my brother following a dinner discussion on the nature of light. – Artman at PF.com
Experience is what you get immediately after you need it. - Echo 6 Sierra
at PF.com
The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life. The Republic, bk. IV, 425 – B
Humor
What do you call the person who graduates last in his or her class, and from the worst medical school in the country? Answer: Doctor.
"Mrs. Felix: Why don't you do your homework?
Allen Felix: The Universe is expanding. Everything will fall apart, and we'll all die. What's the point?
Mrs. Felix: We live in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is not expanding! Go do your homework.
(from Annie Hall by Woody Allen)
Some of God’s greatest gifts are unkempt campaign promises - Machiavelli
The man with the gold makes the rules - Machiavelli
Flying a plane is like riding a bike...it’s just harder to put the baseball cards in the spokes.
-Robert Stack; Airplane.
Caution: Objects in mirror are more confused than they appear
You are more likely to be killed by a pig than by a shark. – Biologist; The History Channel, Beach, Sun, 911 – 7/7/01
Question posed to a biologist:
What is the evolutionary advantage in having knees that bend forward instead of backwards…i.e. why don’t our knees bend the other way?
Answer received:
“Bipedal animals that had backward-bending knees could only run backwards and they kept bumping into trees. That's why they became extinct.”
If you are racing through rush hour traffic, a coffee cup in one hand and a cell phone in the other, and you are looking for your notebook and steering with your knees, all while phone conferencing with the boss and the boss’s boss, you are not driving dangerously.
You are multi-tasking!
i am 5'9-5'10 and 150 lbs
