Any of you that have e-mailed me lately know that my current signature includes this quote from Sydney Smith
quote:
It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little.
My favorite that I ran across this week is from George Bernard Shaw.
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When two people are under the influence of the most violent, the most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition until death do them part.
A little cynical, perhaps. But then again, there might be an idea in there.
Does anyone else have a favorite quote?
(Can't remember whose it is, but it isn't mine.)
[This message has been edited by Zero (edited March 18, 2009).]
No one's insane: Everyone's insane. The only one I'm uncertain of is me.
Stories are important not because they tell us that dragons could exist, but that they can be beaten.
"Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am." Reality is all that which once I stop thinking about it continues to exist.
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How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to take the test?
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I've twisted one so far out of its orginal sources that I'll claim it as mine.
No one's insane: Everyone's insane. The only one I'm uncertain of is me.
LOL. My father quoted something like that as
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All the world is mad save me and thee. And sometimes I wonder about thee.
And, since we've entered the world of my father's sayings. Here's one for the fantasy writers among us.
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Yesterday upon the stair,
I met a little man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
My God, I wish he'd go away!
[This message has been edited by Meredith (edited March 19, 2009).]
"I often hear people say that they read to escape reality, but I believe that what they’re really doing is reading to find reason for hope, to find strength. While a bad book leaves readers with a sense of hopelessness and despair, a good novel, through stories of values realized, of wrongs righted, can bring to readers a connection to the wonder of life. A good novel shows how life can and ought to be lived. It not only entertains but energizes and uplifts readers."
— Terry Goodkind
quote:
The pendulum swings both ways.
to my loving doctor,
who taught me that dragons dont exist,
and then led me to their cave.
not sure thats the right wording, but its pretty close.
Dr Buckaroo Banzai.
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“Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss.”
From the 'Notebook of Lazarus Long' by: Robert Heinlein
This by the way is plumb full of great quotes.
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That I did not fail was due in part to patience....
-Jane Goodall-
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Reality is all that which once I stop thinking about it continues to exist.
extrinsic, that's Philip K. Dick.
[This message has been edited by Troy (edited March 22, 2009).]
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Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.
Edited to add: Whoops, forgot to include a source; "How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later." (1978) A nonfiction op-ed commentary. http://deoxy.org/pkd_how2build.htm
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited March 22, 2009).]
Changing out a word or two and claiming a brilliant quote as your own without substantively changing the meaning, and without having arrived to the concept independently of the original source ... Well, it just doesn't work. That's PKD's concept, thought, and quote. You can't take an existing quote, purposefully alter it, and then say you came up with it.
I didn't paraphrase Dick's definition, it is my own. He was at the time a continent away from me, though, according to Dick, he did coin his definition five years ealier. It would be a decade before I encountered Dick's definition.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited March 22, 2009).]
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited March 22, 2009).]
Just sayin'.
Here's another personal quote, this one inspired by a biblical source. I've been kicking it around for months and finally got it right earlier today. Tragically, its timing is unfortunately coincidental. However, it's intended for a military story I'm working on that's going along quite well in rewrites. Just sharing.
He who would bend a lion on his rear better have a sharp pair of gelding shears.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited March 23, 2009).]
Golf is a sport where a white guy can dress up like a black pimp and get away with it.
lol.
sadly, hes right.
sorry, forgot about the quote.
someone (cant remember who), found on his deathbed reading a bible:
Im looking for loopholes.
also,
I once chased a girl for two years before I realized that we had a lot alike, we were both crazy about girls.
[This message has been edited by Andromoidus (edited March 23, 2009).]
"Seek not, my soul, the life of the immortals; but enjoy to the full the resources that are within thy reach." -Pindar
Of course, something more appropriate to the venue might be:
"Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterward." -Robert Heinlein
I love quotes. I have a million of them hiding in almost as many files on my computers... somewhere.
"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little." - George Carlin
"I have a suggestion that I think would help fight serious crime. Signs. There are lots of signs for minor infractions: No Smoking, Stay Off the Grass, Keep Out, and they seem to work fairly well. I think we should also have signs for major crimes: Murder Strictly Prohibited, NO Raping People, Thank You for Not Kidnapping Anyone. It's certainly worth a try. " -George Carlin
"If God had intended us not to masturbate, He would have made our arms shorter." - George Carlin
"The very existence of flamethrowers 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
"Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software." - Arthur C. Clarke
"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters." - Frank Lloyd Wright
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde
"He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death." - H. H. Munro
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." - Thomas Alva Edison
"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both." - Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die." - Mel Brooks
"I would have made a good Pope." - Richard M. Nixon
"We started out a Rock and Roll Band f***ing around with drugs and ended up a Drug Band f***ing around with Rock and Roll." - Ozzy Ozbourne
"My favorite thing outside of a dog is a book. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx
"Either my watch has stopped, or this man's dead!" - Groucho Marx
"From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it." - Groucho Marx
"The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his." - General George Patton
"Few things are harder to put up with than a good example." - Mark Twain
"Happiness is good health and a bad memory." - Ingrid Bergman
And, the coup de gras:
"Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance." - Plato
"Plato was a bore." - Friedrich Nietzsche
"Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal." - Leo Tolstoy
"I'm not going to get into the ring with Tolstoy." - Ernest Hemingway
"Hemingway was a jerk." - Harold Robbins
[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited March 27, 2009).]
quote:
Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.
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The reason worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.
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Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.
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Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or doing it better.
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Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: You find the present tense, but the past perfect.
All thanks to THE WEEK
"Some people have a gift for stupidity, an almost mystic ability to withstand any form of logic." David Gemmell
"The louder they protested their innocence, the quicker we counted the silver." David Gemmell
The Code:
Never violate a woman, nor harm a child. Do not lie, cheat or steal.
These things are for lesser men.
Protect the weak against the evil strong.
And never allow thoughts of gain to lead you into the pursuit of evil.
Never back away from an enemy. Either fight or surrender.
It is not enough to say I will not be evil. Evil must be fought wherever it is found.- David Gemmell
Politicians and diapers both need to be changed, and for the same reason! - Anonymous
"I'm a 4-wheel-drive pickup type of guy. So is my wife."
- Mike Greenwell, Baseball player
"Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment and be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes." - Alexander Dumas, in The Count of Monte Cristo.
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." - George Orwell.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke.
"There are ony two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein.
"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." - TS Eliot.
"The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead." - Albert Einstein
"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind." -Albert Einstein
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Albert Einstein
"You have one advantage over me.....you can kiss my ass." - Anonymous
"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked in to jet engines" - Stephen Wright
"Flatley my dear, I dont riverdance" - Alan Partridge.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." - Robert A. Heinlein
"It is better to keep your mouth closed and have people assume you are an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt" - Abraham Lincoln
"Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be Happy" -Ben Franklin
"Kids, fiction is the truth inside the lie, and the truth of this fiction is simple enough: the magic exists." - Stephen King
"It takes a big chicken to pull a plough." - Anonymous
"I've spent all my money on booze, gambling and women - and the rest I wasted." - Unsure
Bye damned school! Bye my prisonhole!" - Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson.
"There are three things, young gentleman, which you are to constantly bear in mind. First, you must implicitly obey orders, without attempting to form any opinion of your own respecting their propriety. Secondly, you must consider every man your enemy who speaks ill of your king; and, thirdly, you must hate a Frenchman as you do the devil." - Horatio Nelson
“They say that policemen think that everyone is a criminal... I wonder if doctors think that everyone is just a bag of skin and bones waiting to burst apart all over them.” - Conn Iggulden
this was found at www.rinkworks.com/sid/courtroom.shtml
lots of funny stuff there.
Lawyer: "When he went, had you gone and had she, if she wanted to and were able, for the time being excluding all the restraints on her not to go, gone also, would he have brought you, meaning you and she, with him to the station?"
Other Lawyer: "Objection. That question should be taken out and shot."
Now for a quote:
"Genius without education is like silver in the mine." Benjamin Franklin in Poor Richard's Almanac
I find this quote very ironic coming from Terry Goodkind, considering his last few books in the series. That said, Naked Empire was one of the most stirring books I ever read.
Here's one I see a lot on various forums.
"Never argue with an idiot. He'll bring you down to his level and beat you with experience."
"I got 556 all up in my magizeen so push me over the edge and i put them in your head, i got off missian filfy smelling trying to put food in my MF empty belly and that Captian asking me were my eye pro at, took a sec then i replied 'Look B i almost died i dont cair what you were told about pride i will slap you in your eye so get of my back unless you want to hear my gun go CLACK... end with lots of bad words...."
and another of my own quotes that i told sgt-maj
"I do what i want when ever i want when ever i feel i need to do it at with any meens nessory and there aint $#!@ you or any one can do about that, and when i get out in (at the time 10 months and 15 days) i will be high as a kite and not cairing about anything that you have ever told me."
those are my 2 faverit personal quots.
RFW2nd
page 36:
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You've got to get the fundamentals down, because otherwise the fancy stuff is not going to work.
page 73-74:
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The brick walls are there for a reason. They're not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.
page 112:
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It is an accepted cliche in education that the number one goal of teachers should be to help students learn how to learn.I always saw the value in that, sure. But in my mind, a better number one goal was this: I wanted to help students learn how to judge themselves.
page 139:
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Complaining doesn't work as a strategy.
page 148:
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Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.
It's a great book. One of those books you want to buy copies of and give to all of your friends. Since I can't do that, I decided to share some of the great thoughts with you all.
A graceful taunt is worth a thousand insults." - Louis Nizer (1902 -1994)
"I feel so miserable without you, it's almost like having you here."
- Stephen Bishop
"He is a self-made man and worships his creator." - John Bright
"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
- Winston Churchill
"A modest little person, with much to be modest about." - Winston Churchill
"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
- Irvin S. Cobb
"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow
"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)
"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?" - Ernest Hemingway
"He has sat on the fence so long that the iron has entered his soul." - David Lloyd George
"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas
"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others."
- Samuel Johnson
"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." - Paul Keating
"He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr
"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure."
- Jack E. Leonard
"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know." - Abraham Lincoln
"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt." - Robert Redford
"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge." - Thomas Brackett Reed
"He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them." - James Reston (about Richard Nixon)
"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily."
- Talleyrand
"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker
"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" - Mark Twain
"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain
"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
- Mae West
"She is a peacock in everything but beauty." - Oscar Wilde
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde
"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."
- Oscar Wilde
"He has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts...for support, rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
quote:
Well, my book is written--let it go. But if it were only to write over again there wouldn't be so many things left out. They burn in me; and they keep multiplying; but now they can't ever be said. And besides, they would require a library--and a pen warmed up in hell.
---Douglas Adams
However, a couple of quotes from a former US president have stuck with me and resonate with me:
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
"The only man who makes no mistakes is the man who never does anything"
-- both by Theodore Roosevelt
Therefore, I'll share the quote I was thinking of and eliminate all other possibilities:
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Speak softly and carry a big stick.
Of course, my big stick is my magical power as moderator, and I try to use that power for good.