Quotes

[Danneskjold]

Quotes, everybody loves to read 'em. What are your favorites?

A few of mine that I apply to my every day life are:

"Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong."

Ayn Rand

"I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

Ayn Rand

"The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."

Ayn Rand

"In theory, theory is practice. In practice it isn't."

Yogi Berra

"Be careful if you don't know where you're going because you might not get there"

Yogi Berra

"You can observe a lot by just watching."

Yogi Berra

"All pitchers are liars or crybabies."

Yogi Berra

[BAMF]

Good thread, Jeff. Will post more later, but this one is definitely one of my favorites:

"The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."

Ayn Rand

[Judith]

"You guys line up alphabetically by height. You guys pair up in groups of three, then line up in a circle."

-- Bill Peterson, a Florida State football coach

"There is but one use for law, but one excuse for government -- the preservation of liberty -- to give to each man his own, to secure to the farmer what he produces from the soil, the mechanic what he invents and makes, to the artist what he creates, to the thinker the right to express his thoughts."

--(Robert Ingersoll, "On Voltaire")

"To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason is like administering medicine to the dead."

-- Thomas Paine

"… The man

Of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys."

-- Percy Shelley, Queen Mab

"Yet persistently a few men awaken -- men who look back at greatness, are encouraged by reflecting on it, and feel themselves blessed, as though human life were a splendid thing, as though the loveliest fruit of this bitter plant were the knowledge that before them one man lived his life with pride and strength, another profoundly, and a third with compassion and benevolence -- but all bequeathed the same lesson: the man who is ready to risk his existence lives most beautifully."

-- Nietzsche, Unmodern Observations

"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."

-- Albert Einstein

"She herself was a victim of that lust for books which rages in the breast like a demon, and which cannot be stilled save by the frequent and plentiful acquisition of books. This passion is more common, and more powerful, than most people suppose. Book lovers are thought by unbookish people to be gentle and unworldly, and perhaps a few of them are so. But there are others who will lie and scheme and steal to get books as wildly and unconscionably as the dope-taker in pursuit of his drug. They may not want the books to read immediately, or at all; they want them to possess, to range on their shelves, to have at command. They want books as a Turk is thought to want concubines -- not to be hastily deflowered, but to be kept at their master's call, and enjoyed more often in thought than in reality."

-- Robertson Davies, The Salterton Trilogy

"Whoever said you can't buy happiness forgot about puppies."

-- Gene Hill

"Dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you in the car, in case the need should arise for them to bark violently at nothing right in your ear."

-- Dave Barry

"Ever consider what [dogs] must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul -- chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth!"

-- Anne Tyler

"Money will buy you a pretty good dog, but it won't buy the wag of his tail."

"He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion."

"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence.… From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurances, and tendencies prove that to insure peace, security, and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable. Every corner of this land knows firearms, and more than 99 99/100 percent of them by their silence indicate they are in safe and sane hands. The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference -- they deserve a place of honor with all that's good. WHEN FIREARMS GO, ALL GOES -- we need them every hour."

-- George Washington, 2nd Session of 1st Congress

"Things that upset a terrier may pass virtually unnoticed by a Great Dane."

-- Smiley Blanton

"I will not change my horse with any that treads on four pasterns. Ca ha! He bounds from the earth, as if his entrails were hairs, le cheval volant, the Pegasus, chez les narines de feu! When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes … he is pure air and fire … the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of a monarch and his countenance enforces homage."

-- William Shakespeare

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

-- George Washington

"The most formidable weapon against errors of any kind is Reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall."

-- Thomas Paine

"I have never been able to make up my mind as to what was my true calling -- that of composer, pianist, or conductor … I am constantly troubled by the misgiving that, in venturing into too many fields, I may have failed to make the best use of my life."

-- Sergei Rachmaninoff, 1933

"Truth is neither young nor old, is neither ancient nor modern, but is the same for all times and places and should be sought for with ceaseless activity, eagerly acknowledged, loved more than life, and abandoned -- never."

-- Robert Ingersoll

"What light is to the eyes -- what air is to the lungs -- what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man. Without liberty, the brain is a dungeon, where the chained thoughts die with their pinions pressed against the hingeless doors."

-- Robert Ingersoll

"These things are enough to make one think that sometimes the world becomes insane and that the earth is a vast asylum without a keeper."

-- Robert Ingersoll

"The higher you get in the scale of being, the grander, the nobler, and the tenderer you will become. Kindness is always an evidence of greatness. Malice is the property of small souls."

-- Robert Ingersoll

[BAMF]

All good quotes, but this one made me crack up:

"Whoever said you can't buy happiness forgot about puppies."

-- Gene Hill

So true!

[Chris Grieb]

Keep your friends close but your enemies closer. Mario Puzo The Godfather I have a few more.

[Barbara Branden]

RANDOM EXCERPTS FROM MY FILE OF QUOTATIONS:

“We live in deeds, not years: In thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heartthrobs. He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.” (Aristotle)

“In the time of your life, live - so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite variety and mystery of it.” (William Saroyan)

“Spend all you have for loveliness,

Buy it and never count the cost;

For one white singing hour of Peace

Count many a year of strife well lost

And for a breath of ecstasy

Give all you have been, or could be.” (Edna St. Vincent Millay)

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.” (Williamson)

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” (Henry David Thoreau

"First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me." (Martin Neimoller, 1945)

"The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees, in every object, only the traits which favor that theory." (Thomas Jefferson)

"We are here on earth to do good for others. What the others are here for, I don't know."(W. H. Auden)

"We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever

believed in. Some of us just go one god further." (Richard Dawkins),

"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil, that takes religion."(Steven Weinberg)

“Surely all art is the result of having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, to where no one can go any further.” (Rainer Maria Rilke)

“There are only three rules for writing a novel. The trouble is, no one knows what they are.” (Somerset Maugham)

Barbara

[BAMF]

“We live in deeds, not years: In thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heartthrobs. He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.” (Aristotle)

“In the time of your life, live - so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite variety and mystery of it.” (William Saroyan)

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” (Henry David Thoreau

These are beautiful quotes, Barbara! I especially dug the last one.

"First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me." (Martin Neimoller, 1945)

Thanks for reminding me of this quote! I'd read it a few years ago, but had forgotten it.

"The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees, in every object, only the traits which favor that theory." (Thomas Jefferson)

Gave me a chuckle. So true.

Here are a couple of mine (sorry to crowd up every topic I enter with references to Manson, hehehe):

“When you're taught to love everyone, to love your enemies, then what value does that place on love?” - Marilyn Manson

“I never said to be like me, I say to be like you and make a difference.” - Marilyn Manson

“Is adult entertainment killing our children? or is killing our children entertaining our adults?” - Marilyn Manson

"You cannot sedate, all the things you hate

I don’t need your hate, I decide my fate" - Marilyn Manson

"I went to God just to see, and I was looking at me." - Marilyn Manson

"When we were good, you just closed your eyes. So when we are bad, we'll scar your minds." - Marilyn Manson

"Everything you do is part of a plane plummeting towards our pitiful, dying earth. But your art, what you create is stepping onto the burning wing and forgetting silly things like life and death for a moment. Just to enjoy for one second a glimpse of beauty before you are reduced to ashes." - Marilyn Manson

Edited December 14, 2006 by Kori

[Chris Grieb]

This passage from Atlas should be near every Objectivist teacher of philosphy; "He retired nine years ago. Isn't it odd Whan a politician or movie star retires, we read front page stories about it. But when a philosopher retires, people do note even notice it. They do eventually." Word that thrill me everytime: "Mr Gorbevach: Tear down this wall." Ronald Reagan who had to keep putting these words into his wall speech because our pussy State Department kept taking them out.

[Tee-Jay]

"Progress isn't always progressive. If it were not inevitable, it may be better to stop it."

---anonymous

[Chris Grieb]

In C S Lewis Narnian Chronicles the book The Voyage of Dawn Treader there is this exchange: "But that would be putting the clock back; Have you no idea of progress, of development?" " I have see them both in an egg." "We call it going bad."

[Tee-Jay]

In C S Lewis Narnian Chronicles the book The Voyage of Dawn Treader there is this exchange: "But that would be putting the clock back; Have you no idea of progress, of development?" " I have see them both in an egg." "We call it going bad."

:yes:

[Wrighty]

In writing Sinfonia Antartica, Ralph Vaughan Williams appended 5 quotes before the commencement of each movement. They differ widely in source, but were obviously integral to his intended impact of the work, a lot of which started out as film music.

As a (then) late teenager this one particularly struck me....

Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

John Donne

PS.

Check out the others.....Shelley, Psalm 104, Coleridge and RF Scott himself.....before you ever listen to the work

[Judith]

In writing Sinfonia Antartica, Ralph Vaughan Williams appended 5 quotes before the commencement of each movement. They differ widely in source, but were obviously integral to his intended impact of the work, a lot of which started out as film music.

As a (then) late teenager this one particularly struck me....

Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

John Donne

PS.

Check out the others.....Shelley, Psalm 104, Coleridge and RF Scott himself.....before you ever listen to the work

Oooh! Another Vaughan Williams lover!

I played that piece constantly for years! It actually motivated me to visit Antarctica!

To suffer woes which hope thinks infinite:

To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;

To defy Power which seems omnipotent ...

Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent,

This ... is to be

Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;

This alone is Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.

taken from Shelley, "Prometheus Unbound"

[Judith]

And then, of course, there's the last line from Tennyson's "Ulysses", engraved on the monument to Scott and his men who died in Antarctica:

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

[Chris Grieb]

Judith; I have seen the quote but did not know the source. I did not know about the monument to Scott and his men. Thank you for the great information.

[Wrighty]

Thanks Judith - the line seems far more appropriate to that fateful expedition, strangely, than in the context of Tennyson's own work.

Whilst doing another post I came across a quote by Mozart after meeting 16yr old Beethoven......"Keep your eyes on him; some day he will give the world something to talk about."

[Judith]

I've done a huge amount of research on the Scott expedition; I've got a small library of books on it. Fascinating period, fascinating people.

Judith

[Rich Engle]

America... just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.

- Hunter S. Thompson

A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and good works followed by one outburst of taking the name of the Lord in vain - then have a heart attack at that moment and be damned for eternity. Is that the system?

-Robert A. Heinlien

A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill.

- Robert A. Heinlein

Trust, but verify.

- Henry Kissinger

Fuck art, let's dance.

The Adults (band)

[studiodekadent]

"It is the little 'misfits' that have the best chance to recover...The children who did not conform, the children who endure years of agonizing misery, loneliness, confusion, abuse by the teachers and by their 'peers'.... but remain aloof and withdrawn, unable to give in, unable to fake, armed with nothing but the knowlege that there is something wrong with that nursery school"

"The nonconformists are heroic little martyrs who are given no credit by no one....not even by themselves, since they cannot identify the nature of their battle. They do not have the conceptual knowlege nor the introspective skill to grasp that they are unable and unwilling to accept anything without understanding it, and that they are holding to the sovereignty of their own judgement against the terrifying pressure of everyone around him."

"A thinking child cannot conform: thought does not bow to authority. The resentment of the pack towards independence and intelligence is older than progressive education; it is an ancient evil."

(About trying to conform) "He never succeeds and is left wondering helplessly: "What is wrong with me?" "What do I lack?" "What do they want?""

-The Comprachicos

"From the first catch-prases flung at a child to the last, it is like a series of shocks to freeze his motor, to undercut the power of his consciousness. "Dont ask so many questions-children should be seen and not heard!"-"Who are you to think? Its so because I say its so!"-"Dont argue, obey!"-"Dont try to understand, believe!"-"Dont rebel, adjust!"-"Dont stand out, belong!"-"Dont struggle, compromise!"-"Your heart is more important than your head!"-"Who are you to know? Your parents know best!"- "Who are you to know? Society knows whats best!"-"Who are you to know? The bureaucrats know whats best!"-"Who are you to object? All values are relative!"-"Who are you to want to escape a thug's bullet? Thats just a personal prejudice!"

-Atlas Shrugged

[Danneskjold]

I could have used that "The Three Comprachicos" essay (or a simplified variance of it) in k-8th grade.

[Judith]

I could have used that "The Three Comprachicos" essay (or a simplified variance of it) in k-8th grade.

Yeah, couldn't we all!

[Danneskjold]

I used to think I had Asperger's Syndrome. It was kinda funny because it seemed to fit perfectly. Turns out that it's everyone else that has the problem. Silly me.

[BaalChatzaf]

Quotes, everybody loves to read 'em. What are your favorites?

A few of mine that I apply to my every day life are:

"Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong."

Ayn Rand

"I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

Ayn Rand

"The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."

Ayn Rand

"In theory, theory is practice. In practice it isn't."

Yogi Berra

"Be careful if you don't know where you're going because you might not get there"

Yogi Berra

"You can observe a lot by just watching."

Yogi Berra

"All pitchers are liars or crybabies."

Yogi Berra

Here are few I use:

When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

David Hume

Mongol General: Conan! What is best in life?

Mongol Soldier: Swift horse, the wind in the face, the falcon upon the hand!

Mongol General: Wrong. Conan! What is best?

Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

Mongol General: Yes. That is best.

From the mouth of Conan the Barbarian as played by the Governator -- Arnoldt Schwartzernegger

Persian to Spartans: Lay down your weapons?

Spartan to Persian: Μολών Λαβέ (Come and get them!).

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited April 15, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

Quotes, everybody loves to read 'em. What are your favorites?

A few of mine that I apply to my every day life are:

"Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong."

Ayn Rand

Here is a beauty spoken by our Rabbi at the last Purim Service: (Purim commemorates a failed genocide attempt in Persia 2300 years ago).

They tried to kill us

The failed

Let's eat.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Hume wanted to burn books?

Dayaamm!

I think Hume must be given more serious attention by Objectivists, but with comments like that, all he did was add gasoline to the flames of the Hume/Kant burners.

Michael