Favorite quotes

Good enough isn't
"If I have seen so far, it is only because I have stood on the shoulders of giants"
"Let me 'splain... no, there is too much. Let me sum up."

....

That last one is great.

chadrog said:

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:roll:

I have never had need for that emoticon, before today.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." –
Ben Franklin

There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder.
Theodore Roosevelt



“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”
Mark Twain

Said by a fictional character written by J. Michael Straczynski:

"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."

FC

Once I thought the truth was going to set me free.
Now I feel the chains of its responsibility.

Rik Emmett, Triumph, "Ordinary Man"

I have worked for employers that understood this and others that didn't...


"If you need a machine and don't buy it, then you will ultimately find,
You have paid for it...but don't have it. " - Henry Ford

"No battle plan has ever survived first contact with the enemy" - Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

"No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity." "I know none, therefore am no beast." - William Shakespeare, Richard III, Act 1, Scene 2

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy." - attribution not known

"I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those... moments... will be lost in time, like [small cough] tears... in... rain. Time to die..." - Roy Batty's death soliloquy, Blade Runner

"No matter where you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Banzai

"Fat, Drunk, and Stupid is no way to go through life, son." - Dean Wormer

littlemisterbig said:

Hey guys,
What are some of your favorite quotes or poems? Here are some of mine:

Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve. -Max Planck

I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. - J. Robert Oppenheimer

It will free man from the remaining chains, the chains of gravity which still tie him to this planet. -Wernher Von Braun

Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine. -Nikola Tesla

And my favorite poems are:

Dulce et decorum est by Wilfred Owen

The conquerer worm by Edgar Allan Poe

(These two poems are brilliant IMO, they really are worth taking a look at)

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Dulce et Decorum Est is a very good poem.

The quote from Oppenheimer is a good one for the circumstances (nuclear test), but it is actually from the from the Bhagavad Gita, so he shouldn't really get credit for the words, just the use of them at a particularly appropriate time.

morlock said:

Quotes:

- Short cuts make for long delays
- Done is better than perfect
- Vision without action is daydream. Action without vision is nightmare. ~Japanese proverb
- I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way. ~Robert Frost

Poems:

- The Raven (I know, not very original...)
- Kubilah Khan
- Ulysses

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Kubla Khan is a good poem. I memorized the whole thing at one point. Coleridge claimed he "wrote" it in an opium stupor --- just woke up, and there it was, fully formed in his head! I don't really believe that.

pepe said:

"Everybody's got a plan...till I hit em"- Iron Mike Tyson

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PropellantHead said:

"No battle plan has ever survived first contact with the enemy" - Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

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These are basically the same. Who would have guessed Iron Mike Tyson and Helmuth von Moltke the Elder would have anything in common.

"The world needs ditch diggers too." -- Judge Smails
"If you ain't first your last." -- Ricky Bobby
"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli." -- Peter Clemenza
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dam body. The smell, you know, that gasoline smell, the whole hill smelled like - victory." -- Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore

And now for something serious:

"We must not let the fact that we are victims of injustice lull us into abrogating responsibility for our own lives. We must not use our oppression as an excuse for mediocrity and laziness. Our crime rate is far too high. Our level of (neighborhood) cleanliness is far too low. We are often loud and boisterous, and spend far too much on drink. By improving our standards here and now, we will go a long way toward breaking down the arguments of the segregationist...The negro will only be free when he reaches down to the inner depths of his own being and signs with the pen and ink of assertive manhood his own emancipation proclamation." -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Yeah, I know the Oppenheimer quote is not original to him, but still

I wrote up a huge post about how much I like the poem The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. I had pulled out passages that have special meaning to me, did little research, expressed my thoughts. etc. it was a bunch of work. And them somehow I clicked off the page and lost everything.

So I'm not doing that again! I like the Rubaiyat. Nuff said!

I also like the Second Coming by Yeats. Like Dulce et Dcorum Est, it was written in the aftermath of WWI.

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

"A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines."
- Frank Lloyd Wright

One of my favorites, from Throw Momma from the Train:

Momma: Who the HELL are you?

Larry: I'm Owen's friend.

Momma: Owen doesn't have a friend!

Larry: That's because he's shy.

Momma: No he's not. He's fat and he's stupid!

"Once you give up your ignorance, you can't ever get it back."
-- unknown

"Make it as simple as possible...
... and not one bit simpler."
-- Einstein

"Nothing will work, unless you do."
-- Maya Angelou

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries,
is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"
-- Isaac Asimov

"If A equals success,
then the formula is A equals X plus Y plus Z.
X is work.
Y is play.
Z is keep your mouth shut"
-- Albert Einstein

"My purpose here is to stir things up,
to be the thorn in the side,
the rock in the road,
and, by so doing, to make the decision-making process
so difficult, so painful, that the only escape,
the only hope, is to THINK."
-- unknown (from NPR)

ThirstyBarbarian said:

I wrote up a huge post about how much I like the poem The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. I had pulled out passages that have special meaning to me, did little research, expressed my thoughts. etc. it was a bunch of work. And them somehow I clicked off the page and lost everything.

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Do a 'page back', Thirsty - most times it'll be there.

(That said, prior to learning that trick, I've lost a few as well -- and, today, regardless, I periodically grab everything and drop into Notepad --- and, more and more, I compose FIRST in Notepad. That way, I've got it no matter what. (and, boy, do I hate to put lots of thoughts together and lose it!!))

Some people are like a Slinky. They’re not really good for much; but they do bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs

an all time favourite: "There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life."-Zappa

RocketGeekInFL said:

"snip......
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dam body. The smell, you know, that gasoline smell, the whole hill smelled like - victory." -- Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore
.....snip

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This would be the PC version of Kilgore's speech

M

"Ignorance can be fixed but stupid...not so much." -The Internet

"Dyin' ain't much of a livin', boy" -The Outlaw Josey Wales

Two of my favorites from Ronald Reagan

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"

"We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions."

And a movie quote from Harry Callahan.

I know what you're thinking, punk. You're thinking "did he fire six shots or only five?" Now to tell you the truth I forgot myself in all this excitement. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and will blow you head clean off, you've gotta ask yourself a question: "Do I feel lucky?" ......Well, do ya, punk?

Change your mind you're always wrong - Robert Smith

“I’m afraid of three things: Women, snakes, and the police. They all have the ability to hurt me and make it look like it was my fault.”
Gil H.

This thread only inspires my humor,... (I am practicing leaving useless messages,...)

"The dreams of yesterday, are the hopes of today and the reality of tomorrow"- Robert Goddard.

ParrytheWind said:

This thread only inspires my humor,... (I am practicing leaving useless messages,...)

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I, for one, recognize and applaud your new-found abilty !
Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless. -Edison