Please share Your favorite quotes.

[jeff98902]

Are there any quotes that hit home with you? any that you live by?
I am curious because of the trend of people feeling so strongly as to have them tattooed on their bodies.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes.

Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.
-Arthur C. Clarke

"There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why...I dream of things that never were and say why not?"
- Robert Kennedy

The people will believe what the media tells them to believe. - George Orwell

If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than our strength. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

 

[Anonymous]

Well this isn't a quote that I live by or anything...it just makes me laugh:

"Put your trust in the Lord...your ass belongs to me (welcome to Shawshank)." :lol:

 

[Poker_Babe]

“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
― George Orwell

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
― Martin Luther King Jr

"In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."
-Mark Twain

"I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing."
-Socrates

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."
-Thomas Jefferson

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” (Quoting Cesare Beccaria)

 

[BlueViolet]

I've been really into Diogenes lately, if you can't tell from my signature. These aren't super inspirational or anything, but they are hilarious in the context and pretty profound actually.

When Plato gave Socrates' definition of man as a "featherless biped" and was highly praised for that specific definition, Diogenes plucked a chicken and brought it to Plato's Academy saying, "Behold! I've brought you a man!"

Also, from my signature:

"If I were not Diogenes, I should also wish to be Diogenes." Diogenes of Sinope said this to Alexander the Great. Although Diogenes was a homeless, exiled, and considered to be mad philosopher living in a big pot, Alexander looked up to him and asked him if he could do him any favor. Diogenes told him, "Yes," and to stand out of his sunlight. Alexander responded by saying if he were not Alexander, he would wish to be Diogenes to which Diogenes delivered that quote. I thought that was pretty amazing.

Oh Diogenes, he was quite the character.

I'll post some more quotable quotes later.

--

Since I don't want to post more Diogenes quotes, I'll just put them all in this post:

Alexander found Diogenes staring attentively at a pile of human bones, Diogenes explained:

"I am searching for the bones of your father but cannot distinguish them from those of a slave."

 

[Crumb]

We are the Universe, made manifest, trying to figure itself out - JMS (Delenn) of Babylon 5

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one - GRRM

 

[emptiedglass]

The third paragraph of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams:

"This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy."

 

[Just Me]

"Note to self: finding a cool quote and writing it in your journal is not a substitute for Getting. It. Done."
-Betsy Cañas Garmon

 

[Evvie]

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself; I am large, I contain multitudes. - Walt Whitman

 

[bawksy]

TRIGGER WARNING - May cause nerd rage

My favoritest quotes are better conveyed via images.

 

[LuckySmiles]

"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance"

"Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without"
Confucius

"You gotta have fun. Regardless of how you look at it, we're playing a game. It's a business, it's our job, but I don't think you can do well unless you're having fun."
Derek Jeter

 

[Aella]

"Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."
-Benjamin Franklin

 

[rvrrat1977]

Jesus is coming; Look busy.

 

[southsamurai]

Yours not to reason why;
Yours but to do and die.

its a small snippet of a larger quote by eugene debs, though most people dont realize that

and his most famous quote:
Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind then that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; and while there is a criminal element, I am of it; and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

that one was used many times of the years by kurt vonnegut in his books and speeches, which is how i first heard of eugene debs. (seriously, look the dude up, he was brilliant)

 

[JerryBoBerry]

From Monty Python's Meaning of Life.

Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.

 

[Nordling]

‎"The Devil can cite scripture for his purpose." —Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act 1, Scene 3

 

[Lintilla]

The third paragraph of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams:

"This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy."

Personally I'd say... open a random page from the H2G2 trilogy and there's probably a favourite quote of mine on it. If I had to pick one I'd go with "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

And from the Dirk Gently books, which I should really read again soon: "Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all."

I currently have zero tattoos, but when I inevitably end up with some (I really have no idea how I made it to 31 without) the first, in any case, will certainly be Hitchhiker's related. I don't think I'd go with a full quote. Maybe a 42, a "Don't Panic" or a nice bowl of petunias.

 

[AdamAdamant]

“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.
-Ford Prefect”

 

[Sevrin]

"Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."
-Benjamin Franklin

Actually

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety

This is being quoted, or, as here, paraphrased, all the time. It's hard to get through the day without seeing it, especially since the introduction of the Patriot Act in the U.S. People ignore that Ben was not talking about individual freedom here.

The words appear originally in a 1755 letter that Franklin is presumed to have written on behalf of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the colonial governor during the French and Indian War. The letter was a salvo in a power struggle between the governor and the Assembly over funding for security on the frontier, one in which the Assembly wished to tax the lands of the Penn family, which ruled Pennsylvania from afar, to raise money for defense against French and Indian attacks. The governor kept vetoing the Assembly’s efforts at the behest of the family, which had appointed him. So to start matters, Franklin was writing not as a subject being asked to cede his liberty to government, but in his capacity as a legislator being asked to renounce his power to tax lands notionally under his jurisdiction. In other words, the “essential liberty” to which Franklin referred was thus not what we would think of today as civil liberties but, rather, the right of self-governance of a legislature in the interests of collective security.

What’s more the “purchase [of] a little temporary safety” of which Franklin complains was not the ceding of power to a government Leviathan in exchange for some promise of protection from external threat; for in Franklin’s letter, the word “purchase” does not appear to have been a metaphor. The governor was accusing the Assembly of stalling on appropriating money for frontier defense by insisting on including the Penn lands in its taxes–and thus triggering his intervention. And the Penn family later offered cash to fund defense of the frontier–as long as the Assembly would acknowledge that it lacked the power to tax the family’s lands. Franklin was thus complaining of the choice facing the legislature between being able to make funds available for frontier defense and maintaining its right of self-governance–and he was criticizing the governor for suggesting it should be willing to give up the latter to ensure the former.

TL;DR: Basically, a wealthy family was buy to gain a permanent tax exemption by making a monetary contribution to the war effort. Ben interpreted that as the assembly giving up its freedom to tax.

Source & further reading

Back OT

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.”
― Jim Henson

“Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.”
― Oscar Wilde

 

[jeff98902]

The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshiped anything but himself.
Sir Richard Francis Burton


I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion. -Alexander the Great

 

[Pippa Pirrip]

"So I be written in the book of love, I do not care about that book above. Erase my name or write it as you will so I be written in the book of love." Omar Khayyám

"Where there is love, there is life." - Mahatma Gandhi

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the ways its animals are treated” – Mahatma Gandhi

"Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them."
Dalai Lama

"I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it." - Abraham Lincoln

 

[Pippa Pirrip]

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself; I am large, I contain multitudes. - Walt Whitman

I knew I forgot one!

 

[Xeibriz]

"For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who don't, none will do." -- Jerry Lewis

"If winning is not important, why do they keep score?" -- Lt. Worf ST:TNG

I know these are probably misquoted but I still like them.

 

[PunkInDrublic]

"Men, under the guidance of reason, desire nothing for themselves which they do not also desire for the rest of mankind."- Spinoza

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.- Frost

''Be yourself, Have faith in yourself, Express yourself. Dont go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it'' -Bruce Lee

 

[Aella]

"Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."
-Benjamin Franklin

Actually

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety

This is being quoted, or, as here, paraphrased, all the time. It's hard to get through the day without seeing it, especially since the introduction of the Patriot Act in the U.S. People ignore that Ben was not talking about individual freedom here.

The words appear originally in a 1755 letter that Franklin is presumed to have written on behalf of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the colonial governor during the French and Indian War. The letter was a salvo in a power struggle between the governor and the Assembly over funding for security on the frontier, one in which the Assembly wished to tax the lands of the Penn family, which ruled Pennsylvania from afar, to raise money for defense against French and Indian attacks. The governor kept vetoing the Assembly’s efforts at the behest of the family, which had appointed him. So to start matters, Franklin was writing not as a subject being asked to cede his liberty to government, but in his capacity as a legislator being asked to renounce his power to tax lands notionally under his jurisdiction. In other words, the “essential liberty” to which Franklin referred was thus not what we would think of today as civil liberties but, rather, the right of self-governance of a legislature in the interests of collective security.

What’s more the “purchase [of] a little temporary safety” of which Franklin complains was not the ceding of power to a government Leviathan in exchange for some promise of protection from external threat; for in Franklin’s letter, the word “purchase” does not appear to have been a metaphor. The governor was accusing the Assembly of stalling on appropriating money for frontier defense by insisting on including the Penn lands in its taxes–and thus triggering his intervention. And the Penn family later offered cash to fund defense of the frontier–as long as the Assembly would acknowledge that it lacked the power to tax the family’s lands. Franklin was thus complaining of the choice facing the legislature between being able to make funds available for frontier defense and maintaining its right of self-governance–and he was criticizing the governor for suggesting it should be willing to give up the latter to ensure the former.

TL;DR: Basically, a wealthy family was buy to gain a permanent tax exemption by making a monetary contribution to the war effort. Ben interpreted that as the assembly giving up its freedom to tax.

Source & further reading

Back OT

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.”
― Jim Henson

“Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.”
― Oscar Wilde

I actually googled specifically to make sure Benjamin Franklin DID say that quote, curse wikiquotes for failing me!

And I care less what the context of the quote was, mainly because I like the words themselves - but the history is good to know anyway. The original american dudes frequently did/said shit that surprise us. Or me. Mainly surprise me. Thank you!

 

[Red7227]

"luck is the residue of design" Milton I think?

 

[Bocefish]

This may not go over so well here, but it's one of my all time funny favorites which still cracks me up every time I think of it... Jack Nicholson's reply to "How do you write women so well?"



Another funny one I like is:



There's a bunch I like from Thomas Jefferson and Henry David Thoreau too.

 

[jeff98902]

I have always liked that Adam Savage quote!

 

[jeff98902]

I feel this quote is relevant to all the ladies on MFC!

Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed.
George Burns

 

[Cocokittykat]

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."- Maya Angelou

"How can we build a center for children to learn how to read, when they can't even fit into the school?"
-Derek Zoolander

"Courage does not always roar,
Sometimes it is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tommorow."-?


"No One Can Make You Feel Inferior
Without Your Consent"
-Eleanor Roosevelt

"Do what you have to do, To do what you want to do" -?

 

[jeff98902]

"I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure." Benny Hill


"A man of sound mind is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key"
Paul Valery