Aaron Fuegi's Collected Quotations
aarondf@gmail.com
Please also be welcome at the Last Homely House, run by Aaron.
Note on Quotes
These quotes have been collected by me over many years.
I choose those quotes which I feel express something about me.
A few of these quotes are included entirely for humor value or as a beautiful
expression.
Basically all of the others, for me, have a philosophy behind them which I
believe in one way or the other.
Of course, I actually follow the principles of some far more than others.
-Enjoy, Aaron
And now for the QUOTES
- Frodo was now safe in the Last Homely House east of the Sea. That house
was, as Bilbo had long ago reported, "a perfect house, whether you like food or
sleep, or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a
pleasant mixture of them all." Merely to be there was a cure for weariness,
fear and sadness.
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
- His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or
story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking, best, or a pleasant
mixture of them all.
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, referring to The Last Homely House
-
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
- J.R.R. Tolkien, opening line of The Hobbit
-
When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be
celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence,
there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.
- J.R.R. Tolkien, opening line of The Fellowship of the Ring
-
Sunlight dances through the leaves
Soft winds stir the sighing trees
Lying in the warm grass
Feel the sun upon your face
Elven songs and endless nights
Sweet wine and soft relaxing lights
Time will never touch you
Here in this enchanted place
You feel there's something calling you
You're wanting to return
To where the misty mountains rise and friendly fires burn
A place you can escape the world
Where the dark lord cannot go
Peace of mind and sanctuary by loud water's flow
I've traveled now for many miles
It feels so good to see the smiles of
Friends who never left your mind
When you were far away
From the golden light of coming dawn
Till the twilight where the sun is gone
We treasure every season
And every passing day
We feel the coming of a new day
Darkness gives way to light a new way
Stop here for a while until the world,
The world calls you away
Yet you know I've had the feeling
Standing with my senses reeling
This is the place to grow old 'til
I reach my final day.
- RUSH, Rivendell, written by Geddy Lee and Neil Peart
- I don't wish to be everything to everyone, but I would like to be something
to someone.
- Katherine Kurtz, spoken by Javan
-
Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me, I may not
follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.
- Albert Camus
-
It did not matter, after all. He was only one man. One man's fate is
not important.
"If it is not, what is?"
He could not endure those remembered words.
- Ursula K. Le Guin, spoken by Gaverel Rocannon,
Rocannon's World
- "Do you think it's possible to discuss politics without preaching? Or
just not for you?"
SKB: "Not for me personally. I spent years and years and years studying
intensely, carefully, putting a lot of time and energy and work into it. I
therefore am convinced I know a lot. Even if I don't, I think I do. So I run
into someone who makes, generally speaking, a dismissive remark, which shows
that he has not put in anywhere near the time, energy and effort and study I
have, and I turn into an arrogant, pompous asshole. So I'd rather not do
that. That's why I just stay loose on it."
- Steven K. Brust
-
"There. There," said the marquis de Carabas, awkwardly, patting her shoulder.
And he added, for good measure, "There." He did not comfort well.
- Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere
-
Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable.
It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means that someone can get
inside you and mess you up. You build up these defenses, you build this whole
suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no
different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life. You
give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They do something dumb one
day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own any more.
Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you
crying in the darknes, so working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just
in the imagination. not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a
real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.
- Neil Gaiman
-
...that was the first thing I had to learn about her, and maybe the hardest
I've ever learned about anything--that she is her own, and what she gives
me is of her choosing, and the more precious because of it. Sometimes
a butterfly will come to sit in your open palm, but if you close your
hand, one way or the other, it--and its choice to be there--are gone.
- Barbara Hambly, Spoken by John Aversin, Dragonsbane
-
And though I came to forget or regret all I have ever done, yet
would I remember that once I saw the dragons aloft on the wind
at sunset above the western isles; and I would be content.
- Ursula K. LeGuin, The Tombs of Atuan
-
What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do especially in
other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there
and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on
the road.
- William Least Heat Moon, Blue Highways
-
. . He had by now divested himself of schoolboy attitudes. He was unburdened
by the desire to be a martyr or a hero. Any thoughts in that direction,
Belgica effectively had quashed. Heroism in the corrupt sense of the age
almost by definition, meant wanton self-sacrifice and bungling. For neither
had he any taste. He wanted rational attainment; victory, but not at any
price. No point upon the globe was worth the cost of a single life.
- Roland Huntford, SCOTT and AMUNDSEN The Race to
The South Pole referring to polar explorer Roald Amundsen.
-
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in
anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in
anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not
believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not
believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with
reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it
and live up to it.
- Buddha
-
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really
good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change
their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do
it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and
change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last
time something like that happened in politics or religion.
- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP Keynote Address
-
There is no God.
But it does not matter.
Man is enough.
- Edna St. Vincent Milay, Conversation at Midnight
-
"I was saying," continued the Rocket, "I was saying - What was I saying?"
"You were talking about yourself," replied the Roman Candle.
"Of course; I knew I was discussing some interesting subject when I was so
rudely interrupted."
- Oscar Wilde, The Remarkable Rocket
-
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as
one wishes to live.
- Oscar Wilde
-
The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its
own shame.
- Oscar Wilde
- The avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote.
- Vorlon Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5: Believers
- God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot
be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the
wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
- Reinhold Niebuhr, The Serenity Prayer (1934)
-
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of
wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the
epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of
Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had
everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to
heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far
like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its
being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison
only.
- Charles Dickens, opening line of A Tale of Two Cities
-
It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done;
it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.
- Charles Dickens, end of A Tale of Two Cities
- To err is human, to forgive divine.
- Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism
-
Aim for the stars and maybe you'll reach the sky.
-
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share,
and no one dare disturb the Sound of Silence.
- Simon & Garfunkel, Sounds of Silence
-
All lies and jest; still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards
the rest.
- Simon & Garfunkel, The Boxer
-
Nothing endures but change.
- Heraclitus
- No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and
he's not the same man.
- Heraclitus
-
Every man is the architect of his own fortune.
- Appius Claudius
-
I think; therefore I am.
- Rene Descartes
-
Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
- Chinese Proverb
-
Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.
- Seneca
-
Better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven.
- Milton
-
. . is to attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood. It is the attempt to
see the Light without knowing Darkness. It cannot be.
- Frank Herbert, Dune
-
People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.
- Frank Herbert, Dune
-
Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers
increase. . . . the human question is not how many can possibly survive
within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do
survive.
- Frank Herbert, Dune
-
What do you despise? By this are you truly known.
- Frank Herbert, Dune,
Manual of MuadDib by Princess Irulan
-
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings
total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and
through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its
path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
- Frank Herbert, Dune,
Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
-
There was only one catch and that was Catch22, which specified that a concern
for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the
process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had
to do was ask, and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would
have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if
he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy
and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.
- Joseph Heller, Catch22
-
The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's
on.
- Joseph Heller, Catch22
-
"And don't tell me God works in mysterious ways", Yossarian continued "There's
nothing mysterious about it, He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else
He's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about, a
country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed.
Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it
necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine
system of Creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil,
scatalogical mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control
their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?"
- Joseph Heller, Catch22
- "First pancake problem" Generally you toss it out and serve the second
pancake, which is not burned on the outside and raw in the middle. But
sometimes, you gotta eat that first pancake.
- David Lance Goines
- My close relationship with Alice Waters illustrates the kind of client
with whom I get along best. We have a clear aesthetic, are dedicated to our
work, and leave each other to do the best we can for each other. I cannot
imagine a finer relationship.
- David Lance Goines, Graphic Designer
-
Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
in the real world.
- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
-
I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
-
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes
genius.
- Arthur Conan Doyle, Complete Sherlock Holmes,
Valley of Fear
-
Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those
not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast
table.
- Arthur Conan Doyle, opening line of The Hound of the Baskervilles
-
Dr. Strauss says I should rite down what I think and remembir and evrey thing
that happins to me from now on..
- Daniel Keys, opening line of Flowers for Algernon
-
"Does she owe you any favors?" Holden asked.
Naomi gave him a sour look and puleed his hand terminal off his belt. "No. I
owe her about a thousand," she said as she opened a connection request to Sam.
"But she's a friend. Favors don't matter."
- James S. A. Corey, Abaddon's Gate (The Expanse, Book 3)
-
Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was
brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle
and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego.
- Jack London, opening line of The Call of the Wild
-
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to
know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my
parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David
Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to
know the truth.
- J.D. Salinger, opening line of The Catcher in the Rye
-
All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
- Leo Tolstoy, opening line of Anna Karenina
-
Once upon a time there was a Martian named Valentine Michael Smith.
- Robert A. Heinlein, opening line of Stranger in a Strange Land
-
When any government . . . undertakes to say to its subjects, 'This you
may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,' the
end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives.
Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been
hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man
whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything--you
can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.
- Robert A. Heinlein, If This Goes On...
-
If on the other hand he went to pay his respects to The Door and it
wasn't there . . . what then?
The answer, of course, was very simple. He had a whole board of
circuits for dealing with exactly this problem, in fact this was the very
heart of his function. He would continue to believe in it whatever the
facts turned out to be, what else was the meaning of Belief?
The Door would still be there, even if the Door was not.
- Douglas Adams, spoken by the Electric Monk,
Dirk Gently: Holistic Detective Agency
-
"I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that
truly makes living worth while?"
Death thought about it "Cats," he said eventually, "Cats are Nice."
- Terry Pratchett, Sourcery
-
Nigel gave the lamp a cautious buff and small smoking red letters
appeared in the air.
"Hi," Nigel read aloud, "Do not put down the lamp because your
custom is important to us. Please leave a wish after the tone and, very
shortly, it will be our command. In the meantime, have a nice eternity."
- Terry Pratchett, Sourcery
-
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could
do is give them a meaningful look.
- Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
-
In a mad world, only the mad are sane.
- Akiro Kurosawa
-
If at first you don't succeed, well, so much for skydiving.
- Victor O'Reilly, Games of the Hangman
-
Necessity, who is the mother of invention.
- Plato, The Republic. Book II. 369C
-
The beginning is the most important part of the work.
- Plato, The Republic. Book II. 377B
-
Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to
another.
- Plato, The Republic. Book VII. 529
-
Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which
is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.
- Plato, The Republic. Book VII. 536
-
Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and
disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.
- Plato, The Republic. Book VIII. 558
-
What a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colours
which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose.
- Plato, The Republic. Book X. 601B
-
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden(1854),I,Economy
-
Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden(1854),I,Economy
-
The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with
another must wait till that other is ready.
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden(1854),I,Economy
-
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the
essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and
not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden(1854), II,
Where I Lived, and What I Lived For
-
The works of the great poets have never yet been read by mankind, for only
great poets can read them.
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden(1854), III, Reading
-
I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for
the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our
chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden(1854),V, Solitude
-
In wildness is the preservation of the world.
- Henry David Thoreau, Walking(1862)
-
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
- Henry David Thoreau
-
If I were asked to say what is at once the most important production of Art
and the thing most to be longed for; I should answer; A beautiful House; and if
I were further asked to name the production next in importance and the thing
next to be longed for; I should answer; A beautiful Book. To enjoy good
houses and good books in self-respect and decent comfort, seems to me to be
the pleasurable end towards which all societies of human beings ought now to
struggle.
- William Morris (1892)
-
It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.
- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), spoken by Huck Finn,
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
-
Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our
irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place
- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
-
Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), Inscription beneath
his bust in the Hall of Fame.
-
The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to
other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority
to any creature that cannot.
- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), What Is Man?(1906)
-
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how
little we think of the other person.
- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), Notebooks(1935)
-
It is better to deserve honours and not have them than to have them and not to
deserve them.
- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
-
Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. (The
conviction of the rich that the poor are happier is no more foolish than the
conviction of the poor that the rich are.)
- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
-
The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents
the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them.
- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
-
Let us endeavor to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be
sorry.
- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), from Pudd'nhead Wilson's
Calendar(1894)
-
It is not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion
that make horseraces.
- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), from Pudd'nhead Wilson's
Calendar(1894)
-
The secret source of humour itself is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humour
in heaven.
- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
-
Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.
- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
-
There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable,
drinkable, and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation.
They pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it. How strange
it is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry.
- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
-
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education,
and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a
poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward
after death.
- Albert Einstein
-
The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it
seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the
fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving
after rational knowledge.
- Albert Einstein
-
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
-
Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that
goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!
- Albert Einstein
-
Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.
- Albert Einstein
-
How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise
and of good will.
- Albert Einstein
-
Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.
- Albert Einstein
-
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet,(Act II, scene ii)
-
This above all: to thine own self be true
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet,(Act I, scene iii)
-
He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet,(Act I, scene ii)
-
What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty!
in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in
apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!
- William Shakespeare, spoken by Hamlet,
Hamlet,(Act II, scene ii)
-
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
- William Shakespeare, spoken by Macbeth,
Macbeth,(Act V, scene v)
-
One man scorned and covered with scars
still strove with his last ounce of courage
to reach the unreachable stars;
and the world will be better for this.
- Mitch Leigh, The Quest, based on Cervantes
-
Some people come into our lives, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are
never the same.
-
No one feels another's grief, no one understands another's joy. People imagine
that they can reach one another. In reality they only pass each other by.
- Franz Schubert
-
"Do you know what I learned from you? I learned what is possible, and now I
must hold out for what I thought we had. I want to be very close to someone I
respect and admire and have somebody who feels the same way about me. That or
nothing. I realized that what I'm looking for is not what you're looking for.
You don't want what I want."
"What do you think I want?" I asked.
"Exactly what you have. Many women you know a little and don't care very much
about. Superficial flirtations, mutual use, no chance of love. That's my idea
of hell. Hell is a place, a time, a consciousness, Richard, in which there is
no love. Horrible! Leave me out of it."
- Richard Bach, Spoken by Leslie Parrish and Richard Bach,
The Bridge Across Forever
-
Respect for sovereignity, for privacy, for total independence. Gentle
alliances against loneliness, they were, cool rational love-affairs
without the love.
- Richard Bach, Thoughts of Richard Bach,
The Bridge Across Forever
-
The world's crazy, when it comes to beauty.
- Richard Bach, Spoken by Leslie Parrish,
The Bridge Across Forever
-
Sooner I'd try to change history than turn political, than try convincing
others to write letters or to vote or to march or to do something they
didn't already feel like doing.
- Richard Bach, Thoughts of Richard Bach,
The Bridge Across Forever
-
Two things I do value a lot, intimacy and the capacity for joy, didn't seem
to be on anyone else's list. I felt like the stranger in a strange land,
and decided I'd better not marry the natives.
- Richard Bach, Spoken by Leslie Parrish,
The Bridge Across Forever
-
That she won the game startled me cold. The way she won, the pattern of
her thought on the chessboard, charmed me warm again and then some.
- Richard Bach, Thoughts of Richard Bach,
The Bridge Across Forever
-
That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how
we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from
it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious
way, is winning.
- Richard Bach, note written by Richard Bach,
The Bridge Across Forever
-
It is by not always thinking of yourself, if you can manage it, that you
might somehow be happy. Until you make room in your life for someone as
important to you as yourself, you will always be searching and lost ...
- Richard Bach, Spoken by Leslie Parrish,
The Bridge Across Forever
-
A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our
locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out
and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we
are and not for who we're pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the
other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we're
safe in our own paradise. Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest
longings, our sense of direction. When we're two balloons, and together our
direction is up, chances are we've found the right person. Our soulmate is the
one who makes life come to life.
- Richard Bach,
The Bridge Across Forever
-
We're different, we're the same. You thought you'd never find a word to say to
a woman who didn't fly airplanes. I couldn't imagine myself spending time with
a man who didn't love music. Could it be it's not as important to be alike as
it is to be curious? Because we're different, we can have the fun of exchanging
worlds, giving our loves and excitements to each other. You can learn music, I
can learn flying. And that's only the beginning. I think it would go on for us
as long as we live.
- Richard Bach, spoken by Leslie Parrish,
The Bridge Across Forever
-
You thought you knew what pain was. You thought that whatever happened, you
could handle it. You thought that you were in control. You thought wrong. Now
you've lost it all. She's gone. All that's left is the numbing pain. You have
to let go to stop the pain, but you can't. It's like a drug to you now. You
don't want to need it, but it has become a part of you, and it won't loosen its
grip on you. The control you once fought for, is gone. You have no control. And
you just don't care.
- Sanjay Singh
-
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Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear.
For I wear a thousand masks, masks that I am afraid to take off
and none of them are me.
Pretending is an art that's second nature with me, but don't be fooled.
For God's sake don't be fooled.
I give the impression that I am secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me,
within as well as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game;
that the waters are calm and I am in command,
and that I need no one.
But don't believe me, please.
-
My surface may seem smooth, but my surface is my mask,
ever-varying and ever-concealing
'Neath this lies no complacence.
Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know.
I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear of being exposed.
That is why I frantically create a mask to hide behind;
a nonchalant, sophisticated facade,
to help me pretend, to shield me from the glance that knows.
But such a glance is precisely my salvation.
My only salvation. And I know it.
That is, if it is followed by acceptance, if it is followed by love.
It is the only thing that will assure me of what I can't assure myself,
that I am worth something.
-
But, I don't tell you this. I don't dare. I am afraid to.
I am afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance and love.
I am afraid you will think less of me, that you will laugh at me,
and that you will see this and reject me.
So I play my game, my desperate game,
with a facade of assurance without, and a trembling child within.
And so begins the parade of masks, and my life becomes a front.
-
I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that is really nothing,
and nothing of what is everything,
of what is crying within me;
So when I am going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I am saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am not saying.
What I would like to be able to say,
what for survival I need to say, but I can't say.
-
I dislike hiding, Honestly!
I dislike the superficial game I am playing, the phony game.
I would really like to be genuine and spontaneous, and me,
but you have got to help me. You have got to hold out your hand,
even when that is the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes that blank stare of breathing death.
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you try to understand and because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings, very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings.
With your sensitivity and sympathy, and your power of understanding,
you can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
how you can be the creator of the person that is me if you choose to.
Please choose to. You alone can break down the wall
behind which I tremble, you alone can remove my mask.
You alone can release me from my shadowworld of panic and uncertainty;
From my lonely person.
Do not pass me by.
Please... do not pass me by.
-
It will not be easy for you;
a long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach me, the blinder I strike back.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for. But I am told that
love is stronger than walls, and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls with firm hands,
but with gentle hands for a child is very sensitive.
-
Who am I, you may wonder? I am someone you know very well.
For I am every man you meet and I am every woman you meet.
- _________________Jill Zevallos-Solak, 1974_____________________
-
[ Death scene of Cyrano ]
It is coming... I feel
Already shod with marble... gloved with lead...
Let the old fellow come now! He shall find me
On my feet sword in hand [ He draws his sword. ]
I can see him there he grins
He is looking at my nose that skeleton
What's that you say? Hopeless? Why, very well!
But a man does not fight merely to win!
No no better to know one fights in vain! ...
You there Who are you? A hundred against one
I know them now, my ancient enemies
[ He lunges at the empty air. ]
Falsehood! ... There! There! Prejudice Compromise
Cowardice [ Thrusting ] What's that? No! Surrender? No!
Never never! ... Ah, you too, Vanity!
I know you would overthrow me in the end
No! I fight on! I fight on! I fight on!
- Edmond Rostand, spoken by Cyrano de Bergerac
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Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the
longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the
suffering of mankind.
- Bertrand Russell, Autobiography
-
Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so.
- Bertrand Russell
-
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
- Bertrand Russell
-
The Christian view that all intercourse outside marriage is immoral
was, as we see in the above passages from St. Paul, based upon the
view that all sexual intercourse, even within marriage, is
regrettable. A view of this sort, which goes against biological
facts, can only be regarded by sane people as a morbid aberration.
The fact that it is embedded in Christian ethics has made Christianity
throughout its whole history a force tending towards mental disorders
and unwholesome views of life.
- Bertrand Russell
-
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth, more than ruin, more
even than death....Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and
terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and
comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid.
Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief
glory of man.
- Bertrand Russell
-
If it were true that men could achieve their good by means of turning
some men into sacrificial animals, and ... if I were asked to serve
the interests of society apart from, above and against my own I
would refuse....I would fight in the full confidence of the justice of
my battle and of a living being's right to exist.
- Ayn Rand
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Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole
existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the
process of setting man free from men.
- Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (1943)
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The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the
point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation
to tolerate speech.
- Justice Anthony Kennedy
-
With the first link, a chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first
thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.
- Jean-Luc Picard, quoting a fictional judge, Star Trek : The Next Generation, The Drumhead
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They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
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Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom. It is the
argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
- William Pitt (1756-1806), speech on the India Bill 18 November 1783
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Respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and
prosperous world, ... and that only through freedom can peace and prosperity
be realized.
- Preamble to the Libertarian Platform
-
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when
the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally
alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evilminded rulers. The
greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal,
well meaning but without understanding.
- Justice Louis D. Brandeis, dissenting,
Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 479 (1928)
- Since when is "public safety" the root password to the Constitution?
- C. D. Tavares
-
He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy
from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a
precedent that will reach to himself.
- Thomas Paine
-
You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will
convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it
would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.
- Lyndon Johnson
- The main problem with today's high-technology society is that we allow
politicians to run it instead of people equipped with the wherewithal to
understand it. Their mentalities are still in the nineteenth century. How can
they hope to manage complex economies when they're not competent to run a
yard-sale. What can they do that requires even a smattering of knowledge or
intellect?
People let them get away with it. If people are gonna elect turkeys to tell
them what to do, then the people are gonna have problems. You can't blame the
turkeys. The Constitution never guaranteed smart government; it guaranteed
representative government. And it works - that's what we've got.
The trouble with the damn system is that it selects for the skills needed to
get elected, and nothing else... which requires only an ability to fool a
sufficient number of people for just long enough to get the votes.
Unfortunately the personal qualities necessary for attaining office are
practically the opposite of those demanded by the office itself. A test that
you can pass only by cheating can't possibly select honest people, can it?
- James P. Hogan, Code of the Lifemaker
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Take Nothing but Pictures.
Leave nothing but footprints.
Kill nothing but time.
- Motto of the National Speleological Society
-
Money often costs too much.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
-
Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for
three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don't
have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it's
true. If you hire somebody without the first, you really want them to
be dumb and lazy.
- Warren Buffet
-
You can choose a ready guide
In some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice
You can choose from phantom fears
and kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that's clear
I will chose free will.
- RUSH, Free Will
-
Certain flaws are necessary for the whole. It would seem
strange if old friends lacked certain quirks.
- Goethe
-
In heaven all the interesting people are missing.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
-
Faith, noun. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who
speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
- Ambrose Bierce
-
Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished
from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.
- Ambrose Bierce
-
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us
with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
- Galileo Galilei
-
I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world,
and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming
feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.
- Thomas Jefferson
-
The clergy believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted
in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn
upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyrrany known
to the mind of man.
- Thomas Jefferson
-
Shake off all fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are
servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal
for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of
a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of
reason than that of blind faith.
- Thomas Jefferson
-
Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its
evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest
and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad
one.
- Thomas Jefferson
-
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to
keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves
against tyranny in government.
- Thomas Jefferson
-
For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for
those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't
remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are
pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are
here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system.
We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at
the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.
- Charles Bukowski
-
If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the
worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever.
- Woody Allen
-
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
- Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
-
I'm trying to tell you something about my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
And the best thing you've ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously
It's only life after all
- Emily Saliers, the Indigo Girls, Closer to Fine
-
I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in a crooked line.
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.
- Emily Saliers, the Indigo Girls, Closer to Fine
-
And now someone's on the telephone desperate in his pain
Someone's on the bathroom floor doing her cocaine
Someone's got his finger on the button in some room
No one can convince me we aren't gluttons for our doom
- Emily Saliers, the Indigo Girls, Prince Of Darkness
-
But I can't do the talks like they talk on my tv screen
I can't do a love song not the way you sang them to me
I can't do everything but I would do anything for you
Oh no I can't do anything except be in love with you
- Dire Straits, Romeo & Juliet
-
There's only us, there's only this.
Forget regret or life is yours to miss....
There's only now, there's only here.
Give in to love or live in fear.
No other path, no other way, no day but today.
- RENT, Jonathan Larson
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That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease
the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily
please them by doing what you know is wrong.
- William J. H. Boetcker
-
In Germany they came first 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 trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. 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 no one was left to speak up.
- Martin Niemoeller, German Lutheran Pastor
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The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to
throw a snowball.
- Doug Larson
-
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man.
- George Bernard Shaw
-
The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.
- George Bernard Shaw
-
There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.
- George Bernard Shaw
-
Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy.
- George Bernard Shaw
-
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other
countries because you were born in it.
- George Bernard Shaw
-
Democracy: The substitution of election by the incompetent
many for appointment by the corrupt few.
- George Bernard Shaw
-
Some men see things as they are and say "Why."
He dreamed things that never were and said "Why not?"
- George Bernard Shaw, John Bull's Other Island
-
Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you. Their
tastes may not be the same.
- George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903),
Maxims for Revolutionists: The Golden Rule
-
The universe is not indifferent to intelligence, it is actively hostile to it.
-
Love thy neighbor as yourself, but choose your neighborhood.
- Louise Beal
-
A free society is a place where it's safe to be unpopular.
- Adlai Stevenson
-
If one is master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has at
the same time, insight into and understanding of many things.
- Van Gogh
-
The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch
someone else do it wrong without comment.
- Theodore H. White
-
Laws are only words words written on paper, words that change on
society's whim and are interpreted differently daily by politicians,
lawyers, judges, and policemen. Anyone who believes that all laws should
always be obeyed would have made a fine slave catcher. Anyone who
believes that all laws are applied equally, despite race, religion, or
economic status, is a fool.
- John J. Miller, And Hope to Die
(in Jokertown Shuffle Wild Cards IX)
-
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman
church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant
church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
- Thomas Paine
-
The quality of an organization can never exceed the quality of the minds that
make it up.
- Harold R. McAlindon
-
Better contraceptives will control population only if people will use them.
A nuclear holocaust can be prevented only if the conditions under which
nations make war can be changed. The environment will continue to
deteriorate until pollution practices are abandoned. We need to make vast
changes in human behavior.
- B. F. Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity
-
When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign,
that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
- Jonathan Swift, Thoughts on Various Subjects
-
I have my faults, but changing my tune is not one of them.
- Samuel Beckett, The Unnameable
-
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and
day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any
human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
- e. e. cummings
-
I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are
ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we
have yet gone ourselves.
- E. M. Forster
-
Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He
lives by makebelieve.
- W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up, 1938
-
Love is not just looking at each other, it's looking in the same direction.
- Antoine de SaintExupery, Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939
-
It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done,
compared to what he might have done.
- Samuel Johnson, (in Boswell's Life, 1770)
-
There was once a man, Harry, called the Steppenwolf. He went on
two legs, wore clothes and was a human being, but nevertheless he
was in reality a wolf of the Steppes. He had learned a good deal of
all that people of a good intelligence can, and was a fairly clever
fellow. What he had not learned, however, was this: to find
contentment in himself and his own life.
- Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf
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Even in the presence of others he was completely alone.
- Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
-
People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes
in working order so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's
ever anything really meaningful to say.
- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Cat's Cradle
-
Foolproof systems don't take into account the ingenuity of fools.
- Gene Brown
-
Are cats lazy? Well, more power to them if they are. Which one of us has not
entertained the dream of doing just as he likes, when and how he likes, and as
much as he likes?
- Fernand Mery
-
Cat: a pygmy lion who loves mice, hates dogs, and patronizes human beings.
- Oliver Herford
-
Cats are smarter than dogs. You can not get eight cats to pull a sled through
snow.
- Jeff Valdez
-
If a dog jumps in your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does
the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.
- Alfred North Whitehead
-
An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.
- Victor Hugo, Ninetythree, 1874
-
The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved - loved for
ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.
- Victor Hugo
-
Some people have a large circle of friends while others have only friends that
they like.
- Unknown
-
Rule a kingdom as though you were cooking a small fish - don't overdo it.
- Lao Tzu
-
Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.
- Dalai Lama
-
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody
has thought.
- Albert von Szent-Gyorgy
-
If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the
shoulders of giants.
- Isaac Newton
-
I share no man's opinions; I have my own.
- Ivan Turgenev
-
To give pleasure to a single heart by a single kind act is better than a
thousand head-bowings in prayer.
- Saddi
-
Wear the old coat and buy the new book.
- Austin Phelps
-
We live in an age when pizza gets to your home before the police.
- Jeff Marder
-
Boggies are an unattractive but annoying people whose numbers have increased
rather precipitously since the bottom fell out of the fairy-tale market. Slow
and sullen, and yet dull, they prefer to lead simple lives of pastoral squalor.
They don't like machines more complicated than a garotte, a blackjack, or a
luger, and they have always been shy of the 'big folk' or 'biggers' as they
call us. As a rule they avoid us, except on rare occasions when a hundred or
so will get together to dry-gulch a lone farmer or hunter. They seldom exceed
three feet in height, but are fully capable of overpowering creatures half
their size when they get the drop on them ... Their beginnings lie far back
in the Good Ole Days when the planet was populated with the kind of colorful
creatures you have to drink a quart of Old Overcoat to see nowadays.
- Bored of the Rings, by the staff of the Harvard Lampoon
-
Do not fear your enemies. The worst they can do is kill you. Do not
fear friends. At worst, they may betray you. Fear those who do not
care; they neither kill nor betray, but betrayal and murder exists
because of their silent consent.
- Bruno Jasienski (Yasensky)
-
We tell lies when we are afraid, . . . afraid of what we don't know, afraid
of what others will think, afraid of what will be found out about us. But
every time we tell a lie, the thing that we fear grows stronger
- Tad Williams, Spoken by Dr. Morgenes, To Green Angel Tower (part of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn)
-
In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind
there are few.
- Shunryu Suzuki
-
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's
time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws
are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be
stopped at all.
- H. L. Mencken
-
I'm the one that has to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my
life the way I want to.
- Jimi Hendrix
-
The boys throw rocks at the frogs in jest.
But the frogs die in earnest.
- Bion
-
Show me the books he loves and I shall know the man far better than through
mortal friends.
- S. Weir Mitchell
-
Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only
light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals,
deep burning, unquenchable.
- Henry Ward Beecher
-
Any business arrangement that is not profitable to the other person will in the
end prove unprofitable for you. The bargain that yields mutual satisfaction is
the only one that is apt to be repeated.
- B. C. Forbes
-
The most wonderful of all things in life, I believe, is the discovery of
another human being with whom one's relationship has a glowing depth, beauty,
and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two
human beings is a most marvelous thing, it cannot be found by looking for it or
by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of Divine accident.
- Sir Hugh Walpole
-
I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and
pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and
knowledge.
- Igor Stravinsky
-
The conception of two people living together for twenty-five years without
having a cross word suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep.
- Alan Patrick Herbert
-
If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the
thinking.
- Lyndon Baines Johnson
- Each man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes
when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well
-- he has changed his market-cart into a chariot of the sun.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Just because an animal is large, it doesn't mean he doesn't want kindness;
however big Tigger seems to be, remember that he wants as much kindness as Roo.
- Pooh's Little Instruction Book, inspired by A. A. Milne
- Trouble is part of your life -- if you don't share it, you don't give the
person who loves you a chance to love you enough.
- Dinah Shore
- Know people for who they are rather than for what they are.
- Anthony J. D'Angelo, The College Blue Book
- Efficiency is intelligent laziness.
- David Dunham
-
I am become death, shatterer of worlds.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967), citing from the
Bhagavadgita, after witnessing the world's first nuclear explosion
-
The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935)
-
Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is
impossible for talent is genius.
- Henri-Frederic Amiel
-
That man is successful who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much,
who has gained the respect of the intelligent men and the love of children;
who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who leaves the world
better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a
rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to
express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had.
- Robert Louis Stevenson
-
Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood
from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually
record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise
children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of
civilization is what happened on the banks.
- Will Durant, The History of Civilization
-
Television is the first truly democratic culture - the first culture
available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people
want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want.
- Clive Barnes
- We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on
when it's necessary to compromise.
- Larry Wall
-
If you mean whiskey, the devil's brew, the
poison scourge, the bloody monster that defiles innocence, dethrones reason,
destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the
bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean that evil drink that
topples Christian men and women from the pinnacles of righteous and gracious
living into the bottomless pits of degradation, shame, despair, helplessness,
and hopelessness, then, my friend, I am opposed to it with every fiber of
my being.
However, if by whiskey you mean the oil of
conversation, the philosophic wine, the elixir of life, the ale that is
consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts
and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer,
the stimulating sip that puts a little spring in the step of an elderly
gentleman on a frosty morning; if you mean that drink that enables man to
magnify his joy, and to forget life's great tragedies and heartbreaks and
sorrow; if you mean that drink the sale of which pours into our treasuries
untold millions of dollars each year, that provides tender care for our little
crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitifully aged and
infirm, to build the finest highways, hospitals, universities, and
community colleges in this nation, then my friend, I am absolutely,
unequivocally in favor of it.
This is my position, and as always, I refuse
to be compromised on matters of principle.
- Address to the legislature by a Mississippi state senator, 1958, "Whiskey Speech"
-
Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as
hard to sleep after.
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh
- You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what
you're doing is work or play.
- Warren Beatty
-
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
-
Art has no function. It is not necessary. It has nothing to do with what
anyone wants you to do or wants it to be, nothing but you and itself. The
work generates itself and ideas and progress and learning come out of doing
the work in a particular way. Creative art is a learning process for the
artist and not a description of what is already known. An audience is
always warming but it must never be necessary to your work. The work needs
concentration and one is often exhausted by it. It takes so much effort just
to begin and although going on is mostly a pleasure it is also a great
effort. The only thing for a creative artist to do is to do his chosen work.
But really there is no choice. Nobody chooses. The only thing left for a
creative artist to do is to do his chosen work in spite of everything and
regardless of anything because when living draws to its end there are no
excuses he can make to himself or to anyone else for not having done it.
Either he did do it or he did not do it and very often he did not. Alas very
often he did not.
- Gertrude Stein
-
You should not turn a man's generosity as a sword against him. Any virtue
that a man has, even if he has many vices, should not be used as a tool against
him.
- I. I. Rabi, as quoted in Genius: The Life and Science of
Richard Feynman, by James Gleick
-
An ordinary genius is a fellow that you and I would be just as good at, if
we were only many times better.
- Marc Kac, as quoted in Genius: The Life and Science of
Richard Feynman, by James Gleick
-
You cannot rule the world El-ahrairah, for I will not have it so. All the
world will be your enemy, Prince With a Thousand Enemies. And whenever they
catch you, they will kill you. But first, they must catch you--digger,
listener, runner, Prince with the swift warning. Be cunning, and full of
tricks, and your people will never be destroyed.
- Richard Adams, Watership Down
-
Details are all that matters; God dwells there, and you never get to see Him if
you dont struggle to get them right.
- Stephen Jay Gould
-
"Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know and yet not wise enough
to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves?"
"Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance. It is better
to know even if the knowledge endures only for the moment that comes before
destruction than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack
of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder.
That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too."
- Isaac Asimov, The New Hugo Winners
-
________________________________________________
In tribute to David Gerard Cohen, rest well
Best of all he liked to sleep.
Sleeping was a very important activity for him. He liked to sleep for
longish periods, great swathes of time. Merely sleeping overnight was not
taking the business seriously. He enjoyed a good night's sleep and wouldn't
miss one for the world, but found it as anything halfway near enough. He
liked to be asleep by half-past eleven in the morning if possible, and if
that should come directly after a nice leisurely lie-in then so much the
better. A little light breakfast and a quick trip to the bathroom while
fresh linen was applied to his bed is really all the activity he liked to
undertake, and he took care that it didn't janate the sleepiness out of him
and disturb his afternoon of napping. Sometimes he was able to spend an
entire week asleep, and this he regarded as a good snooze. He had also
slept through the whole of 1986 and hadn't missed it.
- Douglas Adams, The Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
NOTE on Quotes:
I am somewhat ashamed to admit that some number of the above
quotes are from texts which I have not YET read but I am afraid there
are only so many hours in the day. This bothers me since obviously
the context of a quotation is extremely important to its meaning and
one's understanding. What bothers me even more than this fact is the
number of wonderful quotes from texts I HAVE read but just wasn't wise
enough to note down the quotation. One reads for pleasure and
intellectual stimulation and it is a sad dilemma that when one is most
intrigued by a work one is paying the least attention to individual
quotations of interest.
I also have a set of, generally humorous,
secondary quotations which you might enjoy and
a set of quotes from Babylon 5 and finally a
set of quotes relating to playing games.
You might also want to look at lists of My Favorites or read more quotations at
Generation Terrorists or
The Quotations Page or
QuoteDB.
For a set of humorous quotes look at the
Fortunes page.
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Please send me EMAIL if you have any
comments on or suggestions for these pages or if you just want to say hi.
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