Who needs a quote?

wayne-scales · Dec 12, 2010

A thread of favourite, meaningful, and personal quotes.

Aristotle said:

Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.
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Jungle Japes · Dec 12, 2010

Jim Elliot said:

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."
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magikot · Dec 12, 2010

anonymous said:

I'm too fuck to drunk
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Crypton · Dec 12, 2010

You probably want a English translation of that "quote", right...

Francois de La Rochefoucauld said:

The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it.
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Xenocrates said:

I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
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Arthgon · Dec 12, 2010

Euripides said:

I sacrifice to no god save myself — And to my belly, greatest of deities.”
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ytzk · Dec 12, 2010

Lao Tze -

If you are gentle then you will not need strength.
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Zanza · Dec 12, 2010

She said she was eighteen!
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DaneKoponen · Dec 14, 2010

Max Born said:

The belief that there is only one truth, and that oneself is in possession of it, is the root of all evil in the world.
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p. 230, My Life and Views (1968)

Benjamin Franklin said:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
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He wrote it in quotation marks sometime shortly before February 17, 1775 as part of his notes for a proposition at the Pennsylvania Assembly, as published in Memoirs of the life and writings of Benjamin Franklin (1818), but its generally believed to have been his original thoughts.

Thomas Paine said:

It is the duty of every patriot to protect his country from his government.
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I can't find this quote in any of his popular writings, but I saw it attributed to him on a bumper sticker. The accuracy of bumper stickers in properly attributing quotes is questionable at best I suspect.

Richard Dawkins said:

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.
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"God's Utility Function," Scientific American, November, 1995, p. 85

Richard Dawkins said:

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?
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Unweaving the Rainbow (1998)

Richard Dawkins said:

What worries me about religion is that it teaches people to be satisfied with not understanding.
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Heart Of The Matter: God Under The Microscope | BBC (1996)

Richard Dawkins said:

Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let's now stop being so damned respectful!
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Has the world changed?, The Guardian (October 11, 2001)

Richard Dawkins said:

The population of the US is nearly 300 million, including many of the best educated, most talented, most resourceful, humane people on earth. By almost any measure of civilised attainment, from Nobel prize-counts on down, the US leads the world by miles. You would think that a country with such resources, and such a field of talent, would be able to elect a leader of the highest quality. Yet, what has happened? At the end of all the primaries and party caucuses, the speeches and the televised debates, after a year or more of non-stop electioneering bustle, who, out of that entire population of 300 million, emerges at the top of the heap? George Bush.
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On a less serious note, some good bumper stickers and joke quotes I've heard over the years...

"All generalizations are false."

"Despite the cost of living, have you noticed how it remains so popular?"

"Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?"

"Energizer Bunny arrested, charged with battery."

"Give me ambiguity, or give me something else!"

"I get enough exercise just pushing my luck."

"If marriage were outlawed, only outlaws would have in-laws."

"If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done?"

"Imagine if birds were tickled by feathers..."

"What happens if you get scared half to death twice?"

And my all time favorite bumper sticker...

I really need you to know what I believe in.
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Dark Elf · Dec 14, 2010

"They used to call the Devil the father of lies. But for someone whose sin is meant to be pride one would think that lying would leave something of a sour taste. So my theory is that when the Devil wants to get something out of you, he doesn't lie at all. He tells you the exact, literal truth. And he lets you find your own way to Hell."

Mr. Easterman, the Lucifer comic.

"What would your Good be doing if there were no Evil, and what would the Earth look like if shadows disappeared from it? After all, shadows are cast by objects and people. There is the shadow of my sword. But there are also shadows of trees and living creatures. Would you like to denude the Earth of all the trees and all the living beings in order to satisfy your fantasy of rejoicing in the naked light? You are a fool."

Mr. Woland, The Master and Margarita

"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

Samuel Johnson

Grakelin · Dec 14, 2010

"I am sick of these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane."

Samuel Jackson.

Zanza · Dec 14, 2010

The Samuel Jonhson quote made you think of that didn't it Grakelin, it made me think of that.

DaneKoponen · Dec 15, 2010

Friedrich Nietzsche said:

Fear is the mother of morality.
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I love nothing more than a concise truth.

Steven Wright said:

I think it's wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly.
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Dark Elf · Dec 15, 2010

A midget fortune-teller who has escaped from prison is a small medium at large.

bryant1380 · Dec 15, 2010

"Nothing says 'Please don't rape me' like several 158 grain, semi-jacketed hollow points."

- Anybody who has the moral fortitude to protect themselves.

bryant1380 · Dec 15, 2010

Teddy Kennedy's driver's license has killed more people than all my guns combined.

The only thing protecting the 1st Amendment is the 2nd.

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

We were meant to be free ALWAYS.

There are three reasons to own a gun: To protect yourself and your family, to hunt dangerous and delicious animals, and to keep the King of England outta your face.

"Good people do not need laws and bad people will break them anyway." – Plato

There are no such things as dangerous weapons. There are only dangerous men. -- Robert Heinlein

Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock. - Will Rogers

'No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is as formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.'- Ronald Reagan

wayne-scales · Jan 25, 2011

Schopenhauer said:

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
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Pithy...

Frigo · Jan 26, 2011

Lady Justice may be blind, but her scales let her know when enough gold has been put forth so she can reach a decision.
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Philes · Jan 26, 2011

Because it might get overlooked as it's my sig, I'll simply requote it here:

Tycho Brahe said:

There are things in this world that I dislike. One of the things I dislike the most is a serious argument, well constructed, delivered by someone who makes themselves difficult to respect.
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Grossenschwamm · Jan 26, 2011

Philes, I read your sig every time you post.
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wayne-scales · Jan 27, 2011

Nietzsche said:

Whoever despises himself still respects himself as one who despises.
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