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Windswept
On Pacific time
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Moderator's Pub
 
2006-10-08, 12:49

I thought it might be nice to have a thread with some great quotations. I think it's interesting to see what words are inspiring and meaningful to other people.

So I hope you will share with us some of the statements that have been significant to you in the course of your life.

Thanks for any replies.


I *really* like this snippet from "Ulysses" by Tennyson.

Quote:
Much have I seen and known...
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
  quote
chucker
 
Join Date: May 2004
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2006-10-08, 12:50

Winston Churchill:
Quote:
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
  quote
Windswept
On Pacific time
 
Join Date: May 2004
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2006-10-08, 12:51

Quote:
Originally Posted by chucker View Post
Winston Churchill:
... ...
  quote
Windswept
On Pacific time
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Moderator's Pub
 
2006-10-08, 12:54

Not sure who said this, but I remember liking it in college.

Quote:
An educated man is one who understands the relative disposition of things.
  quote
chucker
 
Join Date: May 2004
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2006-10-08, 12:56

Quote:
Originally Posted by Windswept View Post
... ...
I couldn't resist.
  quote
Banana
is the next Chiquita
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
 
2006-10-08, 13:05

Quote:
Originally Posted by Oracle of Delphi
After crossing the Halys, Croesus will destroy a great empire
I've always found it a bit amusing.
  quote
turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2006-10-08, 13:05

Quote:
Originally Posted by Benjamin Franklin
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75.
Two of my favorites!
  quote
Windswept
On Pacific time
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Moderator's Pub
 
2006-10-08, 13:06

In my battle against procrastination, I always liked this ad:

"JUST DO IT!"


Though not a quotation, years ago I had a poster in my walk-in closet that showed a turtle joyously riding on a skateboard. I thought that was kinda cool.

Edit: Actually, it just occurred to me that the wording on that poster was "Just Do It!"

Whoa! I had forgotten that.

Last edited by Windswept : 2006-10-08 at 13:18.
  quote
Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2006-10-08, 13:50

"There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad on a stricken field and refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight. He was sounding the deeps of his nature, and of the parts of his nature that were deeper than he, going back into the womb of Time. He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars and over the face of dead matter that did not move."

Jack London, _The Call of the Wild_


And, pretty much anything by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, or Winston Churchill.
  quote
Mugge
Thunderbolt, fuck yeah!
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Denmark
 
2006-10-08, 14:07

I'll just join the Winston fanboys and add my favourite:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Churchill
If you where my wife, I would drink it!
In response to a lady who said she would poison his wine if he had been her husband.

  quote
Windswept
On Pacific time
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Moderator's Pub
 
2006-10-08, 14:08

Didn't Churchill say something like:

"A preposition at the end of a sentence is difficult up with which to put."

  quote
Windswept
On Pacific time
 
Join Date: May 2004
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2006-10-08, 14:09

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mugge View Post
I'll just join the Winston fanboys and add my favourite:


In response to a lady who said she would poison his wine if he had been her husband.



Good one.
  quote
Windswept
On Pacific time
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Moderator's Pub
 
2006-10-08, 14:34

I just did a little reading about Jack London and found a few interesting things.

http://london.sonoma.edu/jackbio.html

Quote:
As an adolescent, the boy adopted the name of Jack. He worked at various hard labor jobs, pirated for oysters on San Francisco Bay, served on a fish patrol to capture poachers, sailed the Pacific on a sealing ship, joined Kelly's Army of unemployed working men, hoboed around the country, and returned to attend high school at age 19. In the process, he became acquainted with socialism and was known as the Boy Socialist of Oakland for his street corner oratory.
Quote:
Spending the winter of 1897 in the Yukon provided the metaphorical gold for his first stories, which he began publishing in the Overland Monthly in 1899. From that point he was a highly disciplined writer, who would produce over fifty volumes of stories, novels, and political essays. Although The Call of the Wild (1903) brought him lasting fame, many of his short stories deserve to be called classics, as does his critique of capitalism and poverty in The People of the Abyss (1903), and his stark discussion of alcoholism in John Barleycorn (1913). London's long voyage (1907-09) across the Pacific in a small boat provided material for books and stories about Polynesian and Melanesian cultures. He was instrumental in breaking the taboo over leprosy and popularizing Hawaii as a tourist spot.
He sounds like someone Dorian might have enjoyed knowing.
  quote
709
¡Damned!
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
 
2006-10-08, 14:34

I'm pretty young looking (even though I'm approaching 40) and have a pretty youthful personality in person, but I've had grey hair since my mid-20s. Like, not a few strands here and there, but a full head of grey hair (genes inherited from my father). I'll get asked about it every now and then by the fairer sex, and my favorite reply is: "It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage."

Any woman that knows where that line came from is in.

So it goes.
  quote
Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2006-10-08, 16:07

Quote:
Originally Posted by 709 View Post
"It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage."

Any woman that knows where that line came from is in.
I'll add to that: "Well, god damn it, where doesn't it hurt?" "Here. And here."

I have far too many "favorite" quotes, but here are a few near the top.

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." - Bill Watterson

"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?" - Winston Smith (1984, George Orwell)

The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting.
  quote
Windswept
On Pacific time
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Moderator's Pub
 
2006-10-08, 17:10

When I was a junior in high school (age 16), I read The Forsyte Saga.

A line from that book proved especially memorable.

"...the bracken grove of irretrievable delights... of golden moments in the long marriage of heaven and earth."
  quote
World Leader Pretend
Ruling teh World
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Boston, MA
 
2006-10-08, 17:11

"Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are."


Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
  quote
Dorian Gray
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Paris, France
 
2006-10-08, 18:09

Jack London was great! I read White Fang as a young boy, long before I read The Call of the Wild. I also greatly enjoyed The Road.

But I've chosen a quote from Aristotle's Ta Politika:
[N]ature herself, as has been often said, requires that we should be able, not only to work well, but to use leisure well; for, as I must repeat once again, the first principle of all action is leisure. Both are required, but leisure is better than occupation and is its end.
This might seem a strange quotation, but Aristotle repeats it several times in different forms. His point is that prudence, wisdom and morality are only achievable with a lot of leisure time, and that the ultimate goal of politics must therefore be to maximise the amount of leisure time in society. (Classical civilisation viewed work as a negative thing: a necessary evil.) This appreciation of leisure time was destroyed in the 16th century by the Protestant Reformation and the "Protestant work ethic" that followed, from which we developed instead a respect for and cultural acceptance of work: hard work, long work, often for the sake of it, and at enormous expense to our virtue.

Now in the UK people work so long that they have hardly any interests or hobbies beyond crashing into the couch to watch TV and going for a "holiday" once or twice a year. Few people are passionate about anything, few people have more than a rudimentary understanding of our culture's achievements and institutions, and few people understand why they even subject themselves to such an empty existence. They don't have time to think about it.
  quote
Bryson
Rocket Surgeon
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: The Canadark
 
2006-10-08, 18:26

Bertrand Russell: A History Of Western Philosophy:
Quote:
There is a story of a man who got the experience from laughing gas; whenever he was under its influence, he knew the secret of the universe, but when he came to, he had forgotten it. At last, with immense effort, he wrote down the secret before the vision had faded. When completely recovered, he rushed to see what he had written. It was "A smell of petroleum prevails throughout."

Crazy. If you Google Search the last line, the 6th hit is one of my posts here. And the 9th is one of my very few on AppleInsider.
  quote
MBHockey
skates=grafs
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: New York
 
2006-10-08, 18:31

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad View Post
"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." - Bill Watterson
That is awesome
  quote
drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2006-10-08, 18:34

I only need turn to my list of sigs I've collected in Entourage..... haven't been using them in years...


From Mr. Python:
Quote:
I think that all right-thinking people in this country are sick and tired
of being told that ordinary, decent people are fed up in this country with
being sick and tired. I'm certainly not! But I'm sick and tired of being
told that I am!
From Ransom K. Ferm:
Quote:
With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousand
miles closer to globular cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules, and
still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no
such thing as progress.
  quote
Windswept
On Pacific time
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Moderator's Pub
 
2006-10-09, 11:58

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

Confucius
  quote
Windswept
On Pacific time
 
Join Date: May 2004
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2006-10-09, 12:27

The first part of The Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, and signed on July 4, 1776.

Long, I know, but interesting.


Quote:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

— That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

— Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Ah, King George. What a firestorm you caused to be let loose.
  quote
Windswept
On Pacific time
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Moderator's Pub
 
2006-10-09, 12:41

Preamble to the US Constitution, followed by the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

Quote:
PREAMBLE

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.


http://www.law.emory.edu/FEDERAL/usconst.html


AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION (first 10 of 27):

The Bill of Rights

Amendment I: Freedom of speech, religion, press, petition and assembly.

Amendment II: Right to bear arms and militia.

Amendment III: Quartering of soldiers.

Amendment IV: Warrants and searches.

Amendment V: Individual debt and double jeopardy.

Amendment VI: Speedy trial, witnesses and accusations.

Amendment VII: Right for a jury trial.

Amendment VIII: Bail and fines.

Amendment IX: Existence of other rights for the people.

Amendment X: Power reserved to the states and people.
  quote
alcimedes
I shot the sherrif.
 
Join Date: May 2004
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2006-10-09, 12:56

Make the choice, adventurous stranger,
Strike the bell and bide the danger
Or wonder 'till it drives you mad
What would have been if you had...
---C.S.Lewis
  quote
Windswept
On Pacific time
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Moderator's Pub
 
2006-10-09, 13:50

"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

John Stuart Mill
English economist & philosopher (1806 - 1873)
  quote
Windowsrookie
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
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2006-10-09, 14:00

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad
Well, it looks like I'm eating enough fiber.
  quote
Naderfan
Queen of Confrontation
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Ohio
 
2006-10-09, 14:04

Quote:
Originally Posted by alcimedes View Post
Make the choice, adventurous stranger,
Strike the bell and bide the danger
Or wonder 'till it drives you mad
What would have been if you had...
---C.S.Lewis
I love that. From the Magician's Nephew, correct?

I'll come back for more, but right now I'll have to go with these:

"Kids, you tried your hardest, and you failed miserably! The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson

"Family. Friendship. Religion. These are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business." -Monty Burns
  quote
thuh Freak
Finally broke the seal
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2006-10-09, 14:30

One of my favorite song quotes is by Dylan in his 'Ballad in Plain D' (an epic length song about love & loss). At the end of the song, as he relents on their separation:

Oh! My friends from the prison, they ask unto me: "How good (how good) does it feel to be free?"
And I answer them, most mysteriously: "Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?"

Another fav from Dylan:

All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

Thats from "Master of War". He's basically addressing warmongerers, and all but calls em shitheads in every verse.
  quote
sirnick4
I was knighted
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Houston, TX
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2006-10-09, 14:33

Check my signature
  quote
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