BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Sep 11 - 11:42 AM

There are two lines in Louis McNeice's Autumn Journal, supposed to refer to the Ancient World, which strike me these days as a fine description of my early years:~

   It was all so unimaginably different
   And all so long ago.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: autolycus
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 09:25 AM

Correction

The beginning of the list within should have read

"To laugh is to risk appearing foolish.
"To weep is to risk appearing sentimental."

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: kendall
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 09:12 AM

To my Father:
No man ever need be a total failure. He can always serve as a bad example.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: kendall
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 09:10 AM

"You must know where you were to know where you are; you must know where you are to know where you are going."

Life is like a roll of toilet tissue. The older you get, the faster it goes."

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 08:05 AM

""The saying has to be from an English speaker, or at the very least, some related language.""

More or less what I thought Dave, though you expressed it rather better.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: autolycus
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 06:07 AM

"There are many kinds of risks in life: emotional, intellectual and physical. The important ones are those that help you to grow and express your values.

"To laugh is to risk appearing foolish.
"To weep is to risk appearing foolish.
"To reach out for another is to risk involvement.
"To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
"To place your ideas and dreams before the crowd is to risk loss.
"To love is to risk not being loved in return.
"To live is to risk dying.
"To hope is to risk despair.
"To try at all is to risk failure.

"But risk we must because the greatest hazard is to risk nothing at all."

Thus far the quote is by Wally "Famous" Amos.

The continuation by an unknown hand is:-

"The person who risks nothing has nothing, is nothing, does nothing.
"They may avoid suffering and sorrow but simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live.
"Chained by attitudes we become slaves, forfeit freedom.
"Only the person who takes risks is free."

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 08 Sep 11 - 04:17 PM

"An explanation should be as simple as possible.....and no simpler

.....Albert Einstein

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Ed T
Date: 08 Sep 11 - 12:39 PM

""There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept."" - Ansel Adams


""Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.""
- Dame Edna Everage

""Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions."" - Gielogo Pensczekrelto

""All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.""
- James Thurber

""There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else."" - James Thurber


""We pray for circumstance, deal with happenstance, and accept consequence…"" -Admiral Pluto Krozabeeep

"Jeez Arnie, this damn chef's hat is too tight and is makin' my brain hurt. No wonder this stuff we put in these cans tastes like crap!" - Hector Boiardi (yes, that Chef Boy-R-Dee!!!)




""The time to be happy is now; the place to be happy is here.""   - Robert G. Ingersoll



"The future keeps telling you what the past was about."" -Tammy Skleerna


"Train rides/trainwrecks, notta lotta diff', 'ceptin' fer one crucial detail, n'est ce pas?"
- Admiral Pluto Krozabeeep

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Ed T
Date: 08 Sep 11 - 12:30 PM

""The fortunate man, in my opinion, is he to whom the gods have granted the power either to do something which is worth recording or to write what is worth reading, and most fortunate of all is he who can do both. Such a man was my uncle.""
[Pliny the Younger, Letters 6.16.3; tr. B. Radice

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Ed T
Date: 08 Sep 11 - 12:28 PM

It's hard being black. You ever been black? I was black once-when I was poor. Larry Holmes

This taught me a lesson, but I'm not sure what it is.
John McEnroe

You miss 100% of the shots you never take.
Wayne Gretzky

I define fear as standing across the ring from Joe Louis and knowing he wants to go home early.
Max Baer

Rage takes energy, and I want to keep my energy focused. If a man hits me, I'll think, good for you, that's a good shot.
Lennox Lewis

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: kendall
Date: 08 Sep 11 - 11:49 AM

Money doesn't bring happiness, but if you have enough of it you can choose the kind of misery that suites you best.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Sep 11 - 10:50 AM

"The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that is the way to bet."

    Damon Runyon

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: theleveller
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 12:21 PM

"A civilization flourishes when people plant trees under which they will never sit." Chinese proverb.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 12:14 PM

"If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem"

I always thought that this was a misquote of the original quote: "If you are part of the problem, then you are part of the solution." Which makes more sense, if you think about it.

Saul

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Midchuck
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 12:07 PM

"When you're teetotal...when you're teetotal, you've always got the rotten feeling that everybody's your boss..."

- Ramblin' Jack Elliot, in "I Belong to Glascow." Don't know if that line was original to him or not.

Peter

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: theleveller
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 11:21 AM

The Zappa quote brings to mind another of his gems: "The mind is like a parachute - it only works when it's open."

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: kendall
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 10:56 AM

He has given sodomy a bad name. (Winston Churchill)

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Zen
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 10:54 AM

Frank Zappa (from failing memory so it might be slightly out): The two most abundant things in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity but not neccessarily in that order.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: theleveller
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 10:27 AM

"The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn't deliver the goods."
John Maynard Keynes

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: GUEST,999
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 09:25 AM

"War does not determine who is right - only who is left."

Bertrand Russell

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Naemanson
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 08:54 AM

The whole of the Sullivan Ballou letter, preferably with Ashoken Farewell playing in the background, from Ken Burns's Civil War. In this day and age of our soldiers fighting in foreign lands it surely strikes a chord.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: GUEST,Uncle_DaveO
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 08:46 AM

Don, your quote,
"War does not determine who is right, it determines who is LEFT."
can't be from Confucius, because it's dependent on the English language use of "right" and "left".

The saying has to be from an English speaker, or at the very least, some related language.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Midchuck
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 08:39 AM

I liked Lazarus Long, but Heinlein got so sexist I couldn't stand to read his stuff any more.

I mean, make sure she has her own desk? Shouldn't that be HER decision?

Mrrzy, you got it bass-ackwards!

Heinlein STARTED OUT sexist (by today's standards), and gradually evolved into being less so. What we now call sexism was the normal assumptions of society in general at the time of his childhood - heck, of mine, for that matter. He did a better job of growing out of them than a great many people did. I mean, taking your quote in particular, a great many people (mostly, but not all, men) born when he was would oppose the idea that a man should keep your hands off his wife's desk. After all, she's only a woman, and likely to do something foolish if you don't check on her constantly...

I think the term is "presentism." The idea that people in earlier generations were evil, simply because they didn't share all of our present assumptions about the right way to act. I'm sure that the people 50 or 100 years from now will think that WE were evil. Although I have now idea what their assumptions about morals and ethics will be.

Peter

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: GUEST,999
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 10:00 PM

"Whoever has the gold makes the rules"

Jafar says it to Alladin in the prison when hes disguised as an old man. He was trying to get him to go to the cave of wonders....


I found that little gem on the www at some answers.com or other.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 09:21 PM

Nice thread, well-revived.

I liked Lazarus Long, but Heinlein got so sexist I couldn't stand to read his stuff any more.

I mean, make sure she has her own desk? Shouldn't that be HER decision?

I like the Nietzsche one, quoted elsewhere probably more correctly, something like Then up spake one old greybeard of a god, and quoth he, I am the Lord they God, you shall have no other gods before Me... and all the other gods died laughing.

I also think he was the one who said, after Voltaire said that if god hadn't existed it would have been necessary to invent him, that the same could not be said of Voltaire. That is, if he hadn't existed, there would have been no need to invent him.

Ingersoll said something about Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles flourishes.

I thought Data's brother was Lore, as in, data and lore.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 08:01 PM

"War does not determine who is right, it determines who is LEFT.".......Attributed to Confucius (Though I think it's probably much more recent).

It's a small world, unless you have to paint it....Les Barker.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: autolycus
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 06:56 PM

The Golden Rule.

Whoever has the gold makes the rules.


{Source required]

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 06:07 PM

Tell a lie enough times and people will come to believe it.
---Joseph Goebbels

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Helen
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 04:26 PM

"It is better to remain silent, and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt" Abraham Lincoln.

"If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem" Charles Rosner, often attributed to Eldridge Cleaver.

Two of my favourites which are always relevant, in my opinion.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: EBarnacle
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 01:03 PM

Once, I invented a quote: "The river runs all the way to the sea" and attributed it to Lohr, honoring Data's brother on Star Trek. I was embarassed to find out that there really is someone by that name.

"Everyone is an expert but no one is an expert on everything." This quote by Will Rogers should be kept in mind during our BS threads.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: GUEST,999
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 01:03 PM

The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.

Mark Twain

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Amos
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 11:44 AM

If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.

Henry Ford

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 11:35 AM

"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 in First Principles of Government (1795)

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 09:55 AM

Bluesman, the fuller version of that quote is:

What a glorious thing youth is. And what a pity that it's wasted on the young.

And the usual attribution is George Bernard Shaw

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 06:15 AM

"The trouble with youth is,it is wasted on the young."

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: autolycus
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 04:59 AM

A fine one from my therapy teacher, especially useful these days.

"Perfectionism is unhealthy."

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: ollaimh
Date: 05 Sep 11 - 09:18 PM

my favourite which i have posted here often:

"the struggle to remember IS the struggle against tyrany"

milan kundera


number two fav oftyen quoted here.

"the english practiced genocide in ireland untill they were ready to take the show on the road, arrivng on the coast of california all dressed up for empire and no one left to kill"

gore vidal(ecplianing the many american wars)

and a wierd one i ran into yesterday

"is millis fuil namhaid,ach is milse fuil caraid"

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: kendall
Date: 05 Sep 11 - 07:38 PM

Upon re reading my post I had to laugh. A couple of quotation marks would have been helpful too.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: GUEST,999
Date: 05 Sep 11 - 02:34 PM

Crowhugger,

That quote is attributed to David Icke on the www. However, I'd take that with a bit of salt because I know I heard or saw something very similar and it wasn't from David Icke--likely one of those vacuous platitude posters people hang on walls, often classroom walls. Anyway, there ya go.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 05 Sep 11 - 02:07 PM

Kendall, the word "whose" indicates possession or ownership.

Thus that statement can meaningfully be reworded as:

Never squat while wearing spurs, and never slap a man who owns chewing tobacco which has been attributed to Will Rogers.

If "the man" got the tobacco (directly or indirectly) from Will Rogers, where did Will Rogers get it? As phrased, the statement says nothing about what "the man" is doing with the tobacco.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: autolycus
Date: 05 Sep 11 - 01:25 PM

No joy so far.


Patience and time do more than force and rage, [La Fontaine 1621-1695]

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Crowhugger
Date: 05 Sep 11 - 01:08 PM

I don't know who said this, maybe a someone out there can provide that information, but I often enjoy this quotation, picked up (unattributed) from an e-mail:

"Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground."

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Micca
Date: 04 Sep 11 - 03:00 PM

They told us you'll conquer when you submit.
We've submitted and found ashes.
They told us you'll conquer when you love.
We loved and found ashes.
They told us you'll conquer when you abandon your life.
We abandoned our life and found ashes.
We found ashes.
It remains to rediscover our life, now that we've nothing left. I imagine that he who'll rediscover life, in spite of so much paper, so many emotions, so many debates, and so much teaching, will be someone like us, only with a slightly tougher memory. We ourselves can't help still remembering what we've given. He'll remember only what he's gained from each of his offerings. What can a flame remember? If it remembers a little less than is necessary, it goes out; if it remembers a little more than is necessary, it goes out. If only it could teach us, while it burns, to remember correctly. I've come to an end: if only someone else could begin at the point where I've ended. There are times when I have the impression that I've reached the limit, that everything's in its place, ready to sing together in harmony. The machine on the point of starting. I can even imagine it in motion, alive, like something unexpectedly new. But there's still something: an infinitesimal obstacle, a grain of sand, shrinking and shrinking yet unable to disappear completely. I don't know what I ought to say or what I ought to do. Sometimes that obstacle seems to me like a teardrop wedged into some articulation of the orchestra, keeping it silent until it's been dissolved. And I have an unbearable feeling that all the rest of my life won't be sufficient to dissolve this drop within my soul. And I'm haunted by the thought that, if they were to burn me alive, this obstinate moment would be the last to surrender.
Stratis Thalassinos describes a Man, George Seferis

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: autolycus
Date: 04 Sep 11 - 09:23 AM

"A man should try everything once, except incest and Morris dancing."


"Generally attributed to the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham."


Actually originates in the war-time autobiography of Sir Arnold Bax.


Anything attributed to beecham should be treated circumspectly. Ditto Twain and Wilde.



"Ecology. Look it up. You're involved." [Ben Metcalfe. ecologist].

Just to save the bother,

"Ecology.It's a branch of science concerned with the relationships between organisms and their environment."

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Joe_F
Date: 03 Sep 11 - 08:02 PM

Peace: Likewise, I have forgotten who said "The people who make history are even dumber than the people who write it".

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Midchuck
Date: 03 Sep 11 - 07:41 PM

Kendall, you wrote:

"never slap a man whose chewing tobacco has been attributed to Will Rogers"

When you meant to write:

"Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco" has been attributed to Will Rogers.

See my quote about the significance of the apostrophe, below. I was reminded of it by your post.

P.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: kendall
Date: 03 Sep 11 - 07:29 PM

Dave, I don't understand your question?

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Sep 11 - 05:35 PM

A man should try everything once, except incest and Morris dancing.

Generally attributed to the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham.

Of course he got it wrong about the Morris Dancing. More insightful when he said: "There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn't give a damn what goes on in between."   Applies to just about any musical ensemble. Possibly not so much to Morris Bands, because the dancers are liable to get distracted, and that shows. (Maybe that's why Sir Thomas didn't approve of them...)

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Midchuck
Date: 03 Sep 11 - 04:54 PM

The apostrophe is the difference between a business that knows its s*** and a business that knows it's s***.

P.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Quotes - relevant to today's world
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 03 Sep 11 - 04:13 PM

Kendall, where did Will Rogers get the tobacco in the first place?

Dave Oesterreich