Zenan Plains - Site Discussion > General Discussion
Quote Digest
ZeaLitY:
Venture your most passionate and inspirational quotes.
--- Quote from: William Hutchinson Murray ---
(1913 - 1996) Mountain Climber, Scottish Author
The Scottish Himalaya Expedition, 1951
"But when I said that nothing had been done I erred in one important matter. We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts. We had put down our passage money--booked a sailing to Bombay. This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!"
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Winston Churchill ---If you're going through hell, keep going.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Jimi Hendrix ---If I'm free, it's because I'm always running.
Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.
When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Bruce Lee ---Optimism is a faith that leads to success.
All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.
Circumstances hell! I make circumstances!
Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend. Adapt!
If I tell you I'm good, you would probably think I'm boasting, If I tell you I'm no good, You know I'm lying.
There are lots of guys around the world that are lazy. They have big fat guts. They talk about chi power and things they can do, but don't believe it.
Use only that which works, and take it from any place you find it.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Gemma's quote about Naruto, translated by crustol ---Although beaten, he kept thinking of a next move.
The power to believe in yourself -- that will become the power to change fate.
He knows that, and he knows it instinctively.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Yondaime ---Under the courageous, there is nothing.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Rock Lee ---The springtime of youth waits for no one!
Hard work.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Roman Proverb ---Fortes Fortuna Aduvat.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Sir Edmund Hillary, first to climb Everest ---Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.
People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.
You don’t have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things – to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Chrono Cross Frozen Flame ---Fargo: Ha ha ha!!
Arrgh, what are you
trying to tell me, Flame?
You say that we are all
born in sin and all die
in sin?
Well, I say that is why we
should continue to sin,
then....
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Yet, is not the very
reason we go on living so
that we can make ammends
for our sins!?
Pierre:
I understand now!
A true hero knows
fear...
And yet while knowing
fear, he still has the
courage to put up a
fight!
If moi lack the caliber
to be called such then
moi will just have to
work harder!
--- End quote ---
Lord J Esq:
I have collected an entire book of quotes, ever-growing! Here are a few...
--- Quote from: Albert Einstein ---“The world as we see it is only the world as we see it. Others may see it differently.”
--- End quote ---
It's not that I'm a relativist, but it is good to remember in the heat of an argument that everybody has a reason for being where and who they are.
--- Quote ---“Quod erat demonstrandum.”
--- End quote ---
Which was the thing to be proven...
--- Quote from: T.S. Eliot ---“We shall never cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
--- End quote ---
This is why materialism is rejected by so many people: They cannot bother themselves to take the time and trouble to invest in their corporeal existence. It doesn't matter if you eat one orange, or twenty, if you do not bother to taste what you eat, or appreciate what you have, or enjoy what you are. Religion offers easy lies; the physical world offers difficult truths. To stand back and observe the world from afar, to immerse oneself in the cusp of a single moment, to focus on the smallest leaf, and to travel the world and see all the leaves...is the only way to know this place in the slightest.
--- Quote ---“White signifies Purity and Innocence; Red, Hardiness and Valor; and Blue, Vigilance, Perseverance and Justice.”
--- End quote ---
Looks like these colors ran after all. Tsk tsk. Depravity, America. Indolence. Blood on your hands; sloth in your hearts; villainy in your minds. The only color left for this country is shit brown, for the great big pile we've tossed ourselves into.
--- Quote from: Albert Einstein ---“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
--- End quote ---
Another Einstein quote, and one that I have to live out unfortunately all too often.
--- Quote from: Adlai Stevenson ---“My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.”
--- End quote ---
And that, my friends, is why Adlai Stevenson is dead.
--- Quote ---“From the cowardice
That shrinks from new truths,
From the laziness
That is content with half-truths,
And from the arrogance
That thinks it knows all truth.
O God of truth,
deliver us.”
--- End quote ---
This is an old Hebrew prayer. It perfectly depicts the cowardice of the Religious Right, the ignorance of the teeming masses, and the self-serving arrogance of types like Daniel Krispin. All three are in abundance in this world; this is one reason why the truth is so important, and why I sometimes get people mad at me by calling bullshit on them instead of letting bygones be bygones.
--- Quote from: Wong-kei Ying ---“A hero lives but a few moments, but a master holds on to his life.”
--- End quote ---
From a kung fu movie, yes, but important! We romanticize heroes unduly in this world; we call a thing "hero" who has no business wearing the title. We debase the word, and dilute it. And in our eagerness to devalue the label, those who wear the label also become devalued. Hence, the intrigue of this particular quote.
--- Quote ---“In the beginning there was nothing. And God said let there be light and there was...nothing. (But at least you could see it.)”
--- End quote ---
Amen.
--- Quote ---“To the degree that you impose your values upon others, they cease to be values and instead become judgments.”
--- End quote ---
Another lesson for the Religious Right to keep in mind when they proclaim to be living out Jesus' teachings. So, are any straight people in Massachusetts still married anymore?
--- Quote ---“If you’re right you’ll never need to blow your stack, and if you’re wrong you never should.
--- End quote ---
This is one of those truisms that is easier said than done. Nevertheless, in this time when our tempers are under control, it may do us well to contemplate the wisdom of restraining one's anger wherever possible.
--- Quote ---“‘After the meal green tea will be available to lift the astronaut’s spirits,’ the scientist said, perhaps overlooking the possibility that being the first Chinese astronaut might not be a big enough ego boost.”
--- End quote ---
CNN wrote this on the subject of the menu for China’s first space flight.
--- Quote from: Robert Heinlein ---“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
--- End quote ---
I often hear people say they are too busy, or too overworked, or too overwhelmed, to undertake fruitful enterprises. Many bad decisions are indefensible once the logic of Heinlein is taken into account. We must simply fess up, and, more than that, resolve not to let our mistakes recur.
--- Quote from: Hillaire Belloc ---“Whatever happens
We have got
The Maxim gun
And they have not.”
--- End quote ---
Pithily written on the subject of British technological superiority circa 1900.
--- Quote ---“Survival of the fittest.
Adios,
Unfit”
--- End quote ---
A 70-year-old man’s valedictory note; he jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.
--- Quote from: Robert Heinlein ---“They didn’t want it good, they wanted it Wednesday.”
--- End quote ---
Another Heinlein quip.
--- Quote from: Isolde ---“You can’t make a point by being extreme in a compulsively extreme culture. From now on, I’m going to rebel by being quietly moderate.”
--- End quote ---
The first sentence is is one of the most underappreciated truths of our time. The second is open to interpretation...but what else is one to do?
--- Quote ---“See the world as yourself, and then you can care for all things.”
--- End quote ---
I am forever astounded by how cruel people can be, to other people, to their environment, to their pets and belongings...it simply asounds me. We should do so well to remember ourselves when we deal with life.
--- Quote from: Celes Chere ---“You want to live in this world the way it is? No? Then do something about it!”
--- End quote ---
Just don't get caught up in the "being extreme" boat, unless you know what you're doing. And you don't. In any case, meaningful change often begins with the simplest of choices, and the easiest of behaviors. Persistance, now that's hard.
--- Quote from: Abraham Lincoln ---“Writing—the art of communicating thoughts to the mind—is the great invention of the world....Great, very great, in enabling us to converse with the dead, the absent, and the unborn, at all distances of time and space, and great not only in its direct benefits, but its great help to all other inventions.”
--- End quote ---
Perhaps explaining why Lincoln lives on even today...
--- Quote from: Robert W. Lucky ---“In the final stages, before the user revolution occurs, word processing programs would begin to criticize our ideas. ‘Let me give a counterargument,’ the paper clip would begin.”
--- End quote ---
I fear many people would be no match for that spunky little paperclip.
--- Quote from: Maxim Myslivets ---“So you see, even a fifth-grade schoolchild can solve second-order linear differential equations…sometimes.”
--- End quote ---
Once upon a time my Math 307 teacher explained a special case differential equation that is surprisingly straightforward, simple, and even fun. A fifth-grader really could solve it! Now, as for all the other differential equations out there...
--- Quote from: Julius Caesar ---“If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it.”
--- End quote ---
One of history's greatest minds speaks one of history's greatest pearls of practical knowledge. When we are under the law, we do well to obey it.
--- Quote ---“I'm having a suspicion that ‘moral values’ means ‘anti-gay, anti-women, anti-science, anti-personal-liberty and anti-free-speech.’”
--- End quote ---
Remember the Republicans' "Culture of Life"? 1984 may have been a little late, but it got here.
--- Quote from: ZeaLitY ---“These Wheel of Time people make no sense to me. I've met some before, and they seem totally absorbed in some fantasy world.”
--- End quote ---
I thought I'd post that one since our beloved Dear Leader of the Compendium earned a place in my Quote Book because of it.
--- Quote from: Wil Wheaton ---“It’s raining here, and there’s a pretty strong breeze blowing across my backyard. There’s a tiny hummingbird with a shiny green breast sitting on a telephone wire that connects to the eave just above my office window...the wire’s moving all over the place, but he’s not letting go for anything. That’s cool.”
--- End quote ---
Am I the only one who reads Wil's blog?
--- Quote ---“Contrary to popular belief, social validation won't make you complete.”
--- End quote ---
It takes a lot of courage, but we must understand that the mob is not the ultimate authority in this world. Peer pressure is usually worth resisting--or, better yet, avoiding altogether. A little aloofness, a little solitude...these would salve the wounds of many-a-poor soul.
--- Quote from: Irvin Kershner ---“Yoda’s philosophy was quite simplistic. ‘If you get angry, you’re gonna lose.’ ‘Don't try, do.’ He has a basic philosophy that is very charming. Not very profound, although young people consider it profound. I wish they would read more.”
--- End quote ---
Irvin Kershner directed The Empire Strikes Back, the best Star Wars film. I mention his quote here because I think people bow too readily, too easily, to philosophies that may look nice, but have no real depth to them. Star Wars and its Force is just such a thing.
--- Quote from: Mark Twain ---“Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”
--- End quote ---
This one must not be taken literally. What it means is that the journey to a destination is seldom straightforward, and sometimes telling the truth to people does less a service for them and even for civilization itself than not telling it. It is very important to promulgate the truth, but often you have to be cunning about it. Hence, I would say that deceit is in truth's employ.
--- Quote from: Charles Towne ---“It’s like the beaver told the rabbit as they stared at the Hoover Dam. ‘No, I didn’t build it myself. But it’s based on an idea of mine!’”
--- End quote ---
I just think this one's cute. Mr. Towne invented the laser.
--- Quote from: D.C. Simpson ---“Hayao Miyazaki’s movies are for people who find their most elaborate dreams fascinating. I am one of those people, so I am a big fan.”
--- End quote ---
Me too.
--- Quote from: Virginia Woolf ---“Why are women so much more interesting to men than men are to women?”
--- End quote ---
Why? Because the world is drowning in sexism. All these things relate back to each other, you know.
--- Quote from: Socrates ---“There is but one good, knowledge; and but one evil, ignorance.”
--- End quote ---
Five years ago, I thought I had been to discover the universe's ultimate truth. And here Socrates came up with it over two thousand years ago. I tell ya, it's hard to be original anymore!
--- Quote from: Mark Twain ---“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”
--- End quote ---
I fear it's the latter. What do you think?
--- Quote from: Voltaire ---“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
--- End quote ---
The legacy of Christianity, QED. But don't rest on your laurels yet, ye nonbelievers. Religion hasn't got a monopoly on this one. Be careful!
~~~
And of course my personal life's motto:
--- Quote from: Mr. Spock ---“There are always…possibilities.”
--- End quote ---
Don't you forget it.
Zaperking:
STICKY THIS PLEASE!
Sentenal:
--- Quote from: Mark Twain ---"It is better to keep your mouth closed and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt."
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: General George Patton ---"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.
He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: General George Patton ---"Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man."
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: HK-47 ---Definition: 'Love' is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometers away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope...Love is knowing your target, putting them in your targeting reticule, and together, achieving a singular purpose against statistically long odds.
--- End quote ---
Well, there are some quotes from George Patton, and what HK-47 (hes the assassin droid from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic) thinks love is. I probably have more, somewhere, but these are the only good ones readily avaliable right now.
Daniel Krispin:
Ooo... good quotes there. I wonder... Lord J, do you know if Caesar said that before or after he marched on Rome? Oh, and I'm not quite up on my Latin... what does that one Latin one mean? I quite enjoy quotes in all their forms (the Oxford book of quotations is something to be picked up in moderation, as one can become amazed with just how many clever phrases people have come up with in history.)
Now, there are probably a hundred quotes that I could consider good - likely more, and I think think there are probably a hundred that I like and have merely forgotten. I mean, a full half of Shakespeare is almost worthy of quotes. Just reading through your lists there I find that most of them are clever in their own ways. I'll just consider a few. Let's see...
Just for the sake of style, and overall importance to western literature (and the influence the book had on me as a whole):
--- Quote from: Homer ---Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilleus
and its devestation, which put pain thousandfold upon the Achaians
Hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls
of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting
of dogs, of all birds, and the will of Zeus was accomplished
since that time when first there stood in division of conflict
Atreus' son the lord of men, and brilliant Achilleus
--- End quote ---
Popularally, this is from Orff's music. But the lyrics themselves are from a 13th century work. I rather like the whole two songs based around the idea of the variance of Fortune, but I suppose this short quote sums it all up.
--- Quote from: Carmina Burana: Fortuna Imperiatix Mundi: O Fortuna ---
O Fortuna
velut Luna
statu variabilis
trans:
O Fortune
like the moon
you are ever changing
--- End quote ---
And here, an ancient Greek saying that I am so very fond of:
--- Quote from: The Classical Greeks ---
Pathei Mathos
trans:
Wisdom through suffering
--- End quote ---
And here, from the end of Oedipus Tyrannus, and echoing the wisdom of Solon... this was a common idea amongst the Greeks. Essentially... one never knows what misfortune will befall. If things are going well, prepare for ruin.
--- Quote from: The Classical Greeks ---Count no mortal happy till he has passed the final limit of his life secure from pain.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: (I forget, but often quoted by my father) ---When someone ceases believing in God they will not believe nothing, they will believe anything.
--- End quote ---
Here is Tolkien's deft explanation for how the all benevolent God of his stories could allow evil and sufferings:
--- Quote from: Tolkien ---Thus even as Eru spoke to us shall beauty not before conceived be brought in to Ea, and evil yet be good to have been.
--- End quote ---
Advice for moderation from Ecclesiastes.
--- Quote from: King Solomon (reputedly) ---
Do not be overrighteous,
neither be overwise -
why destroy yourself?
Do not be overwicked,
and do not be a fool -
why die before your time?
It is good to grasp the one
and not let go of the other.
The man who fears God will avoid all extremes.
--- End quote ---
Honestly, I could think of a hundred others, and to compile a list of favourites for me is nearly impossible. But these certainly rank amongst them. Like I said, I love quotes, and just reading through everyone else's I think 'wow, history has sure produced a manifold number of wonderful writers'. But, Lord J, I would contest one thing: differential equations are never fun. Okay, that's a joke, but truthfully, I've never been good at them. I am fortunate that all such classes dealing with them are behind me. But actually, I've heard the sentiments of that quote before in one of my engineering classes.
But hey, do you notice a trend in each person's quotes? ZeaLitY is mostly about perseverence and striving forward in the face of difficulty. Lord J has a certain intellectual streak - knowledge and understanding above all. And I've got a rather grim fate-centered trend. Funny, eh?
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