Finding Solace in Favourite Quotes: Escaping Despair with Words of Wisdom

[moe darklight]

"You are right in demanding that an artist should take an intelligent attitude to his work, but you confuse two things: solving a problem, and stating a problem correctly. It is only the second that is obligatory for the artist."

— Anton Chekhov

meanwhile, the poor scientist must worry about both .

"-Ésa es natural condición de mujeres -dijo don Quijote-: desdeñar a quien
las quiere y amar a quien las aborrece. Pasa adelante, Sancho."

(my attempt at a translation):
"That is a natural condition of women," said Don Quixote: "to disdain the ones who love them, and love the ones who hate them. Now, go on, Sancho."

— Miguel De Cervantes

 

[fargoth]

The Church of the SubGenius® has some great quotes in their Pamphlets:

YOU MUST BE SAVED
-- EVEN IF IT KILLS YOU!

ETERNAL SALVATION
-- OR TRIPLE YOUR MONEY BACK

LIVE WITH YOUR SINS!
-- "Bob" Dobbs Can Show You How!

THIS INCREDIBLE NEW FAITH, AUTHORIZED TO BLASPHEME BY THE GODS THEMSELVES, IS THE FIRST ALL-PURPOSE BELIEF SYSTEM TO BE COMPATIBLE WITH MOST MAJOR WORLD RELIGIONS AND MANY WEIRD CULTS -- WITHOUT EXPENSIVE INTERFACES!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=189126860809168021&q=ivan+stang&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5746465052705276656

and now, for something completely different...

'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!

I'm not just talking about my wife, I'm talking about my LIFE, I can't seem to get that through to you. I'm not just talking about one person, I'm talking about everybody. I'm talking about form. I'm talking about content. I'm talking about interrelationships. I'm talking about God, the devil, Hell, Heaven. Do you understand... FINALLY?
-Harding (one flew over the cuckoo's nest)

"his name was Robert Paulson"
and
"I just wanted to destroy something beautiful"
-fight club

and finaly, i'd like to quote a song:
Whenever life gets you down, Mrs Brown
And things seem hard or tough
And people are stupid obnoxious or daft
And you feel that you've had quite enough...

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles per hour
It's orbiting at nineteen miles per second, so it's reckoned
The Sun that is the source of all our power
The Sun, and you, and me, and all the stars that we can see
Are traveling at a million miles per day
In an outer spiral arm at forty thousand miles per hour
In the galaxy we call the Milky Way

The galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick
But out by us it's just three thousand light years wide
We're thirty thousand light years from Galactic Central Point
We go 'round every two hundred million years
And our galaxy is only one of millions and billions
In this amazing and expanding universe

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whiz
The fastest it can go
The speed of light, you know
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is
So, remember when you're feeling down and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And hope that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space
'Cause it's bugger all down here on Earth

heres the video

(i know it's too much... i got carried away =P)

 

[Ivan Seeking]

GQ magazine interviewer: Do you miss the President?

Donald Rumsfeld: Mmmmmm, no.
________________________________________

"What is the greatest threat facing us now? People will say it's terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the great threat we are facing?" - Colin Powell

 

[Astronuc]

Putting reseach and science in context.

It's the birthday of naturalist and science writer Stephen Jay Gould, (books by this author) born in New York City (1941). He was five years old when his father took him to the Museum of Natural History, and he saw his first dinosaur skeleton, a 20-foot high tyrannosaurus. He went on to study geology and paleontology and wrote his dissertation on an extinct land snail native to the Bahamas. He once said that his research on the taxonomy of the snail was of interest to about eight people in the world, but, he said, "Those eight people really care."

In 1974, he was offered a job writing a monthly column for Natural History magazine. He decided that his guiding focus in the column would be the theory of evolution, but aside from that, he would write about whatever he was interested in, from the history of Mickey Mouse to the unreliability of IQ tests. His essays were collected in books such as The Panda's Thumb (1980) and The Flamingo's Smile (1985), and he became one of the most famous scientists in America. He believed he was successful simply because he tried to be a good writer. He said, "So many scientists think that once they figure it out, that's all they have to do, and writing it up is just a chore. I never saw it that way; part of the art of any kind of total scholarship is to say it well.''

Stephen Jay Gould said, "Homo sapiens [are] a tiny twig on an improbable branch of a contingent limb on a fortunate tree."

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2007/09/10/#monday

 

[Moridin]

"Science is the poetry of reality" - Richard Dawkins

"Reason and the respect for evidence are the source of our progress; our safeguard against fundamentalists and those who profit from obscuring the truth. We live in dangerous times when superstition is on the rise and rational science is under attack" - Richard Dawkins

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The US ambassador to Iraq [Crocker] on the future of Iraq: "My confidence is under control".

 

[Math Jeans]

Woman: Sir Winston! You're drunk!
Winston: Yes madam, and you're ugly, and in the morning, I shall be sober.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The Russian military has successfully tested what it described as the world's most powerful non-nuclear air-delivered bomb...

Unlike a nuclear weapon, the bomb doesn't hurt the environment, he added...

http://www.hfxnews.ca/index.cfm?sid=61671&sc=89

 

[Astronuc]

"Semper gumby" - "Always flexible". Well, you'd have to know the context to appreciate the humor.

a play on "Semper Fi" short for "Semper fidelis" - "Always faithful"

 

[B. Elliott]

"Think yourself a puny form when within yourself the Universe is folded." - Sufis

"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it seems like two hours, that's relativity." - Albert Einstein

 

[turbo]

Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say 'what should be the reward of such sacrifices?' Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams

 

[Izzhov]

"People love to admit they have bad handwriting or that they can't do math. And they will readily admit to being awkward: 'I'm such a klutz!' But they will never admit to having a poor sense of humor or being a bad driver." -George Carlin

 

[Ivan Seeking]

~ After my work in show business, I had a fairly extensive vocabulary of four letter words. When I had my first meeting [with Nixon], that vocabulary was significantly augmented. - Alan Greenspan.

 

[glondor]

"It's the things you do you don't have to do that makes the difference before it's to late to do anything about it". Dont know who wrote it but I like it and try to live it.

 

[Burnsys]

If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.
-- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

 

[Ivan Seeking]

If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.
-- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

Nice.

 

[turbo]

"It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable."

Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)
The Passionate State of Mind, 1954

 

[Astronuc]

And we are talking about the y-direction (also known as the j direction).

Doc Al

 

[dilletante]

some Kurt Vonnegut quotes:

Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.

Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the Universe.

 

[enricfemi]

some Kurt Vonnegut quotes:

Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.

Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the Universe.

what is conquer and what we conquered?

 

[rewebster]

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/benjamindi136856.html


"Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth."
Benjamin Disraeli

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

"People love to admit they have bad handwriting or that they can't do math. And they will readily admit to being awkward: 'I'm such a klutz!' But they will never admit to having a poor sense of humor or being a bad driver." -George Carlin

He's wrong on one point. I am a very bad driver and freely admit it. However, I'm not the worst. When people tailgate me and grumble what a poor driver I am, they fail to see the irony.

I don't have a favorite quote, there are too many great ones. But just now, I'm liking this one:

I don't care how poor and inefficient a little country is; they like to run their own business. I know men that would make my wife a better husband than I am; but, darn it, I'm not going to give her to 'em. - Will Rogers.

 

[rewebster]

“I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends in both places”

http://thinkexist.com/quotes/mark_twain/


“Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.”

 

[rewebster]

"The more I know about men the more I like dogs."

-- Gloria Allred

 

[Evo]

"Nothing is more terrifying than ignorance in action."

–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

"Nothing is more terrifying than ignorance in action."

–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I think that's great, but then what do I know?

 

[rewebster]

"Of course life is bizarre, the more bizarre it gets, the more interesting it is. The only way to approach it is to make yourself some popcorn and enjoy the show."

David Gerrold

 

[Ivan Seeking]

"If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen." - Ann Coulter
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1905799/posts

A true American!

 

[Izzhov]

“Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.”

I love that movie!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Question to Mit Romney in a town hall meeting: "If you are elected, how many first ladies will we have?"

 

[Astronuc]

"Nothing is more terrifying than ignorance in action."

–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

He forsaw GW?

 

[Astronuc]

the First Law of Materials Science is

"Everything can be broken".

http://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/elmat_en/kap_3/backbone/r3_5_1.htm

 

[pace]

"Nothing is more terrifying than ignorance in action."

–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Yeah, we all know that. And some of us from personal experience :blush:

http://www.hfxnews.ca/index.cfm?sid=61671&sc=89

...yay...

----

"I am not my oppinions, but much rather my commitments"
...... I still wish I were my oppinions tho

 

[moe darklight]

Once I dreamt that I suddenly realized that I could travel through time by drinking anti-freeze.

 

[fourier jr]

Creative politics at the national level has not been known in Canada since before World War I when the westward thrust to Canada's empire was still a major national goal. Since the empire of the west was secured national goals of development have not been known. Creative politics is politics which has the capacity to change the social structure in the direction of major social goals or values. By mobilizing human resources for new purposes, it has the initiative in the struggle against the physical environment and against dysfunctional historical arrangements. Creative politics requires a highly developed political leadership to challenge entrenched power within other institutional orders. It succeeds in getting large segments of the population identified with the goals of the political system and in recruiting their energies to political ends.
John Porter