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

[Astronuc]

"Dignity is more important to the human spirit than wealth"

~ Jacqueline Novogratz

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/157

Jacqueline Novogratz is pioneering new ways of tackling poverty. In her view, traditional charity rarely delivers lasting results. Her solution, outlined here through a series of revealing personal stories, is "patient capital": support for "bottom of the pyramid" businesses which the commercial market alone couldn't provide. The result: sustainable jobs, goods, services -- and dignity.

http://www.acumenfund.org/

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I had to laugh when I saw a uniquely British protest sign:

"Make Tea Not War"

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

I had to laugh when I saw a uniquely British protest sign:

"Make Tea Not War"

Wise words, unless China is involved, or the US, ungrateful cads. That was no party! Jeez it wasn't the rebellion, it was all that tea gone to waste, now steady on!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Is it true that the French make better tea than the Brits?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The Pope's jet has the call sign "Shepherd 1"

 

[Alienjoey]

"Is there intelligent life on Earth?" -- Frank Drake, founder of SETI.

 

[Moridin]

"It is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions." - Sam Harris, The End of Faith.

"Philosophical theology is intellectual tennis without a net" - Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea.

"Cheetahs give every indication of being superbly designed for something, and it should be easy enough to reverse-engineer them and work out their utility function. They appear to be well-designed to kill antelopes. The teeth, claws, eyes, nose, leg muscles, backbone and brain of a cheetah are all precisely what we should expect if God's purpose in designing cheetahs was to maximize deaths among antelopes. Conversely, if we reverse-engineer an antelope we find equally impressive evidence of design for precisely the opposite end: the survival of antelopes and starvation among cheetahs. It is as though cheetahs had been designed by one deity and antelopes by a rival deity. Alternatively, if there is only one Creator who made the tiger and the lamb, the cheetah and the gazelle, what is He playing at? Is he a sadist who enjoys spectator blood sports? Is he trying to avoid overpopulation in the mammals of Africa? Is He maneuvering to maximize David Attenborough's television ratings?

[...]

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive; others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear; others are being slowly devoured from within by rasping parasites; thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst and disease. It must be so. If there is ever a time of plenty. this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in 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." - Richard Dawkins

"Mathematics is a religion" - Kent Hovid (excellent example of creationist 'logic')

 

[SpitfireAce]

that third quote sounds like it's making a case for polytheism =), and I think it contradicts the fourth quote

 

[Astronuc]

"True friends are those, who when you make of fool of yourself, do not think that it is a permanent condition" - Irwin T. Randall

I wonder how many friends he had?

 

[LightbulbSun]

love maynard's lyrics and Robin Williams is one of the most brilliant comedians ever.

Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain. ~
Lily Tomlin

Reality is a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs. ~
Lily Tomlin

Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity. ~Frank Leahy

Maynard is pretty good when he doesn't get on his high horse about Buddhism or some other new age concept.


"Drugs are a crutch for people who can't cope with reality." -Me

 

[Poop-Loops]

"Drugs are a crutch for people who can't cope with reality." -Me

I'm tired, so I'm not sure if you're doing this on purpose, but you DO realize that her quote was a deliberate play on that exact quote you "came up with", right? That's the usual quote, and she made a funny out of it.

 

[LightbulbSun]

I'm tired, so I'm not sure if you're doing this on purpose, but you DO realize that her quote was a deliberate play on that exact quote you "came up with", right? That's the usual quote, and she made a funny out of it.

And I made a deliberate play on hers.

 

[moe darklight]

Reality is a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs. ~
Lily Tomlin

"Drugs are a crutch for people who can't cope with reality." -Me

I'm tired, so I'm not sure if you're doing this on purpose, but you DO realize that her quote was a deliberate play on that exact quote you "came up with", right? That's the usual quote, and she made a funny out of it.

And I made a deliberate play on hers.

"Crutches are people for people who really can't cope with drugs." — Me

there. settled?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Polls from last week in Pa.

Amongst hunters, Clinton 56, Obama, 31.
Gun owners, Clinton, 53; Obama, 28.
Bowlers, 54-to-33.
Beer drinkers, 44-to-44.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24226233/page/6/

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

Is it true that the French make better tea than the Brits?

We've gone to war for less than that. That's the equivalent of me saying is it true that Americans are all fat and patriotic hidebound idiots.

Steady on!

Only the Chinese make better tea than the English and that's theoretical.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

We've gone to war for less than that.

Yeah, we noticed!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Clinging to anger is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die - Mitch Albom

 

[Astronuc]

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."
- Winston Churchill


In the case of George Bush, success is going from failure to failure while being totally oblivious.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."
- Winston Churchill


In the case of George Bush, success is going from failure to failure while being totally oblivious.

Well that's quotable in itself.

 

[Astronuc]

Concerning the US Presidential Election of 2008 -

The American electorate is faced with a trio running for office whose ability to self-destruct would be the envy of kamikaze pilots. - Bonnie Erbe, US News & World Report

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I started to realize that green jobs means blue jobs. Green technologies need welders, pipefitters, plumbers...

-- former steel worker living in the rust belt.

 

[Texag]

Sad that I haven't seen any Groucho Marx!

"A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five."

"Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife. "

"I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members. "

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. "

-Groucho Marx

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Sometimes silence is golden, and sometimes it is just yellow. - a local church sign.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Eleanor Clift: Rupert Murdoch predicts a landslide this November.

Pat Buchanan: When was the last time that you quoted Rupert Murdoch?

 

[bassplayer142]

Money can't buy life. ~ Bob Marley spoken on his death bed to his son (Ziggy I think)

 

[Holocene]

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." - Thomas Jefferson, 1823.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

This is a five-hundred year flood plain. This isn't supposed to happen

- reporter standing in the flood waters in Iowa.

Technically, I think they have floods on 500 year flood plains about, oh, every 500 years?

We live just above a 500 year flood plain, and we have seen two floods in twenty years. My how time passes!

 

[force_air_1]

'Impossible is almost always not impossible'

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The future is ours, not to predict, but to create

- Al Gore

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Note quite a quote, but worthy of mention:

There was shock and awe when it was discovered that FEMA recently gave away to other groups, $85 million in supplies intended for Katrina victims, when there was still a great need for the supplies! As CNN was running this story, they were showing some of the supplies. One of the items shown was a fire extinguisher.

Okay, it is perfectly reasonable, but the notion of handing out fire extinguishers to flood victims is too funny!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Here are three things to remember about old age:

Never pass up a bathroom
Never waste a hard-on
Never trust a fart

Jack Nicholson - The Bucket List

 

[September]

" To dance as if nobody is watching you,
To love as if nobody has hurt you"

 

[Ivan Seeking]

We didn't think Dick would turn out this way

-Friends of Dick Cheney in Wyoming [according to the governer.]

 

[WardenOfTheMint]

'Walk softly but carry a big stick.' What does it mean?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

'Walk softly but carry a big stick.' What does it mean?

It is actually to "Speak softly", and it refers to Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policy. It means ~ to act with caution and reserve, but be prepared to use extreme [military] force.