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

[Ivan Seeking]

Yeah, but he didn't take into account GW Bush, who seems bound and determined to prevent that from ever happening.

Well, at least we can count on our local Amway salesman.

 

[Astronuc]

On a lighter side - with regard to the plutonium rock band, Disaster Area -

"Regular concert goers judge that the best sound balance is usually to be heard from within large concrete bunkers some 37 miles from the stage, while the musicians themselves play their instruments from within a heavily insulated spaceship which stays in orbit around the planet - or more frequently around a completely different planet."

"Many worlds have banned their act altogether, sometimes for artistic reasons, but most commonly because the band's public address system contravenes local strategic arms limitations treaties."

Douglas Adams - HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Sad News

With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person, which almost went unnoticed last week.

Larry LaPrise, the man that wrote "The Hokey Pokey" died peacefully at the age of 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in...And then the trouble started.

 

[Astronuc]

Sad News

With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person, which almost went unnoticed last week.

Larry LaPrise, the man that wrote "The Hokey Pokey" died peacefully at the age of 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in...And then the trouble started.

Note to Tsu - "Don't leave Ivan home alone and unsupervised."

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Hey, it was just a quote.

Heard another good one this morning: The white house is the crown jewel of the federal prison system - Harry Truman.

 

[Hootenanny]

I want to die at a hundred years old after screaming down an alpine descent on a bicycle at 75 miles per hour. I don't do anything slow, not even breathe. I do everything at a fast cadence: eat fast, sleep fast.

What a way to live.

~H

 

[Astronuc]

During the commencement address yesterday, William Schulz implored the graduates to take the lessons they've learned from Vassar and question authority. He also urged them to take on the responsibility of building a more benevolent nation and welcoming world.

Schulz told the students "history is not finished, the future is not fated" and there remains more work to do in the world.

"We are engaged today in an enormous struggle for the soul of this country.

It is a struggle between those who would close down culture and those who would keep it open; between those who welcome the pre-eminence of one nation and those who give their fealty to the common interests of the globe."

William F. Schulz, Vassar commencement, 2006.

William F. Schulz, the U.S. executive director of Amnesty International and former president of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, is one of the pre-eminent human rights activists in the US.

 

[fourier jr]

The bird could eat its way out of the cage. That was very real to me. As an apprentice, I too felt like a bird in a cage made out of bread. I just fed on my limits.
http://buffaloreport.com/021104poilane.html", bread baker extraordinaire

http://buffaloreport.com/lionel%20poilane.jpg

 

[fourier jr]

That which can be conceived, and then believed, can be achieved.
-Amway salesman

that was actually Napoleon Hill, in his book "think and grow rich". he's the originator of a few other well-known quotes like that, such as "quitters never win and winners never quit"

 

[Cyrus]

"Son, your ego is writing checks your body can't cash!" - Striker

 

[Ivan Seeking]

that was actually Napoleon Hill, in his book "think and grow rich". he's the originator of a few other well-known quotes like that, such as "quitters never win and winners never quit"

Wow, I read that book but first heard it from an Amway guy.

Revolting book btw...

 

[sebas531]

"It's ok, I'm an engineer."-neighbor

 

[rcgldr]

the future is not fated

"The future is not set", Terminator 1 and 2 (movies).

 

[jimmie]

A true artist does not dwell upon art.

 

[Tsu]

"Julian Dicks is everywhere, it's like they've got eleven Dicks on the field."

- some World Cup commentator? See the I loathe football thread

 

[Ivan Seeking]

"Julian Dicks is everywhere, it's like they've got eleven Dicks on the field."

- some World Cup commentator? See the I loathe football thread

That's a keeper!

 

[Astronuc]

"Power without Love is reckless and abusive, and Love without Power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is Love implementing the demands of Justice, and Justice at its best is Power correcting everything that stands against Love."

- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King (1929-1968), speaking for the last time as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference on August 16, 1967.

from A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., Martin Luther King, Jr., James Melvin Washington, James Washington (Editor) , Harper Collins, 1990.

 

[Evo]

The best quote is taken from a letter Pauli wrote to colleague George Gamow. Werner Heisenberg was another colleague of Pauli’s who spent a lot of time searching for the unified field theory. This, by the way, is a theory which unites quantum mechanics with the theory of relativity, which can’t be done with our current knowledge. Anyway, Heisenberg announced to the press that he and Pauli had found the unified field theory, and only the technical details were missing. This infuriated Pauli, who wrote a letter to Gamow which ended with the following. “This is to show that I can paint like Titian.” (A big drawing of a rectangle) “Only the technical details are missing.”

 

[Garth]

"Power without Love is reckless and abusive, and Love without Power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is Love implementing the demands of Justice, and Justice at its best is Power correcting everything that stands against Love."

- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King (1929-1968), speaking for the last time as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference on August 16, 1967.

from A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., Martin Luther King, Jr., James Melvin Washington, James Washington (Editor) , Harper Collins, 1990.

Thank you for that Astronuc - I will use it.

Garth

 

[fourier jr]

The best quote is taken from a letter Pauli wrote to colleague George Gamow. Werner Heisenberg was another colleague of Pauli’s who spent a lot of time searching for the unified field theory. This, by the way, is a theory which unites quantum mechanics with the theory of relativity, which can’t be done with our current knowledge. Anyway, Heisenberg announced to the press that he and Pauli had found the unified field theory, and only the technical details were missing. This infuriated Pauli, who wrote a letter to Gamow which ended with the following. “This is to show that I can paint like Titian.” (A big drawing of a rectangle) “Only the technical details are missing.”

kind of reminds me of this one:
"You know, what Einstein has just said isn't so stupid."
Wolfgang Pauli commenting Einstein's lecture

 

[Astronuc]

"Those who don't remember the past are condemned to repeat the eleventh grade." - James W. Loewen - from his book, "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong"

I just found this in the house, and I have been reading Howard Zinn's "The People's History of the United States".

 

[Astronuc]

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

- Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

 

[Skyhunter]

The upper crust is just a bunch of crumbs held together by dough.

Written in black on a yellow VW bus I saw in the 80's.

 

[Astronuc]

Quote of the Day - posted on PHYS208 Fundamentals of Physics II
http://www.physics.udel.edu/~watson/phys208/quotes/quote22.html

The beauty of physics lies in the extent which seemingly complex and unrelated phenomena can be explained and correlated through a high level of abstraction by a set of laws which are amazing in their simplicity.

Melvin Schwartz in Principles of Electrodynamics

Nice little discussion of the attributes of mass and electric charge.
http://www.physics.udel.edu/~watson/phys208/clas0211.html

 

[Kalimaa23]

"The Patrician is the role of leader of the largest city on the Discworld, Ankh Morpork, and Lord Havelock Vetinari is the Patrician. In a democratic society of One man, One vote, he is that Man and he has the Vote. "

 

[EL]

"I'd hate to die twice. It's so boring"

-Feynman

 

[Gokul43201]

Why does the Air Force need expensive new bombers? Have the people we've been bombing over the years been complaining?

-- George Wallace

 

[Astronuc]

A disclaimer -

The following information may have errors; It is not permissible to be used by anyone who has ever met a lawyer.

from an on-line source for units conversion.
http://xtronics.com/reference/convert.htm

 

[Ivan Seeking]

An old Inuit living near the north pole is interviewed in order to provide a qualitative description of the affects of arctic warming. After discussing the loss of ice, stranded polar bears, dead whales, and the end of a way of life, we get the following:

Inuit: ...but I like global warming.

Interviewer: Why?

Inuit: It's warmer!

 

[darius]

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. ) I am large, I contain multitudes."-Whitman

This is no book-who touches this, touches a man. Whitman

"Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a cosmos."

All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible-T. E. Lawrence

Another thing we do is fools ourselves
Becomes the dupes of logic which derives
Giant conclusions out of pygmy clues-Lucretius

The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a string of capital truths, and ourselves for an oracle, is inborn in us- Paul Valerey

 

[mathwonk]

today the angel of topology and the devil of abstract algebra fight for the soul of every individual subject in mathematics. herman weyl.

(what did you expect? physical humor?)

 

[mathwonk]

professorial humor:

student calling at midnight: "what was my exam grade?"

professor, groggily: "Your grade is F,...whats your name?"

 

[mathwonk]

"there are no bad whiskies, but some whiskies are better than others",
the honorable peshine smith, ambassador to japan, also attributed (much later) to william faulkner.

 

[mathwonk]

"If you wipe your rear end with your left hand, then you should eat with your right hand." hindu yogi.

 

[Astronuc]

I read this recently, but I don't know the author -

"God put me on this Earth to accomplish many things.

I am so far behind, I will never die."


There are times when it seems like that - every day brings one more thing to do, which invariably gets appended to the "to do List", where it must wait in the queue pending all the other things to do - eventually.