MetaChat REGISTER   ||   LOGIN   ||   IMAGES ARE OFF   ||   RECENT COMMENTS




artphoto by splunge
artphoto by TheophileEscargot
artphoto by Kronos_to_Earth
artphoto by ethylene

Home

About

Search

Archives

Mecha Wiki

Metachat Eye

Emcee

IRC Channels

IRC FAQ


 RSS


Comment Feed:

RSS

26 April 2010

What are your favorite quotes? About whatever, by whoever (whomever?).
Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
- - Alan Watts
posted by danf 26 April | 11:41
Most of mine are from Einstein.

I beg you...to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer... - Rainer Maria Rilke

The only real valuable thing is intuition. - Albert Einstein

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. - Albert Einstein

A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. - Albert Einstein
posted by amro 26 April | 11:42
Wherever you go, there you are. -Buckaroo Bonzai
posted by Meatbomb 26 April | 12:19
Fortune Favors The Bold.
posted by The Whelk 26 April | 12:20
"...For even bad poetry has relevance
for what it does not say
for what it leaves out
...
(ah but to free it still
from the word-processor of the mind!)"
Lawrence Ferlinghetti "Uses of Poetry"
posted by sperose 26 April | 12:28
I must, as always, default to Shakespeare.

Cowards die many times before their deaths,
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Julius Caesar 2.2

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
As You Like It 2.7 (I love the entire monologue, but it's a bit long for a 'quote')

If we were talking favorite long quotes I think I'd default to the opening soliloquy of Richard III or the "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy of Macbeth, which are maybe my two favorite examples of the English language in action.



posted by kellydamnit 26 April | 12:38
"You can't roller skate in a buffalo herd, but you can be happy if you put your mind to it" - Roger Miller

the first thing that came to my mind... I'll think some more
posted by oneswellfoop 26 April | 12:41
Whoa, kellydamnit. I watched Julius Caesar (again) last night! I love that quote.

james mason as brutus always creeps me out. he's always humbert humbert to me
posted by gaspode 26 April | 13:08
Hmm. A few at random.

“I drink [champagne] when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise, I never touch it—unless I’m thirsty.” Lilly Bollinger


Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble--and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology. Solzhenitsyn


As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. Darwin
posted by Firas 26 April | 13:13
One of my all time favourites is a Hunter S Thompson line:

Call on god, but row away from the rocks.

And while I'm not one to literally call on god, of any kind...I think he makes a helluva point.
posted by richat 26 April | 13:24
Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable, let's prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.
~ Douglas Adams
posted by deborah 26 April | 13:33
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it
- Gandhi
posted by charles kaapjes 26 April | 13:47
My very favorite quote:

"Life shrinks or expands, according to one's courage." ~ Anais Nin

Quotes that have occasionally come in handy:

“Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.” ~ Albert Camus

"It's never too late to have a happy childhood." ~ Berkeley Breathed
posted by faineant 26 April | 14:03
faineant, that Nin quote is wonderful. Many of these are.
posted by richat 26 April | 14:04
"If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough." -- my brother, although I doubt he invented it.
posted by JanetLand 26 April | 14:42
'It has been seen. It has not gone unnoticed.' - from a '49 novel that's world famous in the Netherlands and not anywhere else.
posted by jouke 26 April | 15:20
"Don't let it end this way. Tell them I said something." -- the last words of Pancho Villa
posted by BitterOldPunk 26 April | 15:37
amro, that Rilke quote is beautiful!

My mom has a fridge magnet that says: Trying to get your life in order is like trying to eat once and for all.

Not exactly elegant but I like it.
posted by Specklet 26 April | 15:38
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever." (David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap)

"When one man, for whatever reason, has an opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself." (Jacques Cousteau)

Hail, poetry, thou heav'n-born maid!
Thou gildest e'en the pirate's trade
Hail, flowing fount of sentiment
All hail, all hail divine emollient!
(Pirates of Penzance)
posted by Madamina 26 April | 15:48
"I find myself quoting me more and more often. It's not an ego thing, really. It's just that I'll read something that I wrote somewhere, and think, "Wow. That guy really gets me." Then I'll end up using the quote in conversation, and I always feel a little twinge of guilt for not giving proper attribution."

-IRFH, 2010
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson 26 April | 15:57
Specklet, that reminds me of a quote I loved from the Wizard of Oz from the Hungry Tiger:

"Then why don't you eat something?" she asked.

"It's no use," said the Tiger sadly. "I've tried that, but I always get hungry again."

posted by rmless2 26 April | 16:12
"I find myself quoting me more and more often. It's not an ego thing, really. It's just that I'll read something that I wrote somewhere, and think, "Wow. That guy really gets me." Then I'll end up using the quote in conversation, and I always feel a little twinge of guilt for not giving proper attribution."

-IRFH, 2010


Amen!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson 26 April | 16:19
My mom has a fridge magnet that says: Trying to get your life in order is like trying to eat once and for all.

Hah, when I was growing up we had a pillow that was embroidered with Nothing is So Bad it Can't Get Worse.
posted by birdie 26 April | 16:47
"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead." - Charles Bukowski
posted by rainbaby 26 April | 17:08
All you need is love.
posted by Meatbomb 26 April | 18:45
"Knowledge is what we take in with our senses. Understanding is the action verb of knowledge, what we use of it, what we actually do of our knowledge. Bullshit is passing on knowledge without understanding. Learning is taking in knowledge and converting it to understanding. Teaching is unfortunately generally bullshit." - John Muir
posted by fogovonslack 26 April | 19:23
"I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world." - MA Radmacher Hershey
posted by heyallie 26 April | 19:32
"Art is not a thing; it is a way." - Elbert Hubbard

(I always thought that was an Oscar Wilde quote)
posted by Sailormom 26 April | 19:51
Rough translation:

To know someone here or there, with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts unexpressed; that can make of this earth a garden. -Goethe

Storms make trees take deeper roots. - dunno

and a bunch more I can't think of at the moment. Also, meatbomb has it.
posted by chewatadistance 26 April | 20:31
"Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done any more." - Bill Adama, on Battlestar Galactica

I've thought about getting "The Day Comes" as a tattoo. It carries a nice duality in this context.
posted by Fuzzbean 26 April | 20:38
If you don't use your talents you will be pissing off the gods. - a good friend of mine
posted by chewatadistance 26 April | 20:38
"When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take the step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things must happen: There will be something solid for us to stand on, or we will be taught to fly."

-Patrick Overton


"Never make someone a prioriy who only makes you an option."


"Be who you are and say what you feel, because the people who matter won't mind, and the people who mind don't matter."
posted by redvixen 26 April | 20:46
"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress."

-Mark Twain
posted by Kronos_to_Earth 26 April | 21:00
Angels taking themselves lightly isn't Alan Watts but G.K. Chesterton.


I just spent an hour reading over a thread in which I and some others (where are they all now?) posted quotes back in 1994 on a BBS.

I will share a few of them here:

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
--Eric Hoffer


A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.
--Grace Murray Hopper

"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you place the blame."
--Oscar Wilde


"There's so much comedy on television.
Does that cause comedy in the streets?"
-- Dick Cavett, mocking the TV-violence debate

"There are 10 to the 11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a
*huge* number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than
the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers.
Now we should call them economical numbers."

-- Richard Feynman

Education is what remains after you've forgotten everything you
learned in school.

-- Albert Einstein

"There are no differences but differences of degree
between different degrees of difference
and no difference."

-- Wm. James, under NO2, 1882








posted by Obscure Reference 26 April | 21:25
Chekov, The Seagull:

Medvienko: "Why do you always wear black?
Masha: "I am in mourning for my life."

It's hard to explain, but this is positively a comic exchange, and how my black dog got her name.
posted by rainbaby 26 April | 21:39
Angels taking themselves lightly isn't Alan Watts but G.K. Chesterton.


Oh. I saw Alan Watts a few times and he said that once. . .I always credited it to him, since he did not attribute.

posted by danf 26 April | 22:29
Wherever you go, there you are. -Buckaroo Bonzai


Man, there's nothing worse than a pedantic nerd but, its:

"No matter where you go... there you are"

(cite)
posted by kodama 26 April | 22:40
I'm a big quote junky, I probably have hundreds of them in various archives but my all time favorite:

"There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar."

- Herman Melville, Moby Dick Ch. xcvi - The Try-Works
posted by kodama 26 April | 22:48
The wise man can pick up a grain of sand and envision a whole universe. But the stupid man will just lay down in some seaweed and roll around until he's completely draped in it. Then he'll stand up and go, "Hey, I'm Vine Man."
posted by Specklet 27 April | 04:44
LOL Vine Man is the best.
posted by mullacc 27 April | 06:09
"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead." - Charles Bukowski

I just saw Barfly for the first time this past weekend. Great movie.
posted by octothorpe 27 April | 11:09
"Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."
posted by kodama 28 April | 00:46
"People are no damned good" - Doug Mulray.

"Later in life, you will regret the things you didn't do much more that the things you did" - me, speaking to a girl that used to work for me when she was agonising over whether to take off for Canada to live out her dream. I've been following her on Facebook through drunken parties, an apparently awesome Winter Olympics experience, a wet t-shirt competition and on and on ( I just got an e-mail from Apple in Canada for a reference for her) - wow, she really took that advice to heart! Actually, I was probably quoting someone else without knowing.
posted by dg 28 April | 07:37
Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.

Tom Stoppard.
posted by Wolfdog 12 May | 13:48
Monday Morning Three Point Update || Free to Good Home: Photocopies of Salinger Short Stories

HOME  ||   REGISTER  ||   LOGIN