Favourite quotations

galychanyn said:
Denn du bist was du isst (You are what you eat)
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Hrmm. There must be a lot of people heavily into oral sex these days.


I rather like "If at first you don't succeed redefine success".
 
People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backwards to their ancestors
........Edmund Burke


Two roads diverged in a wood, and I........ I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference
............... Robert Frost

Melusine
 
If your explaining, your losing.

George Will (Political Pundit in the 1980's)
 
"For the People, Despite the People"

Mustafa Kemal "Atatürk" (motto of his political attitude that would lead to the complete reform and modernisation of Turkey)
 
It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.
Winston Churchill.

The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.
L.P. Hartley
 
Well I should have read the full thread before posting, I see that the LP Hartley quote has already been mentioned and the queries into it's meaning.

The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there is the opening line from the book The Go Between published in 1953. The book begins with and old man reminiscing on his childhood, and the quote doesn't necessarily mean country in the literal sense rather it refers to the past as a place that now feels unfamilar or alien. The changes that a person goes through in a lifetime.
 
Little, slight achievements can make us great while great ones can debase us if they are done wrong. - Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński

War never ends for those who fought. - Curzio Malaparte

God, Honour and Homeland. - national motto of Poland

Polish soldier fights for freedom of other nations but dies only for Poland. - inscription on gen. Stanisław Maczek's grave

[People] look for love because deep in their hearts they know only love can make them happy. - John Paul II

Every life , even if it's the least important for other people, has eternal importance for God. - John Paul II

Salvation came through the Cross. - verse of Polish religious song

The man who ranges in No Man's Land is dogged by the shadows on either hand. - James H. Knight-Adkin in No Man's Land poem
 
There's three ways to do things, the right way, the wrong way and the way that I do it.
- Robert De Niro (Casino movie)
 
Life is like a box of chocolate.... Just kidding. :)

- Life is one big recycling bin.

And don't forget:
- Life is always about next generation.


I know, I didn't make them the favorite quotations yet by any stretch. I also doubt they ever will be, lacking romanticism which people love so much, but regardless, they burst with raw beauty and flood with essence of life.
 
Horace Mann (1796-1859)

  • Until you have done something for humanity, you should be ashamed to die.


Francis Galton (1822-1911)

  • Men who leave their mark on the world are very often those who, being gifted and full of nervous power, are at the same time haunted and driven by a dominant idea, and are therefore within a measurable distance of insanity.


J. B. S. Haldane (1892-1964)

  • Theories have four stages of acceptance. i) this is worthless nonsense; ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view, iii) this is true, but quite unimportant; iv) I always said so.


Richard Dawkins (b. 1941)

  • To label people as death-deserving enemies because of disagreements about real world politics is bad enough. To do the same for disagreements about a delusional world inhabited by archangels, demons and imaginary friends is ludicrously tragic.
  • The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
  • 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?
  • The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.
  • Gravity is not a version of the truth. It is the truth. Anyone who doubts it is invited to jump out a tenth-storey window.
 
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"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good." --Samuel Johnson

"If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." --John F Kennedy - January 20, 1961

"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." --I.F. Stone

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land (USA), it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy" --James Madison

"To say my fate is not tied to your fate is like saying, 'Your end of the boat is sinking.'" --Hugh Downs (TV host - USA)
 
"He`s not the messiah..he`s a very naughty boy" !!
Monty Python....." Life of Brian " :)



"Always forgive your enemies...nothing annoys them so much" Oscar Wilde.
 
In reality, the difference is, that the savage lives within himself while social man lives outside himself and can only live in the opinion of others, so that he seems to receive the feeling of his own existence only from the judgement of others concerning him ... in spite of our many fine works on morality, or to show how, everything being reduced to appearances,
there is but art and mummery
in even honour,
friendship,
virtue,
and often vice itself,
of which we at length learn the secret of boasting; to show, in short, how abject we are, and never daring to ask ourselves in the midst of so much philosophy, benevolence, politeness, and of such sublime codes of morality,
we have nothing to show for ourselves but
a frivolous and deceitful appearance,
honour without virtue,
reason without wisdom,
and pleasure without happiness. - Rousseau


Always laugh when you can, it's a cheap medicine. -Byron

by indignities men come to dignities. -Bacon
 
La gloire n’est qu’une fausse monnaie contre laquelle nous sacrifions aux autres notre propre bonheur.
Witold Gombrowicz

Le principal usage que nous faisons de notre amour de la vérité est de nous persuader que ce que nous aimons est vrai.
Pierre Nicole

En peu de temps parfois on fait bien du chemin.
Molière

Ayez pitié. Voyez des âmes dans les choses.
Victor Hugo

Soyez le maître que vous voudriez avoir.
Victor Hugo

Plus on partage, plus on possède. Voilà le miracle.
Léonard Nimoy

Le droit des autres est une concession faite par notre sentiment de puissance au sentiment de puissance de ces autres.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Aucun être ne peut en sauver un autre. Il faut se sauver soi-même.
Herman Melville

Les émotions profondes nous rendent stériles.
Pierre Baillargeon

Je meurs chaque nuit pour ressusciter chaque matin.
Georges Bernanos

Le temps met tout en lumière.
Thalès

De deux douleurs simultanées, la plus forte obscurcit l’autre.
Hippocrate

Les Justes meurent malgré leur justesse, les méchants survivent malgré leur méchanceté.
Jacques Attali

Avant d’être une espérance pour l’avenir, la vie éternelle est, pour le présent, une exigence.
Henri de Lubac

Les amours dont l’objet n’est que beauté physique ne sont pas amour vrai.
Djalal al-dîn Rûmi

Le temps, qui fortifie les amitiés, affaiblit l’amour.
Jean de La Bruyère

L’amitié finit parfois en amour, mais rarement l’amour en amitié.
Charles Caleb Colton

Nous n’avons pas de futur. Pour tout le monde le futur parfait c’est la mort. Notre seul bien c’est le présent, la minute même; celle qui suit n’est déjà plus à nous.
Jean Giono

On ne se prépare pas à la mort, on se sépare de la vie.
Paul Claudel

La mort n’a aucun rapport avec nous ; car ce qui est dissous est insensible, et ce qui est insensible n’a aucun rapport avec nous.
Epicure

L’amitié est toujours profitable, l’amour est parfois nuisible.
Sénèque

Dans un couple, peut-être que l’important n’est pas de vouloir rendre l’autre heureux, c’est de se rendre heureux et d’offrir ce bonheur à l’autre.
Jaques Salomé

Je n’existe que dans la mesure où j’existe pour autrui, et, à la limite : être, c’est aimer.
Emmanuel Mounier
 
Otto von Bismarck

  • Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.
  • People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.
  • Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.
  • When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice
  • To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making.
  • I have seen three emperors in their nakedness, and the sight was not inspiring.
  • Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.

Sigmund Freud

  • The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is 'What does a woman want?'
  • We are never so defensless against suffering as when we love.
  • Time spent with cats is never wasted.
  • A man who has been the indisputable favorite of his mother keeps for life the feeling of a conqueror.
  • Neurotics complain of their illness, but they make the most of it, and when it comes to talking it away from them they will defend it like a lioness her young.
  • We have long observed that every neurosis has the result, and therefore probably the purpose, of forcing the patient out of real life, of alienating him from actuality.
Napoleon

  • Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
  • Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
  • If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.
  • I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.
  • All religions have been made by men.
  • You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.

Werner Heisenberg

  • What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.
Wernher von Braun
We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.
 
[TABLE="class: MsoNormalTable"]
[TR]

[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] “Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart
until, in our own despair, against our will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
 
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"Let us praise then Creation Unfinished." from The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin
 
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