Favourite Quotes

[Louanne Learning]

“My father (Theodore Roosevelt) always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening.”

― Alice Roosevelt Longworth

 

[Rath Darkblade]

Actually, that conversation is an urban legend, based on things that the two authors had written. Here's the real story:

“The rich are different”… The real story behind the famed “exchange” between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.

If you’re a quotation buff, you’ve probably heard of a legendary exchange about “rich people” that supposedly took place between the Am...

www.quotecounterquote.com

I had no idea. Thanks, JLT!

“My father (Theodore Roosevelt) always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening.”

― Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Yes, the Roosevelts seemed to have this desire to be at the centre of everything.

When Sir Malcolm Sargent (the famous British conductor and organist) was seventy, he was asked by an interviewer: "To what do you attribute your advanced age?"

Sargent's reply was: "I suppose I must attribute it to the fact that I haven't died yet."

 

[Selluwud]

"If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be"

Yogi Berra

 

[Rath Darkblade]

Yes, the search for absolute perfection is either a never-ending quest ... or pointless.

"You can observe a lot by just watching."
-- Also Yogi Berra

 

[GrahamLewis]

We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden.

Joni Mitchell, Woodstock

 

[Also]

Now she yawned and lit a cigarette; and sitting up in bed clasped her slim ankles with her hands; reciting slowly, wryly, those marvellous lines of the old Greek poet about a love-affair long since past — they are lost in English. And hearing her speak his lines, touching every syllable of the thoughtful ironic Greek with tenderness, I felt once more the strange equivocal power of the city — its flat alluvial landscape and exhausted airs — and knew her for a true child of Alexandria; which is neither Greek, Syrian nor Egyptian, but a hybrid: a joint.

And with what feeling she reached the passage where the old man throws aside the ancient love-letter which had so moved him and exclaims: ‘I go sadly out on to the balcony; anything to change this train of thought, even if only to see some little movement in the city I love, in its streets and shops!’ Herself pushing open the shutters to stand on the dark balcony above a city of coloured lights: feeling the evening wind stir from the confines of Asia: her body for an instant forgotten.

Lawrence Durrell, Justine, first novel of the Alexandria Quartet

 

[Also]

We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden.

Joni Mitchell, Woodstock

He put a quarter in the Wurlitzer
and pushed three buttons and
the thing began to whir.

Joni Mitchell, The Last Time I Saw Richard, on Blue

 

[Also]

He put a quarter in the Wurlitzer
and pushed three buttons and
the thing began to whir.

Joni Mitchell, The Last Time I Saw Richard, on Blue

This could be a whole thread of its own, quoting favorite Joni Mitchell lines back and forth at each other.

 

[Selluwud]

This could be a whole thread of its own, quoting favorite Joni Mitchell lines back and forth at each other.

"Don't it always seem to go. That you don't know what you've got. Till it's gone."

 

[GrahamLewis]

"Pave paradise and put up a parking lot."

 

[Also]

"Pave paradise and put up a parking lot."

"With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin' hot spot."

 

[Louanne Learning]

“Chase away the demons, and they will take the angels with them.”

― Joni Mitchell

 

[GrahamLewis]

"I've looked at life from both sides now"

 

[Rath Darkblade]

"No practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based."

(Lord Havelock Vetinari, "Going Postal" by Terry Pratchett)

I love this. This is what the "free speech" crowd always seem to conveniently forget.

 

[JLT]

"No practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based."

(Lord Havelock Vetinari, "Going Postal" by Terry Pratchett)

I love this. This is what the "free speech" crowd always seem to conveniently forget.

And that's the core of the Quaker's philosophy of non-violence activism. You protest, you go to jail, you serve your time, and then you protest again. You're always willing to accept the consequences of your action.

 

[GrahamLewis]

"This body that depends on our presence for its continued existence is, in a classically codependent manner, attempting to convince us that without it we'd be nothing."

Stephen Levine, One Year to Live

 

[JLT]

"If you're the smartest person in the room, then you're in the wrong room."

~ Richard P. Feynman

I've probably posted this one in the other forum, but I was reminded of it again when I re-watched Good Will Hunting last night. It was about a math prodigy with an eidetic memory who felt unchallenged in his life and, until his talent was discovered, was content to work as a janitor and raise hell with his buddies.

When you think of the quote analytically, it doesn't make much sense, because the smartest person would leave the room, makeing somebody else the smartest person. And that person would have to leave, and so on until the room was empty. But I took it to mean that if you keep selecting situations where you know you're never going to be challenged by somebody, you're never going to discover your true potential and your true limits. That was the point of the movie, and it's true.

Speaking of movies, there was a similar situation in the movie Troy where Achilles challenges the champion of an opposing army in a one-on-one fight. (Spoiler alert!) A giant of a man answers the challenge, confident in his prospects, and is slain in a matter of seconds. But the look on Achilles' face is not one of victory but of disappointment, because he hasn't found what he was looking for: a person who could really test his skills.

 

[Louanne Learning]

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”

― St. Augustine

 

[Louanne Learning]

“Nothing happens until something moves.”

― Albert Einstein

 

[Rath Darkblade]

“And that’s what your holy men discuss, is it?”

“Not usually. There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example.”

“And what do they think? Against it, are they?”

“It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of grey.”

“Nope.”

“Pardon?”

“There’s no greys, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”

“It’s a lot more complicated than that—”

“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”

“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes—”

“But they starts with thinking about people as things.”

(Granny Weatherwax in discussion with Mightily Oats, a young priest. Carpe Jugulum, Terry Pratchett)