Famous quotes thread

[Sharpnel]

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. - Seneca

[sadlerbw]

A couple more:

Knowing is half the battle...the other half is violence.

The Early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Life is Hard. It's harder when you're stupid.

Power is nothing without control. (Thought I was being original when it popped in my head...then a year later Pirelli starts using it as a slogan on their tire commercials. Kinda spoiled it for me!)

[Banzai]

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." -- Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love.

[qc mech3]

Two that marked my youth for different reasons.

“In all the known history of Mankind, advances have been made primarily in physical technology; in the capacity of handling the inanimate world about Man. Control of self and society has been left to chance or to the vague gropings of intuitive ethical systems based on inspiration and emotion. As a result no culture of greater stability than about fifty-five percent has ever existed, and these only as the result of great human misery.”
― Isaac Asimov, Second Foundation

“Do. Or do not. There is no try.”
- Yoda, The Empire Strike Back

[Mech42ace]

A few quotes that I try to live by:

"You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space." - Johnny Cash

"Oh well, whatever happens, happens" - Spike Spiegel

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." - Douglas Adams

[Feenix74]

"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement." - Jim Horning

[Euphonium]

My first instinct is to post the whole of Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries, but I'll settle for just a few favourites:

Maxim 14 - "Mad Science" means never stopping to ask "What's the worth thing that could happen?"

Maxim 29 - The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy, no more, no less.

Maxim 43 - It it's stupid and it works, it's still stupid and you're lucky.

Maxim 70 - Failure isn't an option. It's mandatory. The option is whether or not you let failure be the last thing you do.

[Force of Nature]

Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy, forget in time that men have died to win them.
- FDR

There are three types of people in this world, those that are good with math and those that aren't.
- Anonymous

[Feenix74]

"The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There's far less competition." - Dwight Morrow

[GRUD]

"Computers have enabled people to make more mistakes faster than almost any invention in history, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns." - Mitch Ratcliffe

;D


Thank You for that one!  O0

[Kidd]

My favourite Pratchett quote has already been posted at the tippy top, so...

"...all tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight metamorphose into 'Best of Queen' albums."
-Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman

"Anyone who says they are not interested in politics is like a drowning man who insists he is not interested in water."
-Mahatma Gandhi.

[Jaim Magnus]

[Macdonald was well known for his wit and also for his love of drink. He is known to have been drunk for many of his debates in Parliament. Here is a story from an election debate in which Macdonald was so drunk he began vomiting while on stage. His opponent quickly pointed this out.] 

The opposing candidate said: “Is this the man you want running your country? A drunk!”

Collecting himself, Macdonald replied “I get sick … not because of drink [but because] I am forced to listen to the ranting of my honourable opponent.”

 - Sir John A. Macdonald, first Prime Minister of Canada

[Feenix74]

;D


Thank You for that one!  O0

You are welcome  O0

My favourite quotation from Gandhi, and one that I try to live up to:

"Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words.
Keep your words positive because your words become your behaviour.
Keep your behaviour positive because your behaviour becomes your habits.
Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values.
Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny." - Mahatma Gandhi

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away- Philip K Dick

You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream- Frank Zappa

[Krimsonholt]

"Never take counsel from your fears."
.
I wish I could remember who said this.

[Feenix74]

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Albert Einstein

"Remember, Information is not knowledge; Knowledge is not wisdom; Wisdom is not truth; Truth is not beauty; Beauty is not love." - Frank Zappa

[Euphonium]

"What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea."
     - Mahatma Gandhi

[Blackhorse 6]

"Never take counsel from your fears."
.
I wish I could remember who said this.

Stonewall Jackson if memory serves me.   :)

[The Eagle]

Oh, then there's this.  One of my favorite quotes ever, from the Declaration of Arbroath, penned by my ancestor King Robert of Scotland and Bernard Kilwinning, Abbott of Arbroath:

"It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom -- for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."

[Sharpnel]

"Do Unto Others Before They Do Unto You" - "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

[Dragon Cat]

Rule 1: A Deal is A Deal
Rule 2: No Names
Rule 3: Never Look In the Package
Rule 4: Never Make A Promise You Can't Keep
- Rules of the Transporter -

[Sharpnel]

By a long way he had some of the best lines of that show

And Ivanova had the best one-liners

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Squatting on the line between people who follow logic and order and people who follow insanity and superstition isn't finding a better place.  It just means you're halfway to crazy town- PZ Myers.

An understanding of the natural world and what's in it is a source of not only a great curiosity but great fulfillment- Sir David Attenborough

[BrokenMnemonic]

In no particular order...

Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly. - Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables and Reflections

There's nothing wrong with making a last stand. Just make sure you bring enough grenades to share with the entire class. - Seanan McGuire, Discount Armageddon

I have a degree in history, which is one of the reasons I'm an auto mechanic. - Patricia Briggs, Moon Called

The prospects were depressing; adulthood meant that I'd have to stop having fun and do something I didn't really want to do for the rest of my life - which was apparently a considerable chunk of time. - Bruce Campbell, If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor

Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. - Robert E. Howard

As a writer one is allowed to have conversations with oneself. What is considered sane in writers is mad for the rest of the human race. - Alan Ayckbourn

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any. - Alice Walker

A life without stories would be no life at all. And stories bound us, did they not, one to another, the living to the dead, people to animals, people to the land? - Alexander McCall Smith, In The Company of Cheerful Ladies

There are no heroes on the battlefield, my lady; there are only survivors. - Elizabeth Hoyt, To Taste Temptation

You don't pursue happiness. You pursue everything you need to have a fulfilled life, and then, if you achieve it, you'll be happy some of the time. The rest of the time, you'll be content. One can't sustain happiness forever. - Kelley Armstrong, Betrayals

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. - Oscar Wilde

A room without books is like a body without a soul. - Cicero

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot dirve out hate: only love can do that. - Martin Luther King Jr.

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea. - Robert Heinlein

You don't have a soul, Doctor. You are a soul. You have a body, temporarily. - Walter Miller Jr, A Canticle For Leibowitz

The difference between genius and stupidity is: genius has its limits. - Alexandre Dumas

Success is not final, failure is not fatal; is is the courage to continue that counts. - Winston Churchill

“Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. - Alfred Tennyson

[ClarkeMarek]

"Remember, Information is not knowledge; Knowledge is not wisdom; Wisdom is not truth; Truth is not beauty; Beauty is not love." - Frank Zappa

"Music is the best!"  ~Frank Zappa

[Acolyte]

"Decisions are made by those who show up" - Harry Truman.

   - Shane

[Lazarus Jaguar]

"I can't remsmber when I started forgetting"
Yogi Berra

[HobbesHurlbut]

Loneliness does not come from having no people around you, but from being unable to communicate the things that seems important to you.
-Carl Jung

[Feenix74]

"I can't remsmber when I started forgetting"
Yogi Berra

He has some great quotations, I have always liked:

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it." - Yogi Berra

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

When it comes to Yogi Berra, I think the best one was "I never really said most of the things I said."