Quotes

[blueeowyn]

A politician is a man who thinks of the next election; while the statesman thinks of the next generation.
-- James Freeman Clarke

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
-- Margaret Mead

No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
-- P.J. O'Rourke

The most civilized people are as near to barbarism as the most polished steel is to rust. Nations, like metals, have only a superficial brilliancy.
-- Antoine de Rivarol

Perfect order is the forerunner of perfect horror.
-- Carlos Fuentes

Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.
-- George Santayana

Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical fears and hopes.
-- Murray Edelman

Household tasks are easier and quicker when they are done by somebody else.
-- James Thorpe

If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure?
-- Harry Shearer
Just for the record, I am not interested in learning the answer first hand

The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt, too.
-- Oscar Levant
Gotta love the timing of these two (and yes they were posted together originally

Like father, like son

I have opinions of my own -- strong opinions -- but I don't always agree with them.
-- George Bush

I think we agree, the past is over.
-- George W. Bush

They want the federal government controlling Social Security like it's some kind of federal program.
-- George W. Bush

A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes.
-- James Kern Feibleman

I tried to find Him on the Christian cross, but He was not there; I went to the temple of the Hindus and to the old pagodas, but I could not find a trace of Him anywhere. I searched on the mountains and in the valleys, but neither in the heights nor in the depths was I able to find Him. I went to the Kaaba in Mecca, but He was not there either. I questioned the scholars and philosophers, but He was beyond their understanding. I then looked into my heart, and it was there where He dwelled that I saw Him; He was nowhere else to be found.
-- Jalaluddin Rumi

Faith is daring the soul to go beyond what the eyes can see.
-- J.R.R. Tolkien

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother and hope your guardian genius.
-- Joseph Addison

That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.
-- William J. H. Boetcker

Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.
-- Bertrand Russell
And a fair number of these convictions are false

May your walls know joy; May every room hold laughter and every window open to great possibility.
-- Maryanne Radmacher-Hershey

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct
acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
-- Carl Jung

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine
and at last you create what you will.
-- George Bernard Shaw

As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.
-- Leonardo da Vinci

You're alive. Do something. The directive in life, the moral imperative was so uncomplicated. It could be expressed in single words, not complete sentences. It sounded like this:
Look. Listen. Choose. Act.
-- Barbara Hall

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
-- Oscar Wilde

A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.
-- George Bernard Shaw
And a fairly deadly one at that

Some of the worst mistakes of my life have been haircuts.
-- Jim Morrison
Amen

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
-- Marie Curie
Personally, some of what I understand terrifies me

Nothing is terrible except fear itself.
-- Francis Bacon

To suffering there is a limit; to fearing, none.
-- Francis Bacon
Quite the uplifting fellow wasn't he?

Do the thing you are afraid to do and the death of fear is certain.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Never knock on Death's door: ring the bell and run away! Death really hates that!
-- Matt Frewer

That is a good book which is opened with expectation, and closed with delight and profit.
-- Amos Bronson Alcott
especially on re-reads

Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoever procures it at the expense of ten thousand desires makes a wise and a happy purchase.
-- John Balguy

All experience is an arch, to build upon.
-- Henry Brooks Adams

Experience teaches only the teachable.
-- Aldous Huxley

They know enough who know how to learn.
-- Henry Adams

In these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain.
-- Pliny the Elder
I wish the ID people got this one

We can have facts without thinking but we cannot have thinking without facts.
-- John Dewey
And some would say that thinking is the devil's work

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
-- Isaac Asimov
Especially if they were created to foster ignorance

A closed mind is like a closed book: just a block of wood.
-- Chinese Proverb

It is a very lonely life that a man leads, who becomes aware of truths before their times.
-- Thomas Brackett Reed

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.
-- Galileo Galilei

The only kind of dignity which is genuine is that which is not diminished by the indifference of others.
-- Dag Hammarskjold

Happiness depends upon ourselves.
-- Aristotle
Pursuit of happiness, not the happiness itself

Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.
-- Steven Wright

Partying is such sweet sorrow.
-- Robert Byrne

Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
-- Michel de Montaigne