Your Favorite Quotations, Aphorisms, Witticisms, or Jokes?
Berkeley Brett
jokes that help you get along in life? If so, I would very much like
to learn of them, whether they are few or many. Please do share them
with us: they might enrich our lives just as much as they have
enriched yours.
Of course, not all wisdom can be conveyed in one of those elegant
sentences we call "a quotation." Yet much wisdom does lend itself to
such expression.
Most of us have a few maxims, aphorisms, or wise or witty quotations
that help us make sense of the curious carnival of human life.
But quotations are a bit like jokes -- you've heard or read thousands
of them in your life, many of them very good. But in a given moment,
you can remember only a small percentage of the good ones. As Dorothy
Parker so eloquently said, "I might repeat to myself, slowly and
soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound; if I
can remember any of the damn things."
So below I've compiled a list -- necessarily uneven and incomplete --
of some quotations that have been meaningful to me. They are in no
special order, except that the more humorous ones are near the end.
Please feel no obligation whatsoever to read them all. Please read as
few or as many as you are inclined to. If you wish to skip ahead to
the whimsical ones, please scroll down to the "SOMEWHAT LESS SERIOUS
QUOTATIONS" section.
And I do hope you might share some of your favorites with us. Perhaps
like me, you may have forgotten many of the very best quotes from your
reading or hearing -- but please do share even the "secondary" or
miscellaneous quotes that have seemed worthwhile to you, even if only
in a small way.
Or, if you wish to comment on any of the quotations listed below (or
subsequently by others), please feel free to do so.
Thank you in advance for anything you might care to share....
=============================================
A Somewhat Miscellaneous Collection of Quotations: Some More Serious,
Some Less So....
===== SOMEWHAT MORE SERIOUS QUOTATIONS =====
"The heart has its reasons which the Reason does not know." ("Le coeur
a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point.") - Blaise Pascal,
philosopher, mathematician
"For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by
love, this is an old rule." -The Dhammapada (a sacred writing of the
Buddhist tradition, ca. 2,500 B.C.E.)
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
magic." -Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction writer (he wrote the story
on which "2001: A Space Odyssey" is based, among other things)
"We should measure the prosperity of a nation not by the number of
millionaires, but by the absence of poverty..." -W.E.B. DuBois
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance
of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who
have too little." -President Franklin D. Roosevelt, from his 2nd
Inaugural Address
"If I have seen further than others, it is because I have stood on the
shoulders of giants." -Sir Isaac Newton, scientist
"This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for
complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple;
the philosophy is kindness." -The Dalai Lama
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can
change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." -
Margaret Mead
"I've found you can tell almost everything about a person by observing
the way they deal with others." - Christiane Amanpour, journalist,
reporter
"It is a tremendous Mitzvah to always be happy!" - Reb Nachman of
Breslov
"Without you, the Universe would be incomplete." - Myself
"I would describe myself as an enthusiastic agnostic who would be
happy to be shown that there is a God." - Carrie Fischer, actress
"If an archer wishes to hit a target, he must first know what the
target is." - Aristotle (paraphrase) from the first book of the
Nicomachean Ethics
"Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of
the candle itself will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by
being shared." - the Buddha, attributed
"Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe... the
starry heavens above and the moral law within." - Immanuel Kant,
philosopher
"Act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will that it
should become a universal law." - Immanuel Kant, philosopher
"A friend might well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature." - Ralph
Waldo Emerson, essayist
"When it breathes through our intellect, it is genius; when it
breathes through our will, it is virtue; when it flows through our
affections, it is love." -Ralph Waldo Emerson, speaking of the
Universal "Oversoul", the "eternal One"
"Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of
time, is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the
whole. Each particle is a microcosm, and faithfully renders the
likeness of the world." -Ralph Waldo Emerson, from the essay "Nature"
"Everyone I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from
them." - Ralph Waldo Emerson (paraphrase)
"In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they
come back to us with a certain alienated majesty." - Ralph Waldo
Emerson
"Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free." - Ralph
Waldo Emerson
"There is no thought in any mind, but it quickly tends to convert
itself into a power." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts
those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who
are subject to it." - Aung San Suu Kyi, non-violent pro-democracy
activist, currently under house-arrest in Myanmar
"Please use your liberty to promote ours." - Aung San Suu Kyi
"So we must fix our vision not merely on the negative expulsion of
war, but upon the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that
peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody that is far superior
to the discords of war." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"Who is the greatest of heroes? He who converts his enemy into his
friend" - Midrash (Avot d'Rabbi Nathan 23)
"A selfish happiness simply doesn't work." - Matthieu Ricard,
microbiologist, Buddhist monk
"If you wish to be selfish, be *wisely* selfish: this means, cultivate
altruism." - The Dalai Lama
"I carry my home with me, wherever I go." - unknown
"Life is what happens while you're making other plans." -author
unknown, often attributed to John Lennon (though it certainly precedes
him)
"Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call
it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it,
parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms
of consciousness entirely different." -William James
"The opposite of a true statement is a false statement. The opposite
of a profound truth may well be another profound truth." - Niels Bohr,
physicist
"Whereon one cannot speak, thereon one must be silent." -Ludwig
Wittgenstein, philosopher
"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are
not." -unknown sage
"Happiness is 95% attitude and 5% circumstances." -unknown sage
"The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that
certain other sets of people are human." - Aldous Huxley
"One can be an agnostic and an absolute mystic, just as one can be a
biochemist who happens to have a flair for music." - Aldous Huxley
"What if they had a war, and nobody came?" -unknown, at least to me
"Take the happiest man, the one most envied by the world, and in nine
cases out of ten his inmost consciousness is one of failure. Either
his ideals in the line of his achievements are pitched far higher than
the achievements themselves, or else he has secret ideals of which the
world knows nothing, and in regard to which he inwardly knows himself
to be found wanting." - William James, philosopher, psychologist
"The free market makes a splendid servent, a bad master, and an even
worse religion." - Amory Lovins, alternative energy guru
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny...' " -
Isaac Asimov
"Isn't it a nice coincidence that you and I are both alive at the same
time!" -Ashleigh Brilliant, all purpose sage
"Either this life I'm in is very dream-like, or this dream I'm in is
very life-like." -Ashleigh Brilliant
"In an orderly world, there's always a place for the disorderly." -
Ashleigh Brilliant
"If there is a God, and if I know anything about that God, it is
through loving and being loved." - Myself
"I've never been in a community in which I could not find at least
some wise and kind people. Since these people are my true family and
friends, I feel at home almost all the time." - Myself
"Music is, to me, proof of the existence of God. It is so
extraordinarily full of magic..." - Kurt Vonnegut
"One moment of the Beatific Vision is worth decades of struggle." -
Myself
"Negative thinking will get you nowhere." - Diane, a wise friend
"Mind your mind!" - Diane, a wise friend
"These are the temple rules. Know when to keep them, and when to
break them." - The last rule in a list of "Temple Rules" at a Zen
Meditation Center
"When you are younger, you get your health for free; but as you get
older, you have to earn it." - Myself
"I have well over 100 titles on the list of my 'Ten Favorite Books' "
- Myself
"On Vulcan I began sensing a consciousness... from a source more
powerful than I have ever encountered. Thought patterns of exactingly
perfect order... I believe it may hold my answers...." -Spock, from
"Star Trek: The Motion Picture"
"Pain is inevitable, but misery is optional." -bumper sticker
"At the highest level, altruism and enlightened self-interest converge
perfectly." - Myself
"A very large percentage of the people we now regard as heroes and
heroines were regarded as unrealistic nut-jobs in their time." -
Myself
"What we call 'the news' should be called 'the-news-of-extremes': 'the
news' does not represent the mainstream experiences of the great
majority of people." - Myself
"I've never wanted to be a man, but I have wanted some of the
advantages that men have." - My Mother
"The perfect is the enemy of the good." - Voltaire, philosopher
"First, you know, a new theory is attacked as absurd; then it is
admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant; finally, it is
seen as so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves
discovered it..." - William James, from "Pragmatism", Lecture 6
"I figured out pretty early one of the great unwritten secrets: that
there's hardly any subject that a smart, motivated person can't learn
as much about in six months as most people in the field know...." -
Amory Lovins, alterative energy guru
"BE the precedent!" - Myself
===== SOMEWHAT LESS SERIOUS QUOTATIONS (some of which might not
incorrectly be regarded as "whimsical") =====
"Reality is a delusional state of mind resulting from insufficient
alcohol." - Irish humorist
"A sign in a restaurant said, 'Breakfast any time'. So I said, 'I'll
have French toast during the Renaissance.' " -comedian Stephen Wright
"I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a pre-frontal
lobotomy." -Wavy Gravy, sagacious San Francisco Bay Area clown
"I think it was just a fig newton of your imagination." - the 7-year
old niece of a friend
"Here's all you have to know about men and women: women are crazy, men
are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are
stupid." - George Carlin
"It is an old error of man to forget to put quotation marks where he
borrows from a woman's brain!" - Anna Garlin Spencer
"To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of
dogs." - Aldous Huxley
"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to
achieve it through not dying." - Woody Allen
"You have two choices in life: you can either be single and lonely, or
married and bored...." - Chris Rock
"I never let the truth get in the way of a good story." - Mark Twain
"What if the Hokey Pokey really IS what it's all about?!" -bumper
sticker (also a Jimmy Buffett song)
"My greatest vice is cheese. Nothing else reigns over my life." -
Scarlett Johansson, actress
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all
progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw
"If you come to a fork in the road, take it." - Yogi Berra
"The future isn't what it used to be." - unknown, often attributed to
Yogi Berra
"If you don't know where you're going, you might not get there." -
Yogi Berra
"Always go to other peoples' funerals, or else they won't come to
yours." - Yogi Berra
"Everything I am today I owe to people whom it is now too late to
punish." -Ashleigh Brilliant
"Some of the things that will live longest in my memory never really
happened". -Ashleigh Brilliant
"My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right." -
Ashleigh Brilliant
"I'll never see all the places or read all the books, but fortunately,
they're not all recommended." -Ashleigh Brilliant
"My object is to save the world, while still leading a pleasant
life." -Ashleigh Brilliant
"There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know
nothing about." -Ashleigh Brilliant
"Cheer up! Things may be getting worse at a slower rate." -Ashleigh
Brilliant
"If you make one or two ridiculous assumptions, you'll find everything
I say or do totally justified." -Ashleigh Brilliant
"Communication with the dead is only slightly more difficult than
communication with some of the living." -Ashleigh Brilliant
"To be perfectly honest, I sometimes find it difficult to be perfectly
honest." -Ashleigh Brilliant
"If I always do tomorrow’s work today, the last day of my life will be
entirely free." -Ashleigh Brilliant
"To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition." - Woody
Allen
"I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to
conquer Poland." - Woody Allen
"When I was kidnapped, my parents snapped into action. They rented out
my room." - Woody Allen
"I feel that if one of my films makes even one person miserable, I've
done my job." - Woody Allen
"Honey, hogs don't get anorexia." - Dolly Parton, when someone
expressed concern about her recent weight loss
"I wish the first word I ever said was the word 'quote,' so that right
before I die I could say 'unquote.' " - Steven Wright
"When I first read the dictionary I thought it was a long poem about
everything." - Steven Wright
"I bought some batteries, but they weren't included. So I had to buy
them again." - Steven Wright
"The guy in the shirt store asked me what my size was. I said, 'Extra
Medium' ." - Steven Wright
"I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like
me for a member." - Groucho Marx
"Of course not! But they say it works whether you believe it or
not..." - Niels Bohr, when asked if he really believed that the
horseshoe nailed above his door would bring him good luck.
"A Supposedly Fun Thing that I'll Never Do Again" - book title
"What Time Is It? You Mean Now? Advice for Life from the Zennest
Master of Them All" - title of an autobiographical book by Yogi Berra
"There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand
binary numbers, and those who do not." - Nerd joke ["10" is the binary
number for two ]
"I might repeat to myself, slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations
beautiful from minds profound; if I can remember any of the damn
things." - Dorothy Parker
--
Brett (in Berkeley, California, USA)
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