Good Quotes

[Shawn Nelson]

This one reminded me of Jim's philosophy

“If we had asked the public what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” - Henry Ford

 

[Martin Weiss]

“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful.”

Alan Alda

“The fact that modern physics, the manifestation of an extreme specialization of the rational mind, is now making contact with mysticism, the essence of religion and manifestation of an extreme specialization of the intuitive mind, shows very beautifully the unity and complementary nature of the rational and intuitive modes of consciousness; of the yang and the yin.”

Fritjof Capra

 

[Erik Bien]

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." — Winston Churchill

 

[Corrado Silveri]

"Imagination rules the world."
Napoleone Bonaparte

 

[P Andersson]

"Nothing is permanent."
Buddha

Or as it went down back in the day:
Now during this utterance [the Buddha' discourse], there arose in the venerable Kondañña the spotless, immaculate vision of the True Idea: “Whatever is subject to arising is all subject to cessation.”
…Then the Blessed One [The Buddha] uttered the exclamation: “Kondañña knows! Kondañña knows!,” and that is how that venerable one acquired the name, Añña-Kondañña — Kondañña who knows.
–The Pali Canon (SN 56.11)

It seems our Jim is channeling some ancient wisdom with his:
"Everything in life changes... including our camera specs and delivery dates..."

 

[jimhare]

"Make like a tree, and get out of here"
Biff from Back To The Future part 1

Seriously though,
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dreams"
Willy Wonka

 

[kidrobot]

Not really a clever quote, but it just won't stop repeating in my head..

My backpacks got jets,
I'm Boba the Fett,
I bounty hunt for Jabba the Hutt,
to finance my Vette -MC Chris, 'Fett's Vette' from the movie 'Zack and Miri make a porno'

 

[Ramesh Jai]

'Wisdom is the province of the aged but only the heart of the child is pure.' Peter Sellers in The Party. Great movie.

 

[Steve Gibby]

"It is better to remain silent and thought a fool - than to speak and remove all doubt"

"Never explain - your friends don't need it, and your enemies won't believe you anyway"

 

[Nathan Garofalos]

"If you can find a job you love doing, you'll never have to work another day in your life" -Mark Twain

 

[Weston Ford]

If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.

-Stanley Kubrick


Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.

-Abraham Lincoln


Imagination is more important than knowledge.

-Albert Einstein

 

[Clint Johnson]

I place Robert Heinlein at the top of my quotable list. The man had a lot of interesting things to say whether speaking as himself or through the characters in his fiction. Here are a double handful of Heinlein quotes - some of them will get you thinking and just about everyone will be offended by a few of them but that is part of his charm.




A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill.

An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.

Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors... and miss.

I never learned from a man who agreed with me.

No statement should be believed because it is made by an authority.

One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.

Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.

The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship.

When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.

You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.

On censorship - “The whole principle is wrong. It's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak.”

Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal.

The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed.

I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don't think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called.

I would say that my position is not too far from that of Ayn Rand's; that I would like to see government reduced to no more than internal police and courts, external armed forces - with the other matters handled otherwise. I'm sick of the way the government sticks its nose into everything, now.

Correct morality can only be derived from what man is — not from what do-gooders and well-meaning aunt Nellies would like him to be.

A rational anarchist believes that concepts, such as 'state' and 'society' and 'government' have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame... as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world... aware that his efforts will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failiure.

Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws - always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: Please pass this so that I won't be able to so something I know I should stop. Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them for their own good

TANSTAAFL. (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch)

Any government will work if authority and responsibility are equal and coordinate. This does not insure "good" government; it simply insures that it will work. But such governments are rare — most people want to run things but want no part of the blame.

Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous. (He is also a fool.)

Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields. But experts often think so. The narrower their field of knowledge the more likely they are to think so.

Get a shot off fast. This upsets him long enough to let you make your second shot perfect.

History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.

In a mature society, "civil servant" is semantically equal to "civil master."

Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.

Never appeal to a man's "better nature." He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage.

Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.

The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history.

The phrase "we (I) (you) simply must —" designates some thing that need not be done. "That goes without saying" is a red warning. "Of course" means you had best check it yourself. These small-change clichés and others like them, when read correctly, are reliable channel markers.

The second best thing about space travel is that the distances involved make war very difficult, usually impractical, and almost always unnecessary. This is probably a loss for most people, since war is our race's most popular diversion, one which gives purpose and color to dull and stupid lives. But it is a great boon to the intelligent man who fights only when he must — never for sport.

There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who "love Nature" while deploring the "artificialities" with which "Man has spoiled 'Nature.'" The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are not part of "Nature" — but beavers and their dams are. But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-facie absurdity. In declaring his love for a beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers' purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of men) the Naturist reveals his hatred for his own race — i.e., his own self-hatred.

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as "bad luck."

What are the facts? Again and again and again — what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" — what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!

Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate — and quickly.

In this complex world, science, the scientific method, and the consequences of the scientific method are central to everything the human race is doing and to wherever we are going. If we blow ourselves up we will do it by misapplication of science; if we manage to keep from blowing ourselves up, it will be through intelligent application of science.

Behaving on a still higher moral level were the astronauts who went to the Moon, for their actions tend toward the survival of the entire race of mankind. Many short-sighted fools think that going to the Moon was just a stunt. But the astronauts knew the meaning of what they were doing, as is shown by Neil Armstrong's first words in stepping down onto the soil of Luna: "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

The hardest part about gaining any new idea is sweeping out the false idea occupying that niche. As long as that niche is occupied, evidence and proof and logical demonstration get nowhere. But once the niche is emptied of the wrong idea that has been filling it — once you can honestly say, "I don't know", then it becomes possible to get at the truth.

A religion is sometime a source of happiness, and I would not deprive anyone of happiness. But it is a comfort appropriate for the weak, not for the strong. The great trouble with religion - any religion - is that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak certainty of reason- but one cannot have both.

And one of my favorites:

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.

 

[David Birdy]

Great stuff Clint, Bravo!!!

All that wisdom before 5AM on a weekday!!

Here are a few that might fit in:

"A just system in the hands of manipulative people can be an evil tool"

By Carl Gustav Jung


Civil service is, more often than not a contradiction in terms.


If it defies logic you can be sure it's politics.


Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.


"Ask not what you can do for yourself ask what you can do for your country"

By JFK

Remember this, take it to heart, live by it, die for it if necessary: that our patriotism is medieval, outworn, obsolete; that the modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to the Nation ALL the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.

By Mark Twain

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

By John Adams

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

By Thomas Jefferson

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

By Terry Pratchett

Most people want to die and go to heaven, I want to go to Bermuda.

By Mark Twain

True freedom can only be had by living a life void of fear!

 

[Nick Wolf]

Fire a worthy servant if made to be your slave.
Fire a cruel tyrant if allowed to be your master.

Unknown.


DogDay.

 

[Mark Phelan]

"We buy things we don't need to impress people we don't like".

"Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important."

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive."

 

[Andrew Walker]

Awesome quotes Clint.

George Orwell: "That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there."

Israeli Police Inspector General Shlomo Aharonisky: “There's no question that weapons in the hands of the public have prevented acts of terror or stopped them.”

Benito Mussolini: “The measures adopted to restore public order are: First of all, the elimination of the so-called subversive elements. ... They were elements of disorder and subversion. On the morrow of each conflict I gave the categorical order to confiscate the largest possible number of weapons of every sort and kind. This confiscation, which continues with the utmost energy, has given satisfactory results.”

Ted Nugent: "To my mind it is wholly irresponsible to go into the world incapable of preventing violence, injury, crime, and death. How feeble is the mindset to accept defenselessness. How unnatural. How cheap. How cowardly. How pathetic."

Thomas Jefferson: "The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes....Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

George Mason: "To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them."

 

[Shawn Booth]

"Keep your mouth shut." - gracious grip's advice on my first job IN LA while smoking a j on the porch of the Psycho house.

 

[Shawn Booth]

"......."

 

[Nathan Troutman]

"The fool that knows he's a fool is that much wiser. The fool that thinks he's wise is a fool indeed." Lao Tzu

 

[David Mullen ASC]

"A man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds." Mark Twain