What do you think the greatest quote ever made was?
I’ll bite:
“you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but…”
“It’s good to be king!”
“Let them eat cake!”
“I wonder what the poor are doing today” (overheard on a yacht)
etc. etc.
Which quote is best depends on the circumstances.
Here’s another:
“have you ever been to MPSIMS?”
The best quote ever made has got to be the French open-quote mark: «
It’s so much more stylish than the British single-tick-mark, or the American double-quote, or the German “füßchen” marks. And don’t even get me started on the Spanish use of the em-dash as an open-quote sign!
[Moderator Hat ON]
My favorite: “Off to MPSIMS.”
[Moderator Hat OFF]
I have a whole websiteful (or at least website-section-ful). Here are a few gems:
We are not interested in a world in which to be human is a weakness.
- René-Daniel Dubois
The law in its majestic equality forbids both the rich and the poor to beg for money, sleep under bridges, and steal bread.
- Anatole France
Demand work. If they do not give you work, demand bread. If they deny you both, take the bread. It is your sacred right.
- Emma Goldman
- You should not confuse your career with your life.
- Dave Barry, “25 Things I Have Learned in 50 Years”
O God of dust and rainbows, help us see
That without dust the rainbow would not be.
- Langston Hughes
Review everything you’ve been taught. Discard any thing that’s an insult to your soul. And begin again.
- Walt Whitman
I’m never going to accomplish anything; that’s completely clear to me. My name will never be writ large in the list of Those Who Do Things. I don’t do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don’t even do that anymore.
- Dorothy Parker
And, of course:
My current favorite:
“You know there’s no Devil, that’s just God when He’s drunk.”
–Tom Waits
I briefly considered turning this one into my .sig at work, then talked myself out of it. Always good to not upset the coworkers, y’know.
now I dont remember the specific wordage of the quote, but we will get the idea
Winston Churchill was once in a bar, and completely blitzed. A woman walked up
“You, sir, are completely drunk”
and he replies,
“And you madam, are ugly. And in the morning, when I am sober, you will still be as ugly as you are tonight.”
There are too many good quotes to just choose one.
``Beware of elaborate telescopic meat; it will find its way back to the forest.’’ For some reason, I really like this Tom Waits quote (it’s actually from The Black Rider so I’m not sure if he wrote it, or if Burroughs did). It seems like good advice to follow.
``Gently I pressed my quivering sting along her rolling salty eyeball.’’ This one cracks me up all the time. It’s not what you think it’s about. It comes from Humbert Humbert’s character in Nabokov’s Lolita.
And then there’s the one in my sig…
There are so many great ones–it depends what you want to say. Here are some of my favorites…
If you asked me what I came into this world to do, I will tell you. I came to live out loud.
~Emile Zola
We can not do great things–only small things with great love.
~Mother Teresa
I used to always think I’d look back on us crying and laugh…but I never thought I’d look back on us laughing and cry.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Of all sad words by tongue or pen, the saddest are these: “It might have been.”
~(Don’t know who that’s by–wish I did)
There’s not a stone or leaf or life that man won’t put a name to. It gives them a nice safe box to collect things in. They get in the habit of collecting things and end up surprised at the weight they’re carrying. A dream they thought might fit someday, something bright and sweet like a woman, picked up for her shine and somehow never left or at least never forgotten. Or an ambition! There’s a fine item in any man’s bag. A great, glowing ambition. They never fade, never wear, even when you’ve outgrown them. Always there to look at and remember and play might-have-been.
~Parke Goodwin
And naturally, my own sig, which sums up a lot about me…
We were walking through the park,
A-goosing statues in the dark.
If Sherman’s horse can take it,
So can you.
-Kurt Vonnegut
“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying.”
Woody Allen
**“It’s all like an ocean!” cried Dostoevski.
I say it’s all like cellophane"
-Kurt Vonnegut Jr.**
In the book was a diagram of the chemical structure of celophane that some nerd drew on a coctail napkin for him as he stared on in amasement.
The structure links out in all directions.
Fabulous poster.
“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend.
Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”
Lady Astor to Winston Churchill :
"Sir, if you were my husband, I would poison your drink."
**“Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it.” **
I wish I could come up with zingers like that.
Confucius: “To see what’s right and not do it is cowardice.”
Neal Stephenson: “He had some measure of the infuriating trait that causes a young man to be a nonconformist for its own sake and found that the surest way to shock people, in those days, was to believe that some kinds of behavior were bad and others good, and that it was reasonable to live one’s life accordingly.”
Oliver Goldsmith: “Honour sinks where commerce long prevails.”
My fav Winston Churchill:
“Mr Churchill, I should tell you your trousers are undone”
Churchill: “Don’t be alarmed Madam, dead birds don’t fall out of trees”
“Frankly my dear… I don’t give a damn.”
Nope, it’s not famous (sorry, they were already taken) but I heard this one in a bar…
Sleazy guy is trying to cozy up to this girl. Without batting an eye she says, “I may not have any morals but I do have my standards and I’m sorry, honey, but you just don’t meet them.”
And walked off.
I about died laughing 
…I don’t know how many of you play the game Diplomacy (I recall John Corrado–I think it was him–mentioning this game on a previous thread), but one of my favorite quotes has always been:
“Find an ally who is willing to die for you, and see that he does just that.” Richard Sharp, The Game of Diplomacy. If you ever played Diplomacy, this is kinda sums the whole game up, and it’s catchy, too boot.
On a more serious note, I think it was Robert or John Kennedy who said, “Some men see things as they are and ask ‘why?’ I dream of things that never were and ask
‘why not?’” (I may not have this verbatim)
The screenplay “The Lion in Winter” is one of my favorite movies, and it’s chock full of catchy lines, including my sig.
From the Presidential Quotes thread:
“Any person who may be asked … What they did to make their life worthwhile … Can respond with pride and satisfaction … I served in the United States Navy.”
– John F. Kennedy, 1963 Naval Academy Graduation Address