Deep quotes/thoughts

I was just sitting here and all of the sudden I started thinking about some quotes.

The first was from Tolkien.
“I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”

The second was from Jack Handey, of SNL fame.
“Most of the time it was probably real bad being stuck down in a dungeon. But some days, when there was a bad storm outside, you’d look out your little window and think, ‘Boy, I’m glad I’m not out in that.’”
So feel free to post any deep or “deep” thoughts, quotes, or ideas you might know.

Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world. - Buddha

The happy life is thought to be virtuous; now a virtuous life requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement. If happiness is activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be that of the best thing in us. - Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics

“the sun doesn’t give light to the moon assuming the moon’s gonna owe it on” - Linkin Park

The Serenity Prayer

And from me:

A good life, a virtuous life, is like riding a bicycle on a narrow path with steep precipices on either side. It’s fun and easy while it lasts, but one wrong move and it can be hell to get back up again.

Christianity is to a burning bush as Buddhism is to a solitary leaf floating serenely in a vast ocean. Both believe in the death of the ego, but in Christianity the ego is thus reborn, like a a phoenix.

Some people are like a big black ball of yarn with a single white thread poking out of it it, almost impossible to see. If you see it and pull this white thread, slowly the black will turn to white. Some people only see the black, and some people only see the white. It’s important to see both.

A dog is not considered to be a good dog because it is a good barker, likewise a man is not a good man because he is a good talker. – Buddha

Living in a fish eye lens
Caught in the camera eye
I have no heart to lie
I can’t pretend a stranger
Is a long-awaited friend
– Rush

From his Mother of Demons.

“Tucker”, talking to God:

“Me, I got no excuses. I lived a bad life and I admit it. 'Course, some might say it was stupid to send me down here with a trigger finger and a tallywhacker if You didn’t expect me to use 'em.”

From Randy Wayne White’s novel, The Man Who Invented Florida.

I love the one from Bilbo’s long awaited party **feppytweed **and I have used it.

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

~Pastor Martin Niemöller
“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” ~Attributed to Ben Franklin

Then I’ll be all around in the dark - I’ll be ever’where—wherever you look. Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there… I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an’—I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folk eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build—why, I’ll be there. ~ Tom Joad “Grapes of Wrath”

It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived. ~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 11

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. ~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 11, spoken by the character Atticus These two speak for themselves doesn’t it?

“Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” ~ Made Famous by Theodore Roosevelt

I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both. ~ Theodore Roosevelt when asked about his wild (for the times) daughter. *It always breaks me up. *

To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed. ~ Theodore Roosevelt Seventh State of the Union (1907-12-03) *He is a large part of the reason I was comfortable being a Green Republican as long as I was. *

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else. ~ Theodore Roosevelt I wish Bush and the rest of the Republican party had remembered these wise words!

“Luck is where opportunity meets preparedness.”
My dad said that recently. I think he made it up. Maybe he heard it somewhere, I don’t know.

“Once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.”–Thomas de Quincey

I have heard it attributed to Abe Lincoln, but I do not know if that is true.

Toast always falls buttered side down - unless you are trying to prove it does.

A non-repeating tautology is an oxymoron.

“…Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
-Attributed to Nelson Mandela, apparently falsely!

I love that quote whoever said it. I paraphrase it: “Dogs bollocks, me”. Similar to one I heard a TV character say…Mr Meyer who was on BBC1’s Holby City I think: “There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance. I manage to walk it every day.”

I like :

not sure if I made it up or read it some where…

I’m not sure of the proper attribution for this one:

“Truth without compassion is not really truth, and compassion without truth is not really compassion.”

I came across this one recently, and it struck a chord:

“You remind me of somebody who is looking through a closed window and cannot explain to himself the strange movements of a passer-by. He cannot tell what sort of storm is raging out there or that this person might only be managing with difficulty to stay on his feet.”-- Wittgenstein

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” - Abraham Lincoln
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” - Ambrose Redmoon
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
- Epicurus
“More to be feared than ignorance is the illusion of knowledge.”
“Creationists make it sound as though a ‘theory’ is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.” - Isaac Asimov
“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.” - Thomas Paine
“It is significant that whenever the public mind is to be diverted from great social wrong, a crusade is inaugurated against indecency.” - Emma Goldman
“Science is like sex. Sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it.” - Richard Feynman
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” - James Madison
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.” - Thomas Paine
In science it often happens that scientists say, “You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,” and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. -Carl Sagan
Einstein, when he heard of the book 101 Writers against Einstein : “If I was wrong, it would only have taken one”
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” – C.S. Lewis
“I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all other possible gods, you’ll understand why I dismiss yours.” – Steven Roberts
“A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few.” - Judge Learned Hand

If you are not programming your own mind, chances are someone else is doing it for you. - Anon.

If you are arguing with a moron, make sure he is not doing the same thing. - Anon.

Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind. - Leonardo da Vinci

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

The power of acute observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don’t have it. - George Bernard Shaw

An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox. - Lao Tzu

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. " – Thomas Edison

“When I die, I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather did. Not screaming like the passengers in his car.” - Jack Handy

“Live by the foma (harmless untruths) that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.” (-Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle)

“Once you’ve killed the curiosity, you’ve killed the cat.” - Tom Bradley