# Favourite quotes **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 22, 2005, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858 "2005-09-22T09:51:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858/41 "2005-09-23T05:24:22Z")
I am one half Bad math Faceted Fractured Subtracted Divided Into parts One mind Two hearts Broken Into less than the sum Of my parts A blind artist Of lost arts … I am a broken promise. I am deceitful ink. As false as my death certificate With it’s official stamp. All words are lies. The truth is written in scars. – From David Mack’s _Kabuki_. “Pain? I am the boiling man… I know pain at the molecular level… it pulls at my atoms… sings to me in an alphabet of fear… come to break the bones of your sins, meat puppet…” – From James O’Barr’s _The Crow_. “Oi can’t come to the fuckin’ phone at the minute, 'cause oi’m pissed outta me skull at Fisted Sister’s on Divisadero. Yeh can leave a message after the beep, yeh bollucks. BEEEP.” – From Garth Ennis’ _Preacher_. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858/42 "2005-09-23T05:35:19Z")
Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can’t sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can’t sleep with the window open. **George Bernard Shaw** Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people. **George Bernard Shaw** _There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee._ _The Cremation of Sam McGee_, **Robert W. Service** ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858/43 "2005-09-23T06:18:43Z")
“In the midst of winter I found that within me was an invincible summer.” Albert Camus ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858/44 "2005-09-23T06:18:50Z")
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, astronomer and writer (1934-1996) ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858/45 "2005-09-23T07:29:26Z")
Recall the folksy wisdom of Lewis Grizzard, who was married many times: “Next time, instead of getting married, I’m just going to find a woman I don’t like and buy her a house.” ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858/46 "2005-09-23T07:48:39Z")
There’s no happy ending to cocaine. You either die, you go to jail, or else you run out. -Sam Kinison ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858/47 "2005-09-23T07:57:33Z")
Good god, where to begin? :eek: Well, some highlights from my collection, at least. Starting with, I think, my favorite… “if somebody’s trying to shut you up, sing louder and, if possible, better."—Salman Rushdie “…I will _not_ be shackled by the failures of _your_ God. The only ‘blasphemy’ is to wallow in insignificance! I have taken the refuse of your God’s failures, and I have _triumphed!_” —Herbet West, _Bride of Re-Animator_ “The great questions of the day will not be settled by speeches and majority decisions, but by blood and iron.” - Otto Von Bismarck “Anyone who clings to the historically untrue - and thoroughly immoral - doctrine ‘that violence never settles anything’ I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedom.”—Robert A. Heinlein “Freedom to starve is no freedom.” —Harper, _Sharpe’s Rifles_ “[Kipling] sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilised, are there to guard and feed them.” [Sometimes paraphrased as “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf”]—George Orwell “My land is where my dead are buried” —Crazy Horse “What is strong wins: that is the universal law. If only it were not so often precisely what is stupid and evil!” -Frederich Nietzsche ---
**Author:** ![Mellivora\_capensis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mellivora\_capensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mellivora_capensis)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858/48 "2005-09-23T08:32:20Z")
Wow, some really, really good stuff here. Thanks everyone. Another: “In your mental universe, certainty exists only in the dictionary. Somewhere between ‘cerebrum’ and ‘cervix’.” _Jean-Claude Koven, in Going Deeper._ ---
**Author:** ![Mellivora\_capensis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mellivora\_capensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mellivora_capensis)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858/49 "2005-09-23T08:57:18Z")
Shit, apologies, “some” should be “lots of”. Lots of really, really good stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858/50 "2005-09-23T10:43:49Z")
> [@marque elf](#): > > The universe maximizes towrds perversity. > > The quote is from a science fiction writer. Unfortunately, I don’t remember which one (which is perverse in and of itself). “The perversity of the universe tends towards a maximum” is Finagle’s First Law, by Larry Niven (may his tribe increase!). OTOH: “No matter how good she looks, some guy somewhere is sick and tired of putting up with her shit” is not. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858/51 "2005-09-23T12:47:25Z")
> [@](#): > > And out of the chaos, a voice spoke: > “Smile and be happy, for it can always be worse”. > > And I smiled, and I was happy, and it did get worse. And > [@](#): > > Mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to extinction. Let us pray we choose correctly. > ~~Woody Allen and > [@](#): > > The Fox knows many things, but the Hedgehog knows one BIG thing. But most of all > [@](#): > > 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. – **Heinlein** ---
**Author:** ![Hung\_Mung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@Hung\_Mung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hung_Mung)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858/52 "2005-09-23T15:07:22Z")
“Have you ever noticed how much _better_ everything seems after a good breakfast?” **Death, the High Cost of Living** , by Neil Gaiman “You will find the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly too.” John Kenneth Galbraith ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858/53 "2005-09-23T17:44:34Z")
“There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What’s up with _this_ glass? Excuse me? _Excuse me_? This is my glass? I don’t think so. _My_ glass was full, and it was a bigger glass!” - Terry Pratchett There is a rather staggering amount of truth in this quote. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858/54 "2005-09-23T19:56:18Z")
“You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word” - **Al Capone** ---
**Author:** ![Cranky\_Hermit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Cranky\_Hermit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cranky_Hermit)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858/55 "2005-09-23T21:24:41Z")
“I would rather have one fool againt me than a thousand on my side” Voltaire ---
**Author:** ![Ghanima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Ghanima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ghanima)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858/56 "2005-09-23T23:06:17Z")
> [@](#): > > They’re gonna clear-cut your best thoughts for the sake of profit, unless you learn to resist, 'cause the profit system follows the path of least resistance, and following the path of least resistance is what makes a river crooked! I always thought this was actually a really stupid analogy. Is he suggesting that following the path of least resistance is bad? Or is he saying that a river being crooked is bad? Because actually a river following the path of least resistance is a good thing. By being crooked, the flow slows, creating better habitat, allowing silt to be deposited, which increases the fertility of the soil, and not only that but looks a hell of a lot prettier. Or maybe he’s trying to suggest that the profit system is “crooked” as in ripping you off. If that’s the case then he’s using one meaning of the word to imply the other, but in such a way that it implies that both are bad. I’m sorry to point it out but ultimately this part of the quote is kinda sucky. “We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.” - Oscar Wilde ---
**Author:** ![Nic2004](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@Nic2004](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nic2004)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858/57 "2005-09-24T02:03:35Z")
> [@ITR champion](#): > > “There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What’s up with _this_ glass? Excuse me? _Excuse me_? This is my glass? I don’t think so. _My_ glass was full, and it was a bigger glass!” - Terry Pratchett > > There is a rather staggering amount of truth in this quote. Reminds me of the one that says: “ **Optimist** says- Half full. The **Pessimist** says\_ Half empty. The **Engineer** says- This glass is twice as big as it needs to be” ---
**Author:** ![Nic2004](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@Nic2004](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nic2004)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858/58 "2005-09-24T02:10:07Z")
_You can’t convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it’s based on a deep-seated need to believe._ Carl Sagan ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858/59 "2005-09-24T02:19:48Z")
This quote is from a 1963 Outer Limits episode entitled “The Invisibles” - “World conquerors may sometimes become fools but fools _never_ become world conquerors.” ---
**Author:** ![Civil\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d78d45/32.png) [@Civil\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Civil_Guy)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858/60 "2005-09-24T02:43:51Z")
Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself. **William Butler Yeats** I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar, and often convincing. **Oscar Wilde** We all worry about the population explosion, but we don’t worry about it at the right time. **Arthur Hoppe** Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair. **George Burns** [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-quotes/322858.md?page=4)