What are some of the great quotes you’ve heard through your life. Something that has always stuck with you in your head. Or maybe it was something that you read and just really hit home with you or maybe even inspired you and it changed your life. Don’t limit your search to just books - it could even have been something that you saw in a movie.
If you can, please include where you heard it and who said it.
The axe never remembers; the log never forgets.
Not sure who said it, I saw it on an office wall.
“Off to MPSIMS”
–Manhatten
Some of the best ones I’ve heard:
About 3-4 weeks ago, I saw a woman on television talking about people telling lies. And she said something along the lines of, “The more intolerant you are of lies, the more accepting you must be of human frailties.” It struck me as very true.
Another was said by Oprah, I think. I’m not a huge Oprah fan but this made sense to me:
“You are responsible for your life. You can’t keep blaming other people for your dysfunction. Life is really about moving on.”
I don’t think anyone said this (other than myself) - but I always tell myself to never let pride get in the way of an apology. Also, as far as dating goes…I always say that I don’t compete with issues or addictions.
Another was said to me by my mentor during a service project I was doing. She said, “You are responsible for what you understand.”
Tibs.
“Only Connect. That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and life will be exaulted, and human love will reach its height. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.”
From E.M. Forster’s book, HOWARD’S END. First heard it from my then-boyfriend, said it was his favorite quote of all time. We used it for the Unity Candle lighting at our wedding.
While thumbing through a book of quotes (Oxford, I assume, though its 800 km away at the moment so I can’t check), and i came across this one:
“I sit beside my lonely fire, and pray for wisdom yet-
For calmness to remember, or courage to forget” -Aïdé
Also, I really like:
“Il y a des millions d’années que les fleurs fabriquent des épines. Il y a des millions d’années que les moutons mangent quand même les fleurs. Et ce n’est pas sérieux de chercher à comprendre pourquoi elles se donnent tant de mal pour se fabriquer des épines qui ne servent j’aimais à rien? Ce n’est pas important, la guerre des moutons et des fleurs?” - Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint-Éxupéry
Although, honestly, I love that whole book… 
The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.’-George Bernard Shaw Androcles And The Lion
“The universe doesn’t give first warnings or second chances”
Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them."
I CLOSE with a troubling quotation from Emerson. Toward the end of “Experience,” one of his most skeptical and disillusioned essays, Emerson made a remarkable statement about evil: “We believe in ourselves as we do not believe in others. We permit all things to ourselves, and that which we call sin in others is experiment for us.”
My sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating.
– Ashleigh Brilliant - UC Berkeley ‘street’ philosopher
“Tis with our judgements as our watches: None go just alike, yet each believes his own.”
Alexander Pope (1688…1744)
“By three methods we may learn wisdom:
First, by reflection, which is noblest;
Second,by imitation, which is easiest;
and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”
Confucius
Blooms the laurel which belongs
To the valiant chief who fights;
I see the wreath, I hear the songs
Lauding the Eternal Rights,
Victors over daily wrongs:
Awful victors, they misguide
Whom they will destroy,
And their coming triumph hide
In our downfall, or our joy:
Speak it firmly, – these are gods,
All are ghosts beside.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Good is the enemy of Excellent. Talent is not necessary for Excellence. Persistence is necessary for Excellence. And Persistence is a Decision.
“To believe in the possibility of liberation,” says Tufts University’s Lee Edelman, “is to believe there is a trapped identity struggling to get out. But it’s not a matter of liberating something that is repressed; it’s a matter of inventing ways of becoming something that has not been. It’s less a matter, in that sense, of coming out than of coming into__and one can’t know in advance what that will be.”
The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
John Stuart Mill
“Information is gushing toward your brain like a firehose aimed at a teacup.”
_ Dogbert
The subatomic world, where particles are not solid objects
so much as smears of probability, may seem counterintuitive, even illogical.
“It’s not burnt. It’s Cajun!” - Christopher A. Evans
Motto of the Bomb Squad:
If you see us running, you better catch up.
Mandarin Rejection Notice:
We have read your manuscript with boundless delight. If
we were to publish your paper, it would be impossible for
us to publish any work of lower standard. And as it is
unthinkable that in the next thousand years we shall see
its equal, we are, to our regret, compelled to return your
divine composition, and to beg you a thousand times to
overlook our short sight and timidity.
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
Ooh! My favorite. Now if I can just get the history books to spell my name correctly… 
“It’s just until your father pays off his desecration of a priceless artifact… I never thought I’d have to say that again…”
See the sig.
An aphorism from my grandfather, have never heard it from anyone else, but it’s hard wired into my psychic.
“When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging”
“HEY! Get your hands outta your pants when you’re talking about my sister!”
And just one other classic
“If it’s the end of the world, then you’re in trouble”
Upham
but, uh, did you have to salt the earth so nothing would ever grow again?
“heheheh… yeah”
Heard through a closed door:
“Owww! Michael, your belt is sticking in to me”
“That’s not my belt”
I want to fuck you like an animal
I want to feel you from the inside
I want to fuck you like an animal
My whole existence is flawed.
Nine Inch Nails - Closer
God is dead and no one cares
If there is a hell I’ll see you there.
Nine Inch Nails - Heresy
“This is a dark ride.”
Sign on the office wall, the John Larroquette show.
On Democracy:
“In a democracy, people usually get the kind of government they deserve.” - Adlai Stevenson.
“Those who will give up essential liberty to secure a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” - Benjamin Franklin
“Ignorance is a renewable resource.” -P.J. O’Rourke
I always thought this was Will Rogers.
Another from Will on democracy…
(slightly paraphrased) '…for the last 150 years we have had every type of horse theif imaginable for president and not one of them, despite all of his best efforts, has been able to destroy the country yet."
And then from ‘A Fans Notes’ by Fredrick Exely
“She had a body that was like a swift unexpected blow to the stomach.”
Duty done is the fireside of the soul.
Unknown
Democracy is the worst possible form of government, except for all the others.
Churchill
The only thing worse than being popular is not being popular.
Wilde
Only when the last tree has been cut, the last fish caught, the last buffalo shot and the last river run dry will the white man realize that he cannot eat money.
Chief Seattle
America has the finest politicians that money can buy.
Will Rogers