I didn’t really know this was a thing until I saw it on imgur, but random ramblings from idiots often are quite wise.
Here are some I’ve made up:
“When they say women are always right, the translation is that when they are wrong and you point it out, they feel bad, thus making you wrong. Then they’ll make you pay.”
“Jigsaw from the Saw movies is the best teacher in history. A regular teacher can jabber all day and the students may learn nothing, but if Jigsaw teaches you something once, you’ll remember it for the rest of your life.”
“Whether you think you can or can’t do something, it will come true.”
“If you want to find a girlfriend, you only need to remember one word: Cash.”
“Those jeans don’t make you look fat. You make you look fat.”
“Hollywood is all about fantasy fulfillment. There’s no such thing as dragons, fairies, or love. If love was something real and normal, there wouldn’t be so many movies about it.”
“Do you know why we give diamonds for marriage? Diamond companies.”
“I don’t believe in luck. What I found is that the harder you work, the luckier you get.”
“40 Years ago, one person could support a family. Today, two people have to work. By the time today’s kids grow up, they might need three jobs to survive.”
That one is a variation of “self fulfilling prophecy”. In fact, the first line of the wiki for self fulfilling prophecy is “a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true”.
Now this one, this one I know I heard a comedian say. Again, slightly changed, I think it was "those jeans don’t make your ass look big, your ass makes your ass look big.
Mine is one my dad came up with, and for all I know he heard it somewhere as well, “sometimes you win by letting the other guy think he won”. In some scenarios it works similarly to ‘pick your battles’.
These are all related to primitive bow making
" The thickness determines how far it can bend, the width determines how far it will bend"
" Never bend the bow further than what it takes to expose an area that needs work"
“The best way to get any boy in virtually any country to do something suicidal is simply say, ‘Scared?’ Part of growing up is to be able to answer: Yes, this is both stupid and dangerous. Then kick them in the nuts.”
“No matter what you want to do in life, people will line up around the block to explain to you why you can’t do it.”
“You can only truly hate someone you know, unless you’re the kind of person who wishes death on complete strangers.”
“When you die, do you want people to say you had potential, or achieved it?”
There’s some really good ones here and I think this is my favorite so far.
I used to say to my ex “deal with the girlfriend you actually have; not the one you wish you had”. I still use this one pretty often, substituting “girlfriend” with whatever someone is complaining about.
Responding to my son’s comment about maybe joining the military: “The military isn’t suited for everyone; you’re better off getting a college education, unless you like the idea of working at McDonald’s or Wal-Mart. Bottom line is: If you remain uninformed, you’ll likely end up uniformed.”
“There are two types of people in this world: those that quietly suffer and those that complain about nothing. When the former is loud and the latter is quiet, that’s when you know they’re really in trouble.”
“The difference between being dumb and stupid is that one doesn’t know any better, the other does the same thing again hoping for a different outcome.”
“Don’t worry about grammar, think of something worth saying first.”
I can’t remember where I heard this and I can’t find it anywhere. Who knows, maybe I made it up? Who said this? I’d like to know what else they had to say:
“It’s important to know the difference between how you actually feel and how you think you are supposed/expected to feel.”
My grandmother’s favorite: “You may have to scrub your own floor, but for God’s sake close the front door when you do it.” It was her version of ‘your business is your business, don’t involve the neighborhood.’