In Hollywood, you have to scrape away the tinsel to get at the real tinsel. - Oscar Levant
The following are all from La Rouchefoucauld:
Men’s happiness or unhappiness depends no less upon their temperament than upon fortune.
Although men pride themselves on their noble deeds, these are seldom the outcome of a grand design but simply effects of chance.
A gentleman in love may behave like a madman, but not like an ass.
Imagination could never invent as many and varied contradictions as nature has put into each person’s heart.
Bugger, that should be La Rochefoucauld. I don’t usually do self-correction posts, but thought it was in order this time as you wouldn’t have gotten far googling with a misspelt name.
“One of the greatest tragedies in human history was the hijacking of morality by religion.” Sir Arthur C. Clarke
Give a starving man a fish and he eats today. Teach a starving man to fish and he eats every day. Give a starving man religion and he will die praying for a fish. - Unknown
“Never look back. Something might be gaining on you.” Satchel Paige
“Today not possibile. Tomorrow possible.” Grand Master H. U. Lee
“Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It’s what separates us from the animals… except the weasel.”
– Homer Simpson
"Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly,
Man got to ask himself ‘Why, why, why?’
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land,
Man got to tell himself he understand."
- From the Book of Bokonon , in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle .
bananabelle, your quote is foma! Nothing but foma!
Am I butterfly dreaming I’m a man? Or a bowling ball dreaming I’m a plate of sashimi? Never assume what you see and feel is real!
-Doreen, from Chrono Trigger, by Squaresoft
Candy
Is dandy.
But liquor
Is quicker.
–Ogden Nash
Companions, the creator seeketh, not corpses- and not herds or believers either. Fellow-creators the creator seeketh- those who grave new values on new tables.
–Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
Gimme some sugar, baby.
–Bruce Campbell, Army of Darkness
The time comes for everyone to do deliberately what he used to do by mistake . . . If you are effeminate by nature, you have to find some way of telling the world that you know you are, otherwise they keep telling you.
- Quentin Crisp
That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
- John Stuart Mill, *On Liberty *
Do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Their tastes may be different.
- George Bernard Shaw
It is great good health to believe, as the Hindus do, that there are 33 million gods and goddesses in the world. It is great good health to want to understand one’s dreams. It is great good health to desire the ambiguous and paradoxical. It is sickness of the profoundest kind to believe that there is one reality. There is sickness in any piece of work or any piece of art seriously attempting to suggest that the idea that there is more than one reality is somehow redundant.
- Clive Barker
Well, allow me to introduce myself to you as an advocate of Ornamental Knowledge. You like the mind to be a neat machine, equipped to work efficiently, if narrowly, and with no extra bits or useless parts. I like the mind to be a dustbin of scraps of brilliant fabric, odd gems, worthless but fascinating curiosities, tinsel, quaint bits of carving, and a reasonable amount of healthy dirt. Shake the machine and it goes out of order; shake the dustbin and it adjusts itself beautifully to its new position.
- Robertson Davies, Tempest-Tost
If there were a single truth, it would be impossible to paint a hundred canvases on the same theme.
- Pablo Picasso
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is man.
- Alexander Pope
It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living.
- Bertrand Russell
When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him whose.
- Don Marquis
If you’re already walking on thin ice, you might as well dance.
- Gil Atkinson
Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.
- Erma Bombeck
Our father which art in Heaven,
Stay there,
And we shall stay on Earth.
- Jacques Prévert, “Pater noster”
*Écartons ces romans qu’on appelle systèmes,
Et pour nous élever descendons dans nous-mêmes. *
- Voltaire
To being an “us” for once instead of a “them:”
*La vie bohème! *
- Rent, “La Vie Bohème”
Thanks all
“They’re grrrreat” -Tony the tiger
You can’t let praise or criticism get to you. It’s a weakness to get caught up in either one.
- John Wooden
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
- Douglas Adams
The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.
- Pearl S. Buck
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.
- Dr. Seuss
A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.
- Bruce Lee
In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.
- Robert Frost
And a wealth of wisdom from the Prince of Darkness himself:
“I love you all. I love you more than life itself, but you’re all fucking mad.”
“I’m not picking up dog shit. I’m a rock star.”
(Words to live by: know your place.)
“SHAAARRRON!”
(Cinnamon Girl’s translation: All you really need is someone to take care of things.)
i have the worlds largest collection of seashells. i keep it scattered around the beaches of the world…perhaps you’ve seen it?
–steven wright
Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra. Suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath.
At night the ice weasels come.
–Matt Groening, Love is Hell
My job is to give people fabulous stories to tell.
–Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
“Why is there enough religion to incite war, but not enough religion to instill tolerance?”
Many have forgotten this truth, but you must not forget it. You remain responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince
A room without books is like a body without a soul. ~ Cicero.
Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
We know what is ‘not cricket’–racism, prejudice, injustice and intolerable behaviour…so let us resolve to live our lives as good cricketers." ~ Kofi Annan
Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body but rather to skid in sideways, Champagne in one hand, strawberries in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming WOO HOO - What a Ride!
I don’t know where the last one came from, but most of these I picked up here, on the SDMB.
Don’t mistake the edge of your rut for the horizon. --James Patterson
"Nature abhors a moron. "
H.L. Mencken
“No good deed goes unpunished.”
Billy Wilder
Some people walk in the rain while others just get wet. ~anon.
I’d never seen that. Thanks for the link.
I’m off to rotate my tires.
“But if thou live remembered not to be;
Die single and thine image dies with thee”
William Shakespere.
Don’t think that it won’t happen just because it hasn’t happened yet.
-Jackson Browne, Late for the Sky