# Quotes/Passages that stick in your mind **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 1, 2006, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-passages-that-stick-in-your-mind/382460 "2006-12-01T12:58:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2006, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-passages-that-stick-in-your-mind/382460/41 "2006-12-01T21:49:48Z")
Bit more Eliot: “Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised upon a table.” Don’t know why that image is so strong, as I can’t really envisage it. But it is. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2006, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-passages-that-stick-in-your-mind/382460/42 "2006-12-01T21:50:02Z")
I’ve kept a commonplace book of quotes that have meant a lot to me over the years - from literature mostly - and decided to share this one. Unfortunately, I don’t have the source nearby, but I’ll post the quote anyway: “Something began me that had no beginning; something will end me that has no end,” ---
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2006, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-passages-that-stick-in-your-mind/382460/43 "2006-12-01T22:08:04Z")
“Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do.” - Bertrand Russell “The average estimate themselves by what they do, the above average by what they are.” - Schiller “Why should I care about posterity? What’s posterity ever done for me?” - Groucho Marx ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2006, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-passages-that-stick-in-your-mind/382460/44 "2006-12-01T23:00:09Z")
I have led you to the treasure house of the world. Blame yourselves if you go away empty handed. I encountered the quote in George MacDonald Frasier’s _The Pyrates_, but I think he was quoting Sir Francis Drake. ---
**Author:** ![Archeonomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7cd45c/32.png) [@Archeonomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archeonomist)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2006, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-passages-that-stick-in-your-mind/382460/45 "2006-12-01T23:59:37Z")
‘Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage’ _- Shakespeare_ Also: ‘Uh oh’ _- last words transmitted from the space shuttle Challenger_ ‘Allright, then! Let her drive!’ _- alleged last words transmitted from the space shuttle Challenger_ Sorry… ---
**Author:** ![Ghanima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Ghanima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ghanima)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2006, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-passages-that-stick-in-your-mind/382460/46 "2006-12-02T00:19:32Z")
From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were; I have not seen As others saw; I could not bring My passions from a common spring. (E.A. Poe - _Alone_) I am the captain of my fate: I am the master of my soul. (W.E. Henley - _Invictus_) Just think! some night the stars will gleam Upon a cold, grey stone, And trace a name with silver beam, And lo! 'twill be your own. (R.W. Service - _Just Think_) ---
**Author:** ![Frustrated\_Wonderer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a4c791/32.png) [@Frustrated\_Wonderer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frustrated_Wonderer)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2006, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-passages-that-stick-in-your-mind/382460/47 "2006-12-02T00:24:45Z")
If I ever had to choose a single passage from any book or song, it would have to be Billy Joel’s keeping the faith, I adore this song. I especially like the passage that goes: “You can get just so much from a good thing You can linger too long in your dreams Say goodbye to the “Oldies But Goodies” Cause the good ole days weren’t always good And tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems” I also like the final paragraph that says: “Now I told you my reasons for the whole revival Now I’m going outside to have an ice cold beer in the shade Oh, I’m going to listen to my 45’s Ain’t it wonderful to be alive When the rock ‘n’ roll plays, yeah When the memory stays, yeah I’m keeping the faith Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, keeping the faith” What a great lyricist this man is… ---
**Author:** ![Eutychus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2006, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-passages-that-stick-in-your-mind/382460/48 "2006-12-02T00:37:53Z")
"The way you swim must be the Dolphin’s way … Out on your own, Filling the element with signatures on your own frequency. Echo soundings, Searches, Probes,Allurements, Elver-gleams in the dark of the whole sea. " — paraphrased from “Station Island” by Seamus Heaney — ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2006, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-passages-that-stick-in-your-mind/382460/49 "2006-12-02T00:50:28Z")
[QUOTE=KarlGauss] [ultra nitpick] I have measured out my life _ **with** _ coffee spoon_ **s** _ [/ultra nitpick] Sorry, I’m still working on my OCD. from [here](http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html), an excellent resource on poets and poetry [/QUOTE] I knew that. :smack: I have the poem more or less memorized, but it’s been awhile. Time to brush up! ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2006, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-passages-that-stick-in-your-mind/382460/50 "2006-12-02T01:20:10Z")
[QUOTE=HazelNutCoffee] I knew that. :smack: I have the poem more or less memorized, but it’s been awhile. Time to brush up! [/QUOTE] Prufrock is defintely one piece that merits memorizing (so many of its lines are “quotable” - almost the entire thing!). OK, here’s some other Eliot that has stayed with me for decades (this is all from memory, so please forgive all the mistakes that you’re about to see): **‘In an old house, more is heard than is spoken’.** (from The Family Reunion - I think) **'Here I am. An old man in a dry month** **Being read to by a boy Waiting for rain’.** (from Geronition) **‘In a world of fugitives, the person taking the opposite direction will appear to be running away’.** (maybe from Murder in the Cathedral?) **‘The man who returns will have to meet the boy who left’.** (also from The Family Reunion) **'In a minute there is time** **For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse’.** (from, where else, Prufrock) ---
**Author:** ![Cuckoorex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Cuckoorex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cuckoorex)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2006, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-passages-that-stick-in-your-mind/382460/51 "2006-12-02T01:45:29Z")
“I’ll tell you what the human soul is; It’s the part of you that knows when your brain isn’t working right.” Kurt Vonnegut, _Galapagos_ “Most people would very much like science to prove the existence of God but not to take the measure of his capacity.” (paraphrased) E. O. Wilson ---
**Author:** ![dwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwyr/32/363_2.png) [@dwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwyr)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2006, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-passages-that-stick-in-your-mind/382460/52 "2006-12-02T02:17:29Z")
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it Omar Khayyam ---
**Author:** ![BrassyPhrase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea666f/32.png) [@BrassyPhrase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrassyPhrase)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2006, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-passages-that-stick-in-your-mind/382460/53 "2006-12-02T02:20:25Z")
[QUOTE=chowder] There are 2 quotes from 1984 that scared me. So what other quotes/passages have made impacts on you. [/QUOTE] This I read a hundred years ago (not really! only 98!) in high school in an excerpt. I copied it out as part of a larger passage and it’s stuck with me since. “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2006, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-passages-that-stick-in-your-mind/382460/54 "2006-12-02T02:56:10Z")
_“I will make no metaphors to describe the pain in my head, because the brain, which makes metaphors, should not be forced to be clever at its own expense. My ribs ached like a kingdom that has lost a war, and my stomach swelled with the nausea of all the seas, but my head, well, it hurt. It really hurt.” – Mark Helprin (Memoir from Antproof Case)_ I may engrave this one on my tombstone. ---
**Author:** ![Nic2004](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@Nic2004](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nic2004)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2006, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-passages-that-stick-in-your-mind/382460/55 "2006-12-02T03:48:07Z")
“To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intellingent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one’s self; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived - this is to have succeeded.” **Ralph Waldo Emerson** As an Atheist I have quoted this piece in answer to the old question "What is the purpose of life? ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2006, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-passages-that-stick-in-your-mind/382460/56 "2006-12-02T04:00:01Z")
I took my sig line from this passage from Carl Sagan’s _Pale Blue Dot_, referring to [this picture](http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02228): > [@](#): > > …Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar”, every “supreme leader”, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. > > The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. > > Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. > > The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. > > It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2006, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-passages-that-stick-in-your-mind/382460/57 "2006-12-02T05:13:41Z")
I still don’t know how accurate my signature line is, but I’m going to assume its true because it tells you everything you need to know about Lincoln’s pragmatism, which led him to exemplify what Shelby Foote once described as “the American genius for compromise”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-passages-that-stick-in-your-mind/382460.md?page=2)