# Quotes you try to live your life by.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [August 8, 2004, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940 "2004-08-08T22:58:06Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@aaslatten](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aaslatten)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940/61 "2004-08-10T04:16:06Z")
“Happiness is an emotion, not a state of being.” – my therapist
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### Author:  [@lezlers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lezlers)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940/62 "2004-08-10T05:54:34Z")
“Nobody eats for you, nobody sleeps for you, don’t _ever_ let anyone think for you”
-My parents have drilled this one into me from the time I was little.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained”
An oldie but such a goodie.
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### Author:  [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940/63 "2004-08-10T05:57:01Z")
"The really BIG problems don’t get solved; they just get less important. "
_Me, to a friend_
“I decided to change problems”
_Yvonne Kroonenberg, on leaving her alcoholic ex and starting to live with a foreigner._
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### Author:  [@Hung\_Mung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hung_Mung)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940/64 "2004-08-10T06:21:11Z")
**CanvasShoes** , Admiral David Farragut said “Damn the torpedos…” at the battle of Mobile Bay on August 5th, 1864.
**tremorviolet** , “I may disapprove of what you say…” was François-Marie Arouet, also known as Voltaire.
A couple of my favorites…
“Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” Ernest Hemingway
“To suspect your own mortality is to know the beginning of terror, to learn irrefutably that you are mortal is to know the end of terror.”
“Ultimately, all things are known because you want to believe you know.”
Frank Herbert
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### Author:  [@Raymond\_Luxury\_Yacht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raymond_Luxury_Yacht)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940/65 "2004-08-10T07:47:23Z")
Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.
Will Rogers
Those who fail to see the whimsy of things will experience rigor mortis before death.
Tom Robbins
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### Author:  [@antechinus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antechinus)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940/66 "2004-08-10T10:52:37Z")
“It’s better to regret something you have done than to regret something you havent done… and if you see your mom this weekend be sure and tell her satan…satan…satan…”
- Butthole surfers
The first bit anyway.
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### Author:  [@Bites\_When\_Provoked](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bites_When_Provoked)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940/67 "2004-08-10T11:01:27Z")
You’re never too old to learn something stupid.
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### Author:  [@Blackclaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackclaw)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940/68 "2004-08-10T12:25:15Z")
“When in doubt, kill the nearest living thing.”
Orc Warlord, _Warhammer Armies_
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### Author:  [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940/69 "2004-08-10T12:43:19Z")
> [@antechinus](#):
>
> “It’s better to regret something you have done than to regret something you havent done… and if you see your mom this weekend be sure and tell her satan…satan…satan…”
>
> - Butthole surfers
>
> The first bit anyway.
Really? I’ve only heard this in an Orbital song (“Satan”). Is it sampled from them? It does sound more like the Butthole Surfers than Orbital.
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### Author:  [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940/70 "2004-08-10T16:13:21Z")
> [@rostfrei](#):
>
> If it is to be, it is up to me.
Robert Schuller?
(I’ve heard him say it, I don’t know if he coined it. Btw, whenever my family visit my brother in the L.A. area, that’s our church.)
Another I’ve adopted~
“There is one God from Whom all morality emanates. God’s primary command is that we treat each other decently.” ~ Dennis Prager
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### Author:  [@LVgeogeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LVgeogeek)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940/71 "2004-08-10T16:34:42Z")
Work like you don’t need the money
Love like you’ve never been hurt
Dance like nobody is watching
and Sing like no one is listening
–I do not know the origins of this
and
Well-behaved women rarely make history. --Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
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### Author:  [@Red\_Stilettos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Stilettos)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940/72 "2004-08-10T16:57:26Z")
When someone shows you who they are, believe them. - Oprah Winfrey
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### Author:  [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940/73 "2004-08-10T18:39:24Z")
“What’s the trouble? Some other dumb sonofabitch figured it out.”
–My Dad, handed down from \*his \* Dad. Usually in response to someone considering giving up on an automotive mechanical problem.
“C’mon! You’re better than that!”
–My Dad (again) with regard to cutting corners. I live by this one and it serves me well.
“Never lick a steak knife”
–Unknown
“Although it may rule, seldom does the opinion of the majority prove to be correct.”
–Unknown
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### Author:  [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940/74 "2004-08-10T18:46:08Z")
Well, kinda corny, but…
“This above all, to thine own self be true.” Shakespeare, “Hamlet”
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### Author:  [@El\_Elvis\_Rojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Elvis_Rojo)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940/75 "2004-08-10T20:10:28Z")
“You can’t always get what you want”
“Love thy neighbor as thyself” (although it helps to love oneself first, no?)
“All dogs go to heaven”
“The thing with live television is, if you make a mistake, it’s over with…move on”
“ROW, you bastard!”
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### Author:  [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940/76 "2004-08-10T21:12:53Z")
“Treat the other man’s faith gently; it is all he has to believe with. His mind was created for his own thoughts, not yours or mine.” -Henry S. Haskins
“There are more pleasant things to do than beat people up.” -Muhammed Ali
“Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like a toad, though ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in its head.” Billy Shakespeare
“If you only block and never go on the offensive, you’ll never score any points. If you’re always on the offense, you’ll get tired out real fast. You need to fine a balance between the two, and never, ever, ever pay attention to anything other than that balance.” -One of my TKD instructors. Not sure if he was talking about sparring or life in general.
“Get angry when things go wrong. But don’t act angry. Save that angry energy until you’re at the end of your rope, and then do something incredible with it.” -same instructor.
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### Author:  [@sunstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunstone)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940/77 "2004-08-10T21:37:15Z")
“A mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions”
Oliver Wendell Holmes
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940/78 "2004-08-10T21:55:51Z")
My goal is to be accused of being strident. - Susan Faludi
If you are a woman, if you are a person of colour, if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, if you are a person of size, if you are person of intelligence, if you are a person of integrity, then you are considered a minority in this world… For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution, and our revolution is long overdue. - Margaret Cho
I cannot afford to waste my time making money. - Jean-Louis Agassiz
One paramount truth
Our society smothers
In petty concern
With position and pelf:
It isn’t enough
To exasperate others;
You’ve got to remember
To gladden yourself.
- Piet Hein
What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other? - George Eliot, Middlemarch
Review everything you’ve been taught. Discard any thing that’s an insult to your soul. And begin again. - Walt Whitman
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### Author:  [@SlowMindThinking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlowMindThinking)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940/79 "2004-08-10T22:01:09Z")
I’ll point out the obvious and state that most of the lines attributed to parents have probably been used by us parents since there have been parents. (The “not making a choice is making a choice” line is more recent, though. Christopher Wren?)
My favorite at the moment is from _Who Moved My Cheese?_:
“Hope is not a strategy.”
And there is a Proverb along the lines of:
Heaping kindness upon your enemies is like heaping hot coals upon their heads.
(Kind of has that self-contradictory thing to it that I like.)
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### Author:  [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotes-you-try-to-live-your-life-by/258940/80 "2004-08-10T22:11:14Z")
Abraham Lincoln: My fellow citizens, we cannot escape history….
C.F. Smith to U.S. Grant before the Fort Henry and Donnellson Campaign: Fear nothing, follow all lawful orders and when the time comes to fight you must fight.
Annon: When you can remain calm when all those around you have surrendered to panic, perhaps you don’t understand the situation.
Oliver Cromwell: I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, to consider that you may be wrong. This was quoted above in a slightly different form.
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