More quotes

Here are some more quotes I have collected over the past few months. No particular overall topic here: If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you. Don Marquis (1878 - 1937) Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed. Herman Melville (1819 - 1891) "I don't believe there's any problem in this country that Americans, when they roll up their sleeves, can't completely ignore." ~George Carlin The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made. Jean Giraudoux (1882 - 1944) There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening. Marshall McLuhan (1911 - 1980) A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure. Segal's Law "Almost nobody's competent, Paul. It's enough to make you cry to see how bad most people are at their jobs. If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind." http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever. Anatole France (1844 - 1924) "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire. If one sticks too rigidly to one's principles, one would hardly see anybody. Agatha Christie (1890 - 1976) A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life. Robertson Davies, "What's Bred in the Bone" It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. Alfred Adler (1870 - 1937) I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it. Jack Handey (1949 - ), Deep Thoughts I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way. Franklin P. Adams (1881 - 1960) The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not. Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983) To the living we owe respect. To the dead we owe only the truth. – Voltaire A newspaper consists of just the same number of words, whether there be any news in it or not. Henry Fielding (1707 - 1754) “Why do you write strong female characters?” Answer by Joss Whedon: “Because you’re still asking me that question.” http://mlkshk.com/p/8TNP You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty. Sacha Guitry (1885 - 1957) I have noticed that the people who are late are often so much jollier than the people who have to wait for them. E. V. Lucas “If every trace of every single religion were wiped out and nothing were passsed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again.” -Penn Jillette, God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales

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Quotes for the new year

Here is another batch of quotes that I have collected over the past couple of months. Hundreds more of my favorite quotes can be found here. I don't travel in circles where people say, 'I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith.' That's just a long-winded religious way to say, 'Shut up.' Penn Jillette, NPR interview Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something. Pancho Villa (1877 - 1923), last words “No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should've been paying attention. Well, get used to that feeling. That's how your whole life will feel some day. This is all practice.” -Chuck Palahniuk Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, and went bang in the noonday sun. Kurt Vonnegut - God Bless You Mr. Rosewater “It’s pretty amazing that our society has reached a point where the effort necessary to extract oil from the groud, ship it to a refinery, turn it into plastic, shape it appropriately, truck it to a store, buy it, and bring it home is considered to be less effort than what it takes to just wash the spoon when you’re done with it.” Poster “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” ― Albert Einstein "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940), "The Crack-Up" (1936) "Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property; Corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person." T-shirt "The goal of all inanimate objects is to resist man and ultimately defeat him." Russell Baker (1925 - ) “True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.” Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. ‎"When I feed the poor, I am called a saint... when I ask why the poor are hungry, I am called a Communist!" Dom Hélder Pessoa Câmara (Liberation Theologian RC priest, Brazil 1909-1990) "It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power." David Brin (1950 - ) "Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them." Joseph Heller (1923 - 1999), "Catch-22" “That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” Christopher Hitchens. "Conceit is God's gift to little men." Bruce Barton "If you think you’re too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room." Anon "You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger." Buddha "We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered." Martin Luther King, Jr. “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government." Patrick Henry

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Quotes on tolerance

A reader named Mike Baker handed me a huge collection of quotes, organized by topic. Here are the quotes he collected on the topic of tolerance: "Human diversity makes tolerance more than a virtue; it makes it a requirement for survival." ~ René Dubos Without tolerance, our world turns into hell. ~ Friedrich Durrenmatt Anger and intolerance are the twin enemies of correct understanding. ~ Mohandas Gandhi I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers. ~ Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931) Tolerance and celebration of individual differences is the fire that fuels lasting love. -- Tom Hannah The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. -- Eric Hoffer I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others. -- Thomas Jefferson "Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others." -- John F. Kennedy Tolerance is the positive and cordial effort to understand another's beliefs, practices, and habits without necessarily sharing or accepting them. -- Joshua Liebman No human trait deserves less tolerance in everyday life….. than intolerance. -- Giacomo Leopardi Let us not speak of tolerance. This negative word implies grudging concessions by smug consciences. Rather, let us speak of mutual understanding and mutual respect. -- Father Dominique Pire We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. -- Karl Popper "If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships - the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace." -- Franklin Roosevelt Tolerance is the oil which takes the friction out of life. -- Wilbert E. Scheer In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty. ~Thomas Jefferson

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Quotes on Liberty

A DI reader named Mike Baker offered me his large collection of quotes for reprinting here. Today's installment of quotes are on the topic of Liberty and Human Rights. The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to "create" rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting. -- Justice William J. Brennan It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners. ~ Albert Camus "Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe." --Frederick Douglass He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. Thomas Paine (1737 - 1809) Tolerance is ennobling, which is why we should teach it to our children. Pluralism is insurance against tyranny, which is why we should demand it of our government. To speak up for even the most despised minorities is both morally right and politically prudent." ~ Steven Landsburg The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one. --Albert Einstein If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. -Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776 Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom, and then lost it, have never known it again. -Ronald Reagan If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too. -W. Somerset Maugham "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined." -Patrick Henry Fear is not the natural state of civilized people. ~ Aung San Suu Kyi Thousands of years ago the question was asked; ''Am I my brother's keeper?'' That question has never yet been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society. Yes, I am my brother's keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by any maudlin sentimentality but by the higher duty I owe myself. What would you think me if I were capable of seating myself at a table and gorging myself with food and saw about me the children of my fellow beings starving to death. ~ Eugene V. Debs States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions. ~ Noam Chomsky The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don't agree with. ~Eleanor Holmes Norton Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing. ~ Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791 An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. ~ Thomas Paine, "Dissertations on First Principles of Government", 1795

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Kahlil Gibran’s “On Children”

How often do you cross paths with a parent who is attempting to make his or her children in the parent's image and likeness? I see it on a regular basis. The prototypical case is the parent who didn't make it to the Broadway stage who tries to turn his/her child into a Broadway performer. You often see parents who demand athletic excellence from their kids, often (it seems) in an effort to compensate for the parent's failed strivings to make it big in sports. This style of parenting reaches every high-earning or high-prestige profession.  Or maybe it's not to make up for the parents own failings as much as it is an attempt to create a trophy child so that, at cocktail parties, the parent can nonchalantly drop a few hints about his or her child's (sometimes admittedly spectacular) accomplishments. This afternoon, a friend sent me a perfect antidote for this mindset. It's a poem by Kahlil Gibran, titled "On Children." Upon reading it, I was reminded of the following quote by Friedrich Nietzsche:  “What does your conscience say? — 'You should become the person you are'.”

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