Thread: Memorable Passages

"Most people lost in the wilds die of shame. Yes, they die of shame. They say to themselves, 'What did I do wrong? How could I have gotten myself into this?' And so they sit there and they ... die. Because they didn't do the one thing that would save their lives. Thinking.”

- movie The Edge, starring Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin

Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself.
Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.
In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.
The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.
Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.
Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.
It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.
Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.
What light is to the eyes - what air is to the lungs - what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man.
In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.

- Robert G. Ingersoll

“Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.”

― Voltaire

“I should like to know which is worse: to be ravished a hundred times by pirates, and have a buttock cut off, and run the gauntlet of the Bulgarians, and be flogged and hanged in an auto-da-fe, and be dissected, and have to row in a galley -- in short, to undergo all the miseries we have each of us suffered -- or simply to sit here and do nothing?'
That is a hard question,' said Candide.”

― Voltaire, Candide

Blowin’ In The Wind


How many roads must a man walk down

Before you call him a man?

Yes, ’n’ how many seas must a white dove sail

Before she sleeps in the sand?

Yes, ’n’ how many times must the cannonballs fly

Before they’re forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind

The answer is blowin’ in the wind



How many years can a mountain exist

Before it’s washed to the sea?

Yes, ’n’ how many years can some people exist

Before they’re allowed to be free?

Yes, ’n’ how many times can a man turn his head

Pretending he just doesn’t see?

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind

The answer is blowin’ in the wind



How many times must a man look up

Before he can see the sky?

Yes, ’n’ how many ears must one man have

Before he can hear people cry?

Yes, ’n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows

That too many people have died?

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind

The answer is blowin’ in the wind


- Bob Dylan

“These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value.”

― Thomas Paine, Works of Thomas Paine

“My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists.”

― Nikola Tesla

From "The Old Man and the Sea"

“He was too simple to wonder when he had attained humility. But he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride.”

“Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt, use it - don't cheat with it.”

― Ernest Hemingway

“From childhood I was compelled to concentrate attention upon myself. This caused me much suffering, but to my present view, it was a blessing in disguise for it has taught me to appreciate the inestimable value of introspection in the preservation of life, as well as a means of achievement. The pressure of occupation and the incessant stream of impressions pouring into our consciousness through all the gateways of knowledge make modern existence hazardous in many ways. Most persons are so absorbed in the contemplation of the outside world that they are wholly oblivious to what is passing on within themselves. The premature death of millions is primarily traceable to this cause. Even among those who exercise care, it is a common mistake to avoid imaginary, and ignore the real dangers. And what is true of an individual also applies, more or less, to a people as a whole.”

― Nikola Tesla

“With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word 'intellectual,' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be.”

― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.”

― Lao Tzu

Originally Posted by BaitongBoy

Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.

6602.

Anger; when the self loses control. just sayin innit. watch it.

Originally Posted by BaitongBoy

In governing, don't try to control.

6612.

If only.

I regret not telling more people to f*** off.

- Helen Mirren

“I think, therefore I am is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches. I feel, therefore I am is a truth much more universally valid, and it applies to everything that's alive. My self does not differ substantially from yours in terms of its thought. Many people, few ideas: we all think more or less the same, and we exchange, borrow, steal thoughts from one another. However, when someone steps on my foot, only I feel the pain. The basis of the self is not thought but suffering, which is the most fundamental of all feelings. While it suffers, not even a cat can doubt its unique and uninterchangeable self. In intense suffering the world disappears and each of us is alone with his self. Suffering is the university of egocentrism.”

― Milan Kundera, Immortality

Originally Posted by billy the kid

If only.

My thoughts, too...I wonder what he thinks when he reads "shit" like this...

“If you believe that your thoughts originate inside your brain, do you also believe that television shows are made inside your television set?”

― Warren Ellis

“He'd always liked women who'd talk back to him just a little bit. "Girls with balls" were good. Women with an actual mind of their own who could prove him wrong in something were, of course, castrating bitches who should be drowned in bottomless wells.”

― Warren Ellis, Crooked Little Vein

Assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups.

wise guy.

You ever hear that old quote that goes, if life gives you lemons, make lemonade? Well, I'm thinking what I need to do is find someone who's life has given them vodka.

“After the first glass of vodka
you can accept just about anything
of life even your own mysteriousness
you think it is nice that a box
of matches is purple and brown and is called La Petite and comes from Sweden
for they are words that you know and that is all you know words not their feelings or what they mean and you write because you know them not because you understand them because you don't you are stupid and lazy and will never be great but you do what you know because what else is there?”

― Frank O'Hara, The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara

New York City took me with the tide
And I nearly died from hospitality
Left me stranded, took away my pride
Just another no account fatality

- Climax Blues Band - Couldn't Get It Right

“The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our thinking. Thus, we are drifting toward catastrophe beyond conception. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.”

― Albert Einstein

“Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything. Granted, granted I'm a babbler, a harmless, irksome babbler, as we all are. But what's to be done if the sole and express purpose of every intelligent man is babble--that is, a deliberate pouring from empty into void.”

― Fyodor Dostoyevsky