Inspirational quotes or concepts....got any goodies?
 

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
~Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790), Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

Mark Twain

MORAL STATISTICIAN. - I don't want any of your statistics. I took your
whole batch and lit my pipe with it. I hate your kind of people. You are
always ciphering out how much a man's health is injured, and how much
his intellect is impaired, and how many pitiful dollars and cents he
wastes in the course of ninety-two years' indulgence in the fatal
practice of smoking; and in the equally fatal practice of drinking
coffee; and in playing billiards occasionally; and in taking a glass of
wine at dinner, etc., etc., etc. And you are always figuring out how
many women have been burned to death because of the dangerous fashion of
wearing expansive hoops, etc., etc., etc. You never see but one side of
the question. You are blind to the fact that most old men in America
smoke and drink coffee, although, according to your theory, they ought
to have died young; and that hearty old Englishmen drink wine and
survive it, and portly old Dutchmen both drink and smoke freely, and yet
grow older and fatter all the time. And you never try to find out how
much solid comfort, relaxation and enjoyment a man derives from smoking
in the course of a lifetime, (and which is worth ten times the money he
would save by letting it alone,) nor the appalling aggregate of
happiness lost in a lifetime by your kind of people from not smoking. Of
course you can save money by denying yourself all these little vicious
enjoyments for fifty years, but then what can you do with it? -what use
can you put it to? Money can't save your infinitesimal soul; all the use
that money can be put to is to purchase comfort and enjoyment in this
life -therefore, as you are an enemy to comfort and enjoyment, where is
the use in accumulating cash? It won't do for you to say that you can
use it to better purpose in furnishing a good table, and in charities,
and in supporting tract societies, because you know yourself that you
people who have no petty vices are never known to give away a cent, and
that you stint yourselves so in the matter of food that you are always
feeble and hungry. And you never dare to laugh in the daytime for fear
some poor wretch, seeing you in a good humor, will try to borrow a
dollar of you; and in church you are always down on your knees when the
contribution box comes around; and you always pay your debts in
greenbacks, and never give the revenue officers a true statement of your
income. Now you know all these things yourself, don't you? Very well,
then, what is the use of your stringing out your miserable lives to a
lean and withered old age? What is the use of your saving money that is
so utterly worthless to you? In a word, why don't you go off somewhere
and die, and not be always trying to seduce people into becoming as
"ornery" and unloveable as you are yourselves, by your ceaseless and
villainous "moral statistics?" Now I don't approve of dissipation, and I
don't indulge in it, either, but I haven't a particle of confidence in a
man who has no redeeming petty vices whatever, and so I don't want to
hear from you any more. I think you are the very same man who read me a
long lecture, last week, about the degrading vice of smoking cigars, and
then came back, in my absence, with your vile, reprehensible fire-proof
gloves on, and carried off my beautiful parlor stove.

As overplayed as it was, it can be pretty powerfull:
Don't worry, be happy!
:D

Today you are You,
that is truer than true.
There is no one alive who is Youer than You.
- Dr. Seuss


Watch your thoughts; they become words.

Watch your words; they become actions.

Watch your actions; they become habits.

Watch your habits; they become character.

Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

- Frank Outlaw


Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.
- Katherine Mansfield


"Start every day with a smile and get it over with".
- W.C. Fields


Happiness makes up in height
for what it lacks in length.
-Robert Frost


"I am not available right now, but thank you for caring enough to call. I am making some changes in my life. Please leave a message after the beep. If I do not return your call, you are one of the changes."
- unknown


Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
- Mark Twain

As flowing waters disappear into the mist
We lose all track of their passage
Every heart is its own Buddha
Ease off; become immortal

Wake up: the world’s a mote of dust
Behold heaven’s round mirror
Turn loose: slip past shape and shadow
Sit side by side with nothing save Tao
- Shih-shu (17th century-early 18th)

The truth is there’s nothing to find.
Life and death are important.
Don’t suffer them in vain.
There’s no advantage in deceiving yourself.
Even if you have mountains of jewels
and as many servants as there are
grains of sand along the Ganges,
you see them when your eyes are open.
But what about when your eyes are shut?
You should realize that everything
you see is like a dream or illusion.
- Bodhidharma (d. 533)

"Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something."
Robert A. Heinlein

"Only he who handles his ideas lightly is master of his ideas, and only he who is master of his ideas is not enslaved by them."
- Lin Yutang

Love #3 on your list, and #4 is funny!

Riffraff

"I've always figured that if God wanted us to go to church a lot He'd have given us bigger behinds to sit on and smaller heads to think with."-
P.J. O'Rourke

The Eagle suffers little birds to sing.
Titus Andronicus, A4, s4

"Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have more." -Groucho Marx

I'm not brutal enough to use that as my answering machine message, but it'd be true.

' We are born astride the grave ' . In Waiting for Godot somewhere . I forget if it was Vladimir or Estragon .

It was Vladimir, and also Pozzo (I played Estragon.)

To get where you want to go, you must be willing to leave where you are.
-- J. Conrad Hole

The greatest force on earth is the human soul on fire.
-- Ferdinand Foche

Belated thanks to Clodfobble .

And tell me please how YOU got over those lines , Clodfobble .

( It's a case of 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours' )

I don't understand--do you mean how did I continue to find a reason to live having been faced with Beckett's incisive existentialist summation of life? It's pretty easy, since Beckett is an ass and existentialism is horseshit.

Or do you mean how did I ever memorize my lines in such a tedious script full of non sequitors? I'm an aural learner; I read the play into a tape recorder and listened to it over and over until I knew my lines.

Clodfobble
I find it quite astounding that you confuse existentialism with absurdism . Beckett , like Ionesco , is part of the tradition of the Absurd .
Existentialism is a totally different kettle of fish . You speak of Existentialism as though you had never read Sartre . Existentialism is to do with making sense of the absurd , being engagé . I could go on about Camus too , but I shan't .

You speak of reciting lines without understanding them . Beckett would have loved you , and Sartre would have scorned you . I hope that you now know the difference between absurdism and existentialism .

Clodfobble
I find it quite astounding that you confuse existentialism with absurdism . Beckett , like Ionesco , is part of the tradition of the Absurd .
Existentialism is a totally different kettle of fish . You speak of Existentialism as though you had never read Sartre . Existentialism is to do with making sense of the absurd , being engagé . I could go on about Camus too , but I shan't .

You speak of reciting lines without understanding them . Beckett would have loved you , and Sartre would have scorned you . I hope that you now know the difference between absurdism and existentialism .

Beckett has been claimed by both schools.
I enjoyed doing that play. Did some of his shorts as well.

Washed or pressed? :lol:

Well , I can say that Beckett has totally ruined all enjoyment I have in life , rkzenrage . Beauty and faith have been totally eclipsed . I live because I cannot die . I am a Christian , but it is in another sort of box . Of course I feel passion and love , and I do not want to die , but there is always that starkness behind everything .

I do not take any sort of medication . I am a healthy and pretty woman , the mother of four children . I am married to the father of those children . He loves me , and I love him . We like food and wine and travel ,and we have plenty of love and money .

And yet I wake up every day with the terrrible weight of the human condition .

Actually , I should not blame old Beckett for that . I would have felt that feeling of starkness without him .

Doh!:eek:

Beckett or anyone else should not be blamed... I guess, just anyone who opens your eyes is a key... but one chooses to see.
However, I do not see it as darkly as you.

Ah, but life is suffering, Buddug. Or, more precisely, life has suffering, caused by desires and wants.

But can be relived... there is the Path.

hey rkzenrage... KNUX!

It has been so long since I have heard that.... I honestly have forgotten.
*chagrin* I used to see it all the time as avatars.

I like the piece below. It comes from a book by Julian Barnes , entitled 'A History of the World in 10 1/2 days .'

"The materialist argument attacks love , of course; it attacks everything. Love boils down to pheromones, it says . This bounding of the heart, this clarity of vision, this energizing , this moral certainty, this exultation, this civic virtue, this murmured I love you, are all caused by a low-level smell emitted by one partner and subconsciously nosed by the other ....
Do we believe this ?
Well , let's believe it for the moment , because it makes love's triumph the greater.
What is a violin made of ? Bits of wood and bits of sheep intestine. Does its construction demean and banalize the music? On the contrary , it exalts the music further."

I think that this text can also help us to think about other aspects of what it is to be human .

Bump...

This isn't really a quote, but its something that I saw and it made me smile. Plus I got to resurrect an old thread...

“Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine.”
Robert Gallagher

You control your future, your destiny. What you think about comes about. By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be. Put your future in good hands - your own. - Mark Victor Hansen

“This is my wish for you: Comfort on difficult days, smiles when sadness intrudes, rainbows to follow the clouds, laughter to kiss your lips, sunsets to warm your heart, hugs when spirits sag, beauty for your eyes to see, friendships to brighten your being, faith so that you can believe, confidence for when you doubt, courage to know yourself, patience to accept the truth, Love to complete your life.”

The brain of Clodfobble is both wise and succinct.

- Dennis Wholey (1937-)

Getting old sucks, but, it's better than the alternative. ~Gravdigr

Dwellar wisdom:

"Dying ain't much of a livin, boy."- Josie Wales

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and is widely regarded as a bad move."

"Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity."

Friends are gained, can be lost, and sometimes can be found again.
Enemies are made, never go away, and are forever.

I just made that up !
... talking with my daughter about her job.

Awesome - I like it!

Joy comes from within, Happiness from without.

"I've always figured that if God wanted us to go to church a lot He'd have given us bigger behinds to sit on and smaller heads to think with."-
P.J. O'Rourke

It seems leenco12 stole that quote from the post after the one he quoted. bu bye.

Maybe he's just new here and thought he was commenting on BigV's signature line... which I think is one of the best.

No. He stole the quote intact from the next post and commented on nothing.

:lol: An unusually patient spammer then

"The season for waking up at 4:30am just to get a spot on the river has begun..."

My G-son

That's a great quote Lamplighter. :)


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No one can draw more out of things, books included, than he already knows. A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access. anon

Welcome to the Cellar, Czarina. :D

I'm not quite sure what to make of quote. I've leaned much from books, of and about, things I wasn't even aware existed. It's often prompted me to investigate more about the subject. So either I disagree, or I don't understand what he was getting at?

Everything is a decision.-Spudcon

It sounds like an overwrought way to say we only hear what we want to hear or are able to understand.

Or "You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think." something like that.

That's what I thought at first, but to extend it to books is really a stretch. :confused:

Basically what I am getting at is that when people have first ahnd experience with something, hands on, so to speak, they have a greater foundation from which to speak. For example, if you have never smoked pot, you really can't say what it is about. People often times go through life living through the experiences of other people, and taking that second hand experience as truth. If I have never known anyone who was schizophrenic, I can read all day long about the disorder, but now that I know someone who is schizophrenic, that information falls into place perfectly. Before, I had nothing to put with the information I had read.

:)

Sure, having some experience helps evaluate, and perhaps better understand, what you read., But I don't think lack of experience precludes learning something from books, otherwise we wouldn't use them to teach.