I enjoy quotes very much. I think you can learn a lot of knowledge and insight just from one sentence quotes, because they generally come from the most intelligent people of our time, or of history. I do also enjoy reading humorous quotes from people when they mess up, or if you read it without knowing the context, its a good chuckle. (Or even sometimes in context they can be duh moments.) Anywho, how about we get a favorite quote thread going. They can also be lines of poetry, lines from movies, or plays, not just quotes from speakers. I will start it off with a Thomas Jefferson quote that I love.

"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are serviley crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blind faith.''

--- Thomas Jefferson

"resurrection is for those that didn't get it right the first time" - otep (not sure if she is the original writer though)

"Loyalty above all else, except honor"


Quote came from an unlikely movie source, but struck me and I have measured much with it since.
I'll leave the name of the movie for trivia buffs....

I can resist anything, except temptation. -- Oscar Wilde

“Doctor, always try to do the right thing.”
* Ossie Davis in Do the Right Thing

“Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist”
* George Carlin

“When you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras.”
* Unkown

“A thought that sometimes drives me hazy: am I, or are the others, crazy?”
* Albert Einstein

“Call on God, but row away from the rocks.”
* Hunter S. Thompson

“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”
* Mark Twain

“I think of myself as an intelligent, sensitive human being with the soul of a clown, which always forces me to blow it at the most important moments.”
* Jim Morrison

“Money isn't real, George. It doesn't matter. It only seems like it does.”
* Ray Liotta – in Blow

“What luck for rulers that men do not think.”
* Adolf Hitler

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”
* Marianne Williamson

“Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.”
* Stephen King

“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
* Erasmus

"America may be the best country in the world, but that's kind of like being the valedictorian of summer school."
* Dennis Miller

“It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required.”
* Winston Churchill

“The beast in me is caged by frail and fragile bars.”
* Johnny Cash

“Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you - and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you.”
* John Irving – From “A Prayer for Owen Meany”

“Fairy tales don't tell children the dragons exist. They know the dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”
* G. K. Chesterton

Oscar Wilde leads the league in great quotes.
"The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast"

"Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality."
---Martin Luther King Jr


There have been some really good ones so far. Very intriguing indeed.

"It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety."
"To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well."
"Only a lie that wasn't ashamed of itself could possibly succeed."
"Nothing has to be true, but everything has to sound true."

"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right!"
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

... Salvor Hardin (in Asimov's Foundation series)

One Wilde quote I try to live by:

"A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally."

To a consciousness that suspects it has been abandoned by human beings, objects are superior. --Theodor W. Adorno

I'm having trouble understanding this beyond surface level. I mean, how can you know if you're going to do it unintentionally? I'm feeling really dumb right now .

He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder.

Treat others as they would like to be treated.

Hate the sin, LOVE the sinner. Heck, just LOVE

Life is a race between your hand raising the champagne cup to your lips and the ocean's tide rising to swallow you.
- From William Markiewicz's book of illustrated original aphorisms Extracts of Existence.

'Let us become the change we seek in others'
- Ghandi

The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.
-Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam

- What you create, shall cease to exist and hence cannot be real

- An ocean can fall on your head but if all you have is a thimble, then you can only catch so much

- A chick is like reading a book. You read it, you love it, and then you set the book down and go read something better.

- Failure is the path to success.

- Nothing about you is a mistake

Wilde would certainly hurt someone's feelings on purpose. The true measure of a gentleman, for Wilde, was to avoid hurting someone's feelings carelessly. If you're going to do it, mean it.

One time a rather minor poet (Let's call him Bill) complained to Oscar that after he had been named Poet Laureate of England there seemed to be a "Conspiracy of silence about my new position."

Wilde's reply, "Join it, Bill. Join it."

"Don't aim for happiness - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue ... as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a course greater than oneself." (Note: the original quote -Viktor Frankl, Man's Search For Meaning - was "Don't aim for success...", but I actually think this version is truer.

Also by Frankl
Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of life is, but rather recognize that it is he who is asked

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit
- Nelson Henderson

I drink to make other people interesting.
--George Jean Nathan

I'll stop there, but every time I read a decent quote I paste it into a word document up to about 300 pages...

"Vini, Vidi, Vici. I came. I saw. I conquered." - Julius Caesar

"100 percent of the shots you don't take don't go in". - Wayne Gretzky

"People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid" - Soren Kierkegaard

"Be nice to people on your way up because you meet them on your way down" - Jimmy Durante

"Knowledge speaks, but Wisdom listens" - Jimi Hendrix

"Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours" - Richard Bach

"There are only 2 ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." - Mohandas Gandhi

"The best road to progress is freedom's road." - John F. Kennedy

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.” - Marianne Williamson

I love the Foundation series.
The last quote I don't understand to well, it seems like "Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent", as incompetent people resort to violence first.

Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

-Malachi McCourt

People who are brutally honest get more satisfaction out of the brutality than out of the honesty.

-Richard Needham

Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while; you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.
-Vince Lombardi

I think he is referring that civilized, intelligent people will not act violently first. Only the incompetent, unintelligent person acts with violence first because they do not have the mental capabilities of resolving conflict through words.

I know that that is what the quote tries to say, but why use "last refuge" instead of "first refuge"? The quote is "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent", it seems that incompetents don't act violently first, which seems false to me.

in the myriad "favorite quote" threads that have appeared through the years on 2+2, this quote is always mentioned.

am i the only person who disagrees with williamson's claim?

thinking about a series of quotes i like, i find that most of them are of a quippy nature. that said...

"Now, now, my good man. this is no time for making enemies."
- Voltaire, on this death bed when a priest asked him to renounce Satan

"If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no use being a damn fool about it."
– W.C. Fields

Ford's economics are the worst thing that's happened to this country since pantyhose ruined finger-****ing.
- Lyndon B. Johnson

Is that real?

More LBJ quotes:

A President's hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right.

As man draws nearer to the stars, why should he not also draw nearer to his neighbor?

Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There's nothing to do but to stand there and take it.

Better to have him (Edgar Hoover) inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in.

Did you ever think that making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg? It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else.

He's (Gerald Ford) a nice guy, but he played too much football with his helmet off.

I have learned that only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. First, let her think she's having her own way. And second, let her have it.

I seldom think of politics more than 18 hours a day.

I want to make a policy statement. I am unabashedly in favor of women.

If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: "President Can't Swim."

The Air Force comes in every morning and says, "Bomb, bomb, bomb." And then the State Department comes in and says, "Not now, or not there, or too much, or not at all."

The fact that a man is a newspaper reporter is evidence of some flaw of character.

The Democratic Party at its worst is better than the Republican party at its best.

There are no favorites in my office. I treat them all with the same general inconsideration.

There are plenty of recommendations on how to get out of trouble cheaply and fast. Most of them come down to this: Deny your responsibility.

This is a moment that I deeply wish my parents could have lived to share. My father would have enjoyed what you have so generously said of me - and my mother would have believed it. (Commencement address at Baylor University, 28 May 65)

When I was young, poverty was so common that we didn't know it had a name.

When things haven't gone well for you, call in a secretary or a staff man and chew him out. You will sleep better and they will appreciate the attention.


(LBJ said he thought he was a cross between a Baptist and a cowboy).

“History buffs probably noted the reunion at a Washington party a few weeks ago of three ex-presidents: Carter, Ford and Nixon - See No Evil, Hear No Evil and Evil.” Bob Dole