Favorite Quotes (page 2)

poppers

Never trust a smiling dog - my brother Rick.

iamfreenow

A few quotes on happiness:

"The pursuit of happiness is the most ridiculous phrase: if you pursue happiness, you will never find it" C.P.Snow

"Happiness is that state of consciousness that proceeds from the achievement of one's values" Ayn Rand

"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet" James Oppenheim

And one on belief, from Voltaire

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"

RubaDub

"Millions now living will soon be dead" .... or something like that.

Rub a Dub

Sad emo

"A lie told often enough becomes the truth" Lenin

"You always pass failure on the way to success" Mickey Rooney

Abandoned

Here's a few more:

“The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.”Dr. Samuel Johnson

“Do the thing and you’ll have the power.”Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Have compassion for yourself when you write.There is no failure – just a big field to wander in.”Natalie Goldberg

“A moment’s success pays for the failure of the years.”Robert Browning

“When the dust and the chips are all down; the best a man can do is, do well and not evil.”John Steinbeck

Jeffro

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx

"Things are more like they are now than they've ever been" - President Ford.

Let the man of learning, the man of lettered leisure, beware of that queer and cheap temptation to pose to himself and to others as the cynic, as the man who has outgrown emotions and beliefs, the man to whom good and evil are as one. The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twisted pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief towards all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes second to achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's realities—all these are marks, not, as the possessor would fain think, of superiority, but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part manfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affectation of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from others and from themselves their own weakness. The role is easy; there is none easier, save only the role of the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop into a fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a workaday world. Among the free peoples who govern themselves there is but a small field of usefulness open for the men of cloistered life who shrink from contact with their fellows. Still less room is there for those who deride or slight what is done by those who actually bear the brunt of the day; nor yet for those others who always profess that they would like to take action, if only the conditions of life were not what they actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of the great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder. Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if they fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth all their heart and strength. It is war-worn Hotspur, spent with hard fighting, he of the many errors and the valiant end, over whose memory we love to linger, not over the memory of the young lord who "but for the vile guns would have been a soldier."
~ Theodore Roosevelt, excerpt from "Citizenship in a Republic" [an Address Delivered at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910]

Brother Apostate

As you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon -- do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not set them up before you.

Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
visit many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from scholars.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.
Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)

Abandoned

Here are a few more:

There is only one success--to be able to spend your life in your own way. - Christopher Morley

Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall. – Confucius

Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking. - William B. Sprague

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit. - Aristotle

The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible. - Arthur C. Clarke

KAYTEE

Never argue with a foolish person, he’ll drag you down to his level, then beat you with experience..

KT

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