Wisdom and that other stuff

[DB Roy]

I am going to try speaking some reckless words, and I want you to try to listen recklessly. ---Chuang Tzu

If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call into question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it—the life of that man is one long sin against mankind. ---W. K. Clifford

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but it is morally treasonable to the American public. ---President Teddy Roosevelt

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ---Voltaire

Language is a virus from outer space. ---William Burroughs

... in modern war you will die like a dog for no good reason. The first panacea for a misguided nation is inflation of the currency, the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity, both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists. ---Ernest Hemingway

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. ---Christopher Hitchens

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. ---Galileo Galilei

Truth never set anyone free. It is only doubt which will bring mental emancipation. ---Anton Lavey

Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. ---Robert A. Heinlein

...Let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man—this race and that race and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position...Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal. ---Abraham Lincoln

Dreams are real while they are happening. Can we say anymore about life? ---Havelock Ellis

The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best—and therefore never scrutinize or question. ---Stephen Jay Gould

Doing what little one can to increase the general stock of knowledge is as respectable an object of life, as one can in any likelihood pursue. ---Charles Darwin

When I first read about the evils of drink, I immediately swore off reading. ---Henny Youngman

I'm terrified of the thought of time passing (or whatever is meant by that phrase) whether I 'do' anything or not. In a way I may believe, deep down, that doing nothing acts as a brake on 'time's - it doesn't of course. It merely adds the torment of having done nothing, when the time comes when it really doesn't matter if you've done anything or not. ― Philip Larkin

If God made us in His image we have certainly returned the compliment. ---Voltaire

Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works. ---Carl Sagan

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. ---Seneca the Younger

Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not? ---Epicurus

The days come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant friendly party, but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away. ---Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. ---Thomas Huxley

A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. ---Albert Einstein

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. ---Margaret Mead

I can doubt everything, except one thing, and that is the very fact that I doubt. ---Rene Descartes

It’s hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning. ---Bill Waterson

Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. ---Horace Walpole

My young son asked me what happens after we die. I told him we get buried under a bunch of dirt and worms eat our bodies. I guess I should have told him the truth—that most of us go to Hell and burn eternally—but I didn't want to upset him. ---Jack Handey

The biggest cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid people are so sure about things and the intelligent folks are so full of doubts. ---Bertrand Russell

Theologian: An uncommon individual who, though possessing finite abilities, has been called by God himself who, though possessing infinite abilities, requires the assistance of the former in explaining Himself to the rest of us.
---Donald Morgan

Nature! We are surrounded and embraced by her: powerless to separate ourselves from her, and powerless to penetrate beyond her. Without asking, or warning, she snatches us up into her circling dance, and whirls us on until we tire, and drop from her arms. ---Goethe

History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men. ---Blue Öyster Cult

I should never stand alone in this desert world, but that manna would drop from heaven, if I would but rise with every rising sun to gather it. ---Margaret Fuller

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone ever discovers exactly what the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. ---Douglas Adams

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it people will eventually come to believe it. ---Joseph Goebbels

Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a Sunday afternoon. ---Susan Ertz

It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the Bible. ---George W. Foote

To be patriotic, hate all nations but your own; to be religious, all sects but your own; to be moral, all pretenses but your own. ---Lionel Strachey

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means. ---George Bernard Shaw

Show me a population that is deeply religious, and I will show you a servile population, content with whips and chains, contumely and the gibbet, content to eat the bread of sorrow and drink the waters of affliction. ---H. Hubert Harrison

If I were to speak your kind of language, I would say that man's only moral commandment is: Thou shalt think. But a 'moral commandment' is a contradiction in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments. ---Ayn Rand

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. ---Philip K. Dick

Anyone who engages in the practice of psychotherapy confronts every day the devastation wrought by the teachings of religion. ---Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D. Psychologist

The world does not owe us a living, we owe the world a living, our own. ---Forrest Church

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. ---Derek Bok, ex-president of Harvard

The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear. ---Herbert Agar

No one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. ---Plato

After damning politicians up hill and down dale for many years, as rogues and vagabonds, frauds and scoundrels, I sometimes suspect that, like everyone else, I often expect too much of them. Though faith and confidence are surely more or less foreign to my nature, I not infrequently find myself looking to them to be able, diligent, candid, and even honest. Plainly enough, that is too large an order, as anyone must realize who reflects upon the manner in which they reach public office. ---H. L. Mencken

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. ---Edmund Burke

The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death. ---Voltaire

The worst tyrants are those which establish themselves in our own breasts. ---William Ellery Channing

Why of course the people don't want war ...But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. ---Hermann Goering

If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. ---Lyall Watson

I've at times in my past been so unhappy, and thought, like, 'I would give anything for this not to be happening.' And, you know, as people say, time passes, and then you think, 'I'm kind of glad that happened to me.' ---Susan Choi

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. ---Dwight D. Eisenhower

Change is inevitable....except from vending machines. ---Steven Wright

In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first. ---Ambrose Bierce

When I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord, in His wisdom, didn’t work that way. So I just stole one and asked him to forgive me. ---Emo Phillips

The missionaries go forth to Christianize the savages—as if the savages weren't dangerous enough already. ---Edward Abbey

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. ---Viktor Frankl

Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear. ---Albert Camus

When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist. ---Archbishop Helder Camara

Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow - whether there is a market for it or not! The kick of creation is the act of creating, not anything that happens afterward. I would tell all of you watching this screen: Before you go to bed, write a four line poem. Make it as good as you can. Don't show it to anybody. Put it where nobody will find it. And you will discover that you have your reward. ---Kurt Vonnegut

Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. ---James Baldwin

The reason people use a crucifix against vampires is because vampires are allergic to bullshit. ---Richard Pryor

Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded. ---Fyodor Dostoyevski

The bait is the means to get the fish where you want it, catch the fish and you forget the bait. The snare is the means to get the rabbit where you want it, catch the rabbit and forget the snare. Words are the means to get the idea where you want it, catch on to the idea and you forget about the words. Where shall I find a man who forgets about words, and have a word with him? ---Chuang Tzu

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted. ---Ralph Waldo Emerson

What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'? ---Friedrich Nietzsche

How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon? ---Dr. Seuss

Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world’s ills and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all. ---John Gardner

Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. ---Oscar Wilde

I love escalators because they're never out of order. They can only turn into stairs. ---Mitch Hedburg

A dog don’t want a bone, that’s why he buries it. ---James Brown

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. ---Mark Twain

There is no hell. There is only France. ---Frank Zappa

A man who says he has never been scared is either lying or else he's never been any place worth going or done anything worth doing. ---Louis L’Amour

The truth lies in between the first and the fortieth drink. ---Tori Amos

Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes one feel as you might when a drowning man holds unto you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic. ---Anais Nin

Poetry and Hums aren't things which you get, they're things which get you. And all you can do is go where they can find you. ---Winnie the Pooh

If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character...Would you slow down? Or speed up? ---Chuck Palahniuk

Basically, when you whittle everything away, I'm a grown man who puts on makeup. ---Brad Pitt

The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination—but the combination is locked up in the safe. ---Peter DeVries

No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we all are his accomplices. ---Edward R. Murrow

When people are laughing, they're generally not killing each other. ---Alan Alda

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us. ---Charles Bukowski

One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us. ---Kurt Vonnegut

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear. ---Bertrand Russell

I wonder that a soothsayer doesn't laugh whenever he sees another soothsayer. ---Marcus Tullius Cicero

I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed there would be no more war. ---Abbie Hoffman

All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. ---Johann Sebastian Bach

One would go mad if one took the Bible seriously; but to take it seriously one must be already mad. ---Aleister Crowley

I don't wish to be everything to everyone, but I would like to be something to someone. ---Katherine Kurtz

War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong, and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses. ---Thomas Jefferson

A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. ---Chinese proverb

We often say how impressive power is. But I do not find it impressive at all. The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure. ---Lyndon Johnson

Lisa, if the Bible has taught us nothing else, and it hasn't, it's that girls should stick to girls sports, such as hot oil wrestling and foxy boxing and such and such. ---Homer Simpson

I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. ---James Baldwin

If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? ---Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I find myself haunted by a spooky man named me. I wish that I could jump out of my skin. ---They Might Be Giants

But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's, it's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? ---Barbara Bush on the Iraq War

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure. ---Mark Twain

All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than animals that know nothing. ---Maurice Maeterlinck

As a POW in Vietnam, I was kept in the dark and fed scraps. Why would I want to do that again? ---John McCain on why he would not want to be vice-president

A politician should have three hats. One for throwing in the ring, one for talking through and one for pulling rabbits out of it if elected. ---Carl Sandburg

From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity. ---Edvard Munch

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first. ---Ronald Reagan

If we don't play god who will? ---James Watson

Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend. ---Albert Camus

The various churches detest one another. Why? Because they are acquainted with one another. ---Robert Greene Ingersoll

If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth. ---Mitsugi Saotome

And let that day be lost to us on which we did not dance once! And let that wisdom be false to us that brought no laughter with it! ---Friedrich Nietzsche

Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom. ---Mahatma Gandhi

It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand. ---Mark Twain

How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed.' Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' ---Carl Sagan

As democracy is perfected, the office of President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. ---H. L. Mencken

To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead. ---Samuel Butler

Most people wouldn’t know good music if it bit ‘em in the ass. ---Frank Zappa

If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is "God is crying." And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is "Probably because of something you did." ---Jack Handey

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. ---Pablo Picasso

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. ---Thomas Jefferson

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. ---Jimi Hendrix

The secret source of humor lies in sorrow not joy. There is no humor in heaven. ---Mark Twain

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. ---Napoleon Bonaparte

While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die. ---Leonardo da Vinci

God against man. Man against God. Man against nature. Nature against man. Nature against God. God against nature—very funny religion. ---Buddhist scholar D.T. Suzuki’s summation of the Judeo-Christian tradition

I saw few die of hunger; of eating, a hundred thousand. ---Benjamin Franklin

What makes Western civilization worth saving is the freedom of the mind, now under heavy attack from the primitives…who have persisted among us… ---Elmer Davis

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion. ---Edmund Burke

When he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun. ---William Shakespeare

Once men are caught up in an event they cease to be afraid. Only the unknown frightens men. ---Antoine de St. Exupery

I have no possessions that are truly my own. I am like a stranger at a rich man's gate. What I have is borrowed, and even my knowledge is nothing but hand-me-downs, and an occasional oddity I pick up by chance. I pass it on to others like me. ---Erich Harth

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do that!”
He said, “Nobody loves me.”
I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”
“Yes.”
I said, “Are you’re a Christian or a Jew?”
“A Christian.”
I said, “Me too! Protestant or Catholic?”
“Protestant.”
I said, “Me too! What franchise?”
“Baptist.”
I said, “Me too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?”
“Northern Baptist.”
I said, “Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
“Northern Conservative Baptist.”
I said, “Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?”
“Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.”
I said, “Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879 or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?”
“Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.”
I said, “Die heretic!” and I pushed him over.
---Emo Phillips

[Cattleman]

It seems I have discovered another collector of quotations. Right now I am in the middle of something, but will try to post a few of my favorites later. Meantime, P.S. Note my tag lines below.

[janny]

A great find. Will definitely bookmark this. Thank you for sharing.