ctLow's Favourite Quotations
-from various sources ...
Maybe our favorite quotations say more about us than about the stories and people we're quoting. –John Green
| Source | Quote |
| The Dalai Lama |
If you wish others to be happy: practise compassion.
If you wish yourself to be happy: practise compassion. |
| Anon. | A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. |
| Philip M. Hauser |
The only pessimistic voice in 1968, when asked to look fifty years into the future: Given the present outlook, only the faithful who believe in miracles from heaven, the optimistic who anticipate superwonders from science, the parochial fortunate who think they can continue to exist on islands of affluence in a sea of world poverty, and the naïve who anticipate nothing can look to the future with equanimity. |
| Phil Barton, Brockville | Profanity is a crutch for a conversational cripple. |
| movie: The Interpreter | Vengeance is a lazy form of grief. |
| Marshall McLuhan | I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't believed it. |
| James Lane Allen | Adversity does not build character, it reveals it. |
| Confucious | Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. |
| Sir Richard Branson | If you look after your staff, they'll look after your customers. It's that simple. |
| James Baldwin | Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. |
| Anonymous | Science doesn't care what you believe. |
|
Traveling Wilburys Handle With Care |
Been stuck in airports, terrorized Sent to meetings, hypnotized Overexposed, commercialized Handle me with care |
| movie: Pirates of the Caribbean | Wherever we want to go, we'll go. That's what a ship is, you know. It's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs. But what a ship is... what the Black Pearl really is... is freedom. |
|
movie: Lord of the Rings
Fellowship of the Ring |
|
| The Eagles, Already Gone |
.. when you look up in the sky You can see the stars and still not see the light ... So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains And we never even know we have the key |
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Captain Jack Aubrey
movie: Master and Commander | Quick's the word and sharp's the action. |
|
Gertrude Stein
Brewsie and Willie | I tell you boys there aint any answer, just you believe me, there aint any answer,... there aint going to be any answer, there never has been any answer, that's the answer. |
|
Rebecca Wells
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood |
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Wendy Mitman Clarke
Chesapeake Bay Magazine |
One of the things I love most about boat time is its truthfulness to natural time. The sun goes down; you go down. Sun wakes up; you wake up. With the exception of the full moon, of course, which throws anyone with a passionate bone in their body beautifully out of whack. "Off the Charts", "Boat is Where the Home Is", April 2007, pg. 128 |
|
Captain Kirk
movie: Star Trek V, The Final Frontier | ... pain and guilt can't be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They're the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don't want my pain taken away! I need my pain! |
| movie: Serenity | Shepherd Book: I don't care what you believe - just believe - whatever you ... |
| movie: Serenity | Ship's Captain: It ain't all [bugs(?)] and charts, Little Albatross. Know what the first rule of flying is? Love. You can learn all the math in the 'verse, you take a boat in the air that you don't love, shake you up just as sure as a [turn in the whirls(?)]. Love keeps her in the air when she ought fall down. Tells you she's hurting before she [keens(?)]. Makes her home. |
| Elbert Hubbard |
To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. ([Unrelated:] It's pretty hard to be efficient without being obnoxious.) |
| movie: Sideways | Miles: I don't know. It's [Pinot] a hard grape to grow. As you know. It's thin-skinned, temperamental, ripens early. It's not a survivor like Cabernet that can grow anywhere and thrive even when neglected. Pinot needs constant care and attention and in fact can only grow in specific little tucked-away corners of the world. And only the most patient and nurturing growers can do it really, can tap into Pinot's most fragile, delicate qualities. Only when someone has taken the time to truly understand its potential can Pinot be coaxed into its fullest expression. And when that happens, its flavors are the most haunting and brilliant and subtle and thrilling and ancient on the planet. |
|
My name is Joseph Boyden
Macleans, 2017 Sep. | My own being is not big enough to live in the world acting as if I am complete. I am part. |
|
Jonas Jonasson
movie: The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared |
Revenge is not a good thing ... Revenge is like politics: one thing leads to another until bad has become worse, and worse has become worst.
Sometimes your mouth seems to go its own way while your brain stands still... He (not Allan, the protagonist) was of course a socialist heart and soul, but if anyone asked him to elaborate, he'd run into problems. It had been exciting, the entire journey, but nothing lasts forever, except possibly general stupidity. |
| Sarfraz Manzoor |
One of the glories of male friendship is that it is relatively low maintenance: no birthday cards, no Christmas cards, no get well soon cards; no apologies, no explanations and no formalities.
(Not sure that I completely agree, but I don't completely disagree. ctLow) |
| Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel | What we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. |
| Sir William Osler |
The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.
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| movie: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel |
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| Julia Child | The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude. |
| -on a Winnipeg storefront: | If a door closes, open it again. It's a door. That's how it works. |
| Warren Buffett | Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked. |
|
Tragically Hip
The Last of the Unplucked Gems | I'm kind of dumb and so are you. |
| Forrest Gump | I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floatin' around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happenin' at the same time. |
| Mahatma Gandhi | I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet. |
| Socrates (470-399 BC) | The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. |
| Henry David Thoreau | The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. |
| Wayne Gretzky |
You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
(I suspect that he meant in photography.) |
| Neil DeGrasse Tyson | The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you. |
| Anaïs Nin | When others asked the truth of me, I was convinced it was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with. |
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Dumbledore Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
It does not do to dwell on dreams, Harry, and forget to live.
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| Dr. Sue Gleeson's mother | When you are feeling sad, lonely, or bored, look outside yourself and do something for someone else. |
| Charles T. Low | Acknowledge all of the ugliness of the world, and try to let it flow around you. If you’re lucky, some of the goodness will stick. |
| Michelangelo | I am still learning. (age ~87) |
