Memorable Quotations - Page 35

[Reverend Jim]

"If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through."

• The Black Adder

[Reverend Jim]

"You can't con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don't deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on."

Donald Trump (The Art of the Deal)

[ddanbe]

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”

Ernest Hemingway

[Reverend Jim]

"At last. A study that proves everything I ever thought about confirmation bias."

Anonymous

[ddanbe]

A statistician waded confidently through a river that was on average one meter deep. He drowned .

• Godfried Bomans

[Bensirpent07]

“PIPPIN: I didn't think it would end this way.

GANDALF: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.

PIPPIN: What? Gandalf? See what?

GANDALF: White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.

PIPPIN: Well, that isn't so bad.

GANDALF: No. No, it isn't.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

[Reverend Jim]

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.

—Leo Tolstoy

[Reverend Jim]

Fortuna’s wheel had turned on humanity, crushing its collarbone, smashing its skull, twisting its torso, puncturing its pelvis, sorrowing its soul. Having once been so high, humanity fell so low. What had once been dedicated to the soul was now dedicated to the sale.

• John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)

[Reverend Jim]

To criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous, but to criticize their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom. The freedom to criticize ideas, any ideas - even if they are sincerely held beliefs - is one of the fundamental freedoms of society. A law which attempts to say you can criticize and ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed.

• Rowan Atkinson

[Reverend Jim]

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is a quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.”

• Mary Anne Radmacher

[Reverend Jim]

Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.

• Lily Tomlin.

[Reverend Jim]

We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent or omniscient—that we are only six percent of the world's population—that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind—that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity—and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem.

John F. Kennedy

[AleMonteiro]

My country is the world and my religion is to do good.
- Thomas Plaine

[Reverend Jim]

What if voters decided intelligence and nuanced thinking were more important qualities in a presidential candidate than with whom they’d most like to have a beer? What if the Uhmerican public decided they wanted decent, affordable health care, and started doing things like reading books and cultivating gardens instead of turning on the TV, gorging on fast food, or going shopping for clothes covered with corporate logos?

Mike Judge (discussing his 2006 movie, Idiocracy)

[aaronaerwin]

If you like me, raise your hands, else raise your standards- SRK

[Reverend Jim]

We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

Eric Blair (George Orwell)

[Reverend Jim]

A great nation is like a great man; when he makes a mistake, he realizes it. Having realized it, he admits it. Having admitted it, he corrects it. He considers those who point out his faults as his most benevolent teachers.

Lao Tzu

[Reverend Jim]

We have met the enemy and he is us.

Pogo

[Reverend Jim]

People come up to me often asking for advice, and I'll ask them, "How many hours have you spent trying to do it?" In the case of creative thinking and invention, often they reply, "Well, I haven't started yet," to which I say, "I doubt I can help you then." Until you are actively doing something, my advice isn't going to be of much use. If I'm shown a sketch for a design idea, I can comment. If you're stuck on a wicked problem, I can advise. But if you haven't committed any time to anything, there's very little I can do.

Scott Berkun (The Myths of Innovation)

[JamesCherrill]

My favourite Zen proverb: "the grandfather dies, the father dies, the son dies"

Sounds very depressing at first sight, but when you think about it you see that it is perfect - anything else is a lot worse.

[Itsdigger]

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

[Reverend Jim]

What [George] Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What [Aldous] Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.

• Neil Postman (Amusing Ourselves to Death)

[Reverend Jim]

You cannot arrest an idea.

• Topiary (Anonymous)

[ddanbe]

The prolem with
the world is that
the intelligent people
are full of doubts, while
the stupid ones are
full of confidence.

Charles Bukowski

[Reverend Jim]

“The debates are part of the unconscionable fraud that our political campaigns have become. Here is a means to present to the American people a rational exposition of the major issues that face the nation, and the alternate approaches to their solution. Yet the candidates participate only with the guarantee of a format that defies meaningful discourse. They should be charged with sabotaging the electoral process.”

• Walter Cronkite

[Reverend Jim]

"...the whole thing is a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham."

• Woody Allen

[Reverend Jim]

Where is the man who owes nothing to the land in which he lives? Whatever that land may be, he owes to it the most precious thing possessed by man, the morality of his actions and the love of virtue.

• Jean Jacques Rousseau

[Reverend Jim]

The old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.

• Antonio Gramsci

[ddanbe]

"If there's any way they can do it wrong, they will" E.A.Murphy a space engineer.

[ddanbe]

If you're very, very
stupid, how can you
possibly realize
that you're very,
very stupid?

-- John Cleese