What is your favorite quote?

[adc.]

The boards became quite boring because of the next event. So, to make the boards a bit happy (and to say goodbye to it...) I have created this thread...

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What is you favorite quote?

Alright, sometimes, you have a quote, you wanted to put it in your signature, but it was too big. So here's your chance...

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Mine are:

 

"Remember, remember

The fifth of November

The gunpowder treason and plot.

I know of no reason

Why the gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot."

But what of the man? I know his name was Guy Fawkes, and I know that, in 1605, he attempted to blow up the houses of Parliament. But who was he really? What was he like? We are told to remember the idea, not the man, because a man can fail. He can be caught. He can be killed and forgotten. But four hundred years later an idea can still change the world. I've witnessed firsthand the power of ideas. I've seen people kill in the name of them; and die defending them. But you cannot kill an idea, cannot touch it or hold it. Ideas do not bleed, it cannot feel pain, and it does not love. And it is not an idea that I miss, it is a man. A man who made me remember the fifth of November. A man I will never forget.

 

Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate.' This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition! The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose.

-V

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-A

 

[Randomizer]

It's hard to pick one:

 

“Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.”

-- Douglas Adams

 

"If all you've got's a stick, everything looks like a kneecap."

--- Old Jhereg saying

 

"Once you are dead, you are dead. Until then there is ice cream."

-- Patrick Jane, The Mentalist

 

"Television, rots the soul and deadens the mind."

-- Remington Steele, Remington Steele

 

“The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armor to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place.”

-- Douglas Adams

 

“First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII — and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we've realized it's a brochure.”

-- Douglas Adams

[Lilith]

i'd have to say double curly quotes

 

but angle brackets are pretty cool too

[Zummi]

lyk dis if u crie evrytym

-Albert Einstein

[Mod.]

My signature I guess.

[Death Knight]

Some of my favorites-

 

"Blessed be Chaos, blessed be the sweet nectar of self indulgence..."

 

-BG2-Drunken Priest of Telos

 

"It run and roar through woods, it consume you.."

 

-Servile at Circle of the Drayk entrance.

 

"Hush little baby, dont say a word, Lucien's gonna show you,

The big..black...bird."

 

-Lucien Leblanc-Trials of a Master Thief

[Trenton.]

So Nightwatcher can make new topics about the Same thing but I can't?

[Tyranicus]

Originally Posted By: Syk.

So Nightwatcher can make new topics about the Same thing but I can't?

That thread has been dead for 1.5 years. The joke thread is still active.

[nikki.]

'In this world there are only two tragedies; one is not getting what one wants, the other is getting it.'

-Oscar Wilde

 

'To-morrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of to-day?"

-Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

 

'...she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day.'

-Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

 

 

[keira]

"Fairy tales are more than true — not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten." - GK Chesterton

[Cairo Jim]

"You will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been, and there you long to return"

I think that one was da Vinci.

I can't remember any others off the top of my head at the moment. I usually remember quite a few.

[Goldengirl]

"'All gods are dead: now we want the Superman to live' - let this be our last will one day at the great noontide." - Friedrich Nietzsche

 

"What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the top-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies." - Jack Kerouac

[Callie]

The Jefferson quote in my signature has long been one of my favorite.

 

Additionally, I love this passage from Brave New World:

Originally Posted By: Aldous Huxley

"Exposing what is mortal and unsure to all that fortune, death and danger dare, even for an eggshell. Isn't there something in that?" he asked, looking up at Mustapha Mond.

"Quite apart from God–though of course God would be a reason for it. Isn't there something in living dangerously?"

"There's a great deal in it," the Controller replied. "Men and women must have their adrenals stimulated from time to time."

"What?" questioned the Savage, uncomprehending.

"It's one of the conditions of perfect health. That's why we've made the V.P.S. treatments compulsory."

"V.P.S.?"

"Violent Passion Surrogate. Regularly once a month. We flood the whole system with adrenalin. It's the complete physiological equivalent of fear and rage. All the tonic effects of murdering Desdemona and being murdered by Othello, without any of the inconveniences."

"But I like the inconveniences."

"We don't," said the Controller. "We prefer to do things comfortably."

"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."

"In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy."

"All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I'm claiming the right to be unhappy."

[Student of Trinity]

Originally Posted By: William Gibson, opening paragraphs of Count Zero

They set a slamhound on Turner's trail in New Delhi, slotted it to his pheromones and the color of his hair. It caught up with him on a street called Chandni Chauk and came scrambling for his rented BMW through a forest of bare brown legs and pedicab tires. Its core was a kilogram of recrystallized hexogene and flaked TNT.

He didn't see it coming. The last he saw of India was the pink stucco facade of a place called the Khush-Oil Hotel.

Because he had a good agent, he had a good contract. Because he had a good contract, he was in Singapore an hour after the explosion. Most of him, anyway. The Dutch surgeon liked to joke about that, how an unspecified percentage of Turner hadn't made it out of Palam International on that first flight and had to spend the night there in a shed, in a support vat.

I've always thought that was a heck of a way to start a story. Informative to the point of foreshadowing, yet sets a breakneck pace. It's almost an overture.

[The Mystic]

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it." - Yogi Berra

 

"True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country." - Kurt Vonnegut

 

"I've never let my school interfere with my education." - Mark Twain

 

"Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway." - Warren Buffett

 

"A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore." - Yogi Berra

 

"Quote me as saying I was misquoted." - Groucho Marx

 

Another one of my favorites is the first paragraph of my signature. Of course, the fact that I'm the quote's speaker has nothing to do with it.

[Harehunter]

My mother had a few gems.

 

Getting a job that you truly enjoy is like having a life's paid vacation.

 

If you can read, you can cook. The trick is in finding a good recipe.

 

If you want to get a job doing something other than manual labor, you need to learn to type.

 

Graham Kerr just mentioned that parsley is a mild aphrodesiac. What does that mean? Go look it up and tell me. - (Mom, I think you'd better read this one yourself.)

[The Mystic]

From my late grandmother (she passed away before I was born):

 

Love is blind. Marriage is an institution of love. Therefore, marriage is an institution for the blind.

[Harehunter]

Maybe that's what John Conlee meant when he sang "Rose Colored Glasses".

[Alorael at Large]

I wish I could remember how SoT once put the fact that real science is all about being wrong and feeling stupid for long periods of time punctuated by brief periods of being right and feeling stupid for not having gotten it right earlier.

 

A relative of mine is fond of the phrase, "If you can make recombinant DNA, you can cook," usually as a pointed remark at scientists who are domestically hopeless.

 

—Alorael, whose approach to cooking is entirely unlike his approach to laboratory work. In the lab, he follows protocols slavishly (the protocols may be modified, but there's still a set way to do it). In the kitchen, he can rarely be bothered to use measuring cups or spoons. Or timers. He modifies recipes ad hoc as a matter of principle, and he tries to avoid looking at the recipe while cooking. The results aren't always delicious, but at least they're fun. (Sadly, this also means that the best results are hard to recapitulate.

[Cairo Jim]

Originally Posted By: The Mystic

"When you come to a picnic basket in the road, take it." - Yogi Bear

FYT

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

If you want to get a job doing something other than manual labor, you need to learn to type.

I don't understand this. Then again, I'm probably one of very few here that has a smidgin of an idea with computers, sciences and all that crap. Have I ever mentioned I'm blue collar?

[Harehunter]

My mother had worked as a secretary (back when they were called 'secretaries'), and knew that working in an office would require one to work on a keyboard. In order to become proficient at it, one should learn how to touch-type; type without looking at the keyboard. Since all my interests were focused in the scientific arena, she guessed that my career path would involve lots of typing. Little did she know at that time just how much, but her insight in having me learn to touch-type has been one of the greatest gifts I received from her. As a computer programmer/analyst/administrator, I spend my life at a keyboard. I can't imagine how much more difficult it would have been had I not learned typing.

 

As for being blue-collar, you have my greatest respect. I have learned much from blue-collar people. One in particular knew more about building storm doors and windows than anyone in the company, including the engineers who designed them. The sciences, I.T., and other so called white-collar jobs do not appeal to everyone. I have met people who just can't stand even the thought of being cooped up in an office. They are good at what they do and and are proud of the quality of their work. My mother's first quote applies especially for them.

 

[Dantius]

Favorite quotes? Hmm, I have a bunch, and I don't really record them, so they usually rotate around with reference to "which ones have I re-inspected the source material of recently". Often one of my current favorites resides in my signature, which rotates about once a month or so. The Demons one from the last thread ranks pretty close to my all-time favorite, though.

 

I'll just chip in Lucifer's monolog from Paradise Lost for now:

 

Originally Posted By: John Milton

The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a hell of heaven, and a heaven of hell.

What matter where, if I be still the same?

And what I should be, all but less than he

Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least

We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built

Here for his envy, will not drive us hence.

Here we may reign secure, and in my choice

To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell

Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven

[Cpt. Charles]

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

As for being blue-collar, you have my greatest respect. I have learned much from blue-collar people. One in particular knew more about building storm doors and windows than anyone in the company, including the engineers who designed them. The sciences, I.T., and other so called white-collar jobs do not appeal to everyone. I have met people who just can't stand even the thought of being cooped up in an office. They are good at what they do and and are proud of the quality of their work. My mother's first quote applies especially for them.

I would like to learn more about computers. I can touch-type, and I enjoy math and accounting. However, I have never quite gotten the same kind of satisfaction from anything than from a bit of woodworking and manual labor. My dad used to own a carpentry business, and he is an exeptionally skilled woodworker. I helped around the shop as a kid and enjoyed it immensely. I think some times that manual labor gets a bad rep just because it is difficult and time-consuming. However, it can be very rewarding.

That's my two bits.

[Cairo Jim]

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

One in particular knew more about building storm doors and windows than anyone in the company, including the engineers who designed them.

There's two types of engineers. The desk jockeys that sit around and draw stuff all day, and the guys who actually put pus to shove and build it.

Also, being cooped up in an office wouldn't bother me. I know I'd be bored quite easily with it. As for I.T. work, i know some of it probably either blow over my head or I'd get sick of it quite quickly.

[Harehunter]

"You can't rollerskate in a buffalo herd." - Roger Miller

[The Mystic]

From a t-shirt my mom owned:

"Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids."

[Cairo Jim]

Another favourite of mine is in my signature. It's from somewhere in the Qu'Ran, although I can't remember from where. I love it especially when it comes to dealing with the sciencey types.

[Harehunter]

@Cairo Jim,

That is a good one, regardless of one's religious belief.

[Lilith]

we did make a jellyfish out of a rat and some plastic though

[Harehunter]

Gesundheit.

 

Lilith, You always have something to add that amuses me.

[keira]

Whenever I see a quote like that, internally I want to scream "Challenge accepted" and change my major.

[Cairo Jim]

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

@Cairo Jim,
That is a good one, regardless of one's religious belief.

I liked it pretty much as soon as I read it, although I'm not Muslim.

[Student of Trinity]

Well, they made jelly out of rat cells. Not so much a jellyfish. That is, they made a blob of cells that moves in water like a jellyfish when you run current through the water. If you stop the current, the jelly stops moving. It has no internal power source. So this is only a rather modest step up from making dead frog legs twitch with current, as Galvani did in 1771.

[Alorael at Large]

A fly? No. But we can fly; we can even make it all the way out of Earth's gravity well. We can smash atoms apart and fuse them together. We can cure an amazing variety of diseases, sometimes by altering the basic makeup of a cell line's genome. We can speak instantly across the world. We can make materials that never existed without human intervention with astonishing properties.

 

And we can, and have, made bacteria out of parts. Not from scratch, but not quite from existing bacteria, either. We taken insects and made them into remote-controlled cyborgs. We can harness animals to become factories: milk and wool are traditional, of course, but we now use them to make spider silk, or antibodies, and more will follow.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't think flies can't be made. They haven't been. Maybe they never will be. (Who would want a new fly?) But can't? No. They can.

[Randomizer]

I'll put it as we haven't made a fly, yet. A hundred years ago we hadn't made microwave ovens, integrated circuits, sent a man to the moon, or the Internet. Just because we aren't up to the technological level doesn't mean we can't get there;

[Harehunter]

Overheard at the restaurant;

Customer: Waiter, what is this fly doing in my soup?

Waiter: I appears to be doing the backstroke.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: An Infinity of Ignorance

—Alorael, who doesn't think flies can't be made. They haven't been. Maybe they never will be. (Who would want a new fly?) But can't? No. They can.

I don't know if flies can be made, but I do know an easy way to improve them: Create better flyswatters. To put it another way: If you build a better mousetrap, you're telling nature to build a better mouse.

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

Overheard at the restaurant;
Customer: Waiter, what is this fly doing in my soup?
Waiter: I appears to be doing the backstroke.

That's about as bad as one I heard:
Customer: Waiter, there's a fly in my soup!
Waiter: Don't worry, he won't eat much.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: The Mystic

That's about as bad as one I heard:
Customer: Waiter, there's a fly in my soup!
Waiter: Don't worry, he won't eat much.

and when you get sick of the customer complaining, dump the soup in his lap and say "and now you have soup on your fly"

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

and when you get sick of the customer complaining, dump the soup in his lap and say "and now you have soup on your fly"

But what if the customer is wearing a dress?

Dikiyoba urges all political dissidents and spies to be careful when ordering soup. It's all too likely that the waiter will bring you a bowl of soup containing an assassin fly.

[Alorael at Large]

The waiter looked at the customer with surprise. "Sir, whatever gave you the idea that the soup was yours?"

 

"You put it in front of me!" the customer protested.

 

"Hmph! I thought you were someone who could be trusted with soup. Clearly I overestimated you."

 

—Alorael, who believes this scene is best followed by a ten minute, slow-motion shootout between customers and waitstaff.

[Spddin Ignis]

"It's not college until you and your roommate are up at 3am in the morning hugging a pot of ramen noodles for warmth in the dead of winter before finals."- A friend of mine

[Cairo Jim]

Originally Posted By: An Infinity of Ignorance

A fly? No. But we can fly; we can even make it all the way out of Earth's gravity well. We can smash atoms apart and fuse them together. We can cure an amazing variety of diseases, sometimes by altering the basic makeup of a cell line's genome. We can speak instantly across the world. We can make materials that never existed without human intervention with astonishing properties.

There is a wee bit of a difference between making something completely from scratch when there's absolutely nothing, and just manipulating you're environment.

[Sudanna]

The environment does that all the time. If we learn to manipulate that bit of it, maybe we can too!

[Student of Trinity]

I'm not sure we really need to reflect upon our inability to make flies out of vacuum, to be convinced of our mortal limitations. For each of us there will inevitably come a moment at which we cannot, by any means, draw another breath. Artificial flies will be no comfort then.

 

Perhaps some day our descendants will find ways to extend their lives indefinitely. There's an old story about trees in a garden that says that will never work, but there's no track record yet for old stories versus nanotechnology and psychocybernetics. For the foreseeable future, though, we are all mortal.

[Alorael at Large]

Originally Posted By: Cairo Jim

There is a wee bit of a difference between making something completely from scratch when there's absolutely nothing, and just manipulating you're environment.

We can't make anything completely from scratch. We can't pull matter from nothing. This isn't an intellectual failing, it's physics.

—Alorael, who does not appreciate any great depth to a quote pointing out the lack of magical powers among humans. As reminders of humility, he can think of better. Failing to eradicate diseases with widely available vaccines? That's a good one. The seeming impossibility of limiting warfare and Wall Street are true human failures. What cannot be done just gives lessons in the constraints of reality; what can be done but isn't gives lessons in the constraints of human small-mindedness, self-centeredness, ignorance, and obstructionism.

[Erebus the Black]

Originally Posted By: An Infinity of Ignorance

We can't make anything completely from scratch. We can't pull matter from nothing. This isn't an intellectual failing, it's physics.

physics with energy from nothing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect

[Prince of Kitties]

You can borrow energy from nothing, but eventually you have to give it back; and the more energy, the higher the interest, so to speak. The Casimir effect is the result of lots of particles living their whole lives in debt.

 

I'm not sure what uses the Casimir effect might have in nanotechnology. It probably isn't useful for space drives though, because space drives conflict horribly with a stable universe.

 

Quote:

[T]he invariance of physical systems with respect to spatial translation (in other words, that the laws of physics do not vary with locations in space) gives the law of conservation of linear momentum...

[Harehunter]

Must not pun, must not pun.

[nikki.]

Sorry to drag us back on-topic (however briefly), but I have a new favourite insult. I've already used it a couple of times in conversation to widespread bewilderment:

 

'I'll slander you no more of wit, good sir!'

- Ben Jonson Volpone.

[Harehunter]

"I'm not so think as you drunk I am." - Margaret Hoolihan