Hello All,
This is a spin on a thread from the academy…but I was wondering…what is your favorite quote or quotes? Say for instance your top 3 quotes?
Mine are…
“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he can never loose.”
–Jim Elliott
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
–CS Lewis
“Don’t wake me for the end of the world unless it has very good special effects.”
– Roger Zelazny
“I would never join a forum that has me as a member!”
G. Marx
(well, a little modified for the occasion… 
)
“I’ve done the calculation and the chances of winning the lottery are identical whether you play or not.”
“My favorite animal is steak.”
“I don’t think there’s anything man wasn’t meant to know. There are just some stupid things that people shouldn’t do.” - David Cronenberg
“When men are inhuman, take care not to feel towards them as they do towards other humans.” - Marcus Aurelius (VII, 65)
τῶν ὄντων, τὰ μέν ἐστιν ἐφ’ ἡμῖν, τὰ δ’ οὐκ ἐφ ἡμῖν - Epictetus, Encheiridion 1 (this one sticks in my head in Gk because all English translations seem clumsy, “Of the things that exist, some are up to us, and some are not up to us.”)
hi will, that’s the 1st time i’ve seen that greek quote: i’ve got no doubt that he was thinking of aristotle’s categories 1a-b at the time, which was the standard introduction to philosophy for 100s of years after aristotle.
Edit chad, I had to fix the URL: it was messing up formatting on all messages. --wm
Well, I was trying to disagree with this - E. is summarizing a particular Stoic doctrine here, not making a statement of logic - but the more time I spend with the Arist. citation, the less I understand it. Can you explain the difference between κατά and ἐν in this sort of Aristotelian prose?
hi, yep the difference comes out in the 2 sentences ‘socrates is a man’ and ‘socrates is white’; here ‘man’ is said kata\ tou= socrates, and the white colour is ‘in’ socrates… ‘in’ having the meaning described in 1b.
you dislike this type of philosophy i’ve gathered! 
i in fact like aristotle above all others… well he’s the only philosopher i can bring myself to read… even after getting a uni degree in phil. the rest of them are all words no content.
“Oh confused would we?” - Homer (Simpson)
Mmmm…I like that quote!
“One must be the change one wishes to see in the world.”
Gandhi
“He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.”
Groucho Marx
(ThomasGR, you’ve got mail.)
Not at all. Plato makes me grouchy, but I have great regard for Aristotle. It’s just that reading syllogisms and the technical language of logic take effort in my native language, and I’ve never read it in Greek before.
Als het niet kan zoals het moet, moet het maar zoals het kan.
In English:
If it can’t be done the way it should, it should be done the way it can.
I read it on a wall in the specialised daycare centre my autistic son goes to.
Another longer Dutch one can be read here: Je bent zo mooi anders
Ingrid
“Libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.” (Man gladly believe that which they wish for.) - Caesar
I wasn’t aware of this quote, but I like it because it reminds me of a similar, more recent quote:
“Some people believe with great fervor preposterous things that just happen to coincide with their self-interest.” Judge Frank Easterbrook, Coleman v. CIR (7th Cir 1986) 791 F2d 68 at 69 [and quoted in several subsequent court decisions]."
which appears in the introduction to a very entertaining read called Idiot Legal Arguments: A Casebook for Dealing with Extremist Legal Arguments
which deals with people trying to beat the IRS on technicalities, and things like that.
I guess some things never change.
I saw the quote in my signature phrase the other day - I just HAD to have it! (I am a Roman king and above grammar! apparently said when some idiot tried to correct his Latin!) 
Oscar Wilde was also a great source of quotes - some favourites are:
"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast. "
“Work is the curse of the drinking classes”
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much. "
ah ive really begun to like Wilde because of his quotes
" I think that people who count their chickens before they hatch act very wisely because chickens run around so absurdly that it is imposible to count them accurately."
“Oh, how marriage ruins a man. It is as demoralizing as cigarettes and far more expensive.”
“I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can’t go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left.”
“It takes a thouroughly good woman to do a thouroughly stupid thing.”
“I spent 33 years in the Marines, most of my time being a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the banks. In short, I was a racketer for Capitalism.”
Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler
America’s most decorated General, from his antiwar classic – War Is A Racket
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”
Benito Mussolini
“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”
Alphonse Karr
“writing briefly takes far more time than writing at length”
~CF Gauss
“I cannot live without books.”
William Annis? – Nope.
Whiteoctave? – Nope, again.
The quote is from Jefferson in a letter to John Adams.
(Not a tincture of politics in the above quote. I’m trying. )
“custom will reconcile people to any atrocity, and fashion will drive them to acquire any custom” —George Bernard Shaw
“o passi graviora, dabit deus his quoque finem” —Vergil (O you who have suffered grievously, a god will grant an end to these things as well)
I hate to look like a copycat with the Wilde quote, but I like it anyways:
“to love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance” —Oscar Wilde