What's a quote that has stuck with you for your whole life?
What's a quote that has stuck with you for your whole life?
I always loved browsing such posts on reddit, so thought I should make one on lemmy too
Edit: Usually these kind of posts only used to have excerpts from books or ancient proverbs, but now I am seeing a lot more quotes from shows/movies/games are also resonating with people. It's pretty cool to see.
When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back. Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons, what am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's gonna burn your house down... with the lemons! I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!
- Cave Johnson, Portal 2
Maybe not words to live by, but certainly a memorable quote.
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.
Marcus Aurelius
Not my whole life but ever since I learned it twenty years ago in the army. "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast". It's a saying that means to learn things carefully, slowly, and methodically. When you are learning like this speed will follow as a natural progression. So if you learn something slowly and smoothly it will translate into being quick and doing it correctly. I have applied this to all sorts of different things in life and it has never failed me.
When you look at someone through rose colored glasses, the red flags just look like flags.
In 100 years, nobody will care
Growing old is mandatory, growing up optional.
Murphy's law is always apllicable, unless you depend on it.
"The best time to plant a tree is fifty years ago. The second best time is right now" - essentially don't worry about what you could have done better, or what could have been, make now and the future as good as you can
and
"If you don't fall off occasionally, you're not trying hard enough" - originally told to me in the context of learning to windsurf (I still can't windsurf), but applicable in a lot of areas. This doesn't mean try to fall off, it means failure is a natural part of growth, not something to be shunned
Does a poem count? Ozymandias has stuck with me forever.
I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away."
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread." -Anatole France
“What Orwell failed to predict is that we'd buy the cameras ourselves, and that our biggest fear would be that nobody was watching.”
"For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn't conspire against you, but it doesn't go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. 'Someday' is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you.”
Cannot remember where this is from but I like it enough tosaved it in my notenbook.
“It will not be we who reach Alpha Centauri, and the other nearby stars. It will be a species very like us – but with more of our strengths and fewer of our weaknesses.” — Carl Sagan
This one has been my go to for years and years.
It gives me comfort. In that we probably won't every get there, because of our evolutionary failures as a species, but that's ok. Because the next species or evolution of our kind will stand a better chance.
"It's not the first thought that comes to mind that matters, what's important is what you after that"
This was in the context of racism. I was raised in an racist environment, and I was struggling with the awful thoughts that had been indoctrinated in to me bubbling up when I encountered folk that were the target of that racism.
That quote helped me not be hung up on guilt and self flagellation, and instead to focus on being the person I want to be, rather than the person I was taught to be.
"Everyday is somebody's first day." I think of it like a more generous Hanlon's Razor "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Especially when an employee is perhaps not doing a good job or is slow. If it was my first day on the job, I'd like a little consideration.
Never forget, in nineteen ninety eight when the undertaker threw mankind off hell in a cell and plummeted sixteen feet through an announcer's table.
- ShittyMorph
"It is no measure of good health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society"
This one stuck with me and resurfaces in my mind every now and then, particularly nowadays:
"We've arranged a global civilization in which the most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster." ~ Carl Sagan
"Perfect is the enemy of Good."
Every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
— Carl Sagan
"We're getting paid to put paint on the wall."
I was like 17 or so and had a temp job as a housepainter for a couple weeks, and I was sinking time and energy into doing an excellent job and being really efficient with paint and ... kind of missing the forest for the trees. I was putting unnecessary care & excellence into a back wall and the wall was taking longer to prep than the whole-house job could afford. One of the old guys on site pulled me aside me and, in the eloquent terms above, pointed out that ... the real goal here is paint on the wall. We're doing a good job because we take pride in our work, but the outcome is significantly more important than the journey to everyone else. Doing a "good job" can't wind up as an obstacle to the job itself.
I was always a details person and perfectionist, and that one clear lesson about taking a step back from the details of a task to double-check what the actual goal is ... has always stuck with me.
Failure is always an option. - Adam Savage
“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it" - Someone mistranslating Aristotle
Listen
There is only one way to make people talk more than they care to. Listen. Listen with hungry earnest attention to every word. In the intensity of your attention, make little nods of agreement, little sounds of approval. You can’t fake it. You have to really listen. In a posture of gratitude. And it is such a rare and startling experience for them, such a boon to ego, such a gratification of self, to find a genuine listener, that they want to prolong the experience. And the only way to do that is to keep talking. A good listener is far more rare than an adequate lover.
-Travis McGee
from Nightmare in Pink
by John D. McDonald"You can't unshit yourself".
A bit crass maybe but it's always stuck with me. Basically a way of thinking in bad situations that need action eg if you've shat yourself, no amount of wishing you hadn't is going to change the fact that you've shat yourself, so what are you going to actually do about it?
Hopefully it's metaphorical but works on both counts.
Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled trainers should try to win with their favorites.
- Elite 4 Karen, Pokémon Gold and Silver
"Dude, suckin' at something is the first step to being sorta good at something." - Jake the Dog, Adventure Time.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Frank Herbert, Dune
Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.
Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian
I've got two:
“The apocalypse is not something which is coming. The apocalypse has arrived in major portions of the planet and it’s only because we live within a bubble of incredible privilege and social insulation that we still have the luxury of anticipating the apocalypse.” by Terence McKenna
And the other is from an old salty chief when I was in the navy. This is paraphrasing but:
"Every fuck up comes down to a combination of three root causes: didn't know, didn't care, or a material problem"
Someone gets hurt on the job? Well, did they not know they were doing something wrong? Did they not care enough about safety? Or was it simply because something broke? Maybe they didn't know AND they didn't care to find out.
“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness—that is life.” - Capt. Picard, Star Trek TNG
“Knowledge is power; France is bacon”
"Only when the white man has destroyed the whole forest, has killed fish and animals and all rivers are dry, will realize that no one can eat money. "
"Many hands make light work"
As a young child I interpreted this as acknowledging all of the people involved in:
- Mining and transporting coal
- Running the powerplant
- Installing and maintaining the powerlines
- Wiring the house
- Manufacturing the lightswitch, light socket, light bulb, etc
All so I can flick a switch and turn on a light in my house. It really shows that all the small things we take for granted rely on a well functioning society.
Then when I was around 10 or so someone used it in a context where it's usual interpretation was the only one that made sense.
I once overheard a pair of utility workers talking, and as I walked past I only overheard a snippet of conversation. The older one yelled up the cherrypicker to the younger one and said, in a heavy Boston accent:
"If only you could use your powers for good, instead of for useless..."
That sentence is seared into my brain.
"Compassion is priceless in the truest sense of the word. It must be given freely. In abundance. "- Steven Erikson.
"Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool." -Mark Twain
"You are too concerned what was and what will be. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called present."- Master Oogway.
In German but "As long as they pretend to pay me, I pretend to work." Probably one of the first pieces of wisdom I got way back as a wee apprentice.
Now, I work more than this quote may make one think of me, but it‘s influenced me insofar as I‘m aware of not overdoing it as my employers never overdo the pay part either.
If something is worth doing, it's worth doing well.
Said by a friend who, in the late 90s, copied a dozen albums to minidisk for me. He named all the albums and track names using a remote to select each letter one by one. It must have taken him many hours to do it. But he wanted to do a good job. Up up up up A right, up up up up up f, etc etc. Utterly tedious but he wanted to do a good job.
“A journey will have pain and failure. It is not only the steps forward that we must accept. It is the stumbles. The trials. The knowledge that we will fail. That we will hurt those around us.
But if we stop, if we accept the person we are when we fail, the journey ends. That failure becomes our destination.”
Dalinar Kholin, from the Stormlight Archive
"I never lose, either I win or I learn."
As fluffy as this quote sounds, I always find it relevant. From taking on a difficult task at work, to getting past ladder anxiety in a video game. If you've ever executed on something so well that afterwards you felt like it was a waste of time, it might be. You didn't get an opportunity to learn. Which reminds me of another relevant quote, "Losing is fun!"
Everything remains possible, as long as you don't choose.
Mr. Nobody (2009)
"Don't have a wish bone where a back bone should be."
"Once a man, twice a child."
"Never hesitate to state the obvious", for socially awkward teenager-me this was a game changer how to participate in conversation. I still live by it and it's really useful in meetings, as it also brings real value to the conversation, as whatever is obvious to you isn't necessarily obvious to others. And even if everyone knew, it may still spark a discussion.
"Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum."
My second favourite: "Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of '99
Wear Sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.
A long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists
Whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable, than my own meandering experience."
Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.
Instead of focusing exclusively on how fast you can get to the finish, which may result in missteps along the way that slow you down, focus on moving smoothly accounting for variables that might make the journey more rough and doing what you can to plan for/avoid them. Making everything "smooth sailing" all the way to the finish line. There's a dozen different interpretations that can be applied here, and it's more or less an adaptation of "slow and steady wins the race" but it's so broad that it's generally true.
Sometimes, speed for the sake of speed is faster, period, but often speed for the sake of speed comes with compromises and issues along the way which may make the whole process slower over all. I'd rather go smoothly than quickly.
A good real-world example of this is stop and go traffic. Instead of going quickly to catch up to the person ahead of you, then stopping abruptly, if you instead go at a slow/steady rate, you will burn less fuel, consume less of you brake material, and over all have a more pleasant drive than if you're constantly stopping and going. In addition, if everyone were to adhere to this in heavy traffic, then most traffic jams would very likely be less impactful on travel delays. You'd get through congestion easier and with less frustration, and very likely arrive sooner, feeling more calm and relaxed.
Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.
I reject your reality and substitute it with my own
This line from Schindler's List always stuck with me:
“Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.”
The context is that at the end of the movie Schindler is distraught thinking of how many more he could have saved if he just did certain things differently, like selling a ring and using that money to hire another Jewish worker. One of the people he saved tells him the above line.
It's stuck with me for two reasons, I think.
First, it's an interesting perspective on individuality. Each person has their own unique perspective of the world. When that person dies, that perspective is gone forever. An entire universe dies with them, never to be seen again. I think that's a powerful way to view the individual.
Second, it's a reminder that we do what we can, and while it may be imperfect, it's enough. You can't save everyone, just live well and help those you can in the capacity that you can. If you save one of those people, you've saved the world.
"Many that live deserve death and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be so eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the wise cannot see all ends." Gandalf, Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring
For some reason, this quote (and the entirety of Gollum's story) has stuck itself in my head. I guess I interpret this as a message to not be so quick to judge death upon another person, no matter what they had done. You never know what their future will be like, and cutting their lives off would mean losing out on the potential benefits that their future might bring. Even bad people can contribute good things. I know that this is just my personal opinion, and a lot of people probably won't agree with this, but this is the lesson that I got from Gollum's story.
Oof, I have quite a lot. One of my favourites is, "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
I find it immensely relatable, as I think a huge number of problems in the world today stem from simply apathy. People who say they dislike the state of the world and even that they want to change it, but refuse to do absolutely anything at all, being perfectly content to just let bad things happen.
Permanently Deleted
Permanently Deleted
Sometimes the good you do, doesn’t do you any good.
Decide what you're gonna do before you do it.
When I was like 8, a liftee at my local ski hill told me that as I dangled from the chairlift about 5 feet off the ground because I waffled getting on the lift.
"Live on, survive, for the Earth gives forth wonders. It may swallow your heart, but the wonders keep on coming. You stand before them bareheaded, shriven. What is expected of you is attention."
Salman Rushdie, from The Ground Beneath Her Feet.
A more recent one, meditation-related, short and simple and I have no idea who said it, I just happened to catch it a couple of years ago on a website-that-shall-not-be-named:
"I am not my thoughts."
A little cheesy, but in middle school we read this essay called “Give!” By Anne Frank
How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment; we can start now, start slowly changing the world! How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make their contribution toward introducing justice straight away
Her excitement is what always stuck with me
There's no room on Mars for limp dicks.
It's a quote for a horrible 90s indie film that's always struck with me for some reason. My social group and I have since taken this quote as an absolute/truism that gets referenced whenever a situation calls for absolute certainty. Because as we all know, there's no room on Mars for limp dicks.
A teacher of mine once said:"I can't understand, why a person needs a ton, to move itself."
20 years later I found r/fuckcars.
“When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all”. -God (futurama)
This little quote helps make me thorough in my work
If you hide your whole life, you'll forget who you are.
The future is no place to place your better days.
When you fire that first shot, no matter how right you feel, you have no idea who's going to die! You don't know whose children are going to scream and burn! How many hearts will be broken! How many lives shattered! How much blood will spill until everybody does what they were always going to have to do from the very beginning: Sit — down — and — talk!
Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor
"Get to the Choppa"
My grandfather used to tell me: "What I know is that I know nothing". He used to tell me that even in his old age, he was still amazed by the things he discovered, just like a child. That taught me to always be humble and to understand the point of view of others and to always learn in life. So I will always remember this quote.
Misery isn’t a currency. (this applies to when you make yourself suffer with sadness as a way to buy yourself out of guilt)
This was told to my by my best friend over 30 years ago, he passed away on Thursday.
We suffer more in imagination than reality
Don't hold grudges. While you're holding a grudge, the other guy's out dancing.
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler"
“You wouldn't worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.” - Eleanor Roosevelt
I have two that keep finding their way to be relevant. "smooth seas never made a skilled sailor" and "dont break anything you cant fix"
"The name's Bond, James Bond". Because of that quote, I have never failed to remember James Bond's name.
"You wouldn't worry what other people thought of you if you knew how seldom they did" ... good for those awkward teenage years. Conversely, it also highlights the value of receiving and giving attention.
“One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.”
- Bertrand Russell
God gives his silliest battles to his funniest clowns
"Oh, monsters are scared, that's why they're monsters" The Ocean at the End of the Lane
When you’re screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore that means they’ve given up on you…you may not want to hear it but your critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you and want to make you better.
-- randy pausch, the last lecture
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/430312-when-you-re-screwing-up-and-nobody-says-anything-to-you
ALL of it is good. Go watch. Maybe laugh a bit. Maybe cry near the end. Come away changed.
"For every man there is a purpose which he sets up in his life. Let yours be the doing of all good deeds." Robin Hood quoteing the turk bible (quran)
Everything burns if the flame is hot enough, The world is nothing but a crucible. -Andrew Davidson - The Gargoyle.
Not sure where it is from, misquoting and probably butchering the quote:
"If you think a headache is bad, break your arm then the headache doesn't feel so bad anymore"
Basically if something is bad, but something worse comes along, then the bad thing doesn't seem so bad anymore
Update:
Because this has got me thinking, going to update when I quote source ( also don't want to double post)
Heard in Mass Effect 2, Thane quoting:
"When all the world is overcharged with inhabitants, then the last remedy of all is war, which provideth for every man, by victory or death." Thomas Hobbes
How many ages hence shall this our lofty scene be acted over, in states unborn and accents yet unknown?
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, scene 1.
But ... I first encountered this line in the shooter game Silpheed on the Apple IIgs, long before I'd read any Shakespeare.
"Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people"
Perhaps its an overgeneralization, but I like the concept behind it and at least it keeps me from gossiping / talking about people behind their backs. I am mostly an average mind though, by this definition.
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” - Ferris Beuller
So true
I'll spend as much effort as possible to be as lazy as I can be. (in Dutch: Zo veel mogelijk moeite om zo lui mogelijk te kunnen zijn)
I'll try automating everything till the point I'm currently thinking on how to automate my living room door to be open/closed through home assistant without affecting manually opening it.
“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read” ~ Groucho Marx (or possibly Boy’s Life Magazine)
Not my circus, not my monkeys. Let go or get dragged.
I heard them from my mom who went to Al Anon (I was in alcoholics anonymous). The first one is don't make other people's problems your problems. The second relates to letting people make their own mistakes. They're the greatest teacher
"Molten wounds still glow where the two nuclear bombs detonated. And I wonder, in my last moments, if the planet does not mind that we wound her surface or pillage her bounty, because she knows we silly warm things are not even a breath in her cosmic life. We have grown and spread, and will rage and die. And when all that remains of us is our steel monuments and plastic idols, her winds will whisper, her sands will shift, and she will spin on and on, forgetting about the bold, hairless apes who thought they deserved immortality."
-- Pierce Brown, Morning Star Novel (P. 166)
Not really a quote, but a poem that I read in school. It's called মৃত্যুঞ্জয় (The Death-defier). A rough translation is available here.
A couple of lines have stuck with me ever since.
''যখন উদ্যত ছিল তোমার অশনি
তোমারে আমার চেয়ে বড়ো বলে নিয়েছিনু গণি
তোমার আঘাত-সাথে নেমে এলে তুমি
যেথা মোর আপনার ভূমি।''
It translates roughly to
"When your thunder was ready to strike, I considered you mightier than me. But with your blows you came down. Here, with me, where I stand."
It has taught me not to fear hardships, since nothing is ultimate. Everything looks scary from afar. But if we have the grit and determination to face it, all will crumble in front of our might. Even death has nothing on us, since out deeds and achievements will live on. This poem has given me inspiration in dark times. It has reminded me that all hope is not lost, no matter how grim everything might seem.
"It's not the years, honey. It's the mileage."
- Indiana Jones
Never underestimate the power of denial
"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything." - Nietzsche
"Failure is always an option." -Adam Savage
"Heroes are not giant statues framed against a red sky, they are people who say 'This is my community and it's my responsibility to make it better.'" Tom McCall - Oregon Governor 1967-1975.
I have two that have stuck with me most my adult life-- and I find that they apply frequently.
I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow.
-- Judge Learned Hand, The Spirit of Liberty Speech, 1944
I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
- Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
- Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
- Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
-- Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt, 2002
It doesn't matter how good they look; someone, somewhere, is tired of putting up with their shit.
Paraphrased probably, but:
“What is an ocean but a thousand drops?”
It’s a really good way to get rid of the mentality of one person can’t make a difference. Because everyone is a drop, and without so many drops, there is no ocean. Maybe one individual drop doesn’t truly make a difference alone. But what if every drop was gone?
It helps me feel that, even if the difference I make isn’t big enough to make an impact, an impact only exists BECAUSE of all the drops.
That goes for both positive and negative things. A thousand bad drops are needed to make a bad thing. A thousand good drops to make a good one.
“Leaders lead by example.”
If you want to be a good leader, you have to be the first to follow your own rules.
A Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal. Progress is meaningless unless it is aimed at something specific. - Nietzsche
"Whoever can laugh at themself has the right to laugh at everything else they find funny" Lousily translated quote from Jaroslaf Werich
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason."
-Thomas Paine
People uphold their own oppressors because of a need to uphold tradition. F**k the monarchy.
Today is a good day to die
This is meaningful to me because it's a place I must try and be in every day. Leave nothing for chance and understand that I can die at any moment so I must always be one step in front of it.
This is what the white men believe Crazy Horse would say in Lakota as a battle cry. It was probably more like "come on let's go" but it wasn't so much the words but the message behind them. It's a heavy mental mindset that you are ready to die today if that's what happens. It means you have lived with honor and respect. Your family knows your love for them. You have shown your ancestors respect so they will be waiting for you, welcoming you to the other world as a warrior coming home. This is a power place to be, especially if you have to face a life and death situation.
So this is the battle cry
Hokahey! Nake nula wauŋ welo!
Let's do this! I am ready for what comes!
"Wearing a watch is like being handcuffed to time."
Some people give me shit for it, but one that's actually gotten me through some struggles is "despite all my rage, I'm still just a rat in a cage." I have a tendency to push back against things that feel unfair/unjust and it often is more destructive and time-consuming than it's worth. Sometimes i need a reminder to just accept things the way they are.
"Psh, friends? Who needs them? They roll more off the line every day."
Sounds super callous out of context, but the guy was incredibly friendly and kind. He had originally moved across the country to where his wife was living, and at this point they were going through a really bad divorce. I strongly suspect his local support network was entirely her friends, and they were turning their backs on him. I always took it as advice on being unafraid to remove the people who are dragging you down, and be confident that there are better ones out there.
"You must know what happened happened and couldn't have happened any other way." -Morpheus
It only ever ends once, everything else is just progress.
Jacob on Lost
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no "brief candle" for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
A teacher of mine said to the class: "You may not like studying for now, but you will regret lacking education for the rest of your life"
So basically trade in half of your childhood to have a better time for most of the rest of your life (yeah work may suck, but with better education you can more easily find something you don't hate)
Get in the zone, autozone!
Be kinder than necessary, for everyone is fighting some kind of battle.
"Strong opinions loosely held"
Implying you should have the courage to fight for what you believe is right but not hold onto them once you're proven wrong.
I learned this as a company culture thing from one of my previous employers and not sure if there's another source for it. I did not like that employer very much in the end but this quote has been stuck with me since and I live by it.
If you wish to keep slaves, you must have all kinds of guards. The cheapest way to have guards is to have the slaves pay taxes to finance their own guards. To fool the slaves, you tell them that they are not slaves and that they have Freedom. You tell them they need Law and Order to protect them against bad slaves. Then you tell them to elect a Government. Give them Freedom to vote and they will vote for their own guards and pay their salary. They will then believe they are Free persons. Then give them money to earn, count, and spend and they will be too busy to notice the slavery they are in.” - Alexander Warbucks
If you can't love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else.
This is not a famous thing, it's just that I've heard someone at a past workplace say this.
"Doing the same thing that got you here into this position will not make you successful in it, it may not even be enough for you to keep it."
To be clear, he wasn't saying it to me or anyone, he said it to himself as a life lesson he learned going through promotions and changing companies. The point was to stay humble and don't expect your past accomplishments to get you through future challenges.
"Always remember: never accept the world for what it appears to be. Dare to see it for what it could be."
-Overwatch"be careful of what you wish for, as you may just get it"
German quote from an old podcast: Konsequenz heißt auch Holzwege zuende gehen.
Rough translation: Being consequent means also following the wrong path to the end.
It's used for people or organisations that tend to stick to a decision to the end, even if that decision was obviously flawed. E.g. sticking to extremely stick to a regulation even if it's outdated/was dumb from the beginning. Corporate password policies are a good example.
"What stands in the way becomes the way." M.A.
"This is going to be with you a long time, Jean-Luc. A long time. You have to learn to live with it. You have a simple choice now. Live with it below the sea with Louis, or above the clouds with the Enterprise."
"Everything will be forgotten and nothing will be repaired", from Milan Kundera.
"Money I got, time I don't."
My dad said this offhanded joking remark to me 30 years ago and it lives rent free in my head. It's a privileged view point for sure but I took it to mean save and be prepared but don't be frugal toa detriment. Spend on things you love and spend away on things you hate. Don't waste time if you can afford not to.
I took an introduction to nursing class in high school where we had to know the names of all the bones, the chambers of the heart, CPR, etc. During one particular topic, one of the students kinda snapped and exclaimed "I'm too stupid for this!" The teacher, a badass ER nurse who was a single mom, rode a Harley, and had seen everything from electrocuted flesh to years-old bed sores, simply said "Good. That means you're learning."
I work with special needs kids, and whenever they complain about feeling stupid, I pass along that wisdom, but in a bit nicer way: "You're not stupid, you're just learning."
Now that your worry has proved such an unlucrative business, why not find a better job?
It's better to regret something you have done than something you haven't.
“You judge yourself by your intentions, but judge others by their actions”
This has helped me with my procrastination and helping to understand co-workers and people in general. Life gets busy and we always mean do get to things, but it’s really on what we actually do and complete that is real.
“He has no friends” - Dad
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Basically at any given moment, any from a random assortment of Simpsons quotes. Right now it’s “but when are they gonna get to the fireworks factory?”
Success leads to stagnation; stagnation leads to failure. ... Failure leads to maturity; maturity leads to success.
- Steven Brust (from Jhereg)
Once is never, twice is always.
“If God is all-powerful, He cannot be all good. And if He is all good, then He cannot be all-powerful.”
"Think for yourself and question authority." It's on a TOOL album.
Pick your battles.
"Good things come to those who wait". It has been true so many times in my life.
"Love is the only rational act." -Morrie Schwartz, Tuesdays with Morrie.
"Better say sorry than ask for permission"
"You never get a second chance to make a first impression"
Here are a few off the top of my head (though I looked up the original kanji for some of the Japanese ones)...
To enjoy life's immensity, you do not need many things.
- Ryōkan, a Japanese poet
Ain't no shame in holding onto grief, as long as you make room for other things too.
- Bubbles, from the last episode of The Wire
Honor is dead, but I'll see what I can do.
- Kaladin, from The Stormlight Archive Book 2 by Brandon Sanderson
Beware the difference between intelligibility and correctness.
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Success consists of moving from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
- Winston Churchill
猿も木から落ちる (Saru mo ki kara ochiru)
Even monkeys fall from trees.
- Anonymous, traditional Japanese saying
正勝吾勝 (Makatsu agatsu)
True victory is victory over one's self.
- Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido
This one is from my previous boss: “you gotta do what’s good for you, and nobody else”
Taught me to prioritize things that are important to me and not to live for the sake of others
Another was “you can’t help people who don’t want to help themselves”
Taught me that some efforts are futile because unwillingness from others will result in deterioration to the status quo unless they’re willing to participate to move things forward
"you can stick your well-laid plan up your well-laid ass"
Been almost 30 years, what a dumb quote to come to mind so often. I never say it, haven't seen Die Hard 3 since the '90s, no idea why it's stuck so hard
If you can't love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else.
For my whole life is a tall order. Probably "what goes around comes around".
This thing we tell of can never be found by seeking, yet only seekers find it.
A bit long, but charlie Chaplins speech in the dicktater. I mean dictator...
https://www.charliechaplin.com/en/articles/29-the-final-speech-from-the-great-dictator-
From citizen Kane:
"It's easy to make a lot of money, if all you want is a lot of money"
Or something to that effect. Think about that line often
So much of the dialog is Deadwood is absolutely brilliant, but one scene really stuck with me.
Ian McShane deserved an Emmy for his work as Al Swearengen. That slow stare at the end of the scene alway kills me. I know it's supposed to be a drama, but they really go for some laughs.
“There isn't any shame in being weak, the shame is in staying weak” - black clover
"If you are racist, I will attack you with the North"
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No one is ever on their deathbed wishing they had worked more.
(And quotes of that ilk). It’s genuinely something that informs the structure of every day for me.
I only concern myself with 'how'. 'Why' is a question for philosophers and cowards, of which I am neither.
I think it would be this two personally.
Don't do unto others what you don't want done unto you. - Confucius
Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof. - V
“Nothing changes if I don’t change”.
“Ignorance is bliss.”
"Friendly fire isn't!"
Keep moving forward
"If worms had machine guns, then birds wouldn't fuck with them." A quote from my TI in basic from 85'.
Hanlon's razor is basically my religion at this point. It's just a huge part of how I see and engage with the world.
"I don't knoooow, Margo"
In response to the classic National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation line: "And why is the carpet all wet, Todd?"
Everytime you eat a steak, a hippie's hacky sack falls in the gutter.
-Patton Oswalt
Life, don't talk to me about life...
"HAPPINESS, FREE, FOR EVERYONE, AND LET NO ONE BE FORGOTTEN!!" - Red, The Roadside Picnic
An impossible wish, yet one that burned itself into my heart the moment I read it, and a quote that has kept me walking.
In this world, the only thing we truly own is the body we shape everyday
- Sun Ken Rock manga
"God thinks he's all that and a bag of chips." -David Bowie
"these problems are the good ones to have." from an atmosphere song, where they got it form idk. but whenever im feeling like shits going south i remember this and it reminds me that its not all so bad.
Some mountains are scaled, others are slain.
if you assume you make an ass of u and me
"Why did I follow him...? I don't know. Why do things happen as they do in dreams? All I know is that, when he beckoned... I had to follow him. From that moment, we traveled together, East. Always... into the East."
- Marius, Diablo 2
Education is experience and the essence of experience is self-reliance.
-- T H White
"Best advice I ever got was an old friend of mine, a black friend, who said you have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all. That’s the only advice you can give anybody. And it’s not advice, it’s an observation."
James Baldwin
Confidence is everything.
We all hurt, we all need, we all cry, we all bleed.
One of my favorite reminders that everyone has personal struggles.
“What I’m about to tell you is top secret, a conspiracy bigger than all of us. There’s a powerful group of people out there that are secretly running the world. I’m talking about the guys no one knows about, the guys that are invisible. The top 1% of the top 1%, the guys that play God without permission.”
- Elliot
A joke calender in the 80s told me that "Ich habe mein stammwappen verloren" means "I have lost my totem pole"
Don't be a dick
-Ismo Leikola, stand-up comedian
A flower unplucked is but left to the falling, And nothing is gained by not gathering roses.
Two plus two equals five for large values of two
If you get down, you can always get up again.
"To infinity and beyond"
-- Buzz
@zinklog "History loves repeat itself" With Covid , Wars and even daily life you see this so so many times. On big or little scales but this is a almost mantra to me " History is spiral it always comes back to point x" Sometimes it's scary because you know exactly what happened and what happening now can happen again...
We were shown an A&E biography episode on Ray Crock my freshman year of high school for career class and they quoted the dude as saying
If my competitors were drowning in a sea of gasoline, I would throw in a lit match.
Milkshake man was ice fuckin' cold!
“Laugh, and the whole world laughs with you, cry.. and I’ll give you something to cry about you little bastard.” -Jeff Goldblum - The Great White Hype
do unto others as you would have them do unto you
I don't know where this quote originated. I first heard it from my future SO and it goes something like this
"It is human nature to assume that once we have found the answer, we will find peace. Instead, one must find peace first, then the answer will come."
Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
As one door closes, another opens on the shit-chute to hell
With all of the time I have, I am an insult to the dead.
In context, the person is saying they feel like they are wasting their life and that innumerable people in the past would've killed to have the kind of free time or life they have.
It reminds me to be grateful for both the time I have alive and the quality of that time.
I find it extremely motivating in pursuing my various personal pursuits. I should seem like a Renaissance master to the people of the past and anything less is insulting.
With all of the time I have, I am an insult to the dead.
In context, the person is saying they feel like they are wasting their life and that innumerable people in the past would've killed to have the kind of free time or life they have.
It reminds me to be grateful for both the time I have alive and the quality of that time.
I find it extremely motivating in pursuing my various personal pursuits. I should seem like a Renaissance master to the people of the past and anything less is insulting.
"if you poo you also pee, but if you pee you don't always poo"
"Why not? You and I are eccentrics. We’re certainly not typical of the people living on Terminus. As for criminals, that’s a matter of definition. And if criminals are the price we must pay for rebels, heretics, and geniuses, I’m willing to pay it. I demand the price be paid. [...] You can't have geniuses and saints without having people far outside the norm, and I don't see how you can have on only one side of the norm. There is bound to be a certain symmetry." - Foundation and Earth by Isaac Asimov
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We know what to do. But we do not do.
I don't remember the movie it's from, but that was hell of a movie!
Never complain about what you permit.
"If you assume you make an ass of you and me."
@zinklog Do unto other as you would have them do unto you.
Vincit qui se vincit - He conquers who conquers himself
"Seize the day, put no trust in the morrow" - Horace
"Seize the day and throttle it." - Calvin and Hobbes
what's the hell do you boys think that this is a fucking fairyland? pulling on you wee-wees like a pack of fucking fruits?
"slowly sliding"
I don't know why, but I notice this phrase often. I know it's kind of arbitrary enough to be a coincidence to run into a lot, but for some reason it just got stuck in my head when I was young and it almost seems like it's haunting me.
I feel like I'm going to hear these words before I die.
Lol. Probably not. But that's what it feels like!