Mar 21 2009
Saturday Quote-a-thon - Perception and Perspective
Don’t ask me why, but this seems the right topic today.
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
–John Adams
The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other.
–Sir Francis Bacon
If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction.
–Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them?
–George Carlin
CLAIRVOYANT, n. A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron — namely, that he is a blockhead.
–Ambrose Bierce
The word good has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.
–G.K. Chesterton
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
–Winston Churchill
Tact is the act of making a point without making an enemy.
–Clarence Darrow
A man of honour should never forget what he is because he sees what others are.
–Baltasar Gracián
Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a “necessary evil,” it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.
–Sydney J. Harris
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
–Robert Heinlein
Many a man’s reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.
–Elbert Hubbard
Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny.
–Kin Hubbard
Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.
–Aldous Huxley
I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
–Thomas Jefferson
Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.
–John F. Kennedy
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it’s just possible you haven’t grasped the situation.
–Jean Kerr
Oh, that Jefferson. Got to love him. Luck seems to come along with my hard work, too. Amazing how that happens!
Nice collection! Let’s see what I can find here…
You CAN go home again, temporal physics says, so long as you understand that home is a place where you have never been.
- Ursula K. LeGuin
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
- Douglas Adams
Teal’c, I’m a scientist. When I find evidence that my theories are wrong, it’s as exciting as if they were correct.
- Nyan in the “New Ground” episode of Stargate: SG-1
Mark Twain said alot of funny shit.
areyoulistening.today.com
“If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, jumped out at me from your list. I had the pleasure of reading his book “The Cost of Discipleship” last year. I remember having some disagreeable points with some of his theological perspectives. That didn’t go over too well with my pastors.
Davida
Many of the quotees, Davida, I literally know nothing about, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but I like the quote anyway.