# Wise sayings (and meanings) wanted!



## KenOC

A thread for wise sayings, even if (and maybe especially if) they're somewhat obscure. Explanations as well as examples are welcome!

Ran across this while looking at albums today. From Blake: "The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction." While I suppose that might be fun as a conversation-stopper at a cocktail party, I'm still just a wee bit baffled... Help me out!


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## Dim7

"There ain't much wisdom to be found in short quotes."


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## Guest

Give me all your money, now.
[Uttered by tax authorities, banks and other assorted userers since JC caused a fracas in the Temple]


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## Dim7

But seriously, I find that most "wise sayings" aren't. They either state the obvious or just are plain false. At best they manage to sound "cool" or "witty" on a superficial level.
The famous Nietzsche quote that my signature refers to "Without music, life would be a mistake" is also rubbish IMO. First of all it's an awfully banal and sentimental thing for Nietzsche to say and it's also just plain false. Plenty of interesting things in life besides music.


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## Blancrocher

"Words should be weighed, not counted." 

I interpret this as meaning that you shouldn't trust anyone with more than 3000 posts who joined the forum as recently as July 2013.


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## Cheyenne

The art of the maxim is old, but it recent times people are too obsessed with these "wise sayings" and "quotes", putting their favorites in pictures and misattributing them constantly. Most are tripe platitudes or sentimental nonsense. Nevertheless saying something worthwhile in as concise a manner as possible is a fine thing. "True eloquence consists in saying everything necessary, and in saying only what is necessary." (See what I did there?)

For fine "sayings" the maxims of the French moralists are useful: de la Rochefoucauld, Chamfort, Joubert, Nicole de la Bruyère.. "Jealousy is always born with love, but it does not always die with it." "There is well-dressed foolishness, as there are well-dressed fools." "Ignorance, which in matters of morals extenuates the crime, is itself, in matters of literature, a crime of the first order." "Time, which strengthens friendship, weakens love." William Hazlitt wrote a volume called _Characteristics _which Duncan Wu consideres one of the forgotten masterpieces of the romantic era. "The youth is better than the old age of friendship." (See how they all contradict each other? You can find nice 'sayings' supporting nearly everything.) Shaw had some nice _Maxims for Revolutionists_: "The best brought-up children are those who have seen their parents as they are. Hypocrisy is not the parent's first duty." "The vilest abortionist is he who attempts to mould a child's character." "In heaven an angel is nobody in particular." "Hell is paved with good intentions, not with bad ones."

There are also those writers whose writings are naturally filled with maxims, like Emerson. "Grief too will make us idealists." "When virtue is in presence, all subordinate powers sleep." "To fill the hour,-that is happiness; to fill the hour and leave no crevice for a repentance or an approval. We live amid surfaces, and the true art of life is to skate well on them." "Everything good is on the highway." "It is very unhappy, but too late to be helped, the discovery we have made that we exist. That discovery is called the Fall of Man." "The life of truth is cold and so far mournful; but it is not the slave of tears, contritions and perturbations." (Those were all from a single essay!) My personal favorite is "The poet sees the stars because he makes them."

My very favorite at the moment, from Ruskin, is "The sin of the whole world is the essentially the sin of Judas; men do not disbelieve their Christ, but they sell him." (The explanation is in the sentence, luckily!)


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## quack

From _The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_. Blake is great when he's cogent.


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## Perotin

I would strongly recommend the book by Gustave Flaubert, The Dictionary of Received Ideas. It's full of wise syings. For an instance:
Idiots: Those who differ with you.
Feudalism: No need to have one single precise notion about it: thunder against.
Erection: Said only of monuments.
Jansenism: Meaning unknown, but any reference to it is swank.
Scaffold: When upon it, manage to say a few eloquent words, before dying.


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## Ukko

You could read my sig.


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## KenOC

In 1906 Ambrose Bierce published his Devil's Dictionary, a large collection of wise (and usually cynical) sayings in the form of definitions. Example:

"Conservative (n.) A statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil's_Dictionary


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## Vaneyes

For codgers, never pass a toilet, never trust a fart, never waste an erection.


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## geralmar

Dogs have owners. Cats have staff.


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## Headphone Hermit

Just because you don't find a trout in your milkbottle, doesn't mean that your milkman is not a fisherman

Told by a Deputy-headteacher to a 15-year old (of somewhat dim intellect) in 1984 - apparently to explain that things are not always as they seem.


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## Headphone Hermit

Blancrocher said:


> "Words should be weighed, not counted."
> 
> I interpret this as meaning that you shouldn't trust anyone with more than 3000 posts who joined the forum as recently as July 2013.


agreed - *Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding * (Proverbs 17:28)


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## Piwikiwi

Blancrocher said:


> "Words should be weighed, not counted."
> 
> I interpret this as meaning that you shouldn't trust anyone with more than 3000 posts who joined the forum as recently as July 2013.


Proust is not amused by your comment


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## Guest

Headphone Hermit said:


> Just because you don't find a trout in your milkbottle, doesn't mean that your milkman is not a fisherman
> 
> Told by a Deputy-headteacher to a 15-year old (of somewhat dim intellect) in 1984 - apparently to explain that things are not always as they seem.


There's adverts for gravy on the backs of buses, but you can't get a hot dinner from one.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit

Dim7 said:


> But seriously, I find that most "wise sayings" aren't. They either state the obvious or just are plain false. At best they manage to sound "cool" or "witty" on a superficial level.
> The famous Nietzsche quote that my signature refers to "Without music, life would be a mistake" is also rubbish IMO. First of all it's an awfully banal and sentimental thing for Nietzsche to say and it's also just plain false. Plenty of interesting things in life besides music.


The quote is absolutely true....it isn't saying that music is the only meaningful thing in life, but that music breathes meaning in to the rest of life.


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## SixFootScowl

> Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.


--Douglas Hoffstadter


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## Perotin

There Are Two Classes of People in the World; Those Who Divide People into Two Classes and Those Who Do Not


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## SixFootScowl

My father-in-law would use this one:

I've told you a million times, quit exaggerating!


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## Chrythes

Even a rooster on his pile of poop is a king.


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## Chrythes

> But seriously, I find that most "wise sayings" aren't. They either state the obvious or just are plain false. At best they manage to sound "cool" or "witty" on a superficial level.
> The famous Nietzsche quote that my signature refers to "Without music, life would be a mistake" is also rubbish IMO. First of all it's an awfully banal and sentimental thing for Nietzsche to say and it's also just plain false. Plenty of interesting things in life besides music


Maybe Nietzcshe just disliked deaf people. Maybe he was afraid of them, pure prejudice!


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## Jos

"Would you like to see my recordcollection"


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## Manxfeeder

To find out who you are, you need to get into trouble. There is no substitute for failure.
Garrison Keillor

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not. 
Dr. Seuss

And to my friend who is obsessed with smoking doobies:
'The mouth can be better engaged than with a cylinder of rank weed.' 
James Joyce, Ulysses


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## cwarchc

You can't wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after


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## Lord Lance

cwarchc said:


> You can't wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.
> 
> Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after


Mind-blown. What are they after then?


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## SixFootScowl

Lord Lance said:


> Mind-blown. What are they after then?


I am not into fishing, but I suspect many simply enjoy being out to enjoy some quiet time away from the hustle and bustle of life. Perhaps the fish are a secondary benefit.


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## Ingélou

'Live* horse, and you'll get grass.' - Irish proverb. It means, be patient, because if you go on working and getting on with life, eventually you'll save enough money to get what you want, or else eventually you'll achieve your goal.

_*'Live' as in 'live & let live', not as in alive. _


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## Headphone Hermit

*He who laughs last, laughs longest* .... does it need explaining?

it reminds me of - "creaking gates last longest" .... to imply that those who have minor illnesses won't necessarily die young. However, I've yet to hear a convincing explanation of this bit of folk wisdom that my grandma used to say


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## Ingélou

Headphone Hermit said:


> ... it reminds me of - "creaking gates last longest" .... to imply that those who have minor illnesses won't necessarily die young. However, I've yet to hear a convincing explanation of this bit of folk wisdom that my grandma used to say


I think the proverb may have been coined by people who were a bit sick of people lying around instead of either getting up, getting better, or popping their clogs. 

However, my grandmother was someone who exemplified the proverb. As a child, she always had colds and fevers and spent a good deal of time as an invalid. In adulthood, she was tough, and liked to boast of her 'willpower' - she once walked to the top of Snowdon & back (on a family outing) with a thorn in her foot. She died within a few weeks of her 97th birthday.

The rationale may be that if you have a lot of minor illnesses you develop resistance to germs and also know how to cope with your health. A bit like *'Mithridates - he died old'* - because of his habit of taking small amounts of poison & teaching his body to cope, he thwarted his enemies who sought to poison him. And thus we have that lovely word 'mithridatic'.


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## cwarchc

Lord Lance said:


> Mind-blown. What are they after then?


It means: plenty of people go searching for what they "feel" they need.
Without actually being aware of what they "really" are looking for.


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## Headphone Hermit

cwarchc said:


> It means: plenty of people go searching for what they "feel" they need.
> Without actually being aware of what they "really" are looking for.


Well, I'll go t'foot of our stairs! :tiphat:


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## Headphone Hermit

Ingélou said:


> I think the proverb may have been coined by people who were a bit sick of people lying around instead of either getting up, getting better, or popping their clogs.


Yes, I know what it means, but why does a *creaking* gate last longest?


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## Chris

'Give a man a fish and you feed him for one day. Teach a man to fish and he'll wear a silly hat'

- Dogbert


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## Guest

Florestan said:


> I am not into fishing, but I suspect many simply enjoy being out to enjoy some quiet time away from the hustle and bustle of life. Perhaps the fish are a secondary benefit.


"hustle and bustle of life"? The shorter term is "wife"

(dons tin hat)


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## Ingélou

Headphone Hermit said:


> Yes, I know what it means, but why does a *creaking* gate last longest?


Sorry :tiphat: - I realised that you knew what it meant - you explained it - but I thought you wanted a rationale for why someone with minor illnesses would last longer. So why the gate? Well, I think it's just a metaphor for someone who's ill - not saying that creaking gates *actually* last longest. But I can make up a few theories if you like.

* A 'creaking' gate because it's rickety, coming off its hinges, or has rusty hinges that need oil.

* Maybe it *seems* to last longest in the way that a boring or tiresome hour seems to last longer than an hour filled with enjoyable activity.

* *Or* it actually lasts longest because people are careful with it, as they know that casual treatment will break it.

* Or it lasts longest because people hate its creak so much that they leave it open, so it never gets used or abused.

* Or it lasts longest because people hate its creak so much that they leave it shut and nip through the hole in the hedge instead.

Happy now? Or I could go on...


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## Headphone Hermit

^^^^ we need a poll - hahaha! (NOT!)


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## Piwikiwi

Chris said:


> 'Give a man a fish and you feed him for one day. Teach a man to fish and he'll wear a silly hat'
> 
> - Dogbert


"Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.."

- Terry Pratchett


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## Jos

"Women, in the end they make errand boys of us all"

Got it from a netflix series based on a novel written by Emil Zola, but I don't know if he actually wrote this particular line.
For some reason it nested into my brain, must ask my loved one........


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## Don Fatale

There are so many wise sayings I could quote, but from a practical aspect there is one saying that has served me better than any deep philosophy.

_An angry man always considers his anger justified._

If you are confronted by anger in the workplace or anywhere else, you often need to do something which isn't your instinctive reaction... which is to understand and empathise with why he (or she, of course) feels angry, and to cut them some slack that some of their anger results from cumulative events leading up to where you encounter them. It's hard, but remembering this simple phrase is invaluable.


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## cwarchc

We are so used to being stimulated from the outside that we find it difficult to be quiet and enjoy the stillness of our own mind


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## Gaspard de la Nuit

I can't think of a wise saying right now but my Facebook is full of lists made by clueless 20-somethings on how to live life, be happy and reach enlightenment.


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## SixFootScowl

cwarchc said:


> It means: plenty of people go searching for what they "feel" they need.
> Without actually being aware of what they "really" are looking for.


Ah, a much better explanation. It wasn't really about fish.


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## schlot

Not sure if I read this somewhere, but help lift someone spirits I often say or write "Only after the dark clouds that bring rain, will flowers bloom"


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## schlot

Cripes...apparently my ability to correctly use the English language had not woken up when I posted my last comment. Need...more...caffeine.


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## cwarchc

The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you


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## Xaltotun

"Taking leave of God for the sake of God is the greatest renunciation that someone can make."
-Meister Eckhart


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## superhorn

Nietzsche didn't mean there weren't lots of other worthwhile things in life ; he stated the obvious . Music is certainly a wonderful part of life , and adds so much to it .


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## superhorn

Nietzsche is pietzsche , but Sartre is smartre . The only mental exercise most people get is jumping to conclusions .

What's the difference between a duck ? If I had four wheels, I'd be a Cadillac .

Never moon a werewolf !


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## Nereffid

"The best-laid plans of mice and men seldom coincide" - Graeme Garden.


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## Dim7

superhorn said:


> Nietzsche didn't mean there weren't lots of other worthwhile things in life ; he stated the obvious . Music is certainly a wonderful part of life , and adds so much to it .


Well literally taken his quote means that life would suck without music. I know that he probably didn't mean that, but then it's just a hyperbolic way of saying "music is awesome" which is just a banality. Pretty dumb quote either way.


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## cwarchc

When we judge or criticize another, it says nothing about that person; it merely says something about our own need to be critical


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## SixFootScowl

When you point a finger at someone, three of your fingers are pointing back at you.


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## KenOC

He who strikes first blow loses the argument. But if he strikes hard enough he wins the fight.


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## cwarchc

Don’t judge. We judge people as another method of self-comfort. It’s easy to force another person into a pre-conceived place you’ve created for them in your mind, but it’s very selfish and will leave both of you disappointed.


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## pianississimo

I read a Russian saying which translates as 

"The church is nearby but the road is icy. The bar is far away but I will walk carefully"

I'm from Yorkshire so I say "Buy a house nearer the bar"


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## Dim7

Nietzsche quote that I kinda like: "You say there can be no argument about matters of taste? All life is an argument about matters of taste!"


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## cwarchc

“The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison.”



—Fyodor Dostoevsky


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## Ingélou

cwarchc said:


> "The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he's in prison."
> 
> -Fyodor Dostoevsky


Sounds a bit like marriage! :lol:


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## hpowders

Secret to a lasting marriage: My wife and I speak to each other at timed intervals of 21,600 seconds.


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## Ingélou

Dr Johnson puts it in a nutshell: 'Marriage has many pains - but celibacy has no pleasures.' 

And the best way to describe the pleasures of marriage comes from the character Gabriel Oak in Hardy's 'Far from the Madding Crowd': “And at home by the fire, whenever you look up, there I shall be— and whenever I look up, there will be you." :kiss:


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## KenOC

For a year of pleasure, a marriage. For a lifetime of pleasure, a garden.

--Chinese proverb, supposedly


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## Potiphera

''Since all perceptions tend to be faulty, the wise man will consider the external circumstances of life to be unimportant and thus preserve tranquility.''

Pyrrho.


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## Dim7

"Two things are infinite: the universe and stupid thread ideas, and I'm not sure about the universe." -Albert Einstein


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## Guest

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” 
- Blaise Pascal.


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## Guest

(But not recorded in his lifetime)


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## SixFootScowl

Heard in a Bob Dylan song, "Time lost is never found."


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## mtmailey

As one can see there is plenty of ignorance in the world today.


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## cwarchc

The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations.


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## mtmailey

*Not bad here*

View attachment 68646
here is SOME great advice today.


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## mtmailey

*The truth here*

View attachment 68647
Something to think about.


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## mtmailey

*Hip hop*

View attachment 68648
need i say more


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## mtmailey

View attachment 68649
real hip hop vs fake hip hop.


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## Itullian

I prefer I HOP.


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## cwarchc

“No amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen.”


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## david johnson

"$20 and a fifth of whiskey will get your body hid in these hills where nobody will ever find it," - told to a punk from Chicago who threatened to bring his gang friends down here to a small town. I heard it. The gang never showed.


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## Potiphera

Find joy with the wife you married in your youth, 
fair as a hind, graceful as a fawn, her breasts that ever fill you with delight, hers the love that ever holds you captive. 
Why be seduced by someone else's wife, and fondle the breasts of a woman who belongs to another? 
For the eyes of Yahweh observes human ways, and surveys all human paths.
The wicked is snared in his own misdeeds, is caught in the mesh of his own sin. 
For want of discipline, he dies, led astray by his own excessive folly. 

:angel: Book of Proverbs.


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## mtmailey

View attachment 68756
another wise man here.


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## mtmailey

*Proverbs*

View attachment 68757
A proverbs that is wise


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## cwarchc

Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.


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## SixFootScowl

"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone." 
--Henry David Thoreau, _Walden_


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## SixFootScowl

“Hunger is the best sauce in the world.”

― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote


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## cwarchc

There is no cure for birth and death, save to enjoy the interval


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## Xaltotun

"Whoever is not prepared to talk about capitalism should also remain silent about fascism."
-Max Horkheimer


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## mtmailey

View attachment 68920
Another truth on church


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## hpowders

"Shrink-wrap is the Devil's masterpiece." hpowders

Meaning: self-evident.


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## Vronsky

Florestan said:


> "A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone."
> --Henry David Thoreau, _Walden_


Thoreau, great mind.
___________________________

The men of the future will yet fight their way to many a liberty that we do not even miss.

-- Max Stirner


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## Ingélou

I am always falling short of my own standards, making new vows to improve, and then falling short of my own standards again.
For these reasons I like these sayings, even though they're a bit overused.

*Today is the first day of the rest of my life.*

*Bloom where you're planted.*

*This is the day that the Lord has made: rejoice and be glad.*

And this Aesop's Fable:
*A man sat on the shore and counted the waves breaking; missing count, he was excessively annoyed. But the fox came up and said to him: 'Why vex yourself, good sir, over the past ones? you should let them go, and begin counting afresh.' *


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## SixFootScowl

There must be about 50 funny quotes here (click), but they are not attributed to their authors. Here are a couple from their list:

"If a man speaks in the woods with no woman to hear .. is he still wrong?"

"I spent most of my money on wine, women, and song, and wasted the rest."


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## SixFootScowl

Just saw in someone's signature on a computer forum with no author attribution:

"I am." may be the shortest sentence in the english language, but "I Do." is the longest.


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## Ingélou

Don't know if this has been posted already - *'Death is Nature's way of telling you to slow down!'*

I take this seriously, as I know several people with crowded, busy lives who died young with heart problems, including my father who died at the age of 48.
It's a reminder to pace yourself and savour life as you live it, rather than rushing stressfully from one thing to another.


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## SixFootScowl

Ingélou said:


> Don't know if this has been posted already - *'Death is Nature's way of telling you to slow down!'*
> 
> I take this seriously, as I know several people with crowded, busy lives who died young with heart problems, including my father who died at the age of 48.
> It's a reminder to pace yourself and savour life as you live it, rather than rushing stressfully from one thing to another.


What they say is to stop and smell the roses, or something like that. And it is too easy to say tomorrow I'll stop and enjoy a fresh breeze. No. You have to stop and enjoy that fresh breeze as it happens. Live the moment, not in the past or the future.


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## cwarchc

He who defines himself can’t know who he really is


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## Guest

A wise and ancient folk saying handed down from the early Greeks in the city of Drama (Δράμα):
"Mock not the shortened form of *Kalogeropoulos*, lest the queens of that fair city doth rip your liver out and stamp on it".

Last name origins & meanings 
*Callas* 
Greek: short form of any of several compound surnames composed with the first element kalos 'good', 'beautiful', for example Kalogiannis 'good John'.
Greek: short form of the surname Kalogeropoulos


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## cwarchc

Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.

Lao Tzu


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## cwarchc

Learning not to be bored is a way of transcending ego, of living outside yourself. To experiment with trying to put yourself in the realm of whatever is not yourself, whether it’s a subway conductor or a stained-glass window, allows you to transcend boredom. The late avant-garde American composer and artist John Cage said, “The first question I ask myself when something doesn’t seem to be beautiful is why do I think it’s not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.” When we probe something deeply enough, it grows interesting. If you give the world a chance to astound you, it will. It’s just a matter of putting in a bit of effort. I am often surprised by how few people really do this. It’s far more common to merely live than it is to be alive. To be bored is to be anti-life


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## SixFootScowl

cwarchc said:


> Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.
> 
> Lao Tzu


On that note, a great read:









I know it's not the reading thread, but I could not help it.


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## Dim7

"The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line. The objection to it is not that it is predominantly painful, but that it is lacking in sense."

-H. L. Mencken


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## Ingélou

Dim7 said:


> "The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line. The objection to it is not that it is predominantly painful, but that it is lacking in sense."
> 
> -H. L. Mencken


Nobody has to be bored - pity someone didn't tell him that!


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## Ingélou

cwarchc said:


> Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.
> 
> Lao Tzu


There's a lot of truth in this, and I myself ought to stop worrying so much about people's reactions - BUT the person who isn't bothered at all what people think usually turns out to be a terrible bighead!


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## geralmar

"If a black cat crosses your path, it signifies that the animal is going somewhere."

-- Groucho Marx


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## mtmailey

View attachment 69400
i am sure you heard this.


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## Vronsky

"That is why man can also never understand himself: For he is himself a timeless act; an act which he performs continuously, and there is no moment in which he might not perform it, as there would have to be to understand himself."

-- Otto Weininger


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## Dim7

What is meant by the word "nihilist": "a person who doesn't share my values".

-Me (I think)


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## Ilarion

Lets see now: A nihilist is someone who shares nobodys' values because he/she is too busy flailing in the wind, trying to come up with a value to adhere by...


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## KenOC

No dying man has thought, "I wish I had spent more time at the office."


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## Dustin

KenOC said:


> No dying man has thought, "I wish I had spent more time at the office."


Unless your a hobo possibly?


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## Dim7

KenOC said:


> No dying man has thought, "I wish I had spent more time at the office."


I composed a STI on similar subject once.


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## Sonata

If you can't fly, then run.
If you can't run, then walk.
If you can't walk then crawl.
Just keep moving.

Martin Luther King Jr.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit

"Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature could not do without."

- Confucius, on a plaque I saw at the music conservatory 10 minutes down the street from my house.


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## Blake

"Boredom indicates a lack of inner resources."

It's amazing how many people I'm around that get bored so easily. Luckily I don't have to deal with that neurosis. I thoroughly enjoy just sitting or walking.


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## cwarchc

Ingélou said:


> There's a lot of truth in this, and I myself ought to stop worrying so much about people's reactions - BUT the person who isn't bothered at all what people think usually turns out to be a terrible bighead!


That can be true of some people, but I don't think it would apply to Lao Tzu

Here's another of his

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.

Lao Tzu

He was a Chinese philosopher, reputed to be the founder of Taoism


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## Blake

cwarchc said:


> That can be true of some people, but I don't think it would apply to Lao Tzu
> 
> Here's another of his
> 
> I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.
> 
> Lao Tzu
> 
> He was a Chinese philosopher, reputed to be the founder of Taoism


He was one of the greats. I've read the Tao Te Ching, and it remains a gem in my library.


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## SixFootScowl

Ingélou said:


> There's a lot of truth in this, and I myself ought to stop worrying so much about people's reactions - BUT the person who isn't bothered at all what people think usually turns out to be a terrible bighead!


Too often true. Not caring what other people think is to not let other people control your life. But one must also make sure their behaviour is not offensive to others.


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## Ingélou

cwarchc said:


> That can be true of some people, but I don't think it would apply to Lao Tzu
> 
> Here's another of his
> 
> I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.
> 
> Lao Tzu
> 
> He was a Chinese philosopher, reputed to be the founder of Taoism


I make an exception of Lao Tzu. 
(_Chinese Civilisation_ was a subsidiary subject of mine at University, & I was fortunate to have an Oriental Museum just yards away from my hall of residence, St Aidan's.)

I see we're a long way into the thread; has this saying of Lao Tzu's been mentioned yet?
*Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing.*


----------



## KenOC

I suspect that today we might not agree with all that Lao-Tzu (supposedly) had to say. From Chapter 12, Giles's translation:

"Therefore the Sage, when he governs, empties their minds and fills their bellies, weakens their inclinations and strengthens their bones. His constant object is to keep the people without knowledge and without desire, or to prevent those who have knowledge from daring to act."


----------



## mtmailey

*Need i say more?*

View attachment 70998
I saw this online something to think about here.


----------



## mtmailey

View attachment 70999
Here is some great advice here to read found this online.


----------



## SixFootScowl

A couple I heard the other day from a friend. I think the second one he was quoting something he had heard:

"We all have a different experience of reality as it's happening."

"Your brain is a dangerous neighborhood. You shouldn't go there by yourself."


----------



## Pugg

mtmailey said:


> View attachment 70999
> Here is some great advice here to read found this online.


Words from a wise man/ woman :tiphat:


----------



## Badinerie

Ne'er cast a clout till May's out

never remove your winter drawers until June is here!


----------



## Ingélou

Some people think it means 'till may blossom be out', which would be a bit sooner - though not this year!


----------



## cwarchc

Patience has all the time it needs


----------



## cwarchc

Why are you unhappy?
Because 99.9 percent of everything you think, and of everything you do, is for yourself—and there isn’t one.


----------



## SixFootScowl

Here is a good one:



> If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.


----------



## Ingélou

One of Regina Brett's 45 Lessons Life Taught Me:
*Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special. 
*


----------



## Lukecash12

_***By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest._
* Confucius*

_***It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
***The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
***There is no great genius without a mixture of madness.
***My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake._
*Aristotle*

_***But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
***And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.
***Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day.
***For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted._
*Jesus*


----------



## EdwardBast

Victor Hugo said something like: "We more often hate others not for the evil they have done us, but for the evil we have done them." Explains much about persistent racism in the U.S.

Sandor Márai (20thc Hungarian author):

"Whoever refuses to accept a part wants the whole, wants everything."

"Anyone who is a general favorite is in some fashion a *****." Oh jumping Jehovah, the censor won't allow a common synonym for prostitute.


----------



## Xaltotun

Like a well-loved teddy bear, this one is a bit worn by over-usage, but still impossible not to love:
_
Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me._

Immanuel "most evil man in DA WORLD" Kant


----------



## elgar's ghost

_'The whole point of autocracy is that the accounts will not come right unless the ruler is their only auditor' _(Gaius Sallustius Crispus - A.D. 14)

A succinct, if not an exactly edifying, observation. Nonetheless, I have to say that I'm a bit impressed with a comment which reads like Machiavelli 1500 years ahead of time.

It refers to the required cover-up of the murder of Augustus Caesar's remaining grandson, Agrippa Postumus, whose removal shortly after Augustus's death left the new emperor Tiberius free of any immediate potential rival from within the Julio-Claudian house.

Crispus was a confidant of Tiberius, and for the remaining seven years of his life was fortunate enough to retain the emperor's ear without ever having to endure the hazards of high political office.


----------



## mtmailey

View attachment 71305
this says it all.


----------



## Lukecash12

Hahahaha, quite an observation...


----------



## Gaspard de la Nuit

_"Opposition brings concord; out of discord comes the fairest harmony."_

- Heraclitus

I've known and believed that quote for almost 9 years now.....the musical wording really conveyed the message to me beautifully when I first read it.


----------



## KenOC




----------



## KenOC




----------



## KenOC




----------



## Pugg

KenOC said:


>


Very wise words :tiphat:


----------



## Pantheon

There's a Hungarian proverb we sometimes use: "Nyugtával dicsérd a napot", which can be translated roughly as "Praise the day when it sets". 
Basically don't count your chickens until they are hatched  Though I still prefer the Hungarian metaphor...


----------



## cwarchc

Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances

Gandhi


----------



## ArtMusic

Be kind to one another. Pure and simple.


----------



## Ingélou

ArtMusic said:


> Be kind to one another. Pure and simple.


True enough. Reminds me of Padre Pio: 'Be kind, be kind, and you will be saints.'


----------



## Diminuendo

"There are two kinds of people in this world my friend. Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig." Blondie


----------



## Ingélou

Pantheon said:


> There's a Hungarian proverb we sometimes use: "Nyugtával dicsérd a napot", which can be translated roughly as "Praise the day when it sets".
> Basically don't count your chickens until they are hatched  Though I still prefer the Hungarian metaphor...


And cf Solon: 'Call no man happy until he is dead.'


----------



## Pantheon

Ingélou said:


> And cf Solon: 'Call no man happy until he is dead.'


This one is quite cynical! I love it


----------



## KenOC

Ingélou said:


> And cf Solon: 'Call no man happy until he is dead.'


The Chinese have an identical saying.


----------



## Dr Johnson

H.L. Mencken is always good for a quote. One of my favourites:

"Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."


----------



## Xaltotun

I just made up one:

"A thing that belongs to a tradition must be subject to continuous re-evaluation, innovation, and change.
A thing that does NOT belong to a tradition must be subject to destruction, NOW."

This is a great example of my kind of thinking: I call it "making enemies on both sides of the fence".


----------



## Sloe

Pantheon said:


> There's a Hungarian proverb we sometimes use: "Nyugtával dicsérd a napot", which can be translated roughly as "Praise the day when it sets".
> Basically don't count your chickens until they are hatched  Though I still prefer the Hungarian metaphor...


Or: One shall not sell the skin until the bear is shot.


----------



## KenOC

From Greece, evidently: "Eat a fine meal quickly, before the check comes."


----------



## aimee

​


----------



## rrudolph

“Farting, don't think, just fart.” 

― John Cage, M: Writings '67-'72


----------



## SixFootScowl

"I know that you don't know, but you don't know that you don't know." Harvey Mackay


----------



## Gaspard de la Nuit

"Someone's gotta be me, so it might as well be me." - Me


----------



## SixFootScowl

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> "Someone's gotta be me, so it might as well be me." - Me


You must be a Yogi Berra fan. Your quote sound like something he would have said.

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

Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours. --Yogi Berra


----------



## Dr Johnson

DISCUSSION, _n_. A method of confirming others in their errors.

_Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary._


----------



## Dim7

"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." -Noam Chomsky


----------



## Dim7

Would be an absolutely fabulous line for a movie villain, but a horrible saying from a philosopher:



Nietzsche said:


> You say that a good cause justifies even war? I tell you: a good war justifies everything.


A better one from the same philosopher (still terrible, but I'm afraid it's true):



Nietzsche said:


> For a philosopher to say, "the good and the beautiful are one," is infamy; if he goes on to add, "also the true," one ought to thrash him. Truth is ugly.
> 
> We possess art lest we perish of the truth.


----------



## Vaneyes

Confucius say, geometry teacher who loses parrot, will have polygon.


----------



## Lukecash12

_O thou God of pots and pans_:

_O Lord of pots and pans and things,
Since I have no time to be
a great saint by doing lovely things,
or watching late with Thee,
or dreaming in the dawnlight,
or storming Heaven's gates,
Make me a saint by getting meals,
and washing up the plates.

Warm all the kitchen with Thy Love,
and light it with Thy peace;
Forgive me all my worrying,
and make my grumbling cease.
Thou who didst love to give men food
in room, or by the sea,
Accept the service that I do-
I do it unto Thee._

Brother Lawrence, 17th century French Carmelite monk.


----------



## Pugg

​


----------



## Dr Johnson

*Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
*
_Oscar Wilde_


----------



## Pugg

*"Give someone enough rope and he'll hang himself "
*
Wise words from a wise person .


----------



## Huilunsoittaja

"Sometimes it really is a blessing to be the oppressed rather than the oppressor. You become so engrossed with the pain done to you that you forget about if you have anything to be guilty of yourself..."


----------



## helenora

Is it wise or not? but since it's very poetical who would care for the rest? and poetry has always at least a little bit of music in itself.

*"That Music Always Round Me" By Walt Whitman*

That music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning,
yet long untaught I did not hear,
But now the chorus I hear and am elated,
A tenor, strong, ascending with power and health, with glad notes of daybreak I hear,
A soprano at intervals sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense waves,
A transparent base shuddering lusciously under and through the universe,
The triumphant tutti, the funeral wailings with sweet flutes and violins, all of these I fill myself with,
I hear not the volumes of sound merely, I am moved by the exquisite meanings,
I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving, contending with fiery vehemence to excel each other in emotion;
I do not think the performers know themselves-but now I think I begin to know them.


----------



## science

Pugg said:


> *"Give someone enough rope and he'll hang himself "
> *
> Wise words from a wise person .


That's why I go Christmas shopping in the rope department of the hardware store.


----------



## Vaneyes

*Confucius Say:

The best way to slow a runaway horse, is to bet on it.

Getting sick at the airport, could be a terminal illness.
*


----------



## Balthazar

helenora said:


> Is it wise or not? but since it's very poetical who would care for the rest? and poetry has always at least a little bit of music in itself.
> 
> *"That Music Always Round Me" By Walt Whitman*
> 
> That music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning,
> yet long untaught I did not hear,
> But now the chorus I hear and am elated,
> A tenor, strong, ascending with power and health, with glad notes of daybreak I hear,
> A soprano at intervals sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense waves,
> A transparent base shuddering lusciously under and through the universe,
> The triumphant tutti, the funeral wailings with sweet flutes and violins, all of these I fill myself with,
> I hear not the volumes of sound merely, I am moved by the exquisite meanings,
> I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving, contending with fiery vehemence to excel each other in emotion;
> I do not think the performers know themselves-but now I think I begin to know them.


I love it!

It could be subtitled 'Whitman's reaction to his first hearing of 4'33".'


----------



## helenora

Balthazar said:


> I love it!
> 
> It could be subtitled 'Whitman's reaction to his first hearing of 4'33".'


haha, yeah, he would have been "moved by the exquisite meanings" of it  and and the last line would def serve for Mahler's the 8th because "I don't think the performers know themselves - but ( after approx. 2 hrs of listening) now I think I begin to know them " :lol:


----------



## helenora

this one is not about music , but said by musician 
hm....don't know if we have rules not to post other than in Engish, but for the sake of authenticity if possible it's better to avoid translations as they might change the meaning a little bit and destroy language's beauty 

"Je vous souhaite des rêves à n'en plus finir et l'envie furieuse d'en réaliser quelques uns.
Je vous souhaite d'aimer ce qu'il faut aimer et d'oublier ce qu'il faut oublier. Je vous souhaite des passions, je vous souhaite des silences.
Je vous souhaite des chants d'oiseaux au réveil et des rires d'enfants.
Je vous souhaite de respecter les différences des autres, parce que le mérite et la valeur de chacun sont souvent à découvrir.
Je vous souhaite de résister à l'enlisement, à l'indifférence et aux vertus négatives de notre époque.
Je vous souhaite enfin de ne jamais renoncer à la recherche, à l'aventure, à la vie, à l'amour, car la vie est une magnifique aventure et nul de raisonnable ne doit y renoncer sans livrer une rude bataille.
Je vous souhaite surtout d'être vous, fier de l'être et heureux, car le bonheur est notre destin véritable."

Jacques BREL, 1er janvier 1968.


----------



## Abraham Lincoln

"Is it strange how saying sentences backwards creates backwards sentences saying how strange it is?"


----------



## Chopiniana93

Pugg said:


> ​


How real is it...


----------



## Chopiniana93

helenora said:


> Is it wise or not? but since it's very poetical who would care for the rest? and poetry has always at least a little bit of music in itself.
> 
> *"That Music Always Round Me" By Walt Whitman*
> 
> That music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning,
> yet long untaught I did not hear,
> But now the chorus I hear and am elated,
> A tenor, strong, ascending with power and health, with glad notes of daybreak I hear,
> A soprano at intervals sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense waves,
> A transparent base shuddering lusciously under and through the universe,
> The triumphant tutti, the funeral wailings with sweet flutes and violins, all of these I fill myself with,
> I hear not the volumes of sound merely, I am moved by the exquisite meanings,
> I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving, contending with fiery vehemence to excel each other in emotion;
> I do not think the performers know themselves-but now I think I begin to know them.


Beautiful  I think I also need an English vocabulary in order to understand it whole...


----------



## cwarchc

Worry is a total waste of time. It doesn’t change anything. All is does it steal your joy and keep you very busy doing nothing.


----------



## Huilunsoittaja

"You are worth more than what you do. Then again, actions speak louder than words." :tiphat: :tiphat: :tiphat:


----------



## helenora

*"You know what music is? God's little reminder that there is something else besides us in this universe; harmonic connection between all living beings, everywhere , even the stars"* /Robin Williams/


----------



## Ilarion

"People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought that they seldom use."

-Soren Kierkegaard-


----------



## Pugg

The louder you scream , the less people are listening to you .:angel:


----------



## helenora

*There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all*. Oscar Wilde ( after reading a specific thread on TC discussing some moral issues) and from this comes following: There is no such thing as a moral or immoral artist....? and after that I thought about John Ruskin who had a great influence on Wilde : "On the walls and towers of this your fair city, there is not an ornament of which the first origin may not be traced back to the thoughts of men who died two thousand years ago. Whom will you be governing by your thoughts, two thousand years hence? Think of it, and you will find that so far from art being immoral, little else except art is moral; that life without industry is guilt, and industry without art is brutality: and for the words 'good' and 'wicked' used of men, you may almost substitute the words 'makers' and 'destroyers.'"


----------



## Pugg




----------



## Gaspard de la Nuit

helenora said:


> *"You know what music is? God's little reminder that there is something else besides us in this universe; harmonic connection between all living beings, everywhere , even the stars"* /Robin Williams/


Hah, that's how I think of it.


----------



## SixFootScowl

Pugg said:


> ​


While this is inherent in human nature (laziness), it is also very much a product of the peer orientation that results from our assembly line style mass education system, which also creates the generation gap. My kids were home schooled and do not have these problems.


----------



## cwarchc

The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keep out the joy


----------



## Abraham Lincoln

cwarchc said:


> The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keep out the joy


Pixar approves.


----------



## Grizzled Ghost

How about...

Silence is golden; but duct tape is silver.

Or...

I will say this for pedophiles -- at least they drive slowly through school zones.


----------



## SixFootScowl

I don't recall who said it, but,



> Never resist growing old: Many are denied the privilege.


----------



## helenora

The Just / Los Justos by Jorge Luis Borges

A man who cultivates his garden, as Voltaire wished.
He who is grateful for the existence of music.
He who takes pleasure in tracing an etymology.
Two workmen playing, in a cafe in the South, a silent game of chess.
The potter, contemplating color and form.
The typographer who set this page well, though it may not please him.
A woman and man, who read the last tercets of a certain canto.
He who strokes a sleeping animal.
He who justifies, or wishes to, a wrong done him.
He who is grateful for the existence of Stevenson.
He who prefers others to be right.
These people, unaware, are saving the world.


----------



## Flamme

Amazing, just amazing...


----------



## quack

cwarchc said:


> The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keep out the joy











==================================


----------



## DeepR

"There are two types of people, those who can extrapolate from incomplete data..."


----------



## Dim7

"Whoever despises himself nonetheless respects himself as one who despises." -Nietzsche


----------



## SixFootScowl

Hope you don't mind the shotgun approach but found these in an old email from 6 years ago,

The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right time, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight, because by then your body and your fat have gotten to be really good friends..

The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement .

He who hesitates is probably right.

Did you ever notice: The Roman Numerals for forty (40) are XL.

A penny saved is a government oversight.

If you think there is good in everybody, you haven't met everybody.

If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to blame.

The sole purpose of a child's middle name is so he can tell when he's really in trouble.

There's always a lot to be thankful for if you take time to look for it. 
For example I am sitting here thinking how nice it is that wrinkles don't hurt.

Did you ever notice: When you put the 2 words 'The' and 'IRS' together it spells 'Theirs....'

Aging: Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.

The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.

Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know 'why' I look this way. I've traveled a long way and some of the roads weren't paved.

When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to your youth, think of Algebra.

You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.

One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it is such a nice change from being young. Ah, being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable.

Long ago when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today, it's called golf.


----------



## Dim7

"People die if they are killed."

-Some cartoon dude


----------



## Huilunsoittaja

To be in love is not the same as loving. You can be in love with a woman and still hate her.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

I think that speaks for itself... and goes for men _and _women.

Hundreds more Dostoevsky quotes here


----------



## SeptimalTritone

On Huilu's Dostoevsky quotes page:

"Nothing is more seductive for a man than his freedom of conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering."

What a great quote! This is like the central Buddhist dilemma. God gave us so much freedom, but yet we're really not supposed to exercise it...


----------



## helenora

*There can be no evidence in matters of taste.* Pierre Boiste 
very nice quote for TC


----------



## Dim7

helenora said:


> *There can be no evidence in matters of taste.* Pierre Boiste
> very nice quote for TC


"Where is the truth, and where is the error? Everywhere and nowhere. Everybody is right. What to someone seems beautiful is not so for someone else, simply because one person was moved and the other remained indifferent, and the former experienced profound delight while the latter acute boredom. What can be done about this?… nothing… but it is dreadful; I would rather be mad and believe in absolute beauty."

-Hector Berlioz


----------



## Guest

Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.

(- Peter Ustinov)​


----------



## Dim7

"One man's troll is another man's freedom poster."

-Me in another thread 

If I recall correctly this brilliant witticism got only one like. Maybe it does better in this thread.


----------



## Iean

Life is a game of chess:angel:


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

Wise sayings is a game of cheese


----------



## SixFootScowl

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Wise sayings is a game of cheese


Ah, like sampling various cheeses. You take what you like and leave the rest, but you have to try them to know.


----------



## SixFootScowl

The wise saying that I really like (well not sure it is a wise saying necessarily but...) is,

That's just the way it is.

Works well for situations where someone is complaining about something that simply cannot be changed. Or course it adds no comfort to the complainer, in fact is more of an irritant such as rubbing salt into a wound. Well, guess I am not a good one to console someone. More to be used in lieu of telling someone to shut up.


----------



## TxllxT

Once a very wise & intelligent person said . . . nothing.


----------



## SixFootScowl

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

Mark Twain


----------



## helenora

Florestan said:


> It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
> 
> Mark Twain


is it about some of TC members? :lol:
I knew uncle Mark was a wise old man and a futurologist perhaps


----------



## DeepR

Quiet people have the loudest minds.

Stephen Hawking


----------



## Dim7

"RTFM!"

-Anonymous wise guy


----------



## KenOC

"You should make a point of trying everything once, excepting incest and folk-dancing." --Sir Arnold Bax (supposedly)


----------



## Abraham Lincoln

Florestan said:


> It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
> 
> Mark Twain


Ummm, miscredited quote. Mark Twain didn't say that.


----------



## Abraham Lincoln

That's right, you dirt bombs! You don't even know what's coming!

-Peridot, Steven Universe


----------



## Grizzled Ghost

If some is good, and more is better, then way too much is just about right.

Mae West


----------



## Dim7

"Classical music is so relaxing."


----------



## helenora

*Tagore: Those who are near me do not know*

Those who are near me do not know that you are nearer to me than they are
Those who speak to me do not know that my heart is full with your unspoken words
Those who crowd in my path do not know that I am walking alone with you
They who love me do not know that their love brings you to my heart.

--Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

Thanks to a post of Abraham Lincoln in Stupid thread ideas which made me ponder about a concept of invisibility.....after all "stupid" thread ideas isn't that stupid, but rather inspirational


----------



## Abraham Lincoln

rrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOWWWwwwwrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrRRRRRRrrrrrRrrrrrrrrr HISSSSSSSSS

-Unidentified cat, YouTube video


----------



## Balthazar

"Arrogance and self-awareness seldom go hand-in-hand."

-- Judi Dench as M in _Casino Royale_


----------



## breakup

There are 3 kinds of people in the world. 
Those who are good at math. 
And those who are not.


----------



## helenora

“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. "Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does." They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.” Aldous Huxley


----------



## Fortinbras Armstrong

Florestan said:


> Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law. --Douglas Hoffstadter


That's a variant on one of the corollaries of Murphy's Law: Choices made in the absence of complete information are invariably the wrong one. Attempts to take this law into consideration when making these choices have no affect on its working.

Murphy's law: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. There are a number of corollaries, such as "When it goes wrong, it will go wrong so as to cause the greatest amount of trouble and inconvenience.

Apparently, Murphy was an engineer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base circa 1950, who had spent about two weeks setting up an experiment. There were about a dozen electrical leads from the experimental equipment to various recording devices, and Murphy had left it to an assistant to hook them up as just about the final step in the set-up. The assistant hooked each one of them incorrectly, so when the experiment was run, NO useful data was obtained.


----------



## Fortinbras Armstrong

On a different blog, I regularly discuss change in Catholic doctrine (something which some traditionalist Catholics say does not happen -- this stance can only be supported by keeping oneself ignorant of the history of the Catholic Church). Anyway, one of my favorite quotes is from Grace Hopper, one of the early pioneers in computers (among other things, she invented the word "software"). She said "The most dangerous phrase in the language is, 'We've always done it this way.'"


----------



## geralmar

"Hell is other people"-- Sartre.


----------



## Dim7

"The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments."

Nietzsche, again

(Not gonna mention any names, but some people here should remember that quote )


----------



## MagneticGhost

Don't eat the yellow snow!


----------



## breakup

Fortinbras Armstrong said:


> That's a variant on one of the corollaries of Murphy's Law: Choices made in the absence of complete information are invariably the wrong one. Attempts to take this law into consideration when making these choices have no affect on its working.
> 
> Murphy's law: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. There are a number of corollaries, such as "When it goes wrong, it will go wrong so as to cause the greatest amount of trouble and inconvenience.
> 
> Apparently, Murphy was an engineer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base circa 1950, who had spent about two weeks setting up an experiment. There were about a dozen electrical leads from the experimental equipment to various recording devices, and Murphy had left it to an assistant to hook them up as just about the final step in the set-up. The assistant hooked each one of them incorrectly, so when the experiment was run, NO useful data was obtained.


Murphy was an optimist.


----------



## helenora

There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral--immoral from the scientific point of view."

"Why?"

"Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly--that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion--these are the two things that govern us. "And yet," continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with that graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of him, and that he had even in his Eton days, "I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream--I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal-- to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also. From *" The picture of Dorian Gray" *


----------



## Dim7

"Falling from a significant height or onto a hard surface can be dangerous."

-Wikipedia on Falling (accident)


----------



## Balthazar

A paraphrase of one of Miss Manners’s more celebrated columns:

“Rudeness should not be answered with rudeness. And sometimes it is best not to dignify rudeness with any response at all.”


----------



## cwarchc

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

Albert Einstein


----------



## Pugg

Balthazar said:


> A paraphrase of one of Miss Manners's more celebrated columns:
> 
> "Rudeness should not be answered with rudeness. And sometimes it is best not to dignify rudeness with any response at all."


I don't know Miss Manner's but she sure is right about this.:tiphat:


----------



## Pugg

" Haters everywhere but I don't care."

From myself


----------



## Pugg

> There are people with good taste and much more people with bad taste, but promise me son, stay true to your own taste .


My late grandfather:tiphat:


----------



## helenora

So think as if your every thought 
were to be etched in fire 
upon the sky for all and everything to see. 
For so, in truth, it is. 
So speak as if the entire world were but a single ear 
intent on hearing what you say. 
And so, in truth, it is. 

So do as if your every deed were to recoil 
upon your heads. 
And so, in truth it does. 

So wish as if God himself had need of you. 
His life to live. 
And so, in truth, he does." 

~Mikhail Naimy


----------



## Huilunsoittaja

_When you attack a mirror, its shards will cut you._

idk its origin, maybe Japanese, or perhaps Western. How would I explain it... the end result of trying to eliminate what you hate so much in others will ultimately mean the elimination of yourself, for what you see most in others is actually a reflection of your very self. People are mirrors...

Do you guys know the movie Black Swan? It just occurred to me what the symbolism was there in the last scene...


----------



## Art Rock

Arrogance and ignorance are a dangerous combination (Mike Walrond).


----------



## Pugg

Art Rock said:


> Arrogance and ignorance are a dangerous combination (Mike Walrond).


How true this is :tiphat:


----------



## Gaspard de la Nuit

"Only the idiot knows all the secrets of the village"

This came into my head just now and I was like.....that doesn't make any sense. But it does make sense if people weren't afraid to discuss personal matters or divulge conspiracies in front of the idiot because he's, well.....an idiot, so what does it matter?


----------



## geralmar

I don't know who said this, and it's a paraphrase anyway:

The public is safe so long as the crooks remain dumber than the cops.


----------



## Pugg

geralmar said:


> I don't know who said this, and it's a paraphrase anyway:
> 
> The public is safe so long as the crooks remain dumber than the cops.


Very good :tiphat:


----------



## Machiavel

It's better to add life to years than years to life.


----------



## Machiavel

Why do we kill people who kill people to show people that killing people is wrong?


----------



## NordHK

"Life is not a drama story, it does not have predetermined events. Instead it is full of uncertainties, unfortunately."


----------



## Pugg

Machiavel said:


> Why do we kill people who kill people to show people that killing people is wrong?


Wonderful and very touching ( and true for that matter)


----------



## SixFootScowl

Machiavel said:


> Why do we kill people who kill people to show people that killing people is wrong?


We don't. Governments kill people who kill (murder) other people, not to show that killing people is wrong, but because killing (murdering) people is wrong. It is a matter of crime and punishment and removing the murdered from society before they do more damage (though some governments do that by life imprisonment). It also can serve as a deterrent from others doing the same crime.


----------



## Machiavel

Florestan said:


> We don't. Governments kill people who kill (murder) other people, not to show that killing people is wrong, but because killing (murdering) people is wrong. It is a matter of crime and punishment and removing the murdered from society before they do more damage (though some governments do that by life imprisonment). It also can serve as a deterrent from others doing the same crime.


Without looking at your info I would have bet 100k you we're American.


----------



## Dim7

"A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes."

-Ludwig Wittgenstein


----------



## Lukecash12

_Sargon, the king of Akkad, had three of his wisest servants brought before him. As they knelt before the throne, the king gave them a profound command and threat: "You have a week. At the end of that week, I wish for you to tell me the whole history of mankind in three sentences. If you cannot provide me an answer, or your answer does not satisfy me, you, your family, and your cattle will perish."

One of the wise men travelled to Sumer and groveled before the seers and sages there, asking them to come up with an answer. Another of the wise men sent his servants away, sold his livestock, and tried to use all of the gold and silver he had accumulated to run for his life. The last of the wise men, who had no means to travel anywhere, being a humble man with little wealth, went home to his family and told them what was going to happen. He had accepted it and was, for whatever reason, seemingly nonplussed.

The first two wise men were found and drug back to the king, terrified and abased. Neither had an answer, and the king did exactly as he had promised to them. When the third of the wise men came, the king asked him: "Have you my answer?" The wise man replied: "Yes, dread sovereign. Man lived. Man suffered. Man died."_


----------



## Stavrogin

Florestan said:


> We don't. Governments kill people who kill (murder) other people, not to show that killing people is wrong, but because killing (murdering) people is wrong. It is a matter of crime and punishment and removing the murdered from society before they do more damage (though some governments do that by life imprisonment). It also can serve as a deterrent from others doing the same crime.


So, because (as you say) killing people is wrong, what governments do (kill people) is wrong, no?


----------



## Lukecash12

Stavrogin said:


> So, because (as you say) killing people is wrong, what governments do (kill people) is wrong, no?


The issue makes no sense unless "murder" and "kill" are mutually distinguished. Issuing the gravest penalty against the gravest offence is a necessary deterrent, depending on one's philosophy regarding criminology and their perception of the facts surrounding it. There are arguments either way on the subject of deterrence, but it's not as if we can test crime like a science experiment with control groups. It is difficult to determine the motivation and inhibitions of criminals.

Part of the problem is that we, as societies, are, collectively speaking, incapable of reasoning about the functional results. We don't have the mental equipment to assess the positives and negatives, at least on the group level that passes for "reasoning", because we can be perfectly logical one moment, and the next moment when a deep seated article of culture gets involved we become carelessly, even flippantly fallacious. If you examine the actual principles of thinking themselves behind positions on a plethora of public issues, you'll find that people hold fast to positions on various issues that are mutually exclusive when compared.

Everyone is a hodgepodge of popular modern philosophies when something like this is brought to their attention. One moment they are a utilitarian thinker, the next they are a humanist/existentialist. Someone could object at this point that folks don't apply their intellect to that point or read Mill, Locke, Hume, Kant, etc. to form their ideas for that matter, but where do we think these ideas came into the public consciousness from, eh? Observing people from other societies will quickly disabuse us of the notion that our modes of thought on public issues aren't ubiquitous to our culture, and ingrained through enculturation. "Everyone must care on some level about humanism/the-individual", we ardently protest, but one short trip to Sudan, Morocco, or Pakistan can violently shake our ideas about "everyone".


----------



## SixFootScowl

Stavrogin said:


> So, because (as you say) killing people is wrong, what governments do (kill people) is wrong, no?


Governments have the authority to make and enforce laws. For the same reason the government prints money but if you or I do, we can be arrested for counterfeiting.


----------



## KenOC

Is killing people "wrong"? Not last time I looked. The list of exceptions to the fifth commandment is longer than a telephone book, and has the blessing of both ancient and modern ecclesiastical authorities.


----------



## Lukecash12

Machiavel said:


> Why do we kill people who kill people to show people that killing people is wrong?


This is amusing to see from someone who has us thinking about Niccolo Machiavelli.


----------



## isorhythm

KenOC said:


> Is killing people "wrong"? Not last time I looked. The list of exceptions to the fifth commandment is longer than a telephone book, and has the blessing of both ancient and modern ecclesiastical authorities.


Authorities of all kinds are generally in favor of some killing. I wonder why.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

If you think about it most lives are trivial to humanity or all to the Universe.

I go with human rights though, torture and killing are always wrong. We should aspire to rehabilitate people. Not to mention that a number of innocents have received capital punishment of and recidivism is a huge issue.


----------



## Lukecash12

_A wise man will accept even a rebuke, but a fool despises instruction._


----------



## Pugg

​


----------



## Lukecash12

An evocative but simple equation:


----------



## Huilunsoittaja

Machiavel said:


> Without looking at your info I would have bet 100k you we're American.


Because it is non-American to believe we are naught but piano-keys, products of environments, simple children who need timeouts and a pep-talk in order to be led back into the way of enlightenment?

It's very _human _of us to dread taking responsibility for our actions.


----------



## Iean

One is not a lonely number.:angel:


----------



## cwarchc

To believe one knows is ignorance. — Hippocrates


----------



## cwarchc

Some people are so poor, all they have is money


----------



## Pugg

My wish: people with a brain as sharp as their tongues.


----------



## Dr Johnson

Red sky at night, shepherds' delight. Red sky in the morning, shepherds' warning.


----------



## SixFootScowl

Pugg said:


> My wish: people with a brain as sharp as their tongues.


Yes because then what they say would have value to others.


----------



## helenora

continuation of "sharp brains and tongues" by Umberto Eco : Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community. Then they were quickly silenced, but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It’s the invasion of the idiots.


----------



## geralmar

"The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people."

-- G. K. Chesterton


----------



## Wandering

*Join us!*


----------



## Pugg

Wandering said:


> *Join us!*
> 
> View attachment 81888


Looks cosy do you have wi fi


----------



## Dim7

"First they laugh at you, then they fight you, then they put you on their Ignore List, then you win."


----------



## Pat Fairlea

Dr Johnson said:


> Red sky at night, shepherds' delight. Red sky in the morning, shepherds' warning.


Red sky at night, haystack's alight.


----------



## Balthazar

"The mighty words of the proud are paid in full
with mighty blows of fate, and at long last
those blows will teach us wisdom."

-- The _Antigone_ of Sophocles


----------



## starthrower

One does not meet oneself until one catches the reflection from an eye other than human. Loren Eiseley


----------



## SixFootScowl




----------



## Pugg

Florestan said:


>


Or even worse, those who "Think" can rule over you :tiphat:


----------



## Balthazar

"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."

-- George Bernard Shaw


I'm thinking of having this tattooed on the back of my hand. Or at least writing it on a Post-It near my computer.


----------



## Bellinilover

One of my all-time favorites is Benjamin Franklin's "Empty barrels make the most noise." It's probably self-explanatory, and I've often found it to be true!


----------



## SixFootScowl

Couple of sayings I love are,

"It is what it is."

"That's just the way it is."

Needless to say, my wife does not appreciate when I use these sayings.


----------



## SixFootScowl




----------



## Pugg

Bellinilover said:


> One of my all-time favorites is Benjamin Franklin's "Empty barrels make the most noise." It's probably self-explanatory, and I've often found it to be true!


​


----------



## Belowpar

Balthazar said:


> "I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."
> 
> -- George Bernard Shaw
> 
> I'm thinking of having this tattooed on the back of my hand. Or at least writing it on a Post-It near my computer.


It must have inspired this one

"Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience."

― George Carlin


----------



## Pugg

Belowpar said:


> It must have inspired this one
> 
> "Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience."
> 
> ― George Carlin


Hear hear :tiphat:


----------



## Dr Johnson

Balthazar said:


> "I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, *and besides, the pig likes it.*"
> 
> -- George Bernard Shaw


I wonder how on earth Shaw knew that?


----------



## Pugg

"It is absurd to divide people in to good and bad.
People are either charming or tedious. " 
Oscar Wilde.


----------



## helenora

a bit of psychoanalytical ...
“Your perception will become clear only when you can look into your soul.”
“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls" C. Jung


----------



## geralmar

"A day without sunshine is like, you know, night."

-- Steve Martin


----------



## Stavrogin

"If you roll over, you like taking charge, crave organization and are likely to over-achieve.
If you roll under, you're laid-back, dependable and seek relationships with strong foundations.
If you don't care as long as it's there, you aim to minimize conflict, value flexibility and like putting yourself in new situations".

- Gilda Carle, a therapist and Cottonelle consultant


----------



## sospiro

Not sure if this is the right thread but there are some origins of English idioms here.

I never knew where "Bob's your uncle" came from!


----------



## geralmar

"Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate."


----------



## Pugg

geralmar said:


> "Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate."


Just like bully's :tiphat:


----------



## Pugg




----------



## cwarchc

Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace
Tenzin Gyatso


----------



## hpowders

"Vegetarians don't live longer. It just seems longer." Theodore Roosevelt.

Self-explanatory.


----------



## mstar

On thalassophobia, the fear of the sea:

"The ocean itself presents an unbelievably large obstacle to be avoided." -Somewhere online


----------



## Pugg




----------



## cwarchc

What will mess you up most in life is the picture in your head of how it is supposed to be


----------



## Huilunsoittaja

Just to let you know, you're failing miserably at swimming to China. But you still have to swim to China, so swim to China already!

- said every secular ethics social media-sourced article ever


----------



## Pugg




----------



## geralmar

"Remember the good old days when we were staring into the abyss?"

-- anonymous Egyptian quoted in The Nation magazine


----------



## Dr Johnson

*"Politics is the art of looking for trouble; finding it everywhere, diagnosing it wrongly, and applying unsuitable remedies."*

_Sir Ernest Benn_


----------



## Pugg

​


----------



## SixFootScowl

> *You don't always get what you ask for, but you never get what you don't ask for... unless it's contagious!*


Beverly Sills

(source of quote)


----------



## Guest

Wich necessary changes has to be taken place to put an end to self-enriching people .

Why are there people who think they have a right of so much while others have so little?


----------



## Pugg

Traverso said:


> Wich necessary changes has to be taken place to put an end to self-enriching people .
> 
> Why are there people who think they have a right of so much while others have so little?


Everybody knows it and they all be silent :tiphat:


----------



## Pugg

One can pay back the loan of gold, but one dies forever in debt to those who are kind.


----------



## Varick

Pugg said:


> ​


That reminds me of a quote that changed my life by Victor Frankl who was a Holocaust survivor and saw his entire family slaughtered by the Nazis. When interviewed years later he was asked if he hated the German Race. His response, _"No, I do not hate the German race. There are only two races: The decent and the indecent."_

V


----------



## Varick

_Some things have to be believed to be seen_ - Ralph Hodgson

_One lament I cannot abide is the poor pitiful, withered cry, "Well, that's just the way I am." Spare me your speeches. I've heard them from too many people who wanted to sin and call it psychology._
Jeffrey R. Holland - Former pres. Of Brigham Young University.

After a concert, a woman rushed up to violinist, Fritz Kreisler and gushed, _"I'd give my whole life to play as beautifully as you do."_ Kreisler replied, _"I did."_

_For men in general judge more by the eye than the hands, as all can see but few can feel. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few experience what you really are, and these few do not dare to set themselves up against the opinion of the majority._
Machiavelli

_Men occasionally stumble over the truth. But most of them pick themselves up & hurry off as if nothing had happened._ Winston Churchill

V


----------



## Pugg

Varick said:


> That reminds me of a quote that changed my life by Victor Frankl who was a Holocaust survivor and saw his entire family slaughtered by the Nazis. When interviewed years later he was asked if he hated the German Race. His response, _"No, I do not hate the German race. There are only two races: The decent and the indecent."_
> 
> V


Right from the heart :tiphat:


----------



## Belowpar

One day an old man is fishing in a lake next to a track. He is approached by a group of travellers. They greet him and ask if he can confirm they are heading in the right direction for Nouveau-ville? He confirms they are. 
They ask what the people there are like as it will be their first visit? 
“So that I can know what you'd like, please tell me where did you stay last night?” 
“Vieux-ville” they reply. 
“And how did you find it?” 
They reply the people were welcoming and they enjoyed their visit.
“You'll find Vieux-ville is just like that.”
They thank him and set off.

The very next day the old man is fishing at the same spot when he is approached by another group of travellers wanting to know if they are on the road to Nouveau-ville?
He confirms they are. 
They ask what the people there are like? 
“So that I can know what you'd like, please tell me where did you stay last night?” 
“Vieux-ville” they reply. 
“And how did you find it?” 
They reply that the prices were high and no spoke to them.
“You'll find Vieux-ville is just like that.”
They thank him and set off.


----------



## Pugg




----------



## SixFootScowl

Children's games are hardly games.
Children are never more serious than when they play.

- Montaigne


----------



## Pugg

_







_


----------



## Jordan Workman

“We need no wings to go in search of God, but have only to find a place where we can be alone and look upon Him present within us.” (Saint Teresa of Avila, The way of perfection)


----------



## Dim7

"James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher."


----------



## znapschatz

"Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form."

Karl Marx


----------



## Pugg

Internet confirms our deep, deep stupidity instead of our releases.


----------



## Varick

*"Trust your instincts. They're usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level."*
Joyce Brothers
*

"The future is that time when you'll wish you'd done what you're not doing now."*
Unknown

*"The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother."*
Rev. Theodore Hesburgh
*
"A committee can make a decision that is dumber than any one of it's members."*
David B. Coblitz

*"You can't run a society or cope with it's problems if people are not held accountable for what they do."*
John Leo

*"No great scoundrel is ever uninteresting."*
Murray Kempton

*"When I was a child, my grandmother died and was buried in the churchyard in Castlecomer, Ireland. The following year, I went there on holiday. One day as we drove to visit relatives, as we passed the graveled driveway leading up to the churchyard, my grandfather thinking he was unobserved, pressed his face against the window of the car and with a small hidden motion of his hand, waved. It was then I came to my first understanding of the majesty and vulnerability of love."*
Herbert O'Driscoll

V


----------



## Varick

*"If you can keep your head on when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowances for their doubting, too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting or being lied about, don't deal in lies Or being hated, don't give way to hating and yet don't look too good nor talk too wise;
If you can dream and not make dreams your master. If you can think and not make thoughts your aim
If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools. Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, and stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss And lose, and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss.
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone. And so hold on when there is nothing in you except the will which says to them: "Hold On!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue or walk with kings nor lose the common touch. If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much.
If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, and-which is more--you'll be a man my son!"*
Rudyard Kipling

One of my favorites of all time!

V


----------



## geralmar

"Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't."

-- Mark Twain


----------



## SixFootScowl

"It's good sportsmanship not to pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling."

-- Mark Twain


----------



## SixFootScowl

*The only place where success comes before work is a dictionary. *
--Vidal Sassoon


----------



## SixFootScowl

_The only thing about change that doesn't change is that it changes._

-- me, but surely it has been said before.


----------



## Vronsky

*"The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction." *

~ William Blake


----------



## helenora

*Live every day like your first * ( don't know who said it)

and with this music.....it looks as if Miserere isn't a good choice for this quote, but in fact it is....or it's a bit weird especially knowing what Miserere means to associate above written quote with this music, but for me it's so.....may be because of this music endless beauty. It's not a thread about music, but I like associations.....may be we should start a new thread sayings/quotes associated with a piece of music if there is no such thread yet hahaha


----------



## znapschatz

helenora said:


> *Live every day like your first * ( don't know who said it)
> 
> and with this music.....it looks as if Miserere isn't a good choice for this quote, but in fact it is....or it's a bit weird especially knowing what Miserere means to associate above written quote with this music, but for me it's so.....may be because of this music endless beauty. It's not a thread about music, but I like associations.....may be we should start a new thread sayings/quotes associated with a piece of music if there is no such thread yet hahaha


Thank you. This is the first time I heard this piece. Thank you again.


----------



## dieter

Florestan said:


> "It's good sportsmanship not to pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling."
> 
> -- Mark Twain


Or, as my father used to say, Don't worry about hitting your ball into the scrub or the ****: there are a lot of golf balls there.


----------



## dieter

Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we diet.


----------



## ArtMusic

"Pure and simple"

Anonymous, not sure where it came from.


----------



## znapschatz

"Don't worry, be happy." 

-Meher Baba-


----------



## TxllxT

"Be sure someone is listening".


----------



## Marinera

*Carpe diem* - latin 'seize the day!'. A quotation from Horace

Meaning almost the same as Helenora's 'Live every day like your first'.


----------



## Pugg

Marinera said:


> *Carpe diem* - latin 'seize the day!'. A quotation from Horace
> 
> Meaning almost the same as Helenora's 'Live every day like your first'.


And....could be your last.


----------



## Huilunsoittaja

“I believe the best definition of man is the ungrateful biped.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky


----------



## Pugg

Perotin said:


> There Are Two Classes of People in the World; Those Who Divide People into Two Classes and Those Who Do Not


This is still one of the best :tiphat:


----------



## Guest

“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new is yet to be born. And in the interregnum, a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

- Antonio Gramsci.


----------



## Pat Fairlea

Vronsky said:


> *"The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction." *
> 
> ~ William Blake


He really was quite bonkers, wasn't he?
"The aardvarks of pragmatism are wiser than the squid of procrastination"


----------



## Pugg

Some people reach the highest top of the ladder and then discover that it stands against the wrong wall .


----------



## Dim7




----------



## Pugg

Dim7 said:


>


Genius analysation.


----------



## helenora

"*The technique of infamy is to start two lies at once and get people arguing which is the truth.*" - Ezra Pound


----------



## cwarchc

Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you are


----------



## Ingélou

Pat Fairlea said:


> He really was quite bonkers, wasn't he?
> "The aardvarks of pragmatism are wiser than the squid of procrastination"


True - but whatever you do, keep out of the way of the Penguin of Death:










(An Edward Monkton beer mat.)


----------



## Pugg

No one has ever become great by making another one small.


----------



## helenora

Pugg said:


> No one has ever become great by making another one small.


aha, they might not become great, but they become presidents and rulers, =D at least some are running for it and on the way they make or try to make other small


----------



## Dr Johnson

*"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.


----------



## helenora

*"There are two kinds of pity. One, the weak and sentimental kind, which is really no more than the heart's impatience to be rid as quickly as possible of the painful emotion aroused by the sight of another's unhappiness, that pity which is not compassion, but only an instinctive desire to fortify one's own soul agains the sufferings of another; and the other, the only one at counts, the unsentimental but creative kind, which knows what it is about and is determined to hold out, in patience and forbearance, to the very limit of its strength and even beyond."*
― Stefan Zweig, Beware of Pity 
inspired by "what books are you currently reading" thread


----------



## Vronsky

Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn't want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn't want them back.

~ Samuel Beckett (Krapp's Last Tape)

Not really wise saying, but powerful introspection...


----------



## Guest

Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in fer me!


----------



## Pat Fairlea

Ingélou said:


> True - but whatever you do, keep out of the way of the Penguin of Death:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (An Edward Monkton beer mat.)


Sadly, the Penguin of Death has been devoured by the Seventh Seal.


----------



## BaritoneAssoluto

"If you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything."


----------



## helenora

Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair. George Burns


----------



## Pugg

helenora said:


> Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair. George Burns


Mr Burns hit the nail right on the head .


----------



## helenora

Pugg said:


> Mr Burns hit the nail right on the head .


yes, on the heads of taxicab drivers and hairdressers  ( my imaginations is a bit too vivid right now and very literally oriented , so I'm imagining him with a hammer in hand hitting a nail right on the head :lol: )


----------



## helenora




----------



## helenora

http://www.classicfm.com/composers/bernstein-l/guides/leonard-bernstein-quotes/music/

some more nice quotes from Bernstein


----------



## EdwardBast

The last three lines of Dylan Thomas's "Was there a time" read:

_Under the skysigns they who have no arms
Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartless ghost
Alone's unhurt, so the blind man sees best._

Not sure if there is a wise saying (or two) in there or not.


----------



## SixFootScowl

helenora said:


>





> If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.


--Gustav Mahler


----------



## Dim7

"First they laugh at you, then they put you on ignore, then they give you infraction points, then you get banned."


----------



## cwarchc

The Dylan Thomas lines remind me of this one of his
never a truer word written.


Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light


----------



## geralmar

"If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me."

-- Alice Roosevelt Longworth


----------



## SixFootScowl

geralmar said:


> "If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me."
> 
> -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth


Before I got to the author part of this quote I was thinking Groucho Marx.:lol:


----------



## SixFootScowl

"Under any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some ordinance under which you can be booked."

-- Robert D Sprecht (Rand Corp.)


----------



## Pugg

If you always want what you can't have, what do you want when you can have anything?


----------



## helenora

ESTRAGON: I can't go on like this.
VLADIMIR: That's what you think.”

Samuel Beckett "Waiting for Godot"


----------



## Poodle

helenora said:


> ESTRAGON: I can't go on like this.
> VLADIMIR: That's what you think."
> 
> Samuel Beckett "Waiting for Godot"


:lol: I laughed :tiphat:


----------



## Dr Johnson

"An egotist is a person of low taste - more interested in himself than in me."

_Ambrose Bierce_


----------



## helenora

Klage
(aus dem *Glasperlenspiel) Hermann Hesse*

Uns ist kein Sein vergönnt. Wir sind nur Strom,
Wir fließen willig allen Formen ein:
Dem Tag, der Nacht, der Höhle und dem Dom,
Wir gehn hindurch, uns treibt der Durst nach Sein.

So füllen Form um Form wir ohne Rast,
Und keine wird zur Heimat uns, zum Glück, zur Not,
Stets sind wir unterwegs, stets sind wir zu Gast,
Uns ruft nicht Feld noch Pflug, uns wächst kein Brot.

Wir wissen nicht, wie Gott es mit uns meint,
Er spielt mit uns, dem Ton in seiner Hand,
Der stumm und bildsam ist, nicht lacht noch weint,
Der wohl geknetet wir, doch nie gebrannt.

Einmal zu Stein erstarren! Einmal dauern!
Danach ist unsre Sehnsucht ewig rege,
Und bleibt doch ewig nur ein banges Schauen,
Und wird doch nie zur Rast auf unsrem Wege.

No permanence is ours; we are a wave
That flows to fit whatever form it finds:
Through day or night, cathedral or the cave
We pass forever, craving form that binds.

Mold after mold we fill and never rest,
We find no home where joy or grief runs deep.
We move, we are the everlasting guest.
No field nor plow is ours; we do not reap.

What God would make of us remains unknown:
He plays; we are the clay to his desire.
Plastic and mute, we neither laugh nor groan;
He kneads, but never gives us to the fire.

To stiffen to stone, to persevere!
We long forever for the right to stay.
But all that ever stays with us is fear,
And we shall never rest upon our way.

This is in "The Poems of Knecht's Student Years," a chapter at the end of The Glass Bead Game, by Hermann Hesse.


----------



## helenora

“Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.”

“The truth of art lies in its power to break the monopoly of established reality to define what is real.”
― Herbert Marcuse


----------



## Pugg

Judging others does not define who they are, it defines who you are.


----------



## cwarchc

No one has ever become poor by giving.

By the same, young, author as the quote in my signature


----------



## SixFootScowl

> Watch your close friends, baby
> And your enemies can't do you no harm


Johnny Winter in the song "When You Got A Good Friend."


----------



## Merl

Did you ever look to see who's left around?
Everyone I thought was cool is six feet under ground 

Johnny Winter "Still Alive and Well"


----------



## SixFootScowl

Merl said:


> Did you ever look to see who's left around?
> Everyone I thought was cool is six feet under ground
> 
> Johnny Winter "Still Alive and Well"


I think that was about Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison.


----------



## Pugg




----------



## Pugg

​


----------



## helenora

Nous avons accepté la règle du jeu, le jeu nous forme à son image. Le Sahara, c’est en nous qu’il se montre. L’aborder ce n’est point visiter l’oasis, c’est faire notre religion d’une fontaine. "Terre des hommes." Saint-Exupery

We've accepted rules of a game and this game formed us. Sahara is in us. To understand it, it's not enough to visit an oasis, but but to make a religion out of water. (or:to believe in water as if it was God)


----------



## helenora

The complexity of music is in details!

from this video, they talk wonderful things, unfortunately with strong accent


----------



## Belowpar

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.


----------



## Pugg

If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me.
W.H Auden


----------



## helenora

Pugg said:


> If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me.
> W.H Auden












Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.


----------



## helenora

If a man is crossing a river and an empty boat collides with his own skiff,
even though he be a bad-tempered man he will not become very angry.
But if he sees a man in the boat, he will shout at him to steer clear.
If the shout is not heard, he will shout again, and yet again, and begin cursing.
And all because there is somebody in the boat.
Yet if the boat were empty, he would not be shouting, and not angry.

If you can empty your own boat crossing the river of the world,
no one will oppose you, no one will seek to harm you....

from _The way of Chuang Tzu _compiled by _Thomas Merton_


----------



## SixFootScowl

If a car accidently cuts you off, do you get angry? Do you honk? Do you curse within the confines of your own car? 

If that car that accidently cut you off were driven by a family member or close friend, would you react the same?

Well that person who accidently cut you off is someones family member and close friend. Would you want someone to do that to your family member or close friend?

If only we could exhibit more kindness and patience, and give the offender the benefit of doubt--unless we see they are actively texting and driving, then let them have it with both barrels! :lol:


----------



## helenora

It's never popular to be yourself.


----------



## Flamme

By whom???


----------



## hpowders

"And the winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize for literature is Bob Dylan!!"

Meaning? Incomprehensible.


----------



## Dim7

"The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 15 characters."


----------



## hpowders

"Please wait at least 3 seconds to post! Learn some self-control!!"


----------



## helenora

Flamme said:


> By whom???


by Wilde , just a bit transformed , an original quote is "All popular is wrong"


----------



## cwarchc

If you want to feel rich, just count the things you have that money can’t buy


----------



## Templeton

“The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that's wrong with the world.” - Dr Paul Farmer, Co-founder of Partners in Health


----------



## Dim7

In the Wikipedia article about the "Chinese curse" "may you live in interesting times" (that as far as we know never actually existed in the Chinese language) there's mentioned an actually existing Chinese expression:

"宁為太平犬，莫做亂离人" (nìng wéi tàipíng quǎn, mò zuò luàn lí rén) - "Better to be a dog in a peaceful time, than to be a human in a chaotic (warring) period."

Interestingly it's the exact opposite basically to what John Stuart Mill said: "It is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied."


----------



## Vaneyes

'A stitch in time saves nine' 
'Don't put all your eggs in one basket'

That'll be $200, please.


----------



## helenora

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again. 

A.E. Housman


----------



## Pugg

helenora said:


> Into my heart an air that kills
> From yon far country blows:
> What are those blue remembered hills,
> What spires, what farms are those?
> 
> That is the land of lost content,
> I see it shining plain,
> The happy highways where I went
> And cannot come again.
> 
> A.E. Housman


Wise words, bless you.


----------



## Blake

"The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution."

Cezanne


----------



## Dim7

Any sufficiently advanced trolling is indistinguishable from sincere *******ery.


----------



## Flamme




----------



## Pugg

Blake said:


> "The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution."
> 
> Cezanne


It's looks like that's going to happen.


----------



## Pugg

While you were busy judging others, you left your closet door open and a lot of your skeletons fell out...


----------



## SixFootScowl

Pugg said:


> While you were busy judging others, you left your closet door open and a lot of your skeletons fell out...


And similarly,

"When you point your finger at someone, remember that your other three fingers are pointing back at you."


----------



## hpowders

Mussorgsky would have made more money as a Vodka distributor and leave the composing to Smirnoff.


----------



## SixFootScowl

hpowders said:


> Mussorgsky would have made more money as a Vodka distributor and leave the composing to Smirnoff.


Given how much he drank maybe the original version of Boris Godunov should be listed as the Mussorgsky-Smirnoff version! :lol:


----------



## Bettina

Florestan said:


> Given how much he drank maybe the original version of Boris Godunov should be listed as the Mussorgsky-Smirnoff version! :lol:


Speaking of Mussorgsky's drinking, I know why the Promenade from Pictures at an Exhibition has such an unusual rhythm. It's because Mussorgsky couldn't walk in a straight line!


----------



## hpowders

Bettina said:


> Speaking of Mussorgsky's drinking, I know why the Promenade from Pictures at an Exhibition has such an unusual rhythm. It's because Mussorgsky couldn't walk in a straight line!


Perhaps Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks was written after a bit too much imbibing?


----------



## cwarchc

As long as you make an identity for yourself out of pain, you cannot be free of it


----------



## Bettina

cwarchc said:


> As long as you make an identity for yourself out of pain, you cannot be free of it


Very true! There's a great song (non-classical) about this idea: "Hold On" by Wilson Phillips.


----------



## SixFootScowl

The prognosis for each of us, given enough years, is terminal!


----------



## Bettina

Florestan said:


> The prognosis for each of us, given enough years, is terminal!


Indeed it is! Somebody (I think it's a TC member) has a signature that says "time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all of its pupils."


----------



## hpowders

Florestan said:


> The prognosis for each of us, given enough years, is terminal!


Yup! Hundredaires, thousandaires, millionaires and billionaires. Their termination dust commands the same value on the open market.


----------



## Bettina

hpowders said:


> Yup! Hundredaires, thousandaires, millionaires and billionaires. Their termination dust commands the same value on the open market.


Unfortunately, it commands _no _value at the Met. Termination dust is not welcome there.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/03/a...ttering-ashes-at-metropolitan-opera.html?_r=0


----------



## hpowders

Bettina said:


> Unfortunately, it commands _no _value at the Met. Termination dust is not welcome there.
> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/03/a...ttering-ashes-at-metropolitan-opera.html?_r=0


Yeah. I heard about that.

The truly tragic thing would be if they misread the will and the deceased actually meant the Metropolitan Museum of Art.


----------



## Dim7

deleted post (wrong thread)


----------



## Huilunsoittaja

Quote in bold that is most effective. But i posted the whole excerpt for context. 

_What is to be done with the millions of facts that bear witness that men, consciously, that is fully understanding their real interests, have left them in the background and have rushed headlong on another path, to meet peril and danger, compelled to this course by nobody and by nothing, but, as it were, simply disliking the beaten track, and have obstinately, wilfully, struck out another difficult, absurd way, seeking it almost in the darkness. So, I suppose, this obstinacy and perversity were pleasanter to them than any advantage...

The fact is, gentlemen, it seems there must really exist something that is dearer to almost every man than his greatest advantages, or (not to be illogical) there is a most advantageous advantage (the very one omitted of which we spoke just now) which is more important and more advantageous than all other advantages, for the sake of which a man if necessary is ready to act in opposition to all laws; that is, in opposition to reason, honour, peace, prosperity -- in fact, in opposition to all those excellent and useful things if only he can attain that fundamental, most advantageous advantage which is dearer to him than all. "Yes, but it's advantage all the same," you will retort. But excuse me, I'll make the point clear, and it is not a case of playing upon words. What matters is, that this advantage is remarkable from the very fact that it breaks down all our classifications, and continually shatters every system constructed by lovers of mankind for the benefit of mankind. In fact, it upsets everything...

One's own free unfettered choice, one's own caprice, however wild it may be, one's own fancy worked up at times to frenzy -- is that very "most advantageous advantage" which we have overlooked, which comes under no classification and against which all systems and theories are continually being shattered to atoms. And how do these wiseacres know that man wants a normal, a virtuous choice? What has made them conceive that man must want a rationally advantageous choice? What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead. And choice, of course, the devil only knows what choice.

Of course, this very stupid thing, this caprice of ours, may be in reality, gentlemen, more advantageous for us than anything else on earth, especially in certain cases… for in any circumstances it preserves for us what is most precious and most important -- that is, our personality, our individuality. Some, you see, maintain that this really is the most precious thing for mankind; choice can, of course, if it chooses, be in agreement with reason… It is profitable and sometimes even praiseworthy. But very often, and even most often, choice is utterly and stubbornly opposed to reason ... and ... and ... do you know that that, too, is profitable, sometimes even praiseworthy?

*I believe in it, I answer for it, for the whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano-key!*...And this being so, can one help being tempted to rejoice that it has not yet come off, and that desire still depends on something we don't know?

You will scream at me (that is, if you condescend to do so) that no one is touching my free will, that all they are concerned with is that my will should of itself, of its own free will, coincide with my own normal interests, with the laws of nature and arithmetic. Good heavens, gentlemen, what sort of free will is left when we come to tabulation and arithmetic, when it will all be a case of twice two make four? Twice two makes four without my will. As if free will meant that!_


----------



## SixFootScowl

hpowders said:


> Yeah. I heard about that.
> 
> The truly tragic thing would be if they misread the will and the deceased actually meant the Metropolitan Museum of Art.


Then someone might have mistaken it for modern art! :lol:


----------



## Nate Miller

"there's a difference between playing 20 years, and playing the same year 20 times"

...it means don't stop practicing and pushing yourself to get better just because you're out of music school and are working as a professional player


----------



## Pugg

The worst internet bully's are always the most shy people in real life.


----------



## Pugg

I learned long ago....

Never to wrestle with a pig, you get dirty and besides, the pig likes it.

G.B Shaw.


----------



## helenora

Pugg said:


> I learned long ago....
> 
> Never to wrestle with a pig, you get dirty and besides, the pig likes it.
> 
> G.B Shaw.


'Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.'
M. Twain


----------



## ST4

"Even the worst people in the world have feelings"


----------



## Pugg

Some people reach the highest top of the ladder and only then discover that it's against the wrong wall.


----------



## ST4




----------



## ldiat

where ever you go in life....your there


----------



## KenOC

From the Dalai Lama: "There are two days on which nothing at all can be accomplished: Yesterday and tomorrow."


----------



## geralmar

If you don't like to be stared at, don't get a cat.

--Unknown


----------



## SixFootScowl

Everyone is a genius! Some are just too stupid to know it.


----------



## Belowpar

Nate Miller said:


> "there's a difference between playing 20 years, and playing the same year 20 times"
> 
> ...it means don't stop practicing and pushing yourself to get better just because you're out of music school and are working as a professional player


I think it applies to more than just musicians...


----------



## cwarchc

Sometimes your circle decreases in size but increases in value


----------



## Templeton

_'On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux'_. English translation _'It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye'_.

Quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's 'Le Petit Prince/The Little Prince'.

Apologies if it was already posted.


----------



## Pugg

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

Oscar Wilde.


----------



## Dim7

Louis C.K. on having negative amount of money on his bank account:

"If it's free I can't afford it! It costs nothing which is more than I have."


----------



## Marinera

Pugg said:


> A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.
> 
> Oscar Wilde.


...and every youtube troll


----------



## Pugg




----------



## Dim7

^ Taken to the extreme, that is an attitude of a sociopath...


----------



## hpowders

Never "like" a post of someone who is not in your clique or even worse, actually dislikes a composer you love.


----------



## SixFootScowl

Dim7 said:


> ^ Taken to the extreme, that is an attitude of a sociopath...


But taken the correct way, you have a wonderful and entertaining book:


----------



## Pugg

Florestan said:


> But taken the correct way, you have a wonderful and entertaining book:


Amen to this ..................


----------



## TxllxT

When a stick is being thrown, a dog will keep watching the stick and go after it; a lion however will keep watching the one who threw the stick... Keep both in mind when you read / watch the news.


----------



## Barbebleu

Apologies if already posted.

I started off with nothing and I've still got most of it left!


----------



## Barbebleu

Belowpar said:


> Turning and turning in the widening gyre
> The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
> Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
> Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
> The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
> The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
> The best lack all conviction, while the worst
> Are full of passionate intensity.


Ah, good old T.S. Elliot.


----------



## Huilunsoittaja

I spent over an hour scouring through War and Peace to find some particular quotes. Yes, it takes that long, lol!

This is what I was looking for:

_"Undoubtedly some relation exists between all who live contemporaneously, and so it is possible to find some connection between the intellectual activity of men and their historical movements, just as such a connection may be found between the movements of humanity and commerce, handicraft, gardening, or anything else you please. But why intellectual activity is considered by the historians of culture to be the cause or expression of the whole historical movement is hard to understand. Only the following considerations can have led the historians to such a conclusion: (1) that history is written by learned men, and so it is natural and agreeable for them to think that the activity of their class supplies the basis of the movement of all humanity, just as a similar belief is natural and agreeable to traders, agriculturists, and soldiers (if they do not express it, that is merely because traders and soldiers do not write history), and (2) that spiritual activity, enlightenment, civilization, culture, ideas, are all indistinct, indefinite conceptions under whose banner it is very easy to use words having a still less definite meaning, and which can therefore be readily introduced into any theory." - Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
_

So what does he mean? He means that the loudest mouths win, but it's not necessarily true that those with the loudest mouths make the world go round. In fact, _everyone _thinks what they do is indispensable to the point the world would collapse without them. Rather, Tolstoy emphasizes a holistic approach to history, to events, and even to the concept of power and free will. This comes from a series of essays in the 2nd Epilogue of War and Peace, a very good read, especially if the idea of reading the whole book is scary! The 2nd Epilogue can easily be read outside of the novel.

To be read below, and no spoilers to the story (except the obvious historical timeline):
http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/TolstoyWP.html


----------



## Pugg

> He means that the loudest mouths win, but it's not necessarily true that those with the loudest mouths make the world go round


If they only could believe that themselves.


----------



## Barbebleu

One of my favourite quotes is from the great Dorothy Parker (with a slight modification to suit modern mores) - You can lead a ***** to culture but you can't make her/him think!


----------



## pcnog11

“Beethoven said that it's better to hit the wrong note confidently, than hit the right note unconfidently. Never be afraid to be wrong or to embarrass yourself; we are all students in this life, and there is always something more to learn.” 
― Mike Norton


----------



## Bettina

pcnog11 said:


> "Beethoven said that it's better to hit the wrong note confidently, than hit the right note unconfidently. Never be afraid to be wrong or to embarrass yourself; we are all students in this life, and there is always something more to learn."
> ― Mike Norton


Great quote! Along similar lines, the Hall of Fame basketball player John Wooden said "If you're not making mistakes, then you're not doing anything. I'm positive that a doer makes mistakes."

This is a reassuring quote, because I keep on making mistakes! :lol: But this is a good thing: my mistakes reflect my interest in taking on new challenges.


----------



## pcnog11

Bettina said:


> Great quote! Along similar lines, the Hall of Fame basketball player John Wooden said "If you're not making mistakes, then you're not doing anything. I'm positive that a doer makes mistakes."
> 
> This is a reassuring quote, because I keep on making mistakes! :lol: But this is a good thing: my mistakes reflect my interest in taking on new challenges.


To err is human, to forgive divine. - Shakespeare


----------



## Pugg

pcnog11 said:


> To err is human, to forgive divine. - Shakespeare


Always being proud of being half British.


----------



## MarkMcD

I don't know if it's a wise saying, but my mum often said things like "don't come running to me if you fall off there and break your leg".


----------



## Vronsky




----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

I like Thich Nhat Hanh. Zen master.


----------



## Dim7

It is easier for a needle to go through the eye of a rich man than for God to enter the kingdom of camel.


----------



## cwarchc

Learn to appreciate what you have before time makes you appreciate what you had


----------



## Varick

"The other arts pursuade us, but music takes us by surprise."

Edward Henslick

V


----------



## Pugg

If for once in your live stopped screaming, people actually might start listening to you.


----------



## SixFootScowl

I like to say (and it drives my wife nuts when I say it), 

"It is what it is."


----------



## Varick

_"I am certain that there will be three surprises in heaven. First of all, I will see some people there whom I never expected to see. Second, there will be a number of people whom I expected to be there who will not be there. And, even relying on his mercy, the biggest surprise of all may be that I will be there."
_Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

_"I have had more trouble with myself than with any other man I have ever met."_
Dwight L. Moody

_"I believe man will not merely endure; he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures, has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit, capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writers duty is to write about these things. *It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of courage and pity and sacrifice. The poets voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.*"_
William Faulkner

Unfortunately too many artist today don't give a damn about what I emboldened. They are too narcissistic to think about mankind and only produce something megalomaniacal. Hence the diminishing quality of art these days.

_"There is currently a firestorm raging in this country regarding the way we teach our kids history. The result: A call for a new multiculturalism that seeks to rewrite history.
It is fatuous to seek to convey that every group around the world at every stage significantly contributed to the creation of America. For example, I regret to say there were no Jews on the Mayflower. But fact is fact.
Many groups have contributed to the fabric that is America. However, the reality is the early settlers were Europeans, and Americans share a common heritage of cultural values, language, and tradition that is based on our English and European roots.
Should we be rewriting history just to make people feel good? That's not history; that's psychiatry."_
Ed Koch

V


----------



## Marinera

Charles Bukowski sayings in comics


----------



## Marinera

Florestan said:


> I like to say (and it drives my wife nuts when I say it),
> 
> "It is what it is."


Unfortunately, people like to hear some additional extra 30 000 words or so


----------



## Pugg

Marinera said:


> Unfortunately, people like to hear some additional extra 30 000 words or so


How about: I know what I like and I know what I don't like.


----------



## Pugg

Stop telling people what they must or must not do. 
Tell yourself in the bathroom mirror if you want or must. :devil:


----------



## Dim7

Well okay, maybe a bit lacking in wisdom.


----------



## SixFootScowl

Dim7 said:


> Well okay, maybe a bit lacking in wisdom.


There has been no wisdom since April 6th and now this?


----------



## SixFootScowl

> Any theory can be made to fit any facts by means of appropriate assumptions.


--Robert E. Schenk


----------



## Pat Fairlea

It may not be wise, but the career advice I gave my sons and numerous former students was "Find something you enjoy doing and are good at, then find a way to get paid for doing it".


----------



## Pugg

Pat Fairlea said:


> It may not be wise, but the career advice I gave my sons and numerous former students was "Find something you enjoy doing and are good at, then find a way to get paid for doing it".


Sounds very wise to me. :tiphat:


----------



## SixFootScowl

Pat Fairlea said:


> It may not be wise, but the career advice I gave my sons and numerous former students was "Find something you enjoy doing and are good at, then find a way to get paid for doing it".


That is as easy to do as the greatest stock market advice: Buy low, sell high.


----------



## Pat Fairlea

Florestan said:


> That is as easy to do as the greatest stock market advice: Buy low, sell high.


I never said it was easy! But some people manage it and have a fulfilling career.


----------



## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

If at first you don't succeed, give up skydiving!


----------



## Pugg

The hardest bully's always screams the loudest.


----------



## Pugg

Sits quietly on the side of the River, you enemies will pass by driving...... death.
Old Chinese saying.


----------



## Pugg

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it' s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.


----------



## mtmailey

here is a good one for you


----------



## SixFootScowl

> ... the secret to living to 100 is to "not die before then."


-- a centenarian in Sardinia.


----------



## znapschatz

Marinera said:


> Charles Bukowski sayings in comics


I knew Bukowski. We use to hang at Barney's Beanery, a bar in Los Angeles, and talk art, sports and politics. He was an interesting character, but offensive when drunk, and I didn't like him very much. I never understood his appeal as a poet, and still don't, but that could be my failing, not his.


----------



## Totenfeier

Florestan said:


> -- a centenarian in Sardinia.


Advice I regularly give students:

Go to bed breathing every night, and everything else generally works out all right in the end.


----------



## Abraham Lincoln

A selection of wise sayings from various owls:

"Nyeh" 

"Neeeeeh"

"MEEEEEOW"

"AAAAAAAAAAAA"

"*HORRIBLE SCREECHING*"


----------



## geralmar

From a poster:

If the earth were really flat,
Cats would have pushed everything over the edge by now


----------



## helenora

The junk merchant doesn't sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client.

Hustlers of the world, there is one Mark you cannot beat: The Mark Inside.

There is simply no room left for 'freedom from the tyranny of government' since city dwellers depend on it for food, power, water, transportation, protection, and welfare. Your right to live where you want, with companions of your choosing, under laws to which you agree, died in the eighteenth century with Captain Mission. Only a miracle or a disaster could restore it.

*William S. Burroughs*


----------



## SixFootScowl

^ So true! Sadly!


----------



## Pugg

> Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never break me.


Old nursery rime .


----------



## SixFootScowl

> Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never break me.





Pugg said:


> Old nursery rime .


An really meant for the comfort of the one afflicted by name calling. Would not want to actually say that to the perp lest the perp take it to mean they need to start using stones.


----------



## Larkenfield

He who has become enamored of his own wise sayings might be considered otherwise.


----------



## Pugg

Leave people to their opinions and judgements. They can not harm you; it is their understanding that's is faulty, not yours.


----------



## georgedelorean

(Slightly paraphrased) That which we persist in doing becomes easier. Not that the nature of the thing has changed, but out ability to do it has increased. -Emerson


----------



## Joe B

Buckaroo Banzai, "No matter where you go,.......there you are!"


----------



## Tallisman

I feel like inserting a whole tonne of brilliant Samuel Johnson quotes, but I'll just choose one... practically every sentence he wrote is quotable:

"Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth"


----------



## Flamme

I luv Sun Tzu?


----------



## Pugg

The most important decision you will ever make is to be in a good mood.
Voltaire.


----------



## JJF

From Douglas Axe's excellent book, Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed.

"Nothing evolves unless it already exists."


----------



## SixFootScowl

"Blessed are they who expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed."

from "Letters of a Woman Homesteader," Elinore Pruitt Stewart


----------



## Pugg

_You may think you are a good person hanging out with the wrong crowd, but to someone watching, the difference is not noticeable.
_
Steve Maraboli


----------



## laurie

"Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be".

~ Abraham Lincoln


----------



## Varick

_"Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going."_
Jim Ryun

_"Choose your life's mate carefully. From this one decision will come ninety percent of all your happiness or misery."_
H.Jackson Brown Jr.

_"Learn to listen. Opportunity sometimes knocks very softly."_
H.J.B. Jr.

_"When facing a difficult task, act as though it is impossible to fail. If your going after Moby Dick, take along the tarter sauce."_
H.J.B. Jr.

_"Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home.
The remarkable thing is, we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We can not change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude."_
Charles Swindell

•	_You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
•	You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
•	You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
•	You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred
•	You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
•	You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence. 
•	You cannot help men permanently by doing what they could and should do for themselves._
Abraham Lincoln

V


----------



## TxllxT

Russian wisdom:

As long as a human being feels pain, he/she is alive.
As long as a human being feels the pain of another human being, he/she is human.


----------



## Taplow

Flamme said:


> I luv Sun Tzu?


I didn't realise "in order" was one word.


----------



## Pugg

​


----------



## Capeditiea

Pugg said:


> ​


I have experienced the bringing down a lot in my life. *nods, this was always my go to thing.

and then there is...

"Surrealism aims at the
total transformation of the mind
and all that resembles it"
-Breton

"When in doubt, f*** it, 
and when not in doubt, get in doubt."

"There are no rules anywhere."

"The Five Laws have root in awareness." -Che Fung (Ezra Pound, Canto 85)

"If you think the Principia is a ha-ha, then go read it again."


----------



## Pugg

Capeditiea said:


> I have experienced the bringing down a lot in my life. *nods, this was always my go to thing.
> 
> and then there is...
> 
> "Surrealism aims at the
> total transformation of the mind
> and all that resembles it"
> -Breton
> 
> "When in doubt, f*** it,
> and when not in doubt, get in doubt."
> 
> "There are no rules anywhere."
> 
> "The Five Laws have root in awareness." -Che Fung (Ezra Pound, Canto 85)
> 
> "If you think the Principia is a ha-ha, then go read it again."


let the bullies never win, how rabidly they try.


----------



## Capeditiea

"Don't pet a cat's belly for too long."


----------



## SixFootScowl




----------



## Capeditiea

"I should abstain from posting in serious posts... till after i sleep... :O it could end badly."


----------



## Pugg

“If someone isn't what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist


----------



## Pugg

Rudeness _is_ the shortcut for food.
Anonymous


----------



## ldiat

where ever one goes in life....you're there.


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese

Food Fight


----------



## SixFootScowl

The beatings will continue until morale improves.


----------



## Dr Johnson

It's a wise warthog that knows its own ****hole.


----------



## Capeditiea

Everything is a "scherzo," if you think about it. EVERY THING! EEEVVEEERRYYYYY THING i tell you.



---edited to add a "Y"


----------



## ldiat

if your nose runs....and you feet smell you are built upside down get it??


----------



## hpowders

Do not spill the oatmeal, because the price rises next week.


----------



## hpowders

Fritz Kobus said:


> The beatings will continue until morale improves.


How did you gain access to my first wife's training manual?


----------



## hpowders

Posting pithily camouflages a multitude of inadequacies.


----------



## hpowders

The rain in Spain will never enter the plane. Iberia Airlines ToS.


----------



## hpowders

If your nose runs, is the Boston Marathon far away?


----------



## hpowders

Paying for a genuine photo of Bach at an outdoor market, thou has been dup-ed.


----------



## hpowders

One hand washes the other, but both hands wash the face!


----------



## hpowders

You may have been bred in old Kentucky, but you're just a crumb down here!


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese

hpowders said:


> You may have been bred in old Kentucky, but you're just a crumb down here!


But did George get the Dough, Duh!


----------



## SixFootScowl

Men do not stumble over mountains, but over molehills.

― Confucius


----------



## Dim7

_"Be the first human being to poison something that nobody has ever poisoned_."

-Inspirobot


----------



## Barbebleu

You don't need a parachute to skydive. You need one to skydive twice!!


----------



## LezLee

Never trust a man who can go into a room where there’s a tea-cosy and not try it on.

Billy Connolly


----------



## znapschatz

Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is much farther away.


----------



## znapschatz

Streamline your life. Why live 100 years when you can make it in 50?


----------



## znapschatz

ldiat said:


> where ever one goes in life....you're there.


Will you please stop following me?


----------



## SixFootScowl

znapschatz said:


> Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is much farther away.


Wow! That is an awesome statement. If you spoke that to a room full of stoned potheads, they would be blown away in contemplation of it.


----------



## SixFootScowl

> The secret for a happy marriage? Separate bathrooms.


----------



## Rogerx

I would rather be a little nobody, then to be a evil somebody.

Abraham Lincoln.


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese

Always sing below your potential. ...

Nellie Melba


----------



## LezLee

“The British are surely the only people in the world who have made a culinary feature of boiled cartilage and phlegm”

Bill Bryson in ‘The Road To Little Dribbling’ after eating a pork pie in Lancashire. (He actually found it delicious).


----------



## SixFootScowl

LezLee said:


> "The British are surely the only people in the world who have made a culinary feature of *boiled cartilage and phlegm*"
> 
> Bill Bryson in 'The Road To Little Dribbling' after eating a pork pie in Lancashire. (He actually found it delicious).


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


----------



## SixFootScowl

> Sovente amor ha soave principio e fine amaro.


TRANS: "Love often begins sweetly and ends in bitterness."

--spoken by Lisa in Bellini's opera, La Sonnambula.


----------



## Pat Fairlea

I do not wish to offend by making any political comment on the recent referendum in Ireland.
That said, the slogan "Get your rosaries off my ovaries" was a work of genius!


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese

^ Just need Queensland in Oz to follow suit


----------



## geralmar




----------



## SixFootScowl

geralmar said:


>


I always interpreted that saying as don't take LSD. I recall seeing a movie with that or similar title about a guy who had a bad LSD trip. But I can't find such movie online. Must have been pretty obscure, but I saw it on television around the 1970s.


----------



## LezLee

The library I worked at in Liverpool had a quotation from Francis Bacon over the front entrance which read:

"Reading Maketh A Full Man, Conference A Ready Man, Writing An Exact Man - *Bacon*

To which some local graffiti artist had added "....a fat man"


----------



## helenora

Look at that! Today I was listening to Traviata and what a gem I found in a third act in Noi siamo Zingarelle.

Su via, si stenda un velo
sui fatti del passato;
già quel ch’è stato è stato,
badate/badiamo all’avvenir.

Come along, Let’s draw a veil
Over what has past and gone;
What is done, can’t
Let us welcome what’s to come.


----------



## SixFootScowl

"Hypocrisy is a tribute vice pays to virtue." 
-La Rochefoucauld


----------



## goatygoatygoatgoat

I've had this saying for quite a while, _"Never play ping pong with a pink punk."_


----------



## SixFootScowl




----------



## DaveM

“The power you have is proportional to the power people think you have.”


----------



## hpowders

Listen to all the classical music you can....because nobody has ever seen a U-Haul behind a hearse.


----------



## hpowders

'I can resist everything except temptation.' Oscar Wilde.


----------



## Dorsetmike

I don't like political jokes ... ... ... too many get elected


----------



## Dorsetmike

Man spends the majority of his life looking for the ideal woman - in the meantime he gets married


----------



## hpowders

You always know where you stand with animals.

If they like you, they lick you.

If they don't, they eat you.


----------



## Botschaft

Some more wisdom from Inspirobot:


----------



## Zofia

My Motto


----------



## Zofia

Wo sich Fuchs und Hase gute Nacht sagen.

Meaning is isolated rural place. When we are living in the country during vacation I often change my status to this saying. Yes ai am edgelord.


----------



## SixFootScowl

My grandmother once advised me when I was a small boy, "Paul, don't you ever get old." Sadly, I failed to take her wise advice.


----------



## science

Fritz Kobus said:


> My grandmother once advised me when I was a small boy, "Paul, don't you ever get old." Sadly, I failed to take her wise advice.


Ah, but the alternative...


----------



## science

Dig the well far from the outhouse.


----------



## SixFootScowl

science said:


> Dig the well far from the outhouse.


Preferably on the other side of the ridge from the outhouse.


----------



## philoctetes

"Horror Vacuui" 

- att. Aristotle, adapted by Col. Walter E. Kurtz et. al...


----------



## science

Fritz Kobus said:


> Preferably on the other side of the ridge from the outhouse.


The motivation for having children is so someone else will have to carry the water.


----------



## SixFootScowl

"Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me ..." 

Jeremiah 9:23-24


----------



## geralmar

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face-- forever."

George Orwell


----------



## geralmar

science said:


> Dig the well far from the outhouse.


Isn't that just a variation of "Don't eat where you sh**" ?


----------



## Varick

_"I drank what?"_ Socrates

V


----------



## Larkenfield

Man who run behind car soon get exhausted. —Chinese Proverb


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

There is more between heaven and earth than most other places...


----------



## geralmar




----------



## LezLee

One of my mother-in-law’s favourites : “If you can’t sing, wear a big hat.”
Meaning if you’re bad at something, try a distraction.


----------



## Rogerx

"Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”


----------



## geralmar

"God grant me the strength to be chaste, just not yet".

-- St. Augustine, circa 380


----------



## geralmar

"That's the most unheard of thing I ever heard of." 

--Senator Joseph McCarthy


----------



## Larkenfield

Never lose sight of the forrest for the trees. —Forrest Gump


----------



## Dorsetmike

Electile dysfunction, when none of the candidates in an election can arouse you enough to vote.


----------



## Pat Fairlea

Dorsetmike said:


> Electile dysfunction, when none of the candidates in an election can arouse you enough to vote.


Timely, apt, and funny.


----------



## Totenfeier

Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.


----------



## geralmar

He who fights then runs away
Lives to fight another day

Demosthenes


----------



## SixFootScowl

geralmar said:


> He who fights then runs away
> Lives to fight another day
> 
> Demosthenes


And he who first runs away,
doesn't fight on any day.


----------



## Larkenfield

It's hard to be upfront with others with your pants on backwards. Every step forward is like a retreat. -Lark


----------



## geralmar

"Politics would be a hell of a good business if it weren't for the goddamned people".

Richard Nixon


----------



## SixFootScowl

I used to be a people person, but people ruined it.


----------



## Tikoo Tuba

The more you love , the more you can know .


----------



## Colin M

Someday you’ll make a great looking corpse. Old Scottish Skye This compliments someone’s youthful appearance in opposition to their stated age.


----------



## Larkenfield

_Wise sayings (and meanings) wanted!_
---
A standing ovation gathers no moss.

It's better to play triangle for the Berlin Philharmonic than be concertmaster of the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary Orchestra.

Don't look back. An Accelerando could be gaining on you.

Dead conductors can't dance.

-Lark


----------



## geralmar

Perhaps not the right thread; but I awoke this morning unfortunately remembering nothing of the dream except the admonition, "Human vermin are people too". I think the dream may have been about American politics.


----------



## Larkenfield

May these brighten up someone's day!

Always remember: you're unique, just like everyone else.

When you're right, no one remembers. When you're wrong, no one forgets.

It is not my fault that I never learned to accept responsibility!

I don't deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve that either.

Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, you’ll be a mile from them, and you’ll have their shoes. 

Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.

You never truly understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.

Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.

Whoever said nothing is impossible never tried slamming a revolving door!

Those who criticize our generation seem to forget who raised it!

Children in the back seat cause accidents, accidents in the back seat cause children!


----------



## SixFootScowl

Larkenfield said:


> When you're right, no one remembers. When you're wrong, no one forgets.


And a variation on that is,

When you're right, someone else takes the credit. When you're wrong, you get the blame. :lol:


----------



## SixFootScowl

Someone said,

"You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts."


----------



## Jacck

"The mark of a successful man is one that has spent an entire day on the bank of a river without feeling guilty about it."


----------



## LezLee

Larkenfield said:


> Whoever said nothing is impossible never tried slamming a revolving door!
> 
> /QUOTE]
> 
> A parasite is someone who goes through a revolving door on somebody else's push!


----------



## SixFootScowl

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one." 

--George R. R. Martin


----------



## Jacck

Fritz Kobus said:


> "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one."
> 
> --George R. R. Martin


or the man who does nothing but reading lives all the thousand fictious lives except for his real one


----------



## Potiphera

*"Conservation is the very instinct of life, a disposition essential for existence. We shall be truly progressive if we hold fast to this spirit, for there is no progress for a living organism which does not preserve continuity with its past."* - Dom Paul Delatte


----------



## ECraigR

Jacck said:


> or the man who does nothing but reading lives all the thousand fictious lives except for his real one


Assuming that one is only reading fiction. Plenty of other things contained in books. Also, living a thousand lives is still quantitatively more than one life.


----------



## geralmar

"I'd kill for a Nobel peace prize".

--Steven Wright


----------



## geralmar

"If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten".

-- George Carlin


----------



## Dim7

"If the problem is a bad, bad thing, then your best strategy is to make a good, bad thing happen. You are, after all, trying to fix the bad thing. However, if the problem is not a bad, bad thing, then you will have no way to determine whether a good, bad thing is really bad, bad, or good. You cannot tell whether a bad, bad thing is really bad, bad, or good, and in that case, the best strategy is to make it happen, not to make it not happen. In that case, you would be a prisoner of the bad, bad thing."

-Talk to Transformer

(it continues the text you give to it, but in the part above I quoted there's nothing I or any human wrote)


----------



## SixFootScowl

Dim7 said:


> "If the problem is a bad, bad thing, then your best strategy is to make a good, bad thing happen. You are, after all, trying to fix the bad thing. However, if the problem is not a bad, bad thing, then you will have no way to determine whether a good, bad thing is really bad, bad, or good. You cannot tell whether a bad, bad thing is really bad, bad, or good, and in that case, the best strategy is to make it happen, not to make it not happen. In that case, you would be a prisoner of the bad, bad thing."
> 
> -Talk to Transformer
> 
> (it continues the text you give to it, but in the part above I quoted there's nothing I or any human wrote)


is it a bad thing that I cannot follow that discussion of bad things?


----------



## SixFootScowl

Patience is a virtue that was largely destroyed by the electronic age!

Who said it? I said it while waiting for my stupid phone to send a photograph so I could make a phone call. Seems the phone could not do both at once and I was in a hurry. My favorite saying in that regard is that I have plenty of patience if I don't have to wait.


----------



## SixFootScowl

"Death involves less pain than waiting for death." --Ovid


----------



## geralmar

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities".

Voltaire


----------



## SixFootScowl




----------



## Flamme

Sir Winston Churchill's last words were, “I'm bored with it all.”:tiphat:


----------



## Varick

"Good judgement comes from experience, and experience? well... that comes from bad judgement."

V


----------



## Barbebleu

Tramp to passing gentleman “Excuse me sir, could you kindly give me a tip?”

Gent to tramp “Of course. Never step off a moving bus.“

Very wise idea!


----------



## Dorsetmike

Mother to messy eating child -

"A little mouth you ain't got - just a big'un you can't hit


----------



## trazom

geralmar said:


> "If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten".
> 
> -- George Carlin


"Words to live by!"- Tonya Harding


----------



## SixFootScowl




----------



## geralmar

My father dismissed many of my most passionate arguments with:

"Big words for such a little man".

That really sucked.


----------



## Flamme

SixFootScowl said:


>


L8ly I hear, more and more...2 things can be true in the same time, even if totally opposed 2 1 another!


----------



## Bulldog

Be careful what you ask for; you just might get it - various wise individuals.


----------



## Luchesi

All men should freely use those seven words which have the power to make any marriage run smoothly: You know dear, you may be right.

anonymous


----------



## SixFootScowl




----------



## Marinera

_Ultimately, all real communication is about truth.

And ultimately, the only real truth is love.

That is why, when love is present, so is communication.

And when communication is difficult, that is a sign that love is not fully present.
_

*Neale Donald Walsch* from _Conversations With God_


----------



## Luchesi

I’m happy to think in terms of God being love, but when the talk turns to He was given a humsn personality by the hopeful 20 centuries ago, I close my mouth (and I close my mind). 


attributed to Michael Shermer


----------



## Guest

Marinera said:


> _Ultimately, all real communication is about truth.
> 
> And ultimately, the only real truth is love.
> 
> That is why, when love is present, so is communication.
> 
> And when communication is difficult, that is a sign that love is not fully present.
> _
> 
> *Neale Donald Walsch* from _Conversations With God_


This is starting to sound like the Furtwangler thread.


----------



## Rogerx

Pointing a finger at someone else, you should remember that four of your fingers are pointing at yourself


----------



## Dim7

Rogerx said:


> Pointing a finger at someone else, you should remember that four of your fingers are pointing at yourself


The moral of this saying: you should point at people with all of your fingers extended.


----------



## Luchesi

Dim7 said:


> The moral of this saying: you should point at people with all of your fingers extended.


In Greece it used to be against the law! It's the curse on 5 generations. I don't know if it's still actionable. We Americans were briefed when we came into the country.

added
If your hand was toward you it wasn't a curse, so that's the way you had to learn to wave.


----------



## Rogerx

Dim7 said:


> The moral of this saying: you should point at people with all of your fingers extended.


If the shoe fits.......


----------



## geralmar




----------



## Rogerx

You were born of dust, and to dust you will return


----------



## Oldhoosierdude

I do not think about things that I do not think about.

It means Chill, baby.


----------



## Luchesi

Oldhoosierdude said:


> I do not think about things that I do not think about.
> 
> It means Chill, baby.


I always remember the lines from Inherit the Wind;

Matthew Harrison Brady: I do not think about things I do not think about.
Henry Drummond: Do you ever think about things that you DO think about?


----------



## Jacck

“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”

― Friedrich W. Nietzsche


----------



## TxllxT

Czech saying: 'Nemaluj čerta na zeď!' >> 'Do not paint a devil / devils on the wall' - Meaning: do not make cause for worry or fear, that are of your own making'.


----------



## Chilham

Jacck said:


> "Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you."
> 
> ― Friedrich W. Nietzsche


And when fighting, remember:


----------



## En Passant

For those going through difficult times remember *ignis aurum probat* "the fire tests the gold".


----------



## Guest

I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell:
And by and by my Soul return'd to me,
And answer'd: 'I Myself am Heav'n and Hell'.

Omar Khayyam


----------



## SixFootScowl




----------



## starthrower

^^^
Same for religion.


----------



## Malx

^^^^^^
Perhaps acceptable in a denominational school.


----------



## SixFootScowl

^^^^^^^^^^^^
the poster would apply to the government (i.e., public) schools.


----------



## Malx

SixFootScowl said:


> ^^^^^^^^^^^^
> the poster would apply to the government (i.e., public) schools.


I agree with the sentiment of the poster in your post - my comment was directed to starthowers post - a failed attempt at a humorous observation, perhaps I should have included a winking emoji.


----------



## SixFootScowl

Malx said:


> I agree with the sentiment of the poster in your post - my comment was directed to starthowers post - a failed attempt at a humorous observation, perhaps I should have included a winking emoji.


No problem. I was just making a clarification that I should have included in the original post.

Curiously, each successive post doubles the number of ^s. I waan't even thinking that, but just held the key down a bit.


----------



## SixFootScowl

"Profanity is the act of a feeble mind expressing itself forcibly."


----------



## Varick

SixFootScowl said:


> "Profanity is the act of a feeble mind expressing itself forcibly."


Reminds me of one of my favorites: *"The Indiscriminate use of vulgarity is nothing more than a linguistic crutch for the inarticulate mother f*#%er."*

V


----------



## Eclectic Al

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
(Evelyn Beatrice Hall, in relation to the beliefs of Voltaire).

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
(Voltaire himself)

In passing: in the modern world the first quote above seems unfashionable; the second seems prophetic; and those two together are scary.


----------



## Chilham

"You can't talk you way out of a situation that you 'behaved' yourself into."


----------



## Luchesi

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

ee cummings


----------



## Eclectic Al

This isn't necessarily wise, but as a father of daughters, it seems to me to be very true. Perhaps that's wisdom.

Ice by Gail Mazur

In the warming house, children lace their skates, 
bending, choked, over their thick jackets.

A Franklin stove keeps the place so cozy
it’s hard to imagine why anyone would leave,

clumping across the frozen beach to the river. 
December’s always the same at Ware’s Cove,

the first sheer ice, black, then white
and deep until the city sends trucks of men

with wooden barriers to put up the boys’ 
hockey rink. An hour of skating after school,

of trying wobbly figure-8’s, an hour
of distances moved backwards without falling,

then—twilight, the warming house steamy 
with girls pulling on boots, their chafed legs

aching. Outside, the hockey players keep 
playing, slamming the round black puck

until it’s dark, until supper. At night,
a shy girl comes to the cove with her father.

Although there isn’t music, they glide
arm in arm onto the blurred surface together,

braced like dancers. She thinks she’ll never
be so happy, for who else will find her graceful,

find her perfect, skate with her
in circles outside the emptied rink forever?


----------



## Guest

Eclectic Al said:


> This isn't necessarily wise, but as a father of daughters, it seems to me to be very true. Perhaps that's wisdom.
> 
> Ice by Gail Mazur
> 
> In the warming house, children lace their skates,
> bending, choked, over their thick jackets.
> 
> A Franklin stove keeps the place so cozy
> it's hard to imagine why anyone would leave,
> 
> clumping across the frozen beach to the river.
> December's always the same at Ware's Cove,
> 
> the first sheer ice, black, then white
> and deep until the city sends trucks of men
> 
> with wooden barriers to put up the boys'
> hockey rink. An hour of skating after school,
> 
> of trying wobbly figure-8's, an hour
> of distances moved backwards without falling,
> 
> then-twilight, the warming house steamy
> with girls pulling on boots, their chafed legs
> 
> aching. Outside, the hockey players keep
> playing, slamming the round black puck
> 
> until it's dark, until supper. At night,
> a shy girl comes to the cove with her father.
> 
> Although there isn't music, they glide
> arm in arm onto the blurred surface together,
> 
> braced like dancers. She thinks she'll never
> be so happy, for who else will find her graceful,
> 
> find her perfect, skate with her
> in circles outside the emptied rink forever?


Hm. Reads rather like "light poetry". _See_ other threads on this forum _vis à vis_ "light classical", "light literature", "biscuit-tin art", etc., etc. I found the poem you posted to be saccharine.


----------



## Eclectic Al

TalkingHead said:


> Hm. Reads rather like "light poetry". _See_ other threads on this forum _vis à vis_ "light classical", "light literature", "biscuit-tin art", etc., etc. I found the poem you posted to be saccharine.


Thanks for the insightful comment.


----------



## SixFootScowl




----------



## Eclectic Al

George Orwell (- the prophet for our times):

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.


----------



## Luchesi

God is a concept by which we measure our pain..

John Lennon


----------



## Flamme




----------



## Luchesi

^^^^^
Where ya been, man?


----------



## Flamme

I abode in Abysses...Jk...I w had soo many things going...Ya missed me?


----------



## Guest

Eclectic Al said:


> Thanks for the insightful comment.


I enjoyed your poem; it captures very well the innocence of youth and childhood and the dreamy idealism of a child towards her father. My grand-daughter speaks like this about her father, as does my grandson. My (troubled) son takes his children camping in the bush and wakes them at 4am to look at the stars. No matter what, they'll never forget this momentary escape from the brutality that often passes for daily life.


----------



## Eclectic Al

Christabel said:


> I enjoyed your poem; it captures very well the innocence of youth and childhood and the dreamy idealism of a child towards her father. My grand-daughter speaks like this about her father, as does my grandson. My (troubled) son takes his children camping in the bush and wakes them at 4am to look at the stars. No matter what, they'll never forget this momentary escape from the brutality that often passes for daily life.


Yes, and I think one's reaction to poems like this says more about oneself than about the poem.
I wouldn't want to have become so cynical that my reaction would be to deny (pretty much wilfully) the existence of this sort of unconditional sharing between parent and child.


----------



## Jacck

A zen monk asks another zen monk: is that rock inside or outside your mind? The other monk replies: it’s inside the mind. And the first monk then replies: So your head must be really very heavy!


----------



## geralmar

My father died a week ago. He'd appreciated this.


----------



## NoCoPilot

Old Russian proverb:

"If the rich could pay the poor to die for them....

The poor would make a good living."


----------



## SixFootScowl




----------



## NoCoPilot

You *do* realize I hope that this is Russian disinformation???

COVID-19 is not a foreign dictator who can be defeated by resisting the public health measures put in place to limit its spread.

Comparing a GLOBAL pandemic to the American war of independence is one of the worst false equivalencies I've ever heard. Use some common sense and rationality, man. Your head is more than a hat rack.


----------



## Flamme




----------



## Chilham

SixFootScowl said:


>


Well, there's a whole lot of stupid.


----------



## Chilham

Flamme said:


>


Crowley was one sandwich short of a picnic.


----------



## Flamme

Nah he was a Wiseguy...


----------



## Chilham

Flamme said:


> Nah he was a Wiseguy...


Yep. We agree.

Urban Dictionary definition of "Wiseguy":
1. a wiseguy, a highly ranked individual in a crime family 
2. wiseguy, a smartass/Jackass 
3. wiseguy, a book by Nicholas Pileggi

1. He's a wise guy, he's untouchable 
2. The guy over theres being a real wiseguy 
3. did you read wiseguy yet?


----------



## Flamme

He lived in a castle as well, like you! lol


----------



## Chilham

Flamme said:


> He lived in a castle as well, like you! lol


"Wiseguy" doesn't mean a "Wise guy", and Crowley didn't live in a castle. You shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet.

I say I live in a castle, not because I live in a castle, but in deference of Coke's phrase that, "An Englishman's home is his castle". I am, however, fortunate to live in the grounds of a castle.


----------



## Flamme

LOL I know that!!! Your irony detector is broken... He didnt...? I thought Jimmy page bought it on an auction...https://www.scotsman.com/regions/in...age-and-his-black-magic-highland-home-1487080


----------



## Chilham

Flamme said:


> ...He didnt...?...


Nope. ...............


----------



## Flamme

Well I guess a castle like ''manor'' isnt far from a full-blown Castle!!! Im just curious, why do you hate the guy, with such a passion...


----------



## Chilham

Flamme said:


> Well I guess a castle like ''manor'' isnt far from a full-blown Castle!!! Im just curious, why do you hate the guy, with such a passion...


A manor is different from a castle, no matter how many exclamation marks you put after your statement. One os a Manor House. One is a castle. It's why we have two different words.

I think you must be projecting. Very little passion here. Just correcting misinformation.

Crowley was a moonbat. Invented his own religion. He was disliked in this country for being a German sympathiser in WWI. He was also known by the British press as, "The wickedest man in the World", back in a time when that type of epithet was less common as it might be today.


----------



## Flamme

He was very british tho...When I think of britain and england, he is the one that pops out, among few others...


----------



## Jacck




----------



## Chilham

Flamme said:


> He was very british tho...When I think of britain and england, he is the one that pops out, among few others...


Perhaps that says more about you than it does about the British.

I couldn't comment as to what being, "Very British", means. I'd be surprised if Crowley was deemed by many to be an archetypal Brit'. All countries have their share of moonbats. He was not an especially renowned one, and is barely remembered.

Perhaps we should try get back to posting wise sayings.


----------



## Flamme

But he WAS wise!!! lol Btw moonbat
/ˈmuːnbat/
nounderogatory•informal
plural noun: moonbats

a person with *extreme left-wing* political views.

Are you sure about that?


----------



## Chilham

I never knew of that definition. I've usually heard the term quoted as, "Religious moonbat", and I simply dropped the 'religious'. You live and you learn. 

Men of great wisdom are revered for generations. Crowley, in so far as anyone actually knows of him today, would be generally viewed in the same category as David Icke. A bit of a joke to all except those who share his opinion.


----------



## SixFootScowl




----------



## Luchesi

No one imagines that a symphony is supposed to improve in quality as it goes along, or that the whole object of playing it is to reach the finale. The point of music is discovered in every moment of playing and listening to it. 
It is the same, I feel, with the greater part of our lives, and if we are unduly absorbed in improving them we may forget altogether to live them. -- Alan Watts


----------



## Jacck




----------



## Guest

Doing what little one can to increase the general stock of knowledge is as respectable an object of life, as one can in any likelihood pursue. ---Charles Darwin

It’s hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning. ---Bill Waterson

Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. ---Horace Walpole

Nature! We are surrounded and embraced by her: powerless to separate ourselves from her, and powerless to penetrate beyond her. Without asking, or warning, she snatches us up into her circling dance, and whirls us on until we tire, and drop from her arms. ---Goethe

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. ---Derek Bok, ex-president of Harvard

What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'? ---Friedrich Nietzsche


----------



## Luchesi

I shut my eyes in order to see. -- Paul Gaugin


----------



## Strange Magic

SixFootScowl said:


>


I cannot agree more with SixFootScowl's defiance of the government's tyrannical attempt to force us all into masks, as implied by the above. But, as usual, he does not take his rage far enough. As it should be entirely a matter of personal choice, people obviously should widen our fight for our Freedom to Decide to include rage against the onerous seat belt restrictions and child seat requirements that punish and degrade the full exercise of individualism that is the hallmark of a free society. I eagerly await his views on these matters, and also on the whole area of speed limits, obeying traffic signals, and the other chains binding people like prisoners in their own societies. Indeed, the Authorities have made the wearing of clothing in public places compulsory. This is dictatorship run amok, and antithetical to every value we hold dear as patriots!


----------



## Luchesi

elect a clown

expect a circus


----------



## SixFootScowl

Strange Magic said:


> I cannot agree more with SixFootScowl's defiance of the government's tyrannical attempt to force us all into masks, as implied by the above. But, as usual, he does not take his rage far enough. As it should be entirely a matter of personal choice, people obviously should widen our fight for our Freedom to Decide to include rage against the onerous seat belt restrictions and child seat requirements that punish and degrade the full exercise of individualism that is the hallmark of a free society. I eagerly await his views on these matters, and also on the whole area of speed limits, obeying traffic signals, and the other chains binding people like prisoners in their own societies. Indeed, the Authorities have made the wearing of clothing in public places compulsory. This is dictatorship run amok, and antithetical to every value we hold dear as patriots!


There are some major problems with your assertions.

Who owns the roads? The state. So the state sets speed limits, seat belt requirements, etc. A drag strip is privately owned and you will notice they have rules too, but no speed limit.

Who owns the stores? Private parties or companies. They have the right to set the rules for what is permissible in their stores.

But if you want to claim my wearing a mask is analogous to my not running a red light and t-boning your car, now you are reaching. The masks are ineffective. Besides that, nobody is stopping you from wearing a mask (or a moon suit) if you so desire, if you think it helps and it makes you feel better.

As for requirements to wear clothing, proper clothing (not what pop stars, magazines and movies portray) is required by God. Many church-going women today don't understand this, but the conservative Mennonite women are a good model keeping their bodies covered from neck to ankle. Of course you may wonder how I can be defiant of the government decree for masking when the Bible says to obey the authorities. Well, very simple, the authorities are not there for making orders. The Michigan supreme court already shot down the governor's emergency orders so she defiantly re-promulgated them through the health department.

But just for the record, I don't push my way into any group or individuals space if they do not want me around without a mask. So, most of my shopping is online with curbside pickup. In that way I am respecting others and inconveniencing myself. Thankfully I have a hair salon, chiropractor, dentist, and auto shop who do not require masks.

Also for the record, I started wearing seat belts several years before they were mandated because I really didn't like the idea that in an accident I could potentially be ejected through the window or mashed into the dashboard with great force.

So, wear your masks if you wish, but I prefer being able to breathe. Look out though because bacterial pneumonia is predicted for mask wearers in cold climates. Of course that will give more opportunity to rack up fake covid cases as the laughably inadequate covid tests pop false positives.


----------



## Strange Magic

Scowl, a wonderful reply. I expected no less. Your analysis--as an acknowledged expert--on the futility and even the lethality of masks during a pandemic--are we actually in a pandemic, as alleged by the CDC?--will be written up in the medical journals. I'm glad also that you have overcome your hatred of governmental tyranny enough to appear in public properly clothed because of God's injunction. Otherwise you would walk the streets naked, if you so chose. Your argument for seat belt use is thin, though. Tyranny is tyranny, and you are feeding the beast.


----------



## Caroline

On masks:
N95s are the only ones that may stop a virus. Surgical masks don't. Hear the head of the Chicago Medical Association. Although not provided here, physicians, virologists and other medical experts indicate that masks do not work.






Fauci on March 30. Start at 30 sec in. 'General mask wearing doesn't help.' The emphasis on reducing spread is _physical separation_ (as with all respiratory contagions). _In fact, masks may actually be more harmful._





Fauci has said that '_the important thing is actually physical separation_.' Masks really don't work.


----------



## Luchesi

^^^^^
I've only recently ventured out much, because my car was eaten by mice. Big expense! and a long repair project. Now I bought a car cover weighted down with sand bags which are sewn in all along the bottom. I have cameras set up and no varmints have gotten under it. 

Wearing a mask reminds me to continually retain the 6ft separation. I notice that it also reminds others to keep their distance.


----------



## Strange Magic

Caroline, have you nothing fresher than March? Much has been learned and published since then. You may be trapped in a time warp, or reading only what you want to read. Which is it?

https://www.aol.com/lifestyle/study-good-cloth-mask-powerful-224321438.html

*"WASHINGTON - Face coverings, including masks made of cloth, are highly effective in protecting the people who wear them as well as those around them, according to a new study from Linsey Marr, a leading aerosol scientist at Virginia Tech University.*

"Filtration works both ways," Marr said. "If it works for source control," she said during a media presentation on Monday - that is, if the mask filters out particles coming from the wearer's mouth - "it's going to work pretty well for exposure reduction to protect the wearer also."

Testing 11 different types of face coverings (nine cloth masks made from coffee filters, cotton and other materials, a surgical mask and a face shield), Marr and co-author Jin Pan found that many of the materials they "challenged" with particles meant to simulate the coronavirus exhibited a 75 percent filtration capacity. A high-quality cloth mask consisting of three layers could allow filtration as high as 90 percent. Crucially, that accounts for incoming particles as well as outgoing ones.

The efficacy of surgical masks had been widely known. Their use was endorsed in a Wall Street Journal op-ed by former Food and Drug Administration head Scott Gottlieb published on Sunday evening. He encouraged people to wear N95 respirators or, failing that, surgical masks. "The level of protection depends on the type of the mask," he wrote, cautioning people away from bandanas and other loosely-fitting face coverings.

Marr's study suggests that cloth masks work better than some have claimed, in part because many virus-bearing particles are significantly larger than previously thought. Her study adds crucial new information about the relative benefits of cloth masks, which people find easier to wear - and more stylish - than their light-blue medical counterparts.

In particular, the study noted that a mask that contains an interior filter made from a common vacuum bag "achieved outstanding performance."

The question of specific materials aside, *the study counters the long-held misconception that masks do not protect those who wear them. Last week, some right-wing media outlets seized on a Danish study whose methodology has been criticized as slipshod and whose findings have been deemed inconclusive."*


----------



## Flamme




----------



## Luchesi

If you want to get something done, give it to a busy person.


----------



## Jacck

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
_
Ralph Waldo Emerson_


----------



## Luchesi

From Emerson's essay "Compensation"

Every excess causes a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its sour; every evil its good. Every faculty which is a receiver of pleasure has an equal penalty put on its abuse. It is to answer for its moderation with its life. For every grain of wit there is a grain of folly. For every thing you have missed, you have gained something else; and for every thing you gain, you lose something. If riches increase, they are increased that use them. If the gatherer gathers too much, nature takes out of the man what she puts into his chest; swells the estate, but kills the owner.


----------



## Luchesi

THE COMING OF WISDOM WITH TIME 


THOUGH leaves are many, the root is one; 
Through all the lying days of my youth 
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun; 
Now I may wither into the truth.

Yeats


----------



## Flamme

What one can do before his morning coffee aqnd a breakfast is the measure of ones ability aqnd agility!(this one is mine )


----------



## SixFootScowl




----------



## Ingélou

Flamme said:


>


Unfortunately, ordinary mortality is for everyone.


----------



## NoCoPilot

Never trust a skinny cook, or a carpenter with missing fingers.


----------



## Jacck

“The wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world.”
― Zhuangzi


----------



## Varick

Victor Redseal said:


> What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'? ---Friedrich Nietzsche


This is still one of my all time favorite quotes. I used to have it hanging above my desk for years in my old house.

V


----------



## Varick

_"When I was a child, my grandmother died and was buried in the churchyard in Castlecomer, Ireland. The following year, I went there on holiday. One day as we drove to visit relatives, as we passed the graveled driveway leading up to the churchyard, my grandfather thinking he was unobserved, pressed his face against the window of the car and with a small hidden motion of his hand, waved. It was then I came to my first understanding of the majesty and vulnerability of love."_

Herbert O'Driscoll

V


----------



## Varick

_"Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have."_

_"Be modest. A lot was accomplished before you were born."_

H. Jackson Brown Jr.

This is another one of my favorites:

_"Until one is committed, there is hesitating, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.
Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: "The moment one definitely commits oneself, providence moves too. "All sorts of things occur to help one, that would never otherwise have occurred."
A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way."_

Goethe

V


----------



## SixFootScowl

H.L. Mencken observed that,
 "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."


----------



## Strange Magic

While we're quoting the great H. L. Mencken, here's another gem:

"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."


----------



## NoCoPilot

Mencken said:


> Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.


...................


----------



## NoCoPilot




----------



## SixFootScowl

Strange Magic said:


> While we're quoting the great H. L. Mencken, here's another gem:
> 
> "On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."


Looks like it is about to happen.


----------



## Strange Magic

SixFootScowl said:


> Looks like it is about to happen.


I think few would agree. The indication is that the President-elect is a wise, sympathetic person of much experience, lauded by members of both parties who both have character and appreciate it in others. Or am I and 80 millions terribly wrong? It could be, but I doubt it.

H.L. Mencken was likely predicting the election of Warren Gamaliel Harding, generally regarded as one of the two or three worst presidents in American history. Harding's chief selling point was that he "looked like a president."


----------



## SixFootScowl

Strange Magic said:


> I think few would agree. The indication is that the President-elect is a wise, sympathetic person of much experience, lauded by members of both parties who both have character and appreciate it in others. Or am I and *80 millions* terribly wrong? It could be, but I doubt it.
> 
> H.L. Mencken was likely predicting the election of Warren Gamaliel Harding, generally regarded as one of the two or three worst presidents in American history. Harding's chief selling point was that he "looked like a president."


If you count illegal votes.


----------



## Strange Magic

SixFootScowl said:


> If you count illegal votes.


Excellent post! I forgot about the illegal votes, all 6 million of them.


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> Excellent post! I forgot about the illegal votes, all 6 million of them.


I wonder how this president's loss compares to others. like Carter, Hoover, Bush?


----------



## Rogerx

Can we please drop the politics


----------



## Guest

Chilham said:


> . He was also known by the British press as, "The wickedest man in the World"


I'm jealous./////


----------



## AeolianStrains

Rogerx said:


> Can we please drop the politics


On the other hand, it's helpful to know whom I should put on ignore.


----------



## Rogerx

AeolianStrains said:


> On the other hand, it's helpful to know whom I should put on ignore.


That's is fine by me, as long as the politics staying out!


----------



## Strange Magic

The beauty of things was born before eyes and sufficient to itself; the
heartbreaking beauty
Will remain when there is no heart to break for it.

Robinson Jeffers: _Credo_


----------



## geralmar

"I would like to die on Mars. Just not on impact."

--Elon Musk


----------



## Coach G

My favorite sayings:

"Courage is being scared to death...but saddling up anyway."-John Wayne

"The game ain't over until it's over."-Yogi Berra

"When you see a good move, look for a better one."-Emanuel Lasker

"Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend."-The Beatles song _We Can Work it Out_

"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."-Master Yoda

"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."-Paul to the Romans 3:23

"Soli Deo Gloria" (To God the Glory Alone)-Johann Sebastian Bach attached this saying to his signature after composing each work.

Meaning:

I believe in always trying your best to the very end; to refrain from making impulsive decisions; to refrain from anger and hate; to always try to keep peace between family and friends; to remember that none of us is perfect; and to put God first.

I've found that I've messed up most in my life when I've veered from these sayings.


----------



## SixFootScowl

> If you are afraid of the virus, then stay ... home. Don't deny people the right to work and make a living because you are fearful of a virus with a 99 percent recovery rate


--DIamond and Silk


----------



## Flamme

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/si vis pacem, para bellum


----------



## NoCoPilot

“Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins.”


----------



## Ingélou

"To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it." - Confucius.










I have always had a very good memory, unfortunately.


----------



## SixFootScowl

--Barry Goldwater


----------



## Strange Magic

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, *promote the general Welfare*, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.


----------



## SixFootScowl

Strange Magic said:


> We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, *promote the general Welfare*, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.


Big difference between "general welfare" and what the founding fathers meant by it and what Barry was talking about.


----------



## Luchesi

The wisdom of folks with bags of money.


----------



## Strange Magic

SixFootScowl said:


> Big difference between "general welfare" and what the founding fathers meant by it and what Barry was talking about.


One of the expressions of promoting the general welfare would have been a robust federal response to the COVID epidemic, don't you think? I haven't spoken recently with the founding fathers, but I think they would approve of a vigorous and effective response to a pandemic as one of a myriad of fit instances of promoting the general welfare. That may be why we have a Centers for Disease *Control*. Or is that something to be abolished? There are so many wonderful posts these days on the evil, uselessness, and "unconstitutionality" of an effective, honest, scientifically aware Federal Government. We'll see more of the wonderfulness here.


----------



## Zauberfloete

"War does not determine who is right, only who is left." - Bertrand Russell


----------



## SixFootScowl

Strange Magic said:


> One of the expressions of promoting the general welfare would have been a robust federal response to the COVID epidemic, don't you think? I haven't spoken recently with the founding fathers, but I think they would approve of a vigorous and effective response to a pandemic as one of a myriad of fit instances of promoting the general welfare. That may be why we have a Centers for Disease *Control*. Or is that something to be abolished? There are so many wonderful posts these days on the evil, uselessness, and "unconstitutionality" of an effective, honest, scientifically aware Federal Government. We'll see more of the wonderfulness here.


And Trump did a robust response to Covid with closing borders, warp speed on the vaccine, trying to promote HQC and other remedies, constructing field hospitals, ventilators, financial relief, etc. Hard to image anything more robust. But an executive order against mandatory face masks and forced closure of businesses would have been a nice addition.


----------



## Strange Magic

SixFootScowl said:


> And Trump did a robust response to Covid with closing borders, warp speed on the vaccine, trying to promote HQC and other remedies, constructing field hospitals, ventilators, financial relief, etc. Hard to image anything more robust. But an executive order against mandatory face masks and forced closure of businesses would have been a nice addition.


I see some have convinced themselves, in defiance of all the evidence, that the administration has done the best possible job in this best of all possible worlds. One can only support such a bizarre thesis if one completely ignores the facts--death rates per million, total deaths, total infections, beginning signs of the failure to deliver vaccines or administer them, and being told that the pandemic would "miraculously" disappear after Election Day, etc. It makes one want to reach for a refreshing glass of bleach. Really, the normal human mind can absorb only so much nonsense. Other minds have an almost infinite capacity for same.

"Hard to imagine anything more robust." Please! What sort of person cannot imagine a more robust response??


----------



## NoCoPilot

SixFootScowl said:


> And Trump did a robust response to Covid with closing borders, warp speed on the vaccine, trying to promote HQC and other remedies, constructing field hospitals, ventilators, financial relief, etc. Hard to image anything more robust. But an executive order against mandatory face masks and forced closure of businesses would have been a nice addition.


The hubris of this rewriting of (recent) history is staggering. Barry Goldwater, who for all his flaws was based in reality, would strike you down for your intellectual dishonesty.


----------



## Jacck




----------



## Zauberfloete

_*"The hands that serve are holier than the lips that pray."*_

I've crossed paths with people of a lot of different religious paths and I've sometimes met people who take great pride in their nominal affiliation in this or that religion, but then are quick to turn their back when someone genuinely needs aid. I've also met plenty of people who claim no affiliation whatsoever with any organised religion, and yet would sincerely rise to offer their assistance to others, expecting nothing in return - whether spiritual or material.

If there is a God and it is a God of love and mercy as we're taught, shouldn't we be kind and compassionate to one another?
And if there is no God, or if it no God of love and mercy, shouldn't we, again, be kind and compassionate to one another?


----------



## SixFootScowl

Jacck said:


>


I would remove ambition from the list. Without ambition society would be like a bunch of pot heads. Note, not criticizing those who use pot, but only those who abuse pot. I know the difference.


----------



## Jacck

SixFootScowl said:


> I would remove ambition from the list. Without ambition society would be like a bunch of pot heads. Note, not criticizing those who use pot, but only those who abuse pot. I know the difference.


Ambition in the form of hungering for power is surely very unhealthy. Only narcissists and otherwise defective people need to compensate some psychological defect of theirs by wanting to rule over others. And society would not stagnate without them. I would be much better without them.


----------



## SixFootScowl

Jacck said:


> Ambition in the form of hungering for power is surely very unhealthy. Only narcissists and otherwise defective people need to compensate some psychological defect of theirs by wanting to rule over others. And society would not stagnate without them. I would be much better without them.


Yes, ambition can be positively or negatively directed.


----------



## geralmar

"Hell isn't other people. It's other people's children".

--Anonymous


----------



## Ariasexta

In fact, I condense every thing about wisdom I have heard and read and conceived into my two mottoes in my signature. Like it or hate it.


----------



## Ariasexta

I pasted and copied around 100 best quotes from the internet and from books, and then conceived more than 1000 mottoes myself based on observations and reading around and inspiration from the quotes. And then I consolidated them into only 3 mottoes, one is kept secret(this one is an ancient latin motto, not my product exactly), the other two is here in my signature, my own constructions, therefore I do not have much to share here.:tiphat:


----------



## Ingélou

'For everything that lives is holy. Life delights in life.' - William Blake


----------



## Zauberfloete

Ingélou said:


> 'For everything that lives is holy. Life delights in life.' - William Blake


It even earned a name in psychology, biophilia


----------



## Ariasexta

If you can not feel truly happy, you should feel truly painful; if you feel nothing, you should not exist in the world no matter how much you are attached to people, to everything around, because they ignore you and you are helpless for nobody is there to exterminate your meaningless existence. 
--Ariasexta 

To be happy is not your desire, but your most sacred task as a living being; to be painful is not your misery but your own true desire. 
--Ariasexta

The vulgariest lie is to die a happy death in a cesspool of ignorance and falsehood. 
--Ariasexta

If a human being can not be happy, he should be painful, for being most happy or most painful is the only way of being the real-self.
--Ariasexta


----------



## Ariasexta

Between the false-self and the real self, the gap is to be measured in a unit called courage, the only material to fill there is called resolution. 
--Ariasexta

All confusion is caused by cowardice, therefore, all the truth can be revealed through courage.
--Ariasexta


----------



## Ariasexta

When truth is seen through the glass of cowardice, it is called as the science. And the science dominates the world because people has not the enough courage to see the truth.
--Ariasexta

Truth does not argue with the lies, but science does, and will never stop this argument and will
alway achieve many agreements before starting over again.
--Ariasexta


----------



## Ariasexta

There is only one superstition in the world, that is to believe in oneself, because oneself can assume anything as it wants when convenient.
--Ariasexta

Atheists say that one who thinks always doubts, but I would say if one always doubts the others but himself, he does never think on his own brain at all. To think on other peoples brain is a comfortable thing when you put the ideological yoke on them through the means of an authority, however, as a result, the being who thinks he thinks disappears into the labyrith of the mass, and lies to himself through the mass.
--Ariasexta

I never believe in myself, but in people and everything else but myself. As a compensation, I love myself unconditionally.
--Ariasexta


----------



## Ariasexta

Many people curse the world through not loving themself, always finding a way to pity themself and then blaming the world for not loving them enough.

--Ariasexta

To show love though convenience and opportunity, is the cheap petty pity. 

--Ariasexta

The first step toward self-enlightenment is to differentiate the foundamental difference between love and pity.

--Ariasexta

I suddenly realized that, this cheap pity harms people more than hatred ever does. 

--Ariasexta

For my want of qualification in musical criticism, I conveniently assume the rule of the critic of humanity, because the arts, especially the music are above humanity. 

--Ariasexta

Sarcasm is of vital importance for a good critic, as much in the object of his criticism, as in himself.

--Ariasexta

You will find many mysteries which science can not explain in the object of your love, will also find many proven theories in the object of your indifference. This is the way to test your love, when science does prove your love, you know your love is done. 

--Ariasexta

The science of humanity will end by submission to the lies and it is the destiny of science since the beginning of the universe.

--Ariasexta

The end of humanity will come through the permanent obfuscation of truth, literally the submission to itself, or the defeat by itself.

--Ariasexta

All the so called scientific evidences asked by humanity are the proof of its own defeat by itself. So humanity is eagerly awaiting to see its own downfall as a great revelation of its existence being of no significance. 

--Ariasexta

Music and arts will survive the doomsday of humanity, but humanity itself will not. 

--Ariasexta

The secret of survival in the biblical doomsday is to become an artist not a scientist.

--Ariasexta

There is nothing that seems to be more doubtful than science, because it appears to the 
most vulnerable ego of mine I try to protect all the times. And science arose from the doubt of man in everything except himself, as he assumes that he has the power of being selfless and objective, as if it also rose from the vulnerable egos of every man when they try to exert their own pretensions to be anything they wish to be. 

--Ariasexta

The egocentrist economy and their stupid bourgeosie-communist people are the best betrayal of the true color of their sciences.

--Ariasexta

21st century science seems to be striving at depriving people without scientific peer status of the right of doubting authority rather than trying to reveal possibilities of social progress. 

--Ariasexta

Have you ever wonder why given the immense technological advances we have so far, why we still do not have the energy efficiency and peace with each others people and mother nature? Oh, we are still on the way to more fantastic progress in the future, we have to be patient, really? I am wondering why people can solve convoluted math problems fail to figure out how the communism is robbing people of their most basic rights in thinking and feeding lies to the public everyday? What the hell is the science they are doing?

--Ariasexta

The contemplative mottos by Ariasexta for spontaneous criticism of humanity. All these quotes are my own spontaneous ideas upon occaisional reflections. I will be very grateful to be alerted someone has said the similar thing long before me.


----------



## Luchesi

"Man is a *rope* stretched *between* the animal and the Superman-a *rope* over an *abyss*. A dangerous *crossing*, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping."

Nietzsche


----------



## SanAntone

I saw this today and it is something I absolutely believe.

"Value judgments are destructive to our proper business, which is curiosity and awareness." - John Cage


----------



## Jacck

Luchesi said:


> "Man is a *rope* stretched *between* the animal and the Superman-a *rope* over an *abyss*. A dangerous *crossing*, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping."
> Nietzsche


we all know where this philosophy of the Übermensch led to, a Mensch without the constraint of morality (Beyond Good and Evil)


----------



## Flamme

This is not only about...Horses and dogs.


----------



## Luchesi

Jacck said:


> we all know where this philosophy of the Übermensch led to, a Mensch without the constraint of morality (Beyond Good and Evil)


Yes, Jeff Preston Bezos...

'just joking (maybe)


----------



## Ariasexta

Simultaneous publication of Ariasexta`s metaphysical teachings in both chinese and international web-space. From now on, one post one teaching. Posted here so far is not from my past writings, but freshly simultaneous vocalizations of my grand visions.

Idealism is the true token of the man being a man. When you ask yourself whether your current ways of thinking and living fit your idealism, you can test in this way: how much can you persevere. If you always have to compromise, you do not have a real vision of your ideals. Untill you can persevere in something, no matter be it small or grand, you have not taste the real happiness of being a man. 

--Ariasexta


----------



## WNvXXT

To carry coals to Newcastle.

Caught it in a book I read a while back and looked it up.

wiki says: _It refers to the fact that historically, the economy of Newcastle upon Tyne in north-eastern England was heavily dependent on the distribution and sale of coal and therefore any attempt to sell coal to Newcastle would be foolhardy as supply would be greater there than anywhere else in Britain_


----------



## Ariasexta

If you can persevere in your own ideals, you will become like a Sun, shine with truth and redeem with warmth, untill everything will seem so simple to your eyes just like the aeternal beam of light irresistably penetrating through the massive darkness.

--Arisexta 

Western talents are well known in great will-power, but are tended to be trapped in futile arguments.Eastern secret teachings are self-reflective and retrospective, great compliment to the western philosophy.


----------



## Flamme

*World serves its own needs
Don't mis-serve your own needs*
*R.E.M.*


----------



## Roger Knox

Flamme said:


> *World serves its own needs
> Don't mis-serve your own needs*
> *R.E.M.*


Yes we have to look after ourselves, and others like us better when we do that. Like you I have some times when I get down on the world and on myself. Music has been a help since I realized that being a listener is as _significant_ as being a composer or performer. Our chances at achieving true humility are greatest as listeners, if we let go of the need to be in control and the need for egotistical display. Some people in the music business think of listeners as the lowest life-form -- "bums in seats" -- how much damage that attitude has done! Every one of us is precious.


----------



## Flamme

Yeah. It hits too close to home. I often worry more what the world will say than listen to my inner voices and needs...
A soul-food for today is ''Good Riddance To Bad Garbage''...Dk who said it first but sometimes you dont realize how you truly breathe the fresh air when you take out the trash!!!


----------



## geralmar

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side".

-- Hunter S. Thompson


----------



## Varick

_"Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home.
The remarkable thing is, we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We can not change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude."_

Charles Swindoll

V


----------



## Varick

_"The cigar numbs sorrow and fills the solitary hours with a million gracious images."_

George Sand

_"If I cannot smoke cigars in heaven, I shall not go."_

Mark Twain

V


----------



## Varick

_"A good marriage is that in which each appoints the other guardian of his solitude. Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, If they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole and against a wide sky."_

Rainer Maria Rilke

V


----------



## elgar's ghost

_'In later years we only went on tour if someone's roof needed mending.'_

_It was Keith (Moon) who blew things up but I was usually the one stood behind him holding the matches.'_

_'I don't particularly think about my bass solos - that would be a bit like smelling your own farts, really...'_

John Alec Entwistle (1944-2002)


----------



## Ingélou

'A fool with a heart and no sense is just as unhappy as a fool with sense and no heart.'
Fyodor Dostoevsky


----------



## Taggart

Thread re-opened after moderator discussion.

A number of political posts have been removed.

Please remember the forum rules and avoid politics and religion.


----------



## Jacck

It is better in life to be alone than badly accompanied


----------



## HenryPenfold

Look after your broom .....

Trigger


----------



## SixFootScowl

"Life is complicated, but not uninteresting" --Jerzy Neyman

Jerzy Neyman was a Polish mathematician and statistician


----------



## geralmar

"Once is happenstance.
Twice is coincidence.
Three times is enemy action."

-- Ian Flemming


----------



## Chilham

"You can't talk your way out of a situation that you behaved your way into."


----------



## Flamme

The gods do bear and will allow in kings
The things which they abhor in rascal routes.


----------



## WNvXXT

However, it was another weird anomaly that would really put the cat amongst the pigeons.

The Secrets of Quantum Physics s1 e1


----------



## Flamme

*Confucius say, man who bite electric wire get shocking experience.*


----------



## TxllxT

Mao Zedong said: "When in the jungle there is no tiger, the king of the jungle will be an ape".

He also said: "A tree likes quietude, but the wind blows on."


----------



## MrNobody

No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up.
― Lily Tomlin


----------



## Barbebleu

It would appear that a new maxim to live by is-

‘Do what you like. Survive if you can!’


----------



## Ingélou

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."
Confucius


----------



## starthrower

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." - James Baldwin


----------



## Flamme




----------



## Ingélou

starthrower said:


> "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." - James Baldwin


I can really go with that! :tiphat:


----------



## Rogerx

" Jealousy occurs only with people who cannot accept the happiness of others "


----------



## Ariasexta

The biggest lie is made from pure facts; the biggest superstition from the most tangible powers.


----------



## Kiki

Ariasexta said:


> *The biggest lie is made from pure facts*; the biggest superstition from the most tangible powers.


Well said!

This is what the international media do every day.

A modern-day lie contains only facts - selected facts that support their agenda are reported; Other facts that expose their lies are omitted.


----------



## Rogerx

"Be careful the wind don't change, that face will stick"


----------



## SixFootScowl

This one is a real gem!



GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> The best way I know of to deal with crappy situations is to count your blessings in life and move forward.


----------



## Dorsetmike

A little mouth you ain't got - but a big one you can't hit

i.e. you talk too much and are a messy eater


----------



## Rogerx

If you point a finger at someone, three fingers are pointing back at you .


----------



## Ariasexta

True ideas do not need to comply with the reality or facts, they only need to be true to themself. 
--Ariasexta

I am sorry, although I collected hundrels of sayings and quotes by famous authors and philosophers myself, however I feel my own sayings are more intimate to the feeling which I want to share, not sure how these ideas come up, just some daily reflections.


----------



## Luchesi

These are wise, depending upon your preferences.

"I feel inhibited to play the 3rd movement of the Fantasy, because it is so impossibly deep."

-Sviatoslav Richter

"I cannot explain it-but maybe irrationally, I feel a greater emotional connection to Schumann than any other composer." 
-Martha Argerich

"If I die and go to Heaven, the first thing I would like to do is meet Robert Schumann." 
-Vladimir Horowitz.

"When playing his music, my heart bleeds for him and his trials...everything in his life was translated into sound. There is no man I admire more than him...while he was not as technically brilliant as Chopin or Liszt, his music is so intense and gives me more emotional and spiritual satisfaction than anyone else." 
-Benno Moiseiwitsch

"A person who is not moved by his music is beyond help...For this reason I will be playing entire Schumann programmes. He is one of the few composers who can afford it." 
-Andras Schiff


----------



## SixFootScowl




----------



## Guest

Rogerx said:


> " Jealousy occurs only with people who cannot accept the happiness of others "


That's what Dr. Jordan Peterson says. He also says that there are two ways in which you can identify your real friends;

1. They'll be happy for you when you succeed,
2. They'll be there for you in the bad times.


----------



## Guest

SixFootScowl said:


>


I don't actually agree with this because it's a bit glib. Guns are the last resort to get what you want, suits or not.


----------



## SixFootScowl

Christabel said:


> I don't actually agree with this because it's a bit glib. Guns are the last resort to get what you want, suits or not.


Well the quote is not about the last resort and the guns are in play either as a deterrent or actual measure. But the show is run by the men in suits, and we might add men in white lab coats.


----------



## Guest

SixFootScowl said:


> Well the quote is not about the last resort and the guns are in play either as a deterrent or actual measure. But the show is run by the men in suits, and we might add men in white lab coats.


But aren't there more women in this scenario now?


----------



## progmatist

Christabel said:


> I don't actually agree with this because it's a bit glib. Guns are the last resort to get what you want, suits or not.


The guys with guns are the guys in suits' flying monkeys. More so now than ever.


----------



## HenryPenfold

'Look after your broom" - Trigger 1996


----------



## Luchesi

HenryPenfold said:


> 'Look after your broom" - Trigger 1996


that didn't sound


----------



## Luchesi

^^^server too busy to edit


----------



## Rogerx

“Life will get much better when you stop caring about what everyone thinks, and start to actually live for yourself.”


----------



## eljr

A self coined quote,

"you may have an opinion in the absence of fact, not in conflict with it." 

This means you can't argue based on what you prefer to believe when it collides with established fact. It just makes you a dolt. 

another

"there is good music and there is great music, there is no bad music." 

This is simply about respecting music you may not fancy.


----------



## SanAntone

"That certainly is the best government where the inhabitants are least often reminded of the government."

-* Henry David Thoreau*, Journal, 21 August 1851


----------



## eljr

SanAntone said:


> "That certainly is the best government where the inhabitants are least often reminded of the government."
> 
> -* Henry David Thoreau*, Journal, 21 August 1851


Is sage advice in 1851 still sage advice today?


----------



## HenryPenfold

eljr said:


> Is sage advise in 1851 still sage advise today?


no, it's a verb


----------



## SanAntone

eljr said:


> Is sage advice in 1851 still sage advice today?


Even much more so. Governments have only gotten larger, more controlling, and more intrusive and oppressive since Thoreau's time.

Are you so deluded to think otherwise? Or maybe you think governments are good.

I see them as the greatest manifestation of evil in the world. Perpetrators of the greatest number of murders, starvation, deprivations of civil liberties and freedom.


----------



## eljr

SanAntone said:


> Are you so deluded to think otherwise?


LOL

Deluded, no. To think otherwise, yes.

Studied, contemplated and analytical with the greater good of the species in mind is the perspective from which I engage.

This is not the place for such discussion though. 
Peace


----------



## SanAntone

eljr said:


> Studied, contemplated and analytical with the greater good of the species in mind is the perspective from which I engage.


It is delusional to think that governments have the greater good of the species in mind.



> This is not the place for such discussion though.


Correct.


----------



## eljr

SanAntone said:


> It is delusional to think that governments have the greater good of the species in mind.


I take your insult with a smile.

Peace


----------



## Pat Fairlea

Wise sayings? I can't improve on the great Niels Bohr:

"Never express yourself more clearly than you can think"


----------



## Ingélou

Pat Fairlea said:


> Wise sayings? I can't improve on the great Niels Bohr:
> 
> "Never express yourself more clearly than you can think"


Reminds me of the fiddler Tom Anderson's advice - 'Never learn a tune you don't already know.' Actually, it makes sense - if I can sing a tune, I can play a tune, but if I've never heard it, will probably make a mess of it or at least find it harder to learn.


----------



## eljr

I wish I could learn to live this quote. 

"Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this world, Elwood, you must be" - she always called me Elwood - "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me."

Elwood P. Dowd, a fictional character 

It simply means that one is better off being liked than being smart. People don't like people who contradict them. Being "right" holds no charm.


----------



## Dorsetmike

Heard from those under the affluence of incohol:-

"I'm not as drunk as some thinkle peep I am"

"The drunker I sit here the longer I get"

"Starkle starkle little twink
who the hell you are you think
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in a goosegog pie"


----------



## SanAntone

Dorsetmike said:


> Heard from those under the affluence of incohol:-
> 
> "I'm not as drunk as some thinkle peep I am"
> 
> "The drunker I sit here the longer I get"
> 
> "Starkle starkle little twink
> who the hell you are you think
> Up above the world so high,
> Like a diamond in a goosegog pie"


Have you heard this one:

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.


----------



## progmatist

A former boss used to say he had too much blood in his alcohol system.


----------



## Flamme

Was he such a drunkard???


----------



## progmatist

Flamme said:


> Was he such a drunkard???


Never on the job.


----------



## Ariasexta

Most people do not understand how to learn science by themself not because science is too hard, but that they venerate those arrogant scholars or the very few geniuses which they fear; but look down on those who want to enlighten their scientific minds from the most foundamental ideas, to interest them in their very momentum of curiosity. 

--Ariasexta


----------



## progmatist

Ariasexta said:


> Most people do not understand how to learn science by themself not because science is too hard, but that they venerate those arrogant scholars or the very few geniuses which they fear; but look down on those who want to enlighten their scientific minds from the most foundamental ideas, to interest them in their very momentum of curiosity.
> 
> --Ariasexta


Funniest thing about people whose beliefs are evidence based: they'll alter their beliefs to conform with new evidence.


----------



## Guest

progmatist said:


> Funniest thing about people whose beliefs are evidence based: they'll alter their beliefs to conform with new evidence.


You mean like the world isn't flat after all?


----------



## Rogerx

C. Buddingh Dutch poet

H_aving power and not using it is civilization.

_


----------



## Guest

"Reason and love seldom keep company nowadays" (Midsummer Night's Dream).


----------



## Ariasexta

progmatist said:


> Funniest thing about people whose beliefs are evidence based: they'll alter their beliefs to conform with new evidence.


Evidences are up to interpretation and it will be a hell if people can only follow the evidences, like ballshetviksm. Some take lives as lives as the others take them as sheer sheer statistics.


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## Ariasexta

Rogerx said:


> C. Buddingh Dutch poet
> 
> H_aving power and not using it is civilization.
> 
> _


Cool, but I would change "use"-->abuse.


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## Rogerx

> A man who deprives another of his freedom is a prisoner of hatred, locked up behind the bars of prejudice and pettiness.


Nelson Mandela from South Africa.


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## Luchesi

Christabel said:


> You mean like the world isn't flat after all?


Yes, it's very interesting what people believe from long ago. If I remember correctly Hinduism used to teach that humans have been around for a very long time (about 200 million years). And now only the fundamentalist Hindus will say that they believe that.


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## SixFootScowl

"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups."

--George Carlin


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## SixFootScowl




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## Rogerx

A wise person makes their own decisions, an ignorant person follows the public opinion


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## Ariasexta

Believe in people, not science.
--Me


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## Luchesi

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. - George Bernard Shaw


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## NoCoPilot

Ariasexta said:


> Believe in people, not science.
> --Me


That's a TERRIBLE saying.


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## NoCoPilot

Luchesi said:


> The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. - George Bernard Shaw


I'm paraphrasing because I don't know who said it originally, but somebody (Steve Jobs maybe?) said "Crazy people who attempt the impossible are the people who change the world."


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## Ariasexta

NoCoPilot said:


> That's a TERRIBLE saying.


Belief is an aspect of love, it can be foolish to pay sentimental tributes to dead things, like marrying a silicon sex toy.


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## Luchesi

Ariasexta said:


> Belief is an aspect of love, it can be foolish to pay sentimental tributes to dead things, like marrying a silicon sex toy.


Yes, but in the big picture, humans need the scientific method to guide them. There's no 'human' substitute for it. Just look at pre-scientific times. Humans will rationalize in the short term, and be 'vitally' wrong in the long run. It's the nature of reality as we look back at history.


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## Ariasexta

Luchesi said:


> Yes, but in the big picture, humans need the scientific method to guide them. There's no 'human' substitute for it. Just look at pre-scientific times. Humans will rationalize in the short term, and be 'vitally' wrong in the long run. It's the nature of reality as we look back at history.


Science is not a belief system to be utterly precise, it should not overstep its ethical boundaries to conflate with other cultural, religious motives. But sometimes, it is given the priviledge to trespass the rigorous ethical confinement and to intervene into multiple irrelevant processes upon *morally contemptible* grounds. Being a profession of high respectability for its rigor and severity, it never really observes the level of dignity of its due. It needs people to guide it too when it pretends to guide people.


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## mikeh375

Well the phrase is often used without knowledge of where it comes from.....(warning - this might be offensive for gentle souls)

https://www.wambui-bahati.com/You-Dont-Know-Jack-Schitt.html


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## Luchesi

Ariasexta said:


> Science is not a belief system to be utterly precise, it should not overstep its ethical boundaries to conflate with other cultural, religious motives. But sometimes, it is given the priviledge to trespass the rigorous ethical confinement and to intervene into multiple irrelevant processes upon *morally contemptible* grounds. Being a profession of high respectability for its rigor and severity, it never really observes the level of dignity of its due. It needs people to guide it too when it pretends to guide people.


Science is comprised of scientific findings.

The scientific method involves looking for reliable, repeatable evidence and then making predictions from the evidence… and then verifying the predictions and making conclusions, while others are trying to falsify the conclusions. On and on.
What cultures do with the findings is totally separate from science.

Should we stop 'looking'? We would probably lead happier lives. I recommend people have an alternative, happy belief system, because it's healthier for us psychologically and our immune systems. 
The big problem is there are no complete theories. We would have to find out HOW the universe came out of WHAT? A very rare sequence of quantum fluctuations (since we don't detect it happening all the time)? A prior universe? Some type of creative intelligence?


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## Rogerx

We don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.


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## eljr

Luchesi said:


> HOW the universe came out of WHAT?


This thinking is so fundamentally flawed. (I don't mean you but rather this approach)

The universe always was and always will be (dependent on how you define universe). The idea of a "beginning" or "end" is a construct of humans, not of the universe.

I still recall when Mr. Hawking claimed information was lost on the event horizon, this was in the 80's. I was perplexed, how could he come to such a conclusion? Luckily Susskind came along and Hawking admitted, information is indeed preserved in black hole evaporation. Anyway, I feel the same level of frustration as I did then when science refers to a "beginning."


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## Ariasexta

Luchesi said:


> Science is comprised of scientific findings.
> 
> The scientific method involves looking for reliable, repeatable evidence and then making predictions from the evidence… and then verifying the predictions and making conclusions, while others are trying to falsify the conclusions. On and on.
> What cultures do with the findings is totally separate from science.
> 
> Should we stop 'looking'? We would probably lead happier lives. I recommend people have an alternative, happy belief system, because it's healthier for us psychologically and our immune systems.
> The big problem is there are no complete theories. We would have to find out HOW the universe came out of WHAT? A very rare sequence of quantum fluctuations (since we don't detect it happening all the time)? A prior universe? Some type of creative intelligence?


The conclusions often get translated into profit, and profit influences all aspects of humanity, science can not extricate itself from the entanglement into irrelevant controversies on its own and still it needs to continually clarify itself in these controversies. Even making interpretations detached from the scientific protocols, then it shows that the process of our science is not refined enough to clarify itself from ethical and moral pardoxes, therefore it is "interested" for some people to reform the whole moral and ethical traditions, norms from top to down in order to make way for these questionable processes. Science is not yet reaching the end of all the answers for humanity, but somehow it is trying to usurp the freedom of thinking to its advantage.

Science has provided many tools for metaphysical philosophy as well, but badly abused by payroll philosophers so far. For example, modern quantum theory provides proofs of both Hermetic doctrines about the universal correspondance and wave nature of everything; also inspired my own philosophy of metaphysical chaos system. :lol:

I am going to continue using scientific tools and ideas for my way of thinking, I am grateful for this part. As science develops, humanity should discover a way to universal freedom of application in *a good way*, however, modern materialistic ethics restrict the possibility of scientific developments and applications in better ways, but instead of that, given many nonsensical and evil illusions of interpretations of the evidences and traditions.


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## Ariasexta

My basic morale of Chaos Metaphysics: like evils stalking human faith, an angel also stalking the evil in the back too, thus insisting on the most tangible *consequence *being the best form of knowledge. Chaos metaphysics avoid expressive complexity, my short and minimalist poems, are an exhibition of this philosophy. Almost all of my posts get motivated by my own elaboration of this philosophy. I really want to teach, but by doctrine it is *idiosyncratic *to all individuals, that says, everyone is using my philosophy already and giving their own results. My own is due to my personality. Something you already have, that is, like a particle of in the immense cosmic void, awaiting to be gathered somewhere. Some people do not understand my metaphysics because, they are afraid of the consequences of something of their own, one will understand perfectly when learn to face up to their own consequences: easy for easy people, difficult for difficult people, like a mirror. You know, it is why I do not feel the need to preach, everyone is a complete living book of Chaos. Do not push yourself, this Chaos is heavy enough to crush any sane man if going to far, it is OK you do not understand it well, just live the way that is easy and feasible that is enough.


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## Flamme




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## SixFootScowl

Flamme said:


>


Interesting because I always heard that quote being from Henry Ford. Now we may know where he got it from.


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## Luchesi

eljr said:


> This thinking is so fundamentally flawed. (I don't mean you but rather this approach)
> 
> The universe always was and always will be (dependent on how you define universe). The idea of a "beginning" or "end" is a construct of humans, not of the universe.
> 
> I still recall when Mr. Hawking claimed information was lost on the event horizon, this was in the 80's. I was perplexed, how could he come to such a conclusion? Luckily Susskind came along and Hawking admitted, information is indeed preserved in black hole evaporation. Anyway, I feel the same level of frustration as I did then when science refers to a "beginning."


Yes, you're correct, but more relevantly, bounded universes like ours remind me of the lives of human beings. They both come out of an eternity of time, they develop and then they dissipate.

Within the universe, billions of years before we are born our atoms are formed. And then we're born and live 100 years or less. We develop intelligent opinions and then they're mostly dissipated to the 4 winds. The body dies and goes back into the earth, the earth ends up in its star and that star ends up in a black hole, only to start evaporating out over trillions of years. So there's a near-eternity before and after, for both this universe and for the information currently in each of us (according to currently-accepted cosmologies).


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## Flamme

SixFootScowl said:


> Interesting because I always heard that quote being from Henry Ford. Now we may know where he got it from.


Maybe someone was misquoted but I would go with Con-Fu-Tzi as the original source of this practical wisdom...


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## Luchesi

Flamme said:


> Maybe someone was misquoted but I would go with Con-Fu-Tzi as the original source of this practical wisdom...


It's clever wordplay (and it can inspire), but it's not really true if you think about it.


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## Ariasexta

> The universe always was and always will be (dependent on how you define universe). The idea of a "beginning" or "end" is a construct of humans, not of the universe.


Interesting point, what if the beginning and end as the foundamental structure of the time, and this beginning and end, to be treated as mirror effect not the cause and effect sense. That is, the beginning and end are actually convertible, the end can be taken as the beginning and vice versa for the beginning, so time does exist, but the direction is based on consciousness and human choice. Humans only choose to see the direction that is convenient for them, so in consequence, they can only flow adrift on one set direction of time. The beginning and the end are virtually the same, but inverted, this inversion movement of mirror universe creates our sense of time, like a clock tickin against a mirror, but both are true not just images against a real object.

I just did a little experiment myself: holding a table clock against the mirror, in the mirror the moving arm of second does go couter-clockwise.


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## eljr

Luchesi said:


> The body dies and goes back into the earth, the earth ends up in its star and that star ends up in a black hole, only to start evaporating out over trillions of years. So* there's a near-eternity before and after*, for both this universe and for the information currently in each of us (according to currently-accepted cosmologies).


There is an eternity before and after. You may apprise the currently-accepted cosmologies of this. :tiphat:


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## Luchesi

eljr said:


> There is an eternity before and after. You may apprise the currently-accepted cosmologies of this. :tiphat:


Yes, I ask myself, how could it not be the eternity before and also after?


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## SixFootScowl

I almost put this in the joke thread but it is more a wise saying, at least that is how the pastor used it in the sermon I listened to.

A minister was driving home from Sunday service with his wife. Feeling really good about the sermon he just preached, he got to talking about the quality of sermons. He noted that there are not many ministers these days that can put together a good sermon. He obviously thought he was one of the good ones. After reflecting on that statement for a moment, his wife said, "I think there is one less good minister out there than you realize."

What does the Bible say, "Judge not, lest ye be judged."


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## TxllxT

*Snoopy*


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## Luchesi

Being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery. 

Andy Warhol


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## Luchesi

Ah yes, wise words.


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## Ariasexta

The most serious matter in the world is that one has to understand that nothing is TOO serious.
--Me


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## SixFootScowl




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## progmatist

There's nothing new under the sun: Solomon.

Just as true in today's technological age as in Solomon's day. We use our advanced technology as weapons against each other. Social media was supposed to bring everyone together. Instead, it's the greatest source of political polarization.


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## Luchesi

The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart. 

-- Benjamin Franklin


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## Ariasexta

Be rich for oneself, not for anyone else or anything else. 
--Ariasexta


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## Ariasexta

Luchesi said:


> The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart.
> 
> -- Benjamin Franklin


I am sorry, this is one of the worst quotes I have ever known.


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## SixFootScowl

The reason that some people get lost in thought is that it is unfamiliar territory.

--someone's signature on a different forum


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## jegreenwood

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” - William Faulkner

“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” - L. P. Hartley

So which is it?

(Came across both these quotes in my reading today)


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## SixFootScowl

jegreenwood said:


> "The past is never dead. It's not even past." - William Faulkner
> 
> "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." - L. P. Hartley
> 
> So which is it?
> 
> (Came across both these quotes in my reading today)


Don't know, but the past is unchangeable (though also to a large degree unknowable), the future is just a dream but coming at us fast, and the present just doesn't last long enough to grab hold of.


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## Ariasexta

SixFootScowl said:


> Don't know, but the past is unchangeable (though also to a large degree unknowable), the future is just a dream but coming at us fast, and the present just doesn't last long enough to grab hold of.


I have heard that in boxing human fist can faster than brain can think, so the boxers have to learn how to react to fists incoming instinctively and instantly without any thinking process. This means , in the intense challenges, humans must use some instincts as well.


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## progmatist

"Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny." - Frank Zappa


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## Luchesi

Ariasexta said:


> I have heard that in boxing human fist can faster than brain can think, so the boxers have to learn how to react to fists incoming instinctively and instantly without any thinking process. This means , in the intense challenges, humans must use some instincts as well.


Yes, the joy of playing an instrument comes from those unique feelings of our muscle memory speeding along with very little thinking (just listening for the correct sounds of the anchoring shifts).


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## SixFootScowl

Ariasexta said:


> I have heard that in boxing human fist can faster than brain can think, so the boxers have to learn how to react to fists incoming instinctively and instantly without any thinking process. This means , in the intense challenges, *humans must use some instincts as well*.


I would say it is the result of intense training and development of muscle memory.


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## Ariasexta

Luchesi said:


> Yes, the joy of playing an instrument comes from those unique feelings of our muscle memory speeding along with very little thinking (just listening for the correct sounds of the anchoring shifts).


Humans have some unknown abilities that can help deal with all contingencies, muscle memory is one, music and happiness are also similar kinds of transcendental experiences, combining the past, present, future. Aristotle in his Nicomachean book explains that pleasure is neither a process nor and end, Buddha also stated that happiness is also immediate as long as one walks its path. Analytical and critical thinkings are about dealing with the past and reflecting on the present, of course present is impossible to know all but it is still important to us.


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## Ariasexta

SixFootScowl said:


> I would say it is the result of intense training and development of muscle memory.


Fighters instinct.


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## Luchesi

Ariasexta said:


> Humans have some unknown abilities that can help deal with all contingencies, muscle memory is one, music and happiness are also similar kinds of transcendental experiences, combining the past, present, future. Aristotle in his Nicomachean book explains that pleasure is neither a process nor and end, Buddha also stated that happiness is also immediate as long as one walks its path. Analytical and critical thinkings are about dealing with the past and reflecting on the present, of course present is impossible to know all but it is still important to us.


There were a lot less people living around others in The Buddha's time.


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## Ariasexta

I think the memes are evil, being not really loved or appreciated, propagating through sheer vulgar sensationalism and hypings. It is really an ugly epochial feature of our age of popular information highway to suffer them. I must point out that this so called Age of Information reveals much evil and vice of mankind that can not changed by technology as a part of the aeternal essence of our being. Who can be the one dares to reject it on daily basis. This is not humor nor wit, but an alternate mass hysteria on a lower frequency when acting on a large scale and persistency, it will be more destructive than hysteria of terror we commonly know. 

--Me


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## Ariasexta

I read a few paragraphs of Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle. I am powerfully inspired at the same time, but not flinching from pointing out certain faults with some of the ideas. Overall, there is a kind of formalism throughout the parts I have read, this formalism is also one of the most outstanding faults I find with almost all classical and modern western philosophical works I know so far. But this fault of formalism is still forgivable for the courage of expression on the part of philosophers. I do find that such formalism requires certain amount of respectable courage to express and apply onto practice, and this part of courage might have compensated many of the ideological imperfections even if in practices, many irrevocable wrongs could be done. I do not demand ideological perfection from philosophies, on the contrary, I would see faultless philosophies as a greater danger than any faulted ones. People do not need a perfect philosophy, but the philosophy which reflects their state of being of faultedness and perseverence toward truth and good. 

-Me.


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## Ariasexta

Nothing is more unforgivable than the idea of unforgiving. 

--Me


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## Luchesi

Ariasexta said:


> I read a few paragraphs of Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle. I am powerfully inspired at the same time, but not flinching from pointing out certain faults with some of the ideas. Overall, there is a kind of formalism throughout the parts I have read, this formalism is also one of the most outstanding faults I find with almost all classical and modern western philosophical works I know so far. But this fault of formalism is still forgivable for the courage of expression on the part of philosophers. I do find that such formalism requires certain amount of respectable courage to express and apply onto practice, and this part of courage might have compensated many of the ideological imperfections even if in practices, many irrevocable wrongs could be done. I do not demand ideological perfection from philosophies, on the contrary, I would see faultless philosophies as a greater danger than any faulted ones. People do not need a perfect philosophy, but the philosophy which reflects their state of being of faultedness and perseverence toward truth and good.
> 
> -Me.


It seems they clung to formalism because they sadly realized how little they knew about philosophizing our reality back then.


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## Ariasexta

Luchesi said:


> It seems they clung to formalism because they sadly realized how little they knew about philosophizing our reality back then.


Socrates and Plato are much less formalist than Aristotle, modern dialetical philosophis are the worst. However, formalism provides a solid ground for common practices, that is how western philosophers realize practicality of their sayings. For example, in the end of the Nicomachean book, Aristotle claims state education is the best mean for education in goodness, that was quite notorious as an example of formalism(everybody would agree here). Although motted with it, still highly inspiring in many arguments. In contrast, deformalized philosophers are Michel de Montaigne, Blaise Pascal, which are marked with spontaneity and brilliant flashes of self-reflection. However, Monsieur de Montaigne has been attacked much since 19th century. Read Virginia Woolfe`s essay about Monsieur de Montaigne in her Common Reader book, this is what I would say as a proper appraisal of a non-formalism philosophy.



Luchesi said:


> There were a lot less people living around others in The Buddha's time.


I know what you mean, more people more trouble, but it is irrelevant to the way of happiness Buddha said, maybe a bit more courage is necessary.


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## Luchesi

Ariasexta said:


> Socrates and Plato are much less formalist than Aristotle, modern dialetical philosophis are the worst. However, formalism provides a solid ground for common practices, that is how western philosophers realize practicality of their sayings. For example, in the end of the Nicomachean book, Aristotle claims state education is the best mean for education in goodness, that was quite notorious as an example of formalism(everybody would agree here). Although motted with it, still highly inspiring in many arguments. In contrast, deformalized philosophers are Michel de Montaigne, Blaise Pascal, which are marked with spontaneity and brilliant flashes of self-reflection. However, Monsieur de Montaigne has been attacked much since 19th century. Read Virginia Woolfe`s essay about Monsieur de Montaigne in her Common Reader book, this is what I would say as a proper appraisal of a non-formalism philosophy.
> 
> I know what you mean, more people more trouble, but it is irrelevant to the way of happiness Buddha said, maybe a bit more courage is necessary.


The natural philosophers knew enough about our universe and our reality to philosophize about it. That's funny.

Yes, they could come up with categories and they can use their human experience to enlighten others, but they were far off the mark now that we know about the very very deep problem of the quantized multiverse.


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## geralmar




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## Ingélou




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## Ingélou




----------



## Art Rock

You can only buy used mirrors.


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## Rogerx

Richard Strauss once said, “Remember you are making music not to amuse yourself but to delight the audience.


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## Rogerx

Sometimes you have to make a decision without thinking, and dare to trust your guts.

Ahmad Ahmadyar - writher


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## progmatist

Money doesn't grow on trees, it grows in cotton fields.

Yours truly.










For those who don't know, US currency is printed on paper made from cotton and linen. Not wood pulp.


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## Shaughnessy

The English prefer to think whilst sitting -

The French whilst standing -

The Americans whilst pacing -

The Irish - afterwards...


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## bagpipers

Wise words in a short quote are generally called "Pithy sayings"


----------



## Merl

This one's perfect for those of us who are bald and is a perfect smart comeback to the jibes of our inferior, hairier friends,

"Ah yes, but nothing grows on a busy road"


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## Bwv 1080

“If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.”

JH


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## Shaughnessy

May your troubles be as few and as far apart as my grandmother’s teeth.


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## Shaughnessy

Merl said:


> This one's perfect for those of us who are bald and is a perfect smart comeback to the jibes of our inferior, hairier friends,
> 
> "Ah yes, but nothing grows on a busy road"


Wisdom is the comb given to a man after he has lost his hair...


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## geralmar

"Luck is not a strategy."

Antonio Guterres, Secretary General, United Nations


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## Shaughnessy

A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest.

That's an actual Irish saying... 

What they left out was the part where it's a pretty good idea to make sure that your sweetheart and your wife are one and the same...


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## Nate Miller

"A friend in the market is better than money in your purse"

got that in a fortune cookie last night. If you've ever been to a fish market, I think you'd agree


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## geralmar

"A bottle In front of me
is better than a frontal lobotomy".

Well, it is... .


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## geralmar

"Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked".

-- Warren Buffet


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## Rogerx

New broom sweeps clean, but an old broom knows the corners


----------



## That Guy Mick

"I can resist anything except temptation." 

Oscar Wilde


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## JessieJim

I like "In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years "


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## Viajero

Never try to teach a pig to sing . . . it's a waste of time . . . and annoys the pig.
Viajero


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