Poll: Words to live your life by(?)

[Coffeejack]

Hello. My name is Pebble. Welcome to my thread.

This has probably been done before, but my life is a bit dull right now and could use the illumination that I am sure this thread will bring. Have you ever tried to live your life by the advice of well-known philosophers or comedians? Are there any particularly profound or amusing quotes you can remember reading? You can submit anything here, be it from video games, books, films, television, the internet or real life that you think has changed you in some way.

I'll start with something I think people will find inspiring:

?The worst thing I can be is the same as everybody else. I hate that.?
- Arnold Schwarzennegger.

 

[Esotera]

I love my family motto (semper constans et fidelis) as I've recently been taught that whilst it means you should always be faithful to those you care about, it also means that you should be faithful to who you are, and not take any bullshit and do things you don't want to do. So I guess to a certain extent I live by those words.

And pretty much any proverb, particularly if it's in Latin, is worth taking heed of. I don't generally go looking for them, I've been taught most of them by Total War games...

 

[thesilentman]

I take a bit of both: Like Esotera, I'll heed anything Latin, but I like making my own philosophy instead. I'm making a list of philosophy that I'll need anything in life and the first one that's on the list is "do what you like, not for the sake of someone else."

 

[omega 616]

Could always go with Fatman, "laugh and grow fat!".

There have been a few that I like, most of which can be found by simply typing "quotes" into google. There are a good number of gems, a lot are quite crap though.

My personal favorite is "The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide", although living up to that is near impossible.

 

[Euryalus]

I like this one by Aristotle

-"I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self."

these ones by C.S. Lewis

-"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival."


-"Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn."

This one by Oscar Wilde

-"True friends stab you in the front."

This one by Ayn Rand

-"Degrees don't matter... one does not bargain about inches of evil."

And because I'm narcissistic one of my own quotes

-"...humor gives a glimpse of what freedom is like."

EDIT: I forgot to actually answer the question! No I don't live by these phrases, rather they help to concisely describe more complicated ideas that entire books could be devoted to.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Ok, this one is all me.

"Don't be a dick"

-'Tron

Words to live by.

Who needs to throw needlessly wordy "profound" nonsense around anyway?

Oh I will say I like the stuff in Code Geass when Lulu is in one of his depressions over whether he can keep going with this Zero stuff he comes to the conclusion that (paraphased) "the fighting ends when someone wins" and

"If I stop now, all the innocents that have died, even indirectly from my actions their deaths would become meaningless. So i'll keep going regardless of the inevitable further casualties so that their deaths would actually mean something once I win"

I do like my anti-heroes...


As for amusing quotes... I still have to go for Diana's "jokes" in LoL. She has the worst sense of humour ever, they don't even make sense! So unfunny they're hilarious.

"Knock knock. Who's there? The Moon. It's far away! You were alone the whole time! Hahaha!"

More direct but still funny one from Nocturne

"Weather forecast for tonight: Dark with a chance of pain!"

 

[KingCrInuYasha]

For the moment, it's a tossup between this:

"It's what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are." - Mewtwo

And this:

"You are a bunghole! And so am I! There will be more bungholes after me!" - The Great Cornholio

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

"Everything ever said in Gurren Lagann"

 

[Eddie the head]

I have always liked: "The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."

Aka I try not to be passive about things, if someone is a prick call them out on it. It's also one of the reasons I think fan base can be judged by there "Vocal minority." You know who I am talking about.

 

[FolkLikePanda]

I try me best but sometimes I forget them and get angry easily.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

No, I don't. However, I feel that may have just changed:

"You are a bunghole! And so am I! There will be more bungholes after me!" - The Great Cornholio

 

[Tiger King]

"if you are going through hell keep going"
sir winston Churchill.
I like this one, there has been times in my life where I've wanted to give up or quit but I pressed on.
I'm hoping one day I'll get to where I want to be.

 

[Playing The System]

"Dance f***er dance." - The Offspring: You're Gonna Go Far Kid.

 

[The Funslinger]

Anything said by Mark Twain.

Particularly, 'Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.'

 

[Lieju]

There are plenty of good advice I try to keep in mind, like 'don't be a jerk', 'don't assume things about people', 'don't sink to their level' etc, but usually they are sort of sentiments, not actual quotes. This, however:

"World is people walking around, going in the rooms and saying things."
-Mark Corrigan

has stuck with me, because how true it is, and how I dislike it being true.

Basically, your actual qualifications and skill matters less than just having confidence and bluffing your way through life.

Also,
"Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster."

Because when I read it as a kid, without probably even knowing where that quote originally came from, it hit me, the realisation that people can do horrible things to fight evil.
Then again, it's pretty much the same sentiment as 'don't sink to their level.'

As far as influental quotes go, there's also this, that I also read as a little kid. It's from The Egyptian, that's one of my all-time favourite books and something I first read as a 8-year old or so. It's not exactly advice to live by, but rather an observation of the world, and something to keep in mind.

"Everyone needs slaves. This is a fact, and also it's true that the society can not function without slaves. And yet it's also a fact that the people involved in the slave trade are despicable."

 

[necromanzer52]

Be excellent to each other.
Party on dudes!

I think if everybody followed the wisdom of Bill & Ted, the world would be a better place.

 

[Nouw]

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."
-Randy Pausch.

While like all quotes it shouldn't be used universally, it still has a great message.

 

[Joe Westlake]

I've always thought 'I got nothing but time, so the future is mine.'(Metric-Nothing But Time) was pretty true to me

 

[repeating integers]

Yes' lyrics usually make little sense, but sometimes they turn out genuinely profound stuff.

"Hate destroys the soul of anyone who tries to teach it" is a good one.

"Don't underrate, appreciate" is my motto.