Words of wisdom

[Barbas]

This was partially inspired by Twitter, but I tried it a few times and I'm raisinably certain it won't cause undue brain damage.

So, what are some words of wisdom that have stayed with you all these years? Let us share, care, laugh and learn.

 

[bearlotz]

I've got a two-fer:

Close your ears to the voice of greed, and you can turn a gift for one into a gift for many. (I'm sure someone is going to pop up and let the class know where that came from, but they only get points if they didn't just Google it)

In life never look up to anyone, and never look down on anyone either; only ever look straight across.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Wisest words of all time, from a US Army Drill Sergeant (No idea where he got it from):

Every day is a great day. The only day that sucks is the day you die, and then it doesn't matter, because you're dead.

Truly words to live by.

 

[MythicMatt]

"Time you enjoyed wasting isn't wasted time." - Pretty sure someone on the internet said this.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

"Well, Art is Art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know."
~Groucho Marx

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

"If you can't laugh, what can you do?"
...
"Become a politician?"

-

"If you think things can't get any worse, then you lack sufficient imagination."

-

To the question 'What has been your biggest disappointment?'
...
"Getting exactly what i wanted." Lionel Shriver.

-

"The only real losers in life are the ones who are so afraid to lose, that they don't even try."

These are paraphrased probably, i tend to be really terrible at finding the precise quote i'm thinking of.

Lastly;

"I must create a system or be enslaved by another mans; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create." William Blake

 

[EHKOS]

"When in doubt, look up. Nobody ever looks up."

Really only helpful for video games.

 

[Rattja]

"If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it"

-Mary Schmich

I would list more, but then I'd just end up with the entire Wear Sunscreen essay.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

Is that a George Carlin reference?

OT: When I find myself getting frustrated or upset about something in my life I repeat the same thing to myself

"First-world problems".

In the grand scheme of things, almost anything that happens to me is nothing compared to what is forced on people around the world. I don't have to worry about real hunger, living in fear of being killed or my family members being raped. If work is feeling overwhelming or or any other kind of daily stressor is bothering me I just remember that it could be much much worse.

 

[Dreph]

Someone at work had a demotivational daily calendars and one of them was someone slumped over his desk with the caption "When work feels overwhelming, just remember that you are going to die." Wiser words have never been spoken and now that is pinned up on the wall of my cubical.

 

[Torgo Nudho]

I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism and the negation of Liberalism meet and keep high festival, and the end learns to justify the means. You would hang a man of no position, like Ravaillac; but if what one hears is true, then Elizabeth asked the gaoler to murder Mary, and William III ordered his Scots minister to extirpate a clan. Here are the greater names coupled with the greater crimes. You would spare these criminals, for some mysterious reason. I would hang them, higher than Haman, for reasons of quite obvious justice; still more, still higher, for the sake of historical science.

"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines."

"Man's most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe."

We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. (John Ehrlichmann)

"The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it." -Alberto Brandolini

A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wave bands for news of himself. The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive--you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure, of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same program. Zaphod waved a hand and the channel switched again.

"The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else."

"Three can keep a secret if two are dead" (Benjamin Franklin)

This is a psychiatric failure, it's not a political failure; it's a failure of our ability to provide basic care for people who have 'brain diseases- that are seriously mentally. If these people had kidney diseases we wouldn't stand for it, but they don't understand the brain well enough and we have completely failed them.

"And yes, the founding fathers wanted you to have the right to bear arms, but the guys who wrote that would pee through all eight layers of their pants if they saw what guns are now. In 1787 shooting a bullet was only slightly faster than throwing one. If you wanted to be bullet proof in 1787 you put on a heavy coat. So with that in mind, I?m all about Americans having guns, as long as they?re the muskets from 1787 that take forever to load. " (Seth Meyers on SNL's Weekend Update regarding The 2nd Amendment)

 

[Barbas]

Is that a George Carlin reference?

No idea, but I find myself believing it. The game's Postal 2.

OT: When I find myself getting frustrated or upset about something in my life I repeat the same thing to myself

"First-world problems" . . .

I just say "Africa", because it's easier and because there's always something terrible happening to someone in Africa. Lovely elephants, though.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

Is that a George Carlin reference?

No idea, but I find myself believing it. The game's Postal 2.

OT: When I find myself getting frustrated or upset about something in my life I repeat the same thing to myself

"First-world problems" . . .

I just say "Africa", because it's easier and because there's always something terrible happening to someone in Africa. Lovely elephants, though.

Ah! I remember now. He has a bit talking about the "puke inducing" sticker people put on their car that says "Baby on Board". Then explains that he has a sticker that says "armed pitbull with AIDS on board" and even the psychos give him a wide birth.

Africa is a good shorthand. Plus, if I throw my hands up and say it very loudly and around other people I'm sure I could get some interesting looks.

 

[axlryder]

wear deodorant

also

floss at least once a day

 

[Saelune]

Edit: Just be nice to eachother, it shouldn't be rocket science.

 

[Sonmi]

In vino veritas, in aqua sanitas.

 

[axlryder]

The golden rule: Treat others how you want to be treated.

The platinum rule: Treat others how they want to be treated.

Great! I'd like to be treated to lunch, please.