Here are some quotes I've accumulated over the years. They used to be in my .plan file on my Panix account, but the list grew a bit long. Some of them have cycled through my .sig. If you have any quotes you'd like to add, please mail them to me. If they fit my personal philosophy, I'll include them. Either way, I'll send you e-mail letting you know.
Last Updated: 7 December 2002
"Of course I love you,"
the flower said to him.
"It is my fault that you
have not known it all the while.
That is of no
importance..."
—found upon randomly opening The Little Prince, by Antoine
de Saint-Exupery
The legend went, unconfirmed and unaccredited, but
still propagated...
—Villette by Charlotte Bronte
(first published in 1852... but doesn't it sound like USENET?)
"Surely you jest? You want to go to the land of
ice and snow for hot nights
and
heartwarmth? Sheesh. Some people just don't get it (which is
EXACTLY
why you want to move,
I know — and I meant the caring,
nothing rude or nasty, so
please
huff thee not)!
—my friend Bruce Adelsohn on my moving to Boston
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing,
is nothing,
and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow but
he simply
cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.
Chained by
his certitudes, he is a slave. He has forfeited his
freedom.
Only the person who risks is truly free.
—Leo Buscaglia, Living, Loving, and Learning
(e-mailed to me by my friend Heidi)
We didn't have the sort of relationship where I could
call him baby
and tell him I missed him. I did anyway.
"I missed you,
too," he said, looking faintly surprised.
—Liz Clarke, "Reasons Not to Go to Fort Lauderdale"
(published in Slow Hand, ed. Michele Slung)
In the fabric of space and in the nature of
matter,
as in a great work of art, there
is, written small,
the artist's signature... there is an
intelligence that
antedates the
universe.
—Carl Sagan, Contact
Your brain is NOT in the shape you think it is.
It is a sphere. And the more you think, the faster
it spins. The more things you think about at once,
the more directions it spins in at the same time.
It's like one of those floating compass thingies —
it spins and spins and spins and makes you seasick
and it takes time to wind down again after using it
a lot for a while. Really.
—From my friend Merv, aka Tom Murphy,
aka The Marvelous
MERV
You couldn't get a clue if you covered yourself with
clue musk
and danced the clue
mating dance naked in a clue field during
the clue mating
season.
—From "an entire Usenet group," quoted on the
Techno-Fandom mailing list by
Seth Breidbart.
What is a Child?
An experiment. A fresh
attempt to produce
the just man
made perfect: that is, to make humanity divine. And
you
will vitiate the experiment if you make the slightest attempt
to abort it into some fancy figure of your own: for example,
your
notion of a good man or a womanly woman. If you treat
it as a little
wild beast to be tamed, or as a pet to be played
with, or even as a
means to save you trouble and to make
money for you (and these are our
commonest ways), it may
fight its way through in spite of you and save
its soul alive;
for all its instincts will resist you, and possibly be
strengthened
in the resistance; but if you begin with its own holiest
aspirations,
and suborn them for your own purposes, then there is
hardly
any limit to the mischief you may do. Swear at a child,
throw
your boots at it, send it flying from the room with a cuff or
a
kick; and the experience will be as instructive to the child as
a
difficulty with a short-tempered dog or a bull.
—From A Treatise on Parents and Children, by George
Bernard Shaw.
This and other
texts can be found at Project Gutenberg, a
wonderful source
for ASCII texts of classic literature.
Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is
incapable of
dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and
cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by
relaxing
this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my
senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game, I
converse, and am merry with my friends...
—David Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature
The more real a thing is the less you can see it. After
you reach the
level where you see all those things which are not to be seen, then
you
open your eyes and everything is clear to you, and it feels like you
saw
it all the time. To love someone is the deepest thing in the world,
but
you can't prove it. You can't put your finger on it, but it's the most
real thing in the world. G-d is the most, utmost real thing in the
world,
and you can't see Him, but after you don't see Him, you see Him. Then
you
can see Him everywhere, in every flower, in every cloud, in every
little
stone, in every candle. When we say the Shema, G-d is One, we close
our
eyes, because first we don't see G-d, we're blind, we just believe,
but
then we open our eyes and it is so clear, He's always there.
—Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach
If you can't find it on the web, when you find it, put
it
there.
—my friend John Bowker
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is
that
English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just
borrow words;
on occasion, English has pursued other languages down
alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new
vocabulary.
—James D. Nicoll
Filk is
what you get when old folkies discover science fiction and
fantasy,
and start writing Childe-style ballads about the Space
Age.
—Margaret Middleton, on rec.music.filk
Objective: To have a job that pays decently and doesn't
make my brain
atrophy
or make me want to chew off my own limbs to
escape.
—my
friend Laurie
Brunner
The ladies men admire, I've heard,
Would shudder at a wicked word.
Their candle gives a single light;
They'd rather stay at home at night.
They do not keep awake till three,
Nor read erotic poetry.
They never sanction the impure,
Nor recognize an overture.
They shrink from powders and from paints...
So far, I've had no complaints.
—Dorothy Parker
They have to convert our agenda into something aggressive. Two guys
wanting to be happy together are invading their marriages. Helping a
kid
who's getting beaten up at school is promoting homosexuality. If you
gave
me a million dollars, I wouldn't know how to promote homosexuality. Do
I
hire Don King?
—U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, quoted on the ~gayhistory mailing
list.
For that matter, fossil evidence suggests that
Neanderthals had very sizable brains,
and they did not even last long
enough to invent
standardized tests.
—Natalie Angier, "Do Races Differ? Not
Really, DNA Shows,"
The New York Times, 22 August
2000.
UNIX is a D&S system; so long as you're properly
submissive,
it'll be a really nice top and do everything for
you.
—my friend Spam
The Kitten Credo:
If it moves, it is a toy.
If it doesn't move, hit it and make it move. Now, it is a toy.
If you hit it and it doesn't move, then climb it. It is a toy.
—Paul Estin
He who knows a multitude of songs, or knows how to strum a harp
with his hands, suffers the less for that; he has in him his gift
of music, which God has given to him.
—Old English maxim, as translated by Kevin Wald on rec.music.filk
I figure there's no real way to be PC. All I try to do
is be considerate.
—Jacob Sommer, on alt.callahans
It is because they are external that these racial
differences
strike us so forcibly, and we automatically assume that
differences of similar magnitude exist below the surface,
in the rest of our genetic makeup. This is simply not so:
the remainder of our genetic makeup hardly differs at all.
—Professor Luigi Luca Cavalli
Sforza,
in The Great Human Diasporas
All the passions make us commit faults;
love makes
us commit the most ridiculous ones.
—La Rochefoucauld
Comparing information and knowledge
is like asking whether the
fatness of a pig
is more or less green than the designated
hitter
rule.
—David Guaspari
Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word!
Give me back my book and take my kiss instead.
Was it my enemy or my friend I heard,
``What a big book for such a little head!''
Come, I will show you now my newest hat,
And you may watch me purse my mouth and prink!
Oh, I shall love you still, and all of that.
I never again shall tell you what I think.
I shall be sweet and crafty, soft and sly;
You will not catch me reading any more:
I shall be called a wife to pattern by;
And some day when you knock and push the door,
Some sane day, not too bright and not too stormy,
I shall be gone, and you may whistle for me.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
found in someone's collection of good
poetry.
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of —
Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence.
Hovering there
I've chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up along delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark, or even eagle flew;
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
—John Gillespie Magee Jr.,
"High Flight"
Rob's Rule of Tolerance:
"All religions are right, up to the point that
they start insisting
someone else is wrong."
—my friend Rob Wynne
I kind of think of ignorance as a prerequisite for bigotry.
"Before taking Bigotry 203, the student must first have passed
Hatred
101 and Ignorance 101. Stupidity 101 is recommended
but not
required."
—my friend Robin Holly
It seems to me that a man should not engage in the hunt
unless
he is on such terms with his wife or wives that he can
recount
the lurid details at home to be giggled over
later.
—Robert Heinlein
You have no enemies you say?
Alas, my friend, the boast is poor.
He who has mingled in the fray
Of duty, that the brave endure,
Must have made foes. If you have none,
Small is the work that you have done.
You've hit no traitor on the hip,
You've dashed no cup from perjured lip,
You've never turned the wrong to right,
You've been a coward in the fight.
—Charles McKay,
"No Enemies"
Trouble no one about their religion — respect
them
in their views and demand that they respect
yours.
—Shawnee Proverb
And on Monday, December 10, 2001, the entire Usenet community
stopped, went to Gooja, and
collectively gazed at its navel.
—Aahz
Maruch
If people bring so much courage to this world, the world
has to kill
them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world
breaks
everyone and afterwards many are strong at the broken places.
But those that will not break it kills.
It kills the very good, and the very gentle, and the very brave
impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you
too, but there will be no special hurry.
—Ernest Hemingway, in
A Farewell to Arms
Man is a fountain of immense meaning, not merely a drop
in the ocean of being.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel, in Who Is
Man?
"I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by
arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction:
that is, Indo-Iranian; as
far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani,
Persian,
Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are
enquiring
whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I
regret that I appear to have
no ancestors of that gifted
people."
—J.R.R. Tolkien, 1938,
when approached by Nazi Germany about translating his books (as quoted
here).