Quotes

[MrBushido]

I've got plenty of common sense. I just choose to ignore it.
Calvin and Hobbes.

Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.
Oscar Wilde.

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.
Mae West.

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
Mark Twain.

Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
Frederic Bastiat.

It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.
Frederic Bastiat.

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
Benjamin Franklin.

[MJRH]

Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.
Oscar Wilde.

there being enough of this already on facebook, the society against the misattribution of quotations would like to register its disapproval

rather fittingly, poor oscar wasn't even himself when he said that!

[MrBushido]

there being enough of this already on facebook, the society against the misattribution of quotations would like to register its disapproval

rather fittingly, poor oscar wasn't even himself when he said that!

Sorry i haven't upgraded to web 2.0 yet, still working with the beta version so no FB for me

Do you know who it's from? it's always attributed to oscar when i see it...

[MJRH]

i didn't mean that i'd seen that quotation before, i meant that in an environment like facebook where there's a common tendency to uncritically redistribute anything you see online that you like, there's a bit of a plague of this kind of thing, which is normally avoided in these quarters, quite thankfully. not ragging on you, i've misquoted before too, so now i try to take a coupla seconds to fact-check whenever i share something

though i'd not seen it before, the quotation in question fails to match wilde's usual polished elegance. any time you see a sentence with contemporary syntax attributed to the holy trinity of wilde, twain, or churchill, you can bet yer booties somebody tacked their name onto it to legitimate it, especially if the sentiment expressed smells of that sickly-sweet air peculiar to cliched optimism and (case in point) self-help books.

but if you're interested in the backstory to that particular line, here...

It is tragic how few people ever “possess their souls” before they die. “Nothing is more rare in any man,” says Emerson, “than an act of his own.” It is quite true. Most people are other people. Their thoughts are some one else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

^errant bs, i actually preferred your fake wilde

[MrBushido]

i didn't mean that i'd seen that quotation before, i meant that in an environment like facebook where there's a common tendency to uncritically redistribute anything you see online that you like, there's a bit of a plague of this kind of thing, which is normally avoided in these quarters, quite thankfully. not ragging on you, i've misquoted before too, so now i try to take a coupla seconds to fact-check whenever i share something

though i'd not seen it before, the quotation in question fails to match wilde's usual polished elegance. any time you see a sentence with contemporary syntax attributed to the holy trinity of wilde, twain, or churchill, you can bet yer booties somebody tacked their name onto it to legitimate it, especially if the sentiment expressed smells of that sickly-sweet air peculiar to cliched optimism and (case in point) self-help books.

but if you're interested in the backstory to that particular line, here...



^errant bs, i actually preferred your fake wilde

Sorry, i misunderstood

I concur, i also like the fake one

Thanks for the link.

[Verdandi]

La vita è una combinazione di magia e pasta

Frederico Fellini

[Faust]

No wonder he was such a fatty.

[BrittanyShrevas]

Work Smart not Hard !

[therawbook]

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
― Haruki Murakami

[Faust]

"In school they tell him sometimes to stop looking out the window. This teacher or that teacher. The answer is not out there, they tell him. And he always wants to say that's exactly where the answer is."

Don DeLillo - Underworld

[MrBushido]

"A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart."

Jonathan Swift.

"Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed."

Jonathan Swift.

"Life's a bitch and she ain't fucking for free."

Unknown. Someone told me this in mid or late 90s in the US and it stayed with me. I like it because of it's 'Truthiness' as Colbert would say.

Of course, i have to include one from bastiat...

"Law cannot organize labor and industry without organizing injustice."

Frederic Bastiat.

[zen dog]

I learned this in a beginning French class years ago and it has stayed with me and been in frequent use ever since:

"An excess of nectar is poison"

[apathy!]

^errant bs, i actually preferred your fake wilde

Sorry for resurrecting so many old posts on here.

Don't you think that this quote is especially relevant in the 21st century when so many people are literally basing their interactions and relationships with otehr people around shows like Family Guy or Jersey Shore. I see it all the time and it's really dissapointing. I'm not saying I'm not guilty of being influenced, but i think a lot of people are unaware of it.

thanks

[Faust]

"My painting represents the victory of the forces of darkness and peace over the powers of light and evil." - An Reinhardt

[MJRH]

Sorry for resurrecting so many old posts on here.

Don't you think that this quote is especially relevant in the 21st century when so many people are literally basing their interactions and relationships with otehr people around shows like Family Guy or Jersey Shore. I see it all the time and it's really dissapointing. I'm not saying I'm not guilty of being influenced, but i think a lot of people are unaware of it.

thanks

requoting the Wilde in question: It is tragic how few people ever “possess their souls” before they die. “Nothing is more rare in any man,” says Emerson, “than an act of his own.” It is quite true. Most people are other people. Their thoughts are some one else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

1) unless you've lived in more than one century, what makes you think that this hasn't always been the case? why do you say it's "especially relevant" in the 21st century, moreso than the cusp of the 20th, when Wilde wrote, or the 19th, when Emerson lived? there has always been "pulp fiction" or its equivalent, embraced by the many and derided by a would-be cultural elite. before television, there were gaudy romance novels that you could model yourself after; at one point newspapers were purportedly dumbing down the populace with their execrable gossip; and another oft-cited example is that opera was looked down upon by some in its beginning days as being somehow musically impure.

2) you have perhaps noticed that the A-word crops up around here? authent*****, i mean? and that the ensuing debate, however entertaining, enlightening, or simply migraine-inducing, never goes anywhere? well, this quotation is authenticity's twin: Wilde is setting himself up as Grand Arbiter of the Authentic. never trust anybody that does that, and try not to do it yourself. it's poor form.

3) if one were to be snarky, one might point out that Wilde himself is guilty of merely quoting Emerson (oh no!), and that consequently, by his own assertion, everything he says is trite (dear me!), and he truly feels nothing (what fraudulence!). what i mean by this is that no matter what you say, i can accuse you of not "truly feeling" it. you know, in your "soul."

4) i'd like to know what circumstances have led to your forced exposure to people who base their lives off of jersey shore. at least, i'm hoping the exposure is forced