Favorite Quotes

[thesummerqueen]

In the spirit of Rev Rye's "life lessons" I thought I'd open a thread where we can post quotes from people, or books, or wherever, that influence us. I've got a few here.

First, Neil Gaimon. If you, as an atheist, have not had the pleasure of reading American Gods or Good Omens (written with Terry Pratchett)...get off your ass. And if you love comics and haven't read the Sandman series, get off your ass even more. The Endless fucking rock. These are just a few selections that I whittled down to, because if I could I'd copy and past every one of his books into here.

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"- The one I just hate is when I'm just an actor on a strange television version of my life. Have you ever had that dream?
- Doesn't everyone?"
Clark Kent to Batman, in The Wake.

"Every story has got a happy end - you just have to know when you stop telling."
~ Preludes and Nocturnes

So yeah, Jesus does pretty good over here. But I met a guy who said he saw him hitchhiking by the side of the road in Afghanistan and nobody was stopping to give him a ride. You know? It all depends on where you are. – American Gods

Shadow shook his head. “You know,” he said, “I think I would rather be a man than a god. We don’t need anyone to believe in us. We just keep going anyhow. It’s what we do.” – American Gods

God moves in extremely mysterious, not to say, circuitous ways. God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players*, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time. – Good Omens (*ie., everybody)

He'd been an angel once. He hadn't meant to Fall. He'd just hung around with the wrong people. – Good Omens

It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people. – Good Omens

There never was an apple, in Adam's opinion, that wasn't worth the trouble you got into for eating it. – Good Omens

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Second, from one of our members:

Imagine a frog with 16 legs and a massive vagina on its forehead. Who gives a shit what we can imagine. What matters is what actually exists.

From PZ Myers, on Anonymous attacking Westboro Baptist:

"In the immortal lines of Ash: "Good, bad, I'm the one with the gun." Do not tease the guys with the high tech weapon when all you've got to defend yourself is a loony book of Iron Age dogma."

The quote where my neck tattoo comes from:

The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities. - James Allen

Lewis Black - the man who became the voice of all the anger I felt building up inside. He yells so I don't have to.

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So why do Bush and his Christian buddies believe marriage is between a man and a woman? Because it says so in the Bible - the Old Testament, to be exact. Of course, they've forgotten we have a thing in this country called "the separation of church and state" or, as I call it in layman's terms, "the tough shit law." But they also seem to have forgotten that the New Testament is the Christian Bible and the Old Testament is the Jewish Bible. Please allow me to speak on behalf of my people: "Keep your fucking Christian Right noses out of our reading material!"

The Catholics have it right. I love what they do. That whole "the pope's infallible" thing is tremendous. Let's face facts: If you took somebody with no religious leanings whatsoever and locked that person in a psych ward with nobody around and no stimuli, the Catholic religion is exactly what he'd come up with.

Allow me to explain how our federal government works. To begin with, by the federal government I mean Democrats ad Republicans working together. And the only thing dumber than a Democrat and a Republican is when those pricks work together. You see, in our two-party system, the Democrats are the party of no ideas and the Republicans are the party of bad ideas. It usually goes something like this. A Republican will stand up in Congress and say, "I've got a really bad idea." And a Democrat will immediately jump to his feet and declare, "And I'm gonna make it shittier."

Who knew that the devil had a factory where he made millions of fossils, which his minions distributed throughout the earth, in order to confuse my tiny brain?

It’s absolutely stupid that we live without an ozone layer. We have men, we’ve got rockets, we’ve got saran wrap – FIX IT!!!

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Carlin, who never failed to comment on bullshit of any kind:

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.

Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky, who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer and burn and scream until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you and he needs money.

Have you noticed that most of the women who are against abortion are women you wouldn’t want to fuck in the first place? There’s such balance in nature.

Here’s a bumper sticker I’d like to see: “We are the proud parents of a child who’s self-esteem is sufficient that he doesn’t need us promoting his minor scholastic achievements on the back of our car.”

I have as much authority as the Pope. I just don’t have as many people who believe it.

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Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.

There are two things that I want you to make up your minds to: first, that you are going to have a good time as long as you live - I have no use for the sour-faced man - and next, that you are going to do something worthwhile, that you are going to work hard and do the things you set out to do.

And words I end up saying all too often these days:

Some motherfuckers are always tryin' to ice skate uphill!

[5thHorseman]

Christopher Hitchens:
'“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.” '

'“Exceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.”

“If you gave [Jerry] Falwell an enema he could be buried in a matchbox.”


George Orwell:

'A dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.'

'As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.'

Albert Einstein:

'A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.'

[frankiej]

First, we dine, then copulation.

a quote from the movie "Society"...

[Tiberius]

From Firefly:

Book: What are we up to, sweetheart?
River Tam: Fixing your Bible.
Book: I, um...
[alarmed]
Book: What?
River Tam: Bible's broken. Contradictions, false logistics - doesn't make sense.
[she's marked up the bible, crossed out passages and torn out pages]
Book: No, no. You-you-you can't...
River Tam: So we'll integrate non-progressional evolution theory with God's creation of Eden. Eleven inherent metaphoric parallels already there. Eleven. Important number. Prime number. One goes into the house of eleven eleven times, but always comes out one. Noah's ark is a problem.
Book: Really?
River Tam: We'll have to call it early quantum state phenomenon. Only way to fit 5000 species of mammal on the same boat.
[rips out page]

[ElDinero]

My favourite person to quote is Mark Twain. I could probably set down a hundred brilliant MT quotes, but for the sake of brevity, I'll just go with a couple of my favourites:

'It does look as if Massachusetts were in a fair way to embarrass me with kindnesses this year. In the first place, a Massachusetts judge has just decided in open court that a Boston publisher may sell, not only his own property in a free and unfettered way, but also may as freely sell property which does not belong to him but to me; property which he has not bought and which I have not sold. Under this ruling I am now advertising that judge's homestead for sale, and, if I make as good a sum out of it as I expect, I shall go on and sell out the rest of his property'

'A God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell — mouths mercy, and invented hell — mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!'

There's a quote often attributed to him that I enjoy, though it's not confirmed as his: 'Never argue with an idiot. They'll bring you down to their level and beat you with experience' which I feel is often apt on these forums.

'I thought I'd begin by reading a poem by Shakespeare. But then I thought 'why should I?'. He never reads any of mine' - Spike Milligan

'Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that, who cares? You're a mile away and you have his shoes' - Anon

[Mister Agenda]

We have to keep our God placated with prayers, and even then we are never sure of him--how much higher and finer is the Indian's God......Our illogical God is all-powerful in name, but impotent in fact; the Great Spirit is not all-powerful, but does the very best he can for his injun and does it free of charge.
- Mark Twain, Marginalia written in copy of Richard Irving Dodge's Our Wild Indians

[Milky Tea]

One of my favourite from Richard Feynman

"In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is – if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. That is all there is to it."

[The Grand Nudger]

"It's a long detour to a faithless friend, though he live by the road; But to a good friend, however distant, there are many shortcuts."-Attributed to Odin.

[Faith No More]

"The chances of finding out what's really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied..." - Slartbartfast, Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[JollyForr]

Him not busy being born is busy dying - Bob Dylan

The meaning of life is that it ends - Kafka

Never, never, never give up - Churchill

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all - Wilde

Get busy living or get busy dying - Shawshank Redemption

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that has opened for us - Bell

We have met the enemy, and he is us - Walt Kelly