Quotes/aphorisms that have actually helped you in life

[UncleSalty]

I think this one comes from either Brian Tracy or David Allen.

"People generally overestimate what they can accomplish in one year, but vastly underestimate what they can accomplish in five."

Thinking of this quote helps me keep a longer term focus when being derailed by the day to day fire drills that always pop up.

[Golden_Rhino]

"When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you."
Friedrich Nietzsche

"When a good man is hurt, all who would be called good must suffer with him."
Euripides

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe."
Friedrich Nietzsche

“Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist”
George Carlin

“You can observe a lot just by watching”
Yogi Berra

“We don’t own our memories; our memories own us.”
John Irving – From A Prayer for Owen Meany

“When you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras.”
Unkown

“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”
Muhammed Ali

"Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired."
Edgar Bergen

“Don’t ask for a light load, but rather ask for a strong back.”
Unknown

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall - think of it, always.”
Gandhi

“Never try to teach a pig to sing....it wastes your time and annoys the pig.”
Anonymous

“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.”
Mark Twain

“The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”
Winston Churchill

“Statistics always remind me of the fellow who drowned in a river whose average depth was three feet.”
Woody Hayes

“Money isn't real, George. It doesn't matter. It only seems like it does.”
Ray Liotta – in Blow

“Just because nobody complains doesn't mean all parachutes are perfect.”
Benny Hill

“I don’t play the cards I want; I play the cards I’m dealt.”
Anonymous

“A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.”
Jack London

“If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.”
Moshe Dayan

“It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required.”
Winston Churchill

“Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for joy.
And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and joy you have not yet begun to live.”
Thomas Merton

[fishfather]

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.”

Charles R. Swindoll quotes
--------------------------------------------

Charlie Kaufman: There was this time in high school. I was watching you out the library window. You were talking to Sarah Marsh.
Donald Kaufman: Oh, God. I was so in love with her.
Charlie Kaufman: I know. And you were flirting with her. And she was really sweet to you.
Donald Kaufman: I remember that.
Charlie Kaufman: Then, when you walked away, she started making fun of you with Kim Canetti. It was like they were making fun of *me*. You didn't know at all. You seemed so happy.
Donald Kaufman: I knew. I heard them.
Charlie Kaufman: How come you looked so happy?
Donald Kaufman: I loved Sarah, Charles. It was mine, that love. I owned it. Even Sarah didn't have the right to take it away. I can love whoever I want.
Charlie Kaufman: She thought you were pathetic.
Donald Kaufman: That was her business, not mine. You are what you love, not what loves you. That's what I decided a long time ago.
Donald Kaufman: Whats up?
Charlie Kaufman: Thank you.
Donald Kaufman: For what?

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I'm not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens.

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George Bernard Shaw
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
__________________________________________________ __

"The body, this mass of biomolecules, is a machine that acts according to a set of specifiable rules... We are machines, as are our spouses, our children, and our dogs... I believe myself and my children all to be mere machines. But this is not how I treat them. I treat them in a very special way, and I interact with them on an entirely different level. They have my unconditional love, the furthest one might be able to get from rational analysis. Like a religious scientist, I maintain two sets of inconsistent beliefs and act on each of them in different circumstances. It is this transcendence between belief systems that I think will be what enables mankind to ultimately accept robots as emotional machines, and thereafter start to empathize with them and attribute free will, respect, and ultimately rights to them... When our robots improve enough, beyond their current limitations, and when we credit humans, then too we will break our mental barrier, our need, our desire, to retain tribal specialness, differentiating ourselves from them."
Rodney Brooks

[NT!]

'only the wrong flags fly. only boring people are bored.'
-bukowski, hymn from the hurricane


the democrat is a young conservative; the consevative is an old democrat. the aristocrat is the democrat ripe and gone to seed--because both parties stand on one ground of the supreme value of property, which one endeavors to get, and the other to keep. . . as long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter, and our wine will burn our mouth. only that good profits which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men.

-RW Emerson

[holac]

What doesn't kill you....makes you stronger

[Hey_Porter]

[ QUOTE ]

"If you were born where they were born, with their genetics and upbringing, then you would think and do exactly as they have."

A good view to take before we pass judgment on others.

[/ QUOTE ]

This reminds me of my favorite quote:
"We always did feel the same, we just saw it from a different point of view."
-Bob Dylan, Tangled Up in Blue

[GBP04]

"If you get confused just listen to the music play"
-Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter


don't get stressed out; if you do, take some time out and relax

[HSB]

One can do a lot worse than Rudyard Kipling's "IF"

[ QUOTE ]
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

[/ QUOTE ]

There were some quotes and discussion earlier about how you wouldn't care what other people thought of you if you knew how infrequently they thought about you. This was countered with the notion that everyone is really judging you all the time.

Both points miss the point.

If you're judging me because I'm fat or because my hair is too long or because my beard is scrufty that says infinitely more about you than about me.

I tell my wife all the time that there are only two people in the world whose opinions matter, hers and mine.

[PBAR]

Get em young, treat em rough, tell em nothin.

-my old man on women

[gamblore99]

[ QUOTE ]


"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned the hard way that some poems dont rhyme, and some stories dont have a clear begining middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the most of it without knowing whats going to happen next."
- gilda radner





"Your death can give you a little warning, it always comes as a chill. Death is our eternal companion, it is always to our left, at an arm's length.
How can anyone feel so important when we know that death is stalking us. The thing to do when you're impatient is to turn to your left and ask advice from your death. An immense amount of pettiness is dropped if your death makes a gesture to you, or if you catch a glimpse of it, or if you just have the feeling that your companion is there watching you.
The issue of our death is never pressed far enough. Death is the only wise adviser that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you're about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you're wrong; that nothing really matters outside its touch. Your death will tell you, "I haven't touched you yet."



[/ QUOTE ]

Most of these aphorisms really suck. Except these two. I really like these two. I think they have some value.