The Great Quotes thread

[Tintin]

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”

— Marcus Aurelius

[Bill Ryan]

While defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy — or of a collective death-wish for the world.

John F. Kennedy

[Vicus]

...if the American people had ever known the truth about what we Bushes have done to this nation, we would be chased down in the streets and lynched.

- George H.W. Bush - Interview 1992

[Eva2]

“Existence is a grand cosmic joke, and we, the punchline, spend our days deciphering the laughter of the universe.”
–Jean-Paul Sartre

[Paul D.]

He could be wrong...he could be right ! 🎵😉 🙂

[Raskolnikov]

"We have art so that we shall not die of reality."

Nietzsche

[grapevine]

"In Russia, there comes the hope of the world, not as that sometimes termed of the communistic, or Bolshevik, no; but freedom, freedom! That each man will live for his fellow man! The principle has been born. It will take years for it to be crystallised, but out of Russia comes again the hope of the world.”

Edgar Cayce
Reading 3976-29, dated June 22, 1944

[Raskolnikov]

"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute."

George Bernard Shaw

[onawah]

"Nations are invisible lines that people assign meaning to.
A life, however, has real meaning and should only be taken as a last resort.
Righteousness can easily become rage.
Justice can easily become scorn."

The Witcher, Season 3 episode 4 "The Invitation"

[Bill Ryan]

The universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine.

Sir James Jeans, physicist, astronomer and mathematician, 1930

[Raskolnikov]

[Eva2]

"You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.”
–Friedrich Nietzsche

[Jamie]

I only came across the name Thomas Sowell for the first time, a few months back. By gosh what a wise sounding soul.

Here are a few of my favourite quotes from him:

“When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.”

“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.”

“Competition does a much more effective job than government at protecting consumers.”

“Sometimes it seems as if there are more solutions than problems. On closer scrutiny, it turns out that many of today’s problems are a result of yesterday’s solutions.”

- Thomas Sowell

[Michi]

“When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving advice, you have not done what I asked.

When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way, you are trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen to me and you feel you have to do something to solve my problem,
you have failed me, strange as that may seem.

So listen and just hear me. And, if you want to talk, wait a minute for your turn, and I’ll listen to you.”

- Anon.

[edina]

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function

[HopSan]

Nostalgy is good and healthy -- for young people.

-- Hopsanagoras

[Paul D.]

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.

-Richard Bach

[Tyler Macmillan]

"Learn as much as you can from those who know more than you, who do better than you, who see more clearly than you." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

[rgray222]

“Life is amazing.
And then it's awful.
And then it's amazing again.
And in between the amazing and awful it's ordinary and mundane and routine.
Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary.
That's just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life.
And it's breathtakingly beautiful.”

L.R. Knost

[Eva2]

Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps the singing bird will come.

Rumi