GRAVITY (Reality Check)
More enjoyable quotes
It's a game that can't be won, only played. (From the movie, The Legend of Bagger Vance)
We usually know what we are doing, we sometimes know why we‟re doing it, but we almost
never know what our doing does. We had, I should think, damn well better find out soon.
(Clifford Geertz)
Bad Moon Rising
I see the bad moon arising
I see trouble on the way
I see earthquakes and lightnin'
I see bad times todayDon't go around tonight
Well, it's bound to take your life
There's a bad moon on the riseI hear hurricanes ablowing
I know the end is coming soon
I fear rivers over flowing
I hear the voice of rage and ruinDon't go around tonight
Well, it's bound to take your life
There's a bad moon on the riseHope you got your things together
Hope you are quite prepared to die
Looks like we're in for nasty weather
One eye is taken for an eyeDon't go around tonight
Well, it's bound to take your life
There's a bad moon on the rise
(Credence Clearwater Revival)
Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality. (Nikos Kazantzakis)
Mark Twain on the two best words in the English language: Not guilty!
A man makes his dying by the way he lives.
(Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke)
Life is one vast conglomeration inflamed with passion. (Ugo Betti)
An atheist is someone who has no invisible means of support.
The evil men do lives on after them
The good is oft interred with their bones
(Shakespeare)
Experience is the worst teacher. It gives the test before presenting the lesson. (Vernon Law)
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The great suns may eclipse but the little stars will always be shining.
Life's a banquet and you poor suckers are starving. (Sophie Tucker)
Most people who get lost in the wilderness die of shame. They fail to engage in the one thing
that would save them: thinking. (From the movie, The Edge)
A man may forget where he went on his honeymoon, buy he never forgets why he went!
They don't see what the Lord has done or notice the work of his hands. (Isaiah)
Arguments only lead to the dead end of regret. (Daniel Van Auken)
The teacher told us the Romans built this place.
They built a wall and a temple
At the edge of the empire garrison town.
They lived and they died,
They prayed to their gods.
But the stone gods did not make a sound
And their empire crumbled
'Til all that was left
Were the stones the workmen found. (Sting)
A loud voice cannot compete with a clear voice, even if it's a whisper. (Barney Neil Kaufman)
Don't get too far in front of the troops or they might mistake you for the enemy. (George S.
Patton)
Under capitalism, man exploits man; under communism, it‟s just the opposite. (John
Galbraith)
Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air
and feather canyons everywhere, I've looked at clouds that way.
But now they only block the sun, they rain and snow on everyone.
So many things I would have done but clouds got in my way.
I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
from up and down, and still somehow
it's cloud illusions I recall.
I really don't know clouds at all.
Moons and Junes and ferris wheels, the dizzy dancing way you feel
as every fairy tale comes real; I've looked at love that way.
But now it's just another show. You leave 'em laughing when you go
and if you care, don't let them know, don't give yourself away.
I've looked at love from both sides now,
from give and take, and still somehow
it's love's illusions I recall.
I really don't know love at all.
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Tears and fears and feeling proud to say "I love you" right out loud,
dreams and schemes and circus crowds, I've looked at life that way.
But now old friends are acting strange, they shake their heads, they say
I've changed.
Something's lost but something's gained in living every day.
I've looked at life from both sides now,
from win and lose, and still somehow
it's life's illusions I recall.
I really don't know life at all.
(Performed by Joni Mitchell)
Life is a great adventure
Learn to live it as you go
No one in the world can censure
What we do here below
Hey don't save your kisses - just pass 'em around
You'll find my reason - is logically sound
Who's gonna know that you past them around
A hundred years from today
And why crave a penthouse that's fit for a queen
You're nearer heaven on mamma Earth's green
If you had millions what would they all mean
One hundred years from today
So (Hey) laugh and sing make love the thing
Be happy while you may
('Cause) There's always one beneath the sun
Who's bound to make you feel that way
The moon is shining and that's a (very) good sign
Cling to me closer say (that) you'll be mine
Remember baby we won't see it shine
A hundred years from today
(J.Young/Washington/V.Young)
The church of Jesus Christ must be bigger than its culture. (Jimmy Dorrell)
The human subject has changed; intimacy and solitude have lost their value, the individual
has become increasingly gregarious; he wants collective, massive, often paroxysmal music,
the expression of "us" rather than "me."
(Roland Barthes)
The repertoire of evil has never been richer. Yet never have our responses been so weak. Evil
tends to recede into the background hum of modern life. We cannot really see the perpetrator,
so the work of the devil is everywhere, but no one knows where to find him. We feel
something that our culture no longer gives us the vocabulary to express. (Andrew Delbanco)
We are all put to the test, but it never comes in the form or at the point we would prefer. (From
the movie, The Edge)
Bloom where you‟re planted or whither where you‟re planted?
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Dallas Cowboy fans love you, win or tie. (Roger Staubach)
Been working everyday since I was twenty.
Haven't got a thing to show for anything I've done.
There's folks who never work and they've got plenty.
Think it's time some guys like me had some fun.
(Merle Haggard)
Who‟s Gonna Drive You Home Tonight?
(The Cars)
Who‟s gonna tell you when it‟s too late?
Who‟s gonna tell you things aren‟t so great?
You can‟t go on thinkin‟ nothing‟s wrong
Who‟s going to drive you home tonight?
Who‟s gonna pick you up when you fall?
Who‟s gonna hang it up when you call?
Who‟s gonna pay attention to your dreams?
Who‟s gonna plug their ears when you scream?
You can‟t go on thinkin‟ nothing‟s wrong
Who‟s going to drive you home tonight?
Who‟s gonna hold you down when you slip?
Who‟s gonna come around when you break?
You can‟t go on thinkin‟ nothing‟s wrong
Who‟s going to drive you home tonight?
Tired of Toeing the Line
Baby, I‟m tired of toeing the line
Don‟t know why you want to jump on me
Baby, baby, baby, you‟re makin‟ me cry
Baby, I‟m gonna find me someone new
Someone who will be true
And no more toeing the line
I know it‟s all over „cuz I see the sign
Don‟t let me waste your precious time
Baby, I‟m tired of toeing the line
Don‟t know why you want to jump on me
Baby, baby, baby, you‟re makin‟ me cry
If you want to get rid of me
Baby, baby, baby, you‟re doing fine
I‟m gonna put on my walkin‟ shoes and leave you far behind
You‟re rollin‟ all over my soul so fine
You can‟t fix the broken heart of mine
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Baby, I‟m tired of toeing the line
Don‟t know why you want to jump on me
Baby, baby, baby, you‟re makin‟ me cry
(Rocky Burnett)
Rather than focusing on ways to free people so they can elevate themselves, liberalism
instead concentrates on ways to subsidize people in their current misery. Liberalism is
embarrassed by success and prosperity because independent and free people do not need
liberals--and above all, liberals need to be needed. Otherwise, they'd have to find real work
instead of careers in politics, entertainment, and class warfare (the only kind of war in which
the believe). (Cal Thomas)
Christianity, with its denunciation of idolatry, its insistence on monotheism, and its strict
moral code naturally creates antagonism in the world.
(M. C. Tenney)
There are more important thing to do than to inquire into the traits of elite intellectuals
engaged in various careerist pursuits in their narrow and pretty uninteresting circles. (Noam
Chomsky)
"He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother"
The road is long, with many a winding turn
That leads us to who knows where, who knows where
But I'm strong, strong enough to carry him
He ain't heavy - he's my brother
So on we go, his welfare is my concern
No burden is he to bare, we'll get there
For I know he would not encumber me
He ain't heavy - he's my brother
If I'm laden at all, I'm laden with sadness
That everyone's heart isn't filled with gladness of love for one another
It's a long long road from which there is no return
While we're on our way to there, why not share
And the load, it doesn't weigh me down at all
He ain't heavy - he's my brother
He ain't heavy - he's my brother, he's my brother, he's my brother
(B. Scott and B. Russell)
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She had too much personality for one person and not enough for two persons. (Mike Nichols)
By commanding belief in matters not essentially religious or moral, science has kept making
unbelievers. Since it forces a choice, science deprives many of the chance to believe.
(Jacques Barzun)
You'd better trust me! I have the power to make you look like a bulldog when you wake up.
(Plastic surgeon to gangster Humphrey Bogart, seeking a new face as a way to beat the rap.)
Academics has no value, impact, or purpose. (Philip Kennicott)
Being funny is in large part a con game practiced on oneself, a sort of self-confidence game.
It is much like sexual potency. Everything works fine as long as one avoids even considering
that there might be a problem. Once one starts to worry, everything stops functioning and the
fear becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. (William A. Henry III)
If he can fire one, I can FIRE ONE! (The torpedo is accidentally launched)
(Fatal words from the movie, The Bedford Incident)
Where there is power, evil is near.
The postmodern world is a world where people see themselves as belonging to the
environment rather than over it or apart from it. A world distrustful of institutions, hierarchies,
centralized bureaucracies and male dominated organizations. It is a world where networks
and local grass roots activities take precedence over large scale structures and grand
designs; a world in which the book age is giving way to the screen age; a world hungry for
spirituality yet dismissive of systematized religion. It is a world in which image and reality are
so deeply intertwined that it is difficult to draw the line between the two. (Dan Kimball)
The best employees are those who have a Ph.D: Poor, Hungry, & Driven (Rick Pitino)
But what am I?
An infant crying in the night
An infant crying for the light
And with no language but a cry
(Tennyson)
It is not we who are handling our affairs; we are being handles. (Martin Luther)
All those in hell chose it. (C.S. Lewis)
Dyin‟ ain‟t much of a livin‟, boy.
You know there ain‟t no forgettin‟.
He‟s not hard to find—he leaves bodies behind where ever he goes.
Governments don‟t live together, only people do.
(From the movie, Outlaw Josey Wales)
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The ropes on your boat hang loose. The mast is not held firm. The sails are not spread open.
(Isaiah)
Rainy day people always seem to know when it's time to call
Rainy day people don't talk
They just listen til they've heard it all
Rainy day lovers don't lie when they tell you
They've been down like you
Rainy day people don't mind if you're crying a tear or two
If you get lonely, all you really need is that rainy day love
Rainy day people all know there's no sorrow they can't rise above
Rainy day lovers don't love any others, that would not be kind
Rainy day people all know how it hangs on a piece of mind
Rainy day people always seem to know when you're feeling blue
High stepping strutters who land in the gutter sometime need one too
Take it or leave it, or try to believe it, if you've been down too long
Rainy day lovers don't hide love inside they just pass it on
(Gordon Lightfoot )
That dirty little coward who shot Mr. Howard laid poor Jesse in his grave.
I think the Union army had something to do with it. (Gen. George Pickett on why his charge at
Gettysburg failed, as quoted by George Will).
Jackie Gleason as the sun was setting on his career:
I felt out of touch. I lost interest.
You no longer mix with people who are living real, struggling lives.
Your existence becomes artificial.
Those laughing faces no longer mean anything to you.
You are out of it and life takes its revenge.
Veni, Vidi, Vici. I came. I saw. I conquered. (Julius Caesar)
The family is the root of all emotion and emotion the root of all crime; this, and the complexity
of people, means that justice is not always obtainable.
(S.J. Rozan)
National identity requires a collective work of amnesia. (Ernest Renan)
I‟m an outsider by choice, but not truly. It‟s the unpleasantness of the system that keeps me
out. I‟d rather be in, in a good system. That‟s where my discontent comes from; being forced
to choose to stay outside. My advice: Just keep movin‟ straight ahead. Every now and then
you find yourself in a different place. (George Carlin)
One‟s real life is so often the life that one does not live. (Oscar Wilde)
It is easy to escape from business, if you will only despise the rewards of business. (Seneca)
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Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on. (Samuel
Butler The Younger)
Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment. (Samuel Johnson)
If only we could say that comprehension establishes a link between men. Except, however,
for a small elite who speak the same language, this is not the case, because, according to
their culture and their intelligence, men give different meanings to the word „comprehend.‟ An
explanation that will satisfy one man will seem quite inadequate to another. (Lecomite Du
Nouy)
The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another, and
his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.
(J. M. Barrie)
Tell him solitude is creative if he is strong and the final decisions are made in silent rooms.
Tell him to be different from other people if it comes natural and easy being different. Let him
have lazy days seeking his deeper motives. Let him seek deep for where he is a born natural.
He will be lonely enough to have time for the work he knows as his own.” (Carl Sandburg)
The business of life is to go forward. (Samuel Johnson)
The chief wonder of education is that it does not ruin everybody concerned with it, teachers
and taught. (Henry Adams)
We ain‟t what we wanna be, and we ain‟t what we‟re gonna be—but we ain‟t what we wuz.
(South Carolina Mountain Proverb)
And I would find myself and not an image… (William Butler Yeats)
If misery loves company, misery has company enough. (Thoreau)
He didn‟t try to have sex with women because he was afraid he would have to talk to them
afterwards.
What moves and delights me leaves the public indifferent, and what still continues to interest
them holds no further attraction for me. (Igor Stravinsky)
The main problem narrows down to just one word—life (William Styron)
The good art of any age has always been the product of neurosis. (William Styron)
He no longer saw a rabble, but his brothers seeking the ideal. (William Sydney Porter,
“O. Henry”)
In an academic career instead of achieving any real freedom from preoccupation with petty
details, I would only bog down in more petty details. You‟ll find yourself, some twenty years
from now, worrying about money, worrying about trying to meet your annual expenses on a
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salary no self-respecting plumber would be willing to work for. On top of that you‟ll be all
snarled up with campus and faculty politics, disillusioned with teaching, because for every
one student who wants to learn anything you‟ll run up against five thousand who are only
there for the sake of a degree by which they hope to better themselves financially, and in
general you‟ll wind up a tired, cynical, disgusted old man, wondering why the devil you ever
got yourself into such a cul-de-sac to begin with. (Artie Shaw)
What does it matter what we say about people? (Marlene Dietrich in Touch of Evil)
I‟m an introvert at heart. And show business—even though I‟ve loved it so much—has always
been hard for me. (Roy Rogers)
Mothers should not be encouraging children to read, they should be encouraging children to
question what they read. (George Carlin)
If they pay you, they own you.
How do you begin describing the life of a document which probably had dozens of authors
and redactors, and whose highly diverse component parts were written down over a period of
more than a thousand years? Throw in the notion that the book‟s declared purpose is to
describe a far longer process—the entire history of God‟s relationship with man and creation.
Finally add in the fact that over the past 2,000 years, the text has been endlessly reread in
accordance with human society‟s ever-changing needs, hopes, and fears. (The Economist
magazine)
Never look back. Be aware of what‟s behind you, but don‟t look at it. (Bobby Darin)
Every step forward is made at the cost of mental and physical pain to someone. (Friedrich
Nietzsche)
If the right one don‟t get ya‟, the left one will. (Tennessee Ernie Ford)
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. (Gandhi)
The more you do, the more you need to do. (Maureen Dowd)
I love American, but I don‟t like it. When fascism come to America, it will be wrapped in the
flag and carrying a cross. Winter is not a season, it is an occupation. (Sinclair Lewis)
Once we were all together,
You and the moon and I,
But on the night you left me,
The moon raced back to the sky.
Racing with the Moon,
Sailing through the midnight blue
And then all too soon,
It's lost from view.
Gazing at the stars,
Shining in the summer night
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But just like the moon,
They fade from sight.
In the blue heavens I see,
Your face smiling at me,
My heart will never be free,
Until we're back together.
Racing with the Moon,
That is what I'll always do,
Till I overtake the moon and you.
The Man in Black
You wonder why I always dress in black
Why you never see bright colors on my black and
Why my appearance seem to have a somber tone
Well, there's a reason for the things I have on
I wear the black for the poor and beaten down
living in the hopeless hungry side of town
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime
but is there because he is a victim of the times
I wear the black for those who have never read
or listened to the words Jesus said
about the road to happiness and love and charity
Why, you'd think he's talking straight to you and me
Well we're mighty fine I do suppose
in our streak of lightning cars and fancy clothes
But just so we're reminded of those left back,
up front there ought to be a man in black
I wear it for the sick, lonely and old
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold
I wear the black in mourning for the lives that could have been
Each week we lose a hundred fine men
And I wear it for the hundreds who have died
Believing that the Lord was on their side
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died
Believing that we were all on their side
Well there's things that will never be right I know
And things need changing every where you go
But 'till we start to make a move to make a few things right
You'll never see me wear a suit of white
I've love to wear a rainbow every day
And tell the world everything is okay
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But I'll try to carry a little darkness on my back
But 'till things are bright
I'm the man in black
(Johnny Cash)
Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies.
Doc: In time you'll forget the bad part. Matt Dillon: Yeah, one more thing to forget.
(Gunsmoke)
To think is to add a flame to fire.
Thinking is an instrument of destruction that deteriorates
our nerves and is the cause of our illnesses and death. (Honore de Balzac)
Great crossing, great divide (Steven Mackey)
Please, I‟ve done everything I was supposed to do. Can I go home now? (Kurt Vonnegut)
There‟s only two kinds of pain in life: discipline and regret. (Bill Curry)
Good people will do good things and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do
bad things, that takes religion. For bad people to do good things, that also takes religion.
(Stephen Weinberg & Freeman Dyson)
In the abstract, war retains the objectives of politics: security, acquisition, deterrence, and the
imposition of the national will. It raises the problem of murder to a level of such magnitude
that murder ceases to be a problem and becomes an achievement. (Rod Macleish)
I wonder who's kissing her now,
Wonder who's teaching her how?
Wonder who's looking in to her eyes?
Breathing sighs!
Telling lies!
I wonder who's buying the wine?
For lips that I used to call mine,
Wonder if she ever tells him of me?
I wonder who's kissing her now?
(Harold Orlob)
If Walls Could Talk (Little Milton)
If walls could talk
Then I‟m sure you‟d hear a lot of things
That would make you cry my dear
Ain‟t you glad that walls don‟t talk
If doors could tell who turned the knob
When he‟s away on the job
Ain‟t you glad, I know you ought to be glad,
That doors don‟t tell
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If cars could say who‟s been inside
And who‟s been takin‟ for a ride
Ain‟t you glad that cars don‟t talk
If shoes could tell where they‟ve been
When you claim you‟re visiting a friend
Ain‟t you glad shoes don‟t tell
In a world of trouble we‟d be
If things ever told about me
My love life would be through
„Cause I‟m guilty, how „bout you?
If things ever talked that way
There‟s no tellin‟ what they might say
So ain‟t you glad, everybody ought to be glad
That things don‟t talk
I‟m so glad things don‟t talk
In a society where millions seek the even-keel solace of pharmaceutical sanity, unhappiness
isn't sexy.
(Philip Kennicott)
Philosophy will clip an angel‟s wings
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line
Empty the haunted air and gnomed mine
Unweave a rainbow
(John Keats)
More people write poetry than read it. (George Carlin)
The Antichrist will come disguised as the great humanitarian. He will talk peace, prosperity,
and plenty, not as means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves. He will explain guilt
away psychologically, make men shrink in shame if their fellowmen say they are not broad-
minded and liberal. He will spread the lie that men will never be better until they make society
better.
There'll be a load of compromisin' on the road to my horizon. (Larry Weiss)
What do you lose when your life becomes more valuable than other life in history? When your
death is something you can‟t accept? When pain makes you cower in fear? You lose what
every human before you aspired to: the selfless desire to sacrifice for a future generation.
(Timothy Querengesser)
Prisoners, abuse victims, addicts, and the mentally ill experience involuntary solitude.
Hermits choose isolation for psychological reasons. Both types of solitude makes a
statement about culture. (Sue Halpern)
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University faculties suffer from the same political problems as the “small republics” described
in Federalist 10: a motivated majority within the faculty finds it easy to monopolize decision-
making and squeeze out the minorities. (Stephen Balch)
When the horse is dead, it‟s time to dismount. (Rick Warren)
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. (Disederius Erasmus)
Dying is the way to understanding life.
(From the movie, Tuesdays with Maury)
Jazz saxophonist Coleman Hawkins spent most of his life improvising, which means that he
altruistically gave part of himself away night after night, month after month, year after year.
His generosity changed jazz. Late in his life he played with a naked, hellfire crying-out that
suggested he had finally discovered what life is like and didn‟t like what he saw. (Whitney
Balliett)
Read about young people and despair for them. They are in perpetual crisis. Fat, lazy, and
amoral. Sexually promiscuous and drug-addicted. Failed by a deteriorating education system
and sent astray by society's dropping standards. Explosive. Aimless. Spoiled and corrupted
by materialism, television and violent video games. Sullen and distant. Armed. (Economist
magazine)
Every advance in communication brings us closer to people far away from us,
but insulates us from those nearest to us. (Daniel Boorstin)
“It (forgetting the past) never goes away.” (The Two Jakes)
They pull their guilt and sin behind them as people pull wagons with ropes. (Isaiah)
I wish a buck was still silver, and it was back when the country was strong,
Back before Elvis, and before the Vietnam war came along,
Before the Beatles and yesterday, when a man could still work, and still would,
Are the good times really over for good?
Are we rollin' downhill like a snowball headed for hell?
With no kind of chance for the flag or the liberty bell.
I wish a Ford or a Chevy would still last ten years like they should.
(Merle Haggard)
A "gentleman" is someone who says one thing but thinks something else.
(Hanging someone is) A short drop and a quick stop. (The movie, Caribbean Pirates)
Mother pig had two little pigs--Pig Will and Pig Won't. Whenever she asked them to do
something, Pig Will said "I will." But Pig Won't always said "I won't!" (Richard Scarry)
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If you cannot toss your heart gaily in the ring
Love me while the moment lingers
If you cannot cross your heart that I'm everything
Try at least to cross your fingers
Talk to me baby, tell me lies
Tell me lies as sweet as apple pies
Whisper you tremble with wild desire
To light the fire in my eyes
Tell me I'm marvelous, exaggerate
Prevaricate if you must
Just talk to me baby, soft and low
Then if you decide it's really so
Swear you'll be mine forever, otherwise
Just talk to me and tell me lies
Tell me we're helpless in the hands of fate
Exaggerate if you must
Just talk to me baby, soft and low
Then if you decide it's really so
Swear you'll be mine forever, otherwise
Just talk to me and tell me lies, lies, lies
Great big lies
The problem with on line chat groups is that they produce a kind of narcissism
disguised as community, but it's too easy to leave the community. (Larry Keeley)
Subtitles from the soundtrack by Philip Glass of The Fog of War (about Robert McNamara):
100,000 People; Target Destruction; Revolution in the Pentagon; Low Evil; Blind Moles;
Behind the Moon; IBM Punch Cards; The War to End All Wars; Statistical Control; Damned if I
Don‟t; Dominoes; Rolling thunder; Data; Across the World; Golf of Tonkin; Unilateralism; Why
Are We Here? Evil Grade; Body count; the Light That Failed
There's been a load of compromisin'
On the road to my horizon (Glen Campbell)
To be made to love holiness is true happiness. (Charles Spurgeon)
We had the best of educations: reeling and writhing, of course, to begin with, and the different
branches of arithmetic—ambition, distraction, uglification, and derision. (Lewis Carroll)
Man is immortal til his work is done. (Cromwell)
We have entered the endgame in our traditional, historical relationship with the natural world.
(James Speth)
Difficulties are things that show what people are like.
Hotrod hearts out on the boulevard tonight
Here come the hungry sharks
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Up from the bottom for another bite
True believers living on the borderline
They're just dreaming killing time
(Today's generation) chooses pleasure over pain, recreation over work, consumption over
production, appreciation over creation. (Osamu Nakano)
The wave cried to the ocean: I don‟t want to reach the shore, or I‟ll disappear forever. The
ocean replied: Don‟t fret, you‟re part of the ocean, (Paraphrased from the movie, Tuesdays
with Maury)
When asked "How can you really know if the theory of heaven and hell is true?" the priest
calmly replied, "Die." (Quoted by George Will)
My optimism is the realism of Sisyphus; when you push the stone to the top of the hill, you
expect it to go down, but there's always the possibility of beginning again and going further.
You mustn't be discouraged. Be aware of the inertia in others and be more stubborn than they
are. (Pierre Boulez)
The shortest answer is doing.
One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.
(Aldo Leopold)
Back here where we need you.
(From the theme song of Welcome Back, Kotter)
Evil is like a small fire. First it burns weeds and thorns. Next it burns the larger bushes in the
forest, and they all go up in a column of smoke. (Isaiah)
Things have gotten pretty weird pretty fast. It pays to figure out what's happening. (Larry
Keely)
Know that only after sorrow's hand has bowed your head will life become truly real to you.
For only then will you acquire the noble spirituality that intensifies the reality of life. (Samuel
Palmer Brooks)
If you're born in the mountains, you've got three choices: the coal mine, moonshine, or
moving on down the line.
Watch your thoughts, they become words.
Watch your words, they become actions.
Watch your actions, they become habits.
Watch your habits, they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.
Politics in academia are so petty and vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.
(Henry Kissinger)
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We who prayed and wept
For liberty from kings
And the yoke of liberty
Accept the tyranny of things.
(Wendell Berry)
You aren't safe anywhere; you don't think you're involved but you are; you're not paranoid
because they really are out to get you. (Robert Ebert on Alfred Hitchcock's dramatic
philosophy)
There is often a great difference between what is meant, what is said, what is done, and that
which is believed to have been intended or stated, and that which actually occurred. (Roger
Zelazny)
Objective reality is a synthetic construct, dealing with a hypothetical universalization of a
multitude of subjective realities. (Philip K. Dick)
You can‟t please everyone, so you got to please yourself. (Ricky Nelson)
We should not desire the impossible. (Leonardo da Vinci)
Life is lived forward but understood backward. (Soren Kierkegaard)
The first casualty of war is truth. But also consider context. Demanding that troops, who are
subject on a daily basis to roadside bombs, suicide attacks, ambushes and rocket-propelled
grenades, should respond without any cruel or unprofessional incidents would be a demand
for sainthood. (Barbara Amiel)
There goes the mob. I am their leader. I must follow them. (Quoted by Os Guinness)
More and more people have been uprooted and made to feel at home nowhere. Ours is a day
of exiles, émigrés, expatriates, immigrants, refugees, deportees, illegal aliens, undesirable
aliens, resident aliens, migrant workers, drifters, and street people. (Os Guinness)
All truth in a fallen world is vulnerable to distortion. In fact, each truth has its
own foreseeable distortions that are its shadow side. (Os Guinness)
I got this bank of bad habits
In a corner of my soul
One by one they‟ll do you in
They bound to take their toll
(Jimmy Buffett)
Secularization insures that ordinary reality is not just the official reality of the modern world,
but the only reality. Traditionally human life was lived in a house with windows to others
worlds. Modern life, however, is lived in a world without windows. (Os Guinness and Peter
Burger)
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Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalog of common things
Philosophy will clip an Angel‟s wings
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line
Empty the haunted air and gnomed mine
Unweave a rainbow . . . .(John Keats)
The voyage of my life at last has reached across tempestuous sea in fragile boat, the common
port all must pass through to give cause and account of every evil, every pious deed.
(Michelangelo)
Beauty is a flower, fame a breath. (Latin proverb.)
Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image. (Author unknown)
The body is just a shell for the real person. (Author unknown)
Conquest is easy. Control is not. (Author unknown.)
It‟s not the load that breaks you down, it‟s the way you carry it.
(Author unknown)
Chance favors only the prepared mind. (Louis Pasteur)
What single ability do we all have? The ability to change.
(Leonard Andrews)
Many a man‟s reputation would not know his character if they met on the street. (Elbert
Hubbard)
Character is a by-product; it is produced in the great manufacture of daily duty. (Woodrow
Wilson)
As long as a person has a notion that he is guided by immediate direction from heaven, it
makes him incorrigible and impregnable in all his misconduct. (Jonathan Edwards)
He who is not a charismatic when he is young has no heart. He who is still a charismatic
when he is old has no brain. (Chris Stamper)
If charismatic leaders were as interested as being men of love as they have sometimes been in
being men of power then the charismatic renewal would be a more wholesome thing than it
has so often been. (Tom Smail)
Incomprehensible jargon is the hallmark of a profession. (Kingman Brewster, Jr.)
The unfinished is nothing.
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A lost traveler once asked a farmer how to get to a certain village. “If I were you,” said the
farmer, “I wouldn‟t start from here.” (George Will)
The quickest way to end a war is to lose it. (George Orwell)
I came here looking for something
I couldn't find anywhere else
Hey, I'm not trying to be nobody
Just want a chance to be myself
I've done a thousand miles of thumbin'
I've worn blisters on my heels
Trying to find me something better
On the streets of Bakersfield
Spent some time in San Francisco
Spent a night there in the can
They threw this drunk man in my jail cell
Took fifteen dollars from that man
Left him my watch and my old house key
Don't want folks thinkin' that I'd steal
Then I thanked him as I was leaving, and
I headed for the streets of Bakersfield
You don't know me but you don't like me
You say you care less how I feel
But how many of you that sit and judge me
Have ever walked the streets of Bakersfield
(Homer May)
Think it over what you just said
think it over in your pretty little head
are you sure that I‟m not the one
is your love real or only fun
you think it over - yes, think it over
a lonely heart grows cold and old
Think it over and let me know
think it over but don‟t be slow
just remember all birds and bees
go by twos through life‟s mysteries
you think it over - yes, think it over
a lonely heart grows cold and old
Think it over and think of me
think it over and you will see
a happy day when you and I
think as one and kiss the blues goodbye
you think it over - yes, think it over
a lonely heart grows cold and old
(Buddy Holly)
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How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
(Bob Dylan)
The greater the person‟s mind and talent, the greater the destruction. (the mother of chess
genius Bobby Fischer)
An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war. (Charles Montesquieu)
It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the
truth. (John Locke)
Let thy every action, word, and thought be that of one who is prepared at any moment to quit
this life. (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus)
Human beings do not carry civilization in their genes. (Margaret Mead)
No man can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no
one can be perfectly happy till all are happy. (Herbert Spencer)
The function of genius is to furnish cretins with ideas twenty years later. (Louis Aragon)
Genius does what it must; talent does what it can. (Owen Meredith)
Real education must ultimately be limited to one who insists on knowing; the rest is mere
sheep-herding. (Ezra Pound)
The nearer the church, the farther from God. (Lancelot Andrewes)
Your specialty is not eroticism
I guess your boyfriend is into masochism
Your body temperature is 10 below
When it‟s over, it‟s over
All the books upon your shelf
Did they teach you to cure yourself?
Not even Sigmund Freud can save you from the love you destroyed
It wasn‟t hard to make a big decision
Life with you was like a big collusion
When it‟s over, it‟s over
(Michael Franks)
Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist. (George Carlin)
We break up under the heavy years and go down into eternity like small lost rafts on
Oblivion‟s sea. How little our keels have troubled it. Time swims like a monstrous whale and
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feeds on the littlest things but suddenly overthrows whole ships. Our ships were unseaworthy
from the first. (Edward Plunkett, Lord Dunsany)
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