Famous quotes

Some of us like to repeat the wise and/or witty words of others, especially if we can't remember our own original thoughts. So here's the thread to post some memorable quotes, whether they came from real or fictional people. I'll start off with a meta-quote:

"Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another." —Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

edited 4th Feb '16 1:51:43 PM by AHI-3000

One for the Internet Age:

' "Don't believe everything you read on the Internet just because here's a picture with a quote next to it." - Abraham Lincoln'

There's a similar Internet quote that I saw attributed to... Queen Victoria.

"If the Information Superhighway will actually provide people with useful information, I'm all for it. But if it consists mainly of the unexpurgated thoughts of people who stare at a computer screen twenty-four hours a day in lieu of having a life, then show me the nearest off-ramp." - Mark Russell.

"Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven't said enough!"

—Karl Marx, famous last words to his housekeeper.

edited 4th Feb '16 10:45:07 PM by AHI-3000

"Reality is for people who can't face drugs." -Tom Waits during an interview.

"Political satire became obsolete when they awarded Henry Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize."

—Tom Lehrer

"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment."

—Misattributed to Siddhartha Gautama

"The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic."

—Another misquote, attributed to Josef Stalin

edited 7th Feb '16 6:32:25 PM by AHI-3000

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."

—Albert Einstein

edited 9th Feb '16 8:47:27 AM by AHI-3000

"Radio waves are associated with intelligent life. Well, semi-intelligent; we have radio waves." -Carl Sagan.

Nice!

edited 9th Feb '16 8:58:04 AM by WilliamRadarStorm

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves."

—Carl Sagan, on a famous photo of Earth from Voyager 1.

edited 9th Feb '16 8:57:24 AM by AHI-3000

"A good friend will always stab you in the front."

— Oscar Wilde

edited 10th Feb '16 9:13:04 AM by AHI-3000

"What luck for rulers that men do not think."

— Misattributed to Adolf Hitler

"Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others."

— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

Work is the scourge of the drinking class. — Oscar Wilde

edited 12th Feb '16 3:57:17 PM by TheWanderer

"I leave that for you to think about" -Catchphrase of Julius Sumner Miller.

"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime."

— Old proverb

"Light a man a fire, you warm him for a night. Light a Man on Fire, you warm him for the rest of his life."

-Black Comedy take on

"Never give a sword to a man who can't dance" - Misattributed to Confucius. There's no known origin for the quote, but it's still one of my favourites.

"He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever."

— Chinese proverb

"If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself."

— Misattributed to Joseph Goebbels

edited 15th Feb '16 10:35:28 AM by AHI-3000

"Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line."

—Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

edited 16th Feb '16 8:15:14 AM by AHI-3000

" 'Classic' — a book which people praise and don't read. "

— Mark Twain

edited 17th Feb '16 10:35:15 AM by AHI-3000

"This Thursday, ticket counters on airplanes [Beat] will fly outta Ronald Reagan airport."

~George W Bush