"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life."
- Picard
I do think of this quote as being something awesome that Picard said, but something also bugs me when I think of it that way... I'm attributing a great line, and advice I follow a lot through life to a fictional character, instead of to the man that actually said it.
David Kemper wrote that episode of TNG, and while he may have heard it elsewhere or paraphrased it from a common saying in some distant land or who knows, at least we can attribute it to him as best we can :-)
Thanks for correcting the attribution
Here are a few nice ones, I can't really pick:
“Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work together for the benefit of all.” - John Maynard Keynes
(You can also apply this one to proprietary software vs. Free software (don't say open source in my presence))
“The tyrants are only great because we are on our knees.” - Étienne de La Boétie
“Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.” - Rosa Luxemburg
don't say [those words] in my presence
Will I regret asking why?
Free software tells you "do whatever you want, you're free" but open source completely misses the point: it means you can read the code, but not necessarily recompile, modify and redistribute. Plus the term was invented for the confusion that would come from it. For example, a lot of AI models like LLM's claim they are "open-source", which basically means nothing: it's far easier to say that than to claim it's a free model, because that would imply freedoms to modify, reuse, redistribute the training data, weight etc. (no AI model allows that for now, and there will probably never be one that does).
In a similar vein "the greatest weapon in the hand of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed" .. Steve Biko
"I'd love to agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong."
"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self."
- Ernest Hemingway (though I'll admit, I first heard it in Kingsman)
You're not fronting having read all Hemingway, you're sharing a quote with everyone. It's fine if you heard it in Kingsman, just as it would have been fine if you had heard it in some other work of fiction that quotes Hemingway.
I like this one, it really says don't measure yourself against others
“When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.”
“The brutally honest care more about the brutality than the honesty.”
“Reasonable people can disagree reasonably.”
I can’t live up to those ideals but it would be cruel to myself and others to stop trying to.
That first one really resonates with me.
We do not inherit the world from our ansestors, we borrow it from our children. -Antoine de Saint Exupéry
This is my favorite.
My second favorite from him: what makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.
“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, direct, easy to understand and wrong.“
- Paraphrased H.L Mencken“To study religion is merely to know the mind of man, but if one truely wanted to know the mind of God, you must study physics.”
- Iain Banks“I believe that children are our future. Unless we stop them now.”
- Homer Simpson“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.” ― Steven Weinberg
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is not democracy.
- Abraham Lincoln
The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
- Douglas Adams
I don't want to believe, I want to know - Carl Sagan
The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #2)
Continued - To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.
The perfect comment doesn't exi....
Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. - Mark Twain
"Not everything's a lesson Ryan. Sometimes you just fail."
- Dwight Schrute :D
Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go. -Jamie Anderson
Got a little dusty in here.
It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life. -Jean-Luc Picard - Star Trek - The Next Generation
As someone who loves space:
"Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying." - Arthur C. Clarke
Perhaps my favourite, although it doesn't touch on the human experience, it is food for imagination
Good people do good things and bad people do evil things but for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence,—it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”
-George Washington (allegidly) The true author is debatable, but the quote is accurate, none the less.
Internet and social media has made general public a part of this "fire" drowning out the voice of the wise and the learned with the cacophony of angry noise.
'Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
-George Orwell
He who controls the spice, controls the universe.
-Baron Harkonnen
"Oh no, not again." -Bowl of Petunias
Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
- E.V. Debs
“Be excellent to each other”
"The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few."
Not growing up with TOS, I always thought this quote was super old, like Greek philosopher stuff. Nope. It was friggin Spock! I gotta believe that the sentiment had to have existed long before Star Trek though. If it wasn't, then... That sucks.
It was friggin Spock!
"Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you."
Tyron Lannister
I won't forget what I am, because I have no clue what I am.
your future hasn't been written yet. No one's has. Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one.
From Back to the Future.
“I’m Batman.”
Some context, Batman says this frequently when explaining why a man dressed up as a Bat is there to a confused onlooker.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
- also Batman (in the 1966 film Batman)
Thanks, that clears it up
Username checks out
“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”
-G.K. Chesterton
I didn't learn until I was in college about all the other cultures, and I should have learned that in the first grade. A first grader should understand that his or her culture isn't a rational invention; that there are thousands of other cultures and they all work pretty well; that all cultures function on faith rather than truth; that there are lots of alternatives to our own society. Cultural relativity is defensible and attractive. It's also a source of hope. It means we don't have to continue this way if we don't like it.
Kurt Vonnegut
“You build bridges your entire life and no one calls you a bridge builder, however you suck one dick and all of a sudden you’re a cock sucker.”
- Someone
Please don't ask me to explain it because I don't know, but the writer/musician John Darneille of the Mountain Goats once wrote "God is present in the sweeping gestures, but the devil is in the details". I just really like it even though I'm stuck on its meaning.
God as broad: Your Mom makes you a sandwich.
Devil as details: The meat in the sandwich is a dead animal. Your mom bought it from an evil mega corp. She paid for it with wages from her soul crushing job. No one makes her a sandwich.
Oh nice explanation.
There are tons of quotes I like. Below are some of my favorites.
The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself. - The Brothers Karamazov (book) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I don't want to live someone else's idea of how to live. Don't ask me to do that. I don't want to find out one day that I'm at the end of someone else's life. - Out of Africa (movie) by Sydney Pollack
Someone once told me the definition of hell; on your last day on earth, the person you could have become will meet the person you became. - Anonymous
I like the last one. Interesting to think about.
"Comfort was the answer to all life's problems. It didn't solve them, but it made them more distant for a bit as they quietly worsened."
- Welcome to nightvale
Fuck I can hear the intro music
I haven't heard it for a very long time. I should get back to it for the nostalgia.
The world needs fewer cynics and more skeptics.
I had a favorite quote growing up. I'm not sure if it's still my favorite today but it was
Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding. – Albert Einstein
If I had to choose a quote today it would probably be the one that goes something like "What you do in life is ultimately insignificant but you should do it anyways"
What the 2nd quote means to me is that that isn't really a great plan or some special meaning to life. We just exist without any specific purpose. But you shouldn't let this fact bring you down.
Personally, I choose to believe that my existence is an improbability, much like winning the lottery. And this I want to enjoy my time alive as much as I can.
The quote also has a 2nd meaning to me which is that nothing we do really matters so I should just relax be more easy going.
I think I like the second quote more today because I think people today are too on edge all the time. I think a lot of people need to just chill. There's so many things wrong with the world but so many things are outside of our control. Sometimes it's good to just take a step back and relax.
"Gentlemen, I don’t know whether we are going to make history tomorrow, but at any rate we shall change geography"
General Sir Charles Harrington
Just before one of the largest non-nuclear explosions was detonated.
Not as positive, but definitely one of the quotes that gave me chills (and made more popular due to recent movie, I hope this is in the movie):
Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds
- Robert Oppenheimer, 1965 (quoting the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita: Vishnu)
.. and not Ripple Rock in '69. Huh.
"If you're not falling, you're not learning". No idea who said it but it was about skateboarding at the time. It works for everything though.
"You gotta learn to live between the lines". From Big Deal by the Dead Milkmen.
"I used to be an adventurer like you. Then I took an arrow in the knee...",
Unknown Soldier - Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I'm the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You're fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little "clever" comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, kiddo.
- Unknown soldier
- Soldier who like the sound of his own voice
Dude doesn't know proper radio protocol then.
"If soulmates exist, they're not found, they're made"
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
spoiler
from alpha centauri but doesn't make it wrong
As soon as you're born, you start dying, so you might as well have a good time. - John McCrea
CAKE<3
It's easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission.
There are only two things that are infinite. The universe and the stupidity of man. I’m not sure about the universe, though.
- Albert Einstein
Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
-Samuel Beckett
"And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.’"
~ Kurt Vonnegut
No matter how dark the night, morning always comes. And our journey begins anew. - Lulu FFX
It's from the video game Final Fantasy X, but it's still such an amazing qoute
Just because it's from a game doesn't invalidate it, just like if it came from a book it doesn't invalidate it
Good is not the enemy of perfect.
But the perfect is the enemy of the good.
Cormac Mccarthy:
"Sometimes it's difficult. You know, you always have this image of the perfect thing which you can never achieve, but which you never stop trying to achieve. But I think ... that's your signpost and your guide. You'll never get there, but without it you won't get anywhere."
"My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, and loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son. Husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next."
You fucked up. You trusted us.
From Animal House
I have many but here is one I wanna tattoo.
"This is your life, and is ending one minute at the time"
Also:
"Do what you can't"
Also:
"War is peace" "Ignorance is strength" "Freedom is slavery"
Four more years!
Edit: It's a propagandhi song about how ridiculous the process is
You make choices, but in the end, choices really make you.
Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon.
Woody Allen
One must imagine sisyphus happy.
Bouldy just likes to get his exercise is all.
I didn't understand the reasoning for that in the last chapter of the book. Do you mind sharing your thoughts?
“The only common factor in all of your failures, is you.”
-Meh, I don’t know
You don’t know? Sheesh, what a failure. 😀
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it." Alan Kay
"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one." GRRM
I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot.
Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68). Said on his deathbed, when asked by a priest if he forgave his enemies.
Not that I’m in favor if shooting people :) It’s just so deliciously unapologetic and I love the setting in which it is said.
I can't pick just one.
Now the world has gone to bed
Darkness won't engulf my head
I can see by infra-red
How I hate the night
-- Douglas Adams, hgttg, Page 444.
When you see yourself doing something badly, and no one's bothering to tell you anymore, that's a bad place to be. You may not want to hear it, but your critics often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you, and want to make you better.
-- Randy Pausch, the last lecture
Just go YouTube The Last Lecture. It takes an hour but you will come away different.
Life is too short to please everybody.
Security is mostly an illusion; it does not exist in nature. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
- Hellen Keller
Chocolate does not ask. Chocolate understands.
“The American public knows what it wants, and it deserves to get it… good and hard.” - H.L. Mencken
“Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul and set you free from all your sins. Sometimes a woman is a heroin addiction - you are a junkie, you are my best friend. Let her go.” - The Bad Examples
"...because if just one of those things gets down here, then all of this... bullshit, that you think is so important, well, you can kiss all that goodbye."
- Ellen Ripley
"Be careful what you wish for"
--Aesop--
george lucas' greatest accomplishment is that he created an alien that accurately represented seven racial stereotypes
"Cause nothin' moves faster than the hands of time"
The world belongs to the intelligent, the universe belongs to the wise.
~ Matshona Dhliwayo
"All I know is that I know nothing", Socrates
Took me decades to really understand what he meant.
yiu missed the pount yiu still know nothing
Familiarity breeds contempt
Familiarity breeds attempt.
Jane Sherwood Ace
Yeah, I always wanted to be a well known idiot. - Niko Bellic, after not wanting to appear on camera associated with a street justice man
"Don't whistle while you're pissing." ---Hagbard Celine - Illuminatus by Robert Anton Wilson
My personal favorite is (and I'm probably messing it up because it's been 30 years...):
If there were more bloody noses, there'd be fewer wars.
When I read that, I was finally able to reconcile my pacifist upbringing with the reality I was observing.
“Can’t shake the devil’s hand and say you’re kidding.” TMBG
“Everything is a dildo if you’re brave enough.” Abe Lincoln
“Someone told me once that there’s a right and wrong, and that punishment would come to those who dare to cross the line. But it must not be true for jerk-offs like you. Maybe it takes longer to catch a total asshole. But I’m tired of waiting. Maybe it’s just bullshit and I should play God, and shoot you myself.”
Maynard
I need to memorize that last one
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
"Without challenge there is nothing, and in nothing there is only gloom. In such a state, the difference between absolute power and absolute powerlessness is undetectable."
You’ll never get the hang of our game if you keep thinking in flat-earth imagery of right and left, good and evil, up and down. If you need a group label for us, we’re political non-Euclideans. But even that’s not true. Sink me, nobody of this tub agrees with anybody else about anything, except maybe what the fellow with the horns told the old man in the clouds: Non serviam.” Hagbard Celine
All statements are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense.
"Man was born free, but everywhere is in chains." -Rousseau
"Time is weird. Space too. I hope ours match up again some day."
Who wants to be consistent? The dullard and the doctrinaire, the tedious people who carry out their principles to the bitter end of action, to the reductio ad absurdum of practice. Not I. Like Emerson, I write over the door of my library the word ‘Whim.’
From Intentions, by Oscar Wilde. It's one of my favorite books, all of the essays there are amazing, I definitely recommend anyone giving it a read.
Even snakes are afraid of snakes
- Steven Wright
Drink 'N Thrive... /s
The future is unwritten.
- Joe Strummer
I really like this one https://jardindescitations.com/citations
"It is what it is" - idk who
I hate hearing this shit so much.
Damn, well it is what it is
Why is this even being downvoted lol
