I'm creating a quotation dictionary (http://khyron1144.proboards22.com/index.cgi?board=spam&action=display&thread=1107575778) over on my own forum (http://khyron1144.proboards22.com/index.cgi).
Anybody want to contribute?
I'll accept any kind of quotation: comic book dialogue, movie dialogue, a bit out of a novel, popular music lyrics, respected culture stuff (no Shakespeare yet, which is odd because I do read the Bard for fun), religious stuff,anything really.
Right now it's rather, geek-culture oriented, but I would like it to be a little more generalized.
No offense, but I think someone else (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Main_Page) thought of this too, and is a bit ahead of you. Personally, I would consider making a name for yourself by helping these guys (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Main_Page) out, rather than working in their shadow.
Just my thoughts.
I kind of figured I wouldn't be the first.
They do look much farther along than I am.
The funny thing is that the bits they choose to quote from things that I've read aren't the ones that I included in my quotation dictionary.
I'm game. Even if it's not original, it's still fun. Did you want the quotes here?
"Kiri kiri kiri kiri kiri!" - Oodishion (1999)
"They sucked his brains out." - Starship Troopers (19??)
"Won't you try dying for once?" - [translation] Jigoku Shoujo (2006)
"Any society that trades a little freedom for security will lose both and deserves neither" - Benjamin Franklin
"Never trust a government that doesn't trust its own people with arms." - Benjamin Franklin
"Life is tranquil and death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome." - Isaac Asimove
"Always store beer in a dark place." - Robert Anison Heinlein
"The Eleventh Commandment: Don't get caught." - Robert Anison Heinlein.
Want more? Just ask!
Quote from: Raven BloodmoonI'm game. Even if it's not original, it's still fun. Did you want the quotes here?
Sure that'll work.
I was going to say how in the original post, probably suggesting PMing me here, emailing me, or joining my forum and PMing me there. Just posting them in this thread works very nicely though, in fact, better than my ideas.
And such an original idea, too. Who would have thought of using a forum thread to post replies in? ;) :P
Here's a contribution:
â,¬Å"It's a sorry man who can not invent an Oscar Wilde quote to fit his situation.â,¬Â
~ Oscar Wilde on Making up Oscar Wilde quotes
;) Túrin
"Specialization is for insects" -Robert Anison Heinlein
"who are you?"
"I'm Barf!"
"Not in here, you're not- this is a mercedes!"
-Barf and the princess, Spaceballs
(I forget the princess's name)
"NRRAAR!!!"
"But how do you really feel?"
"GGRRRR--hnnr?"
- The Question and a monster, 52 (i forget what week)
I didn't see Anime or Video Games in your list but I thought you could use some
"I'm Kyo....Demon Eyes Kyo." Demon eyes Kyo from Samurai Deeper Kyo the anime
Here's what we've got so far, including suggestions that I've already incorporated:
For alphabetization purposes articles and spaces are not taken into consideration. For example: If you want to find a quote about the world, look for it under W for world rather than T for the even though it will be listed as The World.
Beginnings
Whatever you do or dream you can do- begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.
-Johann Goethe
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.
-Semisonic, "Closing Time"
Can't say I've ever been too fond of beginnings, myself. Messy little things.
-Atropos, The Sandman The Kindly Ones, written by Neil Gaiman
A
Action
Action taken without thought is like giving an egg a navel.
-Tar Gibbons, Aliens Ate My Homework by Bruce Coville
Advice
YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE MAD
TO WORK HERE BUT IT HELPS
-a coffee mug, Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
My advice: Just keep moving straight ahead. Every now and then you find yourself in a different place.
-George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring the Porkchops?
If you trust in yourself and believe in your dreams and follow your star, youâ,¬,,¢ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and werenâ,¬,,¢t so lazy.
-Miss Tick, The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett
Afterlife
Reincarnation is my only hope.
-Asok, the intern in Dilbert by Scott Adams
It may be that we have all lived before and died, and this is Hell.
-A. L. Prusick
Agriculture
Cube Farmer: I reckon Iâ,¬,,¢ll have to put this one down so he wonâ,¬,,¢t reproduce. Sorry.
Wally: No problem; I hear that a lot.
-Random Acts of Management, a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams
Ambition
Someday I will be so powerful that secretaries will have to explain why they laugh at me.
-Asok, the Intern, Random Acts of Management, a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams
Answers
It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.
-James Thurber
I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind! The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building.
-Charles Schulz
There ainâ,¬,,¢t no answer. There ainâ,¬,,¢t going to be any answer. There never has been an answer. Thatâ,¬,,¢s the answer.
-Gertrude Stein
Apes
What an ugly beast is the ape, and how like us.
-Cicero
To an engineer, everyone looks like a chimp.
-Dilbert, Words You Donâ,¬,,¢t Want To Hear During Your Annual Performance Review by Scott Adams
B
Battle Cries
Children, pull on your tights! And give them heck!
-Reggie, Amelia Rules! by Jimmy Gownley
Spoon!
-The Tick
Beer
Always store beer in a dark place.
-Robert Anson Heinlein
Betting
The race may not be to the swift nor the victory to the strong, but that's how you bet.
-Damon Runyon
In a fight between you and the world, bet on the world.
-Franz Kafka
C
Capital Punishment
â,¬Å"Do you really think all this deters crime, Mr. Trooper?â,¬Â he said.
â,¬Å"Well, in the generality of things Iâ,¬,,¢d say itâ,¬,,¢s hard to tell, given that itâ,¬,,¢s hard to find evidence of crimes not committed,â,¬Â said the hangman, giving the trapdoor a final rattle. â,¬Å"But in the specificality, sir, Iâ,¬,,¢d say itâ,¬,,¢s very efficacious.â,¬Â
â,¬Å"Meaning what?â,¬Â said Moist.
â,¬Å"Meaning Iâ,¬,,¢ve never seen someone up here moreâ,¬,,¢n once, sir.â,¬Â
-conversation between Moist von Lipwig, a condemned con man, and Mr. Trooper, the hangman, in Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
Children
A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
All children are essentially criminal.
-Dennis Diderot
Pre-adolescence is a rough ride for anyone.
-The Tick, The Tick: â,¬Å"The Tick vs. Brainchildâ,¬Â
Clothing
One must commit acts of the highest treason only when dressed in the most resplendent finery.
-Sebastian O, Sebastian O by Grant Morrison
The dandy has one unique advantage over the common herd. No matter what the situation, he will always be more exquisitely dressed than his enemies. Therefore, he has already triumphed.
-Sebastian O, Sebastian O by Grant Morrison
Conformity
Well I try my best to be just like I am,
But everybody wants you to be just like them.
-Bob Dylan, â,¬Å"Maggieâ,¬,,¢s Farmâ,¬Â
Courage
Fortune favors the audacious.
-Erasmus
A man with outward courage dares to die.
A man with inward courage dares to live.
-Lao-tzu
We must dare, and dare again, and go on daring.
-Georges Danton
Fear always springs from ignorance.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
The principal act of courage is to endure and withstand dangers doggedly rather than to attack them.
-Thomas Aquinas
You got no guts--and you, you're a dead man!
-Sting (the wrestler)
I dare because I care.
-The Tick, The Tick: â,¬Å"The Tick vs. Brainchildâ,¬Â
D
Dairy
Well, it's certainly uncontaminated by cheese.
-Mr. Mousebender, portrayed by John Cleese on Monty Python's Flying Circus in â,¬Å"The Cheese Shopâ,¬Â sketch
Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
-G. K. Chesterton
"Me, I really like my cheese sandwiches."
-Johnny the Bull
Death
Life is tranquil and death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
-Isaac Asimov
In the long run we are all dead.
-John Maynard Keynes
After Iâ,¬,,¢m dead Iâ,¬,,¢d rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.
-Cato the Elder
E
Education
The learned are seldom pretty fellows, and in many cases their appearance tends to discourage a love of study in the young.
-H. L. Mencken
Effort
One must always try, Arthur.
-The Tick, The Tick: â,¬Å"The Tick vs. Brainchildâ,¬Â
F
Fairness
My mom was fair. You never knew whether she was going to swing with her right or her left.
-Herb Caen
Footwear
I had no shoes and I felt sorry for myself until I met a man with no feet. I took his shoes. Now I feel better.
-George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops
Freedom of Expression
I doubt I'll be alive tomorrow, Lord. On that basis I find it particularly easy to say exactly what I think...
-Lucien, The Sandman The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman
G
God
How can I believe in God when just last week I go my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?
-Woody Allen
If god exists, his motives are certainly unfathomable.
-Avatar, God's Debris by Scott Adams
What sort of arrogance assumes God is like people?
-Avatar, God's Debris by Scott Adams
If there is a supreme being, heâ,¬,,¢s crazy.
-Marlene Dietrich
Trust in Allah, but tie your camel.
-Arabian Proverb
Why attack God? He may be as miserable as we are.
Erik Satie
Gratitude
I'd thank you if I weren't so evil!
-Charles a.k.a. Brainchild, The Tick: â,¬Å"The Tick vs. Brainchildâ,¬Â
H
Humor
Laughter is the very best medicine.
Remember that when your appendix bursts next week.
-Weird Al Yankovic, "Your Horoscope For Today"
Those who are humorless should not be taken seriously. They take themselves so seriously, they leave no room for others to do likewise.
-Anton Szandor LaVey, Satan Speaks!
Only a fool mistakes laughter for humor and fashion for style.
-Anton Szandor LaVey, Satan Speaks!
The Gods too are fond of a joke.
-Aristotle
I suppose if we couldnâ,¬,,¢t laugh at things that donâ,¬,,¢t make sense, we couldnâ,¬,,¢t react to a lot of life.
-Hobbes, The Days Are Just Packed, a Calvin and Hobbes collection by Bill Waterson
For every ten jokes, thou hast got an hundred enemies.
-Laurence Sterne
I[/b]
Ichthyology
It's my dead fish, and I'll do what I wish.
-Bucky Katt, Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley
Oh I wish I wish I hadn't killed that fish.
-Homer Simpson, The Simpsons
Identity Crises
Dennis Rodman, take off that plaid! We ain't got no green-haired Scotsman where I come from!"
-Roddy Piper (Rodrick Toombs)
K
Knowledge
The trouble with most of us is that we know too much that ain't so.
-Mark Twain
Everyone is ignorant, only in different subjects.
-Will Rogers
L
Life
There is more to life than increasing its speed.
-Mahatma Gandhi
Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
-Samuel Butler
People who see life as anything other than pure entertainment are missing the point.
-George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?
There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.
-George Santayana
Life is what happens while you are making other plans.
-John Lennon
The trouble with life in the fast lane is that you get to the other end in an awful hurry.
-John Lennon
It is not true that life is one damn thing after another â,¬'it is one damn thing over and over.
-Edna St. Vincent Malay
Lists
Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things Iâ,¬,,¢d been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.
-Dorothy Parker, â,¬Å"Inventoryâ,¬Â
Love
By the time you swear youâ,¬,,¢re his,
Shivering and sighing.
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying-
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.
-Dorothy Parker, â,¬Å"Unfortunate Coincidenceâ,¬Â
M
Modern Times
Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.
-Ovid, Born 43 B.C., Died AD 17
O tempora! O mores!
[Translates to: What an age! What moral standards!]
-Cicero, Born 106 B.C., Died 43 B.C.
Oh, this age! How tasteless and ill-bred it is!
-Catullus, Born 84 B.C. Died 54 B.C.
Our ignorance of history makes us libel our own times. People have always been like this.
Gustave Flaubert, Born December 21, 1821, Died May 8, 1880
Money
This looks like a job for legal tender.
-The Tick, The Tick: â,¬Å"The Tick vs. Brainchildâ,¬Â
Music
Music is essentially useless, as life is.
-George Santayana
Only sick music makes money today.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Without music, life would be a mistake.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
N
Nebraska
Nebraska is proof that Hell is full and the dead walk the earth.
-Liz Winston
O
Oddly Prescient
I think the world is run by C students.
-Al McGuire (at least a few years before George W. Bush became president)
Men have become tools of their tools.
-Henry David Thoreau (a good number of years before the computer or the automobile)
Originality
Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.
-T. S. Eliot
Good Swiping is an art in itself.
-Jules Feiffer
P
Perspective
In the eyes of the dragon, Saint George was doubtless a monster. But, as we know, the opinions of that unfortunate creature count for very little given its overwhelming defeat. It is the fate of monsters to be forever on the losing side.
-Sebastian O, Sebastian O by Grant Morrison
Philosophers
Plato was a bore.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal.
-Leo Tolstoy
Politics
There is no distinctly American criminal class -except congress.
-Mark Twain
Political history is far too criminal of a subject to be a fit thing to teach children.
-W. H. Auden
Possessions
You tell me that you've got everything you want
And your bird can sing
But you don't get me, you don't get me
You say you've seen seven wonders and your bird is green
But you can't see me, you can't see me
When your prized possessions start to wear you down
Look in my direction, I'll be round, I'll be round
When your bird is broken will it bring you down?
You may be awoken, I'll be round, I'll be round
-The Beatles, "And Your Bird Can Sing
Positive Thinking
If everyone in the world sat quietly at the same time, closed their eyes and concentrated as hard as they could on peace and goodwill, all the killing and cruelty in the world would continue. And probably increase.
-George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?
I have a new philosophy. I'm going to dread one day at a time.
-Charles Schulz
Prayer
Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
-Mark Twain
If God listened to every shepherd's curse, our sheep would all be dead.
-Russian Proverb
God seems to have left the receiver off the hook.
-Arthur Koestler
Q
Quotes
This isn't much of a quote book if I'm in it.
-Richard Dowd
I really didn't say everything I said.
-Yogi Berra
â,¬Å"Whatâ,¬,,¢s the quote from? Itâ,¬,,¢s very meaningful without, er, meaning very much.â,¬Â
â,¬Å"I think itâ,¬,,¢s just a quote,â,¬Â said Sacharissa.
-An exchange between William de Worde and Sacharissa Crisplock in The Truth by Terry Pratchett
It's a sorry man who can not invent an Oscar Wilde quote to fit his situation.
-Oscar Wilde
R
Reality
This is indeed a disturbing universe.
-Maggie Simpson, The Simpsons voiced by James Earl Jones
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
-Thomas Alva Edison
Words such as dimension and field and infinity are nothing more than conveniences for mathematicians and scientists. They are not descriptions of reality, yet we accept them as such because everyone is sure someone else knows what the words mean.
-Avatar, God's Debris by Scott Adams
Every generation of humans believed it had all the answers it needed, except for a few mysteries assumed would be solved at any moment. And they all believed their ancestors were simplistic and deluded. What are the odds that you are the first generation of humans who will understand reality?
-Avatar, God's Debris by Scott Adams
Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
-Mark Twain
Reality is a collective hunch.
-Lilly Tomlin and Jane Wagner
Regret
Calvin: Iâ,¬,,¢d say Iâ,¬,,¢ve had a pretty good life so far. In fact, looking back, I have only one regret.
Hobbes: Whatâ,¬,,¢s that?
Calvin: I regret I wasnâ,¬,,¢t born with opposable toes.
-The Days Are Just Packed, a Calvin and Hobbes collection by Bill Waterson
Religion
Wally: I believe God created the Earth because he hates people. And I believe coffee tastes better if you stir it with your finger.
Dilbert: It sounds like a lonely religion.
Wally: They all start that way.
-Random Acts of Management, a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams
Every day people are staying away from the church and going back to God.
-Lenny Bruce
Rules
The Eleventh Commandment: Don't get caught.
-Robert Anson Heinlein
Any fool can make a rule.
-Henry David Thoreau
S
Sarcasm
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.
-Dorothy Parker, â,¬Å"Commentâ,¬Â
Siege Weaponry
When you have a fat friend, there are no seesaws, only catapults.
-Demetri Martin
Souls
I'll swallow your soul.
-Santa, Billy and Mandy Save Christmas
Suicide
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns arenâ,¬,,¢t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
-Dorothy Parker, â,¬Å"Resumẻâ,¬Â
T
Travel
Being here is a lot like being lost, Arthur.
-The Tick, The Tick: â,¬Å"The Tick vs. Brainchildâ,¬Â
Triumph
This calls for the Billy-was-right-dance.
-Billy, Billy and Mandy Save Christmas
Troubles
Pick your heart up off the ground,
Though Iâ,¬,,¢m sure it weighs a ton.
Youâ,¬,,¢re no better or no worse
Than any motherâ,¬,,¢s son.
-The Dropkick Murphys, â,¬Å"The Gangâ,¬,,¢s All Hereâ,¬Â
Weâ,¬,,¢re all fucked. It helps to remember that.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
U
Unemployment
The trouble with unemployment is that the minute you wake up in the morning you're on the job.
-Slappy White
V
Vortexes, Swirling
I love it when there's a swirling vortex.
-Billy, Billy and Mandy Save Christmas
W
Witchcraft, Witches, Witching, etc
A witch never has matching crockery.
-Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky
You were there, you had the hat, you did the job. That was a basic rule of witchery: Itâ,¬,,¢s up to you.
-Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky
Words
When ideas fail, words come in handy.
-Goethe
Work
Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart give yourself to it.
-Buddha
Working-class people â,¬Å"look for work.â,¬Â Middle-class people â,¬Å"try to get a job.â,¬Â Upper-middle-class people â,¬Å"seek employment.â,¬Â
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
Weâ,¬,,¢re all amateurs; itâ,¬,,¢s just that some of us are more professional about it than others.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
The World
The world is a madhouse, so it's only right that it is patrolled by armed idiots.
-Brendan Behan
The world is our school for spiritual discovery.
-Paul Brunton
Weâ,¬,,¢re a planet of nearly six billion ninnies living in a civilization that was designed by a few thousand amazingly smart deviants.
-Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle
X
Xenophobia
The metric system is the tool of the devil!
-Abraham J Simpson, The Simpsons
Z
Zoos
Did you know that the zoo can ban you for life if they catch you using a hibachi?
-Pointy-haired Boss, Random Acts of Management a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams
Endings
If you have something of importance to say, for God's Sake start at the end.
-Sarah Jeanette Duncan
Give me a good ending any time. You know where you are with an ending.
-Atropos, The Sandman The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman
In the end, everything is a gag.
-Charlie Chaplin
Quote from: Raven BloodmoonWant more? Just ask!
Sure thing, please.
By the way, contributors may notice I haven't got any "J" or "Y" quotes yet. That's mostly an accidental oversight. I haven't found any good quotes in those areas yet, but if you have something about journeys or judgement or yogurt or yaks, please let me know.
Current version:
Beginnings
Whatever you do or dream you can do- begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.
-Johann Goethe
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.
-Semisonic, "Closing Time"
Can't say I've ever been too fond of beginnings, myself. Messy little things.
-Atropos in The Sandman The Kindly Ones, written by Neil Gaiman
A
Action
Action taken without thought is like giving an egg a navel.
-Tar Gibbons in Aliens Ate My Homework by Bruce Coville
Adhesive
Dogbert: how do you like your new book- "The History of Glue"?
Dilbert: I couldn't put it down.
-A Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams reprinted in The Joy of Work by Scott Adams
Advice
YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE MAD
TO WORK HERE BUT IT HELPS
-a coffee mug in Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
My advice: Just keep moving straight ahead. Every now and then you find yourself in a different place.
-George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring the Porkchops?
If you trust in yourself and believe in your dreams and follow your star, you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.
-Miss Tick in The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett
You ought to
Take your medication everyday
Be a good dog
Live life in a wonderful way.
-Everclear, "Normal Like You"
Afterlife
Reincarnation is my only hope.
-Asok, the intern in Dilbert by Scott Adams
It may be that we have all lived before and died, and this is Hell.
-A. L. Prusick
Souls were believed to spend the 'here, there, and after' in Ethiopia.
-an anonymous student quoted in Non Campus Mentis compiled by Professor Anders Henrikson
Hundreds of people must die in this city every day. I bet they don't have this trouble. They just shut their eyes and wake up being born as someone else, or in some sort of heaven, or I suppose, possibly some sort of hell. Or they go and feast with the gods in their hall, which has never seemed a particularly great idea- gods are all right in thier way, but not the kind of people a decent man would want to have a meal with. The Yen Buddhists think you just become very rich. Some of the Klatchians religions say you go to a lovely garden full of young women, which doesn't sound very religious to me...
Windle found himself wondering how you applied for Klathcian nationaluty after death.
-Windle Poons's thoughts regarding life after death in Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett.
Agriculture
Cube Farmer: I reckon I'll have to put this one down so he won't reproduce. Sorry.
Wally: No problem; I hear that a lot.
-Random Acts of Management, a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams
Ambition
Someday I will be so powerful that secretaries will have to explain why they laugh at me.
-Asok, the Intern in Random Acts of Management, a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams
America
To get its edge back, I think what America really needs is evil. Intense, unalloyed, concentrated evil.
-George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring The Porkchops
Answers
It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.
-James Thurber
I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind! The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building.
-Charles Schulz
There ain't no answer. There ain't going to be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer.
-Gertrude Stein
Apes
What an ugly beast is the ape, and how like us.
-Cicero
To an engineer, everyone looks like a chimp.
-Dilbert in Words You Don't Want To Hear During Your Annual Performance Review, a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams
Authority
You show me the people who control the money, the land, and the weapons, and I'll show you the people in charge.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
Or shut up and be a victim of authority.
-Green Day, 'Warning'
If we could just find out who's in charge, we could kill him.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
B
Battle Cries
Children, pull on your tights! And give them heck!
-Reggie in Amelia Rules! by Jimmy Gownley
Members of G. A. S. P.! The '˜Force' is with us! The enemy's gate is down! But a Shadow rises in the East! Which seeks to be the ultimate power in the universe! But by the power of G. A. S. P., we have the power! Yet with great power comes great responsibility! And though Ninja are a superstitious and cowardly lot, we must be Daredevils, the men without fear! Who boldly go where no one has gone before! And when we go, we go in search of Truth, Justice, and the American Way! For the Ninjas must know the truth! For the truth is out there!
-Reggie in Amelia Rules! by Jimmy Gownley
Spoon!
-The Tick
Beer
Always store beer in a dark place.
-Robert Anson Heinlein
Isn't beer best thing to have when you're hurtling through endless space!?!
-Krut in "The Dream is Dead- Gone, Shot Off, All Squashed Flat", Beautiful Stories For Ugly Children issue #30, written by Dave Louapre
Betting
The race may not be to the swift nor the victory to the strong, but that's how you bet.
-Damon Runyon
In a fight between you and the world, bet on the world.
-Franz Kafka
C
Capital Punishment
'Do you really think all this deters crime, Mr. Trooper?' he said.
'Well, in the generality of things I'd say it's hard to tell, given that it's hard to find evidence of crimes not committed,' said the hangman, giving the trapdoor a final rattle. 'But in the specificality, sir, I'd say it's very efficacious.'
'Meaning what?' said Moist.
'Meaning I've never seen someone up here more'n once, sir.'
-conversation between Moist von Lipwig, a condemned con man, and Mr. Trooper, the hangman, in Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
Capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of human life.
-Orrin Hatch
Career Disappointments
I take beautiful pictures of men, flowers, landscapes, rocks, jazz musicians, and other things, but the public is more interested in the women I shoot. It's not the end of the world. That's just the way it is.
-Marco Glaviano, Sirens
Children
A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
All children are essentially criminal.
-Dennis Diderot
Pre-adolescence is a rough ride for anyone.
-The Tick in The Tick: 'The Tick vs. Brainchild'
Clothing
One must commit acts of the highest treason only when dressed in the most resplendent finery.
-Sebastian O in Sebastian O written by Grant Morrison
The dandy has one unique advantage over the common herd. No matter what the situation, he will always be more exquisitely dressed than his enemies. Therefore, he has already triumphed.
-Sebastian O in Sebastian O written by Grant Morrison
Conformity
Well I try my best to be just like I am,
But everybody wants you to be just like them.
-Bob Dylan, 'Maggie's Farm'
Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Courage
Fortune favors the audacious.
-Erasmus
A man with outward courage dares to die.
A man with inward courage dares to live.
-Lao-tzu
We must dare, and dare again, and go on daring.
-Georges Danton
Fear always springs from ignorance.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
The principal act of courage is to endure and withstand dangers doggedly rather than to attack them.
-Thomas Aquinas
You got no guts--and you, you're a dead man!
-Sting (the wrestler)
I dare because I care.
-The Tick in The Tick: 'The Tick vs. Brainchild'
Culture
When one has more substance than culture, one is a rustic; when one has more culture than substance, one is a literatus. Only when one has both substance and culture is one an exemplary person.
-Analects of Confucius 6:18 as presented in The Essential Confucius translated by Thomas Cleary
Cynics, Cynicism
The cynics are right nine times out of ten.
-H. L. Mencken
D
Dairy
Well, it's certainly uncontaminated by cheese.
-Mr. Mousebender, portrayed by John Cleese on Monty Python's Flying Circus in 'The Cheese Shop' sketch
Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
-G. K. Chesterton
"Me, I really like my cheese sandwiches."
-Johnny the Bull
Death
Life is tranquil and death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
-Isaac Asimov
In the long run we are all dead.
-John Maynard Keynes
After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.
-Cato the Elder
The worms crawl in,
And the worms crawl out.
The ones that go in
Are lean and thin;
The ones that come out
Are fat and stout.
Your eyes fall in,
And your teeth fall out;
Your brains come tumbling down your snout.
Be merry my friends;
Be merry.
-'Worms', a traditional folk song as performed by the Pogues
Decapitation
Winfield goes back to the wall. He hits his head on the wall and it rolls off! It's rolling all the way back to second base! This is a terrible thing for the Padres!
-Jerry Coleman
Desire
Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
-Susan Ertz
Discoveries
The Doctors X-rayed my head and found nothing.
-Dizzy Dean
Drugs
The Prozac doesn't do it for me anymore.
-Everclear, "Normal Like You"
I'll bet there aren't too many people hooked on crack who can play the bagpipes.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
E
Education
The learned are seldom pretty fellows, and in many cases their appearance tends to discourage a love of study in the young.
-H. L. Mencken
Effort
One must always try, Arthur.
-The Tick, The Tick: 'The Tick vs. Brainchild'
Equality
The power of equality
Is not yet what it ought to be.
-Red Hot Chili Peppers, "The Power of Equality"
Everything is equal and therefore unimportant. For example, there is no way for me to say that my acts are more important than yours, or that one thing is more essential than another, therefore all things all things are equal and by being equal they are unimportant.
-Don Juan, as quoted in A Seperate Reality: Further converstions with Don Juan by Carlos Castenada
Ethics
I know I'm doing something right when my business practices gag a rat.
-Dogbert in a Dilbert strip by Scott Adams
F
Fairness
My mom was fair. You never knew whether she was going to swing with her right or her left.
-Herb Caen
Faith
If people have no faith, I don't know what they are good for. Can a vehicle travel without a link to a source of power?
-Analects of Confucius 2:22 as presented in The Essential Confucius translated by Thomas Cleary
Footwear
I had no shoes and I felt sorry for myself until I met a man with no feet. I took his shoes. Now I feel better.
-George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops
If the shoe fits, get another one just like it.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
Freedom
I'm gonna get free
I'm gonna get free
I'm gonna get free
Rid into the sun.
-The Vines, "Get Free"
This is a free country. Live like you wanna live, baby. Yeah, ain't nobody gonna knock it, darling.
-Chuck Berry, a spoken comment during a live performance of "My Ding-A-Ling"
Freedom of Expression
I doubt I'll be alive tomorrow, Lord. On that basis I find it particularly easy to say exactly what I think...
-Lucien in The Sandman The Kindly Ones written by Neil Gaiman
If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
-Noam Chomsky
Asok: The great thing about free speech is that I can criticize the government.
Pointy-haired Boss: I'd fire you.
Asok: I mean outside of work.
Pointy-haired Boss: I'd fire you for that too.
Asok: May I express enjoyment of my pastry?
Pointy-haired Boss: It's a free country.
-A Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams collected in When Body Language Goes Bad
G
Genetics
Genetics rolls strange dice on the green baize of life.
-Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett
God
How can I believe in God when just last week I go my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?
-Woody Allen
If god exists, his motives are certainly unfathomable.
-Avatar, God's Debris by Scott Adams
What sort of arrogance assumes God is like people?
-Avatar, God's Debris by Scott Adams
If there is a supreme being, he's crazy.
-Marlene Dietrich
Trust in Allah, but tie your camel.
-Arabian Proverb
Why attack God? He may be as miserable as we are.
-Erik Satie
God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of his own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of the other players*, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.
* ie. everybody.
-Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Good Omens
Gratitude
I'd thank you if I weren't so evil!
-Charles a.k.a. Brainchild, The Tick: 'The Tick vs. Brainchild'
Growing Up
My friends say I should act my age;
What's my age again?
-Blink 182, "What's My Age Again"
When I see the price that you pay,
I don't wanna grow up.
I don't ever wanna be that way,
And I don't wanna grow up.
Seems like folks turn into things
That they never want;
The only thing to live for is today.
-Tom Waits (although the Ramones cover may be more well-known), "I Don't Want to Grow Up"
Well I guess this is growing up.
-Blink 182, "Dammit"
No one should take themselves so seriously.
With many years ahead to fall in line.
Why would you wish that on me?
I never wann act my age.
What's my age again?
Blink 182, "What's My Age Again?"
H
Heroes, Heroism, Heroics
One murder makes a villain, millions a hero.
-Beilby Porteus
There was a stir when they climbed up into the chilly morning air, followed by a few boos and even some applause. People were strange like that. Steal five dollars and you were a petty thief. Steal thousands of dollars and you were either a government or a hero.
- Terry Pratchett, Going Postal
Honesty
It is annoying to be honest to no purpose.
-Ovid
Humor
Laughter is the very best medicine.
Remember that when your appendix bursts next week.
-Weird Al Yankovic, "Your Horoscope For Today"
Those who are humorless should not be taken seriously. They take themselves so seriously, they leave no room for others to do likewise.
-Anton Szandor LaVey, Satan Speaks!
Only a fool mistakes laughter for humor and fashion for style.
-Anton Szandor LaVey, Satan Speaks!
The Gods too are fond of a joke.
-Aristotle
I suppose if we couldn't laugh at things that don't make sense, we couldn't react to a lot of life.
-Hobbes, The Days Are Just Packed, a Calvin and Hobbes collection by Bill Waterson
For every ten jokes, thou hast got an hundred enemies.
-Laurence Sterne
Wit is educated insolence.
-Aristotle
"Surrender? Surrender!? You think the letter on my head stands for France?"
~ Captain America, the Ultimates vol. 2
Quote from: Elemental_Elf"Surrender? Surrender!? You think the letter on my head stands for France?"
~ Captain America, the Ultimates vol. 2
Good one. I remember that issue.
Quote from: khyron1144Quote from: Elemental_Elf"Surrender? Surrender!? You think the letter on my head stands for France?"
~ Captain America, the Ultimates vol. 2
Good one. I remember that issue.
I have no idea why that quote popped into my head, lol.
Here's a few more:
"Damn it, Bones, you're a doctor. You know that pain and guilt can't be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They're the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don't want my pain taken away! I need my pain!"
~ Captain Kirk, Star Trek V
"We've made too many compromises already; too many retreats. They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further! And *I* will make them pay for what they've done." ~ Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek First Contact
Jar-Jar Binks: Ooh mooey mooey I love you!
Qui-Gon Jinn: You almost got us killed! Are you brainless?
Jar-Jar Binks: I spake!
Qui-Gon Jinn: The ability to speak does not make you intelligent. Now get out of here.
~ Star Wars Episode I
I'm surprised that this one hasn't been added yet, one of the most epic quotes of all time IMHO...
Samwise: ...Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Samwise: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.
[spoiler=profanity]
"I get paid to fuck shit up."
Thomas Jane as Major John Mitchell "Mitch" Hunter in The Mutant Chronicles
[/spoiler]
Something for, I suppose, either the "death" or "afterlife" headings...
Drink to the dead, are you still alive?
We shall join them in good time
And should you go crossing that silvery brook
It's best to leap before you look
"Drink to the Dead" by Clutch
Not sure what heading this would be for, but I've always loved it...
We wrote these plans
Took the order
The architecture
And followed them to the end
Until the gears ground cold and relentless
There was no remorse
"Panasonic Youth" by the Dillinger Escape Plan
This is the rest of what I have up to this point actually incorporated into the dictionary. (http://khyron1144.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=spam&thread=55&page=1)
Thank you for the help and suggetsions thus far.
I[/b]
Ichthyology
It's my dead fish, and I'll do what I wish.
-Bucky Katt, Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley
Oh I wish I wish I hadn't killed that fish.
-Homer Simpson, The Simpsons
Identity Crises
Dennis Rodman, take off that plaid! We ain't got no green-haired Scotsman where I come from!"
-Roddy Piper (Rodrick Toombs)
Ignorance
The nicest thing about anything is not knowing what it is.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
Not only do I not know what's going on, I wouldn't know what to do about it if I did.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
Tell me why
You Want to be blind.
-Everclear, "Normal Like You"
Innovation
I took the first woman-in-a-bathing-suit-with-sand shot back in 1976 or '77. Until then, everybody was painstakingly brushing every little grain of sand off the models' bodies. I remember it was one of the biggest jobs when shooting bathing suits; it was almost impossible to get all the sand off. We used to have assistants and editorial assistants with brushes and paper- anything that could be used to take all the sand away. This took forever, but nobody ever thought to leave it there.
-Marco Glaviano, Sirens
Intelligence
The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.
-Goethe
Too clever is dumb.
-German proverb
There are some things only intellectuals are crazy enough to believe.
-George Orwell
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools talk because they have to say something.
-Plato
Insanity
No sane man will dance.
-Cicero
To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.
-Oscar Wilde
Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
He's either going crazy or writing verse.
-Horace, Satirae
J
Judgment
I worry about my judgment when anything I believe in or do regularly begins to be accepted by the American public.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
Justice
Exemplary people understand matters of justice; small people understand matters of profit.
-Analects of Confucius 1:16 as presented in The Essential Confucius translated by Thomas Cleary
Once you make it past the scales and the blindfold... Justice is a woman with a sword.
-Victoria in Y: The Last Man Book 2: Cycles Written by Brian K. Vaughan
K
Kindness
I'm starting to get more compassionate. I gotta watch that.
-George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops
Knowledge
The trouble with most of us is that we know too much that ain't so.
-Mark Twain
Everyone is ignorant, only in different subjects.
-Will Rogers
L
Laughter
On the other hand, I choose to live, and to laugh, not because it matters, but because that choice is the bent of my nature.
-Don Juan, as quoted in A Seperate Reality: Further converstions with Don Juan by Carlos Castenada
While mad laughter was always part of a witch's stock-in-trade in necessary circumstances, this was insane mad laughter, the worst kind.
-Terry Pratchett, Maskerade
The Law
Law is a bottomless pit.
-John Arbuthnot
When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken.
-Benjamin Disraeli
No intelligent man has any respect for an unjust law. Nor does he feel guilt for breaking it.
-Brian Smith in To Sail Beyond The Sunset by Robert A. Heinlein
Life
There is more to life than increasing its speed.
-Mahatma Gandhi
Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
-Samuel Butler
For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life.
-William Blake
People who see life as anything other than pure entertainment are missing the point.
-George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?
There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.
-George Santayana
Life is what happens while you are making other plans.
-John Lennon
The trouble with life in the fast lane is that you get to the other end in an awful hurry.
-John Lennon
It is not true that life is one damn thing after another '"it is one damn thing over and over.
-Edna St. Vincent Malay
Pointy-Haired Boss: Every employee will wear a button that says "I'm Empowered."
Asok: I don't want to.
Pointy-Haired Boss: You have to.
Wally: That was everything you need to know about life in one package.
-A Dilbert comic strip in When Body Language Goes Bad by Scott Adams
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.
-Marcus Aurelius
Why torture yourself when life will do it for you?
-Laura Walker
Lists
Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.
-Dorothy Parker, 'Inventory'
Logic
My favorite part was when he yelled, "Stop ruining my slogan's with your logic!"
-Wally quoting the Pointy-Haired Bossed in a Dilbert strip by Scott Adams reprinted in Thriving On Vague Objectives
Love
Love is love's reward.
-John Dryden
It's all right to tell me
What you think about me.
I won't try to argue
Or hold it against you.
I Know that you're leaving;
You must have your reasons.
-Blink-182, "Dammit"
By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing.
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying-
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.
-Dorothy Parker, 'Unfortunate Coincidence'
And maybe I'll see you,
At a movie sneak preview;
You'll show up and walk by,
On the arm of that guy,
And I'll smile,
And you'll wave,
And pretend that it's okay.
This charade, it won't last.
-Blink-182, "Dammit"
M
Management
Nothing is more critical to your happiness than learning to manage your boss. The alternative can be a disaster. If your boss tries to turn the tables and manage you, the next thing you know, you'll be doing moronic things in return for money.
-Scott Adams, The Joy of Work
As far as I can tell every layer of management exists for the sole purpose of warning us about the layer above.
-Alice, a Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams reprinted in The Joy of Work by Scott Adams
A retarded chimpanzee can drink a case of beer and still perform most management functions.
-Scott Adams, Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel
Being a midlevel manager is like being a fisherman, except instead of having an efficient fishing tool, such as a fishing pole or a net or dynamite, you have to talk the fish into surrendering.
-Scott Adams, Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel
Marketing
For example, scholars have long debated why the pyramids are pointy. One theory is that the Pharaoh's marketing department designed the pyramids in the shape of their own heads.
-The Joy of Work by Scott Adams
Another theory is that the marketing department came up with the name 'pyramids,' and everyone agreed that it sounded like something pointy.
-The Joy of Work by Scott Adams
To me, it's obvious that marketing wasn't responsible for the shape of the pyramids. In those days, if your only skill was marketing, your contribution to major construction projects was in the capacity of tile grout.
-The Joy of Work by Scott Adams
It took thousands of years before people who had no useful skills realized they could earn money by wearing nice clothes and designing deceptive brochures.
-The Joy of Work by Scott Adams
Mediocrity
Only the mediocre are always at their best.
-Jean Giraudoux
Meetings
Maybe meetings have become a lifeform capable of calling themselves and thus reproducing via human hosts.
-Dilbert in When Body Language Goes Bad, a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams
Dilbert: I just had a good meeting.
Dogbert: Maybe it just didn't last long enough to reveal the incompetence of the attendees.
Dilbert: That's what I call a good meeting.
Dogbert: I'm having a bad meeting.
-When Body Language Goes Bad, a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams
Miracles
"Sounds like a miracle to me," croaked Brutha. "Just because you can explain it doesn't mean it's not still a miracle."
-Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
Modern Times
Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.
-Ovid, Born 43 B.C., Died AD 17
O tempora! O mores!
[Translates to: What an age! What moral standards!]
-Cicero, Born 106 B.C., Died 43 B.C.
Oh, this age! How tasteless and ill-bred it is!
-Catullus, Born 84 B.C. Died 54 B.C.
Our ignorance of history makes us libel our own times. People have always been like this.
-Gustave Flaubert, Born December 21, 1821, Died May 8, 1880
Things are more like they are now than they have ever been.
-former President Gerald R. Ford
Everything is still the same. It's just a little different now.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
Monarchy
The only thing known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle. He reasoned like this: you can't have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously. Presumably, he said, there must be some elementary particles -kingons, or possibly queons- that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if, in mid-flight, they stike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expounded because, at that point, the bar closed.
-Terry Pratchett, Mort
Kings were always killing one another or being killed.
-Terry Pratchett, Mort
Since it was clear that being king was no picnic it was amazing that half the cast were apparently trying to become one.
-Terry Pratchett, Mort
Money
This looks like a job for legal tender.
-The Tick, The Tick: 'The Tick vs. Brainchild'
A man can't get rich if he takes proper care of his family.
-Navajo saying
No one can earn a million dollars honestly.
-William Jennings Bryan
This week I kicked off the "Wally Compensation Equilibrium Project." My goal is to lower the quality of my work until it is consistent with my salary. I'd go on, but I just achieved equilibrium.
-Wally, a Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams reprinted in The Joy of Work by Scott Adams
Monkeys
Pointy-haired Boss: Have you ever seen monkey brains?
Wally: Once, when you flared your nostrils.
When Body Language Goes Bad, a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams
Yorick, your monkey has problems. He tried to have sex with my arm last night!
-Agent 355 in Y The Last Man Book 1: Unmanned, written by Brian K. Vaughn
Motivation
Why do I even bother trying to moralify these people?
Pointy-haired Boss in a Dilbert comic by Scott Adams reprinted in Positive Attiitude
Music
Music is essentially useless, as life is.
-George Santayana
Only sick music makes money today.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Without music, life would be a mistake.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
[spoiler=profanity]
White people fucked up the blues.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings[/spoiler]
Anything too stupid to be spoken is sung.
-Voltaire
N
Nebraska
Nebraska is proof that Hell is full and the dead walk the earth.
-Liz Winston
Necessity
In order to preserve your self-respect, it is sometimes necessary to lie and cheat.
-Robert Byrne
How can one part be more important if each part is completely necessary?
-Avatar, God's Debris by Scott Adams
Normality
I don't want to be
Normal like you.
-Everclear, "Normal Like You"
O
Oddly Prescient
I think the world is run by C students.
-Al McGuire (at least a few years before George W. Bush became president)
Men have become tools of their tools.
-Henry David Thoreau (a good number of years before the computer or the automobile)
Now we are trying to get unemployment to go up and I think we're going to succeed.
-former President Ronald Reagan at a 1982 GOP fundraiser
Originality
Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.
-T. S. Eliot
Good Swiping is an art in itself.
-Jules Feiffer
Outsiders
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.
-George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring The Porkchops
P
Pain
They cannot hurt you unless you let them.
-Everclear, "One Hit Wonder"
Peace
My name is peace
This is my hour
Can I get
Just a little bit of power?
-Red Hot Chili Peppers, "The Power of Equality"
People
I've always been interested in people, but I've never liked them.
-Somerset Maugham
Most people are not particularly good at anything.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
People who didn't need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn't need people.
-Terry Pratchett, Maskerade
I prefer people with imagination: dictators, serial killers, schizophrenics, assassins, skinheads, druglords, violent bikers, devil worshippers. To me, these are the interesting people.
-George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring The Porkchops
Persistence
We'll keep on fighting until the end.
-Queen, "We Are the Champions"
We'll keep on farting until the end.
-Mondegren of above lyric in 'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy And Other Misheard Lyrics by Gavin Edwards
Perspective
In the eyes of the dragon, Saint George was doubtless a monster. But, as we know, the opinions of that unfortunate creature count for very little given its overwhelming defeat. It is the fate of monsters to be forever on the losing side.
-Sebastian O, Sebastian O by Grant Morrison
Philosophers
Plato was a bore.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal.
-Leo Tolstoy
Plato invented reality.
-an anonymous student quoted in Non Campus Mentis compiled by Professor Anders Henrikson
No madman has ever dreamed up anything so weird that some philosopher will not say it.
-Varro, Fragmenta
Politics
There is no distinctly American criminal class -except congress.
-Mark Twain
Political history is far too criminal of a subject to be a fit thing to teach children.
-W. H. Auden
If politicians and scientists were lazier, how much happier we should all be.
-Evelyn Waugh
Sticking with what they think has never helped political leaders.
-Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares
The word bipartisan usually means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried on.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
Possessions
You tell me that you've got everything you want
And your bird can sing
But you don't get me, you don't get me
You say you've seen seven wonders and your bird is green
But you can't see me, you can't see me
When your prized possessions start to wear you down
Look in my direction, I'll be round, I'll be round
When your bird is broken will it bring you down?
You may be awoken, I'll be round, I'll be round
-The Beatles, "And Your Bird Can Sing
Positive Thinking
If everyone in the world sat quietly at the same time, closed their eyes and concentrated as hard as they could on peace and goodwill, all the killing and cruelty in the world would continue. And probably increase.
-George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?
I have a new philosophy. I'm going to dread one day at a time.
-Charles Schulz
Prayer
Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
-Mark Twain
If God listened to every shepherd's curse, our sheep would all be dead.
-Russian Proverb
God seems to have left the receiver off the hook.
-Arthur Koestler
Probability
Scientists have calculated that the chances of of anything so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one.
But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.
-Terry Pratchett, Mort
Problems
Yes, I think we got a problem.
-Everclear, "So Much For the Afterglow"
The problem is you... problems.
-The Sex Pistols, "Problems"
The problem is you, Rob Lowe.
-Mondegren of above lyric in 'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy And Other Misheard Lyrics by Gavin Edwards
Publishing
And he dreamed the dream of all those who publish books, which was to have so much gold in your pockets that you would have to employ two people just to hold your trousers up.
Terry Pratchett, Maskerade
Q
Quotes
This isn't much of a quote book if I'm in it.
-Richard Dowd
I really didn't say everything I said.
-Yogi Berra
'What's the quote from? It's very meaningful without, er, meaning very much.'
'I think it's just a quote,' said Sacharissa.
-An exchange between William de Worde and Sacharissa Crisplock in The Truth by Terry Pratchett
It's a sorry man who can not invent an Oscar Wilde quote to fit his situation.
-Oscar Wilde
R
Race
Red, Black, or White
This is my fight.
-Red Hot Chili Peppers, "The Power of Equality"
Reality
This is indeed a disturbing universe.
-Maggie Simpson, The Simpsons voiced by James Earl Jones
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
-Thomas Alva Edison
Words such as dimension and field and infinity are nothing more than conveniences for mathematicians and scientists. They are not descriptions of reality, yet we accept them as such because everyone is sure someone else knows what the words mean.
-Avatar, God's Debris by Scott Adams
Every generation of humans believed it had all the answers it needed, except for a few mysteries assumed would be solved at any moment. And they all believed their ancestors were simplistic and deluded. What are the odds that you are the first generation of humans who will understand reality?
-Avatar, God's Debris by Scott Adams
Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
-Mark Twain
Reality is a collective hunch.
-Lilly Tomlin and Jane Wagner
Why is it like this? Why isn't everything different?
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
Reason, Sense, Rationality
I'll not listen to reason. Reason always means what someone else has to say.
-Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
Reasons
"Anyway, that's just an explanation," said Om. "It's not a reason"
-Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
Regret
Calvin: I'd say I've had a pretty good life so far. In fact, looking back, I have only one regret.
Hobbes: What's that?
Calvin: I regret I wasn't born with opposable toes.
-The Days Are Just Packed, a Calvin and Hobbes collection by Bill Waterson
Religion
Wally: I believe God created the Earth because he hates people. And I believe coffee tastes better if you stir it with your finger.
Dilbert: It sounds like a lonely religion.
Wally: They all start that way.
-Random Acts of Management, a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams
Every day people are staying away from the church and going back to God.
-Lenny Bruce
I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
I've got a welt
From the Bible Belt.
-Red Hot Chili Peppers, "The Power of Equality"
I'm the only member of my religion but I have ambitious plans for brainwashing.
-an anonymous worker in When Body Language Goes Bad, a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams
Judyism was the first monolithic religion. It had one big god named 'Yahoo.'
-an anonymous student quoted in Non Campus Mentis compiled by Professor Anders Henrikson
Deism was the belief that God made the world and then stepped on it.
-an anonymous student quoted in Non Campus Mentis compiled by Professor Anders Henrikson
Rules
The Eleventh Commandment: Don't get caught.
- Robert Anson Heinlein
Any fool can make a rule.
-Henry David Thoreau
S
Sales
If a man smiles all the time he's probably selling something that doesn't work.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
Sarcasm
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.
-Dorothy Parker, 'Comment'
Sex
He'd noticed that sex bore some resemblance to cookery. It fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were really hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination- but at the end of the day they'd settle quite happily for eggs and chips, if it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato.
-Commander Vimes's thoughts on sex and cookery in The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett
Shallowness
Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
-Oscar Wilde
Siege Weaponry
When you have a fat friend, there are no seesaws, only catapults.
-Demetri Martin
Simile
So let's just say that Ankh-Morpork is as full of life as an old cheese on a hot day, as loud as a curse in a cathedral, as bright as an oil slick, as colorful as a bruise and as full of activity, bustle, and sheer exuberant busyness as a dead dog on a termite mound.
-Terry Pratchett, Mort
Brother Preptil, the master of music, had described Brutha's voice as putting him in mind of a disappointed vulture arriving too late at the dead donkey.
-Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
Dogbert: Ratbert, sometimes a good wine has to age before it is perfect.
Ratbert: So'¦ I'll get smarter over time?
Dogbert: To the extent that you are like a grape.
-A Dilbert strip by Scott Adams reprinted in Positive Attitude
(Outer) Space, Space Travel, The Space Program
My fellow astronauts...
- former Vice President Dan Quayle, whose involvement in the space program was minimal to non-existent
And isn't space the best thing to hurtle through!?!
-Mojo, in "The Dream is Dead- Gone, Shot Off, All Squashed Flat", Beautiful Stories For Ugly Children issue #30, written by Dave Louapre
Urinating on other planets was one of the simple pleasures that made space travel worthwhile.
-"The Dream is Dead- Gone, Shot Off, All Squashed Flat", Beautiful Stories For Ugly Children issue #30, written by Dave Louapre
Souls
I'll swallow your soul.
-Santa, Billy and Mandy Save Christmas
Success
Why does success make me hate humanity?
-Dilbert in a Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams reprinted in the collection titled Thriving On Vague Objectives
Suicide
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
-Dorothy Parker, 'Résumé'
T
Time
Time I had some time alone.
-R.E.M., "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)"
Time I had some Tylenol.
-Mondegren of above lyric in 'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy And Other Misheard Lyrics by Gavin Edwards
Travel
Being here is a lot like being lost, Arthur.
-The Tick, The Tick: 'The Tick vs. Brainchild'
"Where did you say your business was?" said Lezek. "Is it far?"
NO FURTHER THAN THE THICKNESS OF A SHADOW, said Death. WHERE THE FIRST PRIMAL CELL WAS, THERE WAS I ALSO. WHERE MAN IS, THERE AM I. WHEN THE LAST LIFE CRAWLS UNDER FREEZING STARS, THERE WILL I BE.
"Ah," said Lezek, "you get about a bit, then."
-Terry Pratchett, Mort
Triumph
This calls for the Billy-was-right-dance.
-Billy, Billy and Mandy Save Christmas
Troubles
Pick your heart up off the ground,
Though I'm sure it weighs a ton.
You're no better or no worse
Than any mother's son.
-The Dropkick Murphys, 'The Gang's All Here'
[spoiler=profanity]
We're all fucked. It helps to remember that.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings[/spoiler]
When you don't have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it's sex. When you have both, it's health. If everything is simply jake, then you're frightened of death.
-J. P. Donleavy
Truth
When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.
-George Bernard Shaw
Calvin: See, the problem with fine art is that it's supposed to express original truths. But who likes originality and truth?! Nobody! Life's hard enough without it! Only an idiot would pay for it! But popular art knows the custmomer is always right! People wnat more of what they already know they like, so popular art gives it to 'em!
Hobbes: And how are the movie sequels this summer?
Calvin: Great! Man, there's nothing I hate more than paying five bucks and having to deal with some new plot.
-A Calvin and Hobbes comic strip in The Days Are Just Packed by Bill Waterson
U
Unemployment
The trouble with unemployment is that the minute you wake up in the morning you're on the job.
-Slappy White
V
Virtue
There are no monks in my band
There are no saints in this land
I'll be doing all I can
If I die an honest man.
-Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Funky Monks"
Just below the dome, staring down from their niches were statues of the virutes: Patience, Chastity, Silence, Charity, Hope, Tubso, Bisonomy*, and Fortitude.
*Many cultures practice neither of these in the hustle and bustle of the modern world because no one can remember what they are.
-Going Postal, Terry Pratchett
I am repelled by wholesomeness.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
Vortexes, Swirling
I love it when there's a swirling vortex.
-Billy, Billy and Mandy Save Christmas
W
Weasels
Dilbert: I used to think I might like some people I hadn't met. But now I think they're weasels too.
Dogbert: How about a wide-eyed and innocent child who loves you unconditionally?
Dilbert: Tiny weasels.
- A Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams reprinted in the collection, Words You Don't Want To Hear during Your Annual Performance Review
People are weasels.
-Scott Adams, Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel
Witchcraft, Witches, Witching, etc
A witch never has matching crockery.
-Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky
You were there, you had the hat, you did the job. That was a basic rule of witchery: It's up to you.
-Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky
Young women should not go alone on dark nights, even in Oxfordshire. But any prowling maniac would have had more than his work cut out if he had accosted Anathema Device. She was a witch, after all. And precisley because she was a witch, and therefore sensible, she put little faith in protective amulets ands spells; she saved it all for a foot-long bread knife which she kept in her belt.
-Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Good Omens
Women, Females, Girls, Ladies
Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.
-Groucho Marx
Words
When ideas fail, words come in handy.
-Goethe
I think we've outgrown the word gripe. When everyone has automatic weapons, a word like gripe is sort of irrelevant.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
There should be some things we don't name, just so we can sit around all day and wonder what they are.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
Work
Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart give yourself to it.
-Buddha
Working-class people 'look for work.' Middle-class people 'try to get a job.' Upper-middle-class people 'seek employment.'
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
We're all amateurs; it's just that some of us are more professional about it than others.
-George Carlin, Brain Droppings
And it all meant this: that there are hardly an excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot be easily duplicated by a normal, kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.
-Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
I'd rather staple a skunk to my forehead and go to a tradeshow for banjo makers. And yet, it's still better than working, so count me in.
-Carol, the secretary, in a Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams reprinted in the collection, When Body Language Goes Bad
Always be smarter than the people who hire you.
-Lena Horne
The World
The world is a madhouse, so it's only right that it is patrolled by armed idiots.
-Brendan Behan
The world is our school for spiritual discovery.
-Paul Brunton
We're a planet of nearly six billion ninnies living in a civilization that was designed by a few thousand amazingly smart deviants.
-Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle
You have the vanity to believe you live in two worlds, but that is only your vanity. There is but one single world for us. We are men, and must follow the world of men contentedly.
-Don Juan, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castenada
He's got the whole world in his hands.
-Traditional, "He's Got The Whole World in His Hands"
He's got the whole world in his pants.
-Mondegren of above lyric in He's Got The Whole World in His Pants And More Misheard Lyrics by Gavin Edwards
X
Xenophobia
The metric system is the tool of the devil!
-Abraham J Simpson, The Simpsons
size=16]Y[/size]
Yaks
Our yaks are really large
And they smell like rotting beef carcasses...
And we have to clean up after them.
"Kilted Yaksmen Anthem" from the album Ren & Stimpy You Eediot, lyrics by John Kricfalusi & Bob Camp, music by Charlie Brissette, sung by Billy West, Bob Camp, Charlie Brissette, and members of the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles
[spoiler=profanity]
I have to piss like a yak.
-Mojo in "The Dream is Dead- Gone, Shot Off, All Squashed Flat", Beautiful Stories For Ugly Children issue #30, written by Dave Louapre[/spoiler]
Z
Zen
Wally: I take the Zen approach of having no friends and doing no work. Hence, perfect balance.
Dilbert: Where did you get that definition of Zen?
Wally: I used to read, but it's faster to make up stuff.
-A Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams rerpinted in the collection titled Thriving On Vague Objectives
Zoos
Did you know that the zoo can ban you for life if they catch you using a hibachi?
-Pointy-haired Boss, Random Acts of Management a Dilbert collection by Scott Adams
Endings
If you have something of importance to say, for God's Sake start at the end.
-Sarah Jeanette Duncan
Give me a good ending any time. You know where you are with an ending.
-Atropos, The Sandman The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman
And now my story is ended.
I think it is time I should quit.
If any of you feel offended,
Stick your head in a barrel
Of sh...aving cream.
-Benny Bell, "Shaving Cream"
In the end, everything is a gag.
-Charlie Chaplin
In the end, only kindness matters.
-Jewel, "Hands"