Here are some of my favorite quotes
“A I’m adorable, B I’m so beautiful, C I’m so cuddly and cute.” -- A Vietnam era Marine Sargent I once worked with. Despite having lost both legs while in combat (or as he put it, “I went to Vietnam and got de-feeted”) he maintained a positive outlook on life. This included going on search and rescue missions for lost hikers while wearing his prosthetic legs.
“I like to eat.” -- Another Vietnam era veteran I once worked with who was wounded in action and walked with a limp. He didn’t like his job, but rather be negative and say that when I asked him how he liked his job he simple said he liked to eat.
“Come to the coast we'll get together have a few laughs. Now I know what a TV dinner feels like.” -- Bruce Willis as detective John McClane in the movie Die Hard.
“Though much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” -- Alfred Lord Tennyson
In light of the political divisions within the USA these days I have added the following quotes. They may help to provide a different perspective:
“Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect but we didn’t have to build a wall to keep our people in.” -- President John F Kennedy's speech at the Berlin Wall, June 26, 1963
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” -- President Ronald Reagan's speech at the Berlin Wall, on June 12, 1987
“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” -- Winston Churchill
“I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.” -- Abraham Lincoln
Benjamin Franklin Quotes:
"Some people are weatherwise, but most people are otherwise."
"Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late."
"Well done is better than well said."
"Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today."
"By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail."
"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest".
"When you're finished changing, you're finished."
"All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move."
"Never confuse motion with action."
"Who had deceived thee so often as thyself?"
"If we do not all hang together we will surely hang separately."
"Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man."
"Diligence is the mother of good luck."
"To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions."
"Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.”
"There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one's self."
"Energy and persistence conquer all things.”
"...those who love their pillow [will] lie down in Peace on the second of this month and not perhaps awake until the morning of the fourteenth." -- Benjamin Franklin, referring to the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. By 1752 the Julian calendar was eleven days off of the solar year. So to adjust to the new calendar the colonists in North America simply skipped the days between September 2nd and September 14th, 1752.
Neil Armstrong Quotes:
"As a boy, because I was born and raised in Ohio, about 60 miles north of Dayton, the legends of the Wrights have been in my memories as long as I can remember."
"Yeah, I wasn't chosen to be first. I was just chosen to command that flight. Circumstance put me in that particular role. That wasn't planned by anyone.."
"The Eagle has landed."
“This is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
"It's a brilliant surface in that sunlight. The horizon seems quite close to you because the curvature is so much more pronounced than here on earth. It's an interesting place to be. I recommend it."
"It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small."
"Science has not yet mastered prophecy. We predict too much for the next year and yet far too little for the next 10."
"Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand."
"Research is creating new knowledge."
"In much of society, research means to investigate something you do not know or understand."
"Pilots take no special joy in walking. Pilots like flying."
"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better." -- Samuel Beckett
"The Best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. Be the Change you wish to see in the World." -- Gandhi
"Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragement’s, and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end result of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay." -- Eric Hoffer
"Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above them." -- Washington Irving
"Only those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly." -- Robert F. Kennedy
"It's not whether you get knocked down; it's whether you get back up." -- Vince Lombardi
"Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall." -- Confucius
"I've failed over and over again in my life. That is why I succeed." -- Michael Jordan
"I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps." -- Thomas Edison's response to a reporter who asked, "How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?"
"Mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams." -- one of Albert Einstein's teachers
"He lacked imagination and had no good ideas." -- The reason a newspaper editor gave for firing Walt Disney
"Why don't you stop wasting people's time and go out and become a dishwasher or something?" -- the casting director after Sidney Poitier's first audition. It was at that moment that Poitier decided to devote his life to acting
"You ain't got it kid, you ain't got it ... now get out of here." -- a studio vice-president to Harrison Ford after his first performance in a movie
"You will be a laborer all your life." -- Michael Caine's headmaster
"Imagination is more important than intelligence." -- Albert Einstein
"There is no education like adversity". -- Benjamin Disraeli
"By three ways we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is the noblest; second, by imitation, which is the easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest." -- Confucius
"Religion is for people who fear hell, spirituality is for people who have been there." -- David Bowie
"A person's mind stretched by a new idea never goes back to its original dimension." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
"We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give". -- Winston Churchill
"Nearly all can stand adversity but if you want to test someone's character, give them power." -- Abraham Lincoln
"Failure is more frequently from want of energy than from want of capital." -- Daniel Webster
Yogi Berra Quotes:
“You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six.”
"This is like deja vu all over again."
"You can observe a lot just by watching."
"He must have made that before he died." -- Referring to a Steve McQueen movie.
"You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there."
"I knew I was going to take the wrong train, so I left early."
"Baseball is 90% mental -- the other half is physical."
"Do you mean now?" -- When asked for the time.
"I take a two hour nap, from one o'clock to four."
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it."
"Thanks, you don't look so hot yourself." -- After being told he looked cool.
Phil Rizzuto – “Hey Yogi I think we’re lost.” – Yogi Berra – “Ya, but we’re making great time!”
"If the fans don't come out to the ball park, you can't stop them."
"Why buy good luggage? You only use it when you travel."
"How long have you known me, Jack? And you still don't know how to spell my name." -- Upon receiving a check from Jack Buck made out to "bearer."
"It ain't the heat; it's the humility."
"The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase."
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours."
"I didn't really say everything I said."
"I couldn’t tell if the streaker was a man or a woman because it had a bag on it’s head.”
Interviewer – “Why, you’re a fatalist !” Yogi Berra – “You mean I save postage stamps ? Not me.”
"Never answer an anonymous letter”
"If you ask me anything I don't know, I'm not going to answer.”
"A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore.”
"Even Napoleon had his Watergate.”
"He hits from both sides of the plate. He's amphibious.”
"I think Little League is wonderful. It keeps the kids out of the house.
"I wish I had an answer to that because I'm tired of answering that question.”
"If the world was perfect, it wouldn't be.”
"I do not know what to say in a case so surprising, so unlooked for, and so novel." -- Galileo Galilei, 1612, who after observing Saturn's rings when they were only narrowly open on in 1610, was unable to see them when he observed Saturn again in 1612 when the rings were near edge on. He correctly predicted however that the rings would become visble again.
"I ought not to claim that I can see the phases of Mars; however, unless I am deceiving myself, I believe I have already seen that it not perfectly round". -- Galileo Galilei
"There is not perhaps another object in the heavens that presents us with such a variety of extraordinary phenomena as the planet Saturn: a magnificent globe, encompassed by a stupendous double ring: attended by seven satellites: ornamented with equatorial belts: compressed at the poles: turning upon its axis: mutually eclipsing its ring and satellites, and eclipsed by them: the most distant of the rings also turning upon its axis, and the same taking place with the farthest of the satellites: all the parts of the system of Saturn occasionally reflecting light to each other: the rings and moons illuminating the nights of the Saturnian: the globe and satellites enlightening the dark parts of the rings: and the planet and rings throwing back the sun's beams upon the moons, when they are deprived of them at the time of their conjunctions." -- Sir William Herschel, 1805
"If I were to pray for a taste which would stand by me under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me through life, and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss, and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading." -- Sir William Herschel
"There is a grandeur, an almost overpowering sublimity in the scene that no language can fully express." -- George P. Bond, after observing The Orion Nebula with the 15" refractor at Harvard College Observatory, 1847
"I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The almighty has said no doubt, 'Now here are two unaccountable freaks. They came in together, they must go out together'." -- Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), April, 1910
"I recollect a night of broken clouds And underfoot snow melted down to ice, And melting further in the wind to mud. Bradford and I had out the telescope. We spread our two legs as we spread its three, Pointed our thoughts the way we pointed it, And standing at our leisure till the day broke, Said some of the best things we ever said. That telescope was christened the Star-Splitter..." -- Robert Frost, from his poem entitled "The Star-Splitter"
"It's difficult to imagine anyone viewing every object within reach of a 6-inch telescope, not to mention a 12-inch". -- Walter Scott Houston.
"If a telescope can fit into your backyard it's too small. If you can't move it, it's too big." -- John Dobson
"I told my boss he had to start paying me what I was worth. He said, I am sorry, but it is illegal for me to pay you less than the minimum wage." -- a DJ on a radio station whose name I didn't catch.
"Well, ignorance is on your head!" -- This comment was made by a program manager I once worked for. The program manager was a good friends with the manager, so when program manager asked for feedback during the meeting no one wanted to say anything. As we left the meeting I asked a coworker what was meant by the ignorance is on your head comment. He said, "I don't know, I always thought ignorance was bliss".
"That's a bad thing." -- A former coworker of mine who had very low key, laid back attitude and dry sense of humor. So if I told him that the latest software build that we sent out to a customer caused their server to crash when it was installed he would say "That's a bad thing." If I mentioned that it looked like the company would be giving a bonus at the end of the year after all he would say "That's a good thing." His very low key, laid back attitude and dry sense of humor made it easier to get through the work day.
"Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
"If you are going through hell, keep going." -- Winston Churchill
"Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it." -- Winston Churchill
"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." -- Winston Churchill
"Unless you treat failure as part of the journey, your never going to get anywhere'." -- Tom Selleck
Young Ellie: "Dad, do you think there's people on other planets?"
Ted Arroway: I don't know, Sparks. But I guess I'd say if it is just us... seems like an awful waste of space."David Drumlin: I know you must think this is all very unfair. Maybe that's an understatement. What you don't know is I agree. I wish the world was a place where fair was the bottom line, where the kind of idealism you showed at the hearing was rewarded, not taken advantage of. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world."
Ellie Arroway: "Funny, I've always believed that the world is what we make of it."
Life form that Ellie meets: "You're an interesting species. An interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other."
From the movie Contact.
"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it.".
"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." -- Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address.
"We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we can not dedicate ~ we can not consecrate ~ we can not hallow this ground. The brave men living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here but it can never forget what they did here." -- Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." -- Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address.
"You would leave me notes on my pillow... we are out of corn flakes again, FU. Took me three hours to figure out that FU stood for Felix Unger" -- Oscar Madison, played by the late Walter Matthau, talking to Felix Unger, played by the late Jack Lemmon, in the movie "The Odd Couple"
"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant." -- Robert Lewis Stevenson
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." -- Theodore Roosevelt
"We must use the tools that we have." -- Abraham Lincoln
"When the calculating starts the thinking stops." -- Dr. Helmut Landsberg
"It is not so much what we have, but rather how much we enjoy what we have, that makes us happy." -- Anonymous
"It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and reality of tomorrow." -- Robert Goddard
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you imagined." -- Henry David Thoreau
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.” -- Anaïs Nin
“If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.” -- Amy Tan
“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.” -- Paulo Coelho
“The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.” -- Tom Clancy
“The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy.” -- Kalu Kalu
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” -- Lao Tzu
“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.” -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” -- John Wooden
“Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. -- John Wooden
"There is no such thing as inclement weather, only inadequate dress." -- Dr. Helmut Landsberg
"I get the news I need from the weather report. I can gather all of the news I need from the weather report." -- Simon and Garfunkel, from the song "The Only Living Boy in New York"
"If climate change is taking place, it will be noticed in the polar regions of the Earth first." -- Dr. Helmut Landsberg (1906-1985) is considered to be the father of modern climatology. Evidence indicates that his prediction, made in 1983, appears to be correct.
"We will be known forever by the tracks that we leave." -- Native American Proverb
"We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." -- Native American Proverb
"Adopt the pace the nature; her secret is patience." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world." -- John Muir
"I think over again my small adventures. My fears. Those small ones that seemed so big. For all those vital things I had to get and to reach. And yet there is only one great thing. The only thing. To live to see the great day that dawns and the light that fills the world." -- Old Inuit Song, from the movie "Never Cry Wolf"
"In whatever one does, there must be a relationship between the eye and the heart."
"With the one eye that is closed, one looks within, with the other eye that is open, one looks without."
-- Henri Cartier-Bresson, renowned photographer
"A huge granite mountain cannot be denied - it speaks in silence to the very core of your being." -- Ansel Adams
Don't Quit
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest, if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is queer with it's twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a fellow turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow-
You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victors cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out-
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit,-
It's when things seem worst, that you mustn't quit.
Author Unknown
"May I have 10,000 marbles please?" -- Flounder from the movie Animal House.
"Put Neidermeyer on it. He's a sneaky little sh*t just like you." -- Dean Vernon Wormer from the movie Animal House.
Yoda to Luke: "So certain are you. Always with you it cannot be done. Hear you nothing that I say?. You must unlearn what you have learned.".
Luke: "All right, I'll give it a try."
Yoda: "No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
Luke: "I don't, I don't believe it."
Yoda: "That is why you fail."
From Star Wars Episode V "The Empire Srikes Back".
Q: "Welcome to the afterlife, Jean Luc. You're dead!"
Picard: "Q, What is going on ?"
Q: "I told you. You're dead, this is the afterlife, and I'm God."
Picard: "You are not God!"
Q: "Blasphemy! You're lucky I don't cast you out or smite you or something."
Picard: "No. I am not dead. Because I refuse to believe that the afterlife is run by you. The universe is not so badly designed."
From Star Trek The Next Generation episode "Tapestry"
"What do you want you moon-faced assassin of joy?" -- Ambassador Molari to his assistant Vir on Babylon 5.
Humphrey Bogart (Rick): "How can you close me up? On what grounds?"
Claude Rains (Captain Louis Renault): "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"
Croupier hands Renault a pile of money from the roulette table: "Your winnings, sir".
Captain Renault: [soft voice] "Oh, thank you very much."
Captain Renault: [aloud] "Everybody out at once!"
Captain Renault: "What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?"
Rick: "My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters."
Captain Renault: "The waters? What waters? We're in the desert."
Rick: "I was misinformed."
(Rick and Renault discussing Victor Laszlo's chances of escaping Casablanca)
Captain Renault: "This is the end of the chase."
Rick: "Twenty thousand francs says it isn't."
Captain Renault: "Is that a serious offer?"
Rick: "I just paid out twenty. I'd like to get it back."
Captain Renault: "Make it ten. I'm only a poor corrupt official."
Quotes from the movie Casablanca
Quotes from the late Leslie Nielsen
From "Airplane!" where he played Dr. Rumack: (1980):Dr. Rumack: Can you fly this plane, and land it?
Ted Striker: Surely you can't be serious.
Rumack: I am serious... and don't call me Shirley!
Rumack: You'd better tell the Captain we've got to land as soon as we can. This woman has to be gotten to a hospital.
Elaine Dickinson: A hospital? What is it?
Rumack: It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now.
From "The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!" where he played Frank Drebin (1988):
"Mayor: Now Drebin, I don't want any trouble like you had on the South Side last year, that's my policy.Frank: Well, when I see five weirdos, dressed in togas, stabbing a man in the middle of the park in full view of a hundred people, I shoot the bastards, that's *my* policy!
Mayor: That was a Shakespeare-In-The-Park production of "Julius Caesar," you moron! You killed five actors! Good ones!
Frank: Jane, since I've met you, I've noticed things that I never knew were there before... birds singing, dew glistening on a newly formed leaf, stoplights.
From "The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear" (1991):
President George Bush: Frank, please consider filling a post I'm creating. It may mean long hours and dangerous nights, surrounded by some of the scummiest elements in our society.
Frank: You want me to be in your cabinet?
"Looking back over those momentous events of fifty years ago when I was a Marine evokes strong emotions. The years immediately after the war were the hardest. As Paul Fussell remarked, the combat veteran not only had to survive the experience, he has had to learn to live with it for the rest of his life. He was so right. For the first twenty-odd years after my return, nightmares occurred frequently, waking me either crying or yelling, always sweating, and with a pounding heart. Some nights I delayed going to bed, dreading the inevitable nightmares. Old comrades wrote to me that similar troubles drove many of them to drink and the ensuing misery of alcoholism, which they beat with sheer self-discipline." -- Eugene Sledge, whose books With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa and China Marine were used in the making of the HBO mini-series The Pacific.
"When you have been in combat for a while dying is a whole lot easier than living. -- A US Army veteran who fought in Europe during WWII including at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.
"The war is over for me now, but it will always be there for the rest of my days. ...those of us that did make it have an obligation to build again. To teach others what we know, and to try with what's left of our lives to find a goodness and meaning to this life" -- Private Chris Taylor, played by Charlie Sheen, from the movie "Platoon".
"I don't know. Part of me thinks the kid's right. He asks what he's done to deserve this. He wants to stay here, fine. Let's leave him and go home. But then another part of me thinks, what if by some miracle we stay, then actually make it out of here. Someday we might look back on this and decide that saving Private Ryan was the one decent thing we were able to pull out of this whole godawful, sh*tty mess. Like you said, Captain, maybe we do that, we all earn the right to go home." -- Sergeant Mike Horvath, played by Tom Sizemore, from the movie "Saving Private Ryan".
"My family is with me today. They wanted to come with me. To be honest with you, I wasn't sure how I'd feel coming back here. Every day I think about what you said to me that day on the bridge. I tried to live my life the best that I could. I hope that was enough. I hope that, at least in your eyes, I've earned what all of you have done for me. -- Private Ryan as Old Man played by Harrison Young, addressing Capt. Miller's grave from the movie "Saving Private Ryan".
-- In memory of all of our veterans --
