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Topic: Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate (Read 6332 times) |
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Hermit
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Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« on: 2006-07-27 01:18:45 » |
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The format I have used here, and which you are invited to copy when extending what is intended as a useful "library", is:
For Quotations
Code:
[b][u]Peace of mind[/u][/b]
[b]Class: [/b]Quotation
[b]Authors: [/b]Samuel Langhorne Clemens [alias Mark Twain]
[b]Source: [/b]Letter to Charles W. Stoddard
[b]Dated: [/b]1885-06-01
[b]Keywords: [/b]Unbelief Bible Religion Belief Atheism Humor 'Peace of Mind' 'Religious Belief' 'Irrational Belief'
[i]Peace of mind is a most valuable thing. The Bible has robbed the majority of the world of it during many centuries; it is but fair that in return it should give some to an individual here & there. But you must not make the mistake of supposing that absolute peace of mind is obtainable only through some form of religious belief: no, on the contrary I have found that as perfect a peace is to be found in absolute unbelief.[/i] |
For Citations
Code:
[b][u]Attempting the Improbable[/u][/b]
[b]Class: [/b]Citation
[b]Ascribed To: [/b]Samuel Johnson LL.D.
[b]Authors: [/b]James Boswell
[b]Source: [/b][url=http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/b/boswell/james/osgood/complete.html]The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D.[/url]
[b]Dated: [/b]1763-07-31
[b]Keywords: [/b]Improbable Unlikely Amazement Simile
[i]Next day, Sunday, July 31, I told him I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. JOHNSON. [b]‘Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprized to find it done at all.’[/b][/i] |
The difference between a quotation and a citation is the speaker. In a quotation we are using the author's own words, in a citation we use them as ascribed by another.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #1 on: 2006-07-27 01:19:36 » |
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Peace of mind
Class: Quotation
Authors: Samuel Langhorne Clemens [alias Mark Twain]
Source: Letter to Charles W. Stoddard
Dated: 1885-06-01
Keywords: Unbelief Bible Religion Belief Atheism Humor 'Peace of Mind' 'Religious Belief' 'Irrational Belief'
Peace of mind is a most valuable thing. The Bible has robbed the majority of the world of it during many centuries; it is but fair that in return it should give some to an individual here & there. But you must not make the mistake of supposing that absolute peace of mind is obtainable only through some form of religious belief: no, on the contrary I have found that as perfect a peace is to be found in absolute unbelief.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #2 on: 2006-07-27 01:28:03 » |
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The Bible
Class: Quotation
Authors: Samuel Langhorne Clemens [alias Mark Twain]
Source: Letter III of "Letters From the Earth"
Dated: 1909 [First published in 1946]
Keywords: Unbelief Bible Christianity Christian Religion Belief Atheism Humor 'Old Testament' 'New Testament' 'Religious Belief' 'Irrational Belief'
You have noticed that the human being is a curiosity. In times past he has had (and worn out and flung away) hundreds and hundreds of religions; today he has hundreds and hundreds of religions, and launches not fewer than three new ones every year. I could enlarge that number and still be within the facts.
One of his principle religions is called the Christian. A sketch of it will interest you. It sets forth in detail in a book containing two million words, called the Old and New Testaments. Also it has another name -- The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God -- the one I have been speaking of.
It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.
This Bible is built mainly out of the fragments of older Bibles that had their day and crumbled to ruin. So it noticeably lacks in originality, necessarily. Its three or four most imposing and impressive events all happened in earlier Bibles; all its best precepts and rules of conduct came also from those Bibles; there are only two new things in it: hell, for one, and that singular heaven I have told you about.
What shall we do? If we believe, with these people, that their God invented these cruel things, we slander him; if we believe that these people invented them themselves, we slander them. It is an unpleasant dilemma in either case, for neither of these parties has done us any harm.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #3 on: 2006-07-27 01:49:21 » |
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The Ignorance of the Gods
Class: Quotation
Authors: Samuel Langhorne Clemens [alias Mark Twain]
Source: Mark Twain's Notebook
Dated: 1902-1903 [First published in 1935]
Keywords: Bible Bibles God Gods Ignorance Stupidity
When one reads Bibles, one is less surprised at what the Deity knows than at what He doesn't know.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #4 on: 2006-07-27 21:55:08 » |
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Faith
Class: Quotation
Authors: Samuel Langhorne Clemens [alias Mark Twain]
Source: Following the Equator, ch. 12, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar"
Dated: 1897
Keywords: Schoolboy Faith Trust 'Religious Belief' 'Irrational Belief'
There are those who scoff at the school boy, calling him frivolous and shallow. Yet it was the schoolboy who said, "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #5 on: 2006-07-30 04:28:15 » |
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Maturity
Class: Quotation
Authors: Snoopy
Source: e-mail
Dated: 2006
Keywords: Peanuts Snoopy maturity cat 'Charles Schulz' apocraphyl
Sometimes when I get up in the morning, I feel very peculiar. I feel like I've just got to bite a cat! I feel like if I don't bite a cat before sundown, I'll go crazy! But then I just take a deep breath and forget about it. That's what is known as real maturity
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #6 on: 2006-08-20 23:21:54 » |
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Sheepish Submission
Class: Quotation
Authors: Sebastian Haffner, Oliver Pretzel (Translator)
Source:
Sebastian Haffner, Oliver Pretzel (Translator); Defying Hitler: A Memoir; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; August 14, 2002; ISBN: 0374161577; pp 121-122
Dated: c. 1933
Keywords: Germany police-state Hitler Nazi Fascist Fascism surveillance wiretapping constitutional privacy parallel parallels America Bush Patriot
With sheepish submissiveness the German people accepted that, as a result of the fire [Hermit: In the Reichstag], each one of them lost what little personal freedom and dignity was guaranteed by the constitution; as though it followed as a necessary consequence.... more than one [of my colleagues] hinted that they had doubts about the official version; but none of them saw anything out of the ordinary in the fact that, from now on, one's telephone would be tapped, one's letters opened, and one's desk might be broken into.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #7 on: 2006-08-24 03:02:13 » |
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These Indefensible States
Class: Quotation
Authors: Fawaziah al-Bakr, a Saudi promoter of educational change and women's rights
Source: H.D.S. Greenway, Wars of great miscalculation, 2006-08-22
Dated: 2006-08
Keywords: Indefensible
There is no question that the US has lost morally because of the [Hermit: Lebanese] war. Even if you like the people and the culture of the United States, you can't defend it.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #8 on: 2006-08-24 03:22:41 » |
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Peace of mind
Class: Quotation
Authors: Hermann Hesse
Source: http://www.shareup.com/Quote_Reader-download-46538.html
Dated:
Keywords: 'Death' 'transcience' 'legacy' 'search'
We fear death, we shudder at life's instability, we grieve to see the flowers wilt again and again, and the leaves fall, and in our hearts we know that we, too, are transitory and will soon disappear. When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something that lasts longer than we do.
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #9 on: 2006-08-24 05:46:32 » |
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Roman Epitaph
Class: Quotation
Authors: Unknown
Source: Internet (Attributed to "A Roman Grave")
Dated: Unknown
Keywords: death grave Rome Roman realistic concrete
Do not pass by my epitaph, traveler.
But having stopped, listen and learn, then go your way.
There is no boat in Hades, no ferryman Charon,
No caretaker Aiakos, no dog Cerberus.
All we who are dead below
Have become bones and ashes, but nothing else.
I have spoken to you honestly, go on, traveler,
Lest even while dead I seem loquacious to you.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #10 on: 2006-09-12 19:08:18 » |
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Attempting the Improbable
Class: Citation
Ascribed To: Samuel Johnson LL.D.
Authors: James Boswell
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D.
Dated: 1763-07-31
Keywords: Improbable Unlikely Amazement Simile
Next day, Sunday, July 31, I told him I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. JOHNSON. ‘Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprized to find it done at all.’
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #11 on: 2006-09-12 19:09:31 » |
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Straining the Brain
Class: Citation
Ascribed To: Samuel Johnson LL.D.
Authors: James Boswell
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D.
Dated: 1779-04-07
Keywords: Alcohol Consequences Preferences Brain Unusual Effort Strain Headache Drinking
On Wednesday, April 7, I dined with him at Sir Joshua Reynolds’s. I have not marked what company was there. Johnson harangued upon the qualities of different liquors; and spoke with great contempt of claret, as so weak, that a man would be drowned by it before it made him drunk.’ He was persuaded to drink one glass of it, that he might judge, not from recollection, which might be dim, but from immediate sensation. He shook his head, and said, ‘Poor stuff! No, Sir, claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero (smiling), must drink brandy. In the first place, the flavour of brandy is most grateful to the palate; and then brandy will do soonest for a man what drinking CAN do for him. There are, indeed, few who are able to drink brandy. That is a power rather to be wished for than attained. And yet, (proceeded he,) as in all pleasure hope is a considerable part, I know not but fruition comes too quick by brandy. Florence wine I think the worst; it is wine only to the eye; it is wine neither while you are drinking it, nor after you have drunk it; it neither pleases the taste, nor exhilarates the spirits.’ I reminded him how heartily he and I used to drink wine together, when we were first acquainted; and how I used to have a head-ache after sitting up with him. He did not like to have this recalled, or, perhaps, thinking that I boasted improperly, resolved to have a witty stroke at me: ‘Nay, Sir, it was not the WINE that made your head ache, but the SENSE that I put into it.’ BOSWELL. ‘What, Sir! will sense make the head ache?’ JOHNSON. ‘Yes, Sir, (with a smile,) when it is not used to it.’—No man who has a true relish of pleasantry could be offended at this; especially if Johnson in a long intimacy had given him repeated proofs of his regard and good estimation. I used to say, that as he had given me a thousand pounds in praise, he had a good right now and then to take a guinea from me.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #12 on: 2006-09-24 15:40:37 » |
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Terrorism, a Very Jewish Tradition
Class: Citation
Ascribed To: Yitzhak Shamir
Authors: Avishai Margalit
Source: “The Violent Life of Yitzhak Shamir”, New York Review of Books, 1992-05-14, pp. 18-24.
Keywords: retired terrorist prime minister Israel tradition traditionally
Neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat.*
*Perhaps this was based in the fact that it was Irgun, the Jewish terror organization, which in late 1937 instigated the terrorist campaign which was ultimately successful in achieving the Zionist aims for the Palestine which introduced the "practice of placing bombs in buses and large crowds" (Haim Levenberg, Military Preparations, p. 72), leading to Morris stating, "during the 1948 war the main Jewish terrorist groups “knowingly planted bombs in bus stops with the aim of killing non‐combatants, including women and children.” (Benny Morris, Birth Revisited, p. 80.), confirmed by the fact that "210 of the 429 casualties from Jewish terrorism in Palestine during 1946 were civilians. The other 219 were police and soldiers. (Levenberg, Military Preparations, p. 72.) and concluding, "The Arabs may well have learned the value of terrorist bombings from the Jews." (Benny Morris, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999, 1999-09-01, pp. 147, 201). NB Above secondary sources cited in "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy", John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, 2006-03
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #13 on: 2006-09-29 14:41:22 » |
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A Special Kind of Hypocrisy
Class: Quotation
Authors: George W Bush
Source: Speech 0n 2003-06-26
Dated: 2003-06-26
Keywords: Hypocrisy hypocrite liar torturer impeach high crimes misdemeanors
The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment.
So in his own words, George W Bush knows that torture is unacceptable. In the light of this admission, rather than trashing the constitution and international law, shouldn't the US simply have impeached and prosecuted George W Bush for his promotion of disappearances and torture? Hermit, 2006-09-28 (The date the Senate joined the Administration and House in eliminating the Bill of Rights and invalidating the International Convention against Torture.)
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #14 on: 2006-09-30 05:28:17 » |
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The Foundation of All Totalitarian Government
Class: Quotation
Authors: Winston Churchill
Source: Speeches, Cairo en route to the Tehran Conference*
Dated: 1943-11-21
Keywords: Patriot Patriotism Torture Extraordinary Rendition Habeas Corpus Fascist Bush Blair Adams
The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.
[Hermit: Is it necessary to note that the US is undoubtedly not a communist country?]
*Where Churchill and Roosevelt would agree to a secret deal to hand 120 million Europeans over to Stalin's non-existent mercies - but conditional on this not becoming public knowledge before the next American elections.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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