“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.“– L. R. Knost
All entries tagged quotes.
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Apr 2021
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“The price of being a sheep is boredom. The price of being a wolf is loneliness. Choose one or the other with great care.” - Hugh MacLeod
Feb 2021
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“What is grief if not love preserving”
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“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
-Rainer Maria Rilke, “Go to the Limits of Your Longing”
Jan 2021
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I used to collect quotes a lot. Maybe I still do. Here are a couple of collections I’ve posted online. Tang In Cheek - a list of quotes (allegedly by me) Email signatures - a list of quotes I used as a pool to randomly select an email signature from. I rarely send email these days, and when I do it’s usually web-based, so I can’t use these anymore. There’s probably a better way to organize these.
Jan 2020
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“The wave returns to the ocean. What the ocean does with the water after that is anyone’s guess.”
Aug 2019
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Shogun There’s a quote I like from James Clavell’s novel Shogun: “It’s a saying they have, that a man has a false heart in his mouth for the world to see, another in his breast to show to his special friends and his family, and the real one, the true one, the secret one, which is never known to anyone except to himself alone, hidden only God knows where.”
May 2019
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“We are, finally, all wanderers in search of knowledge. Most of us hold the dream of becoming something better than we are, something larger, richer, in some way more important to the world and ourselves. Too often, the way taken is the wrong way, with too much emphasis on what we want to have, rather than what we wish to become.” — Louis L’Amour via swissmiss
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“Take life as it comes. Run when you have to, fight when you must, rest when you can.” - Lan Mandragoran
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Bring me all of your dreams, You dreamer, Bring me all your Heart melodies That I may wrap them In a blue cloud-cloth Away from the too-rough fingers Of the world. Langston Hughes
Apr 2019
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“Never give in, never, never, never–never, in nothing, great or small, large or petty. Never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.” Churchill Persistence is a virtue, except when it isn’t - there is some amount of good sense necessary to discern when one should just give in. As in most things, a balance is required. Unfortunately, good sense is not always in abundance in today’s world.
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Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. – Winston Churchill I already typed the above quote into the post, then realized I had already used it before. Whatever, just goes to show, I’m no stranger to failure. I was reminded of this quote because recently I prepared a demo for a project that didn’t push through. At first I was annoyed at the wasted effort, but I realized that I had wisely taken the demo project as an opportunity to learn/sharpen some skills.
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I found myself poring over the Wikipedia entry for the Ship of Theseus the other day. If you’re not familiar, it’s basically a thought experiment along the lines of “if a given ship’s parts are replaced at every port it visits, and eventually none of the parts are from the original ship, is it still the same ship?” The thought experiment questions the meaning of identity of a whole composed of many individual parts, such as a ship, or even a human.
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“It is necessary to be lost. There is a simple logic to this. You cannot find yourself without first being lost. You cannot catch what you do not drop. You have to open your fist and let what you are clenching fall.” — Cary Tennis @ Salon via karigee
Mar 2019
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“Admit it. You aren’t like them. You’re not even close. You may occasionally dress yourself up as one of them, watch the same mindless television shows as they do, maybe even eat the same fast food sometimes. But it seems that the more you try to fit in, the more you feel like an outsider, watching the “normal people” as they go about their automatic existences. For every time you say club passwords like “Have a nice day” and “Weather’s awful today, eh?
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“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” – Ernest Hemingway
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“If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” - E.B. White I am fortunate that with my flexible working schedule I get to choose whether to derp around or to be productive every day.
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(Click to view full-size) 8 Mar 2019 5:56amClose Image source: r/GetMotivated It’s fun to think about what might have been, but often regret is tinged with optimism - the optimism that given another chance, we might have made different decisions and obtained better outcomes. But different doesn’t always mean better, so such visualizations are often pointless speculation.
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“Whatever doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger.” Nietzche I liked this quote a lot when I was younger and more gung-ho, especially about things like work. In fact, I may have considered it as a bit of a defining quote back then. I guess the idea was ‘ok, we’ll rush in and try anything, at worst we learn a lesson and be better for next time’.
Feb 2019
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“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.” ― John Greenleaf Whittier, Maud Muller - Pamphlet It is human nature perhaps, to think about those alternate realities that might have come from different decisions or different dispositions. If only I was braver. If only I was more decisive. If only I didn’t have something holding me back. If only I knew what I knew now.
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“None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an after-thought. Eat the delicious food. Walk in the sunshine. Jump in the ocean. Say the truth that you’re carrying in your heart like hidden treasure. Be silly. Be kind. Be weird. There’s no time for anything else.” — Keanu Reeves via swissmiss
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For my first few years in elementary school, I didn’t get any pocket money. Instead I’d have a couple of sandwiches and a thermos of water. So I wasn’t used to handling money. One time while waiting for the school bus, I was a bit thirsty but my thermos was already out. For some reason, I decided to borrow five pesos from a classmate to buy a coke from the canteen.
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It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: And this, too, shall pass away. How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride!how consoling in the depth of affliction! Abraham Lincoln More quotes! I like ones that have a level of ambiguity, a meaning that changes depending on situation.
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(Click to view full-size) 18 Feb 2019 5:56amClose The quote is from the 1980s cult classic Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. I didn’t include this movie in my top 10 movies post, but it and the sequel Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey are still among my childhood faves. These wise words are give by the Wyld Stallyns band composed of the epnoymous Bill and Ted, and form the philosophical basis of the future utopian civilization inspired by their music.
Jan 2019
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Quote 1: “The world isn’t fair Calvin” “I know Dad, but why isn’t it ever unfair in my favor?” – Bill Watterson, “Calvin and Hobbes” Quote 2: “If you expect the world to be fair with you because you’re fair to them, its like asking a lion not to eat you because you don’t eat lions.” (Unknown source) We accept that the natural order of the world is inherently unfair.
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“Productivity is what makes things fun, that’s why humans go to work.” - Raymond Holt
Nov 2018
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“The price for being the best is always… having to be the best.” Terry Pratchet, Lords and Ladies This is one of my favorite quotes. For context: in the story, one of the characters has a special talent that he can shoe anything anyone gives him (like when you put horseshoes on a horse). And Granny Weatherwax tells him that the price he pays for that talent is that when someone brings him something to shoe, no matter how wild or ridiculous the request, he has to do it.
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“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Sep 2018
Aug 2018
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facebook.com/onthisday
Jul 2018
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Retweeted VIOLETSYSTEMS-SHICHE (@entroemcee): “People who couldn’t imagine themselves capable of evil were at a major disadvantage in dealing with people who didn’t need to imagine, because they already were.” William Gibson, The Peripheral
Jun 2018
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“Man is only fully human when he plays!” - Friedrich Schiller
May 2018
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“Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” - Martin Luther King Jr
Mar 2018
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“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” ― Kurt Vonnegut.
Feb 2018
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“I wish life was not so short,’ he thought. ‘Languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien
Dec 2017
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“Everything ends and it’s always sad, but everything begins again, too. And that’s always happy. Be happy.”
- The Doctor
Nov 2017
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“I’m bored’ is a useless thing to say. You live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen none percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is endless. It goes on forever, inwardly - you understand? The fact the you’re alive is amazing. So you don’t get to be bored.” - LOUIS C.K.
Oct 2017
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“The world is chaos. Be kind.” - Patton Oswalt’s late wife
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Repost from GreatestQuotes:
“Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble.” - John Madden
Aug 2017
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“There has to be a balance, Vin,” he said. “Somehow, we’ll find it. The balance between whom we wish to be and whom we need to be.” He sighed. “But for now,” he said, nodding to the side, “we simply have to be satisfied with who we are.”
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“Life is short and the world is at least half terrible and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.”
– Good Bones by Maggie Smith
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“If you went back and fixed all the mistakes you’ve made, you erase yourself” - Louis C.K.
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Chaos is a ladder
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Rick: “To live is to risk it all; otherwise you’re just an inert chunk of randomly assembled molecules drifting wherever the universe blows you.”
Jul 2017
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“Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination” - The First Ideal
Jun 2017
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Likes the quote: “My goal is to build a life I don’t need a vacation from.” https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/3215239-my-goal-is-to-build-a-life-i-don-t-need via @goodreads
May 2017
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Frodo: I can’t do this, Sam.
Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. 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? Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo… and it’s worth fighting for.”
Mar 2017
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Sometimes you have to wonder if we’re living in a Douglas Adams novel
“On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.”
“Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.”
“I did,” said Ford. “It is.”
“So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t the people get rid of the lizards?”
“It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.”
“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”
“Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.”
“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”
“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in.”
(Source: HHG2G)
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Repost from GreatestQuotes:
“Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.” - George Bernard Shaw #StPatricksDay