Sunday, March 22, 2009

Cool Quotes

Some thoughts...

...on the US obesity epidemic and health quick-fixes:
"This is my body, and I can do whatever I want to it. I can push it; Study it; Tweak it; Listen to it. Everybody wants to know what I am on. What am I on? I am on my bike busting my ass six hours a day; What are YOU on?" - Lance Armstrong

...on redistribution:
"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that, my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it." - Dr. Adrian Rogers

...on a healthy skepticism:
"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.
" - Voltaire

...on foreign policy:
"There is no such thing as an ex-KGB agent" - Vladimir Putin

...on the media:
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire

...on bailouts:
"Be not made a beggar by banqueting upon borrowing" - Ecclesiasticus 18:33

...on accepting the status quo:
"Every generation needs a new revolution" - Thomas Jefferson

...on blind atheism:
"A faith is a necessity to a man. Woe to him who believes in nothing. " - Victor Hugo

...on blind faith:
"Religion is the opiate of the masses." - Karl Marx

...on how to identify someone who is behaving well:
"There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness and truth" - Leo Tolstoy

...on why populism is idiotic. and on blind atheism, part 2:
"Just because it doesn’t make sense to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense." - Dr. Adrian Rogers

...on Black Swans:
"All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come. " - Victor Hugo

...on short-term thinking:
"You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times" -Matthew 16:3

...on blind optimism:
"Everything will turn out right, the world is built on that." -Mikhail Bulgakov

...on effort:
"Whatever your 100% looks like, give it." - Lance Armstrong

...on effort, part 2:
"I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying. " - Michael Jordan

...on personal responsibility vs. blaming circumstance:
"Everything can be taken away from man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way" - Viktor Frankl

...on immigration:
""You were right," said the Master impressed by the neatness of Korovyov's work, "when you said: no documents, no person. So that means I don't exist since I don't have any documents."" - Mikhail Bulgakov



Credit to 13-D's Kiril Sokoloff for 6 of these.

3 comments:

  1. Some goodies from the Analects (rough translations):

    - on knowledge, the Master says,
    "To know when you know and to know when you do not know--that is true knowledge"

    - on... tools, the Master says,
    "The gentleman is not a tool."

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  2. You've got some nice ones there. I especially like the one by Jefferson. But Adrian Rogers, Trevor, honestly? The man believes that the Bible should be taken as literally true, word for word.

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  3. I'm not vouching for the people who said them. I just think the quotes apply - not necessarily what they originally meant to apply them to.

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