dukkWhat is your favorite quote of all time?
“Man was born free, but everywhere is in chains.” -Rousseau
“No matter where you go, there you are”
– Dr. Buckaroo Banzai
– Dr. Buckaroo Banzai
“I conceive of nothing, in religion, science or philosophy, that is more than the proper thing to wear, for a while.”
Charles Fort
Gentlemen, I don’t know whether we are going to make history tomorrow, but at any rate we shall change geography General Sir Charles Harrington
Just before one of the largest non-nuclear explostions was detonated.
JakyllaNot as positive, but definitely one of the quotes that gave me chills (and made more popular due to recent movie, I hope this is in the movie):
Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds
- Robert Oppenheimer, 1965 (quoting the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita: Vishnu)
… and not Ripple Rock in '69. Huh.
tarneoHere are a few nice ones, I can’t really pick:
“Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work together for the benefit of all.” - John Maynard Keynes(You can also apply this one to proprietary software vs. Free software (don’t say open source in my presence))
“The tyrants are only great because we are on our knees.” - Étienne de La Boétie “Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.” - Rosa LuxemburgIn a similar vein “the greatest weapon in the hand of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed” … Steve Biko
don’t say [those words] in my presence
Will I regret asking why?
Not OP, but I personally heavily dislike the confusion surrounding those terms that’s entirely self-inflicted. “Open-source” referring to FOSS as a whole, and what open-source sounds like actually being called “source available”, is needlessly confusing.
Evkob (they/them)I usually write FOSS since I like acronyms, but when I speak I’d say open-source. I don’t see how open-source is any more confusing than free software, considering most people would immediately think “free as in beer”.
If only the term “free software” itself wasn’t just as confusing lol
Free software tells you “do whatever you want, you’re free” but open source completely misses the point: it means you can read the code, but not necessarily recompile, modify and redistribute. Plus the term was invented for the confusion that would come from it.
For example, a lot of AI models like LLM’s claim they are “open-source”, which basically means nothing: it’s far easier to say that than to claim it’s a free model, because that would imply freedoms to modify, reuse, redistribute the training data, weight etc. (no AI model allows that for now, and there will probably never be one that does).
Wisens“The only common factor in all of your failures, is you.”
-Meh, I don’t know
NusmYou don’t know? Sheesh, what a failure. 😀
Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
- Samuel Beckett
Oyster_Lust"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence,—it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”
-George Washington (allegidly) The true author is debatable, but the quote is accurate, none the less.
Random_Character_AInternet and social media has made general public a part of this “fire” drowning out the voice of the wise and the learned with the cacophony of angry noise.
starmanyour future hasn’t been written yet. No one’s has. Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one.
From Back to the Future.
“If you’re not falling, you’re not learning”. No idea who said it but it was about skateboarding at the time. It works for everything though.
“You gotta learn to live between the lines”. From Big Deal by the Dead Milkmen.
Please don’t ask me to explain it because I don’t know, but the writer/musician John Darneille of the Mountain Goats once wrote “God is present in the sweeping gestures, but the devil is in the details”. I just really like it even though I’m stuck on its meaning.
God as broad: Your Mom makes you a sandwich.
Devil as details: The meat in the sandwich is a dead animal. Your mom bought it from an evil mega corp. She paid for it with wages from her soul crushing job. No one makes her a sandwich.
Oh nice explanation.
EliseIf we could understand but a single flower it could change our lives.
No clear attribution I could find.
“I’d love to agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong.”
vis4valentineI have many but here is one I wanna tattoo.
“This is your life, and is ending one minute at the time”
Also:
“Do what you can’t”
Also:
“War is peace” “Ignorance is strength” “Freedom is slavery”
ji88aja88aFour more years!
"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life."
- Picard
ObiniceI do think of this quote as being something awesome that Picard said, but something also bugs me when I think of it that way… I’m attributing a great line, and advice I follow a lot through life to a fictional character, instead of to the man that actually said it.
David Kemper wrote that episode of TNG, and while he may have heard it elsewhere or paraphrased it from a common saying in some distant land or who knows, at least we can attribute it to him as best we can :-)
Thanks for correcting the attribution
LemmyLefty“When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.”
“The brutally honest care more about the brutality than the honesty.”
“Reasonable people can disagree reasonably.”
I can’t live up to those ideals but it would be cruel to myself and others to stop trying to.
That first one really resonates with me.
Drink 'N Thrive… /s
"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self."
- Ernest Hemingway (though I’ll admit, I first heard it in Kingsman)
You’re not fronting having read all Hemingway, you’re sharing a quote with everyone. It’s fine if you heard it in Kingsman, just as it would have been fine if you had heard it in some other work of fiction that quotes Hemingway.
“The American public knows what it wants, and it deserves to get it… good and hard.” - H.L. Mencken
“Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul and set you free from all your sins. Sometimes a woman is a heroin addiction - you are a junkie, you are my best friend. Let her go.” - The Bad Examples
🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 🏆“The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few.”
Not growing up with TOS, I always thought this quote was super old, like Greek philosopher stuff. Nope. It was friggin Spock! I gotta believe that the sentiment had to have existed long before Star Trek though. If it wasn’t, then… That sucks.
Frater MusIt was friggin Spock!
“Cause nothin’ moves faster than the hands of time”
N-E-N"Not everything’s a lesson Ryan. Sometimes you just fail."
- Dwight Schrute :D
RhoeriThe world belongs to the intelligent, the universe belongs to the wise.
~ Matshona Dhliwayo
“I’m Batman.”
Some context, Batman says this frequently when explaining why a man dressed up as a Bat is there with a confused onlooker.
Dark ArcUsername checks out
Thanks, that clears it up
"Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb."
- also Batman (in the 1966 movie Batman)
Curious CanidThe world needs fewer cynics and more skeptics.
Depressed_blenderThere are tons of quotes I like but here are some of my favourites.
The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself. - The Brothers Karamazov (book) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I don’t want to live someone else’s idea of how to live. Don’t ask me to do that. I don’t want to find out one day that I’m at the end of someone else’s life. - Out of Africa (movie) by Sydney Pollack
There are tons of quotes I like. Below are some of my favorites.
The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself. - The Brothers Karamazov (book) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I don’t want to live someone else’s idea of how to live. Don’t ask me to do that. I don’t want to find out one day that I’m at the end of someone else’s life. - Out of Africa (movie) by Sydney Pollack
Someone once told me the definition of hell; on your last day on earth, the person you could have become will meet the person you became. - Anonymous
Alien SurferI like the last one. Interesting to think about.
I don’t want to believe, I want to know - Carl Sagan
jystfactGrief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.
-Jamie Anderson
Got a little dusty in here.
Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
- E.V. Debs
We do not inherit the world from our ansestors, we borrow it from our children. -Antoine de Saint Exupéry
This is my favorite.
My second favorite from him: what makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.
"You know, there’s a million fine looking women in the world, dude. But they don’t all bring you lasagna at work. Most of 'em just cheat on you.”
~Silent Bob
Silent bob is written with almost all the best and quotable lines.
The rest of the quotable lines are Jay.
'i am the CLIT commander!"