Some cool quotes...

[historyteach]

I found this on a web site, and thought I'd share them.

1. I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. (MIT student)

2.Why ask me--I'm only human. (MIT student)

3. Que faut-il, O mortels? Mortels, il faut souffrir, Se soumettre en silence, adorer, et mourir. --Voltaire

4. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men. --Ayn Rand

5. Today is a gift, that's why it's called the present. (?)

6. The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war. (I don't remember)

7. Life is like a symphony. It all depends on how you conduct it. (MIT Symphony Orchestra homepage)

8. Life. . .it's all about balls into boxes. (6.042 lecture)

9. Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you. (Fortune from a fortune cookie at Royal East Restaurant)

10. A pot on the stove you forgot to turn on never boils. (Another fortune that I got long before #9)

11. God put me on Earth to accomplish a certain number of things. So far, I am so behind, I will never die. (?)

12. When the sun sets, the moon shines. (I don't remember)

13. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. -- Taoist saying (MIT student)

14. With enough thrust, pigs fly just fine. (MIT student)

15. New study shows research causes cancer in laboratory rats. (MIT student)

16. You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. (MIT student)

17. Reason explains the darkness, but it is not a light. (I don't remember)

18. A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely. --Roald Dahl

19. All of us are in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. -- Oscar Wilde

20. It is easy to do justice, but very hard to do right. (A bad movie--I don't remember what it was called.)

21. People ask me why the chicken crossed the road. I ask them what would've happened if he decided to stay where he was. (I don't remember)

22. Life is not a problem to be solved, it is a mystery to be lived. --Thomas Merton.

23. Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on. (MIT student)

24. A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory. (MIT student)

25. I procrastinate for practice. I'm hoping that one day I'll be good enough to put off old age. (I think this was from an MIT student)

26. The strength of a civilization is measured not by its ability to fight wars, but by its ability to prevent them. --Gene Roddenberry

27. One must wait until the sunset to see how splendid the day has been. (21W.746 article, quote was said by a young woman dying of cancer)

28. Isolating an active constituent from a plant is an affront to nature. It is like taking the intelligence and leaving the wisdom behind. -Deepak Chopra

29. The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection, even though it consist of nothing more than in pounding on an old piano, is alone what gives a meaning to our life on this unavailing star. -- Logan Pearsall Smith

30. When the risks are high, so are the passions. --Matthew Mihaly

31. History is something that stays with you forever. There is no way to outrun or forget it. Just a way to learn from it and become a strong human being. --Unknown

32. When I was born I was so surprised I didn't talk for a year and a half. --Gracie Allen

33. Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt. --H. L. Mencken

34. Everything should be as simple as possible--but not simpler. --Albert Einstein

35. If you wish to make an impact for one year, plant corn; if you wish to make an impact for a generation, plant a tree; if you wish to make an impact for an eternity, educate a child. --Unknown.

36. Pessimists see the glass as half-empty. Optimists see the glass as half-full. Engineers see the glass as twice as big as it needs to be. (MIT student)

37. There are two ways of constructing a software design: one way is to make it so simple there are obviously no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. --Tony Hoare, Turing Award Lecture (1980)

38. It don't mean a thing, if it don't got that certain 'je ne sais quoi'! --Peter Schickele

39. The worship of reason is arrogance and betrays a lack of intelligence. The rejection of reason is cowardice and betrays a lack of faith. --Abraham Joshua Heschel

40. Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today. --James Dean

41. One man's vulgarity is another's lyric. --Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan, Cohen v. California

42. The world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. (MIT student)

43. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. --George Santayana

44. In truth, I am nothing but a plodding mediocrity--please observe, a plodding mediocrity--for a mere mediocrity does not go very far, but a plodding one gets quite a distance. There is joy in that success, and a distinction can come from courage, fidelity and industry. --Supreme Court Justice, Benjamin N. Cardozo

45. 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

46. I never let my schooling interfere with my education. --Samuel Clemens (from Aish.com)

47. On Friday nights I am declined in the dative case. --Professor Hodge, Wellesley Russian 101

48. What reason weaves, by passion is undone. --Unknown

49. False consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. --George Bernard Shaw, quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self-Reliance

50. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a flat tire. --"Jokes Daily"

51. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you view it. --Unknown

52. When the blind lead the blind, get out of the way. --Anonymous (from Aish.com)

53. Freedom on the commons brings ruin to all. --Garret Hardin, The Tragedy of the Commons

54. People who almost live in glass houses are the ones who are most likely to throw stones. --Elliot Aronson, The Rationalizing Animal

55. Who is a great man? He who conquers himself. --Maimonides, Ethics of the Fathers (Pirkei Avot), 4:1

56. Fortunate is he, who can understand the causes of things. --Virgil, Georgics II

57. OK let's say they sever relations. And then what? And then what? --Raanan Gissin, senior advisor to Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, referring to Arab League's recommendation to suspend political contacts with Israel, 5/19/2001. (from cnn.com)

58. When the rats abandon the ship, it is probably sinking. --Effy Oz, When Professional Standards are Lax: The CONFIRM Failure and its Lessons, Communications of the ACM, October, 1994.

59. The absurdity of a life that may well end before one understands it, does not relieve one from the duty . . .to live it as bravely and generously as possible. --Peter Mathiasson, The Snow Leopard

60. One of the saddest comments on the human predicament is the fact that many of our greatest technological advancements have been made to further the cause of warfare. --Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan

61. When nations learn to love their children more than they hate their neighbors, we will have peace. --Rabbi Professor Jonathan Sacks

62. If I am not for me, who is for me; if I am for myself, what am I; and if not now, when? --Maimonides, quoting Hillel (Pirkei Avos, 1:14)

63. Life is like a top. You spin around a lot, and then you fall over. --Anonymous (from aish.com)

64. A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila. -- Mitch Ratliffe

65. Truth rings from a mighty steel bell, its reverberations can rip open the hardest of hearts and melt the most stubborn of temperaments. --Rabbi Stephen Baars

66. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -- Edmund Burke

Shalom!