National War Memorial, Ottawa. Image:Canada Remembers
Meaningful Quotes
Sometimes a simple statement can convey more significance about a subject than a treatise. Sometimes a few words, chosen wisely, can distill the very essence of a world-view. Sadly, too often, a funny aside may serve as the only reasonable answer to life's many frustrating questions, muddles and conundrums. Of the volumes of erudite, clever and just plain funny things on record that millions of people have been credited (or disparaged) with, there are a few below that I refer to from time to time when I need a reminder that life is a journey taken on much common ground. These are not arranged or listed according to any theme or in any order of hierarchy. Some are profound. Some are charming. Some are patently absurd. But all have deep meaning, to me.
Voltaire
Beware of driving men to desperation. Even a cornered rat is dangerous.
Winston Churchill
If at first an idea does not seem absurd then there is no hope for it.
Albert Einstein
Be wary of great leaders.
Pete Seeger
Any fool can make a rule and any fool will mind it.
Henry David Thoreau
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
George Carlin
Rules are not necessarily sacred; principles are.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Life is too important to be taken seriously.
Oscar Wilde
A great many people do not have the right to their own opinion because they don't know what they are talking about.
Andy Rooney
Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad
news, which obeys its own special laws.
Douglas Adams
If you must sin, sin against God, not
against the bureaucracy. God may forgive you, but the bureaucracy never will.
Admiral Hyman Rickover
Time is something that was invented to keep everything
from happening at once.
Anonymous
If we were all robbed of our wrong convictions,
how empty our lives would be.
Samuel Marchbanks
To err is human.......but
to blame someone else
shows management potential.
Author unknown
Where is the incentive to getting in touch with your
feelings if you're going to feel lousy once you're in touch?
Bill Scheft
Never believe anything in politics
until it has been officially denied.
Otto von Bismarck
"You know, Hobbes, some days even
my lucky rocketship underpants don't help."
Calvin & Hobbes
In order to become the master,
the politician poses as the servant.
Charles De Gaulle
What can be asserted without proof
can be dismissed without proof.
Christopher Hitchens
If three or more people agree
about a rumour, it must be true.
Anonymous
The future will be better tomorrow.
Dan Quayle
If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.
Dan Quayle (maybe)
Today is the yesterday you
won't remember tomorrow.
Daniel Pinkwater
If you owe someone money, always pay them
back in a bar. Preferably during happy hour.
Frank Kelly Rich
May the forces of evil become
confused on the way to your house.
George Carlin
The day after tomorrow is the
third day of the rest of your life.
George Carlin
We have what it takes
to take what you have.
Government slogan
War is peace. Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
George Orwell
Government big enough to supply everything you
need is big enough to take everything you have.
Gerald Ford
These are my principles; if you
don't like them, I have others.
Groucho Marx
A society made up of individuals
who were all capable of original
thought would probably be unendurable.
H. L. Mencken
You tried your best
and you failed miserably.
The lesson is, never try!
Homer Simpson
Government powerful enough to provide security from all
your fears is powerful enough to take away all your freedoms.
Anonymous
Why look for conspiracy when stupidity can explain so much?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If God did not intend for us to eat animals,
then why did he make them out of meat?
John Cleese
The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes
any human accomplishment an incredible miracle.
J Colonel John P. Stapp, M.D.
(Stapp's Ironical Paradox)
"The horror of that moment," the King
went on, "I shall never, never forget!"
"You will though," the Queen said, "If
you don't make a memorandum of it."
Lewis Carroll
(Through The Looking Glass)
Sometimes I wonder whether the world is
being run by smart people who are putting
us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.
Mark Twain
Giving money and power to government is like
giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
P. J. O'Rourke
You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have
some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.
Frank Zappa
Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible;
but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
Reinhold Niebuhr
If you attack stupidity you attack
an entrenched interest with friends
in government and every walk of public life,
and you will make small progress against it.
Samuel Marchbanks
Primitive life is very common and
intelligent life is fairly rare. Some
would say it has yet to occur on earth.
Stephen Hawking
(when asked by media about
possible extraterrestrial life)
Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen
for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer.
Dave Barry
The best argument against democracy is a
five-minute conversation with the average voter.
Winston Churchill
Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun
the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes
up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve.
It doesn't matter whether you're a lion or a gazelle--when the sun comes up,
you'd better be running.
Sir Roger Bannister
The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday they might force their beliefs on us.
Mario Cuomo
In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.
Andy Warhol
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
Eleanor Roosevelt