If indecisive, choose one of your top favorites. And by the holy powers bestowed unto me through the machinations of this platform, I grant thee to even post more than one, too!
“A Splendid Torch” by George Bernard Shaw
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.
I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no “brief candle” for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
A couple from a co-worker:
If you don’t have time to do it correctly now, what makes you think you will have time to fix it later.
Remember, you are not stuck in traffic, you are traffic.
And a couple from my grandmother:
Don’t study drunk, but if you do at least be a little tipsy when you take the test.
Don’t do anything to your car to make it stand it to the police.
Friendship is when silence between two people is comfortable.
Here’s a few from my time in the service:
“An okay plan applied immediately and vigorously is way better than a perfect plan ten minutes too late.”
“Are you willing to do it? No? Then don’t ask your troops to do it.”
“In the event that signals can neither be seen nor clearly understood, no Captain can do very wrong if he puts his ship alongside that of an enemy.”
That’s a round down range, can’t pull it back
“Never argue with an idiot because the best possible outcome is that you’ll win an argument with an idiot”
I also like “there are some things in life you can’t change, so you shouldn’t worry about them, and there are some things in life you can change, so you shouldn’t worry about them”
Never pass up the opportunity to pee.
And
If a restaurant serves breakfast all day, that’s what you should order.
–My dad
Also,
Dont cheap out on anything that keeps you off the ground. (Tires, shoes, mattress etc)
Never make yourself a priority to someone that treats you like an option.
“Sometimes, at the end of a sentence, I come out with completely the wrong fusebox. The problem with using the wrong words is a. that I don’t always notice, and b. orange water gibbon bucket of plaster.”
I think of this often and have to say we can all learn something from it.
[Note to add: it’s a throwaway line from Monty Python sketch. Second note to add: TheWrongFusebox was my reddit username for 15 or so years.]
Big fan of
“The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth”
- Garry Kasparov (2015)
That is to say, don’t let them shut you up.
There is a longer, more historical version of this but it escapes me at the moment.
I can only find the Hannah Arendt quote (1974)
“This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And [to] such a people… you can do whatever you want.”
But i swear there was one that finished “When the truth is silent, liars can move onto action”
Love these unveiling of manipulation tactics. Especially in a time where the narrative is usually focused on the face-value of disinformation/misinformation, or straight up lying when discovered.
“People, what a bunch of bastards”.
- Roy from the IT Crowd.
People are bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling.
- Dr. Kelso from Scrubs (original series)
This one speaks directly to me: “The only decision you should make while angry is to stop being angry.” ~ Timothy Zahn, the Icarus series.
“You can make anything idiot proof, the world will just make a bigger idiot”
Mine is “Make something idiot proof and they build a better idiot”
“Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.”
Might not agree with Lenin on everything but this one is right on spot.
Oh, my second favorite quote is also from him I had no idea
“One cannot live in society and be free from society.”
Not sure it’s a quote from anywhere in particular but
“Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”
