Your Favourite Quote

foodpoison

foodpoison

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What is your favourite quote of all time, and why?

I think mine would have to be of Lester's closing monologue in 'American Beauty'.

I guess I could be pretty p****d off about what happened to me, but its hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst. Then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain, and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life.
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I think the reason I like it so much is it helps give you perspective, especially as a photographer, but also as a person.

Sometimes I feel like there is too much to take in. Too many pretty girls I'll never kiss, too many feats of nature I'll never experience, too many cars I'll never drive, too many songs I'll never listen to, too many countries I'll never visit.

But I just have to remind myself that as is life, and chill out. I can get so stressed out by the amount of potential this life and this world has to offer (especially as I'm not religious and I have but one life to experience it all), but then I just let go, and let it, as the quote says, "Flow through me."

This film, and this quote, really helped me get through a pretty saddening relationship breakup in February, and it means a lot. It's no, "We will fight them on the beaches" or "I have a dream", but it's personal and powerful in its own way.

And now for yours! Can be as brief or as long as you want, and the explanation as to why can be as in-depth or shallow.
 
Its a cliche but Souza's

“Dance as though no one is watching
Love as though you've never been hurt
Sing as though no one can hear you
Live as though heaven is on earth"

has got me through some tough times
 
"A team is only ever as strong as its weakest link".

Self explanatory, and you can subsitute team for pretty much anything.
 
There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.
Donald Rumsfeld
 
This quote from Frederick Douglass, simple but to the point;

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."

Although his problems were much greater than mine I often think of this to remind myself to keep battling through. :)
 
"Planning is an unnatural process; it is much for fun to do something. The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression" :LOL::LOL:

Sir John Harvey-Jones
 
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"I do not intend to tiptoe through life only to arrive safely at death."

Heard this from an old colleague while in Hong Kong; became my immediate motto, you will see me quote this all the time. A stark contradiction of my current state of mind, I'd regret to admit.
 
"As you are now, so I once was, as I am now you too will be!"

Heinrich Himmler, Dortmund 1938 [extemporised] and useful in so many circumstances! ;)

Or Ben Hecht's

"Newspapermen!? The hand of God reaching down into the mire couldn't elevate one of them to the depths of degradation!" :p

[Nothing Sacred 1937]
 
david1701 said:
just don't get ****ing caught - not too far off a life motto ey wail :p
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Haha.

When my Dad found out I dabbled in some inhalation of the herbal kind, he said, "Mate, everyone has done it. I'll give you two pieces of advice - don't let it interfere with your life, everything in moderation. The second piece? Don't get bloody caught!"

When I got caught by the police and given a warning, I told me Dad.

"Well, I f*****g told you so you muppet!"
 
I quite a few favourites, here's one.

their are 2 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't
 
Sage words that I got from my old man about 25 years ago, and didn't really understand or believe at the time - "the older you get the quicker the time goes" - so so true.
 
1. (hate) "I didn't know what hate felt like, not the hate that comes after love. It's huge and desperate and it longs to be proved wrong. And every day it's proved right it grows a little more monstrous. If the love was passion, the hate will be obsession. A need to see the once-loved weak and cowed beneath pity. Disgust is close and dignity is far away. The hate is not only for the once loved, it's for yourself too; how could you ever have loved this?"

2. (love) "I say I'm in love with her. What does that mean?
It means I review my future and my past in the light of this feeling. It is as though I wrote in a foreign language that I am suddenly able to read. Wordlessly, she explains me to myself. LIke genius she is ignorant of what she does. "

both by Jeanette Winterson, from The Passion. My reasons are personal. I could do some more up beat ones that I really like, but those are my all-time favourite.
 
I have not failed. I've just found 10000 ways that won't work.
Thomas A. Edison

Fear can keep you prisoner. Hope can set you free.
Tag line from my favourite film...

and my dad once said "Fi, it will be ok, because it has to be ok. Stop worrying about what you can't control" which I found helpful at the time... but then my dad can always make me feel better.
Love my dad.
 
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onomatopoeia said:
10, not 2, surely?
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it's kind of a joke, binary is base 2, 1s and 0s, hence 2 types of people, 1 those that understand it 0 those who don't


but yes you are right it should be 10
:)
 
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Another one of my faves,

Remember Yesterday
Live for Today
Plan for Tomorrow
 
Some really good ones here (y), and some amazingly funny but practical ones too.

david1701 said:
just don't get ****ing caught - not too far off a life motto ey wail :p
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foodpoison said:
Haha.

<snip>

"Well, I f*****g told you so you muppet!"
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You muppet :razz:; I love how candid and frank you are about your endeavours ... off to read more of that thread of yours :nuts:
 
Wail said:
You muppet :razz:; I love how candid and frank you are about your endeavours ... off to read more of that thread of yours :nuts:
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I don't consider myself to be a shallow person, nor one of no mystery. There is a lot to find out about me, however, I have no skeletons in my closet. Everything I do, who I am, is out in the open for everyone to see. No one will be coming to bite me on the bum, nor will they have something to hold against me for blackmail.
 
foodpoison said:
however, I have no skeletons in my closet. Everything I do, who I am, is out in the open for everyone to see.
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How boring ;)

As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue - Albert Einstein.:p
 
Steven Fry from "A Bit of Fry and Laurie", demonstrating the diversity of language:

Hold the newsreaders nose squarely waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers
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[YOUTUBE]hHQ2756cyD8[/YOUTUBE]
 
foodpoison said:
I don't consider myself to be a shallow person, nor one of no mystery. There is a lot to find out about me, however, I have no skeletons in my closet. Everything I do, who I am, is out in the open for everyone to see. No one will be coming to bite me on the bum, nor will they have something to hold against me for blackmail.
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pretty sure I have literal skeletons in a cupboard somewhere :p
 
Then elpizo tipota
the fovomai tipota
Eimai lefteros.

I hope for nothing
I fear nothing
I'm free.

It's the epitaph of Nikos Kazantzakis, who wrote Zorba the Greek, the Last Temptation of Christ and many other things.
 
"Son, your ego is writing cheques your body can't cash"

From Top Gun.
 
"Live long and prosper"

So cheesy I know!

I'll get my coat :coat:
 
If you think you know what's going on you're probably full of sh&*e.

Certitude belongs exclusively to those who only own one encyclopedia.

On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.

The totally convinced and the totally stupid have too much in common for the resemblance to be accidental.

And finally...

You know, I have found a new way to get high and stay spaced out for hours on end, and the government can't stop me... It's called senility.

All the above are courtesy of one of my favourite writers/philosophers of the last 100 years - Robert Anton Wilson.
 
I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant
 
A company is like a tree full of monkeys. The head monkey sits at the top, looks down at his subordinates and sees their smiling faces staring up at him.
All the other monkeys see when they look up towards the top of the tree are *ssholes!
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Some days you are the pidgeon, some days you are the statue!
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here's one that I remember from ages ago,

Microsoft Windows is a 32 bit operating system, with a 16 bit subsystem, programmed by 8 bit developers, managed by a 4 bit chairman, who rus a 2 bit company, that can't stand 1 bit of competition
 
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