OK, let's have a "Quotes" thread!

Do. Or do not. There is no try.

—by a little green guy

To practice freedom is to tolerate mistakes, not in the sense of inviting or cultivating error, but as one of the prices to be paid in the endless search for improved ways and means toward meeting man's rising expectations.– Paul L. Poirot

Said in 1970 by Arthur C. Clarke: "The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. That’s why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system."

“What you think, you become,” or sometimes “The mind is everything. What you think, you become,” is commonly attributed to the Buddha, but doesn’t seem to be scriptural. At best an overly-free — well, inaccurate — paraphrase.

...

~/.bashrc fortuned

Newton's Law of Gravitation:
	What goes up must come down.  But don't expect it to come down where
	you can find it.  Murphy's Law applies to Newton's.

Speaking of Murphy's law...

Originally Posted by Graham Hagens Some workers have observed that things occasionally go right. This is not a violation of Murphy’s Law but rather an illustration of its universality. Murphy’s Law is subject to its own restrictions and cannot ensure that everything that should go wrong actually does. It is only because of such quantum Murphic tunnelling that anything ever actually gets done.

(Incidentally, this is my third attempt at posting this quote; I kid you not.)

Oracle (Gloria Foster:) I'd ask you to sit down, but, you're not going to anyway. And don't worry about the vase. Neo (Keanu Reeves:) What vase? [Neo turns to look for a vase, and as he does, he knocks over a vase of flowers, which shatters on the floor] Oracle: That vase. Neo: I'm sorry... Oracle: I said don't worry about it. I'll get one of my kids to fix it. Neo: How did you know? Oracle: Ohh, what's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything? Neo: I thought it wasn't real Morpheus: Your mind makes it real Neo: If you're killed in the matrix, you die here? Morpheus: The body cannot live without the mind

Directors: Lana Wachowski (as The Wachowski Brothers), Lilly Wachowski (as The Wachowski Brothers) Writers: Lilly Wachowski (as The Wachowski Brothers), Lana Wachowski (as The Wachowski Brothers)

SK8 ON; hoot, holler and woo!

On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of ”world history,” but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened. For this intellect has no additional mission which would lead it beyond human life. Rather, it is human, and only its possessor and begetter takes it so solemnly-as though the world’s axis turned within it. But if we could communicate with the gnat, we would learn that he likewise flies through the air with the same solemnity, that he feels the flying center of the universe within himself. There is nothing so reprehensible and unimportant in nature that it would not immediately swell up like a balloon at the slightest puff of this power of knowing. And just as every porter wants to have an admirer, so even the proudest of men, the philosopher, supposes that he sees on all sides the eyes of the universe telescopically focused upon his action and thought. It is remarkable that this was brought about by the intellect, which was certainly allotted to these most unfortunate, delicate, and ephemeral beings merely as a device for detaining them a minute within existence.For without this addition they would have every reason to flee this existence as quickly as Lessing’s son. The pride connected with knowing and sensing lies like a blinding fog over the eyes and senses of men, thus deceiving them concerning the value of existence. For this pride contains within itself the most flattering estimation of the value of knowing. Deception is the most general effect of such pride, but even its most particular effects contain within themselves something of the same deceitful character. As a means for the preserving of the individual, the intellect unfolds its principle powers in dissimulation, which is the means by which weaker, less robust individuals preserve themselves-since they have been denied the chance to wage the battle for existence with horns or with the sharp teeth of beasts of prey, This art of dissimulation reaches its peak in man. Deception, flattering, lying, deluding, talking behind the back, putting up a false front, living in borrowed splendor, wearing a mask, hiding behind convention, playing a role for others and for oneself-in short, a continuous fluttering around the solitary flame of vanity-is so much the rule and the law among men that there is almost nothing which is less comprehensible than how an honest and pure drive for truth could have arisen among them. They are deeply immersed in illusions and in dream images; their eyes merely glide over the surface of things and see ”forms.” Their senses nowhere lead to truth; on the contrary, they are content to receive stimuli and, as it were, to engage in a groping game on the backs of things. Moreover, man permits himself to be deceived in his dreams every night of his life. His moral sentiment does not even make an attempt to prevent this, whereas there are supposed to be men who have stopped snoring through sheer will power. What does man actually know about himself? Is he, indeed, ever able to perceive himself completely, as if laid out in a lighted display case? Does nature not conceal most things from him-even concerning his own body-in order to confine and lock him within a proud, deceptive consciousness, aloof from the coils of the bowels, the rapid flow of the blood stream, and the intricate quivering of the fibers! She threw away the key. And woe to that fatal curiosity which might one day have the power to peer out and down through a crack in the chamber of consciousness and then suspect that man is sustained in the indifference of his ignorance by that which is pitiless, greedy, insatiable, and murderous-as if hanging in dreams on the back of a tiger. Given this situation, where in the world could the drive for truth have come from? Insofar as the individual wants to maintain himself against other individuals, he will under natural circumstances employ the intellect mainly for dissimulation. But at the same time, from boredom and necessity, man wishes to exist socially and with the herd; therefore, he needs to make peace and strives accordingly to banish from his world at least the most flagrant bellum omni contra omnes. This peace treaty brings in its wake something which appears to be the first step toward acquiring that puzzling truth drive: to wit, that which shall count as ”truth” from now on is established. That is to say, a uniformly valid and binding designation is invented for things, and this legislation of language likewise establishes the first laws of truth. For the contrast between truth and lie arises here for the first time. The liar is a person who uses the valid designations, the words, in order to make something which is unreal appear to be real. He says, for example, ”I am rich,” when the proper designation for his condition would be ”poor.” He misuses fixed conventions by means of arbitrary substitutions or even reversals of names. If he does this in a selfish and moreover harmful manner, society will cease to trust him and will thereby exclude him. What men avoid by excluding the liar is not so much being defrauded as it is being harmed by means of fraud. Thus, even at this stage, what they hate is basically not deception itself, but rather the unpleasant, hated consequences of certain sorts of deception. It is in a similarly restricted sense that man now wants nothing but truth: he desires the pleasant, life-preserving consequences of truth. He is indifferent toward pure knowledge which has no consequences; toward those truths which are possibly harmful and destructive he is even hostilely inclined. And besides, what about these linguistic conventions themselves? Are they perhaps products of knowledge, that is, of the sense of truth? Are designations congruent with things? Is language the adequate expression of all realities? ...

—Friedrich Nietzsche

Aha, monitor eyestrain once again!! Thanks Jamison!!

Hold down [Ctrl] plus [Shift] and then the [+] key, all three together should increase the text as I did above... [Ctrl][-] to decrease.

Unless it's because you have an old Lead lined tube?

It's because I'm 72 years old and computer illiterate!!

<taniwha> Zoid: we're nuts, but we're productive nuts:)

Add, also fortuned:

For knighthood is not in the feats of war,
As for to fight in quarrel right or wrong,
But in a cause which truth cannot defer:
He ought himself for to make sure and strong,
Just to keep mixt with mercy among:
And no quarrel a knight ought to take
But for a

	
	

	

		

			
				truth
			
		
	
	
, or for the

	
	

	

		

			
				common's
			
		
	
	
sake.
		-- Stephen Hawes

Any alleged 'right' of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right.– Ayn Rand

When A annoys B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel.– H.L. Mencken