Favourite quotations?

[Freeda]

What are some of your favourite quotations?

Inspired by the aphorisms that appear at the top of these pages, I thought I'd put together a list of my own favourites:

"I can resist everything except temptation" - Oscar Wilde

"A cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing" - Oscar Wilde

"Hope is the confusion of the desire for a thing with its probability" - Schopenhauer

"The door of happiness does not open inward so that one can push it open by rushing at it; it opens outward, and therefore one can do nothing about it" - Kierkegaard

"My only regret in life is that I'm not someone else" - Woody Allen

"It isn't enough to succeed; one's friends must fail" - La Rochefoucauld

"A fanatic redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim" - Santayana

"I'm not afraid of dying; I just don't want to be there when it happens" - Woody Allen

"Life is short, art is long" - Hippocrates

"Fame is fleeting, but obscurity lasts forever" - Napoleon

"And the lion shall lie down with the lamb, but the lamb won't get much sleep" - Woody Allen

That's all I can think of for the moment. Anyone else?

[Mirabell]

Milwaukee is owned by old Germans who moved out of the suburbs about thirty years ago and hired Polaks to run the city for them. The German presence is very heavy here, the pace is very orderly. Even on totally empty downtown streets, nobody crosses against the Red Light. [...] There is no room in the good German mind for flashes of personal anarchy.

Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72

[Mirabell]

and about 25 more here

s*: quotes / Zitate

[ions]

I have a document at the ready for such things. Some I come across like those at the top of this site others I copy from books such as this one:

The morning was huge, and went on in all directions before her, and blew coldly past into her house. She stood a long time in the open doorway, thinking: one step. One step, which will seem to be a step away, but which will not be; one step into the rainbow, a step she had long ago taken, and which could not be untaken, every other step was only further. She took one step. Out on the lawn, amid the rags of mist, a little dog ran toward her, leaping and barking excitedly.

Little, Big - John Crowley

[Jan Mbali]

What are some of your favourite quotations?

Inspired by the aphorisms that appear at the top of these pages, I thought I'd put together a list of my own favourites:

"I can resist everything except temptation" - Oscar Wilde

"A cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing" - Oscar Wilde

"Hope is the confusion of the desire for a thing with its probability" - Schopenhauer

"The door of happiness does not open inward so that one can push it open by rushing at it; it opens outward, and therefore one can do nothing about it" - Kierkegaard

"My only regret in life is that I'm not someone else" - Woody Allen

"It isn't enough to succeed; one's friends must fail" - La Rochefoucauld

"A fanatic redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim" - Santayana

"I'm not afraid of dying; I just don't want to be there when it happens" - Woody Allen

"Life is short, art is long" - Hippocrates

"Fame is fleeting, but obscurity lasts forever" - Napoleon

"And the lion shall lie down with the lamb, but the lamb won't get much sleep" - Woody Allen

That's all I can think of for the moment. Anyone else?

"Only a blockhead writes, except for money" - Dr Samuel Johnson

[Sybarite]

"We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." Oscar Wilde

"Dare to know!" Immanuel Kant

[Irene Wilde]

The anniversary of Mrs. Parker's birth is next week, therefore I will respond further when I have to put the list together for a post elsewhere. Meanwhile, Sir Noel was a Christmas baby, so his anniversary is months away:

I am not a heavy drinker. I can sometimes go for hours without touching a drop.

I don't believe in astrology. The only stars I can blame for my failures are those that walk about the stage.

I have a memory like an elephant. In fact, elephants often consult me.

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

I love criticism just so long as it's unqualified praise

It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.

And the one that haunts me because I've so failed to live up to it:

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. -- Anais Nin

[Beth]

''Earth's the right place for love: I don't know where it's likely to go better." - Robert Frost, Birches

[ions]

Young writers are often told to write about what they know.
That advice is solid.
Except that it is often read as: write about what you already know.
Nine out of ten times, that leads to something utterly dead.
I say: If you want to write, go out in the world and GET to know something.
Then write, with wonder, about your fresh discovery.

Paul Verhaeghen via his blog.

[fausto]

"Opposition is true friendship." (WB)

[Ellen]

Oscar Wilde is always great to quote from.

[Irene Wilde]

Happy Birthday, Mrs. Dorothy Parker:

A little bad taste is like a nice dash of paprika.

Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true.

I might repeat to myself slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound -- if I can remember any of the damn things.

I've never been a millionaire, but I just know I'd be darling at it.

If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.

Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.

Tbe best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant -- and let the air out of the tires.

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.

They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

I'm never going to be famous. My name will never by writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more.

Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.

And, of course, the words Irene lives by:

When it comes to drinking martinis,
I'll have one or two at the most.
Three and I'm under the table.
Four and I'm under the host.

[Mirabell]

When it comes to drinking martinis,
I'll have one or two at the most.
Three and I'm under the table.
Four and I'm under the host.

ooooh I love this
gonna print it on a t-shirt
right away

[Sybarite]

~~LOL~~

Thank you for those, Irene. Brilliant.

[ions]

Yes thank you Irene.

[Irene Wilde]

It is always my pleasure to share the wit and wisdom of Mrs. Parker.
As it happens, one my bosses -- who happens to be a great fan of Mrs. P's -- shares her birthday. He also runs book-oriented newsletter and website, a bit conservative for my taste but very well done, and we spent part of the day exchanging some of our favorite Parkerisms. He is a well-known pillar of the Los Angeles community and I am but a humble assistant. Our love of literature gives us common ground beyond the mere proximity of working in the same office, which I think is pretty darn cool.

[Jan Mbali]

Saw it for the first time used as a quote on top of a horrible novel; and it felt like a desecration. Later found on the internet that it is seemingly best known quote from George Eliot (Middlemarch). I think it might capture pefectly one sense of the quote "Hell is other people" (Sartre ?) Dipped into her work subsequently. Brilliant, especially on the psycho-historical level - the mechanisms that made people tick, then. Committted the quote to memory, so excuse the punctuation:

"If we had a keen vision and sense of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat; and we would die of that roar that lies on the other side of silence."

[Freeda]

Wasn't it also Dorothy Parker who used to answer the telephone by saying "What fresh hell is this?" - a line so good that it's often wrongly attributed to Shakespeare ...

[Irene Wilde]

Wasn't it also Dorothy Parker who used to answer the telephone by saying "What fresh hell is this?" - a line so good that it's often wrongly attributed to Shakespeare ...

Indeed it was.

[saliotthomas]

Sorry but it is in French

Romain Gary

Toutes les fois qu'un imb?cile lui demandait "Tu fais quoi dans la vie, le m?me?", il savait qu'il ?tait tant de d?guerpir, et sans tra?ner. C'est une dr?le de question, d'ailleurs, tu fais quoi dans la vie? Vous l'a-t-on d?j? pos?e? C'est une question qui vous donne la r?elle impression que le seul fait de vivre ne suffit pas; elle met la vie en minorit? si l'on peut dire, elle la rel?gue au deuxi?me rang, comme si ce n'?tait pas assez d'?tre vivant, comme s'il fallait encore payer un tribut." (Le Grec)

I try a very aproximative translation.

Every time an imbecile asked him" what are you doing in life lad?" he knew it was time to run, fast. It is a strange question indeed, what are you doing in life? was it asked to you ?It is a question that make you feel as if living was not enough, it put's life in minority if one can say, it withdraw it to the background, as if being alive was not enough.

And this

...Je n'ai jamais eu, pour ma m?re , de penchant incestueux. Je sais que ce refus de regarder les choses en face fera imm?diatement sourire les avertis et que nul ne peut se porter garant de sont subconscient.
Je m'empresse aussi d'ajouter que m?me le b?otien que je suis s'incline respectueusement devant le complexe d'?dipe, dont la d?couverte et l'illustration honorent l'Occident et constituent certainement, avec le p?trole du Sahara, une des exploitation les plus f?condes des richesses naturelles de notre sous sol.

I copied it from Promise at dawn but i don't think i'm up to the translation.