I appreciate the cool quotes that many of us use as our sig lines. I am often changing mine after seeing a new cool one - Ooh! SHINY!

Anyway, since there's way more cool quotes than 100 characters allow, I thought this might be a cool thread. I didn't search to see if it's been done before, but I'm pretty sure it's not been since I've been coming 'round.

I like a lot of Mark Twain and Dorothy Parker quotes. Just stumbled onto some cool ones from Christopher Hitchens:

"Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods."

"Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay."

"My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilization, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can't prove it, but you can't disprove it either. It happens to be my view, but it doesn't challenge any of the findings of Darwin or Huxley or Einstein or Hawking."

(on intelligent design) "Our prefrontal lobes are too small while our adrenal glands are too big."

"Figures don't lie, but liars sure can figure."

"One caveat: I've moved past threesomes. I'm now into foursomes. If someone backs out, then you've still got a threesome. If two people back out, you're still having sex."

"A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man."

Found on this website, which has me laughing out loud...

Speaking of Dogs and Cats - another Churchill:

"I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."

Blessed is the person who has
earned the love of an old dog."
- Sydney Jeanne Seward

More Churchill:

"There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you."

"Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room"

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."

BTW, I love Churchill......

"If you are going through Hell.....Keep going"

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on"

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject"

A Twain that I am doing from memory....

It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear ignorant than to open it and remove all doubt.

Jeeez, Rob.... Churchill is alright I guess.... but has he ever been quoted using the word "embiggens"?

Churchill?....that old stuffed shirt?? No way.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. is my favorite author. Here's a few of his gems:

"Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae."

"Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information."

"Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative."

"1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them."

"Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance."

"Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops."

I always chuckle when I hear the quote made by Churchill when confronted by a women who pointed out he was intoxicated:

"I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober, and you will still be ugly."

Great thread concept Doc.

A recent post on my site included a couple of quotes from UCLA coach John Wooden.

"Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."

"Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming."

Hear, hear! Vonnegut is the best. In fact, I don't think I could trust anyone who doesn't like him. To be a decent human being, one must read and appreciate Vonnegut. His books are essential and should be required reading for all. Especially young people.

Having said that, while possessing a brilliant intellect (or at least he used to), Christopher Hitchens has become a pathetic, drunken blowhard who has lost his mind and any sense of deep insight that he might have had. He reminds me of a drunk Richard Burton, except without the charm, style and talent. He is a rumply, sad and bitter man. And currently wrong on most issues.

Now a quote from one of my favorite authors (Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas was my Catcher In The Rye when I was a teenager), Hunter S. Thompson:

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."

" I do not mean to pry, but you don't by any chance happen to have six fingers on your right hand?"

"That is what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age"

"Comedy's in my blood, which explains why people only laugh when I'm actively bleeding."

"The only thing worse than cannibalism is eating a cannibal's puke."
"And they puke a lot, especially after eating this course that's name translates to 'One Cheek.' I can only assume it's a half-assed attempt at cannibal cuisine."

"I used to think I was good at not stepping on people's toes, but it turned out all the people I knew just had very small feet."

"You might be a redneck if you're not a blueneck or a greenneck."

"MeOWWWWWWWW!" said the cat as it entered purrgatory.

"Welcome to Hell!"
"Thanks for the super-warm welcome."

"I have an inoperable male brain on my tumor."

"If nothing is impossible, then I guess I do the impossible every day."

"There's nothing like screwing a woman made of nails, except maybe nailing a woman made of screws."

"I'm not fat. I'm just morbidly big-boned."

"I feel like I'm throwing golden boomerangs and getting back silver ones."

"I'm running for office. I guess that'll get in me in good enough shape for a desk job."

"I like looking at someone's chest and saying that I can't make heads or tails of it."

"A match made in Heaven is inferior to a lighter made in Hell."

"By the pallor of Grayscale, I have the pallor!"

Forum regulars glance around furtively and move on, as Charles single handedly kills the thread.

When life hands you a lemon, say "Oh yeah, I like lemons. What else you got?" - Henry Rollins

Bren R.

"When God hands you lemons, FIND A NEW GOD." - Powerthirst commercial

I just stumbled onto this quote today:

"Whatever you give a woman, she's going to multiply.
If you give her sperm, she'll give you a baby.
If you give her a house, she'll give you a home.
If you give her groceries, she'll give you a meal.
If you give her a smile, she'll give you her heart.
She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her.
So - if you give her any crap, you'll receive a ton of s***."

My favorite quote is from Muhatma Gandhi: "You can judge the progress of a society by how well they treat their animals."

I agree with all the gushing about Vonegut. Slaughterhouse 5 is my favorite book. Not from Slaughterhouse 5 (but I think actually used in two of his books): "Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college."

Finally, one of my favorites is from Emerson: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."

Einstein also has a ton of great statements, but I can't find my folder where I keep my favorite quotations.

So, THAT's my problem!

Not really a quote, but lyrics which have stuck with me for years.

There are those people who tell you not to take chances
They are all missing what life is about
You only live once, so take hold of the chance
Don't end up like others, the same song and dance

I tried my best. I suppose I should have used two hands.

Please use both hands. No, don't close your eyes.

"The right to express an opinion doesn't include a right to be taken seriously".

"Projection is the pretense of a subjective ideal"

One that I came up with myself; I love quotes.

Ha. Brilliant new Avatar.

from a post left by Tilly on "The West Virginia Surf Report"

"smells like a vagina full of bad decisions"

A couple by Peter Drucker:

"The best way to predict the future is to create it."

"What everybody knows is frequently wrong."

"People who don't take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year."

And my favourite:

"If you haven't been fired by the time your 40, your not trying hard enough."

Tact is just not saying true stuff. . . ." Cordelia Chase

“Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is in a democracy the whores are us.” P.J. O’Rourke

“No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy.” Motto of both the 1st Marines and the 1st Marine Division. (*trivia* the official song 1st Marine Division is “Waltzing Matilda“)

“For it is the doom of men that they forget.” Merlin “Excalibur”

Dude, we could fill this thread with Buffyisms!

You bet! I loved the writing for that show, but that one was always one of my favorites. It’s my signature over at AVS.

"I've been rich and I've been poor. It's better to be rich." - Gertrude Stein

At least now I know, so I can finally go ahead and follow this treasure map I have.

Here's a few from a web site I just recently joined, healthyskepticism.org :

"Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty."
- Mark Twain

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense."
- Buddha

“Another error is an impatience of doubt and haste to assertion without due and mature suspension of judgment. For the two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients; the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation; if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”
- Francis Bacon (1561-1626): The Proficience and Advancement of Learning
(London, 1605).

“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”
- Leo Tolstoy

“The easy confidence with which I know another man’s religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.”
- Mark Twain

The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
- Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist and educator, Aphorisms and Reflections, 1907

Never ascribe to malice that which is better explained by incompetence.
- Napoleon Bonaparte

True courage is mixed with circumspection, the kind of healthy skepticism that asks, “Is this the best way to do this?” True cowardice is marked by chronic skepticism, which always says, “It can’t be done.”
-William Bennett

There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy. All information is imperfect. We have to treat it with humility.
- Jacob Bronowski, scientist, broadcaster, The Ascent of Man, 1973

Those are some good quotes, medic8r. I liked 'em so much I went to check out the site. Not exactly what I was expecting, and seemingly not of particular interest to someone that is not in the medical profession!

Yeah, one wouldn't gather it from the name of the site, which is very non-specific. The site encourages doctors to cast a skeptical eye on the claims of those drug reps who bring me my Olive Garden lunches. I am so conflicted, ha ha.

"Lest you forgot the things which your eyes have seen, and teach them to your children and your children's children".

For snarky and sarcastic quotes, despair.com has some cool new t-shirts:

"Toyota - once you drive one, you'll never stop."

"If you don't like my opinion of you, you could always improve."

"The more of my behavior you accept, the less you will have to forgive."

"Don't ever change. I always want to be better than you."

I really tried to get my previous boss to get some of their motivational posters to decorate our, at the time, new office.

When in 1986 Apple bought a Cray X-MP and announced that they would use it to design the next Apple Macintosh, Seymour Cray replied, "This is very interesting because I am using an Apple Macintosh to design the Cray-2 supercomputer."

That is a good one.

"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another." - Jonathan Swift

and a few from Bill Cosby:

"Nothing separates the generations more than music. By the time a child is eight or nine, he has developed a passion for his own music that is even stronger than his passions for procrastination and weird clothes."

"There is hope for the future because God has a sense of humor and we are funny to God."

"The essence of childhood, of course, is play, which my friends and I did endlessly on streets that we reluctantly shared with traffic."

"Let us now set forth one of the fundamental truths about marriage: the wife is in charge."

"Don't mess with old men, they didn't get old by being stupid!"

Yes, Dear. You're right.

From the 30th Anniversary party on Ian and Amie's dock: By BobKay, describing the memory of the senses; "... We have sight memory, we have olfactory memory, but we don't have oral memory." Recognizing the bewildered expression on the faces of those in the conversation, he stopped talking for a second, closed his eyes, shook his head left and right and slowly clarified, while tugging on his ear lobe, "... A..U..R.. aural memory," with a resounding "oh.. OH! OK, That make more sense" from the crowd.

Scott

“People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you. You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity. Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.” — Banksy

What an interesting perspective.

Yeah. While I couldn't see myself going out and destroying advertisements, I totally get where he's coming from.

Very true!

One of the grave travesties is that corporations are citizens under the law.

He also touches on the misuse/abuse of psychology to sell. Increasingly, over the years, advertisers use psychology to sell their product. What better way to sell, then to get into the inner constructs of the human psyche? With the help of well-paid researchers and psychologists, advertisers now have access to in-depth knowledge about children’s developmental, emotional and social needs at different ages.

In 1999, Gary Ruskin, head of Commercial Alert, and Allen Kanner, a clinical psychologist, wrote a letter to The American Psychological Association (APA). This letter targeted the misuse of psychology in the field of advertising. The letter’s main statement was that psychologists were using their knowledge “to promote and assist the commercial exploitation and manipulation of children”. The letter went on to state that psychologists were “helping corporations influence children for the purpose of selling products to them”. Ruskin and Kanner appealed to the APA, saying that the core mission of the APA - “to advance the understanding of the human psyche in order to promote health” - was being undermined by psychologists' association with advertising.

It is this exploitation and manipulation of children that Ruskin and Kanner, as well as 60 other psychologists that signed the letter, wanted to bring to the public eye. The letter also spoke of the laws that protect children in other countries:

“Sweden and Norway prohibit television advertising directly targeting children below twelve years of age. Greece bans television advertising of toys to children between 7:00am and 10:00pm. Quebec prohibits television advertising directed at children below the age of thirteen. However, in the United States, children have no such protections, nor any protection against the use of psychological insights and expertise to manipulate or influence them”.

Easy to see several reasons why we're a nation of fatsos, when toddlers can identify the Golden Arches.

I'd check in with (the late) Melvin Levine before I jumped to any conclusions.

What difference if the sheep unanimously pass a resolution in favor of vegetarianism if the wolves are of a different opinion on the matter.

Doesn't that depend entirley upon which country is lending air support to the Sheep Insurgents?

Or have the Wolves brokered a no-grandmother-zone agreement?

"I'd like to see how smart Theo Epstein is with the Tampa Bay [Rays] payroll. You got Carl Crawford 'cause you paid more than anyone else, and that's what makes you smarter? That's why I like whipping their butt. It's great, knowing those guys with the $205 million payroll are saying, 'How the hell are they beating us?"

--Buck Showalter on the New York Yankees eeerrrrrr Boston Redsox

Again:

"Bite Me!"----Bob K.

"I don't remember them beating us that much. Maybe there was some different schedule, I don't know."

Terry Francona, 3-27-11

Bob, in Libya we are supporting the wolves against the wolves.

Man, it's the same bullshit they tried to pull in my day. If it ain't that piece of paper, there's some other choice they're gonna try and make for you. You gotta do what Randall "Pink" Floyd wants to do, man. Let me tell you this, the older you do get the more rules they're gonna try to get you to follow. You just gotta keep livin' man, L-I-V-I-N.

Showalter took over part way through last season so they couldn't have played that many games against each other (Orioles) with him has manager. A funny stat as much as his quote is they have had the best record in baseball since then. It will be interesting to see if Boston can fight through this tough start. The AL East is really, really tough this year. Has panic set in Boston?

I'll digree from that opinion... Canada is involved too, unfortunately. Something very important regarding Gaddafi that didn't make the mainstream media --> here .

Yes, Gaddafi and his are wolves. Those fighting him are also wolves. US State Department and Obama administration burned the house down. They ignored the people of Iran and left them to the tender mercies of the murderous mullahs who murdered by the thousands, ignored Hariri who asked for help against Hizbullah, told Mubarek to leave clearing the way for the Muslim Brotherhood, the fountainhead for Islamic Jihadism, [Mubarek of course a dictator but one who maintained peace with Israel, once the Muslim Brotherhood is in charge, there will be war], told Ben Ali to leave and clear the way for Islamicists, told Ali Selah, though a Muslim despot one who allowed the US fleet to provision in Yemen, to get out and clear the way for Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula, calls Bashir Assad a reformer (that's pure insane stupidity) ... all in all US policy has released the wolves. Good work.

I guess now's not the time to debut my new Ahmadinejad avatar.

Good thing your avatar is an African lion instead of a lyin' African.

Witty.

Ah, the whispered suggestion of racism. I suppose it is not politically correct to note that the middle east and north Africa are on fire.

As to Africa, maybe medic8r should change his avatar to a picture of Robert Mugabe, a real lion of Africa or Ouattara, or Alhaji Saad Abubakar of Nigeria.

I don't know what the hell you are talking about.

Let me clarify it for you: my post was a sarcastic reference to the kind of person who holds up this sign at political rallies:



I suggest you take your charges of implied racism and shove it up her's and or yours.

Oh. ok. sorry. never mind.

And I am sorry I went off on you. Bad day.

Like a friend said in a PM, "That's why we don't discuss politics."

One of these days, I'll learn.

Doubtful.

Ha. We can hope.

Why set ourselves up for disappointment?

Oops. But politics are entertaining and I thought he was Indonesian.

I like the fire, JP! Keep that radical spirit young. You'll very soon be a senior .

"The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions, yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

Frederick Douglas

Limited, not all struggles are equal. In Sudan, the Janjawid Arab Muslim irregulars have murdered more than 300,000 people. Rapes? Beyond count. How many taken as slaves? You tell me. Now the Janjawid struggle to achieve their ends, their liberty ... a liberty to do as they will with other human beings, to murder them, enslave them and take from them what they want.

Now, the UN is essentially silent on the issue. The Western powers may complain, on occasion, but nothing is done to preserve the lives of these people. The OIC complains that what little complaining the west does in connection with the situation in Darfur speaks to an unfair singling out of Arab Muslims, an interference with the internal affairs of the Sudan.

In India, the Pakistani Lashkar e Taiba murders Jews and Hindus with enthusiasm. In the Philippines Abu Sayaff murders Christians and PULO and BRN murder Buddhists in Thailand. They struggle but not all struggles dignify humanity.

If you ask the murderers, they will tell you, they struggle against being ruled by Christians, or Buddhists, or Hindus, or Jews, or Animists, or, in Darfur, by Blacks. They struggle for supremacy, but if asked, they struggle against oppression.

STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP.

Take your political discussion somewhere else. The internet is a big place with plenty of more appropriate places to alienate your peers.

Don't do this here.

Now that this thread has nothing to do with quotes, a thought about global everything.

If you don't live in North America, western Europe,
Australia, South Korea or Japan (well, 5 weeks ago), your life as a human is quite likely to suck out loud. And Israel, if you'r not Arab or Palestiinian.

80% of all human life blows. Indignation and speculation on it is noble, but pointless.

Viewpoints of commoners will affect no change.

The American World Police and Benevolence Foundation ain't that effective. If it's not a world war, we don't have a great track record, aside from Granada. We only went down there to save American med students who weren't smart enough to get into real med schools. We do protect our own numbies, like when they inadvertantly wander into Iran on a hike in Afghanistan (IDIOTS!)

So, at the end of the day, when everyone's armchair stances on world problems are logged in and duly noted, just be grateful that you got to be the one-in-five who doesn't sleep on dirt.

If you sleep IN and WITH dirt, then maybe you should save some cash and expatriate.

Edit: I was writing this when Peter's post appeared. Had I seen it first, such a strong admonition to cease probably would have gotten my attention. Sorry.

Hmmmm...dirt v. Axioms....

I hate budget decisions!

"The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen." ~Tommy Smothers

I would bet you that plenty of people aren't listening.

I agree with Peter: political and religious discussions have a place, but it's not here. I say, take it to the Huffington Post comments sections, or RedState.com, or some similar place that strikes your fancy.

My take on this is that political and religious comments around here are like salt in a recipe. Maybe a little comment here or there gives a little spice to life. But, if most of a person's posts are his attempt to advance a political agenda, then DUDE, why are you pouring that whole salt shaker in my soup? Enough, already.

Agreed. Or take it to the comments on NPR.org, nytimes.com, foxnews.com, whatever.

Don't forget the restroom walls.

"The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls": Paul Simon

"The words of the profits are written on the studio walls and concert halls": Neil Peart

S'why I've never needed a little black book.

I like how I'm acknowledged....



Class.

Eat sh!t! 60 trillion flies can't ALL be wrong. [Men's room wall, CCNY philosophy department.]

LL, shaddap.

One shy of a baker's dozen, same goes for you.

My favorite:

"I think, therefor I am" (one English interpretation of it anyway)

I sense another name change coming on.

Peter, it's the same thing over and over again, and I'm entitled to point it out. There's intent behind it.

Intent to rile, nothing more. You're responsible for how you let it get to you.

I completely agree. Just because I point it out, doesn't mean it bothers me; I'm over that.

I can call someone out for being disparaging without being told to shut up. You've done it numerous times, and rightly so.

"They cannot hurt you unless you let them" - Art Alexakis, in Everclear's song "One Hit Wonder".

Best. Use of cognitive therapy techniques in a song. Ever.

Here's the video. Oh, yeah, with Christina Hendricks. And Wink Martindale.

You keep mentioning bands I had abandoned years ago as completely vapid, Doc.

What I say? That is my favorite quote, it's Descartes 1596 - 1650 - my favorite philosopher.

John Locke kicks Descartes' a$$.

Them are fightn' words you empiricist!

My err, Mike. I thought your quote was directed at me as it was posted after three other posts, was a direct reply to my message , and in the vein of letting something bother me i.e. "I think (limited), therefor I am (limited)".

Apologies.

And that is an amazing quote.

I like John Stuart Mill and Thomas Paine.

I don't believe I have a book by Descartes. Suggestion?

for some reason people are over sensitive to things not directed at them.... Benny Hill

I'm glad you said Benny Hill. This thread needs some carefully controlled hand farts.

What thread wouldn't benefit?

Just because the herd is in step does not mean it is headed in the right direction.

The gadarene

Cam –

If you really want to study Descartes, I would start with his book “The Discourse on the Method”, or its full title “Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences”. If what he writes in this book interest you, you can decide if you want to give his additional writings further study.

After reading some of the things you have written over the past couple of years here, you might want to study Friedrich Nietzsche as well. I think you will like the book “Basic Writings of Nietzsche” I think it is excellent and a very different tone from most philosophical writings. Nietzsche is also one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented philosophers because he questioned convention (basically called BS on it).

I am by no means an expert on philosophy and do not have the intellect to be a philosopher, but find it incredibly interesting and thought provoking. One thing it has taught me is to keep an open mind, never accept status quo and question everything. My favorite book (so far) is “Sophie’s World”. Well, that book and Zen and the Art or Motorcycle Maintenance. I like Sophie’s World because it is a great introductory book that ties the ancients to modern day in a chronological order without giving any preference to one thought or direction. Plus, it’s an easy read, unlike most philosophical texts and books.

Just because the turd wears glasses doesn't mean it can read.

Are you calling Descartes a turd?

Don't make me go all Hegelian on yo' ass.

(That'd be so funny. In the middle of a multi-person heated discusion over interpretations of Descartes, you interrupt and say "Descartes was a turd!" Not another word or gesture. You just get up and leave. The substitutions are endless.)

Thanks, Mike. I've read Nietzsche, and own at least one of his books but I can't remember which one/ones. I have enjoyed reading his works in the past.

I'm with you, as I find philosophy incredibly piquant. I haven't read a book on the topic in many years. I stick to one subject for a while, then move onto another. The downside is that I find it harder to retain information. For the past 6 months at least, I've been voraciously studying the Israeli/Palestine conflict, and like to think that I have a good understanding of things. Because of the gravity of the situation, I can see it breaking my aforementioned transient studying trend.

The best book I've ever read is "Man's Search for Meaning" by Victor Frankle. He's a psychologist, and the pioneer of logotherapy. Despite this, the book does have a philosophical undertone.

Here's a synopsis-

"Viktor Frankl's 1946 book Man's Search for Meaning chronicles his experiences as a concentration camp inmate and describes his psychotherapeutic method of finding a reason to live. According to Frankl, the book intends to answer the question "How was everyday life in a concentration camp reflected in the mind of the average prisoner?" Part One constitutes Frankl's analysis of his experiences in the concentration camps, while Part Two introduces his ideas of meaning and his theory of logotherapy. It is the second-most widely read Holocaust book in the bookstore of Washington's Holocaust Museum.

According to a survey conducted by the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Library of Congress, Man's Search For Meaning belongs to a list of "the ten most influential books in [the United States]." (New York Times, November 20, 1991). At the time of the author's death in 1997, the book had sold 10 million copies in twenty-four languages."

I think you would enjoy it, as I consider it one of those books that everyone should read. I honestly couldn't see anyone finishing the book without it having a profound impact on them.

And there's post 3000! Come on, Peter, get on me about something. It's not a real milestone for me if you don't . There's gotta be something - grammar, orthography, I'm a jackass etc. .

This is the only forum I post on regularly, and I cherish the time spent here with everyone. I've considered leaving a couple times quite honestly, but the time away was shortened (too bad for some of ya ) because I missed you guys.

Anyway, thanks for the omnipresent help, friendship etc. etc.

Peace and love,
Cam

Well, if this is where we're celebrating Cam's 3,000th post...

Kant to do that!! Watch out!

Cam, here I agree with you. Viktor Frankl is one of the great and unsung philosophers.

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

And ...

Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/v/viktor_e_frankl.html#ixzz1JT9mhb9q

Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/v/viktor_e_frankl.html#ixzz1JT9K0vXF

OK, this should get the teens a giggling -

The origin of thought is no teat. - Bion.

Tell me what you think Bion means by this.

Weep not for the mammaries?

The infant when in a state of bliss, protected, warm and fed by the mother enjoys a mental state of satisfaction, completeness, and contentment. However, when the teat is removed, the child's consciousness isolates a concept not because of the presence of a stimulus but because of its absence. It is the absence of something which isolates the concept of that something. A concept arises from the rupture of a mental continuum. Like the universe, something, a concept of something, arises from nothing.

In the beginning there was no teat.

So, to your point, Pmb, yes, the absence of mammaries simultaneously provokes both thought and weeping.

Well then, all I can say is thanks for the mammeries.

You can't fool us. That's a scannned image and definitely not a download.

pmbuko posted these in another thread. They are so awesome that I pasted them here:

---

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
-- Aldous Huxley

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
-- Philip K. Dick

It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
-- Carl Sagan

The good thing about science is that it's true whether you believe in it or not.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

A theoretical grounding in agronomy must, therefore, include knowledge of biological laws.
Trofim Lysenko

Not everyone who makes scientific pronouncements is pronouncing scientific truth.

"The sky is falling"
Chicken Little

I take it that your point is that Lysenko, a prominent Soviet scientist of the early 20th century, was later exposed to be a fraud, to be doing bad science.

My rebuttal is that his work was exposed as fraudulent by his peers. Science moves on. He was a fly on the windshield, or to use another insect metaphor, a bug in the program that was identified and removed.

"There is not a woman in the world the possession of whom is as precious as that of the truths which she reveals to us by causing us to suffer" - Marcel Proust

Actually, it was more a problem of Cinderella's sisters' toes.

Lysenko forced facts to fit preconceived scientific theories in order to justify and give scientific force to the larger philosophical/socialist theories.

Geez, Jack's been talking to my wife, apparently.

Time isn't a commodity, something you pass around like cake. Time is the substance of life. When anyone asks you to give your time, they're really asking for a chunk of your life. - Antoinette Bosco

Head nodding.

"We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature's inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind and tide. ... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that."

- Thomas Edison, in a 1931 conversation with Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone.

Hippie.

Edison had some other good ones. My other favorite, which was my sig here for a while, is:

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

"The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people recognize that in life, they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation." - Neil deGrasse Tyson

The possession of whom...

Them were the days, eh?

Remember, it was a different time and a different world when the quote came into existence. Even then, I believe it was meant figuratively rather than literally. It can easily be interpreted as referring to the possession of her love, which can only be possessed if she freely gives it. That's how I choose to look at it. YMMV.

I like the idea of owning women.

All the women I ever owned, always got mad and ran away.

Owning them can sometimes get rather expensive. That's why some, would rather rent them instead.

Nice one, JP.

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine. - Thomas Jefferson

TJ, obviously didn't live in Seattle (or Cleveland, for that matter)

A recent Conan O'Brien tweet I found amusing.

"The emoticon just turned 30. I wish there were some way to express how little I care about this news."

Confucius say crowded elevator smell different to midget.

- Red Foxx

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.” – Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad

"Ooooo...what is it now, dumb-dumb?".....Gazoo/Harvey Korman

"Stand back Eve, I don't know how big this thing gets" Adam

"A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married." - Henry Louis Mencken