Your Favorite Quote

[LSN80]

I did this one a few years ago, but we've had quite the turnover in people since then, so I figured I'd do it again. The idea here is simple: List a favorite quote or two of yours, explain it, and tell us why it personally is a favorite of ours. For me, there are two that immediately come to mind.

"If you meet an a$$hole in the morning, you met an a$$hole. If you're meeting a$$holes all day, chances are, you're the a$$hole."-Highway, Heartbreak Ridge. Raylan Givens-Justified.

I've heard this quote in two different places and I absolutely love it. But first, let me first put a disclaimer to this: If your working in customer service, such as a waiter/waitress or in a department store, this doesn't apply to you. But for most, such as myself, the logic is simple. If you run into someone nasty once or twice during the day, chances are, they were the nasty ones. But if everyone you encounter seemingly has something against you, it's probably something you're doing. So many people walk around with the "World is against me" attitude, and it's most likely that exactly. Their attitude, not the world around them.

“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard enough.”
-Kevin Durant

Much as Kevin Durant is possibly the best player in basketball today, I consider myself to be a very good psychologist. I have no delusions of grandeur that I'm a great one, or one of the best, but I also know that I'm more then just competent, I'm very good. And on many days, I needn't even apply the skills I learned in school, because I relate well to the couples and families in which I counsel. But there are days in which I feel stuck, and honestly, unable to proceed with clients. There are techniques that would be relevant to clients that I've either forgotten, am not as familiar with as I should be, or never learned at all. So I'll work my hardest to get through the session, but when myself alone isn't enough, I read. I prepare myself by reading books or literature that apply directly to the client with which I'm dealing, nand even if it takes hours of unpaid time, I memorize the techniques I read about. In doing so, I feel the confidence to deal with whatever they throw my way in their next session. Do I always get it right still? No, absolutely not. But it's not for a lack of the hard work Kevin Durant speaks to.

As for the rest of you, what quote(s) stick with you as difference makers in your life? Why do they do so?

 

[Akhilleus]

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

This one means a lot to me. It comes from the old saying "Eye for Eye" which basically means if you do something to me I'm going to do something to you back. Yet that's the problem with today's world. Everyone has to have the last word.

I'm a very passive guy. I've never been in a fight, and I never plan to be. I'm the type of person who avoids conflict, and more so tries to solve things with words. I don't believe in the death penalty, and I'm not a big sucker for revenge. Of course revenge is an emotion, and of course there have been times in my life where I wanted justice. I feel no matter what the crime, no matter what the situation, that person isn't worth fighting over. Yet in the last decade there has been one time where I truly wanted pure justice on another person, and that was with Sandy Hook in 2012. There has not been another public incident that hit me as emotionally as that one did, and I truly wanted to strangle that piece of garbage, and watch the life leave his body.

Other than that most things bounce off of me. I don't take things too personally, and I'm generally easy going. It's hard to say what I would do if something happened to me or my family, but when things do come up I always try to remember that quote above.

Basically what he's saying is if everyone fights back every single time they're wronged, then there isn't going to be anyone left on earth to fight anymore. If someone takes your eye, and you take theirs, it just becomes a never ending cycle of revenge, and hatred. It's to the point where everyone is left "blind" because they are so consumed with revenge. They don't see that the only way out, and the only way to find peace is to forgive and forget.

 

[Dirk]

One me and my buddies always use is:
Heck, I'm not even mad; that's amazing.
Ron Burgundy in Anchorman spots his dog who pooped in the refrigerator and ate a whole wheel of cheese. We say this whenever one of us surpasses previous levels of either being a dick or achievements in vulgarity.

So many candidates from Sin City, but I can't ignore:
When you got a condition, it's bad to forget your medicine.
I have a "condition" myself and I forget at least once a week. Everytime I feel shitty because I forgot my pills, I see Mickey Rourke's grey, flat-topped head in front of me, telling me to take my medicine...

 

[LODemolition]

I love the dialog in all of Kill Bill Volume 2, but my favorite line comes at the very end. After Beatrix Kiddo uses the five point palm exploding heart technique on Bill, he says, "You're not a bad person. You're a terrific person. You're my favorite person. But every once in a while...you can be a real cunt."

 

[Mustang Sally]

“I don't work with collectives. I don't consult, I don't cooperate, I don't collaborate.”


The fictional character Howard Roark said this in "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand.

I keep the thought with me as a reminder that the best work a person can do is her/his own's. Ayn Rand felt that a person doing their work, their way, was the highest achievement of man. The expression "two heads are better than one" would never fly in Rand's world.

It's fine to seek out help from others to root out certain facts and figures, but concepts and achievement are a treasured form of self-expression. Looking at a completed project and knowing it came strictly from your own mind and effort brings a satisfaction that can't be equaled.

 

[Mitch Henessey]

Star Wars: A New Hope

[YOUTUBE]x0ow4X8tiMI[/YOUTUBE]

If you didn't watch the video, it's "Who is the more foolish? The fool or the fool, who follows it?"

Funny thing is, I used this quote in high school during a daily activity once. It was in an American History teacher's class, and every day before the class started he would randomly select someone to write a random quote from anywhere. Whoever wrote the quote had to explain its origins in front of everyone, the meaning, and what the quote means to them.

From what I remember, I rarely participated in this activity, but it was fun to hear different points of view for the quotes, where they came from, and how each quote provided motivation for the chosen speaker that day. A New Hope isn't my favorite film (it's the Empire Strikes Back) in the series, but this quote pops into my mind every now and then.

Accountability is a big part of Obi-Wan's quote. If you're going to follow someone else or a group of people, and you know there's a chance there up to no good, or if you're facing serious trouble, then you have to be ready to face the consequences WITHOUT finger pointing. To add to that, don't crack under peer pressure. If you're uncomfortable with doing something for whatever reason, just walk away, or say no.

 

[Dowdsy McDowds]

"Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'" - Kurt Vonnegut

One of the most grounding quotes to read when going through a tough/busy time and also incredibly simple.

It's natural that at various times through life, people will feel isolated, lonely and unable to express just HOW isolated and alone they feel, even to people close to them. The empathetic nature of the quote recognises that expressing such feelings can be tough but that when the time comes, their friends and/or family will be there to talk it out with them.

 

[Fire Marshall Bill]

"Shit happens."

Why? Because it does. Not a single person on this planet is going to go through every second of every day and come out smelling like roses and fairy dust.

I say this all the time when something doesn't work out for myself or anyone else explaining a bad situation. Shit does happen, and at that point you just have to deal with it. You can whine and complain or you can do something about it. I do something about it. What I can at least. How other people deal with stuff is their own right. Some people try to look at everything positively, others negatively. I've always been more of a realist.

 

[smizzy]

"When we lose and I strike out, I am reminded that a billion people in China don't care." - Reggie Jackson

I've always loved this quote. While Reggie is obviously talking about having a bad game, the average person can also relate to this as well; no matter what tribulation one has experienced, it's truly not a big deal in the big picture.

"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." - Michael Jordan

This is a fairly well known quote, and with good reason. I think everyone could relate to this to some degree.

Finally, the undisputed, greatest quote of all time is...

 

[Agent_of_Anarchy]

"Alcohol: The cause of, and solution to, all of lifes problems." - Homer J Simpson

Satan represents kindness to those who deserve it instead of love wasted on ingrates! - The Fourth Satanic Statement - Anton Zander Lavey.
This just makes sense.

Anything that Hunter S Thompson ever said. But see my sig for my favorite.

 

[Dagger Dias]

"He who hesitates is lost"

This was my favorite quote for a very long time and still remains one of my favorites. I always saw it as.... if you truly want something and you have the opportunity to try to achieve your goal, any hesitation to take the necessary steps to get there, can ultimately cost you your desired outcome. That's it, you might never get another chance. If you hesitated, you lost. While it isn't AS important of a quote to me now as it once was, it still ranks high up on the list for me.

 

[Reflection]

"Its a sheep world we live in. If you are an aware individual and get yourself into an argument with the sheep, you will have lost before you could even begin."
This one was said by the owner of BestGore dot com, when he and his members solved a murder case that the police couldn't. The media (being the assholes that they are) were trying to place the blame on them somehow, and trying to book a face to face interview with him (so that they can push him to a corner with lawyer-type questions), which he declined. So there was this one guy from a news channel whom he got really mad at, and remarked "The target audience of your show are the sheep..." followed by the above.
Its something I totally agree with. Whether its in real life, or some news page on facebook, or even in the comments section of the main site... You just have to stay content that you know your stuff, and don't find it necessary to prove it to people, or try to make them start believing the way you do- which they won't, so don't bother trying.

"The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life."
This quote is from the movie Rocky Balboa, and its very true too. Almost all of us have come face-to-face with at least one such point in life when nothing seems to go our way; we fare poorly in education, we lose the ones we love, we confine ourselves within the four walls hoping that it will make things better, but it only gets worse. Things head towards the right direction again only when we step out of those four walls and decide to confront life head-on, ready to face setbacks and obstacles we might face along the way. A related quote is
"Have a new beginning.. even if it takes making a hard decision once again.. Don't look back now broski." which a close friend told me after I broke up with my girlfriend but couldn't get over what I did and eventually went into depression, which took time to get rid of, but I was finally able to.

Another one that really touched the heart was Save our women first; we can save the tigers later. that one of my earliest friends on facebook posted back in 2009, but I still haven't forgotten it. I'm from India, and we hear and read about rape and molestation cases everyday. Its not a recent thing, its always been happening. Its just that the media is over active these days and figured out that such news bring in ratings. Back around that time 2007-2011, there was this massive campaign "Save our Tigers initiative" where millions of our currency were spent in "spreading awareness" that tigers were becoming endangered and they need to be protected. Film stars, sportspersons, politicians, media etc. were all promoting this campaign because they were getting paid well, but nobody was talking about the plight of the women of our country.

The final one would be "If I don't kill a man every now and then, they forget who I am." by Blackbeard from Pirates of the Caribbean 4. Its not about killing, but everything that we do in life, we have to keep delivering. Consistency is very important if one wants to proceed beyond the rest and to be remembered for a long time. If we perform well once and then go back to being average, that one good performance will also be crushed off as a stroke of luck. Like the saying goes, "What's more difficult than reaching the top, is retaining your position at the top."

 

[JWGunslinger]

It's actually something I heard recently in the wake of Ultimate Warrior's passing. From the great Vince McMahon,"I've always loved you. Sometimes I didn't like you but I always loved you".

Funny this just came to me the other day, but the quote really spoke to me. First of all it was a great thing to hear Vince say about a guy who he had such a tumultuous relationship. It also spoke to me on a personal level, because there are those people in life who at times you can't stand but at the end of the day you care for them and you love them. To me nothing describes family better, at times you want to strangle them but at the end of the day nothing can effect your love for them.

 

[DarksideEric]

It's actually something I heard recently in the wake of Ultimate Warrior's passing. From the great Vince McMahon,"I've always loved you. Sometimes I didn't like you but I always loved you".

Funny this just came to me the other day, but the quote really spoke to me. First of all it was a great thing to hear Vince say about a guy who he had such a tumultuous relationship. It also spoke to me on a personal level, because there are those people in life who at times you can't stand but at the end of the day you care for them and you love them. To me nothing describes family better, at times you want to strangle them but at the end of the day nothing can effect your love for them.

Piggybacking off of your statement as one of my favorite quotes is:

"No. You're not a bad person. You're a terrific person. You're my favorite person, but every once in a while, you can be a real cunt." - Bill, Kill Bill Vol. 2

It completely reminds me of what you have already stated.

Another favorite quote of mine from Collateral is:

"No, I shot him. Bullets and the fall killed him." - Vincent (Tom Cruise)

Always been one of my favorite snarky "technically" lines. "Technically" as in "well, technically, since I didn't use my bare hands, I in fact did not kill him, the bullets and the fall did."

 

[Richard Blonoff]

It isn't a quote perse, but song lyrics, but they have been playing over and over in my mind the last few weeks.

"Sometimes love isn't about how much someone suits you, but how much you're willing to change to suit them"

Its from the song "Rough Hands" by Alexisonfire(shout out Dowds). The CD it was featured on came out in '06, my junior year of high school. Nearly my entire life after I really gave that song a listen was lived by those words. I would change who I was to suit people I was close to, and it has caused me to put my whole life on the back burner a lot. It all came to a head a little over a year ago. I was in a relationship with a girl I was truly and madly in love with. Our one year anniversary was March first. On March second she broke up with me, via text, and she later informed me she cheated on me on our anniversary. For an entire year I changed everything about myself to suit her, because I loved her, and I wanted her to love me back. I wanted to marry her. She informed me she was never in love with me. I heard the song a few days after she left me and I threw my iPod in disgust. Once I got over the initial crying every day for two weeks, I heard it again and those lyrics resonated with me. Despite her breaking me, I still believe in those words. I think when two people truly love each other and want to be together they make those changes...something she was never willing to do for me.

 

[Skyeborne]

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” ~ G. K. Chesterton

I know it sounds stupid, but I first heard a version of it on Criminal minds and I fell in love with it ever since. I made a poster with this quote and hung it across my bed so I can see it everyday. Every human has their own problems, and I am no different. I'm like constantly fighting a war in my head, a lot of the times it sucks and seems like there is no getting better. This quote really gives me hope though. I like reading fairy tales in worlds where everything is perfect. I wish our world could be as perfect as those...I could live in a castle and find a prince and live happily ever after, but our world is not perfect. We can't say our prayers, eat our vitamins and have everything turn out all right at the end of the day.

If we want our lives to be good we have to work for it, we have to slay our dragons. I work hard everyday battling my dragons and working hard at university. A lot of times it seems really pointless to keep battling. I admire the heroes in books because they never give up. The heroes in the fairy tales I read aren't perfect, they have their own dragons, but with hard work they defeat them.

In time, I know I will slay my dragons and have my happily ever after.

 

[KitsuneDreamer]

I would like to add one of my favorites that is pretty much my mantra.

"Who are you to judge the life I live? I am not perfect and I do not have to be! Before you start pointing fingers, make sure your hands are clean." -Bob Marley

I feel living a life that others deem unfit the entire time can be exhausting, but that doesn't make them correct.

 

[Dowdsy McDowds]

It isn't a quote perse, but song lyrics, but they have been playing over and over in my mind the last few weeks.

"Sometimes love isn't about how much someone suits you, but how much you're willing to change to suit them"

Its from the song "Rough Hands" by Alexisonfire(shout out Dowds). The CD it was featured on came out in '06, my junior year of high school. Nearly my entire life after I really gave that song a listen was lived by those words. I would change who I was to suit people I was close to, and it has caused me to put my whole life on the back burner a lot. It all came to a head a little over a year ago. I was in a relationship with a girl I was truly and madly in love with. Our one year anniversary was March first. On March second she broke up with me, via text, and she later informed me she cheated on me on our anniversary. For an entire year I changed everything about myself to suit her, because I loved her, and I wanted her to love me back. I wanted to marry her. She informed me she was never in love with me. I heard the song a few days after she left me and I threw my iPod in disgust. Once I got over the initial crying every day for two weeks, I heard it again and those lyrics resonated with me. Despite her breaking me, I still believe in those words. I think when two people truly love each other and want to be together they make those changes...something she was never willing to do for me.

Crisis would probably just about edge out the others as my favourite Alexisonfire album as it is just a really well-balanced and constructed series of songs that never feel too engineered and overdone. That said, the lyrics do give me a sense that they would have been re-written several times to incorporate more abstract images ('this could be anywhere in the world' being a prime example) but there are also some examples of very straight-forward honest lyrics too:

I'm always wishing too late, for things to go my way

Given that the subject of the song that this is from was written in part about one of the singers' dads losing his job so that the company he worked for wouldn't have to pay his retirement benefits, this is a bold lyric but it carries the theme of the album about being stuck in a social situation you would rather not be in.

I'm not one of those 'seize the day, YOLO, dance like no-one is watching' type people but the lyrics speaks to the bolder side of me where you have to try not to over-think certain things and take a shot anyway. This was my mind-set just a little over a year ago as I had been working for an electronic retail company up until Dec '13, when it folded, and my old manager and colleagues had gone to work for another company around the time of it folding. I had looked at a few different jobs but nothing that really excited me so I ended up calling my old manager to see about a job, which I got.

A few weeks later I was starting to get quite frustrated that I had moved sideways and didn't see anything great on the horizon until my cousin in England told me about this digital media/AV job at her husbands work. I decided to apply, went down for an interview and thought that it would be a good experience even if I didn't get the job. Within 45 minutes of me getting home after a 9 hour journey, I get a call from my cousin telling me the job was mine.

Now obviously, getting the headsup about a job in a city a good few hundred miles south of where I was living was great but I think that I had some fire in me due to not being totally happy with just being gifted another job in electrical retail. That, and a good bit of AOF on the journey down to Cambridge as well as on the walk to the interview, is what gave me the spark I needed to get out of a rut.

 

[Rayne]

"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?-- Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."


It's lengthy, but meaningful. It's a passage from Abraham Lincoln's Lyceum Address in 1838, and carries both a literal and personal message. Literally, Lincoln was talking about the potential strength of a unified "United States" spanning the continent (this was two decades before the American Civil War got underway). The geography and resources of the Americas render them essentially impervious to invasions and wars launched from a power located outside of the Americas; the oceans are just too damned big. (This logic still applies today in the atomic age- you can destroy America from outside, but conquering it and co-opting its resources is far too difficult of an undertaking.) If a war of destruction were ever to come to America, it would be launched from within America- which is exactly what happened twenty years later.


On the personal, it's a message of self-actualization. Ultimately, there are no outside forces which can force you to surrender control of your own personal will; the only way you can lose your own personal will is if you choose to surrender it.

 

[King Patrick Star]

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” The (original) Great One, Wayne Gretzky.

The first time I heard this I think I was in 8th or 9th grade. I applied this quote to dating / approaching girls and it sure as hell worked out for me in the past. HAHA!! It gave me the confidence to make moves and take risks.

 

[Septumus]

Experience is the teacher of all things.-Julius Caesar
Love this one because you should learn from everything you do no matter how horrible it might be. There is always more to learn.

The body of a dead enemy always smells sweet.-Titus Flavius Vespasian
This one popped up for me before and I couldn't help but laugh.

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

I like biblical quotes that show conservative Christians how unlike Jesus they are. Such as:

"Go and sell all you have then give to the poor"
"It's easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than it is a rich man to get into heaven"
"Render unto caesar what is rightfully his"

I also like the verse in Numbers where God basically condones and tells you how to perform an abortion:
"The priest shall say unto the woman, The LORD make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the LORD doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell. And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen. ...
And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people. And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed."


For my non spiteful quotes I like the John Lennon story (paraphrased):
When I was a kid my mother told me to be happy. When I was in elementary school they asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. I said "Happy", they said I didn't understand the question, I told them they didn't understand life.

 

[Holly]

Quotes can change our life.sometime a little thing inspire us and we change ourselves. here i quote which i like most.
This life, which had been the tomb of his virtue and of his honour, is but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
William Shakespeare

 

[southrnbygrace]

"What the world really needs is more love and less paper work."

~Pearl Bailey~

With the amount of paperwork I do on a daily basis I completely understand this sentiment. I think I should have it put on a t-shirt. "More love, less paperwork"


"I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes."

~Chuck Swindoll"

I try to live my life by this quote. I'm still learning to react positively sometimes....or at least not to react negatively. I can't control how people treat me, but I can control how I treat them.

 

[ヒュー　G.　レックション]

"If you can't change something, change your attitude towards it."