NationStates Jolt Archive

No need to explain. What is/are your favourite quote(s)?
Mine are(among others), some of Gandhi's:


What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it--always.

More Ghandi quotes (http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Mahatma_Gandhi/)

Edit: For anyone who is curious: No, Gandhi did not post these in NSG:D

Dissidence through subservience.

By XYZ I don't actually know.

"Do not confuse “duty” with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anytbing from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect. But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants “just a few minutes of your time, please--this won’t take long.” Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time--and squawk for more! So learn to say No--and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you. (This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don’t do it because it is “expected” of you.)"

- Time Enough For Love by Robert A. Heinlein

mmm...doughnuts.

Mine tend to be literary:

"There are two ways to reach me: by way of kisses or by way of the imagination. But there is a hierarchy: the kisses alone don’t work."

Henry and June, Anais Nin.

---

"I suddenly feel that Henry is there, an incredible need for Henry to be there and to put his hands on me even while it seems to me that Henry is the rain and I am alone and wanting him."

"I walk into it like a drowning man, which is what I have come here to be."

The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffinegger.

---

"One thing I have learned about myself since I've been out here is that everything I professed to you about what I want for the world and what I am willing to do to achieve it was true.

My desire to "save the world" is really just an extension of trying to make a world fit for you."

Letter from Mark Daily, who was killed in Iraq in Jan 2007, to his wife.

He's not the Messiah he's a very naughty boy

Now, a question of etiquette - as I pass, do I give you the ass or the crotch?

http://www.johncooperclarke.com/Pages/twat.htm

A bit of a literary affair for you :

Commando Comics

"AIEEEE! UNSER MUUUUNI! VERDAMMTE TOMMY!" *A HUGE EXPLOSION*

"I dont even know what street Canada's on."
- Al Capone

"Algebra is the science of confusing letters for numbers and calling it logical."
-I heard this somewhere once. I liked it. A lot.

"War is not about who is right, but who is left."
-Bertrand Russell

"Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it."
-Mark Twain, I think

As for NS quotes go:
I'M PASSING OUT BANS AS IF THEY WERE CANDY! WHOOOOO!
I like this quote. Honestly.

I have other notable NS quotes, but I ain't sharin'. :D

mmm...doughnuts.

I don't think so.

http://www.johncooperclarke.com/Pages/twat.htm

Wow man, that was deep..

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Ghandi

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist." -- Dom Hélder Pessoa Câmara

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -- George Santayana

"No man is an island. entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." -- John Donne

"Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me." -- John Lennon

It's hard to convince people you're killling them for their own good.- Molly Ivans

'What is your beef with the Mac?' - Tony Harrison on arguing about playing a Fleetwood Mac album.

Jim Hacker: Don't tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers:

* The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country;
* The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country;
* The Times is read by people who actually do run the country;
* The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country;
* The Financial Times is read by people who own the country;
* The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country;
* And the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.

Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, what about the people who read the Sun?
Bernard Woolley: Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits.

The three most unreliable things in public life: Political Memoirs, Official Denials and Manifesto Promises.

Politician's logic:
We must do something.
This is something.
Therefore we must do it.

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.That sounds an awful lot like a Yes Minister quote. Oh I do love Yes Minister.

"One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name."
Walter Scott

"I will run for shelter
endless summer lift the curse
it feels like nothing matters
in our private universe"
Crowded House

"I will not carry a gun, Frank. When I got thrown into this war I had a clear understanding with the Pentagon: no guns. I'll carry your books, I'll carry a torch, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry me back to Old Virginia, I'll even 'hari-kari' if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!"
Hawkeye Pierce (MASH)

Whilst it is from a TV series, I believe it does represent my views on peace... If we want world wide peace, it has to start somewhere...

On a less serious and philosophical note however:

"Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice: Pull down your pants and slide on the ice"
Sydney Freedman (MASH)

"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it." -Edith Wharton

I've always liked that quote. It reminds me there is hope for those of us in the background.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life." -John 3:16

Read sig. DEATH is surprisingly poetic.

My least favourite is "That's gonna cost you, mate" which I encounter every time I unwillingly have dealings with representatives of the plumbing trade.

My least favourite is "That's gonna cost you, mate" which I encounter every time I unwillingly have dealings with representatives of the plumbing trade.
"By telling that, that's gonna cost you, mate."

:D

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life." -John 3:16

Lies!

Lies!

okie doke...

"Poquito a poco entendiendo que no vale la pena andar por andar, que es mejor caminar pa' ir creciendo."

-Lamari, Chambao

Translation:
Little by little understanding that it's worthless to move for the sake of moving, that's it's way better to walk in order to keep on growing.

"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it." -Edith Wharton

I've always liked that quote. It reminds me there is hope for those of us in the background.

Or rather, is a prophylactic for the mediocre.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.


It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'try to be a little kinder.'

England is nothing but the last ward of the European madhouse, and quite possibly it will prove to be the ward for particularly violent cases.


The last one seems fairly apt these days...

All of the quotes below are from one of my favorite authors, G. K. Chesterton.

"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected."

"Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it."

"Dear Sirs,
I am.
Sincerely yours,
G. K. Chesterton"
(response to an inquiry from the The Times, asking What is Wrong with the World?)

For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.

"I've never let my schooling interfere with my education"- Mark Twain

"The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem."-Milton Friedman

"don't Panic"

See my sig.

Also: "Happines is just a temporary chemical imbalance of the true state of mind." Lucifur-Poison Elves.
yes its from a comic, still a good quote.

"They may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed in order to do it."

-Steve Prefontaine

"Life's tough, but its even tougher when your stupid."

Since my passion for Warhammer 40,000 has recently been reignited, I have certainly been enjoying some of the quotes from that for a particularly dark and cynical view of the world and humanity.

"Only the insane have the strength enough to prosper. Only those who prosper may truly judge what is sane."

"Better a dagger in the dark, than a thousand swords at dawn."

"Know the enemy not and the battle cannot be won. Know the enemy too much and the battle will be doubly lost."

"Competence on the battle field is a myth. The side which screws up next to last wins, it's as simple as that."

"If your battle plan's working, it's probably a trap."

"No one ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his. " General Patton

Not an exact quote, Patton was foul mouthed and a hint insane but this is one of my favourites

"A cultivated mind, I do not mean that of a philosopher, but any mind to which the fountains of knowledge have been opened, and which has been taught, in any tolerable degree, to exercise its faculties, finds sources of inexhaustible interest in all that surrounds it; in the objects of nature, the achievements of art, the imaginations of poetry, the incidents of history, the ways of mankind, past and present, and their prospects in the future. It is possible, indeed, to become indifferent to all this, and that too without having exhausted a thousandth part of it; but only when one has had from the beginning no moral or human interest in these things, and has sought in them only the gratification of curiosity."
- John Stuart Mill


"Bloody, bloody eels."
- Peter Cook

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle — that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .
Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas


Freedom is a very good horse to ride, but to ride somewhere.
Matthew Arnold

Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.
John Maynard Keynes

"growth for the sake of growth, is not growth at all - it is the doctrine of Cancer!"
--My dad on why large corporations and supermarkets seem intent on ruling the world!

"choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life"
- my freind Nick Kenney

"man measures the head, but God measures the heart" - CS Lewis

"growth for the sake of growth, is not growth at all - it is the doctrine of Cancer!"
--My dad on why large corporations and supermarkets seem intent on ruling the world!


"The doctrine of cancer"...I like that.

There are too many categories to list them all...
Movies --
"Badges? We don't need no stinking badges" Blazing Saddles, not the Bogart movie.

Quotes to live by --
"The devil is in the details"
"Parts never killed a project"

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny.'
-Isaac Asimov

Since my passion for Warhammer 40,000 has recently been reignited, I have certainly been enjoying some of the quotes from that for a particularly dark and cynical view of the world and humanity.


Medieval II has some remarkable quotes. The only one I remember now(which is not that good) is:
Surrender or you shall all die by the sword. For I do not wish you to perish!


There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle — that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .
Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas



Beautiful writing. I've seen the film.

"growth for the sake of growth, is not growth at all - it is the doctrine of Cancer!"
--My dad on why large corporations and supermarkets seem intent on ruling the world!


Your dad should consider writing a book;)

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny.'
-Isaac Asimov
Never heard that before; it's a good 'un.

"when two people argue about religeon, they are both wrong" -baha'u'llah-

"glory not in this that you love your country, glory in this that you love mankind" -abdu'l baha-

"there are too many people doing to many good things for me to afford myself the luxury of pessimism" -u utah phillips-

"outnumbered yes, outmanuvered maybe, outclassed never" -unknown-

"no matter where you go, there you are" -from the movie buckaroo bonasai in the 8th dimention-

"we have met the enimy, and he is us" -from an old old old pogo the possum comic strip sometime back in the 1950s, though even that may have been a quote from something even earlier (i would imagine someone might have said something like that even back in roman times)-

=^^=
.../\...

Beautiful writing. I've seen the film.
We cant stop here, this is bat country!

"We must view with profound respect the infinite capacity of the human mind to resist the introduction of useful knowledge." - Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury

"I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members. " -Groucho Marx

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." -Groucho Marx

"Everything I do is either illegal, immoral, or fattening." -W C Fields

"If I ever found a church that didn't believe in knocking all the other churches, I might consider joining it." - W C Fields

"The details of my life are quite inconsequential... very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breathtaking- I highly suggest you try it. " -Dr Evil.

Medieval II has some remarkable quotes. The only one I remember now(which is not that good) is:
Surrender or you shall all die by the sword. For I do not wish you to perish!


A couple of my favorite M2TW quotes, as bes as I can remember them:

"Inflict not upon your enemy every injury in your power, for he may afterward become your friend." -Machiavelli

"War is delightful to those who have not experienced it"
-(I forget)

"Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot. "
-Machiavelli

"No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution. "
-Machiavelli

Qui desiderat pacem, bellum praeparat (he who wishes peace, should prepare war)
- Flavius Vegetius Renatus

Maybe this world is another planet's Hell.
- Aldous Huxley

That sounds an awful lot like a Yes Minister quote. Oh I do love Yes Minister.

As a non-Briton, the newspaper quote is incredibly useful. I plan on using it as a reference whenever one of these papers is mentioned on other threads.

My favorite quote:
Stupidity got us into this mess, and stupidity will get us out!
I think it's based on a Will Rogers quote which I haven't heard. It's one of those quotes that sounds ridiculous, but the more you think about it, the more you realize how many people take it as truth.

Beautiful writing. I've seen the film.
Check out the book, or any other of HST's works.

Moreover, check out Where the Buffalo Roam, another HST 'biography' film, this time starring Bill Murray as our hero.

"I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members. " -Groucho Marx

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." -Groucho Marx
:D

I'm quite fond of Groucho's:

"Outside a dog, a book is man's best friend.

Inside a dog, it's too dark to read."

Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Matthew Arnold
John Maynard Keynes
Not these quotes, but the poster's name, remind me of my favorite source for quotes: The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen.
“The addiction to sports, therefore, in a peculiar degree marks an arrested development in man's moral nature”
“Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress”
“The dog commends himself to our favor by affording play to our propensity for mastery”
Don't agree with most of them, but a wonderful way to cut a conversation short. (Especially when people start talking about their pets. There's an entire monologue dedicated to the dog's position as quasi-slave.)

"Everything I do is either illegal, immoral, or fattening." -W C Fields

"If I ever found a church that didn't believe in knocking all the other churches, I might consider joining it." - W C Fields


My favourite W C Fields is

"Get rid of him, but be polite...tell him to go fuck himself"

"Every man a king, but no one wears a crown"

"Don't liken me to that sonofabitch. Anybody that lets his public policies be mixed up with religious prejudice is a plain God-damned fool!"

"There is no rule so sure as that one that the same mill that grinds out fortunes above a certain size at the top, grinds out paupers at the bottom."

"Hard work is damn near as overrated as monogamy."

-Huey Long

"The point is we're waiting, not how comfortable we are while waiting. Paleolithic man waited by caves for the realization of why he was there, and hunted; modern men wait in beautified homes and try to forget death and birth. We're waiting for the realization that this is the golden eternity."

-- Jack Kerouac, Scripture of the Golden Eternity

An unquestioning respect for authority is the greatest enemy of peace

-Einstein

"To be the man you have to beat the man"

"I am the living death, the Memorial Day on wheels. I am your Yankee Doodle Dandy, your John Wayne come home, your Fourth of July firecracker exploding in the grave." - Ron Kovic, author of Born on the Fourth of July

Every man thinks God is on his side. The rich and powerful know he is. - Jean Anouilh

Not these quotes, but the poster's name, remind me of my favorite source for quotes: The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen.


Yeah, when I joined NS I had planned to model my nation around Theory of the Leisure Class. Veblen's hilariously sarcastic....never really thought of him as quotable, though.

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.- Thomas Jefferson

Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.-Thomas Jefferson

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.- Benjamin Franklin

I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I'm all out of bubblegum.-Nada

Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.- Jesus

By somebody who I cannot think of right now:

What is today, but yesterday's tomorrow, sir?

Too many to choose from, but just as a taster

The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.

Mine:

There is no kind of freedom and liberty other than the kind which the market economy brings about. In a totalitarian hegemonic society the only freedom that is left to the individual, because it cannot be denied to him, is the freedom to commit suicide.

Collectivism is a doctrine of war, intolerance, and persecution. If any of the collectivist creeds should succeed in its endeavors, all people but the great dictator would be deprived of their essential human quality. They would become mere soulless pawns in the hands of a monster.

It may be safely taken for granted that up to now the natives have learned only evil ways from the Europeans, and not good ones. This is not the fault of the natives, but rather of their European conquerors, who have taught them nothing but evil. They have brought arms and engines of destruction of all kinds to the colonies; they have sent out their worst and most brutal individuals as officials and officers; at the point of the sword they have set up a colonial rule that in its sanguinary cruelty rivals the despotic system of the Bolsheviks.

No chapter of history is steeped further in blood than the history of colonialism. Blood was shed uselessly and senselessly. Flourishing lands were laid waste; whole peoples destroyed and exterminated. All this can in no way be extenuated or justified.

The marvelous achievements of the British administration in India were overshadowed by the vain arrogance and stupid race pride of the white man.

A sound monetary policy is one of the foremost means to thwart the insidious schemes of communism.

Most of the tyrants, despots, and dictators are sincerely convinced that their rule is beneficial for the people, that theirs is government for the people.

Every dictator plans to rear, raise, feed, and train his fellow men as the breeder does his cattle. His aim is not to make the people happy but to bring them into a condition which renders him, the dictator, happy. He wants to domesticate them, to give them cattle status. The cattle breeder also is a benevolent despot.

Innovators and creative geniuses cannot be reared in schools. They are precisely the men who defy what the school has taught them.



And best of all (this one describes most "progressives" in a nutshell):

What those people who ask for equality have in mind is always an increase in their own power to consume. In endorsing the principle of equality as a political postulate, nobody wants to share his own income with those who have less. When the American wage earner refers to equality, he means that the dividends of the stockholders should be given to him. He does not suggest a curtailment of his own income for the benefit of those 95 per cent of the earth’s population whose income is lower than his.

O where do I start?

I give you just a few from a collection I have builded up over a period of time. All of them mean something great to me.

"The written word is all that stands between memory and oblivion.
Without books as our anchors, we are cast adrift neither teaching nor learning.
They are windows on the past, mirrors on the present, and prisms reflecting all possible futures. Books are lighthouses erected in the dark sea of time."

~Write on the water, send ripples through time
To sit and do nothing is life's lonely crime~

"If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."

Inner silence promotes clarity of mind;
It make us value the inner world;
It trains us to go inside
To the source of peace and inspiration
When we are faced with problems and challenges.

~ Deepak Chopra ~


When you feel that you have reached the end
and you cannot go one step further,
when life seems to be drained of all purpose;
what a wonderful opportunity
to start all over again,
to turn over a new page.

~ Eileen Caddy ~


What does not destroy me,
makes me stronger.

~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) ~


Adversity
introduces a man
to himself.

~ Author Unknown ~


There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

Pain by itself is merely pain,
but the experience of pain coupled with an understanding
that the pain serves a worthy purpose is suffering.
Suffering can be endured because there is a reason for it that is worth the effort.
What is more worthy of your pain than the evolution of your soul?

Though no-one can go back
and make a brand new start,
anyone can start from now
and make a brand new end.

~ Author Unknown ~

My lies, to reach the shore, I aggrandize and nothing more. My hopes, to steal away all that you love, I'll soon betray... Look deep into my past, the pain and guilt is unsurpassed... I'm not a lowly scorpion, I'm so much worse; I'm the fall of man...

"They structured their world so that they
were constantly reminded of who they were."


"A blade cannot win what a mind cannot hold."

"Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal."

As a rose cant live
without the rain
So a heart can't love
without risk of pain

"Faerie tales do not tell children that dragons exist.
Children already know that dragons exist.
Faerie tales tell children that dragons can be killed."

We shall not cease from exploring,
And the end of our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time

'It’s our choices, Harry,
that show us what we really are...
far more than our abilities.'

~ Albus Cumbledore from ' Harry Potter' by J K Rowling ~

See sig below.

By somebody who I cannot think of right now:

What is today, but yesterday's tomorrow, sir?

Well it was stated by Mr. Krabs in the show Spongebob Squarepants....

"Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it. "-Malcolm X

We can't be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it.
Words that do not match deeds are unimportant.

It's a sad thing not to have friends, it is sadder to not have enemies.- Che

"Were you a hero in the war grandpa?"
"No but I served in a company of heroes."
-Mike Ranney

"With malice toward none."
-Abraham Lincoln

"NUTS"
-General Terry Macauliffe

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall"
-Ronald Reagan

"Tonight is the night of nights. may god be with you soldiers"
-Col. Robert Sink

"Soldiers, sailors, and Airmen of the allied expeditionary force! You are about to embark upon the great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. the eyes of the world are upon you...good luck. Adn let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking."
-Dwight Eisenhower

Yeah, when I joined NS I had planned to model my nation around Theory of the Leisure Class. Veblen's hilariously sarcastic....never really thought of him as quotable, though.

He has a few good phrases, like "conspicuous consumption." Mostly it's his ideas, not his direct quotes, though, that are fun to bring up. "You like your new HD screen, Dave? Let me tell you why it's actually gaudy and a waste of resources..."

One of the most shocking comes from Chalmers Johnson in the 2005 documentary "Why We Fight"
"The defense budget is $3/4 trillion! Profits were up last year well over 25%! I guarantee you, when war becomes that profitable, your going to see more of it!"
Chalmers Johnson (CIA: 1967-1973)

If love is a drug i guess we're all sober.
and
For every man who wants to rule the world there will be a man who wants to be free.

in addition to thoose in my sig, here is another one of my faves

"Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore." - Kudos for anyone who can tell me who said this! ;)

There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.-Douglas Adams

More from Douglas Adams

"He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which. "

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be. "

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move. "

"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't. '

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. "

"Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws. "