Great Quotes II: Source and Context are Key

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Great Quotes I

Post your favorite quotes in this thread. Discuss them. Learn and laugh. Source is not required but appreciated. :)

Let's start off.
"Sometimes it seems the only accomplishment my education ever bestowed on me, the ability to think in quotations."
-Margaret Drabble, A Summer Bird-Cage (1963; New York: William Morrow, 1964) p. 49
 
Shazam! - Gomer Pyle
 
"Think how ashamed the Soviet government would be if it were discovered that their statistics had been falsified."
-Lord Marley on the First Five Year Plan

"We have our own reality."
-Andrei Vyshinsky, Procurator General of the RSFSR, 1933
 
“There is no alternative but to building, society by society, a critical mass of informed citizenry.”
- Paul Collier, to the Royal Society, 2010
 
"Cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant die but once."
- William Shakespeare
 
*"I am not afraid,I was born to do this"-Jeanne d'Arc
*"More than ever before in human history, we share a common destiny. We can master it only if we face it together. And that, my friends, is why we have the United Nations"-Kofi Annan
*"There is nothing impossible to him who will try"-Alexander the Great
*"Don't trust a computer you can't throw out a window"-Steve Wozniak
*"The Law is a fortress on a hill that armies cannot take or floods wash away"-Muhammed
*"It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it"-Eleanor Roosevelt
*"Strike an enemy once and for all"-Shaka Zulu
*"To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act"-Anatole France
*"No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat"-Deng Xiaoping
*"One often finds his destiny on the path he takes to avoid it"-Grand Master Oogway
*"Poverty is the worst form of violence"-Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
*"There is no way to peace,peace is the way"-A. J. Muste
*"The pen is mightier than the sword"-Cardinal Richelieu
 
A few from Aurelius that have stuck with me recently...

4.49a
--It's unfortunate that this has happened.
No. It's fortunate that this has happened and I've remained unharmed by it--not shattered by the present or frightened of the future. It could have happened to anyone. But not everyone could have remained unharmed by it...So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.

8.5
The first step: don't be anxious. Nature controls all. And before long you'll be no one, nowhere--like Hadrian, like Augustus.
The second step: focus on what you have to do. Fix your eye on it.

10.3
Everything that happens is either endurable or not.
If it's endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining.
If it's unendurable...then stop complaining. Your destruction will mean its end as well.
 
"The world is nearly all parcelled out, and what there is left of it is being divided up, conquered and colonised. To think of these stars that you see overhead at night, these vast worlds which we can never reach. I would annex the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so clear and yet so far."

What humble man, that Cecil Rhodes...
 
"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain." - John Adams

it's the quote from the Military Science tech in Civ 4, and I like it.
 
"Nuts!" -US Army General Anthony McAuliffe in response to a German request for surrender during December, 1944.

But then McAuliffe realized that some sort of reply was in order. He pondered for a few minutes and then told the staff, "Well I don't know what to tell them." He then asked the staff what they thought, and I spoke up, saying, "That first remark of yours would be hard to beat." McAuliffe said, "What do you mean?" I answered, "Sir, you said 'Nuts'." All members of the staff enthusiastically agreed, and McAuliffe decided to send that one word, "Nuts!" back to the Germans. McAuliffe then wrote down: "To the German Commander, "Nuts!" The American Commander."
Click to expand...

Source: http://www.thedropzone.org/europe/bulge/kinnard.html
 
if this story is true, i'm pretty sure the "german commander" had no freaking idea why that american is talking about a hardshelled fruit.
i find it rather improbable he got the slang.

also, why the hell is it always quoted with "To the German Commander, The American Commander." ?
didnt they have names?
 
holy king said:
also, why the hell is it always quoted with "To the German Commander, The American Commander." ?
didnt they have names?
Click to expand...

It's not a personal letter: it's business. He's writing as the American commander, to the German commander - not as Jack to Jim.
 
+1 to Flying Pig!
 
"Freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice, and Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality."
Mikhail Bakunin
 
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