Great Quotes II: Source and Context are Key

[Cheezy the Wiz]

My friend found this gem on Tumblr:

"Why do you never hear this?

business:I can't afford to pay my employees a living wage.

free market conservatives:Lazy! If you can't afford one of the basic expenses of running a business, you shouldn't be running a business. Go back to school and learn how to run a business! Get a better business model! Why should you expect the rest of us to prop up your failure by feeding and clothing the employees YOU can't pay for with our tax money?"

 

[Mouthwash]

This was recently said by a homosexual acquaintance of mine, and it deserves to be shared:

As a gay person, the contradiction between me being with men and my latent, repressed, heterosexual nature (which would obviously be in accordance with traditional notions of sexual preference and gender essentialism) causes me to lash out at any essentialistic concept of innate nature- fully explaining my preoccupation with critiquing social norms which, deep down inside, I find myself seeing truth in.

 

[cardgame]

Is that sarcasm?

It sounds like sarcasm, but I think I need to read it in conversational English first.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

One of my favorites from HBO's The Newsroom.

Ideological purity.
Compromise as weakness.
A fundamentalist belief in scriptural literalism.
Denying science.
Unmoved by facts.
Undeterred by new information.
A hostile fear of progress.
A demonization of education.
A need to control women's bodies.
Severe xenophobia.
Tribal mentality.
Intolerance of dissent.
Pathological hatred of the U.S. government.

They can call themselves the Tea Party. They can call themselves conservatives. And they can even call themselves Republicans, though Republicans certainly shouldn't.

But we should call them what they are - The American Taliban.

-- Will McAvoy, from
"The Greater Fool" (Season #1, episode 10)

 

[classical_hero]

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. - Gerald Ford, often attributed to Thomas Jefferson.

 

[Borachio]

All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people.

A Hitler

 

[Mouthwash]

Is that sarcasm?

It sounds like sarcasm, but I think I need to read it in conversational English first.

Lol of course it's sarcasm.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

"we've reached a point where the skincolor of a murderer and a victim are more Important/upsetting than the fact that someone was murdered"
-Anonymous, post regarding "The Stanley Parable update in the works to remove offensive images"

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

"Most people believe the twentieth century was defined by the death struggle of capitalism versus communism, and that fascism was but a hiccup. Today we know better. Communism was a fool's errand, the followers of Marx gone from this Earth; but the followers of Hitler abound and thrive. Hitler, however, had one great disadvantage. He lived in a time when fascism, like a virus, like the AIDS virus, required a strong host in order to spread. Germany was that host, but strong as it was, Germany couldn't prevail. The world was too big. Fortunately, the world has changed. Global communication, cable TV, the internet. Today the world is smaller, and the virus no longer needs a strong host in order to spread. This virus is airborne."

- Richard Dressler, The Sum of All Fears (2001)


I look at the consolidation of the Religious Right and can't help thinking Clancy was onto something here.

 

[classical_hero]

"To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." - Voltaire

 

[Dachs]

Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies remains one of my favorite games of all time. Here are some bookend quotes.

---

"Today's my birthday! A victory sure would be nice."
-AWACS Sky Eye, 19SEP2004, Operation UMBRELLA (Battle of Newfield Island), Usean Continental War

---

During the course of 2004, Erusean forces comprehensively defeated ISAF and drove its forces off the Usean mainland into the eastern archipelagos. The Battle of Newfield Island, an attempt to intercept Erusean strategic bombers before they reached ISAF GHQ at North Point, seemed to be set up as merely the latest in a long string of Erusean victories.

ISAF rallied, however, behind the protection of a resurgent air force; it bloodied the Eruseans' noses over Newfield and proceeded to carry out strikes against the fascist forces occupying the mainland. The greatest ISAF ace, Mobius One (CO, 118th TFW), victor over Newfield, became a symbol of the revitalized anti-Erusean cause. S/he was involved in every subsequent major air operation of the war, including ROUGH SEAS (the sinking of the Aegir invasion fleet at anchor in Comberth Harbor), BUNKER SHOT (the ISAF counterinvasion of the mainland), and STONE CRUSHER (the destruction of the Erusean STN superweapon). Throughout the year 2005, ISAF forces battled their way back across Usea until, by the fall, they were at the gates of the Erusean capital, Farbanti.

---

"The outcome of the war rests on you all, so stay focused on what's at hand. Remember, survival is paramount. Good luck to you all!...and Mobius One? An end to the war would be a nice birthday gift as well."
-AWACS Sky Eye, 19SEP2005, Operation AUTUMN THUNDER (Siege of Farbanti), Usean Continental War

 

[Dachs]

"The next time someone advises you, as an aspiring author, to 'Show, Don't Tell,' advise this person in turn to read Breakfast of Champions, and then invite him on my behalf to shut the [frig] up for the rest of his life."
-Matthew Stover, published author, via Facebook, 3JUL2013

 

[Phrossack]

Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies remains one of my favorite games of all time. Here are some bookend quotes.

---

"Today's my birthday! A victory sure would be nice."
-AWACS Sky Eye, 19SEP2004, Operation UMBRELLA (Battle of Newfield Island), Usean Continental War

---

During the course of 2004, Erusean forces comprehensively defeated ISAF and drove its forces off the Usean mainland into the eastern archipelagos. The Battle of Newfield Island, an attempt to intercept Erusean strategic bombers before they reached ISAF GHQ at North Point, seemed to be set up as merely the latest in a long string of Erusean victories.

ISAF rallied, however, behind the protection of a resurgent air force; it bloodied the Eruseans' noses over Newfield and proceeded to carry out strikes against the fascist forces occupying the mainland. The greatest ISAF ace, Mobius One (CO, 118th TFW), victor over Newfield, became a symbol of the revitalized anti-Erusean cause. S/he was involved in every subsequent major air operation of the war, including ROUGH SEAS (the sinking of the Aegir invasion fleet at anchor in Comberth Harbor), BUNKER SHOT (the ISAF counterinvasion of the mainland), and STONE CRUSHER (the destruction of the Erusean STN superweapon). Throughout the year 2005, ISAF forces battled their way back across Usea until, by the fall, they were at the gates of the Erusean capital, Farbanti.

---

"The outcome of the war rests on you all, so stay focused on what's at hand. Remember, survival is paramount. Good luck to you all!...and Mobius One? An end to the war would be a nice birthday gift as well."
-AWACS Sky Eye, 19SEP2005, Operation AUTUMN THUNDER (Siege of Farbanti), Usean Continental War

Seconded. I'd post some quotes from that as well, but I've forgotten exactly how most of them went and they aren't written down anywhere.

 

[Gucumatz]

"They cannot understand as yet that we are not fighting a political party but a sect of murderers of all contemporary spiritual culture."

"There must come the unknown curse which will conquer the world, blot out culture, kill morality, and destroy all the people. Its weapon is revolution. During every revolution the previously experienced intellect-creator will be replaced by the new rough force of the destroyer. He will place and hold in the first rank the lower instincts and desires. Man will be farther removed from the divine and the spiritual. The great war proved that humanity must progress upward toward higher ideals; but then appeared that curse which was seen and felt by Christ, the Apostle John, Buddha, the first Christian martyrs, Dante, Leonardo da Vinci, Goethe and Dostoyevsky. It appeared, turned back the wheel of progress and blocked our road to the divinity. Revolution is an infectious disease and Europe making the treaty with Moscow deceived itself and the other parts of the world. The Great Spirit put at the threshold of our lives Karma, who knows neither anger nor pardon. He will reckon the account, whose total will be famine, destruction, the death of culture, of glory, of honor and of spirit, the death of states and the death of people. I see already this horror, this dark, mad destruction of humanity."

- Baron Maximilian von Ungern-Sternberg, the Mad Baron, the anti-Bolshevik, the all but in name Dictator of Mongolia

 

[ReindeerThistle]

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

Confucius

 

[H4run]

"We did not ask you white men to come here. The Great Spirit gave us this country as a home. You had yours. We did not interfere with you. The Great Spirit gave us plenty of land to live on, and buffalo, deer, antelope and other game. But you have come here, you are taking my land from me, you are killing off our game, so it is hard for us to live. Now, you tell us to work for a living, but the Great Spirit did not make us to work, but to live by hunting. You white men can work if you want to. We do not interfere with you, and again you say why do you not become civilized? We do not want your civilization! We would live as our fathers did, and their fathers before them."

Crazy Horse - Sioux

Edit: I get this from the facebook wall of my native american friend

 

[cardgame]

"Notice how it's always 'How will we explain it to children', not 'How will children be able to understand it.'"

 

[ReindeerThistle]

One of my longtime friends put this quote of the day on his timeline!

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

“Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric moved:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I shall endure.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”

- inscription above the Gates of Hell, in Dante's Inferno

 

[Arakhor]

I know that verse without the 'shall' in the penultimate line. The last line is the welcome message for my mobile phone.