Someone Said It First

This is a list of my favorite quotable quotes.
Note: This post was originally published on March 21, 2005; certain entries, like this one are backdated to reduce clutter of the main blog.

I've try to find a way to work these quoteable quotes into my daily communications, both professionally and personally. I've used them in emails, presentations, letters, and, yes, even at the bars! Who doesn't think it's sexy to use an appropriate quote in a social setting?


"To thine own self be true."
- William Shakespeare, from Hamlet -

"To sleep, perchance to dream - Ay, there's the rub."
- Shakespeare, from Hamlet (III, i, 65-68) -

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet."
-Shakespeare, from Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2) -

"We know what we are, but know not what we may become."
- William Shakespeare -

"Now is the winter of our discontent."
- Shakespeare, from King Richard III (I, i, 1) -

"Love like you've never been hurt, work like you don't need the money, and dance like no one is watching."
- Anonymous -

"You have a hole in your mind."
- from the sci-fi series Babylon 5 -

"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy (originally Marcus Tullius Cicero) -

"It is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves."
- William Shakespeare -

"To be or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?"
- Shakespeare, from Hamlet (III, i, 56-61) -

"What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so."
- Shakespeare, from Hamlet (II, ii, 115-117) -

"If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die."
- Shakespeare, from Twelfth Night (I, i,1-3) -

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."
- Shakespeare, from Hamlet (III, ii, 239) -

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."
- Shakespeare, from Hamlet (I, iv, 90) -

"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts ... " - Shakespeare, from As You Like It (II, vii, 139-142) -

"Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none."
- William Shakespeare -

"What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine."
- William Shakespeare, "Measure for Measure", Act 5 scene 1 -

"Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow."
- William Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet", Act 2 scene 2 -

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential is invisible to the eye."
- Antoine de Saint Exupery, from The Little Prince -

"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish."
- Albert Einstein -

"Imagination is more important than knowledge..."
- Albert Einstein -

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
- Albert Einstein -

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
- Albert Einstein -

"Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend."
- Albert Camus -

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."
- Mahatma Gandhi -

"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much."
- Oscar Wilde -

"It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend."
- William Blake -

"The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man."
- Euripides -

"People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest."
- Hermann Hesse -

"Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people."
- William Butler Yeats -

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."
- Anais Nin -

"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted."
- Aesop -

"The name of peace is sweet, and the thing itself is beneficial, but there is a great difference between peace and servitude. Peace is freedom in tranquillity, servitude is the worst of all evils, to be resisted not only by war, but even by death."
- Cicero -

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
- Alan Kay -

"In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes."
- Andy Warhol -

"The future will be better tomorrow." - Dan Quayle -

"I am not part of the problem. I am a Republican."
- Dan Quayle -

"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
- Dan Quayle -

"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is."
- Dan Quayle -

"If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees."
- Kahlil Gibran -

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
- Voltaire -

"Trust one who has gone through it."
- Virgil, from The Aeneid -

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
- Bible, John 8:32 -

"Love truth, and pardon error."
- Voltaire -

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."
- Sir Winston Churchill -

"Time, in all its myriad forms, is the answer to most questions."
- Nam LaMore -

"Never put off till tomorrow what you can avoid althogether."
- HOOTERS moist-towellette.

"You, the foreign media, have been the companion of my people in its long and painful journey to freedom."
- Corazon C. Aquino -

"It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters in the end."
- Ursula K. LeGuin -

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
- Confucius -

"The kindness and affection from the public have carried me through some of the most difficult periods, and always your love and affection have eased the journey."
- Princess Diana -


Links of interests:
last update: april 16, 2005
another point of view ...

Anonymous Anonymous


My favorite line from B5:
"What do you want?" & "Who are you?"

- Mike
 

Anonymous Anonymous


What about Johnie Cochrane: If the gloves don't, you must acquit.

That's a classic line.

jw
 

Anonymous Anonymous


From Austin Power: Do I make you horny?

-rj
 

Anonymous Anonymous


The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. - Carl Jung, psychologist
 

Anonymous Anonymous


Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me. - Carol Burnett
 

Anonymous Anonymous


God is dead.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, section 108
 

Anonymous Anonymous


I love Babylong 5. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the show:

"We are the universe, trying to understand itself." -- Delenn to Brother Edward in Babylon 5:"Passing Through Gethsemane"

"Notice the waves, each moving in its own order, predictable, unchanging. But drop in a single stone and see how the pattern changes. Everything around it is altered." -- Ambassador Delenn to Sinclair in Babylon 5:"The Gathering"

"On my world, there are books, thousands of pages, about the power of one mind to change the Universe, but none said it as clearly as this [zen garden]." -- Delenn to Sinclair in Babylon 5:"The Gathering"

"I would never tell you anything that was not in your best interest." -- Delenn to Sinclair in Babylon 5:"The Gathering"

- k.t.
 

Anonymous Anonymous


"You must let go. Surrender yourself to death. The death of flesh, the death of fear. Step into the abyss, and let go." - Lorien to Sheridan in Babylon 5:"Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?"

Thanks for the linke to Babylon5 quote finder. With it, I found my favorite quote!

- Florence Schmidt
 

Anonymous Anonymous


I didn't see a 'book' section - maybe you haven't gotten around to posting one (I've bookmaked this site and will come back often - I like what I see here). Anyhow, this is my favorite passage in a poem/book/quote:

"Through me the way into the suffering city,
Through me the way to the eternal pain,
Through me the way that runs among the lost.
Justice urged on my high artificer;
My maker was divine authority,
The highest wisdom, and the primal love.
Before me nothing but eternal things were made,
And I endure eternally.
Abandon every hope, ye who enter here."
- Dante, "Inferno"
 

Anonymous Anonymous


"Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference." - Voltaire
 

Anonymous Anonymous


I'm a geek, so here's my favorite quote so far (I can always count on Scott McNealy to deliver!):

"The visual I see is a slow-motion collision of two garbage trucks." - Scott McNealy [referring to HP-Compaq]
 

Anonymous Anonymous


Here are a few quotes by Aristotle:
"A friend is a second self."
"Hope is a waking dream."
"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire."
"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work."
"We are what we repeatedly do."
"What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies."
"We make war that we may live in peace."

- Colbert G.
 

Anonymous Anonymous


"Let Them Eat Cake" - Marie Antoinette [upon hearing that the lower classes of France were starving, lacking mainly bread.]
 

Anonymous Anonymous


I love the Babylon 5 quote search:

"Then I will tell you a great secret, Captain. Perhaps the greatest of all time. The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up this station and the nebula outside, that burn inside the stars themselves. We are starstuff, we are the universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out. As we have both learned, sometimes the universe requires a change of perspective."

-- Delenn to Sheridan in Babylon 5:"A Distant Star"
 

Anonymous Anonymous


I forgot to post this one:

"There is strength enough in one mind, one soul, to change the universe. Can you imagine how much strength there would be in one billion souls, all focused on escape?"

-- Soul Hunter in Babylon 5:"The River of Souls"
 

Anonymous Anonymous


"There can only be one."

That's from "Highlander" - I think it was the tagline of the movie, actually.
 

Anonymous Anonymous


I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
- Confucius
 

Anonymous Anonymous


"May you live in a more interesting time." - Old Chinese Proverb

This is a back-handed curse, actually.
 

Anonymous Anonymous


I know, it's not a quote (maybe start a poem page?) .. but I like it:

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us — don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
- emily dickinson
 

Blogger Nam LaMore


From Clive Barker's "Nightbreed"

"To be able to fly? To be smoke, or a wolf; to know the night, and live in it forever? That's not so bad. You call us monsters, but when you dream, it's of flying and hanging, and living without death. You envy us. And what you envy..."
 

Anonymous Anonymous


1: Virginity like bubble, one prick, all gone.
2: Man who run in front of car get tired.
3: Man who run behind car get exhausted.
4: Man with hand in pocket feel cocky all day.
5: Foolish man give wife grand piano, wise man give wife upright organ.
6: Man who walk through airport turnstile sideways going to Bangkok.
7: Man with one chopstick go hungry.
8: Man who scratch ass should not bite fingernails.
9: Man who eat many prunes get good run for money.
10: Baseball is wrong: man with four balls cannot walk.
11: Panties not best thing on earth! But next to best thing on earth.
12: War does not determine who is right, war determine who is left.
13: Wife who put husband in doghouse soon find him in cat house.
14: Man who fight with wife all day get no piece at night.
15: It take many nails to build crib, but one screw to fill it.
16: Man who drive like hell, bound to get there.
17: Man who stand on toilet is high on pot.
18: Man who live in glass house should change clothes in basement.
19: Man who fish in other man's well often catch crabs.
20: Man who fart in church sit in own pew.
21: Crowded elevator smell different to midget.
 

Anonymous Anonymous


[Pippin: I didn't think it would end this way.]
Gandalf: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path... One that we all must take. The grey rain curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass. And then you see it.
[Pippin: What, Gandalf? See what?]
Gandalf: White shores... And beyond. A far green country, under a swift sunrise.
[Pippin: Well... That isn't so bad.]
Gandalf: No. No, it isn't.
 

Anonymous Anonymous


Star Trek Quotes ....

Troi: I should warn you, Sir, my mother is a little ... eccentric.
Haven

Lwaxana: After the young couple have removed their clothing -
Tasha: You mean the bride and groom go naked?
Lwaxana: All guests must go unclothed. It honours the act of love being celebrated. (To Mrs Miller) Oh you needn't worry too much, dear, your body's not that bad. Your husband quite likes the idea of seeing me unclothed.
Haven

Troi: Mother, don't you think it would be a good idea if you actually met the man you're going to marry before committing to spend the rest of your life with him?
Lwaxana: Deanna, I love you but you do make everything sound like an epitaph.
Cost of Living

Picard: Permission for an onboard wedding is granted. Nothing would please me more than to give away Mrs Troi.
Cost of Living

Lwaxana: Making little boys reasonable only gives them pimples!
Cost of Living

Sonorous-voiced guy: HOLD! What is the lesson for today?
Lwaxana: Oh, damned if we know, we're just here for some fun and a mudbath.
SVG: Every moment requires a purpose.
Lwaxana to Alexander: No it doesn't!
SVG: Every purpose requires a moment!
Juggler: He does this every day, usually while everyone's food is getting cold. It's rather boring.
SVG: The hiiiigheeerrrr ... the feeewwwweeeerrrr...
Lwaxana: Well, that's a conversation-stopper if I ever heard one!
Cost of Living

Lwaxana: The great secret is not the variety of life, it's the variety of us.
Cost of Living

Alexander: Are you very old?
Lwaxana, after a long pause: I'm alone, Alex. And when you do get older, and you can no longer pick and choose from whatever may come your way, then you do what we call compromise. It keeps you from being afraid.
Cost of Living

Lwaxana to Troi: You poor dear! Don't they ever let you change those colourless uniforms?
Cost of Living

Troi: We still have to learn how to live in the real world, mother, all of us.
Lwaxana: She's absolutely right, Alexander, but only when necessary.
Cost of Living

Odo: Every sixteenth hour, I turn into a liquid!
Lwaxana: I can swim.
The Forsaken

Lwaxana: No one's ever seen me like this before.
Odo: Why? It looks fine.
Lwaxana: It looks ordinary. I've never cared for ordinary.
The Forsaken

Lwaxana: Someone once said that life is a search to find the peace you once had when you were safe inside your mother.
Odo: I didn't have a mother.
Lwaxana: Don't worry, it's all right. You'll find your peace just the same.
The Muse
 

Anonymous Anonymous


Michael Savage, NY Post
http://www.nypost.com/gossip/41935.htm

“Here’s a woman who made a career as a pseudo-pornographic belly dancer cavorting with a whip, and now suddenly, after having a baby, she pretends to be a holy woman riding her bicycle in England on her country estate with her imbecilic buddy, Gwyneth Paltrow. They both fled America because America wasn’t clean enough for their offspring. In Madonna’s view, we’re a spiritually bankrupt nation—which she helped create!
 

Blogger Nam LaMore


"the universe has the best interest for each of us, but it's not always obvious." ~ nam lamore
 

Anonymous Anonymous


From Romy & Michele's Highschool Reunion.

Lisa Luder: Actually Christie. They have nice lines. A fun, frisky use of color. All and all, I'd have to say they're really... NOT BAD!
------
Romy: Swear to God, sometimes I wish I was a lesbian.
Michele: Do you want to try, to see if we are?
Romy: What? Yeah, right, Michelle. Just the idea of having sex with another woman creeps me out. But if we're still single at 30, ask me again.
Michele: Okay.
-------
Christie: So, Mi-chelle! What are you up to?
Michele: Actually I invented a special kind of glue.
Christie: Oh really? Well then I'm sure you wouldn't mind giving us a detailed account of how exactly you concocted this miracle glue, would you?
Michele: No. Um, well, ordinarily when you make glue first you need to thermoset your resin and then after it cools you have to mix in a Poxide which is really just a fancy schmancy name for any simple oxygenated adhesive, right? And then I thought maybe, just maybe, you could raise the viscosity by adding a complex glucose derivative during the emulsification process and it turns out I was right.
-------------
Michele: I'm the Mary, and you're the Rhoda.
Romy: YOU'RE the Rhoda, you're the Jewish one.
-------------
Heather: This dress exacerbates the genetic betrayal that is my legacy.
Michele: OK, I don't even know what you're talking about cause of those words, but come here.
--------------
Romy: You have absolutely no proof that you're cuter.
Michele: Oh, proof. You want proof? Ok, fine. Who lost their virginity first?
Romy: Oh, big wow, with your cousin Barry. I wouldn't brag about it.
----------
[Michele is a at job interview]
Michele: Well, my first choice was to work at a boutique on Rodeo Drive, but this would be okay.
 

speak up!


previous 10 posts:

home/current
[index of posts within each monthly archive]




disclaimer: some rights reserved. trademarks belong to their respective holders. inaccuracies are entirely unintentional. except where noted, this site is under a creative commons license. reuse, redistribution and/or excerpt permitted only with proper credit. linkback permitted without credit. if you find something offensive, then just stop reading. emails directly to me or comments posted here become my property. you have been notified.

the contents of this blog/web site are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the u.s. government or the peace corps.