Comments on Quotes

"There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action."
-Johann von Goethe

And the Bush Administration is a prime example of that.

There are more fools in the world than there are people.
-Heinrich Heine

This reminds me of something my father always said: "There are more horse's asses in the world than there are horses".

"Life without liberty is like a body without spirit."
-Kahlil Gibran

A golden cage is still a cage.

"He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice."
-Albert Einstein

Our ability to think original thoughts is what separates humans from the lower animals. No point it letting it go to waste.

You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note.
-Doug Floyd

Nor do all the pieces of a puzzle need to be all the same size, shape, and color in order to complete the picture.

If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good.
-Thomas J. Watson

A hero dies but once. A coward dies a small death every day.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.
-e. e. (Edward Estlin) cummings

I can attest to the truth of this through experience.

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

Ditto.

It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations -- past and present -- are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individual's hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millenia.
-Eric Hoffer, Reflections on the Human Condition (Aphorism 183), 1973

One reason why I like to learn history by reading diaries of common people from any given era.

I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention . . . arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.
-Agatha Christie, An Autobiography, 1977

Lazy people with good ideas will find better ways of doing things. Why do it the hard way if there's an easier way available?

"There is a vast world of work out there in this country, where at least 111 million people are employed in this country alone--many of whom are bored out of their minds. All day long. Not for nothing is their motto TGIF -- 'Thank God It's Friday.' They live for the weekends, when they can go do what they really want to do."
-Richard Nelson Bolles, What Color is Your Parachute?, 1970

Work to live, don't live to work.

"Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live."
-Margaret Fuller

Don't base your identity on what you do to make a living.

Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with a cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.
-Mark Twain, Notebook (1884 entry)

Amen to that!