Your Favorite Quotes

What are some of your favorite quotes, words you most try to live by?

One of the most important quotes in my life comes from Munira Subasic. She's a survivor of the Srebrenica massacre (The July 11, 1995, execution of 7,000 Muslims in Srebrenica, Bosnia). She was asked if she blamed the Serbian people, collectively, for what happened, and she said:

"I have a daughter, what sort of mother would I be if I taught her to hate, to judge? I don't blame the Serbian people, it wasn't the 'Serbs' that did this to us. It was individuals, people with names, and those are the names my daughter is going to hear when she asks where her father his, where her aunts and uncles and cousins are."

It's a lesson that I really needed to learn at the point in my life that I first read it. It really made me a much better person, one of those moments where something in your heart clicks and you just change.

Another of my favorite quotes comes from Amira Hasanovic, an Islamic religious expert from Bosnia. She was not the first to say it, but she was the first I heard it from. "Be the change you want to make". I think that's so wise. If you want the world to be a more tolerant and more peaceful place, be more tolerant and be more at peace with yourself.

Another of my favorite quotes is a Jewish proverb from Bosnia. They say, "Nothing is worth more than this day."

In a more generic, international sense - one of my favorite quotes is "I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends." - a lesson in humility.

I also like some funny quotes, like "Dear Jesus/Allah/etc., please save me from your followers. Amen." and "Kinky is using a feather. Perverted is using the whole chicken."

All models are wrong. Some of them are useful.
---Anon



If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it.
Isadora Duncan

Sunstone said:

If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it.
Isadora Duncan

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"Just remember - Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did... backwards, and in high-heels."

Facts do not cease to exist merely because they are ignored-Aldous Huxley

There are no secrets better kept than those secrets that every body guesses-George Bernard Shaw

A loving heart is the truest wisdom.
-Charles Dickens




We are all gods, with the knowledge of gods, we are all omniscient, except for the fact that we are so damn stupid.
-- Terence McKenna



The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.

-- Elizabeth Kubler Ross

"If you talk to GOD, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia."
–Thomas Szasz from “Schizophrenia” in The Second Sin, 1973

All that we see or seem,
is but a dream
within a dream
-Edgar Allen Poe

“God's Word is true and abides forever, and no man or any human organization will ever come close to this. Man's word passes away; God's does not.”
– (1 Peter 1:24-25).

“Beware, the man of one book.”
– St. Thomas Aquinas

“One man's religion is another man's belly laugh.”
– Robert A. Heinlein

“It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.”
– Thomas Jefferson

"God is the universal substance in existing things. He comprises all things. He is the fountain of all being. In Him exists everything that is."
– Giordano Bruno

carbero said:

"If you talk to GOD, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia."
–Thomas Szasz from “Schizophrenia” in The Second Sin, 1973

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Cool new name

‡Âlãn‡ said:

Cool new name

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Thanks, Djamila gave it to me but in all actuality, I was thinking of consulting my lawyer first thing Monday morning to change it anyway. Sunstone wanted it and could have had it for 1000 coins but I beat him to it.

Ooooooh I almost forgot...the thread.

"Whatever happens at all happens as it should; you will find this true, if you watch narrowly."
– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, IV, 10

“Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say that there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.”
-- Frank Zappa

“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.”
– John Powell

“Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you're alive, it isn't.”
-- Richard Bach

"Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day."
– Albert Camus, The Fall

"Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to." Mark Twain.

That used to be my signature, till I decided it was necessary to explain that all my comments about God are hypothetical, so I didn't have to type it in every post.

A few from that most infinite source of wisdom, Granny Aida...

"Jesus Christ on a cross, Djamila! Get that f--king pastry out of your mouth before the neighbors think we're a bunch of heretics!"
My loving Muslim grandmother, during Ramadan fast 2003.

*Hi, you've reached Djamila. I'm not in right now, please leave a message after the tone*
"Good day... could you please tell Djamila that I have two lambs in my fridge and I sit alone to sip broth because I've no one to cook them for. No one gives a s--t about me. You tell her."

"I don't know why these young girls go around with all their clothes off. You go downtown with these little tops, and your breasts bouncing around for all to see. You know, there's CATHOLICS and JEWS downtown!"

"What's this?"
"It's a handle I brought you back from Canada, Granny. You attach it to the side of the bathtub, like this, and then you can hold it to get in and out more safely."
"Have I not been good to you? Have I not loved you? Have I not worked these many years to raise you with your g-ddamn legs closed? Why do you do this to me? I'll have you know, this curse! If I fall and do break my hip, it's on your conscience!"

Djamila said:

A few from that most infinite source of wisdom, Granny Aida...

"Jesus Christ on a cross, Djamila! Get that f--king pastry out of your mouth before the neighbors think we're a bunch of heretics!"
My loving Muslim grandmother, during Ramadan fast 2003.

*Hi, you've reached Djamila. I'm not in right now, please leave a message after the tone*
"Good day... could you please tell Djamila that I have two lambs in my fridge and I sit alone to sip broth because I've no one to cook them for. No one gives a s--t about me. You tell her."

"I don't know why these young girls go around with all their clothes off. You go downtown with these little tops, and your breasts bouncing around for all to see. You know, there's CATHOLICS and JEWS downtown!"

"What's this?"
"It's a handle I brought you back from Canada, Granny. You attach it to the side of the bathtub, like this, and then you can hold it to get in and out more safely."
"Have I not been good to you? Have I not loved you? Have I not worked these many years to raise you with your g-ddamn legs closed? Why do you do this to me? I'll have you know, this curse! If I fall and do break my hip, it's on your conscience!"

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I think I would like Granny Aida! Frubals to her, via you.

"Silence often says much more than trying to say what has been said before". - George Harrison

"Just because you are old, doesn't mean you can't be immature!" - Red Green

"Why is it people seem to have an insatiable need to demonstrate their ignorance?" - Me

"BE" - Allah


"Like, with that fellow, Bill Gates, the president of Mircowave..." - my Mom, a month ago... the rest of the quote is lost due to my laughing and gasping for air.

retrorich said:

"Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to." Mark Twain.

That used to be my signature, till I decided it was necessary to explain that all my comments about God are hypothetical, so I didn't have to type it in every post.

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You had that signatrure for awhile. When I first joined RF, it influenced me to look into more quotes by Mark Twain. Mr. Twain was very insightful.

“Psychic ability has been nothing more than a basic human capacity that can be developed by just about anyone.”
-Belleruth Naparstek

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
-- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)

“Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.”
-- Voltaire


“The conclusion of belief is not so much a conclusion as a resolution, and it is for that reason that belief excludes doubt.”
-- Robert Adams

“A Great Escape into faith is no retreat to safety. It is nothing less than surrender.”
-- Dan Barker, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist

“Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.”
-- Robert G. Ingersoll

“Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.”
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Joys divided are increased."
-- Josia Gilbert Holland

"Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for Joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and joy you have not yet begun to live."
-- Thomas Merton

“Yet for learning,
It seems there's a price to pay.
People get hurt.
People get killed.”
-- Dick Foreman DC/Vertigo Black Orchid #8 April 1994

A couple from my best friend Eva, who happens to be Jewish.

Now, she's not a stereotypical "Jewish" person by any means and I don't mean to imply I believe in these stereotypes - but she had one moment that I still call her "Jewish moment".

We were on the second floor, and were leaving. I went for the stairs, she went for the elevator. I said, "Eva, God? Don't be so lazy, it's only one flight of stairs, you don't need to ride the elevator!" And she looked at me like I said the world was flat and exclaimed, "Mila? We don't have to pay for it? It's free!"

Another time she asked me a sentence that was mixed Bosnian and English. I'll put in red the part of her sentence that she said in English, you'll understand why it's funny:

"Mila, how do you say f--k in English?"

And once we were in a cafe and some guy at the next table farted, and Eva got off her chair, went down on her hands on knees, and did the Muslim praise pose in front of him and screamed: OH SPEAK AGAIN, GREAT TOOTHLESS WONDER! It took a few seconds for the shock to wear off before I could even start laughing. lol