Over the years, I've heard many statements and sayings, bits of poetry and snatches of thought, that struck something within me. Every time this happened, I would write it down and store it, and over time I ended up with a bigish group. I thought it might be neat to share a few of those thoughts with you. I hope you enjoy these quotes as much as I have, and thanks again for dropping by!
At the end of my life
It will not matter
What kind of house I lived in
What kind of clothes I wore
What kind of car I drove
Only that I once made a difference
In the life of a child!
-A coffee cup on my cousin Roy's desk
We make a living by what we get.
We make a life by what we give.
-Successories
When I was a kid, my grandfather used to say to me that a fella's life wasn't worth mentioning if he hadn't shared it with some folks along the way."
-MacGyver, giving his birthday speech, from the episode "Friends"
"[A man should judge as] he ever has judged [even in unusual and
troubled times]. Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear;
nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among
Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood
as in his own home."
-JRR Tolkien
Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life,and not something you do in your spare time.
Marion Wright Edelman
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects,
always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
-1 Corinthians, 13:4-7, NIV Bible
The true and noble way to kill a foe,
Is not to kill him, -- you, with kindness, may
So change him, that he shall cease to be so,
And then he's slain.
-Alain
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
-Ann Landers
It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there'll be any fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
-Mahatma Ghandi (with thanks to Joe Wojkowski)
Every man dies.
Not every man truly lives.
-William Wallace from the movie Braveheart
Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And a good thing never dies.
The Shawshank Redemption
Live to serve others. Seize the moment. And remember, nothing is impossible if you try hard enough. CARPE DIEM!
-Written on a rock on the coast of Lake Michigan, Fall 1995
I am...
CONSERVATIVE when it comes to money,
LIBERAL when it comes to people,
CONSERVATIVE about my own values and ethics,
LIBERAL about yours.
How about you?
-A sign found on a door at my dorm, 1994
People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.
Elizabeth Kübler-Ross
This above all:
to thine own self be true.
And it must follow as the night the day,
thou canst not then be false to any man.
- William Shakespeare's Hamlet
I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something I can do.
- Edward Everett Hale
Men Do Less Than They Ought, Unless They Do All That They Can
-National Motto, Pi Psi Fraternity
You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when.
You can only decide how you're going to live. NOW.
Joan Baez
Yesterday is dead
So is tomorrow
Unless we fight today.
Written on a cubicle in Seeley Mudd Science Library, Winter 1995
It will be a hard life; / One without reward / without remorse / without regret.
A path / will be placed before you / The choice / is yours alone. / Do / what you think you cannot do.
It will be a hard life; / but you will find out / who you are.
Qui-Gon Jinn, "One Destiny"
"Humankind has to be allowed to climb to its own destiny. We can't carry them there."
"Why should they need us at all?"
"To catch them if they fall."
Superman and the Flash, from "New World Order"
Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past me I will turn to see fear's path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
-The Duke Paul Atriedes, Dune, by Frank Herbert
The only guaranteed failure is to not try.
-Anonymous
The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.
-Back of USMC ROTC t-shirt at U of M
We'll fight until hell freezes over --
and then we'll fight on the ice!
-A presidential candidate on the stump in New Hampshire, 1996
A champion is someone who belives in himself when noone else will.
- Sugar Ray Leonard
"Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not to
be waited for, it is a thing to be acheived."
-William Jennings Bryan (with thanks to Aalok Shah)
The ultimate measure of a person is not where they stand in moments of comfort or convenience, but where they stand in times of challenge or controversy.
-The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Don't tell me what you believe. Tell me what you do. Then I'll know what you believe.
-From the door of my RA, Maryam Ahranjani
Me? I'm not a leader. I do what needs to be done. Sometimes people follow me.
-A good friend.
Fools Gamble. Wise men make the odds.
-Yearbook entry, Jeffrey Huang, PSHS Class of 1991
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
-Thomas Jefferson
He only earns his freedom and his life
who takes them every day by storm.
- From Goethe's Faust
...Fight, and you may die. Run, and you'll live.
(pause) At least a while.
(shouting to all) And dying in your beds many years from now,
would you be willing to trade all the days,
from this day to that,
for one chance,
just one chance,
to come back here and tell our enemies (voice rising)
that they may take our lives,
but they'll never take, OUR FREEDOM!!!
-William Wallace on the field at Stirling, from the movie Braveheart
The race goes not to the swift, nor to the strong, but to the last one standing when all is said and done. Life is like an auction: he who is willing to give the most for a goal --whether it be pain, blood, or death -- will win. It's not whether you have what it takes to win -- you always do. The question is, is what you want worth the price you must pay to win it?
-A good friend.
Ask yourself, why do you seek (the things that you do)...is it for His greater glory, or for yours?
-Kasim, brother of the Cruciform Sword, from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
``I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time...like tears in rain."
- Roy Batty in the movie "Bladerunner" by Philip K. Dick
From quiet homes
And carefree beginnings
To murky and unknown ends
One thing that's worth the pain of the journey
Are the joy and laughter of family and friends
From a rock on the lakeshore of Lake Michigan
Your days are short here.
This is the last of your springs.
You will go away with old, good friends.
And don't forget when you leave,
why you came.
-Adlai Stevenson
...I want adventure in the great wide some-where,
I want it more than I can tell,
and for once it might be grand,
to have someone, understand,
I want so much more than they've got planned...
-Belle, from Disney's Beauty and the Beast
You'll take the East road
and I'll take the West road
but some-day we'll all be there toge-ther,
until then may the road always be before you
and the wind always to your back,
May the Lord God hold you in the palm of his hand
till we meet again,
May the Lord God hold you in the palm of his hand
till we meet again.
-An old song of parting
Longer bits
Wild times, until the light has gone
Wild times, until the rising sun
Let us hear the sigh,
of all the days gone by
Wild times...
Shine the light, down through the years
Through the fields of yonder, through the vale of tears
And we'll take the time,
that is yours and mine
Wild times...
Wild times, into the dawn
These wild times, will not be gone
As the music plays,
to these golden days
Wild times...
You can hear the sigh,
of all the days gone by
Wild times...
-"Wild Times" by Jeff Lynne
A small passage about the law of unintentional consequences
There is much to be said about working smarter, not harder...there is even more to be said about
working smarter -and- harder...when man domesticated the horse, he did not merely go
where he had always gone faster, he decided to see what was other side of the hill; when
man discovered ships, he did not simply sail to the same ports he had always gone to but
instead pushed those ships out over the horizon; when he finally learned to fly like the birds
he did not stop but wondered if he could reach the stars as well.
-A good friend
Thoughts on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
There once was a student who said, "God,
It seems to be to be odd,
that the sycymore tree
simply ceases to be
where there is noone about in the quad."
"Dear sir, your question is odd,
I am always about in the quad,
and thus the sycymore tree
will always continue to be
Since observed by,
Yours faithfully, God."
-Anonymous
To laugh often and love much;
To win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children;
To earn the approbation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;
To give of one's self;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
To have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exaltation;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived...
This is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
An old man, going a lone highway,
Came at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast and deep and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim --
That sullen stream had no fears for him;
But he turned, when he reached the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.
"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim near,
"You are wasting strength in building here.
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again must pass this way.
You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide,
Why build you the bridge at the eventide?"
The builder lifted his old gray head.
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,
"There followeth after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm that has been naught to me
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him."
- Will Allen Dromgoole
...The humans, I think, knew they were doomed. But where another race would surrender to despair, the humans fought back with even greater strength. They made the Minbari fight for every inch of space. In my life, I have never seen anything like it. They would weep, they would pray, they would say goodbye to their loved ones and then throw themselves without fear or hesitation at the very face of death itself, never surrendering. No one who saw them fighting against the inevitable could help but be moved to tears by their courage... their stubborn nobility. When they ran out of ships, they used guns. When they ran out of guns, they used knives and sticks and bare hands. They were magnificent. I only hope, that when it is my time, I may die with half as much dignity as I saw in their eyes at the end.
-Londo Mollari, "In The Beginning"
To dream the impossible dream,
to fight the unbeatable foe,
to bear with unbearable sorrow,
to run where the brave dare not go.
To right the unrightable wrong,
to love pure and chaste from afar,
to try when your arms are too weary,
to reach the unreachable star.
This is my quest,
to follow that star --
no matter how hopeless,
no matter how far.
To fight for the right
without question or pause,
to be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause.
And I know if I'll only be true to this glorious quest
that my heart will be peaceful and calm
when I'm laid to my rest.
And the world will be better for this,
that one man scorned and covered with scars
still strove with his last ounce of courage.
To reach --the unreachable stars.
Joseph Darion, "The Impossible Dream"
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul!
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul!
- William Henley
It is not the critic who counts,
nor the man who points out
where the strong man stumbled,
or where a doer of deeds
could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man in the arena
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood,
who strives valiantly, who errs,
and who comes up short again and again,
who knows the great enthusiasms,
the great devotions,
and spends himself in a worthy cause.
The man who at best knows the triumph
of high achievement and who at worst,
if he fails, fails while daring greatly,
so that his place will never be
with those cold timid souls
who never knew victory or defeat.
-Theodore Roosevelt
...Of what does the Nature of kingship consist? What are its qualities in itself; what the qualities it inspires in those who attend it?...I will tell His Majesty what a king is. A king does not abide within his tent while his men bleed and die upon the field. A king does not dine while his men go hungry, nor sleep when they stand at watch upon the wall. A king does not command his men's loyalty through fear nor purchase it with gold; he earns their love by the sweat of his own back and the pains he endures for their sake. That which comprises the harshest burden, a king lifts first and sets down last. A king does not require service of those he leads but provides it to them...A king does not expend his substance to enslave men, but by his conduct and example makes them free.
-Xenoes the Spartan, Gates of Fire
In the warriors code
There's no surrender
Though his body says stop
His spirit cries - never!
Deep in our soul, a quiet ember
Know it's you against you
It's the paradox that drives us on
It's a battle of wills
In the heat of attack
It's the passion that kills
The victory is yours alone...
In the burning Heart
Just about to burst
There's a quest for answers
An unquenchable thirst
In the darkest night
Rising like a spire
In the burning heart
There's unmistakable fire...
-Burning Heart by Survivor
...Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
-From Ulysees, Alfred Lord Tennyson
Daylight, I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life
And I musn't give in
When the dawn comes tonight will be a memory too
And a new day will begin
-"Memory" from CATS by Andrew Lloyd Webber
To never say too late, never say it's done
Nothing you know is real if you are the one
The one that never charges, never walks away
One that I can trust to always stay always stay
Never say surrender, never say die
The only way you'll get there is if you try
Never say give up, never say give in
You always have to fight to win
However much it hurts, however much it takes
Believe in all your dreams will all come true
However hard it gets, however much it aches
Always believe in me
as I believe in you
-Cure, Dredd Song
Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Somewhere beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?
Do you hear the people sing
Say, do you hear the distant drums?
It is the future that they bring
When tomorrow comes!
-"Epilogue (Finale)" from Les Miserables by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
-St. Francis of Assisi
And one last note....
It is astonishing, really, how many thoroughly mature, well-adjusted
grown-ups harbor a teddy bear--which is perhaps why they are thoroughly
mature and well-adjusted.
-Joseph Lempa
