Quotes that have stuck with you

[Ayen]

What are some quotes that you have heard in your life that have stuck with you to this day? They can be anything, inspirational quotes from famous people, quotes from movies, TV, etc. or people you knew personally. I was originally going to post this in the Star Trek thread but started thinking of more quotes outside of it. Here are some words of wisdom that have stuck through the years.

"Find out what you want to do with your life and do it. Don't spend your life going from one job you hate to the next." -My father

"An enemy is someone who tells you what you want to hear. A friend is someone who tells you what you need to hear." -My pastor

"That Picard never had a brush with death, never came face to face with his own mortality, never realized how fragile life is, or how important each moment must be. So his life never came into focus. He drifted through much of his career, with no plan or agenda... going from one assignment to the next, never seizing the opportunities that presented themselves. He never led the away-team on Milika III to save the ambassador, or take charge of the Stargazer's bridge when its captain was killed. And no one ever offered him a command. He learned to play it safe... and he never, ever got noticed by anyone." - Q, Stark Trek The Next Generation

"Damn it, Bones, you're a doctor. You know that pain and guilt can't be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They're the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don't want my pain taken away! I need my pain!" -Captain Kirk, Star Trek V The Final Frontier

"I don't believe in the no-win scenario. I don't like to lose." -Captain Kirk, Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan

"You know, there are some words I’ve known since I was a schoolboy: “With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.” Those words were uttered by Judge Aaron Satie, as wisdom and warning. The first time any man’s freedom is trodden on, we’re all damaged." -Captain Picard, Star Trek The Next Generation

"Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?" -God, Evan Almighty

"If God answered all our prayers, there'd be nothing left for us to do ourselves. Life is about problems, and overcoming those problems. A-and growing and learning from obstacles. If God just fixed everything for us, then there'd be no point in our existence." -Jesus, South Park

"Right and wrong are not what separate us and our enemies. It's our different standpoints, our perspectives that separate us. Both sides blame one another. There's no good or bad side. Just two sides holding different views." -Squall Leonheart, Final Fantasy VIII

"Don't you know anything about Fantasia? It's the world of human fantasy. Every part, every creature of it, is a piece of the dreams and hopes of mankind. Therefore, it has no boundaries." -G'mork, The NeverEnding Story

"Writing is not a choice. It's a lifelong compulsion!" -Mr. Carpenter, Emily of New Moon

"Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you." -Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

[Parker]

"well quit worrying about how you're going to look and just BE!"
charlie rose, to david foster wallace

[Shorty]

"Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth." - Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

"I would like to see anyone, prophet, king or God, convince a thousand cats to do the same thing at the same time." - Neil Gaiman

"Make art." - Neil Gaiman

"One minute was enough," Tyler said, "A person had to work hard for it, but a minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection." - Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“'I’m bored’ is a useless thing to say. I mean, you live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen none percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is endless; it goes on forever, inwardly, do you understand? The fact that you’re alive is amazing. So you don’t get to say ‘I’m bored.” - Louis CK

"When it's time to write, I have one computer that has no ability to get on the internet. Because the ability to just move your finger less than a millimeter and be looking straight into someone's #*$^ or at a new Porsche, or a whole movie - To Kill a Mockingbird, let's just sit here and watch the whole thing! - it's too much. So if you put a couple of moves between you and that, you've got a fighting chance.

When I hit a stopping moment in what I'm writing, a moment of agitation - that itch always leads to a brand new thing, to inspiration. But if you bail out and buy a product online, you're robbing yourself. It's terrible, so I sit there: "smurf, smurf." The worst thing happening to this generation is that they're taking discomfort away from themselves." - Louis CK

A little cliche but - "“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” - Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

[Casey]

"Keep fighting the good fight."

I heard this one the other day:

“If you love a flower, don’t pick it up.
Because if you pick it up it dies and it ceases to be what you love.
So if you love a flower, let it be.
Love is not about possession.
Love is about appreciation.” ― Osho

[noxious.sunshine]

"I'm never wrong." - My dad

"It does not do to dwell on dreams, Harry, and forget to live." - Albus Dumbledore

"Right or wrong, I'm still the same ole me!" - Cait Sith

I'm sure there's more. I just can't think of them.

[black orb]

>>> "Life sucks"..

[Shiny]

"In war, whichever side may call itself the victor, there are no winners, but all are losers." - Neville Chamberlain

"The activity you're most avoiding contains your biggest opportunity." - Robin Sharma

"We’re all a little weird and life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love." - Robert Fulghum

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." - Maya Angelou

[Miss Mae]

"How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words."
- David Foster Wallace

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

"You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."
- Jack London

"Everything I've ever done was out of fear of being mediocre."
- Chet Atkins

[Dat Matt]

This one stuck with me.

[Kalevala]

"It makes me uncomfortable to talk about meanings. ... Because the meaning is a very personal thing, and the meaning for me is different than the meaning for someone else." - David Lynch

There was one Neil Gaiman quote from an interview that I'm now unable to find. Something along the lines of him saying one of his least favourite things is when people don't realize they're acting beastly, rude, or inappropriate and how uncomfortable that makes him.

[Iceglow]

There's a few I've kept close over the years, I'm going to share a little of what they mean to me too:

"Never, never, never, give up" - Winston Churchill (this is post WW2 to a group of uni students)

If you're in the wrong, sure admit you're wrong, accept culpability and responsibility for your own actions. However, when yours is the right path or you are in the right don't give up. I've never given up on something I hold true to. This has even driven a position whereby a friend of mine and I don't talk at all any more. I removed them from my life because they refused to accept they were in the wrong over something very important to me. When or if they decide to come to me and apologise, I may decide to let them back in to my life.

"We've all been sorry, we've all been hurt. But how we survive, is what makes us who we are." - Rise Against, Survive

This is probably the most important of all the quotes I hold dear to. People when they meet you don't know your past, they don't frankly care for it. However, what you are is the sum of how you survived the events of your past. You have a choice about this and sometimes there's a trade off involved. I chose that I would survive my jaw being shattered without being a hermit as a result, part of that meant accepting my vanity as a virtue over a flaw.

"Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain." Japanese proverb

Often mistakenly attributed to Robert Jordan, Lan Mandragoran's most famous quote is an actual Japanese proverb. It rings true, often people talk of not having a choice in an action. Reality is, they do have a choice always but the right thing will generally always be harder.

"Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds" Oppenheimer about the creation of the nuclear bomb.

This is the ultimate in realisation that you've developed something terrible. It reminds me that actions have consequences and that even the best intentions can lead to a lifetime of regret. That doesn't always mean we must avoid the development of something terrible to avoid regret but it's about going in to it with eyes open and the ability to accept ownership of your actions.

"There are no points for second best" Topgun

This is appealing to the perfectionist in me, work hard, achieve your goals and remember you should always aspire to be the best in everything you do. After all, people don't remember who came second, they remember those who came first.

There's a fair few more but I'll leave them for now.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

Tiger got to hunt
Bird got to fly
Man got to sit and wonder, "Why, why, why?"
Tiger got to sleep
Bird got to land
Man got to tell himself he understand

-Vonnegut

[noxious.sunshine]

Dr. Seuss is one of my favorites for amazing quotes


"Don't cry because it's over- smile because it happened."

"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams"

"Why fit in when you were born to stand out?"

"Adults are just obsolete children, and to hell with them!"

"Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”


.... I could go on and on.

Then there's my man Shel Silverstein....

“Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.”

“Underneath my outside face
There's a face that none can see.
A little less smiley,
A little less sure,
But a whole lot more like me.”

“...Just 'cause somethin' ain't been done
Don't mean it can't be did...”


EDIT: "I'm sick in the head, and not sober" - Death Dance, Brotha Lynch Hung (Might be a lyric, but it's a definite line that's stuck with me since the very first time I heard it)

[Bubba]

"Don't cry because it's over- smile because it happened."

Breaking Bad.

"Take care of yourself, and each other" - Jerry Springer

[Loony BoB]

If you're going through Hell, keep going. - Winston Churchill

I will never say that I've arrived
But I will say this much: I did survive
In all that I go through, I become what I am
I will be myself because I know I can - MIC

TK, your eyes are like peas and your drool makes a puddle on the floor like wine. - BOU

You ASS. - Shorty (see also: God in Heaven!)

It's not private. There's two people in this car and one of them isn't me. - Myself

A couple of years in therapy and you'll get over it. - Dad

'sup with the whack PlayStation 'SUP??? - Joey

I know. I'll turn him into a flea. A harmless little flea... and then I'll put that flea inside a box. And then I'll put that box inside another box. And then I'll mail that box to myself. And when it arrives.... AHAHAHAHAHA I'LL SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER. - Yzma

Wrong lever! *pause* Why do we even HAVE that lever!? - Yzma

Riiiiiiiiight, the poison, the poison for Kuzco, the poison chosen especially to kill Kuzco, Kuzco's poison. ...That poison? - Kronk

Faster, faster! Yzma, put your hands in the air! - Kronk

Uh huh, uh huh uh huh uh huh! - Kuzco

Okay I'll stop with all the nonsensical TENG. But seriously I quote that movie all the freakin' time so it's relevant! Anyway this will do as a fairly random selection. Oh, and basically every single line of Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) because that song is incredible and every line is worth listening to and remembering.