Quotes you like.

[Guinness]

"Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage." ~ H.L. Mencken

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats." ~ H.L. Mencken

"Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent." ~ H.L. Mencken

"The state remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men." ~ H.L. Mencken

"Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods." ~ H.L. Mencken

http://www.strike-the-root.com/quotes

[thehockeyguru]

When we enter this world we are crying and the people around us are smiling. Live your life so when you die you're smiling and the people around you are crying.

[Kraftster]

"Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage." ~ H.L. Mencken

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats." ~ H.L. Mencken

"Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent." ~ H.L. Mencken

"The state remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men." ~ H.L. Mencken

"Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods." ~ H.L. Mencken

http://www.strike-the-root.com/quotes

Glad you posted this. I just came across H.L. Mencken for the first time recently (can't remember in what context now), and I had forgotten that I wanted to look into him.

[Guinness]

Glad you posted this. I just came across H.L. Mencken for the first time recently (can't remember in what context now), and I had forgotten that I wanted to look into him.

Here's one for you, K:

"[The average man] is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely. Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty — and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies." ~ H.L. Mencken

[Kraftster]

Glad you posted this. I just came across H.L. Mencken for the first time recently (can't remember in what context now), and I had forgotten that I wanted to look into him.

Here's one for you, K:

"[The average man] is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely. Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty — and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies." ~ H.L. Mencken

[Guinness]

Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito

[Kraftster]

Tremendous quote that my mom sent me today. From Miguel De Unamuno's Tragic Sense of Life:

Consequently, if my reason, which is in a certain sense a part of the reason of all my brothers in humanity in time and space, teaches me this absolute scepticism in respect of what concerns my longing for never-ending life, I think that I can assume that my feeling of life, which is the essence of life itself, my vitality, my boundless appetite for living and my abhorrence of dying, my refusal to submit to death—that it is this which suggests to me the doctrines with which I try to counter-check the working of the reason. Have these doctrines an objective value? someone will ask me, and I shall answer that I do not understand what this objective value of a doctrine is. I will not say that the more or less poetical and unphilosophical doctrines that I am about to set forth are those which make me live; but I will venture to say that it is my longing to live and to live for ever that inspires these doctrines within me. And if by means of them I succeed in strengthening and sustaining this same longing in another, perhaps when it was all but dead, then I shall have performed a man's work and, above all, I shall have lived. In a word, be it with reason or without reason or against reason, I am resolved not to die. And if, when at last I die out, I die out altogether, then I shall not have died out of myself—that is, I shall not have yielded myself to death, but my human destiny will have killed me. Unless I come to lose my head, or rather my heart, I will not abdicate from life—life will be wrested from me.

To have recourse to those, ambiguous words, 'optimism' and 'pessimism,' does not assist us in any way, for frequently they express the very contrary of what those who use them mean to express. To ticket a doctrine with the label of pessimism is not to impugn its validity, and the so-called optimists are not the most efficient in action. I believe, on the contrary, that many of the greatest heroes, perhaps the greatest of all, have been men of despair and that by despair they have accomplished their mighty works. Apart from this, however, and accepting in all their ambiguity these denominations of optimism and pessimism, [] there exists a certain transcendental pessimism which may be the begetter of a temporal and terrestrial optimism …

[penny lane]

“They have nothing in their whole imperial arsenal that can break the spirit of one Irishman who doesn’t want to be broken.”

~ Bobby Sands

[opie22002]

"People who don't know don't know they don't know."

[Godric]

Tremendous quote that my mom sent me today. From Miguel De Unamuno's Tragic Sense of Life:

Consequently, if my reason, which is in a certain sense a part of the reason of all my brothers in humanity in time and space, teaches me this absolute scepticism in respect of what concerns my longing for never-ending life, I think that I can assume that my feeling of life, which is the essence of life itself, my vitality, my boundless appetite for living and my abhorrence of dying, my refusal to submit to death—that it is this which suggests to me the doctrines with which I try to counter-check the working of the reason. Have these doctrines an objective value? someone will ask me, and I shall answer that I do not understand what this objective value of a doctrine is. I will not say that the more or less poetical and unphilosophical doctrines that I am about to set forth are those which make me live; but I will venture to say that it is my longing to live and to live for ever that inspires these doctrines within me. And if by means of them I succeed in strengthening and sustaining this same longing in another, perhaps when it was all but dead, then I shall have performed a man's work and, above all, I shall have lived. In a word, be it with reason or without reason or against reason, I am resolved not to die. And if, when at last I die out, I die out altogether, then I shall not have died out of myself—that is, I shall not have yielded myself to death, but my human destiny will have killed me. Unless I come to lose my head, or rather my heart, I will not abdicate from life—life will be wrested from me.

To have recourse to those, ambiguous words, 'optimism' and 'pessimism,' does not assist us in any way, for frequently they express the very contrary of what those who use them mean to express. To ticket a doctrine with the label of pessimism is not to impugn its validity, and the so-called optimists are not the most efficient in action. I believe, on the contrary, that many of the greatest heroes, perhaps the greatest of all, have been men of despair and that by despair they have accomplished their mighty works. Apart from this, however, and accepting in all their ambiguity these denominations of optimism and pessimism, [] there exists a certain transcendental pessimism which may be the begetter of a temporal and terrestrial optimism …

You know you've read something strikely awesome whenever you feel that numbness and satisfaction

Big fan of Miguel De Unamuno but I had never read that until now

[Lt. Dish]

"Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one."
- Eleanor Roosevelt

"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires."
-Susan B. Anthony

"You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist."
- Indira Gandhi

"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.
Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."
- Marie Curie

"You better shop around."
-My Mama

[Gaucho]

Never pass up a chance to piss.

Paul Auster's father.

[Geezer]

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American Public.
H.L.Mencken

[Geezer]

Ask not what your country can do for you.Ask what you can do to get your country to do even more for you.
Comic strip from the old Pittsburgh Press

[Gaucho]

Glad you posted this. I just came across H.L. Mencken for the first time recently (can't remember in what context now), and I had forgotten that I wanted to look into him.

Well, don't look too close into his views on race and Jews.

[Geezer]

Once you've learned to fake sincerity , you've got it made.
Mencken quote on politics

[Godric]

Glad you posted this. I just came across H.L. Mencken for the first time recently (can't remember in what context now), and I had forgotten that I wanted to look into him.

Well, don't look too close into his views on race and Jews.

Bobby Fischer too

I like reading H.L. Mencken

[Geezer]

Pity the man whose poetic ability is aroused by the smell of sh*t.
unknown author Youngstown State University restroom wall in the 70's

Violence is as American as cherry pie.
H Rap brown

We had to destroy the village in order to save it from the Viet Cong
American Army officer

Mama told me not to come.
Three Dog Night

It depends what the meaning of 'is' is.
Bill Clinton

[MRandall25]

“The trouble with writing a book about yourself is that you can’t fool around. Why? People fool around with themselves all the time."

Steve Coogan in "Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story", quote attributed to Groucho Marx.

[Godric]

"Grey, dear friend, is all theory,
And green the golden tree of life."
Johann Goethe

"Its a sacred obligation to step aside from
our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by
its beauty and significance ... To perceive freshly, with
fresh senses is to be inspired." - I don't remember

Stanley Kubrick said "The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death — however mutable man may be able to make them — our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light."

[Geezer]

Any day is a good day when you wake up on the right side of the grass.
one of my dad's sayings;don't know where he heard it.

[Bioshock]

“I'm smart enough to know that I'm dumb.”

Richard Feynman quotes (American theoretical physicist, 1918-1988)

[Godric]

I am at a loss for words to explain how profoundly these quotes strike me....

The Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I asked them how they dared so roundly to assert, that God spoke to them; and whether they did not think at the time, that they would be misunderstood, & so be the cause of imposition.

Isaiah answer'd, I saw no God, nor heard any, in a finite organical perception; but my senses discover'd the infinite in every thing, and as I was then persuaded, & remain confirm'd; that the voice of honest indignation is the voice of God, I cared not for consequences but wrote.
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

In the second century A.D. the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius may have best defined pantheism when he wrote, “Everything is interwoven, and the web is holy.

We are part of Nature as a whole whose order we follow - Spinoza

Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another. - Leibniz

(For my money, the strongest mind that I've ever read)

All things are parts of one single system, which is called Nature; the individual life is good when it is in harmony with Nature. - Zeno

I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. So nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals. Being at one with nature. - Mikhail Gorbachev

Behold but One in all things; it is the second that leads you astray. - Kabir

When the Ten Thousand things are viewed in their oneness, we return to the Origin and remain where we have always been. - Sen T'sen

The scientist does not study nature because it is useful;
he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful.
If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing,
and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living. - Jules Henri Poincare

One grand great life throbs through earth's giant heart,
And mighty waves of single Being roll
From nerve-less germ to man, for we are part
Of every rock and bird and beast and hill,
One with the things that prey on us, and one with what we kill. - Oscar Wilde, Panthea

We are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching
of the reality that surrounds us. We can never have enough of nature. - Henry David Thoreau

A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. - Albert Einstein

A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge. - Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

The word pantheism derives from the Greek words pan ='all' and theos ='God'. Thus pantheism means 'All is God'. In essence, pantheism holds that there is no divinity other than the universe and nature. Pantheism is a religious belief that reveres and cares for nature, a religion that joyously accepts this life as our only life, and this earth as our only paradise, if we look after it. Pantheism revels in the beauty of nature and the night sky, and is full of wonder at their mystery and power. Pantheism believes that all things are linked in profound unity ... All things interconnected and interdependent. In life and in death we humans are an inseparable part of this unity, and in realising this we can find our joy and our peace. - Paul Harrison

I believe the universe is one being; all its parts are different expressions of the same energy, and they are all in communication with each other, therefore parts of one organic whole ... The whole is in all its parts so beautiful, and is felt by me to be so intensely in earnest, that I am compelled to love it, and to think of it as divine. It seems to me that this whole alone is worthy of the deeper sort of love; and there is peace, freedom, I might say a kind of salvation, in turning one's affections outward toward this one God; rather than inwards on one's self, or on humanity, or on human imaginations and abstractions- the world of spirits. - Robinson Jeffers, Pantheism

[Willie Kool]

"Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles."
- Frank Lloyd Wright

[Godric]

"Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles."
- Frank Lloyd Wright

Thats **** awesome lol.

Frank Lloyd Wright was dynamite