Even better if you can provide your own understanding of its meaning.
Mine would be :
“Nothing kills a man as much as being forced to represent a country” (and err considering the context, I must stress it has nothing to do with the current US shitshow), by a WW1 soldier, illustrator and writer named Jacques Vaché.
For me it just means being forced into representing a group (national, of course, but maybe also social, racial, sexual, professional, any kind of group) or defining one’s identity only by reference to a group is to be avoided at all costs.
Note : Its not the same, imho, as engaging in a collective struggle or defense against a common oppression.
How about you?
“Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source” - Iroh
And
“Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.” - Hitchhikers Guide
Dont think about things too much. Just accept it, and change accordingly with a response
Came for the second, stayed for the first
You are under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago. - Alan Watts
I would rather have questions that cannot be answered than answers that cannot be questioned.
Richard Feynman
“Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.”
I would be so far ahead of where I am right now if I had just decided on a course and committed instead of analyzing all the choices to death.
Never tie your identity to something that can be taken away. Re: job title, salary, perceived status. Your self perceived identity should have a much more stable foundation.
Pirate Softeware?
I like it. Remember where it’s from?
A former mentor of mine, and I found it rather compelling the more I reflected on the implications.
Dad told me when I was young to “learn to drink your coffee black and cold and you’ll never be disappointed.”
I don’t think he was just talking about coffee.
As in have low expectations of everything?
More like be grateful for what you’re given
That’s much more wholesome!
Men are scared that women will laugh at them , women are scared that men will kill them.
“Don’t follow people - follow ideas” which seems more relevant today than ever before it seems.
I think there is a quote somewhere from someone that says people talk about people, smarter people talk about facts and even smarter people talk about ideas. I am probably murdering the quote, but it was something like that.
It makes sense though, talking about other people doesn’t really provide much direction in life. Facts do provide more direction in life, but ideas really function as a pointer in a lot of situations when may not know what to do otherwise.
Yeah this quote really pivoted my life to a strong cosmopolitan view. By detaching ideas from people you can pick and choose and design your own philosophy and direction without attachment to exact people or inherited culture.
This is quite liberating mentally as solving cognitive dissonance is very expensive and theres an incredible amount of cognitive dissonance required to follow people who are often flawed or have conflicting ideas attached to them.
I feel like this is most appropriate with politicians. No politician will be everything you want, but if they have a few policies you’re into, they’re worth your vote.
I think it applies outside of politics as well like art and even business.
Totally fair.
"Who I am is where I stand.
Where I stand is where I fall."
-Steven Moffat, Doctor Who
I have a lot of darkness in my head due to my upbringing. I’ll never get it out. That doesn’t stop me from being a good man, because who you are and what you’ll be remembered as isn’t your internal struggle, its what you chose to stand for in practice.
Props to you for actually attributing the quote to the writer and not the character. It’s a pet peeve of mine when people take profound sounding quotes and attribute it to a fictional character that never existed, never had real thoughts or opinions of their own
I agree it’s good to credit a writer, but the attribution should also include the character so the quote has context. For example, I would want there to be a distinction between a comment I made in real life and a line I wrote for a psychotic character to say.
I hadn’t thought of that before, and I can think of several characters who’ve said things I doubt the writers would want attributed to them. I just want to see quotes from fiction being clearly labeled as such, and not using the grandiose of a character’s title to add weight to the quote.
For example when I see people quote Admiral William Adama on how when the military becomes the police, the people become the enemy of the state. That was Ron Moore writing a character for a show set in a post apocalyptic universe where the only survivors are hanging out on military ships, not a real world seasoned officer’s opinion. Is it an interesting point worth discussing? Sure, but I’m not putting it in the same category of 5-Star General Dwight Eisenhower’s warnings about the military industrial complex
I think it’s a very interesting point. The whole concept of how fiction affects us is fascinating to me. Our idea of what it meant to be human used to come entirely from watching real people around us. Now we’re exposed to hundreds of fictional characters, and we get to know some of them better than we know our actual friends. Despite objectively knowing they’re fictional, they still influence our picture of what being a person means, because that’s just how our brains work. I think most modern people have the feeling their own lives aren’t as exciting or interesting or hilarious as they should be.
Thank you! I try to, even though at the end of the day the best you can do is the show runner that signed off on it, as you’ll never really know who invented it in the writer’s room.
You don’t need to do everything every day. Some days, surviving is enough.
“Trust no one - not even yourself”
My dad told me this while going through a divorce. He was also going through a criminal trial due to his deviance.
Its one thing that stuck with me and I wish it didn’t.
Another one is from Lenin: " ‘There Are Decades Where Nothing Happens’ and ‘Weeks Where Decades Happen’ "
The Lenin one has been on my mind for like a year now. We’re coming up on the anniversary of the February revolution and I’m hoping that as things get worse we’ll see the point where we have had enough.
Plenty of big flash points at current. I think we are seeing capitalism in disrepair, similar to 1920 Europe, world powers are rebalancing and competing for the now very limited resources. The working class are taking the brunt of the hardship and seek real change, and when trump can’t make good on those promises we will see a real struggle.
Good luck out there comrade.
Something my grandpa said, sometime around 2006-2007 I think.
“The next world war, will be between the rich and and the poor, and the rich will win before the poor knows there’s a war.”
This is unfortunate, but at the rate we are currently going this might come into fruition. 😢
I believe the first part is already occuring, it’s the last half that I hope is wrong.
i mean that’s been every war to date except some revolutions 😂
It’s not a party if it happens every night
Rewatched that recently. I was really surprised how dark it sometimes gets for a kids’ show. It still holds up really well!
“When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.” -A clump of talking stars in Futurama I look at it like being a good custodian or someone who takes pride in the smallest details of their work, regardless of whether or not you receive recognition for them. Most people don’t notice the effort being put in when things are running smoothly. The work of the people behind the scenes is directly responsible for successes in the spotlight.
This is what IT feels like. Everything is working? What do we pay those guys for?
Everything is not working? What do we pay those guys for?
That’s a loose quote from the Tao te ching.
Interesting. Something new to look up!
