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?
Work smarter, not harder.
Scrooge Mc Duck“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
Also from H2G2, behold the majestic : " -Perhaps I’m old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what’s actually going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say, “Hang the sense of it,” and keep yourself busy. I’d far rather be happy than right any day.
-And are you?
-Ah. No. Well that’s where it all falls down, of course "
I like it even better in the movie, Bill Nighy embodies this sentence perfectly.
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
“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.
I would rather have questions that cannot be answered than answers that cannot be questioned.
Richard Feynman
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.
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!
Not so much a quote as a poem, but it’s brief so here’s the whole thing:
They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man, It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself.
- “This Be the Verse” by Philip Larkin
As for what it means to me, I think it speaks for itself. It’s bleak and devastating, yet beautiful. I love the elegance and simplicity of the writing. It’s the only poem I have memorized because it’s so aesthetically pleasing and emotionally resonant. It has stuck with me since I first heard it over 10 years ago.
It’s beautiful and I can understand why it sticks… Thanks for letting us know!!
Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee? But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.
~ Camus
It’s not a party if it happens every night
You don’t need to do everything every day. Some days, surviving is enough.
"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.
The pleasure of being understood is underrated
- Simon Baker portraying Patrick Jane in The Mentalist
Oof. I felt that.
