Quotes that hit home

[4Eyes]

As I am bored stiff watching 48 thousand static html files to ftp to spam server #3, I would like to don my 'devils advocate' cap and take a couple of shots at a couple of these :

Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings, they did it by killing everyone who got in their way. -anon

Much as I like the sentiment - it isn't exactly true. 'Killing everyone who got in their way' was the failed strategy adopted by most of Rome's enemies.
The Roman Empire survived so long through a series of 'meetings' - they engaged their enemy's enemies as allies and buffer states, and used politics to keep client kingdoms and rogue states at each others throats.

Of course, my corrected version....

Rome did not create a great empire by killing everyone who got in their way immediately, they had lots of meetings to try and persuade other people to do it for them, and only if that failed did it themselves... ermm, most of the time anyway - 4eyes

.... isn't quite as pithy, and is unlikely to catch on.

"George Washington didn't use his right to free speech to defeat the British. He shot them."

errrmmm...  surely he didn't have a 'right' to free speech at that stage? (.... and he wasn't shooting the British.... Brits on both sides, also other colonists, German mercenaries .... yada yada yada).

One could perhaps find more use in the quote (which I just made up)...

Thomas Paine did more to change the world with words than any single man armed with a gun

To be perfectly honest, had I been alive then I would have been on the side of the colonists myself rather than support a country ruled by a mad king who was more German than English and an elite upper class who were mostly descended from Norman French. I'd have been right there with Thomas Paine using as much 'slightly-free' speech as I could to try and get rid of the 'slightly' bit.
(can we get away with politics if it is 18 century politics? I would never advocate killing the Queen now, honest)

I guess my point is that the 'shoot first, ask questions later' quotes are 100% appropriate when hunting deer, but less so when someone spills your drink in the pub.

Not that I am a pacifist, I am perfectly happy with the :

Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie!"... till you can find a rock.

.. for example.


I was going to write something eloquent that explained why we should not rely on quotations to fill in the gaps in our knowledge, and then I found a good quotation that says it better than I could :

All maxims have their antagonist maxims; proverbs should be sold in pairs, a single one being but a half truth.  ~William Mathews

Listen, don't mention the war! I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it all right. --- Basil Fawlty

[dougs]

Good Luck Mr Gorski - Neil Armstrong

Doug

[ukgimp]

Colin you amuse me. When are you next uploading spam we need more enlightenment. :-)

[creative666]

"Yes I got him a gift. He had a kidney stone. You p1ss a rock through your pecker, you deserve more than just a pat on the fcuking back."

I had a kidney stone this year!

[Rupert]

The higher a monkey climbs, the more you can see of its bottom.

_{edited for typo}

[agerhart]

money can't buy happiness, but it sure can buy lots of things that contribute mightily to happiness.

http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2009/03/happiness-myth-no-6-money-cant-buy-happiness.html

[4Eyes]

The version I know, again credited to Spike Milligan:

Money can't buy friends, but it can get you a better class of enemy.

[Cowley]

"Never miss an opportunity to keep your mouth shut"  -  something my old boss said a lot.

[Drastic]

If you ain't first, you're last.
- Ricky Bobby

[Woz]

"But maybe he's only a little crazy like painters or composers or... or some of those men in Washington. " - Miracle on 34th Street.

[mick g]

"I wouldn't p i s s on you even if you was on fire"
a famous quote by our own NFFC

the same night when napoleon left webmasterworld 

[mivox]

"Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was." ~Margaret Mitchell

"[The US Constitution] is likely to be administered for a course of years and then end in despotism... when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other." ~Alexander Hamilton

"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws." ~John Adams

"The Press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent ANY part of the government from DECEIVING the people." ~Justice Hugo L Black, US Supreme Court

"A life without television is like a dog without bricks tied to its head." ~anon

"Talk sense to a fool, and he will call you foolish." ~Euripedes

"Existence gives things purpose, but emptiness makes them useful." ~Dao De Jing 11

...thought I'd jump back in here, since I'm inexplicably not asleep yet. :-)

[grnidone]

"My 'Give a Shit' is all gone..."
-Anonymous Texan

[Drastic]

Happiness is not having what you want. It is wanting what you have.

- Rabbi Hyman Schachtel

[bill]

"The tongue is but three inches long, yet it can kill a man six feet high."
   -  Japanese Proverb