The quotations thread

[Bijo]

"Man hath intelligence, emotion, instinct, and desires aplenty: how unfortunate."


"When flowers are around, look for a coffin.... if you have time left, look for a corpse."


"Power doth people not change; it merely unmasks them."


"If one multiplies humanity's goodness by 100, th'outcome'd still equal 0. Or it would equal a negative number of course... perhaps -100 000."


"I will find one good, virtuous, peaceful, well-minded, intelligent human being, when pigs can fly, when hell freezes, when God shows Himself, when my ***hole learns how to chew gum."


"If there really is a God, he's either not so almighty, or he's a plain sadist."


"No political system is good, whether democracy, communism, and so forth: it's still led by humans."


"As far as I know, death is the only easy sure direct way to achieve peace."


"God has done a poor job of creating humans, a poor job of creating nature. Look at it and tell me with a straight truthful face He cares about us."


"God is like a Lemmings Commander: He sometimes, too, makes painful mistakes."

[Fisherking]

Did those quotes come from the suicide hotline?

[Rodion Romanovich]

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Oscar_Wilde/

Some favorites from the first page:
"A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her. "

"I am not young enough to know everything. "

"I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability. "

"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. "

"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you. "

"Illusion is the first of all pleasures. "

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. "

"Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays. "

"One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation. "

"One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards. "

[Bijo]

Did those quotes come from the suicide hotline?

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

My personal favourite quotation is the one from the front of "For Whom the Bell Tolls";

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."-John Donne.

[Yun Dog]

"Farewell, Australia! you are a rising child, and doubtless some day will reign a great princess in the South; but you are too great and ambitious for affection, yet not great enough for respect. I leave your shores without sorrow or regret. "

Charles Darwin on Australia in "The Origin of the species"