Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[Luffy]

This is a quote I saw 20 years ago on a French channel TV. When asked what would God say to him when he'd go to heaven, a writer replied : "You see, imbecile, I exist."

[gwhite]

"Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man". Francis Bacon.

[covingtoncat73]

"Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
"The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'
"'But,' says Man, 'the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'
"'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"'Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
"Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his bestselling book, Well That about Wraps It Up for God.

~Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[Justin Thyme]

Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. –Jesus

[covingtoncat73]

“And, while we’re on the subject, aluminium is spelled with two i’s, not one, although actually your American spelling is arguably the more correct since that’s the one that the British inventor Humphry Davy adopted for it in 1808, although you’re still wrong about changing words ending in –re (centre, spectre) to –er. In fact, even words like minister, monster, and November used to be spelled with an –re at one point, so it’s no use arguing. And it’s pronounced “Wooster” sauce although it’s spelled Worcestershire. Don’t ask me why. I’m Irish.”
― John Connolly, The Creeps

[astrangerhere]

The Fourth Amendment does not require the posting of a 24-hour guard to preserve an expectation of privacy.

Supreme Court Justice William Brennan in his colorful dissent in United States v Dunn 480 US 294 (1987)

Wonder if ole William is rolling in his grave right about now.

[covingtoncat73]

“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

[bfisher]

"God, I'm bored"
supposedly St. John Philby's last words.

[bfisher]

"Another damned thick book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh, Mr. Gibbon?"
Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh

[gmw]

“That’s what peace is, right? Postponing the conflict until the thing you were fighting over doesn’t matter.”
-- James S. A. Corey, Drive (Short story from Edge of Infinity, 2012).

[bfisher]

Martha, the last known passenger pigeon, died 100 years ago today (1 PM, Sept 1, 1914) at the Cincinnati Zoo.

"The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived, though its first material expression be destroyed; a vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer; but when the last individual of a race of living beings breathes no more, another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again." -- William Beebe, The Bird

"Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal." - E.O.Wilson

[WT Sharpe]

....."Whom are you?" he asked, for he had been to Business College.
..........— George Ade (1866-1944), US dramatist & humorist. "The Steel Box" (1898) from Bang! Bang! (1929).

[covingtoncat73]

David Mitchell, man. His prose makes me swoon. I had his latest, The Bone Clocks, delivered to my Kindle last night via pre-order and I caught a review of it in The Guardian by no less than Ursula K. Le Guin. Ah, me! The quote she highlights...


" … a west window offers a view over
one mile or a hundred miles of dunes,
up to the High Ridge and the Light of
Day. Holly follows me. "See up there?"
I tell her. "That's where we're from."
"Then all those little pale lights,"
whispers Holly, "crossing the sand,
they're souls?"
"Yes. Thousands and thousands,
at any given time." We walk over to
the eastern window, where an inexact
distance of dunes rolls down through
darkening twilight to the Last Sea.
"And that's where they're bound."
We watch the little lights enter the
starless extremity and go out, one
by one by one." ~ From The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

/H.R. should seriously provide "reading days." I'll suggest it.

[Pulpmeister]

the octopus s secret wish
is not to be a formal fish
he dreams that some time he may grow
another set of legs or so
and be a broadway music show

Don Marquis, archy and mehitabel (1927)

[WT Sharpe]

.....A belief is not true because it is useful.
..........— Henri Frederic Amiel (1821-1881), Amiel's Journal 1849-1872, November 15, 1876.