Post by Neo Queen Serenity on Dec 19, 2008 1:12:11 GMT -5
(Here are Neo Queen Serenity's collection of favorite quotes, lyrics, and passages that give her inspiration. Feel free to comment! Usagi's remarks are written in red)
"Pay no attention to what the critics say... Remember, a statue has never been set up in honor of a critic!" --Jean Sibelius
"Criticism is prejudice made plausible." --H. L. Mencken
"How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct." --Benjamin Disraeli
"Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation." --George Washington
"With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plea; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost." --William Lloyd Garrison
"To do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in, and scramble through as well as we can." --Sydney Smith
"It is worse still to be ignorant of your ignorance." --Saint Jerome
"Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die." --Carrie Fisher
"Read not books alone, but men, and amongst them chiefly thyself. If thou find anything questionable there, use the commentary of a severe friend rather than the gloss of a sweet lipped flatterer; there is more profit in a distasteful truth than in deceitful sweetness." --Francis Quarles
"Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made." --Otto von Bismarck Seriously, this guy had it right on the money. I've learned from experience that making laws is a very savage, messy, altogether unpleasant affair, that turns politicians into procedural cannibals-- though sometimes it's amusing to watch them quibble over commas for hours...
"I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance." --William Faulkner
"The truth is that there is nothing noble in being superior to somebody else. The only real nobility is in being superior to your former self." --Whitney Young
"Hallow the body as a temple to comeliness and sanctify the heart as a sacrifice to love; love recompenses the adorers." --Kahlil Gibran
"There is but one rule of conduct for a man to do the right thing. The cost may be dear in money, in friends, in influence, in labor, in a prolonged and painful sacrifice, but the cost not to do right is far more dear: You pay in the integrity of your manhood, in your honor, in strength of character; and, for a timely gain, you barter the infinite." --Archer G. Jones
"Never allow anyone to rain on your parade and thus cast a pall of gloom and defeat on the entire day. Remember that no talent, no self-denial, no brains, no character, are required to set up in the fault-finding business. Nothing external can have any power over you unless you permit it. Your time is too precious to be sacrificed in wasted days combating the menial forces of hate, jealously, and envy. Guard your fragile life carefully. Only God can shape a flower, but any foolish child can pull it to pieces." -- Og Mandino
"The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value. Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice - which means: self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction - which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good." --Ayn Rand
more to come...
"Pay no attention to what the critics say... Remember, a statue has never been set up in honor of a critic!" --Jean Sibelius
"Criticism is prejudice made plausible." --H. L. Mencken
"How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct." --Benjamin Disraeli
"Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation." --George Washington
"With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plea; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost." --William Lloyd Garrison
"To do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in, and scramble through as well as we can." --Sydney Smith
"It is worse still to be ignorant of your ignorance." --Saint Jerome
"Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die." --Carrie Fisher
"Read not books alone, but men, and amongst them chiefly thyself. If thou find anything questionable there, use the commentary of a severe friend rather than the gloss of a sweet lipped flatterer; there is more profit in a distasteful truth than in deceitful sweetness." --Francis Quarles
"Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made." --Otto von Bismarck Seriously, this guy had it right on the money. I've learned from experience that making laws is a very savage, messy, altogether unpleasant affair, that turns politicians into procedural cannibals-- though sometimes it's amusing to watch them quibble over commas for hours...
"I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance." --William Faulkner
"The truth is that there is nothing noble in being superior to somebody else. The only real nobility is in being superior to your former self." --Whitney Young
"Hallow the body as a temple to comeliness and sanctify the heart as a sacrifice to love; love recompenses the adorers." --Kahlil Gibran
"There is but one rule of conduct for a man to do the right thing. The cost may be dear in money, in friends, in influence, in labor, in a prolonged and painful sacrifice, but the cost not to do right is far more dear: You pay in the integrity of your manhood, in your honor, in strength of character; and, for a timely gain, you barter the infinite." --Archer G. Jones
"Never allow anyone to rain on your parade and thus cast a pall of gloom and defeat on the entire day. Remember that no talent, no self-denial, no brains, no character, are required to set up in the fault-finding business. Nothing external can have any power over you unless you permit it. Your time is too precious to be sacrificed in wasted days combating the menial forces of hate, jealously, and envy. Guard your fragile life carefully. Only God can shape a flower, but any foolish child can pull it to pieces." -- Og Mandino
"I remember: it happened yesterday, or eternities ago. A young Jewish boy discovered the Kingdom of Night. I remember his bewilderment, I remember his anguish. It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.
I remember he asked his father: "Can this be true? This is the twentieth century, not the Middle Ages. Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent?"
And now the boy is turning to me. "Tell me," he asks, "what have you done with my future, what have you done with your life?" And I tell him that I have tried. That I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.
And then I explain to him how naïve we were, that the world did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe." -- Elie Wiesel (We had to read Night for Peace & Conflict studies... I spent hours crying over that book.
"The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value. Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice - which means: self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction - which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good." --Ayn Rand
more to come...
