This page was filled on November 7, 2001

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable." - Helen Keller

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt

"Why is it, 'A penny for your thoughts,' but, you have to put your two cents in?' Somebody's making a penny." - Steven Wright

"Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?" - George Carlin

"Do not believe those persons who say they have never been jealous. What they mean is that they have never been in love." - Gerald Brenan

"I fear all we have done is awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve" - Admiral Yamamoto (after the attack on Pearl Harbor)

"The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause." - Mark Twain

"Past the seeker as he prayed came the crippled and the beggar and the beaten. And seeing them... he cried, 'Great God, how is it that a loving creator can see such things and yet do nothing about them?'... God said, 'I did do something. I made you.'" - Sufi Teaching

"I think laughter may be a form of courage. As humans we sometimes stand tall and look into the sun and laugh, and I think we are never more brave than when we do that." - Linda Ellerbee

"Let our community of humor accept difference and disagreement without resorting to hatred and terror, even if the larger community cannot." - Jim Rosenberg (stolen from Ruminations)

"When I think of New York, I think of surviving." - Achim Degen

"A hero is one who does what he can." - Romain Rolland

"Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no." - Abraham Joshua Heschel

"If I am not for myself, who is for me?
And if I am only for myself, what am I?
And if not now, when?" - Hillel

"Also, if you keep going through the same vicious cycle with different girls, who do you think is causing the cycle? The women, whom are completely different in every case, or yourself--who hasn't changed or learned anything from his previous encounters." - Arnand (in a conversation with someone over a year ago)

"Sometimes even to live is an act of courage." - Carl Sandburg

"Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either." - Gore Vidal

"If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others." - Tryon Edwards

"The popular idea that a child forgets easily is not an accurate one. Many people go right through life in the grip of an idea which has been impressed on them in very tender years." - Agatha Christie

"I think a great marketing slogan would be 'Corn: The Other White Meat.' Sure, people would be confused, but they'd probably buy corn to find out what all the fuss is about." - Dave Brennan (stolen from Ruminations)

"Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer." - Ed Cunningham

"And yet, when I look up to the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more." - Anne Frank

"We must love them both - those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in the finding of it." - St. Thomas Aquinas

"Life asked you to make measurable progress in reasonable time. That's why they make those fourth grade chairs so small - so you won't fit in them at age twenty-five." - Jim Rohn

"I don't think necessity is the mother of invention -- invention... arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble." - Agatha Christie

"For mere vengeance I would do nothing. This nation is too great to look for mere revenge. But for the security of the future I would do everything." - James Abram Garfield

"The only thing worse than not reading a book in the last ninety days is not reading a book in the last ninety days and thinking that it doesn't matter." - Jim Rohn

"Strength is born in the deep silence of long-suffering hearts; not amid joy." - Felicia D. Hemas

"To keep a fire burning brightly, there's one easy rule: Keep the logs together, near enough to keep warm and far enough apart for breathing room. Good fire, good marriage, same rule." - Marnie Reed Crowel

"The terrorists who wanted 300 million victims are going to get 300 million heroes, 300 million Americans with broken hearts but unbreakable hopes for our country and our future." - Clint Eastwood

"You can't turn back the clock. But you can wind it up again." - Bonnie Prudden

"I would like to learn to play the cello. I would like to paint. I would like to fully understand the concept of pi." - Julia Roberts

"I bet people would like me more if my sense of self-deprecating humor didn't suck so much." - Jenna Morris, (stolen from Ruminations)

"It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded." - W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

"Dancing is healing to the soul, and that's the best thing most of us can be doing right now. Dance until it falls off. I can't guarantee it will prevent war, but then again, I can't guarantee it won't, either. Can you?" - Deepfog

"Most successes are unhappy. That's why they are successes - they have to reassure themselves about themselves by achieving something that the world will notice." - Agatha Christie

"If there is a God, the phrase that must disgust him is -- holy war." - Steve Allen

"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves." - Abraham Lincoln

"Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he isn't. A sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is." - Horace Walpole

"A wise man never knows all, only fools know everything." - African Proverb

"An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and before long the whole world will look like hockey players." - Jim Rosenberg, (stolen from Ruminations)

"My fellow citizens of the world; ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." - John Fitzgerald Kennedy

"The greatest gift you can give to somebody is your own personal development. I used to say, 'If you will take care of me, I will take care of you.' Now I say, 'I will take care of me for you if you will take care of you for me.'" - Jim Rohn

"Bush Sr. Apologizes To Son For Funding Bin Laden In '80s
MIDLAND, TX? Former president George Bush issued an apology to his son Monday for advocating the CIA's mid-'80s funding of Osama bin Laden, who at the time was resisting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 'I'm sorry, son,' Bush told President George W. Bush. 'We thought it was a good idea at the time because he was part of a group fighting communism in Central Asia. We called them "freedom fighters" back then. I know it sounds weird. You sort of had to be there.' Bush is still deliberating over whether to tell his son about the whole supporting-Saddam Hussein-against-Iran thing." - The Onion

"The specialist is a man who fears the other subjects." - Martin H. Fisher

"Many people consider the things government does for them to be social progress but they regard the things government does for others as socialism." - Earl Warren

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin

"People tend to think that life really does progress for everyone eventually, that people progress, but actually only some people progress. The rest of the people don't." - Alice Walker

"If you were in a burning house and there was a cat and a Rembrandt, what would you save? The cat... you would save the cat, because the cat is alive. The art is dead. It's just paint on a canvas, ink on a page. To live for art is to deny life. It's just to destroy life." - Northern Exposure

"The household is going to consume less children." - Prof. Honig

"Motivation alone is not enough. If you have an idiot and you motivate him, now you have a motivated idiot." - Jim Rohn

"Let me tell you one thing I have against Moses. He took us forty years into the desert in order to bring us to the one place in the Middle East that has no oil." - Golda Meir

"The trouble with finding your perfect soulmate is that she would probably want to get married, then four weeks after the wedding you would meet another perfect soulmate, with larger breasts." - James Knowles (stolen from Ruminations)

"The reason that democracies always defeat dictatorships is because they're open to debate. We should never allow Washington to say, 'Shut up, get in line and wave the flag.'" - Ralph Nader

"Now more than ever, that peace sign you carry is going to get you shot at." - Virgo's horoscope in last week's The Onion

"Chris: I'm trying to get closer to my 'woman-ness'.
Eve: Then go out and cut your salary in half." - Northern Exposure

"After a year in therapy, my psychiatrist said to me,`Maybe life isn't for everyone.'" - Larry Brown

"Before a catastrophe, we can't imagine coping with the burdens that might confront us in a dire moment. Then, when that moment arrives, we suddenly find that we have resources inside us that we knew nothing about. What I've discovered is that we are able -- all of us -- to do much more than we think we can." - Christopher Reeve

"You cannot do justice to the dead. When we talk about doing justice to the dead we are talking about retribution for the harm done to them. But retribution and justice are two different things." - William Shawcross

"Wars are not acts of God. They are caused by man, by man-made institutions, by the way in which man has organized his society. What man has made, man can change." - Frederick Moore Vinson

"I never said all actors are cattle, what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle." - Alfred Hitchcock

"The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated." - H.L. Mencken

"People have learned to ignore Web ads that don't move, so lately advertisers are only willing to pay for pop-up ads. Someday, after you learn to ignore pop-up ads too, then the advertisers will have to drive to your house and tattoo ads directly on your body. You'll be nostalgic for the good old days of pop-up ads. Enjoy them while you can." - Scott Adams

"Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it." - Thomas Jefferson

"Someone called actors 'sculptors in snow.' Very apt. In the end, it's all nothing." - Vincent Price

"It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust." - Samuel Johnson

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself." - Harvey Fierstein

"Amy: I just have this feeling if I take pi, well past all this static, take pi to 10 million, 20 million digits, that I'll find something really incredible. Not just a pattern, not just an order, but a sign. A mathematical sign."
Chris: "Like a message from God?" - Northern Exposure

"Oh yeah. I wouldn't kick him out of my cartoon bed for eating cartoon crackers." - Sadie K. (on the lead in the anime movie Vampire Hunter D)

"The New Neighbor: I like to dabble in illegal arms sale... and play the guitar!" - Christian Schumann

"Most people don't know there are angels whose only job is to make sure you don't get too comfortable and fall asleep and miss your life." - Brian Andreas

"It's a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear." - Dick Cavett

"My dream is to someday be a member of the White House press corps and begin every question, 'Riddle me this, Mr. President...'" - Bob Van Voris (stolen from Ruminations)

"The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose." - William Shakespeare

"Since when do you have to agree with people to defend them from injustice?" - Lillian Hellman

"Chase after truth like hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat-tails." - Clarence Darrow

"When you hate, the only one that suffers is you because most of the people you hate don't know it and the rest don't care." - Ghosts of Mississippi

"when you're a kid and you wanna go Weee! but you ain't got drugs yet." - Threebrain.com (I suppose the quote doesn't make much sense out of context, but it makes me happy)

"You're part of the Sup Generation. You say 'Sup?' which is short for 'Wassup?' which is short for 'What's up?' which is short for 'What is up?' Pretty soon it's just going to be 'Sss.'" - Prof. Rutenburg

"The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject." - Marcus Aurelius

"It's time for the human race to enter the solar system." - Dan Quayle

"The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously." - Henry Kissinger

"Think of the great spirits of the last 50 years: Ghandi killed, not by a Pakistani Muslim, but one of his own Hindus, who hated him because he wanted India for the Muslims, the Sikhs, for everybody; Sadat, killed by the organization that Mr. bin Laden's No. 2 heads now, not by an Israeli, but by an Egyptian. My friend Yitzhak Rabin -- after a lifetime defending Israel, killed -- not by a Palestinian terrorist, but an angry Israeli because he wanted to lay down arms and take up peace... Fanatics are defined by their hatreds; free people by their humanity." - Bill Clinton

"A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it... Skepticism is the first step toward truth." - Denis Diderot

"A gentlemen is one who never strikes a woman without provocation." - H.L. Mencken

"If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified in silencing mankind." - John Stuart Mill

"It ain't so much the things you don't know that get you in trouble. It's the things you know that just ain't so." - Artimus Ward

"Unless you're willing to have a go, fail miserably, and have another go, success won't happen." - Phillip Adams

"Too often we give our children answers to remember rather than problems to solve." - Roger Lewin

"If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater... suggest that he wear a tail." - Fran Lebowitz

"When I meet a man I ask myself, 'Is this the man I want my children to spend their weekends with?'" - Rita Rudner

"My girlfriend is weird. She asked me, 'If you could know how and when you were going to die, would you want to know?' I said, 'No.' She said, 'Okay, then forget it.'" - Steven Wright

"I think men talk to women so they can sleep with them and women sleep with men so they can talk to them." - Jay McInerney, Brightness Falls

"Sin is geographical." - Bertrand Russell

"Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim." - George Santayana

"Infidel, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does." - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

"Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong." - John G. Riefenbaker

"It is difficult to picture the great Creator conceiving of a program of one creature (which He has made) using another living creature for purposes of experimentation. There must be other, less cruel ways of obtaining knowledge." - Adlai Stevenson

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