Your favorite Quotes and why!! From real people.

So this is a thread to see for fun what the people of ATS find to be their favorite quotes for whatever reason whether it be for
inspiration, motivation or just because you like it. Please put the quote and author.

I will start:

"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet"
-Retiring General 'Mad Dog' James Mattis

I always find Bruce Lee to be quite inspiring and thought promoting. A lot of people don't know he loved and studied philosophy.

~ Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.
Bruce Lee

~ A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.
Bruce Lee

~ Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.
Bruce Lee

~ A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.
Bruce Lee

"Eppur Si Muove"

Galileo Galilei

And yet it moves" or "Albeit It does move" (Italian: Eppur si muove; [epˈpur si ˈmwɔːve]) is a phrase said to have been uttered before the Inquisition by the Italian mathematician, physicist and philosopher Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) in 1633 after being forced to recant his claims that the Earth moves around the Sun rather than the converse. In this context, the implication of the phrase is: despite this recantation, the Church's proclamations to the contrary, or any other conviction or doctrine of men, the Earth does, in fact, move around the sun, and not vice versa. As such, the phrase is used today as a sort of pithy retort implying that "it doesn't matter what you believe or what I say; these are the facts".

www.ask.com...

a reply to: Illumin

Interesting! I'll have to reference that extensively on ATS

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”

Hunter S Thompson

1 in 4 ain't bad....

a reply to: projectbane

" A drunk will steal your wallet and feel like crap about it. A addict will steal your wallet and help you look for it."

Versions of that have been around for quite a while. But if you look it up it's credited to Raylan Givens Justified.

a reply to: projectbane

Thanks for this opportunity, bane. I'll bump this gladly.
My two favorites---EDIT: I'm sorry DaVinci HAS to go too..

"Our mind is of 3 categories: what we know, what we don’t know,
and what we don’t know we don’t know. Not knowing is unfortunate;
not knowing that we don’t know is tragic." – W. Erhart.

"There are four boxes to use in the defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order." Ed Howdershelt

"It's better to set your goal too high and not achieve it
than too low and make it." L.D.

One of my new favorites:

"It's easier to get lucky when you're good."

-- "Dr. Dave" billiard instructor

“You must have a cigarette. A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?”

Oscar Wilde

I like this one because I am a smoker and I always say it when people give me a hard time for smoking.

a reply to: projectbane


I have NO clue who authored these but I have always loved them:

These two for humor:

" It's better to be pissed off than pissed on."

"If you truly love something, set it free; if it returns to you it's yours forever; if not....hunt it down and shoot it!"

and finally,

"A bird and a fish may fall in love, but where would they build their home?"

a reply to: projectbane

“I must not fear, fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear, I will permit it to pass over me and through me and when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing, only I will remain.” - Frank Herbert, Dune

ETA: Reminds me of some nasty situations and how I sort of dealt with them.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... Time to die." Roy Batty's Tears In Rain Monologue from Bladerunner

ETA: Reminds me of some of the black budget work I did ;-)

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” - Ernest Hemingway

ETA: It's so true

"Anything that is not expressly forbidden by Nature is compulsory. " - Richard Feynman

ETA: Just because ;-)

Cheers - Dave

"We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way." General George S Patton

the only time you care about breathing is when you cant

I'm paraphrasing here but a life changing quote for me, and one everyone should follow...

"Never fight a battle with nothing to win."


The art of war by sun tzu

a reply to: projectbane

"I've learned .... That just one person saying to me, 'You've made my day!' makes my day."

You give them an inch and they will take a mile. I don't know where I got that one from, but that sure does work in wars.

From my baby mama:


If your not screwing me, then your screwing someone.

Even when we were fighting she still did me at least once a week. Arguably her best quality! :p

a reply to: DrakeINFERNO

That Reminds me of:

"Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone."~~Mary Schmich

I changed my mind. This is a speech but it is also a quote. The speech is so hauntingly true you can't help but feel the pain.

"Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before, I have it in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our Chiefs are killed; Looking Glass is dead, Ta Hool Hool Shute is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led on the young men is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets; the little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are - perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my Chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever."

Chief Joseph Nez Perce 1877

a reply to: projectbane

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind"

"There are many causes that I am prepared to die for, but no causes that I am prepared to kill for."

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

"If we have no charity and no tolerance, we shall never settle our differences."

"Terrorism and deception are weapons not of the strong but of the weak."

Said by: Mahatma Gandhi

Why do I like these quotes... because of the truths spoken.