What is your favourite quote?

A favourite oxymoron Microsoft Works - Philadelphia Roof Orchestra

"Oh, my common one
It ain't why
It just is
That's all
That's all there is about it
It just is" - Van Morrison

quote:

Originally posted by Trevp:

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:

quote:

Originally posted by Trevp:
"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence."

Bertrand Russell

Intelligence is an awful lot less valuable than generosity, love, and forgiveness.

ATB from George

You mean like this George?:

"Go up, my warriors, against the land of Merathaim and against the people of Pekod. Yes, march against Babylon, the land of rebels, a land that I will judge! Pursue, kill, and completely destroy them, as I have commanded you," says the LORD. "Let the battle cry be heard in the land, a shout of great destruction". (Jeremiah 50:21-22)

Absolutely not, Russell was speaking of the Gospels [four of them - being Matt, Mark, Luke and John, three of them regarded as synoptic - being Matt, Mark, and Luke], and you will find them in the New Testament, Books One to Four. Russell would have had a field day on the Old Testament, had he chosen to! Fortunately there is a difference! The Isrealite religious history prior to Christ is given in the Old Testament, and the Christian gospel is given in the first four books in the New Testament. Good reading and it would not take you long. There is infinite wisdom to learn in these pages. As Russell seems to suggest, the readers does not need to be very intelligent to benefit from reading and considering the text!

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by Reginald Halliday:
"What the f--- was that?"

The Lord Mayor of Hiroshima.

Reggy,

We don't swear in Japan.

Several HL Mencken quotes:

"Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods. "

"Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another."

"Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right."

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:

quote:

Originally posted by Trevp:

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:

quote:

Originally posted by Trevp:
"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence."

Bertrand Russell

Intelligence is an awful lot less valuable than generosity, love, and forgiveness.

ATB from George

You mean like this George?:

"Go up, my warriors, against the land of Merathaim and against the people of Pekod. Yes, march against Babylon, the land of rebels, a land that I will judge! Pursue, kill, and completely destroy them, as I have commanded you," says the LORD. "Let the battle cry be heard in the land, a shout of great destruction". (Jeremiah 50:21-22)

Absolutely not, Russell was speaking of the Gospels [four of them - being Matt, Mark, Luke and John, three of them regarded as synoptic - being Matt, Mark, and Luke], and you will find them in the New Testament, Books One to Four. Russell would have had a field day on the Old Testament, had he chosen to! Fortunately there is a difference! The Isrealite religious history prior to Christ is given in the Old Testament, and the Christian gospel is given in the first four books in the New Testament. Good reading and it would not take you long. There is infinite wisdom to learn in these pages. As Russell seems to suggest, the readers does not need to be very intelligent to benefit from reading and considering the text!

ATB from George

Hi George,

I am aware that the quote I used was from the Old Testament, but I was not aware that Christians discounted it. After all it is part of the Bible. I have actually read considerable portions of the New Testament and I would dispute that the wisdom therein is infinite. I would not dispute that the qualities of generosity, love and forgiveness are indeed very valuable - but intelligence has also been very important to our development.

Anyway, it's still one of my favourite quotes.

All the best,
Trev

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
Douglas Adams

quote:

Originally posted by Trevp:
Hi George,

I am aware that the quote I used was from the Old Testament, but I was not aware that Christians discounted it. After all it is part of the Bible. I have actually read considerable portions of the New Testament and I would dispute that the wisdom therein is infinite. I would not dispute that the qualities of generosity, love and forgiveness are indeed very valuable - but intelligence has also been very important to our development.

Anyway, it's still one of my favourite quotes.

All the best,
Trev

Dear Trevor,

It has a lovely ring of rhetoric about it, and is similarly powerful to the kind of thing that Churchill would say in his speeches during his first Prime Ministership, but it is well to remember that Christian teachings are based on the Laws [such as the Ten Commandements] of the old Testament, and that these these are occasionally modified by such pearls of wisdom as replacing "eye for an eye" with "turn the other cheek!" Can there be anything more wise than proposing love and peace with one's enamies?

The Isrealite history is not the Gospel, but the back ground from which it springs. Two very different things really.

ATB from George

PS: One of the things about Christianity is its inclusivity. One does not need to be intelligent or talented to gain from it, but the intelligent and talented certain can gain as much those who are less so. One can indeed apply great intelligence to undertanding the teachings of Christianity if one is blessed with the facility, but it is not a pre-requisite.

From the Old Testament, I like two quotations especially:

"Aha!" said the warhorse as he smelt the battle afar off. [chapter and verse not recalled].

And:

"The sound of the Triumph came roaring up the valley!" [again the reference not recalled].

quote:

Originally posted by Trevp:
"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence."

Bertrand Russell

Didn't have a very good memory then... One of the most famous Gospel passages for instance:

"Love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, MIND and strength; and your neighbour as yourself."

Or if you want to go for another obscure bit of the Old Testment, from the Psalms:

"Be not like horse and mule, UNINTELLIGENT, needing bridle and bit."

Etc, etc.

It never ceases to amaze me that some people who otherwise seem quite intelligent seem able to read the Bible (a library of sophisticated texts spanning several centuries), only like children.

quote:

Originally posted by JWM:

quote:

Originally posted by Trevp:
"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence."

Bertrand Russell

Didn't have a very good memory then... One of the most famous Gospel passages for instance:

"Love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, MIND and strength; and your neighbour as yourself."

Or if you want to go for another obscure bit of the Old Testment, from the Psalms:

"Be not like horse and mule, UNINTELLIGENT, needing bridle and bit."

Etc, etc.

It never ceases to amaze me that some people who otherwise seem quite intelligent seem able to read the Bible (a library of sophisticated texts spanning several centuries), only like children.

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" (Psalm 111:10a)

Wisdom is intelligence & knowledge applied.

quote:

Originally posted by DrMark:

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" (Psalm 111:10a)

This explains my stupidity. I can't even begin to become wise.

Let's not hi-jack this thread and turn it into another tedious attack on religion.

quote:

Originally posted by Stephen Tate:
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
Douglas Adams

One of my favourites, although it's not true we're "almost unique" in this regard.

Totally agree Sniper. It's just that the militant athiests simply can't resist hijacking every thread... (Is a blustering quote from the demagogue Hitches REALLY someone's FAVOURITE quotation...??)

If athiests really believe, "there probably is no God, so stop worrying and get on with life" (Cf. famous bus adverts), why can't they? It's all beginning to sound a bit compulsive obsessive.

quote:

Originally posted by Sniper:
Let's not hi-jack this thread and turn it into another tedious attack on religion.

Yes people will agree , but add another strike.

My favourite quote:

growing up is for children

"It makes no difference to the outcome whether you're an optimist or a pessimist. But an optimist enjoys the wait."

My mum, although I think she got it from Eleanor Roosevelt (but I'm not sure).

And a further of Douglas Adam's observations:
"'WWW' is the only abbreviation in the English language that takes three times longer to say than what it's short for"

quote:

Originally posted by JWM:
Totally agree Sniper. It's just that the militant athiests simply can't resist hijacking every thread... (Is a blustering quote from the demagogue Hitches REALLY someone's FAVOURITE quotation...??)

If athiests really believe, "there probably is no God, so stop worrying and get on with life" (Cf. famous bus adverts), why can't they? It's all beginning to sound a bit compulsive obsessive.

It's actually because you believer types are so righteous and complacent, normal people find it intensely irritating.

''Intelligence is an awful lot less valuable than generosity, love, and forgiveness. ''

And george???????

you are clearly one of the most thoughtful and polite fellows here. But sometime you make no sense.

quote:

If athiests really believe, "there probably is no God, so stop worrying and get on with life" (Cf. famous bus adverts), why can't they? It's all beginning to sound a bit compulsive obsessive

I am perfectly prepared to leave the religious alone if only they would stop trying to convert me.

It doesn't matter who you vote for, the Government ALWAYS gets in.

My recent favourite is the increasingly amusing: "I've written a book..."

quote:

Totally agree Sniper. It's just that the militant athiests simply can't resist hijacking every thread... (Is a blustering quote from the demagogue Hitches REALLY someone's FAVOURITE quotation...??)

If athiests really believe, "there probably is no God, so stop worrying and get on with life" (Cf. famous bus adverts), why can't they? It's all beginning to sound a bit compulsive obsessive.

It can't be compulsive or obsessive, James, when you realise the MAJORITY of the people on this planet have some form of supernatural faith. This makes us atheists the minority of critical thinkers.

And I categorically do not accept that anyone of faith is a critical thinker. By definition they cannot be.

"All great discoveries began has heresy" Bertrand Russell

Jon

quote:

And I categorically do not accept that anyone of faith is a critical thinker. By definition they cannot be.

Critical thinking comes to an end somewhere - for all of us. We could not function if it did not.

Which reminds me... some of my favourite quotes come from Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, a heady mixture of philosophical logic in the Frege-Russell tradition, and mysticism. A few random quotes:

quote:

The world is everything that is the case.

The temporal immortality of the human soul, that is to say, its eternal survival after death, is not only in no way guaranteed, but this assumption in the first place will not do for us what we always tried to make it do. Is a riddle solved by the fact that I survive for ever? Is this eternal life not as enigmatic as our present one? The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time.

Death is not an event of life. Death is not lived through.
If by eternity is understood not endless temporal duration but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present.
Our life is endless in the way that our visual field is without limit.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent

I also like this quote from Carl Sagan (on the photograph taken by voyager where the earth was a single pixel):

"The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand."