Sayings & Quotes

[Lilith7]

ÔÇ£There is no quiet place in the white man's cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring, or the rustle of an insect's wings. But perhaps it is because I am a savage and do not understand. The clatter only seems to insult the ears.ÔÇØ

Chief Seattle

ÔÇ£If fate doesnÔÇÖt make you laugh, then you just donÔÇÖt get the joke.ÔÇØ
Gregory David Roberts

ÔÇ£If there is anything that links the human to the divine, it is the courage to stand by a principle when everybody else rejects it.ÔÇØ
Abraham Lincoln

ÔÇ£A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.ÔÇØ
Albert Einstein

[Lilith7]

ÔÇ£Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.ÔÇØ
Howard Zinn

ÔÇ£Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.ÔÇØ
Mahatma Gandhi

"A baby is a loud noise at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."
Ronald Knox

"People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one "
Leo J. Burke

[Lilith7]

"Make no mistake about why these babies are here - they are here to replace us."
Jerry Seinfeld


"Having a baby changes the way you view your in-laws. I love it when they come to visit now. They can hold the baby and I can go out."
Matthew Broderick

"You spend the first 2 years of their life teaching them to walk and talk. Then you spend the next 16 years telling them to sit down and shut up."
Anonymous

"Before I got married, I had six theories about bringing up children. Now, I have six children and no theories."
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

[Lilith7]

"The one thing children wear out faster than shoes is parents."
John J. Plomp

"If your kids are giving you a headache, follow the directions on the aspirin bottle, especially the part that says "keep away from children"
Susan Savannah

"Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective."
P J O'Rourke


"There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, employ someone to do it, or forbid your children from doing it."
Monta Crane

"You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance."
Franklin P. Jones


"The secret of dealing successfully with a child is not to be its parent."
Mel Lazarus

"Children are a great comfort in your old age. And they help you reach it faster, too."
Lionel Kaufman

"Never have children, only grandchildren."
Gore Vidal


"Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home."
Phyllis Diller

[Lilith7]

"Nature gives us twelve years to develop a love for our children before turning them into teenagers."
William Galvin (paraphrased)

"Adolescence is a period of rapid changes. Between the ages of 12 and 17, for example, a parent ages as much as 20 years."
Anonymous

"A teenager is always too tired to hold a dishcloth, but never too tired to hold a phone."
Anon

"There is nothing wrong with today's teenager that twenty years won't cure."
Anon

"Women grow radical with age. One day an army of grey haired woman may quietly take over the earth."
Gloria Steinem

[Lilith7]

ÔÇ£The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.ÔÇØ
Paul Farmer

ÔÇ£People of humour are always in some degree people of geniusÔÇØ
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"Strong people donÔÇÖt put others down. They lift them up."
Darth Vader, philanthropist.

"We must learn to live together as brothers & sisters. Or perish together as fools."
Martin Luther King


ÔÇ£No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark. You only run for the border when you see the whole city running as well.ÔÇØ
Warsan Shire


"Caution: when someone says get a grip, apparently around their neck is NOT what they mean."
Anon

[Lilith7]

"Take care of our children. Take care what they hear, take care what they see, take care of what they feel. For how the children grow, so will be the shape of Aotearoa."
Dame Whina Cooper

ÔÇ£However this war may end, we have won the war against you; none of you will be left to bear witness, but even if someone were to survive, the world would not believe him. There will perhaps be suspicions, discussions, research by historians, but there will be no certainties, because we will destroy the evidence together with you. And even if some proof should remain & some of you survive, people will say that the events you describe are too monstrous to be believed: they will say that they are the exaggerations of Allied propaganda & will believe us, who will deny everything, & not you. We will be the ones to dictate the history of the Lagers.ÔÇØ
SS officer, quoted in The drowned & the saved, by Primo Levi

ÔÇ£Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it. Rejection of human solidarity, obtuse and cynical indifference to the suffering of others, abdication of the intellect and of moral sense to the principle of authority, and above all, at the root of everything, a sweeping tide of cowardice, a colossal cowardice which masks itself as warring virtue, love of country and faith in an idea.ÔÇØ
Primo Levi



'ThereÔÇÖs nothing scarier than that split second in the shower when you lose your balance & think ÔÇÿoh god theyÔÇÖre going to find me naked!ÔÇÖ
Anon

[Lilith7]

ÔÇ£I am constantly amazed by man's inhumanity to man.ÔÇØ

ÔÇ£An enemy who sees the error of his ways ceases to be an enemy.ÔÇØ

ÔÇ£We cannot understand [Fascism], but we can and must understand from where it springs, and we must be on our guard...because what happened can happen again...For this reason, it is everyone's duty to reflect on what happened.ÔÇØ

ÔÇ£No one must leave here and so carry to the world, together with the sign impressed on his skin, the evil tidings of what man's presumption made of man in Auschwitz.ÔÇØ
Primo Levi

[Lilith7]

ÔÇ£The world is not facing a clash of civilizations or cultures, but a clash between those who want to build bridges & those who would rather see the world in polarities, who are working hard to spread hatred & divide us.ÔÇØ
Souad Mekhennet

"When Theresa May made her first party conference speech as Prime Minister, she said that if you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere.
It is worth noting that, in Germany in 1933, someone said ÔÇ£It is a small rootless, international clique that is turning the people against each other ÔÇô that does not want them to have peace. It is people who are at home both nowhere & everywhere ÔÇô who do not have anywhere a soil on which they have grown up.ÔÇØ
That person was Adolf Hitler."
Stella Creasy


Excessive pride or self-confidence. - Or as Bertie Wooster put it
"IÔÇÖm not absolutely certain of my facts, but I rather fancy itÔÇÖs Shakespeare ÔÇô or, if not, itÔÇÖs some equally brainy lad ÔÇô who says that itÔÇÖs always just when a chappie is feeling particularly top-hole, and more than usually braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with a bit of lead piping.ÔÇØ
Bertie Wooster

"Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear, or an idiot from any direction."
Anon

[Lilith7]

ÔÇ£Plate sin with gold
And the strong lance of justice hurtles breaks.
Arm it in rags a pygmyÔÇÖs straw doth pierce it.ÔÇØ
Shakespeare, King Lear.

ÔÇ£More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.ÔÇØ
George Eliot

ÔÇ£Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
Martin Luther King


Question: How would you like to die?
Walter Cronkite: "In my sleep after celebrating the outbreak of permanent world peace."
Walter Cronkite

[Lilith7]

"If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help someone else."
Chinese Proverb


"Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city."
George Burns


ÔÇ£Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate of people other than your own comes first.ÔÇØ
Charles de Gaulle

ÔÇ£The press are not the enemy of the people. They are almost all we have to make those we elected answerable to those who elected them.ÔÇØ
Sam Neill

[Lilith7]

"Our job is to love others without stopping to enquire whether or not theyÔÇÖre worthy."
Thomas Merton

ÔÇ£Is feminism a good thing?ÔÇØ
Yes it is, because men are not higher than women & women are not higher than men.ÔÇØ
Irish schoolgirl from Dublin, replying to question from Russell Howard.


ÔÇ£A well read woman is a dangerous creature.ÔÇØ
Lisa Kleypas


ÔÇ£Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing.ÔÇØ
Sir Ralph Richardson


ÔÇ£Is there a better feeling than the sadness of finishing a good book?ÔÇØ
Jonny Geller

[Lilith7]

ÔÇ£I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.ÔÇØ

ÔÇ£Every man I meet wants to protect me. I can't figure out what from.ÔÇØ

ÔÇ£Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.ÔÇØ


ÔÇ£When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better. ÔÇØ

ÔÇ£I'll try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure.ÔÇØ

ÔÇ£Marriage is a fine institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.ÔÇØ

ÔÇ£It's not the men in your life that matters, it's the life in your men.ÔÇØ

ÔÇ£Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often.ÔÇØ
Mae West

[Lilith7]

"Being on the internet doesn't necessarily mean it is true. "
Abraham Lincoln


"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind donÔÇÖt matter and those who matter donÔÇÖt mind."
Dr Seuss


ÔÇ£Everyone has the right to believe anything they want.
And everyone else has the right to find it f***ing ridiculous.ÔÇØ
Ricky Gervais

For the week ahead
"May you practise patience, forgiveness, or failing that, silence.
May you ignore nonsense & provocation.
May your coffee, your resolve, & your wifi be strong & may you face your challenges with humour, grace, & chocolate when necessary.
And always, may you notice the small moments of beauty."
Facebook

[Lilith7]

ÔÇ£Most of my contemporaries at school entered the World of Business, the logical destiny of bores.ÔÇØ

"If you have to explain satire to someone, you might as well give up."

"This double chin was grafted on to me, in Brazil. It belonged to Elizabeth Taylor. It was her left love handle."

"There is no more terrible fate for a comedian than to be taken seriously."

ÔÇ£Sex is the most beautiful thing that can take place between a happily married man and his secretary.ÔÇØ

ÔÇ£Australia is a country of thirty thousand million sheep, three million of whom think they are human.ÔÇØ*
*May have been slightly altered. Possibly.
Barry Humphries/Dame Edna Everage

[Lilith7]

"Some people find fault like thereÔÇÖs a reward for it."
Anon


ÔÇ£Toughest job I ever had, selling doors door to door.ÔÇØ
Bill Bailey


ÔÇ£Where thereÔÇÖs a will, thereÔÇÖs a relative.ÔÇØ
Ricky Gervais

"Peace first. Humanity first.
Kindness first.
Decisions come easily then."
Anon


"I asked god for a bike & then stole one & asked for forgiveness instead."
Al Pacino

[Lilith7]

"The Ten Rules For Being Human

Rule One ÔÇô You will receive a body.
You may love it or hate it, but it will be yours for the duration of your life on Earth.

Rule Two ÔÇô You will be presented with lessons.
You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called ÔÇ£lifeÔÇØ. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or hate them, but you have designed them as part of your curriculum.

Rule Three ÔÇô There are no mistakes, only lessons.
Growth is a process of experimentation, a series of trials, errors and occasional victories. The failed experiments are as much as a part of the process as the experiments that work.

Rule Four ÔÇô The lesson is repeated until learned.
Lessons will be repeated to you in various forms until you have learned them. When you have learned them, you can go on to the next lesson.

Rule Five ÔÇô Learning does not end.
There is no part of life that does not contain lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

Rule Six ÔÇô ÔÇ£ThereÔÇØ is no better than ÔÇ£hereÔÇØ.
When your ÔÇ£thereÔÇØ has become ÔÇ£hereÔÇØ you will simply obtain another ÔÇ£thereÔÇØ that will look better to you than your present ÔÇ£hereÔÇØ.

Rule Seven ÔÇô Others are only mirrors of you.
You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.

Rule Eight ÔÇô What you make of your life is up to you.
You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you.

Rule Nine ÔÇô Your answers lie inside of you.
All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

Rule Ten ÔÇô You will forget all this at birth."

Dr. Ch├®rie Carter-Scott

[Lilith7]

Preferred epitaph

"JESUS CHRIST, IS THAT THE TIME ALREADY?"

Failing that, I would like an epitaph in writing so tiny that visitors would have to inch right next to my gravestone to read it. It would say:
"YOUÔÇÖRE STANDING ON MY BALLS."
Billy Connolly


My dad gave $50 bucks to a guy who said he needed medicine for his kids. I told me dad he was probably going to spend the money on alcohol or something, but my Dad said that ÔÇ£Whether he was lying or not says something about HIS character, but hearing someone in need & choosing not to help when I have the means says something about mine.ÔÇØ
I never forget that.
Anon

ÔÇ£Ridiculous yachts and private planes and big limousines wonÔÇÖt make people enjoy life more, and it sends out terrible messages to the people who work for them. It would be so much better if that money was spent in Africa ÔÇô and itÔÇÖs about getting a balance.ÔÇØ
Richard Branson

ÔÇ£The biggest threat to any society is its own young men between the ages of 14 & 24ÔÇØ
Anon

"We are all visitors to this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love....& then we return home."
Australian aborigine proverb

[Lilith7]

ÔÇ£If you wait by the river bank long enough you will see the body of your enemy float byÔÇØ
Sun Tsu

ÔÇ£If thereÔÇÖs a concrete wall in front of you, go through it, go over it, go around it.
But get to the other side of that wall."
Donald Trump in a 2004 speech to college graduates.

Yeah...just like all those refugees tried to, eh Donnie.


"There was a man who stopped me in the street & pointed me out, ÔÇ£My children go to bed with you.ÔÇØ
I told him ÔÇ£Sshh! Please rephrase that.ÔÇØ
Stephen Fry

ÔÇ£Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding.
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos & live in anotherÔÇÖs world.ÔÇØ
Bill Bullard.


"Always help someone. You might be the only one who does."
Anon

"For most of history, Anon has been a woman."
Anon



ÔÇ£We have flown the air like birds
And swum the sea like fishes.
But have yet to learn
The simple act of walking the earth like brothers & sisters.ÔÇØ
Martin Luther King jnr.

[Lilith7]

ÔÇ£We tell ourselves stories in order to live.ÔÇØ
Joan Didion


ÔÇ£Now there are some things in the world we canÔÇÖt change ÔÇô gravity, entropy, the speed of light, the first and second Laws of Thermodynamics, and our biological nature that requires clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy and biodiversity for our health and well being.

Protecting the biosphere should be our highest priority or else we sicken and die. Other things, like capitalism, free enterprise, the economy, currency, the market, are not forces of nature, we invented them. They are not immutable and we can change them. It makes no sense to elevate economics above the biosphere, for example.ÔÇØ

ÔÇ£We are upsetting the atmosphere upon which all life depends. In the late 80s when I began to take climate change seriously, we referred to global warming as a ÔÇÿslow motion catastropheÔÇÖ one we expected to kick in perhaps generations later. Instead, the signs of change have accelerated alarmingly.ÔÇØ

ÔÇ£WeÔÇÖre in a giant car heading towards a brick wall and everyoneÔÇÖs arguing over where theyÔÇÖre going to sit.ÔÇØ

Peopleespecially people in positions of powerhave invested a tremendous amount of effort and time to get to where they are. They really dont want to hear that were on the wrong path, that weve got to shift gears and start thinking differently.

David Suzuki


ÔÇ£Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: scepticism.ÔÇØ

ÔÇ£An educational system isnÔÇÖt worth a great deal if it teaches young people how to make a living but doesnÔÇÖt teach them how to make a life.ÔÇØ

ÔÇ£The human brain now holds the key to our future. We have to recall the image of the planet from outer space: a single entity in which air, water, and continents are interconnected. That is our home.ÔÇØ
David Suzuki