Misc Sayings/Aphorisms/Jokes? IV

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, _Last Chance to See_

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. -- Heraclitas

But as he knew no bad language, he had called him all the names of common objects that he could think of, and had screamed: "You lamp!  You towel! You plate!" and so on. -- Sigmund Freud

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it---and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid.  She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again---and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore. -- Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens, American Writer, 1835-1910)

Half of the people in the world are below average.

There's so much comedy on television.  Does that cause comedy in the streets? -- Dick Cavett, mocking the TV-violence debate

The hypothalamus is one of the most important parts of the brain, involved in many kinds of motivation, among other functions.  The hypothalamus controls the "Four F's":  1. fighting;  2. fleeing;  3.feeding; and  4. mating. -- Psychology professor in neuropsychology intro course

It is possible for your mind to be so open that your brain falls out.

The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?"  The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?" The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?" The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

Women's creed: Men are like linoleum.  If you lay them right the first time, you can walk on them for 20 years.

Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer sex raises some pretty good questions. -- Woody Allen

Bigamy is having one husband or wife too many.  Monogamy is the same.

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
- - - Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator, 1890

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought, and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.
- - - Oliver Wendell Holmes, opinion, Towne v. Eisner, January 7, 1918

Somewhere there was once a Flower, a Stone, a Crystal, a Queen, a King, a Palace, a Lover and his Beloved, and this was long ago, on an Island somewhere in the ocean 5,000 years ago....Such is Love, the Mystic Flower of the Soul. This is the Center, the Self.
- - - Carl Jung

There are some people who read too much: The bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as others are drunk on whiskey or religion. They wander through this most diverting and stimulating of worlds in a haze, seeing nothing and hearing nothing.
- - - H. L. Mencken

I don't understand this scandal about nicotine in cigarettes. What did we think they were full of? Vitamin C and calcium?
- - - - Writer and humorist Fran Lebowitz.

I'll tell you my problem with the situation. Double homicides just don't crack me up the way they used to.
- - - - David Letterman, on why he doesn't do jokes about O.J. Simpson

The brain is like a computer. If a person whacked their computer against the wall hundreds of times, eventually it wouldn't work.
- - - - Dr. Henry Powell, head of the neuropathology department at the University of California-San Diego, on the dangers of boxing.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger . . . or puts you on a talk show.
- - - - Actress Carrie Fisher

I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome things that money can buy.
- - - - Steve Martin

If God created something more beautiful than women he kept it to himself.
- - - - Simone de Beauvoir

Beauty can pierce one like a pain.
- - - - Thomas Mann

The beauty of a strong, lasting commitment is often best understood by a man incapable of it.
- - - - Murray Kempton

Was she so loved because her eyes were so beautiful or were her eyes so beautiful because she was loved?
- - - - Anzia Yezierska

Difficulties are things that show what men are. -- Epictetus, Chap. xxiv.

In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught; but in life there are many things to draw us aside. -- Epictetus, Chap. xxvi.

Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man's task. -- Epictetus, Chap. xxvii.

The appearance of things to the mind is the standard of every action to man. -- Epictetus, That we ought not to be angry with Mankind. Chap. xxviii

The essence of good and evil is a certain disposition of the will.-- Epictetus, Of Courage. Chap. xxix.

It is not reasonings that are wanted now; for there are books stuffed full of stoical reasonings.-- Epictetus, Ibid.

What is the first business of one who studies philosophy? To part with self-conceit. For it is impossible for any one to begin to learn what he thinks that he already knows. -- Epictetus, How to apply general Principles to particular Cases. Chap. xvii.

Things true and evident must of necessity be recognized by those who would contradict them. -- Epictetus, Concerning the Epicureans. Chap. xx.

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do. -- Epictetus, Concerning such as read and dispute ostentatiously. Chap. xxiii

Yet God hath not only granted these faculties, by which we may bear every event without being depressed or broken by it, but like a good prince and a true father, hath placed their exercise above restraint, compulsion, or hindrance, and wholly without our own control. -- Epictetus, Chap. vi.

I am not on this planet to get something done... The things we accomplish are expressions of our purpose. {Paul Williams}

The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along. {Rumi}

The three brick masons. When the first man was asked what he was building, he answered gruffly, without even raising his eyes from his work, "I'm laying bricks." The second man replied, "I'm building a wall." But the third man said enthusiastically and with obvious pride, "I'm building a cathedral."

There is absolutely no substitute for a genuine lack of preparation.

Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.

By the time you can make ends meet, they move the ends.

One-seventh of your life is spent on Mondays.

I distrust all systematizers and I avoid them. The will to a system is a lack of integrity (Nitezsche, TotI,M&A26)

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. (Often attributed to Burke, E.)

Then indecision brings its own delays,
And days are lost lamenting o'er lost day.
'What you can do, or dream you can, begin it;
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. (Fauste/William Murray)

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. (Emerson,SE)

Man did not weave the web of life;
he is merely a strand in it.
Whatever he does to the web,
he does to himself. (Chief Seattle?)

If you think that there is good in everyone, you haven't met everyone.

Philosopy is to the real world as masturbation is to sex. {Karl Marx?}

If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to blame.

This is probably as bad as it can get, but don't count on it.

Suicide is the most sincere form of self criticism.

I have seen the truth and it makes no sense.

Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.

Anything worth fighting for is worth fighting dirty for.

Things are more like they are today than they ever were before.

Someone who thinks logically provides a nice contrast to the real world.

The careful application of terror is also a form of communication.

The facts, although they may be interesting, are irrelevant.

Sometimes too much to drink isn't enough.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Happiness is merely the remission of pain.

You can't tell which way the train went by looking at it's tracks.

There is always one more son-of-a-bitch than you counted on.

Indecision is the key to flexibility.

Progress is our most important product. {Advertising Slogan}

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