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My
Fave Quotations
(Bess would get mad if I said "My Fave Quotes") Simpsons "This canine has the glossy coat and proud bearing of a Yale man!" --Charles Montgomery Burns (Yale '04), in reference to the coonskin coats worn by Yale men at the turn of the last century. "Oh, I always wanted to be a Teamster! So lazy and surly!" --Homer Simpson "With me, you get more than just a Wharton MBA pulling in $200K... oops, I've just been indicted!" --Ned Flanders's date. "He couldn't find ugly at a Radcliffe mixer" --Charles Montgomery Burns "Clown college" --Sideshow Bob's description of Princeton, his evil brother Cecil's alma mater. "Almost got tenure." --Otto the bus driver, on his teaching career at Brown University "When I was a pup, we got spanked by Presidents till the cows came home. Grover Cleveland spanked me on two nonconsecutive occasions. " --Abraham "Grandpa" Simpson "Thank you, Fat Tony. But in the future, I would prefer my bribes in a non-descript briefcase to the bag with a $$ sign on it." --Diamond Joe Quimby, Mayor of Springfield. "I'm old! Gimme, gimme, gimme!" --Grandpa Simpson, walking into the Social Security Office "What is a wedding? Webster's Dictionary defines 'wedding' as the process of removing weeds from a garden." --Homer Simpson "You know, most people don't know the difference between apple cider and apple juice, but I do. Now here's a little trick to help you remember. If it's clear and yella', you've got juice there, fella! If it's tangy and brown, you're in cider town. " --Ned Flanders "I'll keep it short and sweet. Family, religion, friendship. These are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business. When opportunity knocks, you don't want to be driving to a maternity hospital or sitting in some phony-baloney church. Or synagogue." -- Mr. Burns, guest speaking for Springfield Elementary's Junior Achievers. "Thank you [for this kickback], Fat Tony. However, in the future, I would prefer a nondescript briefcase to the sack with a dollar sign on it." --Diamond Joe Quimby, Mayor of Springfield, to mobster Fat Tony
Life in General "Do not cuss, hollar, pee, or throw up in public places or otherwise call attention to yourself, as it will probably get you in trouble." --Forrest Gump "The [discounted cash flow valuation method] is the granddaddy of all crocks of sh--." --Peter Troob, Monkey Business: Swinging Through the Wall Street Jungle. "Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact." --George Eliot, Impressions of Theoprastus Such, 1879. "Justice to others is charity to ourselves." --Montesquieu, discussion of the Troglodytes in Lettres Parsones, Letter 12, 1721 "You've got to be the Queen of England to get away with a hat like that!" said to the Queen in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1925. "Extreme intelligence is accused of madness, like extreme lack of it. Nothing passes for good except mediocrity." --Blaise Pascal, Pensées.
Politics "Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river." --Nikita Khrushchev, impromptu remark, 1963. "Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are benevolent. . . . The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." --Justice Louis Brandeis, dissenting, Olmstead v. United States, 1928. "However cruel the penalties are in a state, they do not make people more obedient to the law. In countries where punishments are moderate, they are as much feared as where they are despotic and terrible." Montesquieu, Lettres Persanes, Letter LXXX, 1721.
Religion "If there were only one religion in England, there would be danger of despotism; if there were two, they would cut each other's throats; but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness." --Voltaire, English Letters, VI: On the Presbyterians. "[Religious] wars are not produced by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance [held by] the one which believed itself to be dominant." Montesquieu, Lettres Parsanes, Letter LXXXV, 1721. And he spoke to the Pope in these terms: 'Holy Father, you are an antichrist and this is how I prove it to Your Holiness. I call antichrist the man who does the contrary to what Christ did and commanded. Now Christ was poor, and you are very rich; he paid tribute, and you exact tribute; he submitted to the powers that were, and you have become a power yourself; he walked on foot, and you [ride in the Popemobile]; he ate whatever anyone was good enough to give him, and you want us to eat fish on Friday and Saturday, when we live far from sea and river. ... Therefore in this sense Your Holiness is antichrist. In every other sense I hold you in great veneration, and I ask you for an indulgence in articulo mortis.'" --Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, "REASON" "My pastor tells me what to believe and I believe it." --Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Creed of a Savoyard Priest "To what degree of blind dogmatism must one have attained to reject such natural and such convincing arguments?" David Hume, Dialogues on Natural Religion, Pt. III, spoken by Cleanthes during an argument on what became the theory of evolution (this was pre-Darwin). "All these systems, then, of skepticism, polytheism, and theism, you must allow, on your principles, to be on a like footing, and that no one of them has any advantages over the others." Philo, comparing various religions, in David Hume, Dialogues on Natural Religion, Pt. VI "'I also know,' said Candide, 'that we should cultivate our gardens. Let us work without theorizing.'" -Voltaire, Candide, Chapter XXX. |