Random Quotes, Fables, Tall Tales and Proverbs…keep posting.

[Summerflyte]

This Thread was created to see if all of us together could finds as many Quotes, Fables, Tall Tales or Proverbs as we can. You must list its origin, and in the case of Quotes, the author and where it was quoted from.

I’ll start off with:

The reading of all good books is like a conversation
with the finest men of past centuries.
Le Discours de la method
by Rene Descartes

AND

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re done reading
it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and
you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.
The Catcher in the Rye
by J. D. Salinger

This is supposed to be a fun exercise, post or don’t it’s totally up to you!

 

[sparkchaser]

A friend shared this and if true is mind-blowing.

I learned that while man has taught gorillas to talk using sign language and has communicated with them, no gorilla has ever made a single inquiry. In other words, they will answer questions and respond to conversations, but they have never asked a question to anyone who talks to them, meaning that they don't know that other beings have different thoughts than them, and may know things that they don't. As far as they know, what they know, is all every other being knows.

Google searches have neither confirmed nor denied this.

Edit: of course, this whole notion presupposes that the gorillas are indeed communicating and not throwing off random symbols.

 

[Summerflyte]

Wow, that's mind blowing, wonder what they think about all day...

His Spear Against His Shield

A man of the state of Chu had a spear and a shield for sale. He was loud in praises of his shield.
"My shield is so strong that nothing can pierce it through." He also sang praises of his spear.
"My spear is so strong that it can pierce through anything."
"What would happen," he was asked, "if your spear is used to pierce your shield?"
It is impossible for an impenetrable shield to coexist with a spear that finds nothing impenetrable.

Chinese Fable

 

[Peder]

Congratulations on a new idea for a thread. :flowers:

Well begun is half done - Aristotle's Politics, per Google.

 

[pontalba]

Well, this kinda falls into this category...

"Only a Vulcan mind meld would be effective on this Congress. LLAP,"

by Leonard Nimoy aka Mr. Spock

Here is the article.Beam me up, Yoda: Obama flubs 'Star Trek' term

 

[Summerflyte]

:

With affection beaming in one eye,
and calculation shining out of the other.

Martin Chuzzlewit
by Charles Dickens

 

[PrincessFiona60]

“When you’re a 50 year old woman, no one really bothers to look at you anymore, much less value your opinion. It’s hard on the old ego. But damn, it does make it easy to get away with a lot.”
Gemma Hamerton
“The Keepsake,” by Tess Gerritsen

 

[Sneezy]

Excellent thread idea.

"Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can?" - Sun Tzu

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Once you can accept the universe
as matter expanding into nothing
that is something, wearing stripes
with plaid comes easy.
Albert Einstein

 

[Sneezy]

"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology." -Carl Sagan

 

[Summerflyte]

Thanks all, thought it might get those creative juices flowing, all the books I've read lately have at least a few quotes in them somewhere... just looked like a good concept.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
It’s loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness.

Endymion
by John Keats

 

[Summerflyte]

 

[Landslide]

"Once you've arrived at the end of the world, it hardly matters which route you took."

Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies

 

[PrincessFiona60]

"Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"
~~Kurt Vonnegut

 

[Sneezy]

"If anything at all is a certainty it is that I myself am not a Marxist." -Karl Marx

 

[Summerflyte]

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.
I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.

Travel’s with a Donkey
by Robert Louis Stevenson

 

[PrincessFiona60]

"One day some people came to the master and asked 'How can you be happy in a world of such impermanence, where you cannot protect your loved ones from harm, illness and death?' The master held up a glass and said 'Someone gave me this glass, and I really like this glass. It holds my water admirably and it glistens in the sunlight. I touch it and it rings! One day the wind may blow it off the shelf, or my elbow may knock it from the table. I know this glass is already broken, so I enjoy it incredibly.'"
~~Achaan Chah Subato, Thai meditation master

 

[Summerflyte]

@PrincessFiona60: I really liked that Quote.

To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

Auguries of Innocence
by William Blake

 

[Hedwig]

Awww, that Blake quote is so beautiful!

My most recent favourite is this:

The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.
(John Greenleaf Whittier, My Psalm)

 

[Summerflyte]

Nice

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night; But ah, my foes,
and oh my friends – It gives a lovely light!

A Few Figs from Thistles, ‘First Fig’
by Edna St Vincent Millay