The quote thread.
RBeckom
Posts: 2,191 ✭✭✭
There are two kinds of Christian morals, one private and the other
public.
These two are so distinct, so unrelated, that they are no more akin to each other than are archangels and politicians.
During three hundred and sixty-three days in the year the American citizen is true to his Christian private morals, and keeps undefiled the nation's character at its best and highest; then in the other two days of the year he leaves his Christian private morals at home and carries his Christian public morals to the tax office and the polls, and does the best he can to damage and undo his whole year's faithful and righteous work.
Without a blush he will vote for an unclean boss if that boss is his party's Moses, without compunction he will vote against the best man in the whole land if he is on the other ticket.
Every year in a number of cities and States he helps put corrupt men in office, whereas if he would but throw away his Christian public morals, and carry his Christian private morals to the polls, he could promptly purify the public service and make the possession of office a high and honorable distinction.
These two are so distinct, so unrelated, that they are no more akin to each other than are archangels and politicians.
During three hundred and sixty-three days in the year the American citizen is true to his Christian private morals, and keeps undefiled the nation's character at its best and highest; then in the other two days of the year he leaves his Christian private morals at home and carries his Christian public morals to the tax office and the polls, and does the best he can to damage and undo his whole year's faithful and righteous work.
Without a blush he will vote for an unclean boss if that boss is his party's Moses, without compunction he will vote against the best man in the whole land if he is on the other ticket.
Every year in a number of cities and States he helps put corrupt men in office, whereas if he would but throw away his Christian public morals, and carry his Christian private morals to the polls, he could promptly purify the public service and make the possession of office a high and honorable distinction.
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I finished his autobiography, Volume 1 last fall, and damn near everything in it still applies today. I remember many comments like the one above. What a mind, voice of American Truth. Those interested should pay special attention to his remarks regarding Jay Gould, and think closely on the phenomenon of todays Neo-Conservative point of view."If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain0
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I've always enjoyed his works. A brilliant mind way ahead of his time, even to the point of being misunderstood in his day.0
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Mark Twain's thoughts on Adam.
Adam was but human--this explains it all.
He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden.
The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.0 -
To be vested with enormous authority is a fine thing, but to have the on-looking world consent to it is a finer.0
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Early last century William James noted that whenever two people meet, there are really six people present.
There is each as he sees himself, each as the other person sees him, and each as he really is. Times two.0 -
I have enjoyed a lot of Mark Twain's work.0
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The better to stay on-topic, comment withdrawn0
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And yet there is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions.
Jane Austen0 -
It hath been often said that it is not death, but dying, which is terrible.
Henry Fielding0 -
We begin to die as soon as we are born, and the end is linked to the beginning. - by Marcus Manilius, Roman poet0
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xmacro:We begin to die as soon as we are born, and the end is linked to the beginning. - by Marcus Manilius, Roman poet
Touche.
Finally A counter quote.0 -
Yet birth, and ****, and illness, and death are changeless things, and when one of these harsh facts springs out upon a man at some sudden turn of the path of life, it dashes off for the moment his mask of civilization and gives a glimpse of the stranger and stronger face below.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle0 -
Long before history began we men have got together apart from the women and done things. We had time.
C.S. Lewis0 -
Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.
Oscar Wilde0 -
The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is What does a woman want? - - Sigmund Freud0
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Women will never be figured out but.....
What are we in the infinite universe?
Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future.
H. G. Wells0 -
Presumptuous Man! the reason wouldst thou find,
Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind?
. . .
So Man, who here seems principal alone,
Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,
Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal:
'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.
Then say not Man's imperfect, Heaven in fault;
Say rather Man's as perfect as he ought;
His knowledge measured to his state and place;
His time a moment, and a point his space:
Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, Epistle I, Verse II0 -
I call for a thread name change, we'll call it, the QUOTE Thread.0
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Nah, leave it. If it needs to change, Dueling quotes is better - the quote that follows needs to reference the one before it0
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phobicsquirrel:I call for a thread name change, we'll call it, the QUOTE Thread.
Here here concider it done good sir.0 -
I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.
F. Scott Fitzgerald0 -
The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation. - Isaac D'Israeli0
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The chief proof of man's real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle0 -
I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance.
Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit, touch it and the bloom is gone.
The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound.
Education produces no effect whatsoever.
If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence.
Oscar Wilde0 -
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that. - George Carlin0
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Remember. Where ever you go. There you are.0
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I love this. I'm using this is my statistics class when we talk about the normal curve.Russ55:Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that. - George Carlin^Troll: DO NOT FEED.0 -
Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back. ? Heraclitus0
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Every one wanted to say so much that no one said anything in particular.
Rudyard Kipling0
