"Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?" George Carlin
"Rather than revering supposedly special people for being Buddhas, we should revere the Buddha present in all people, whenever and wherever it manifests." Brad Warner, Don't Be a Jerk and Other Practical Advice From Dogen, Japan's Greatest Zen Master (p. 42). That's a hard one to follow sometimes.
I agree with that, but I find this quotation motivating me more to try and see that Buddha nature, which, presumably, is in everyone.
Sometimes suffering activates it. “Compassion is born from understanding suffering. We all should learn to embrace our own suffering, to listen to it deeply, and to have a deep look into its nature.” ― Thích Nhất Hạnh, The Art of Communicating
" If this is coffee, please bring me tea; but if this is tea, please bring me coffee."- Abraham Lincoln.
That came from the 70 maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries from the web comic Schlock Mercenary. The author got sued by the authors of the 7 habits of highly effective people, iirc, for copyright infringement. Edit corrected web comic name
I highly doubt anyone would confuse the "7 habits" with the "70 maxims". IIRC, this sort of thing is covered under parody. I hope the lawsuit was thrown out of court by a judge with a sense of humour. Anyway ... here's a quote from Moshe Dayan (1915-81), Israeli military leader and politician who famously lost his left eye. (This happened in 1941, when - as a volunteer with an Australian infantry division - he fought the Vichy army in Syria. During this period, he was looking through binoculars that were struck by a sniper). At any rate, Dayan was driving a jeep one day and was stopped by an MP (Military Police), who told him he was going too fast. Dayan wasn't impressed. "I only have one eye," he argued. "What do you want me to watch - the road or the speedometer?"
"Edith was a little country bounded on the north, south, east, and west by Edith." Martha Ostenso. I'd love to find the specific source for this quotation, but the closest I can get is that she was a Norwegian-born Canadian novelist. I suspect it's from The Wild Geese but I've never read it.
"This idea of a 'writing career' which begins somewhere and ends somewhere is also a beautifully stupid fiction. . . . And I don't feel that my days as a writer are over. I don't care where they are. The point is that I must stop trying to adjust myself to the fact that night will come and the work will end. So night comes? Then what? You sit in the dark. What is wrong with that? Meanwhile it is time to give to others whatever I have to give and not reflect on it." Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.
“I loved it when Bush came out and said, 'We are losing the war against drugs.' You know what that implies? There's a war being fought, and the people on drugs are winning it.” ― Bill Hicks (P.S. The Bush being referred to is George Bush Sr.)
"Wasn't it St Francis of Assisi himself who said, 'Never give a sucker an even break'?" --- Rimmer, Red Dwarf
Literature was born not the day when a boy crying wolf, wolf came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big gray wolf at his heels: literature was born on the day when a boy came crying wolf, wolf and there was no wolf behind him. Vladimir Nabakov
For anyone wondering, it was W. C. Fields. (But close enough, Rimmer). ============ “In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.” ― Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies
“Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.” -- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. (Douglas Adams)
“You’re an egomaniac, he’s a narcissist,” Mr Minc said he once told Nicolas Sarkozy regarding Mr Macron. The difference is that “the egocentric needs others. Narcissus is alone”.
I've linked to the Telegraph article, but it doesn't have a precise source for that quote. The context of the article is the intractible crisis in the 5th republic. Fun French facts: Since the revolution France has had 16 constitutions, 2 emperors, 3 kings and 5 republics. Slow down chaps!
