slug: "quoth"
lang: en
title: "Quotes and other assorted aphorisms"
pageCreated: "2021-03-16"
pageUpdated: "2026-03-06"
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block header
h1 <i>Q</i>uotes and other assorted aphorisms
block content
blockquote.inscription.short
div
p Nothing in excess
p.translation(lang="grc") Μηδὲν ἄγαν
footer One of the maxims inscribed on the forecourt of the temple of #[span.theonym Apollon] in Delphi
blockquote.quote.short
p Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
footer Robert J. Hanlon, as quoted in #[i Murphy’s Law Book Two: More Reasons Why Things Go Wrong] (1980, χπδ´.γ´)
blockquote.quote
p We gaze up at the same stars; the sky covers us all; the same universe encompasses us. What does it matter what wisdom we adopt in our search for truth? So great a mystery cannot be penetrated by a single path.
p.translation(lang="la") Eadem spectámus astra, commúne cœlum est, ídem nós mundus involvit. Quid interest quá quisque prúdentia vérum requírat? Únó itinere nón potest pervenírí ad tam grande sécrétum.
footer Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, opposing the removal of the Altar of #[span.theonym Victoria] (384 #[+sc("CE")], σϟʹ.δʹ)
figure.video
video(src=qua('youropinionman.webm'), controls)
+captions(qua('lebowski.vtt'), 'en', true)
+subs(qua('lebowski_nl.vtt'), 'nl')
figcaption
.credit #[i The Big Lebowski] (1998, χϟδ´.α´), written by Ethan and Joel Coen, performed by Jeff Bridges
details
summary Transcript
p
strong THE DUDE (Mr Bridges):
| Yeah? Well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.
blockquote.quote
p I will assume for the present — until next year — that it is no illusion. My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.
footer William James, writing in his diary (1870, χξβ´.α´)
blockquote.quote
p You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’
footer Edgar Mitchell, lunar module pilot aboard #[i Apollo 14] (1974, χπη´.α´)
figure.video
video(src=qua("abesimpson.webm"), controls)
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figcaption
.credit #[i The Simpsons], series 7, episode 24 “Homerpalooza” (1996, χϟγ´.γ´), written by Brent Forrester, voiced by Dan Castellaneta
details
summary Transcript
p
strong HOMER SIMPSON (Mr Castellaneta):
| You wouldn’t understand, dad. You’re not #[em with it].
p
strong ABE SIMPSON (Mr Castellaneta):
| I used to be with it! But then they changed what “it” was. Now what i’m with isn’t “it”, and what’s “it” seems weird and scary to me. It’ll happen to you!
figure.video
video(src=qua('network.webm'), controls, poster=qua("network_thumb.jpg"))
+captions(qua('network.vtt'), 'en', true)
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figcaption
.credit #[i Network] (1976, χπηʹ.δʹ), written by Paddy Chayefsky, performed by Ned Beatty and Peter Finch
details
summary Transcript
p #[strong ARTHUR JENSEN (Mr Beatty):] You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr Beale, and i won’t have it! Is that clear?
p You think you’ve merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance!
p You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There #[em are] no nations. There #[em are] no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems: one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, roubles, pounds, and shekels.
p It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. #[em That] is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And #[em you] have meddled with the primal forces of nature! And #[em you… will… atone!] (Am i getting through to you, Mr Beale?)
p You get up on your little twenty-one-inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no “America”. There is no “democracy”. There is only #[+sc("IBM")], and #[+sc("ITT")], and #[+sc("AT&T")], and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those #[em are] the nations of the world today.
p What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state? Karl Marx? They get out their linear-programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price–cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business.
p The world is a business, Mr Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr Beale, to see that… #[em perfect] world… in which there’s no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided. All anxieties tranquillised. All boredom amused.
p And i have chosen you, Mr Beale, to preach this evangel.
p #[strong HOWARD BEALE (Mr Finch):] But why me?
p #[strong ARTHUR:] Because you’re on television, dummy.
blockquote.quote
p The university is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas. Thus it permits the freest expression of views before students, trusting to their good sense in passing judgment on these views.
footer Clark Kerr, president of the University of California (1961, χπδ´.δ´)
figure.video
video(src=qua("mib.webm"), controls)
+captions(qua('mib.vtt'), 'en', true)
+subs(qua('mib_nl.vtt'), 'nl')
figcaption
.credit #[i Men in Black] (1997, χϟγ´.δ´), written by Ed Solomon, performed by Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones
details
summary Transcript
p
strong AGENT J (Mr Smith):
| But why the big secret? People are smart; they can handle it.
p
strong AGENT K (Mr Jones):
| A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that people were alone on this planet. [HE SIGHS] Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.
blockquote.book
p #[+sc('There are some dogs')] which, when you meet them, remind you that, despite thousands of years of man-made evolution, every dog is still only two meals away from being a wolf. These dogs advance deliberately, purposefully, the wilderness made flesh, their teeth yellow, their breath a-stink, while in the distance their owners witter, “He’s an old soppy really, just poke him if he's a nuisance,” and in the green of their eyes the red campfires of the Pleistocene gleam and flicker.
footer Neil Gaiman #[i &] Terry Pratchett, #[i Good Omens] (1990, χϟβ´.α´)
blockquote.quote.short
p The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it’s to post the wrong answer.
footer Steven McGeady, paraphrasing Ward Cunningham, inventor of the wiki (2010, χϟζ´.α´)
blockquote.book
p #[+sc('‘I have this plan’,')] Merlin says, ‘that for each formal scientific paper I ever publish, I will also write its dark twin, its underground mirror-piece — the true story of how the data for that cool, tidy hypothesis-evidence-proof paper actually got acquired. I want to write about the happenstance and the shaved bumblebees and the pissing monkeys and the drunken conversations and the fuck-ups that actually bring science into being. This is the frothy, mad network that underlies and interconnects all scientific knowledge — but about which we so rarely say anything.’
footer Robert Macfarlane, #[i Underland] (2019, χϟθ´.β´), pg. 108
blockquote.online
.post.chat
p
strong me holding a gun to a mushroom:
| tell me the name of god you fungal piece of shit
p
strong mushroom:
| can you feel your heart burning? can you feel the struggle within? the fear within me is beyond anything your soul can make. you cannot kill me in a way that matters
p
strong me cocking the gun, tears streaming down my face:
| I’M NOT FUCKING SCARED OF YOU
footer “Personable” on Tumblr (2018, χϟθ´.α´)
figure.video
video(src=qua("eeaao.webm"), controls)
+captions(qua('eeaao_zh.vtt'), 'zh-Hant')
+subs(qua('eeaao_nl.vtt'), 'nl')
figcaption
.credit
i Everything Everywhere All at Once
| (2022, ψ´.α´), written by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, performed by Ke Huy Quan
details
summary Transcript
p
strong WAYMOND WANG (Mr Quan):
| So, even though you have broken my heart yet again,
| i wanted to say…
| In another life,
| i would have really liked just doing laundry and
| taxes with you.
blockquote.quote.short
p A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.
p.translation(lang="yi") אַ שפּראַך איז אַ דיאַלעקט מיט אַן אַרמיי און פֿלאָט
footer Max Weinreich (1945, χπ´.δ´)
blockquote.book.short
p
span.smallcaps The story so far:
| In the beginning the Universe was created.
| This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
footer Douglas Adams,
i The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
| (1980, χπθ´.δ´)
blockquote.quote.short
p I am nothing but a bloody amœba. I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children.
footer Prince Philip, upon learning that the royal family would continue to bear the Windsor name (1952, χπβ´.γ´)
blockquote.book
p #[+sc('After a maintenance day,')] Lahey offered to take John Ramsay to the bottom of the trench. Ramsay was conflicted, but, he said, “there was this sentiment on board that if the designer doesn’t dare get in it then nobody should dare get in it.” He climbed in, and felt uncomfortable the entire way down. “It wasn’t that I actually needed to have a shit, it was this irrational fear of what happens if I do need to have a shit,” he said.
footer Ben Taub,
a(href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/18/thirty-six-thousand-feet-under-the-sea") “Thirty-six Thousand Feet Under the Sea”
| , in the
i New Yorker
| (2020, χϟθ´.γ´)