Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Favorite Quotes

A couple by Peter Drucker:

"The best way to predict the future is to create it."

"What everybody knows is frequently wrong."

"People who don't take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year."

And my favourite:

"If you haven't been fired by the time your 40, your not trying hard enough."

Tact is just not saying true stuff. . . ." Cordelia Chase

“Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is in a democracy the whores are us.” P.J. O’Rourke

“No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy.” Motto of both the 1st Marines and the 1st Marine Division. (*trivia* the official song 1st Marine Division is “Waltzing Matilda“)

“For it is the doom of men that they forget.” Merlin “Excalibur”

Dude, we could fill this thread with Buffyisms!

You bet! I loved the writing for that show, but that one was always one of my favorites. It’s my signature over at AVS.

"I've been rich and I've been poor. It's better to be rich." - Gertrude Stein

At least now I know, so I can finally go ahead and follow this treasure map I have.

Here's a few from a web site I just recently joined, healthyskepticism.org :

"Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty."
- Mark Twain

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense."
- Buddha

“Another error is an impatience of doubt and haste to assertion without due and mature suspension of judgment. For the two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients; the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation; if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”
- Francis Bacon (1561-1626): The Proficience and Advancement of Learning
(London, 1605).

“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”
- Leo Tolstoy

“The easy confidence with which I know another man’s religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.”
- Mark Twain

The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
- Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist and educator, Aphorisms and Reflections, 1907

Never ascribe to malice that which is better explained by incompetence.
- Napoleon Bonaparte

True courage is mixed with circumspection, the kind of healthy skepticism that asks, “Is this the best way to do this?” True cowardice is marked by chronic skepticism, which always says, “It can’t be done.”
-William Bennett

There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy. All information is imperfect. We have to treat it with humility.
- Jacob Bronowski, scientist, broadcaster, The Ascent of Man, 1973

Those are some good quotes, medic8r. I liked 'em so much I went to check out the site. Not exactly what I was expecting, and seemingly not of particular interest to someone that is not in the medical profession!

Yeah, one wouldn't gather it from the name of the site, which is very non-specific. The site encourages doctors to cast a skeptical eye on the claims of those drug reps who bring me my Olive Garden lunches. I am so conflicted, ha ha.

"Lest you forgot the things which your eyes have seen, and teach them to your children and your children's children".

For snarky and sarcastic quotes, despair.com has some cool new t-shirts:

"Toyota - once you drive one, you'll never stop."

"If you don't like my opinion of you, you could always improve."

"The more of my behavior you accept, the less you will have to forgive."

"Don't ever change. I always want to be better than you."