[Aaron]

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. [Stephen Roberts]

[ExtractionEngineer]

I couldn't pick just 1.

“To be human is to be scientific, yes, and practical, and rational, and moral, and social, and artistic, but to be human further is to be religious also. And this religious in man is not just another facet of himself, just another side to his nature, just another part of the whole. It is the condition of all the rest and the justification of all the rest. This is inevitably and inescapably so for all men. No man is religiously neutral in his knowledge of and his appropriation of reality.”
Henry Zylstra

“A person who pretends to be religiously neutral is not thinking very deeply. Atheism is a religious worldview as certainly as are Christianity and Judaism. It expresses the ultimate commitments and concerns of its proponents.”
Ron Nash/Modified by Extraction Engineer

[Madpaddy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn't make it worse.”
Brendan Behan

“I saw a notice which said, 'Drink Canada Dry' and I've just started.”
Brendan Behan

[PenultimateManStanding]

A torn shirt is a virtue, a stained shirt a vice - Balzac

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband - Balzac

I would guess many of you have heard this one, also from Honore de Balzac:

Behind every great fortune there is a crime.

[PrairieMule]

"Ships are safe in the harbor, but that's not what they are made for."

[Madpaddy]

"If this, if that, if the other, if my aunt had balls she'ld be my uncle"
- My friend Paul (don't know who said it originally).

[Prince]

From the movie Lord of War with Nicolas Cage:

"Some of the most successful relationships are based on lies and deceit. Since that's where they usually end up anyway, it's a logical place to start."


Eric Hoffer:

"Every era has a currency that buys souls. In some the currency is pride, in others it is hope, in still others it is a holy cause. There are of course times when hard cash will buy souls, and the remarkable thing is that such times are marked by civility, tolerance, and the smooth working of everyday life."

[Pops]

"Can't never did anything"

-- My Momma

[PrairieMule]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', '"')Can't never did anything"

-- My Momma

[PenultimateManStanding]

Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!

- Banditos in The Treasure Of Sierra Madre

(actually it was 'Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinkin' badges!' but I like the short version better)

[joelcolorado]

We shall darken the sky with our arrows.

THEN we shall fight in the shade.

theres a quote for everyone facing impossible odds. Same for facing the oil problem. We will survive and prosper in spite of the state of the world.

[Ayame]

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
-- Albert Einstein

[wisconsin_cur]

Mine changes pretty regularly but how about:

There is no greater impotence in all the world like knowing you are right and that the wave of the world is wrong, yet the wave crashes upon you.
- Norman Mailer

[Volcanic21]

Some of my favorites:

Ships that pass in the night, and speak to each other in passing,
Only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak to one another,
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and silence.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

You gotta keep one eye looking over your shoulder
You know it's going to get harder, and harder, and harder as you get older
And in the end you'll pack, fly down south
Hide your head in the sand
Just another sad old man
All alone and dying of cancer.
-Pink Floyd

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste.
-William Shakespeare, Sonnet xxx

This next one is from the first Vonnegut book I read, this little boy accidentally kills a pregnant lady, the cops have him in a basement and they're torturing him, they bring the lady's husband down and tell him he can do whatever he wants to the kid. The guy just looks real sad and says:
"God - there should not be animals like us. There should be no lives like ours." -Kurt Vonnegut, Deadeye Dick
For me it's one of those moments that makes me not as sad that there'll probably be a massive die-off of humanity.

This next one is long, but it's one of my favorite passages from any book I've ever read, it's stuck with me for a long time:

"I don't think of myself as bitter, but I have disappointed myself; I thought I was going to turn out to be worth a bit more than this, and maybe that disappointment comes out all wrong. It's not just the work; it's not just the thirty-five and single thing, although none of this helps. It's... oh, I don't know. Have you ever looked at a picture of yourself when you were a kid? Or pictures of famous people when they were kids? It seems to me that they can either make you happy or sad. There's a lovely picture of Paul McCartney as a little boy, and the first time I saw it, it made me feel good: all that talent, all that money, all those years of blessed-out domesticity, a rock-solid marriage and lovely kids, and he doesn’t even know it yet. But then there are others – JFK and all the rock deaths and fuck-ups, people who went mad, people who came off the rails, people who murdered, who made themselves or other people miserable in ways too numerous to mention – and you think, stop right there! This is as good as it gets!
Over the last couple of years, the photos of me when I was a kid, the ones that I never wanted old girlfriends to see… well, they’ve started to give me a little pang of something – not unhappiness, exactly, but some kind of quiet, deep regret. There’s one of me in a cowboy hat, pointing a gun at the camera, trying to look like a cowboy but failing, and I can hardly bring myself to look at it now. Laura thought it was sweet and pinned it up in the kitchen, but I’ve put it back in a drawer. I keep wanting to apologize to the little guy: ‘I’m sorry, I’ve let you down. I was the one person who was supposed to look after you, but I blew it: I made wrong decisions at bad times, and I turned you into me.’ If he could be here now, if he could jump out of that photo and into my life, he’d run straight out of the door and back to 1967 as fast as his little legs would carry him.” -Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

Sorry these are all so dark, I think I've been spending too much time on PO.com lately and it's wearing on me. I'll go out with something a little more upbeat:

"It is said an eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him with the words, 'And this, too, shall pass away.' How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!” -Abraham Lincoln

[paimei01]

Believe nothing on the faith of traditions,
even though they have been held in honor
for many generations and in diverse places.
Do not believe a thing because many people speak of it.
Do not believe on the faith of the sages of the past.
Do not believe what you yourself have imagined,
persuading yourself that a God inspires you.
Believe nothing on the sole authority of your masters and priests.
After examination, believe what you yourself have tested
and found to be reasonable, and conform your conduct thereto.


Buddha

[grampybone]

From the movie Cross of Iron:


" I believe that god is a sadist, but probably doesn't even know it"

- Sgt. Stiener( played by James coburn)

[morph]

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a pig, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently and die gallantly. Specialisation is for insects

[killJOY]

"Fool me once shame on, shame on you...Fool me once you won't get fooled again."

[Aaron]

Our ignorance is not so vast as our failure to use what we know.

MK Hubbert