The quotations that you like says a great deal about you. I thought it might be interesting for people to post their favourite quotations.

Here are some of mine. These are all to do with education.

“The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without a teacher.” Elbert Hubbard

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Albert Einstein

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” Mark Twain

“Education is what remains when we have forgotten all that we have been taught.” George Halifax

“Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them.” Albert Camus

“One does not actually learn anything new. What we call learning is really nothing but recollecting true knowledge that we already have within us.” Socrates

“We learn what we do.” John Dewey

“Knowledge is not “to know” but to schematise – to impose upon chaos as much regularity and form as suffices for our practical requirements.” Nietzsche

I like “Goldwynisms”, the verbal fluffs attributed to film producer Sam Goldwyn:

"An oral contract isn't worth the paper it's written on."
"Gentlemen, include me out."
"I've gone where the hand of man has never set foot."
"Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined."
"If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive."
"They stayed away in droves."
"Don't improve it into a flop!"
"I don't want yes-men around me. I want everyone to tell the truth, even if it costs them their jobs."
"I read part of it all the way through."
"I had a great idea this morning, but I didn't like it."
"If I look confused it's because I'm thinking."
"That's the trouble with directors. Always biting the hand that lays the golden egg."
"Tell them to stand closer apart."
"For your information, just answer me one question!"
"You fail to overlook the crucial point."
"In two words, impossible."
"It's absolutely impossible, but it has possibilities."
"Go see that turkey for yourself, and see for yourself why you shouldn't see it."
"A hospital is no place to be sick."
"Give me a couple of years, and I'll make that actress an overnight success."
"If I were in this business only for the business, I wouldn't be in this business."
"I'm willing to admit that I may not always be right, but I am never wrong."
"Give me a smart idiot over a stupid genius any day."
"Even if they had it in the streets, I wouldn't go." -- On Mardi Gras.
"Yes, but keep copies." -- When his secretary asked him if she should destroy files that were over ten years old.
"True, I've been a long time making up my mind, but now I'm giving you a definite answer. I won't say yes, and I won't say no -- but I'm giving you a definite maybe."
"I don't care if it doesn't make a nickel. I just want every man, woman, and child in America to see it."
"A bachelor's life is no life for a single man."
"Can she sing? She's practically a Florence Nightingale."
"Let's have some new cliches."
"Why did you do that? Every Tom, Dick and Harry is named Sam!" -- When a friend told him he named his son Sam.
"I paid too much for it, but it's worth it."
"Yes, but that's our strongest weak point." -- When a reporter asked a young Samuel Goldwyn if he'd ever made a picture before.
"The trouble with this business is the dearth of bad pictures."
"You've got to take the bull between your teeth."
"We have that Indian scene. We can get the Indians from the reservoir."
"I have been laid up with intentional flu."
"He treats me like the dirt under my feet."
"I want to make a picture about the Russian secret police -- the GOP."
"Let's bring it up to date with some snappy nineteenth century dialogue."
"There is a statue of limitation."
"I never put on a pair of shoes until I've worn them at least five years."
"Never make forecasts, especially about the future."
"I don't think anyone should write his autobiography until after he's dead."
"Modern dancing is old fashioned."
"This makes me so sore it gets my dandruff up."
"Why is everything so dirty here?" Goldwyn once asked of a film director. When told it was supposed to be a slum, Goldwyn responded, "Well, this slum cost a lot of money. It should look better than an ordinary slum."
"Keep a stiff upper chin."
"Gentlemen, listen to me slowly."
"Don't worry about the war. It's all over but the shooting."
"To hell with the cost, if it's a good story, I'll make it." -- When told a particular script was "too caustic" for film.
"Our comedies are not to be laughed at."
"Put it out of your mind. In no time, it will be a forgotten memory."

NETHERLANDS ATTACKS AMERICA'S FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!!

"If you keep posting without clearing it with me first, I will see to it that you'll never publish Jimmy's book. That's a promise!

You probably have an idea that you can do what you please. Go for it and find out !"

Wim

----- Original Message -----
From: Wim Dankbaar
To: Pam
Cc: Daniel Marvin ; Kris Millegan
Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2004 12:19 PM
Subject: last chance

One of my late mother's favorite sayings was "If the dog hadn't stop to take a sh*t, it might have caught the rabbit." I like to use it -- appropriately modified -- with IB students who speculate on such things as what "might" have happened is Hitler had not been frightened by his Jewish nanny, or some such silliness...

Or as a fellow factory worker said when we were discussing “what if” history: “If my aunt had testicles she would have been my uncle.”

Oh, yes, John. I like it... It will now be incorporated into the IB classes!!!

Some strange ones from the Isle of Man:

"Fine words butter no parsnips"
"You don't make a pig any fatter by weighing it every day"
"One scabby sheep spoils the whole flock "
"Shameful leavings are worse than scandalous eating."
"As straight as the backbone of a herring."
"Never marry a woman unless you can see the smoke of her father's chimney from your midden."

Sound advice for you all this Christmas

A few of my favourite quotations about history.

Disobedience in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and rebellion. (Oscar Wilde)

In history one is absolutely sickened, not by the original crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishment that the good have inflicted. (Oscar Wilde)

We get our ethics from our history and judge our history by our ethics. (Ernst Troeltsch)

The task of the historian is to understand the peoples of the past better than they understand themselves. (Herbert Butterfield)

History has to be rewritten in every generation, because although the past does not change the present does; each generation asks new questions of the past, and finds new areas of sympathy as it re-lives different aspects of the experiences of its predecessors. (Christopher Hill)

History is but a pack of tricks we play on the dead. (Voltaire).

Men make their own history, but they do not know that they are making it. (Karl Marx).

The aim of the historian, like that of the artist, is to enlarge our picture of the world, to give us a new way of looking at things. (James Joll).

A mere collector of supposed facts is as useful as a collector of matchboxes. (Lucien Febvre)

The justification of all historical study must ultimately be that it enhances our self-consciousness, enables us to see ourselves in perspective, and helps us towards that greater freedom which comes from self-knowledge. (Keith Thomas)

“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present.” (G. K. Chesterton)

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. (Cicero)

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach. (Aldous Huxley)

Until the lion has a historian of his own, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. (African Proverb)

When a man of true genius appears in the world, you may know him by the infallible sign, that all the dunces are in conspiracy against him. (Jonathan Swift)

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe” (H. G. Wells)

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. (George Santayana)

“If God believed in pre-emptive action, he would have destroyed Satan before creating Adam and Eve.” (Anon)

W.C. Fields

"Remainds me of the time we were lost in the wilds of Afganistan."
"We had lost our corkscrew and were compelled to live on food and
water for several days."

Here are a few of my favorites:

"People are more important than property. Cooperation is superior to competition, and the highest state people can aspire to is community not empire."
[Author unknown]

Moses said, "Take up your shovel, mount your camel or ass and follow me to the promised land." In 1932 Roosevelt said, "Lay down your shovel, light up a Camel, sit on your ass for this is the promised land." What are you going to do when Bush steals your shovel, sells your camel, kicks your ass and says there is no promised land? [Author unknown]

We were the unwilling, led by the unqualified, to do the unnecessary, for the ungratefull, by the unknown. [Author unknown]

Always watch your back-trail, something might be gaining on you. Never eat at a cafe named Mom's. Never play poker with a man named Doc, and when you are up to your nose in a dung heap, keep your mouth shut. [Author unknown]

Always cultivate at least one good vice, it is what delineates and defines your life and gives meaning and purpose to your existence. [Author unknown]

Good quote. I would like to think this forum is a good example of cooperation and community.

Quotations on the Philosophy of Life

“Pleasure is the only thing one should live for. Nothing ages like happiness.” Oscar Wilde

“The old believe everything. The middle-aged suspect everything. The young know everything.” Oscar Wilde

“The primary questions for an adult are not why or how, but when and where.” Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Upton Sinclair

“We are all capable of evil thought, but only rarely of evil deeds. We can all do good deeds, but very few of us can think good thoughts.” Cesare Pavese

“Failure is to form habits.” Walter Pater

“One remains young only on condition the soul does not relax, does not look for peace.” Friedrich Nietzsche

“What does not kill me makes me stronger.” Friedrich Nietzsche

“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” Sigmund Freud

“All colours agree in the dark” Francis Bacon

“Hope is a good breakfast, but is a bad supper.” Francis Bacon

Life is more like wrestling than dancing. (Marcus Aurelius)

Ah well, being an English teacher, I have a whole head full of favourite quotations, with a definite penchant for the truly heartbreaking moments, but in this season of goodwill and sherry-fuelled merriment, my choice would be from F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is The Night, when Dick Diver declares,

"I want to give a really bad party. I mean it. I want to give a party where there's a brawl and seductions and people going home with their feelings hurt and women passed out in the cabinet de toilette. You wait and see."

"'Teehee', quod she" to sneak a quick one in from Chaucer before the end...

Julie

My favourite quotes are the ones that appear randomly on my homepage:
http://the_english_dept.tripod.com

Some of them include:

"No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings" (William Blake)

"No one heard clearly what he said, but Kitty understood him. She understood because her mind incessantly watched for his needs" (Tolstoy in Anna Karenina)

"In my end is my beginning." (T. S. Eliot)

"Lost, yesterday, somewhere between Sunrise and Sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever. " (Horace Mann)

"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." ( Lao-Tzu )

" People are practical. They want change but feel powerless, alone, do not want to be the blade of grass that sticks up above the others and is cut down. They wait for a sign from someone else who will make the first move, or the second. And at certain times in history, there are intrepid people who take the risk that if they make that first move others will follow quickly enough to prevent their being cut down. And if we understand this, we might make that first move. (Howard Zinn)

" Again and again in history some special people wake up. They have no ground in the crowd. They move to broader laws. They carry strange customs with them. And demand room for bold audacious actions. The future speaks ruthlessly through them. They change the world" (Rainer Marie Rilke)

"Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death." (Anais Nin)

Little did we know that old Leo da Vinci, when writing long ago in his "Notebook on Polemics and Speculation," would explain the future phenomena of authors of the stripe of Gerald Posner:

"Many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitudes."

I always liked Will Rogers' quote, "We're all ignorant, but about different things."

Greetings:

"It is very important that people take responsibility for their own lives and not simply accept authority in a way that reduces their own creativity and power."


From: Healing Emotions: Conversations with the DALAI LAMA on Mindfulness, Emotions, and Health.
Edited: Daniel Goleman

Peter

"Do not go gentle into that good night; rage, rage against the dying of the light."
Dylan Thomas

I also like: "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro," by Hunter Thompson.

Tim Carroll

Here are some of my favourite quotes:

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
Proust

Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out."
James B. Conant

"None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm."
Henry David Thoreau

"Good teaching is more a giving of the right questions than a giving of the right answers."
J. Albers

"Who dares to teach must never cease to learn."
J.C. Dana

"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires."
W. A. Ward


"The difficulty lies not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones."
Lord Keynes

"It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question."
Ionesco


You can subscribe to daily quotes at: http://www.surfnetkids.com/quotations/
You can see a nice movie on educational quotes at:
http://www.surfnetkids.com/movie/
You can even get a screensaver version of the movie free of charge.

I have this screensaver on one of my computer. It's really nice. The quotes are great. Worth checking out the site! Well, and I must mention that I'm not affiliated anyhow to surfnetkids. :-)

Finally, I must say I have immensely enjoyed reading your quotes and jokes and it was good idea to have a special section of EF as a way of commemmorating its birthday. Many happy returns of the day, Education Forum!
Keep up the good work guys!
I hope I'll be able to contribute much more to the forum's success in the year 2005.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

_________________________________________________


Many favorites:

"And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make" Lennon/McCartney


"We shall not cease from our exploration and at the end of all our exploring...we arrive at the place we started and know it for the first time"

TS Eliott


Dawn

Two quotes which have some resonance for teachers working in the UK over the past few years:

First, a quote for which I have no attribution,

'The floggings will continue until morale improves.' (Chris Woodhead perhaps, a former Chief Inspector of UK schools?)

Second, a quote which I have seen several times on departmental notice boards over the past few years, by Caius Petronius, Roman soldier:

'We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up in teams we would be reorganised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation.'

Great collection of quotes. We obviously share a similar view of education.

"The problem with history is that it takes time." --Gertrude Stein

I get email with quotes under people's names. Here are some of my favorites.

"To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge. " Confucius

"Sero sed Serio”

"To truly win, to be a success, is not to overachieve in one area
but to maintain balanced achievement in all areas of our lives."

"Do, or do not. There is no 'try'" -Yoda

"Do not try to bend the spoon. Thats impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth "What truth?" There is no spoon." -Little Boy from The Matrix

"May the Force be with you" - Jedi Knight

What does not kill me gets a good kick in the teeth for trying.

Nil carborundum bastardos in excreta.

Philosophers have merely explained the world. The task however is to change it.

No attribution - nobody owns ideas

"Mountaineers are always free"

Montani Semper Liberi

West Virginia State Motto since 1863