The truth is that there is nothing noble in being superior to somebody else. The only real nobility is in being superior to your former self.

Whitney Young (1921 - 1971)

good one.

how often do we look askance
at our former selves?
There is nothing sadder than the feeling
that you used to be better.
I see it in sad men's eyes sometimes.
It makes me want to shake them.
And to cry out, "know yourself!"

Yeah, it's me.
Thanks for the byline.
I was blown away when someone sent me this link.

LJ that's wonderful, who is it by?
Well, except that there was a Big Brother quote the other year by a ghetto princess (white) saying to a spoiled princess, "You betta know yourself girlfriend!" and the only thing missing was her sucking her teeth. It has stuck in my head.

Welcome, Woodbutcher!

There is no institution of God or Man that cannot be improved by laughing at it twice a week.

--me

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain. -- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

What makes old age so sad is not that our joys but our hopes cease. -- Jean Paul Richter

At their core, men fear that women will laugh at them, while women fear that men will kill them. -Gavin DeBecker

Jesus wept. The Bible, John 11:35.

Well, I'll be dipped in shit!

-Barry Arnold at my desk today. I Lolled

"Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.” Redd Foxx

Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy those are who already possess it.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
French author & moralist (1613 - 1680)

Lower your voice and strengthen your argument. -- Lebanese proverb

"It's just not sex without something in your ass" - Me

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that SCHWINGGGG!

(Sheldon and I in collaboration. I think I heard it from Sharon Stone first, though.)

And what were you and Sharon doing at the time? ;)

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind. -- Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)

An error is not a mistake until you refuse to correct it. -- Unknown

If it's blue then sometimes it has a tail for balance. --unknown

Life is good when we think it's good. Life is bad when we don't think. -- Doug Horton

Love involves a peculiar, unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding. -- Diane Arbus, photographer (1923-1971)

The best inheritance a parent can give to his children is a few minutes of their time each day. -- M. Grundler

Not a quote, exactly, but pertinent nonetheless:

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it -- and stop there -- lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again, and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more. -- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

I like this one bigger. :)

From Doctor Who, discussing immortality:

Death is the price we pay for progress.

My favorite Dr. Who quote:

"Gosh that takes me back... or is it forward? That's the trouble with time
travel, you never can tell." -- Doctor Who

Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt”
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

There is no light without the sun and since light comes from the sun, it can be returned to it. Darkness can be returned to the wanning moon, clearness to open doors and windows, obstruction to walls and houses, confused externals to unconsciousness and clear perception to the awakened state. Nothing in the world goes beyond these conditions. But when the essence of your Perception confronts these states, where can it be returned to?
-Buddha

I used to work in a fire hydrant factory.
You couldn't park anywhere near the place. -Steven Wright

“The trouble with the rat-race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.” - Lily Tomlin

"Men have attained happiness by realizing that it does not spring from the procuring of physical or mental pleasure, but from the development of reason and the adjustment of conduct to principles."
Arnold Bennett

Italics mine

Notice the convulsed orange inch of moon
perching on this silver minute of evening.

ee cummings

From a post on customerssuck.com:

"Sweetie- remember, you never want to be a bitch by accident."

That reminds me of this one:

Vera Donovan: Sometimes you have to be a high-riding bitch to survive. Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold onto.

from Dolores Claiborne

There ain't nothin' in this world that's worth being a snot over.
--Larry Wall (author of Perl)

War would end if the dead could return. -- Stanley Baldwin, statesman
(1867-1947)

Can't do the right thing while you're doing wrong.

It takes a long time to grow young - Pablo Picasso

The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age. - Lucille Ball

The older the fiddler, the sweeter the tune. English Proverb

Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. - Jack Benny

Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born with the tragedy that he has to grow up...a lot of people don't have the courage to do it. - Helen Hayes )

Few women admit their age. Few men act theirs. – Anonymous

Whatever with the past has gone, the best is always yet to come. - Lucy Larcom

I wish it were that easy. Maybe when you are past 50 or 60 it is, but during the transitional phase, it friggin sucks.

"You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles."
-- Miracle Max

"This is the sort of pedantic nonsense up with which I will not put."

--Winston Churchill, attributed

You can mull it over with the help of what's here.

I prefer this story on the same topic:

On his first day at Harvard a young man from Arkansas approached a couple of seniors.

'Hey, y'all, where's the library at?'

One replied haughtily, 'At Harvard, we prefer not to end a sentence with a preposition.'

The young man thought for a moment, and said, 'Alright. Where's the library at, asshole?'

It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to.
W. C. Fields

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. -- Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953

Referring to the current financial situation:

- Gary-Bear

“Hell is full of musical amateurs” – George Bernard Shaw

Chet Baker, on meeting Jazz pianist Romano Mussolini: "Sorry about your dad."

Stolen from the cookie jar:

Will you trade your funk for what's behind door number three?
--Parliament

I need the funk, gotta have that funk.

Tear the roof off the sucker, Cic!

by Tom Bevan

"I need a bailout." - My nine-year old son explaining to me this morning that his lunch money account at school was overdrawn.

How quickly they learn.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
Winston Churchill

To hurry pain is to leave a classroom still in session. To prolong pain is to remain seated in a vacated classroom and miss the next lesson. -- Yahia Lababidi, writer (b. 1973)

As I mentioned before I keep a file of favorite quotes. These days it's a Note in Outlook. Over the years that I've been here I've included a few from dwellars. I think this is all of them:

You know, when "later" gets here I'm going to be real busy.
-- xoxoxoBruce - The Cellar

Trust is a one-time-only offer.
-- Wolf - The Cellar

I was never actually the Devil's Advocate, but I did do some consulting work for a minor demon.
-- Wolf - The Cellar

Anything which *can* be done with a power tool *should* be done with a power tool. It is a moral imperative.
-- Elspode - The Cellar

My wife found this as a book-on-tape (literally, cassette tape) at the thrift store and I'm listening to it on my god-awfully long commute.