Fat Chance

But if it's true that the only true life I had was the life of my brain, what sense does it make to hand that brain to somebody for eight hours a day for their particular use on the presumption that, at the end of the day, they will give it back in an unmutilated condition? Fat chance!

-- Bruce "Utah" Phillips (1935 - 2008), labor organizer, folk singer, storyteller, poet; "Golden Voice of the Great Southwest"

RIP Utah Phillips

It takes a long time just to plain shut up and listen.

-- Bruce "Utah" Phillips (May 15, 1935 - May 23, 2008), labor organizer, folk singer, storyteller, poet, and self-described "Golden Voice of the Great Southwest", 2004 Democracy Now interview, on the difficulty of learning the lessons of life

If You Want To Feel Proud

If you want to feel proud of yourself, you need to do things of which to feel proud. Feelings follow actions.

-- Oseola McCarty (1908-1999), washerwoman in Hattiesburg, MI, famous for her bequest to Southern Miss

Test The Depths

When you want to test the depths of a stream, don't use both feet.

-- Chinese Proverb

Take It As It Happens

You have to take it as it happens, but you should try to make it happen the way you want to take it.

-- German proverb

Best Way To Give Advice

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

-- Harry S Truman

Dying?

Somebody ought to tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit every minute of every day. Do it, I say, whatever you want to do, do it now.

-- Michael Landon (1936-1991), American actor, director

Begin Now

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand - and melting like a snowflake.

-- Marie Beyon Ray

We Hate Change

Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.

-- Sydney J. Harris (1917-1986) British-born U. S. journalist and author

Risk Anything

Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.

-- Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) New Zealander modernist writer

And Yet

We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are -- that is the fact.

-- Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), French existentialist philosopher, dramatist & novelist

Abstinent

People can be abstinent, and it's not weird.

-- Jami Waite, a teenager in Hallsville, Texas, New York Times, 18 July 2007

Ethanol Gold Rush

This is a bit like a gold rush. There are unintended consequences of this euphoria to expand ethanol production at this pace that people are not considering.

-- Warren R. Staley, chief executive of Cargill, the multinational agricultural company, New York Times, 25 June 2006

Probably Not Food

I'd probably give up my cellphone. Probably not food. That's really tough. I like food.

-- Ryan Holt, 21-year-old student at the University of Northern Colorado, on the sacrifices he would make to buy a great video game, NY Times, 29 April 2008

Irony

Humor is everywhere, in that there's irony in just about anything a human does.

-- Bill Nye, Interview with Wired.com, April 2005

No Regrets

We should have no regrets. The past is finished. There is nothing to be gained by going over it. Whatever it gave us in the experiences it brought us was something we had to know.

-- Rebecca Beard, physician, speaker, author

Wasted

You live longer once you realize that any time spent being unhappy is wasted.

-- Ruth E. Renkl

Not How Old You Are

It is not how old you are, but how you are old.

-- Jules Renard, writer (1864-1910)

Impenetrable

Nothing is so impenetrable as laughter in a language you don't understand.

-- William G. Golding, novelist (1911-1993)

Make Them Laugh

If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh; otherwise, they'll kill you.

-- Oscar Wilde