More Quotable Quotes

Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death (Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775).  Does this kick ass or what? No middle ground here.

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made. (Groucho Marx)  I just admire the way this man thought. Did you read the piece on Always Give the Right Answer? This is what I was saying, man.

All my life I've wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific. (Lily Tomlin)  You go girl. I always feel a certain connection to other people when they can capture my thoughts in twenty words or less (hey, no wisecracks on that one, you know what I mean). I man, who knows in advance how they are going to turn out? If we really knew, we would change the parts that we didn't like about ourselves, before they were parts of..... oh never mind.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. (Voltaire)  This is similar to Question authority and the authorities will question you (Anonymous; I saw that written on a wall once). This has been borne out through history, doubtlessly in every civilization (I saw "doubtlessly" because I don't have any specific examples in mind, but you'll feel foolish if you doubt me). Just ask Galileo. It also holds true in families, in relationships, and most certainly in corporations. It really sucks to be the guy with three heads, trying to keep the incredulous look off your face while your executive team finds it impossible to grasp the obvious. What do you do - "go along to get along" or continue to argue the point while your future with the company is spiraling down the drain? 

Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke. (Lynda Barry) Oh yeah, like this one. You savor it, treat it gently, and fire it up, knowing full well at some random point it's gonna explode in your face. The trick is to still look good with exploded cigar all over your face...

I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia. (Woody Allen)  Me too. So what? It also involved war, and......uh, peace. No, actually I used this quote because a friend of mine wrote to me and suggested speed reading as a topic - well, sort of. I'll quote him (without permission, of course):

"Here's a potential topic:  Speed Reading. Ever stop to think how education prepares us for the "real world" today.  I don't know about you, but where I went to school we would spend, typically, about two semesters to get through a book of say, 600 pages.  This came complete with a knowledgeable instructor explaining the material painstakingly and fully 3 times a week, plus a healthy dose of after class Q&A if you were nerd-ly enough to want it. Now contrast that with the "real world," where prudent, sound business decisions, strategies, even complex system designs are demanded of you for an 8 am meeting with an important customer worth potentially $10s of millions, given only a perusal of a 250 page RFP at 2:30 am after the sales team took you out for 4, no 5 pints of Guinness and a quick stop at the Gold Rush titty bar?? I think, in hindsight, my curriculum lacked a Speed Reading course, as did most of the dot-com would-be zillionaires who are now writing humorous web columns...."

My reply to him? "You know, as a Junior in High School I actually took speed reading as my English elective. Turns out they gave you an entrance test and then graded you on percent improvement over the semester. So I did what any half-bright slacker teen would do: I read the entrance test 4 times before answering the comprehension questions. Was off the charts in improvement by the end of the term!
Hey (name withheld because of the titty-bar comment), one thing I learned in the working world -- any stiff can do a decent job in front of a customer given enough prep time and enough sleep. But you know you're the man when you can stand there hung-over on 3 hours sleep and still close the deal."

On Anger: Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. (Buddha)  Also, Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. (Phyllis Diller)  Or, my recent favorite: Get mad, then get over it. (Colin Powell)  All are saying the same thing - let it go. This is fantastic advice, that most of us can actually remember - 'cept when we're angry, of course.

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land. (Bishop Desmond Tutu) The missionaries did well by doing good. Same story in Hawaii (You know, The Aloha State). Actually, though, grabbing land represents some of the less offensive crimes committed in the name of religion throughout history (and not just western religions).

Email comments/opinions/examples to me.