Patton's Favorite Quotes.
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I
don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please
everybody. - Bill Cosby
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The
piano don't got no wrong notes. - Thelonious
Monk
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Aging
- It is after you have lost your teeth that you can afford to buy steaks. -
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Get
your facts straight first. Then you can distort them anyway you want. - Mark
Twain
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The
problem is not what we don't know, but what we do know
that's wrong. - Mark Twain
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We
should be careful to get out of an experience all the wisdom that is in it--not
like the cat that sits on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot lid
again-and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
-Mark Twain
§
Courage
may be the most important of all virtues, because without it one cannot practice
any other virtue with consistency. - Maya Angelou
§
Although
human ingenuity makes various inventions, corresponding by various machines to
the same end, it will never discover any inventions more beautiful, more
appropriate or more direct than nature, because in her inventions nothing is
lacking and nothing is superfluous. - Leonardo DaVinci
§
Study
nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will
never fail you. - Frank Lloyd Wright
§
Art
is a series of recoveries from the first line. The hardest thing to do is put
down the first line. But you must. - Nathan Olivera
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Experience
is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a
mistake when you make it again. - F. P. Jones
§
And
in the end, we arrive back at the beginning, and know the place for the first time.
- T.S. Elliot
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The
first draft of anything is shit - Ernest Hemingway
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Pay
no attention to what the critics say; no statue has ever been put up to a
critic. - Jean Sibelius
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A
man who knows that he is a fool is not a great fool. - Chuang Tzu
§
Genius
is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. - Thomas Edison
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To
accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act. - Anatole
France
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I
can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the
old ones. - John Cage
§
It
is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis
every day before breakfast. It keeps him young. - Konrad Lorenz
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An
undefined problem has an infinite number of solutions. - Robert A. Humphrey
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Computers
are useless. They can only give you answers. - Picasso
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Imagination
is more important than knowledge. -Albert Einstein
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Most
people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are
wrong; it is the character. - Albert Einstein
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Happiness
isn't something you experience; it's something you remember. - Oscar Levant
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Try
to learn something about everything and everything about something. - T.H.
Huxley
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Folks
who have no vices have very few virtues. - Abraham Lincoln
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Live
as if you were to to die tomorrow. Learn as if you
were to live forever. - Mohandas K. Gandhi
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You
pass a lot of failure on the road to success. – Mickey Rooney
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It
is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved
and excited by affirmatives than by negatives. --Francis Bacon
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Well
done is better than well said. - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
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Obstacles
are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. -
Henry Ford (1863-1947)
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Eyes
and ears are bad witnesses for men with barbarian souls - Heraclites, a pre-Socratic
philosopher.
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Talent
imitates, but genius steals. - T.S. Elliott.
§
Fortune
can bestow on us no greater gift than discord among our foes. - Publius Cornelius Tacitus (Roman historian, 55 - 120 AD)
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Sunshine
is the best disinfectant. - Justice Louis D. Brandeis
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The
reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in
trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man. -
George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists
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All
I know is that I know nothing. - Socrates
Misc Unclaimed (Let me know if someone deserves
credit):
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Many
questions are unanswerable. Many answers are questionable.
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Things
of quality have no fear of time.
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Eagles
may soar, but weasels aren't sucked into jet engines.
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A
conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
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Experience
is something you get right after you really needed it.
§
He
who hesitates is probably right.
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Never
do card tricks for the people you play poker with.
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No
one is listening until you make a mistake.
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Success
occurs in private and failure in public.
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To
succeed it is often necessary to rise above your principles.
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Two
wrongs are usually only the beginning.
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You
never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.
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The
real problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
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In
choosing between two evils, pick the one you haven't tried.
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Don't
sweat petty things, or pet sweaty things.
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A
fool and his money are soon partying.
§
Money
can't buy love but it can rent a very close imitation.
§
If
one out four people are mentally ill, don't have three
sane friends.
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Your
sole purpose in life might be to serve as a warning to others.
§
The
two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
§
If
at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
§
In
life one often experiences Deja Moo -- The feeling
you've heard this bull before.
§
The
trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates
how difficult it was.
§
If
the average woman would rather have beauty than brains, this is because the
average man can see better than he can think.
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Attitude,
not aptitude attains altitude.
§
__
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Never,
under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
§
If
you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not
achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be
§
"meetings."
§
There
is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."
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People
who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share
yours with them.
§
You
should not confuse your career with your life.
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Nobody
cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
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Never
lick a steak knife.
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The
most destructive force in the universe is gossip.
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You
will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we
observe daylight savings time.
§
You
should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think
she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that
moment.
§
There
comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal
about your birthday. That time is age eleven.
§
The
one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion,
economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe
that we are above average drivers.
§
A
person, who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person. (This
is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)
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Your
friends love you anyway.
§
Never
be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the
§
Men
are like a fine wine. They start out as grapes, and it's up to women to stomp
the crap out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner
with.
My own attempts:
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There's
nothing more intelligent than preparing for one's own stupidity.
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You
have to step in the mud to leave footprints.
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There
are three kinds of people: people who want others to like them, people who want
others to envy them, and people who don't care. Usually, none of them get what
they want.
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There
are two kinds of people: people who categorize people into groups and people
who don't.
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You
can always do better than the next guy.
(2) No matter how hard you try, someone may always do better than you.
(3) never listen to people who contradict themselves.
§
Confidence
and sincerity are all that's needed.
last updated 12/8/2008Jim
Patton.