What's a quote that has stuck with you for your whole life?
I always loved browsing such posts on reddit, so thought I should make one on lemmy too
Edit: Usually these kind of posts only used to have excerpts from books or ancient proverbs, but now I am seeing a lot more quotes from shows/movies/games are also resonating with people. It’s pretty cool to see.
“What I’m about to tell you is top secret, a conspiracy bigger than all of us. There’s a powerful group of people out there that are secretly running the world. I’m talking about the guys no one knows about, the guys that are invisible. The top 1% of the top 1%, the guys that play God without permission.”
Implying you should have the courage to fight for what you believe is right but not hold onto them once you’re proven wrong.
I learned this as a company culture thing from one of my previous employers and not sure if there’s another source for it. I did not like that employer very much in the end but this quote has been stuck with me since and I live by it.
Also check out the book “seeing like a state” if you want a whole book version of that quote, including examples in forestry, city design and education.
Oh this is a great one. I was once in a job, where we were introduced to a new system that was designed to count successes. The problem was, that it was a job where we worked with people and everything we did couldn’t be quantified. The new system only put value on what could be counted so 80% of our work became invisible and “worthless”. Great times.
“Heroes are not giant statues framed against a red sky, they are people who say ‘This is my community and it’s my responsibility to make it better.’” Tom McCall - Oregon Governor 1967-1975.
“Psh, friends? Who needs them? They roll more off the line every day.”
Sounds super callous out of context, but the guy was incredibly friendly and kind. He had originally moved across the country to where his wife was living, and at this point they were going through a really bad divorce. I strongly suspect his local support network was entirely her friends, and they were turning their backs on him. I always took it as advice on being unafraid to remove the people who are dragging you down, and be confident that there are better ones out there.
When I was like 8, a liftee at my local ski hill told me that as I dangled from the chairlift about 5 feet off the ground because I waffled getting on the lift.
If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well.
Said by a friend who, in the late 90s, copied a dozen albums to minidisk for me. He named all the albums and track names using a remote to select each letter one by one. It must have taken him many hours to do it. But he wanted to do a good job. Up up up up A right, up up up up up f, etc etc. Utterly tedious but he wanted to do a good job.
I know it’s a joke and I appreciate the meaning of the original comment, but I don’t think you need to constantly challenge yourself to enjoy life. Sometimes it’s ok to sit back and enjoy what you have and what you know. Just as long as you don’t settle and forget to be open to new things that could enrich that life.
Not really a quote, but a poem that I read in school. It’s called মৃত্যুঞ্জয় (The Death-defier). A rough translation is available here.
A couple of lines have stuck with me ever since.
‘‘যখন উদ্যত ছিল তোমার অশনি
তোমারে আমার চেয়ে বড়ো বলে নিয়েছিনু গণি
তোমার আঘাত-সাথে নেমে এলে তুমি
যেথা মোর আপনার ভূমি।’’
It translates roughly to
“When your thunder was ready to strike, I considered you mightier than me. But with your blows you came down. Here, with me, where I stand.”
It has taught me not to fear hardships, since nothing is ultimate. Everything looks scary from afar. But if we have the grit and determination to face it, all will crumble in front of our might. Even death has nothing on us, since out deeds and achievements will live on. This poem has given me inspiration in dark times. It has reminded me that all hope is not lost, no matter how grim everything might seem.
“Many that live deserve death and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be so eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the wise cannot see all ends.” Gandalf, Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring
For some reason, this quote (and the entirety of Gollum’s story) has stuck itself in my head. I guess I interpret this as a message to not be so quick to judge death upon another person, no matter what they had done. You never know what their future will be like, and cutting their lives off would mean losing out on the potential benefits that their future might bring. Even bad people can contribute good things. I know that this is just my personal opinion, and a lot of people probably won’t agree with this, but this is the lesson that I got from Gollum’s story.
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