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.
You’ve got to go through a round of redundancies/layoffs to learn this. No amount of telling some freebie-munching programmer will teach them. Source: I was a freebie-munching programmer.
And the acceptance beyond that is “… and that’s ok, it’s not the company’s job to love you, but don’t for a second be fooled into loyalty”.
“Never hesitate to state the obvious”, for socially awkward teenager-me this was a game changer how to participate in conversation. I still live by it and it’s really useful in meetings, as it also brings real value to the conversation, as whatever is obvious to you isn’t necessarily obvious to others. And even if everyone knew, it may still spark a discussion.
A bit crass maybe but it’s always stuck with me. Basically a way of thinking in bad situations that need action eg if you’ve shat yourself, no amount of wishing you hadn’t is going to change the fact that you’ve shat yourself, so what are you going to actually do about it?
Hopefully it’s metaphorical but works on both counts.
This line from Schindler’s List always stuck with me:
“Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.”
The context is that at the end of the movie Schindler is distraught thinking of how many more he could have saved if he just did certain things differently, like selling a ring and using that money to hire another Jewish worker. One of the people he saved tells him the above line.
It’s stuck with me for two reasons, I think.
First, it’s an interesting perspective on individuality. Each person has their own unique perspective of the world. When that person dies, that perspective is gone forever. An entire universe dies with them, never to be seen again. I think that’s a powerful way to view the individual.
Second, it’s a reminder that we do what we can, and while it may be imperfect, it’s enough. You can’t save everyone, just live well and help those you can in the capacity that you can. If you save one of those people, you’ve saved the world.
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.
You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.
There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.
Life has been remarkably stagnant ever since I was born. The more things change, the more they stay the same. It just takes a bit of time to realize it and recognize the patterns.
Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. . . . because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him.
Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted.
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