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Ethan Allen

Ethan Allen (21 January 1738 {10 January 1737 O.S.} – 12 February 1789) was a farmer, businessman, land speculator, philosopher, writer, lay theologian, and patriot hero during the era of the Vermont Republic. He is most famous for the capture of Fort Ticonderoga early in the American Revolutionary War.

Quotes

 * The gods of the valley are not the gods of the hills, and you shall understand it.
 * Reply to the King's attorney-general (June 1770), in a New York court case decided against him, prior to his armed resistance to claims of New York authority over Vermont; quoted in Curiosities of Human Nature (1844) by Samuel Griswold Goodrich, p. 145, and in "Ethan Allen & the Green Mountain Boys" in Harper's New Monthly Magazine No. 102 (November 1858)

 * In the name of the great Jehovah, and the Continental Congress!
 * His reply as to by what authority he demanded the surrender of Fort Ticonderoga, as recounted in A Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen's Captivity (1779). Other reports indicate that he initially declared: "Come out of there you sons of British whores, or I'll smoke you out!" According to historian and folklorist B.A.Botkin, one Israel Harris was present at the time, and later told his grandson (the late Professor James D. Butler of Madison, Wisconsin) that Allen's actual words were "Come out of there, you goddam old rat!" See Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 4.

 * It is bad policy to fear the resentment of an enemy.
 * Response, refusing instructions by a timid Continental Congress to move war matériel captured from the British to a place of safe keeping until it could be returned; as quoted in "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!" - American Heritage magazine Vol. 14, Issue 6 (October 1963)

 * Ever since I arrived to a state of manhood, I have felt a sincere passion for liberty. The history of nations doomed to perpetual slavery, in consequence of yielding up to tyrants their natural born liberties, I read with a sort of philosophical horror; so that the first systematical and bloody attempt at Lexington, to enslave America, thoroughly electrified my mind, and fully determined me to take part with my country.
 * As quoted in "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!" - American Heritage magazine Vol. 14, Issue 6 (October 1963)

 * I didn’t hire you to come here and lie! That’s a true note. I signed it. I’ll pay it.… What I employed you for was to get this business put over to the next court — not come here and lie and juggle about it!
 * Courtroom exclamation to his lawyer, who had begun to deny that Allen's signature on a document was genuine, as quoted in "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!" - American Heritage magazine Vol. 14, Issue 6 (October 1963)

Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man (1784)

 * Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man A Compendious System Of Natural Religion at Project Gutenberg

 * I have generally been denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian, except mere infant baptism make me one; and as to being a Deist, I know not, strictly speaking, whether I am one or not, for I have never read their writings; mine will therefore determine the matter; for I have not in the least disguised my sentiments, but have written freely without any conscious knowledge of prejudice for, or against any man, sectary or party whatever; but wish that good sense, truth and virtue may be promoted and flourish in the world, to the detection of delusion, superstition, and false religion; and therefore my errors in the succeeding treatise, which may be rationally pointed out, will be readily rescinded.
 * Preface

 * Though "none by searching can find out God, or the Almighty to perfection," yet I am persuaded, that if mankind would dare to exercise their reason as freely on those divine topics as they do in the common concerns of life, they would, in a great measure, rid themselves of their blindness and superstition, gain more exalted ideas of God and their obligations to him and one another, and be proportionally delighted and blessed with the views of his moral government, make better members of society, and acquire many powerful incentives to the practice of morality, which is the last and greatest perfection that human nature is capable of.
 * Ch. I, Section I - Of Reforming Mankind from Superstition and Error, and the Good Consequences of it

 * The representation of a God, who (as we are told by certain divines) from all eternity elected an inconsiderable part of mankind to eternal life, and reprobated the rest to eternal damnation...is a selfish and inferior notion of a God void of justice, goodness, and truth, and has a natural tendency to impede the cause of true religion and morality in the world, and diametrically repugnant to the truth of the divine character, and which, if admitted to be true, overturns all religion, wholly precluding the agency of mankind in either their salvation or damnation, resolving the whole into the sovereign disposal of a tyrannical and unjust being, which is offensive to reason and common sense, and subversive of moral rectitude in general.
 * Ch. I, Section I - The Cause of Idolatry, and the Remedy of it

Eternal, whether applied to duration, existence, action, or creation, is incomprehensible to us, but implies no contradiction in either of them; for that which is above comprehension we cannot perceive to be contradictory, nor on the other hand can we perceive its rationality or consistency.
 * As creation was the result of eternal and infinite wisdom, justice, goodness, and truth, and effected by infinite power, it is like its great author, mysterious to us. How it could be accomplished, or in what manner performed, can never be comprehended by any capacity.
 * Ch. II, Section I - Of The Eternity of Creation

 * [I]t is altogether reasonable to conclude that the heavenly bodies, _alias_ worlds, which move or are situate within the circle of our knowledge, as well all others throughout immensity, are each and every one of them possessed or inhabited by some intelligent agents or other, however different their sensations or manners of receiving or communicating their ideas may be from ours, or however different from each other. For why would it not have been as wise or as consistent with the perfections which we adore in God, to have neglected giving being to intelligence in this world as in those other worlds, interspersed with [either] of various qualities in his immense creation? And inasmuch as this world is thus replenished, we may, with the highest rational certainty infer, that as God has given us to rejoice, and adore him for our being, he has acted consistent with his goodness, in the display of his providence throughout the university of worlds.
 * Ch. II, Section III - Of The Eternity and Infinitude of Divine Providence

 * To suppose that God Almighty has confined his goodness to this world, to the exclusion of all others, is much similar to the idle fancies of some individuals in this world, that they, and those of their communion or faith, are the favorites of heaven exclusively; but these are narrow and bigoted conceptions, which are degrading to a rational nature, and utterly unworthy of God, of whom we should form the most exalted ideas.
 * Ch. II, Section III - Of The Eternity and Infinitude of Divine Providence

 * It may be objected that a man cannot subsist in the sun; but does it follow from thence, that God cannot or has not constituted a nature peculiar to that fiery region, and caused it to be as natural and necessary for it to suck in and breathe out flames of fire, as it is for us to do the like in air.
 * Ch. II, Section III - Of The Eternity and Infinitude of Divine Providence

 * Certain it is, that any supposed obstructions, concerning the quality or temperature of any or every one of those worlds, could not have been any bar in the way of God Almighty, with regard to his replenishing his universal creation with moral agents. The unlimited perfection of God could perfectly well adapt every part of his creation to the design of whatever rank or species of constituted beings, his Godlike wisdom and goodness saw fit to impart existence to; so that as there is no deficiency of absolute perfection in God, it is rationally demonstrative that the immense creation is replenished with rational agents, and that it has been eternally so, and that the display of divine goodness must have been as perfect and complete, in the antecedent, as it is possible to be in the subsequent eternity.
 * Ch. II, Section III - Of The Eternity and Infinitude of Divine Providence

Admitting this maxim for truth, that the transgressions or sins of mankind are to be estimated by their heinousness, by the dignity and infinity of the divine nature, then it will follow that all sins would be equal, which would confound all our notions of the degrees or aggravations of sin; so that the sin would be the same to kill my neighbor as it would be to kill his horse. For the divine nature, by this maxim, being the rule by which man's sin is to be estimated, and always the same, there could therefore be no degrees in sin or guilt, any more than there are degrees of perfection in God, whom we all admit to be infinite, and who for that reason only cannot admit of any degrees or enlargement. Therefore as certain as there are degrees in sin, the infinity of the divine nature cannot be the standard whereby it is to be ascertained, which single consideration is a sufficient confutation of the doctrine of the infinite evil of sin, as predicated on that maxim, inasmuch as none are so stupid as not to discern that there are degrees and aggravations in sin.
 * That God is infinitely good in the eternal displays of his providence, has been argued in the third section of the second chapter, from which we infer that there cannot be an infinite evil in the universe, inasmuch as it would be incompatible with infinite good; yet there are many who imbibe the doctrine of the infinite evil of sin, and the maxim on which they predicate their arguments in its support, are, that the greatness of sin, or adequateness of its punishment, is not to be measured, or its viciousness ascertained by the capacity and circumstances of the offender, but by the capacity and dignity of the being against whom the offence is committed; and as every transgression is against the authority and law of God, it is therefore against God; and as God is infinite, therefore, sin is an infinite evil, and from hence infer the infinite and vindictive wrath of God against sinners, and of his justice in dooming them, as some say to infinite, and others say to eternal misery; the one without degree or measure, and the other without end or duration.
 * Ch. III, Section I - The Doctrine of the Infinity of Evil and of Sin considered

 * We may for certain conclude, that such a punishment will never have the divine approbation, or be inflicted on any intelligent being or beings in the infinitude of the government of God. For an endless punishment defeats the very end of its institution, which in all wise and good governments is as well to reclaim offenders, as to be examples to others; but a government which does not admit of reformation and repentance, must unavoidably involve its subjects in misery; for the weakness of creatures will always be a source of error and inconstancy, and a wise Governor, as we must admit God to be, would suit his government to the capacity and all other circumstances of the governed; and instead of inflicting eternal damnation on his offending children, would rather interchangeably extend his beneficence with his vindictive punishments, so as to alienate them from sin and wickedness, and incline them to morality; convincing them from experimental suffering, that sin and vanity are their greatest enemies, and that in God and moral rectitude their dependence and true happiness consists, and by reclaiming them from wickedness and error, to the truth, and to the love and practice of virtue, give them occasion to glorify God for the wisdom and goodness of his government, and to be ultimately happy under it. But we are told that the eternal damnation of a part of mankind greatly augments the happiness of the elect, who are represented as being vastly the less numerous, (a diabolical temper of mind in the elect:) besides, how narrow and contractive must such notions of infinite justice and goodness be?
 * Ch. III, Section II - The Moral Government of God as Incompatible With Eternal Punishment

 * Who would imagine that the Deity conducts his providence similar to the detestable despots of this world? Oh horrible, most horrible impeachment of Divine Goodness! Rather let us exaltedly suppose that God eternally had the ultimate best good of beings generally and individually in his view, with the reward of the virtuous and the punishment of the vicious, and that no other punishment will ever be inflicted, merely by the divine administration, but that will finally terminate in the best good of the punished, and thereby subserve the great and important ends of the divine government, and be productive of the restoration and felicity of all finite rational nature.
 * Ch. III, Section II - The Moral Government of God as Incompatible With Eternal Punishment

 * [I]t appears that mankind in this life are not agents of trial for eternity, but that they will eternally remain agents of trial! To suppose that our eternal circumstances will be unalterably fixed in happiness or misery, in consequence of the agency or transactions of this temporary life, is inconsistent with the moral government of God, and the progressive and retrospective knowledge of the human mind. God has not put it into our power to plunge ourselves into eternal woe and perdition; human liberty is not so extensive, for the term of human life bears no proportion to eternity succeeding it; so that there could be no proportion between a momentary agency, (which is liberty of action,) or probation, and any supposed eternal consequences of happiness or misery resulting from it.
 * Ch. III, Section III - Human Liberty, Agency and Accountability, cannot be attended with Eternal Consequences, either Good or Evil

 * Physical evils are in nature inseparable from animal life, they commenced existence with it, and are its concomitants through life; so that the same nature which gives being to the one, gives birth to the other also; the one is not before or after the other, but they are coexistent together, and contemporaries; and as they began existence in a necessary dependence on each other, so they terminate together in death and dissolution. This is the original order to which animal nature is subjected, as applied to every species of it. The beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, with reptiles, and all manner of beings, which are possessed with animal life; nor is pain, sickness, or mortality any part of God's Punishment for sin. On the other hand sensual happiness is no part of the reward of virtue: to reward moral actions with a glass of wine or a shoulder of mutton, would be as inadequate, as to measure a triangle with sound, for virtue and vice pertain to the mind, and their merits or demerits have their just effects on the conscience, as has been before evinced: but animal gratifications are common to the human race indiscriminately, and also, to the beasts of the field: and physical evils as promiscuously and universally extend to the whole, so "_That there is no knowing good or evil by all that is before us, for all is vanity_." It was not among the number of possibles, that animal life should be exempted from mortality: omnipotence itself could not have made it capable of eternalization [sic] and indissolubility; for the self same nature which constitutes animal life, subjects it to decay and dissolution; so that the one cannot be without the other, any more than there could be a compact number of mountains without vallies [sic], or that I could exist and not exist at the same time, or that God should effect any other contradiction in nature...
 * Ch. III, Section IV - Of Physical Evils

Those who invalidate reason, ought seriously to consider, "whether they argue against reason, with or without reason; if with reason, then they establish the principle, that they are laboring to dethrone;" but if they argue without reason, (which, in order to be consistent with themselves, they must do,) they are out of the reach of rational conviction, nor do they deserve a rational argument.
 * Reason spoiled, marred, or robbed of its perfection, ceaseth to be rational, and should not be called reason; inasmuch as it is premised to be depraved, or degenerated from a rational nature; and in consequence of the deprivation of its nature, should also be deprived of its name, and called subterfuge, or some such like name, which might better define its real character.
 * Ch. IV, Section I - Speculation on the Doctrine of the Depravity of Human Reason

 * That there are degrees in the knowledge of rational beings, and also in their capacities to acquire it, cannot be disputed, as it is so very obvious among mankind.
 * Ch. IV, Section I - Speculation on the Doctrine of the Depravity of Human Reason

 * Such people as can be prevailed upon to believe, that their reason is depraved, may easily be led by the nose, and duped into superstition at the pleasure of those in whom they confide, and there remain from generation to generation: for when they throw by the law of reason the only one which God gave them to direct them in their speculations and duty, they are exposed to ignorant or insidious teachers, and also to their own irregular passions, and to the folly and enthusiasm of those about them, which nothing but reason can prevent or restrain...
 * Ch. IV, Section I - Speculation on the Doctrine of the Depravity of Human Reason

 * Princes may make laws and repeal them, but they can neither make nor destroy virtue, and how indeed should they be able to do what is impossible to the Deity himself? Virtue being as immutable in its nature as the divine will which is the ground of it.
 * Ch. IV, Section II - Containing a Disquisition of the Law of Nature, as it respects the Moral System, interspersed with Observations on Subsequent Religions.

 * The author of human nature impressed it with certain sensitive aptitudes and mental powers, so that apprehension, reflection or understanding could no otherwise be exerted or produced in the compound nature of man, but in the order prescribed by the creator.
 * Ch. V, Section I - Argumentative Reflections on Supernatural and Mysterious Revelation in General

 * The idea of a God we infer from our experimental dependence on something superior to ourselves in wisdom, power and goodness, which we call God; our senses discover to us the works of God which we call nature, and which is a manifest demonstration of his invisible essence. Thus it is from the works of nature that we deduce the knowledge of a God, and not because we have, or can have any immediate knowledge of, or revelation from him.
 * Ch. V, Section II - Containing Observations on the Providence and Agency of God, as it Respects the Natural and Moral World, with Strictures on Revelation in General

These facts, together with the premises and inferences as already deduced, are too evident to be denied, and operate conclusively against immediate or supernatural revelation in general; nor will such revelation hold good in theory any more than in practice. Was a revelation to be made known to us, it must be accommodated to our external senses, and also to our reason, so that we could come at the perception and understanding of it, the same as we do to that of things in general. We must perceive by our senses, before we can reflect with the mind. Our sensorium is that essential medium between the divine and human mind, through which God reveals to man the knowledge of nature, and is our only door of correspondence with God or with man.
 * There has in the different parts and ages of the world, been a multiplicity of immediate and wonderful discoveries, said to have been made to godly men of old by the special illumination or supernatural inspiration of God, every of which have, in doctrine, precept and instruction, been essentially different from each other, which are consequently as repugnant to truth, as the diversity of the influence of the spirit on the multiplicity of sectaries has been represented to be.
 * Ch. V, Section II - Containing Observations on the Providence and Agency of God, as it Respects the Natural and Moral World, with Strictures on Revelation in General

 * Comets, earthquakes, volcanoes, and northern lights (in the night,) with many other extraordinary phenomena or appearances intimidate weak minds, and are by them thought to be miraculous, although they undoubtedly have their proper natural causes, which have been in a great measure discovered. Jack-with-a-lantern is a frightful appearance to some people, but not so much as the imaginary spectre. But of all the scarecrows which have made human nature tremble, the devil has been chief; his family is said to be very numerous, consisting of "legions," with which he has kept our world in a terrible uproar.
 * Ch. VI, Section III - Rare and Wonderful Phenomena no evidence of Miracles, nor are Diabolical Spirits able to effect them, or Superstitious Traditions to confirm them, nor can Ancient Miracles prove Recent Revelations

 * In those parts of the world where learning and science has prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in such parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue; which is of itself a strong presumption that in the infancy of letters, learning and science, or in the world's non-age, those who confided in miracles, as a proof of the divine mission of the first promulgators of revelation, were imposed upon by fictitious appearances instead of miracles.
 * Ch. VI, Section III - Rare and Wonderful Phenomena no evidence of Miracles, nor are Diabolical Spirits able to effect them, or Superstitious Traditions to confirm them, nor can Ancient Miracles prove Recent Revelations

 * That Jesus Christ was not God is evident from his own words, where, speaking of the day of judgment, he says, "Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no not the angels which are in Heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." This is giving up all pretention to divinity, acknowledging in the most explicit manner, that he did not know all things, but compares his understanding to that of man and angels; "of that day and hour knoweth no man, no not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son." Thus he ranks himself with finite beings, and with them acknowledges, that he did not know the day and hour of judgment, and at the same time ascribes a superiority of knowledge to the father, for that he knew the day and hour of judgment.
 * Ch. IX, Section III - The Imperfection of Knowledge in the Person of Jesus Christ, incompatible with his Divinity

Reason therefore must be the standard by which we determine the respective claims of revelation; for otherwise we may as well subscribe to the divinity of the one as of the other, or to the whole of them, or to none at all.'''
 * '''A revelation, that may be supposed to be really of the institution of God, must also be supposed to be perfectly consistent or uniform, and to be able to stand the test of truth; therefore such pretended revelations, as are tendered to us as the contrivance of heaven, which do not bear that test, we may be morally certain, was either originally a deception, or has since, by adulteration become spurious.
 * Ch. XIII, Section II - Of The Importance of the Exercise of Reason, and Practice of Morality, in order to the Happiness of Mankind

 * Undoubtedly it is our duty, and for our best good, that we occupy and improve the faculties, with which our creator has endowed us, but so far as prejudice, or prepossession of opinion prevails over our minds, in the same proportion, reason is excluded from our theory or practice. Therefore if we would acquire useful knowledge, we must first divest ourselves of those impediments and sincerely endeavor to search out the truth: and draw our conclusions from reason and just argument, which will never conform to our inclination, interest or fancy; but we must conform to that if we would judge rightly.
 * Ch. XIII, Section II - Of The Importance of the Exercise of Reason, and Practice of Morality, in order to the Happiness of Mankind

 * An unjust composition never fails to contain error and falsehood. Therefore an unjust connection of ideas is not derived from nature, but from the imperfect composition of man. Misconnection of ideas is the same as misjudging, and has no positive existence, being merely a creature of the imagination; but nature and truth are real and uniform; and the rational mind by reasoning, discerns the uniformity, and is thereby enabled to make a just composition of ideas, which will stand the test of truth. But the fantastical illuminations of the credulous and superstitious part of mankind, proceed from weakness, and as far as they take place in the world subvert the religion of REASON, NATURE and TRUTH.
 * Ch. XIII, Section II - Of The Importance of the Exercise of Reason, and Practice of Morality, in order to the Happiness of Mankind

Disputed

 * There is nothing that will make an Englishman shit so quick as the sight of General Washington.
 * Retort attributed to Allen, during his captivity among the British, commenting after a picture of Washington was hung in a outhouse, in an anecdote told by Abraham Lincoln, as quoted in Lincoln, Vol. 1 (1996) by David Herbert Donald; the documentation on this is scanty, and it conceivably arose as a comical anecdote as early as Lincoln's time.
 * Variants:
 * It is most appropriately hung. There is nothing that will make an Englishman shit so quick as the sight of General Washington.
 * As quoted in Strange But True, America : Weird Tales from All 50 States (2004) by John Hafnor, p. 114
 * It is most appropriately hung, nothing ever made the British shit like the sight of George Washington.

Quotes about Allen

 * There is an original something in him that commands admiration; and his long captivity and sufferings have only served to increase if possible, his enthusiastic zeal. He appears very desirous of rendering his services to the States, and of being employed; and at the same time he does not discover any ambition for high rank.
 * George Washington, in a letter to the Continental Congress (May 1778)

 * General Ethan Allen of Vermont died and went to Hell this day.
 * Reverend Doctor Ezra Stiles, president of Yale College, on learning of the death of Allen. Diary entry (12 February 1789)

 * Passed by Ethan Allyn's grave. An awful Infidel, one of ye wickedest men ye ever walked this guilty globe. I stopped & looked at his grave with a pious horror.
 * Rev. Nathan Perkins in his Narrative Of A Tour Through The State Of Vermont on 25 May 1789.

 * Without the loss of a single life, with a casual and even comic air wholly incommensurate with the importance of the event, Ethan Allen’s expedition reduced three key British strongpoints — Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and St. Johns in the north (for the latter was impotent so long as the Americans controlled the lake) — and obtained for the American cause what was, for its time and place, an immense booty: upward of a hundred cannon (the figure is uncertain), several huge mortars and two or three howitzers, 100 stands of small arms, ten tons of musket and cannon balls, three cartloads of flints, a warehouse full of boat-building materials, thirty new carriages, and sundry other war supplies. Next winter, in one of the logistical triumphs of the Revolution, General Henry Knox, on orders from Washington, transported much of the Ticonderoga matériel by sled across the snows to Cambridge; Ticonderoga cannon, at once set up on Dorchester Heights, may well have decided the battle for Boston in favor of the Americans.
 * Kenneth S. Davis in "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!" - American Heritage magazine Vol. 14, Issue 6 (October 1963)

title: Ethan Allen


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Wikiquote:Quote of the day/July

June << July 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 >> August

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Ranking system:
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title: Wikiquote:Quote of the day/July


text:
The Maltese Falcon (1941 film)

The Maltese Falcon is a 1941 film noir about a San Francisco private detective and his dealings with three unscrupulous adventurers, all of whom are competing to obtain a jewel-encrusted falcon statuette. The film has been named as one of the greatest films of all time by Roger Ebert and Entertainment Weekly, was cited by Panorama du Film Noir Américain as the first major film noir, and was selected for inclusion in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry in 1989.
 * Directed and written by John Huston, based on Dashiell Hammett's novel.

Sam Spade

 * We didn't exactly believe your story, Miss O'Shaughnessy; we believed your two hundred dollars...I mean, you paid us more than if you'd been telling us the truth, and enough more to make it all right.

 * My guess might be excellent or it might be crummy, but Mrs. Spade didn't raise any children dippy enough to make guesses in front of a district attorney, and an assistant district attorney, and a stenographer.

 * [to Cairo] When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it.

 * [to Effie Perine] You're a good man, sister.

 * [to Brigid O'Shaughnessy] Miles hadn't many brains, but he had too many years of experience as a detective to be caught like that, by a man he was shadowing, up a blind alley with his gun tucked away in his hip and his overcoat buttoned. [Long pause, then, slowly] But he would have gone up there with you, Angel.  He was just dumb enough for that. He'd have looked you up and down and licked his lips and gone, grinning from ear to ear.

 * [to Brigid O'Shaughnessy] This isn’t the spot for the school girl act. The pair of us are sitting under the gallows.

 * [to Brigid O'Shaughnessy] You’re good. You’re very good.

 * [to Brigid O'Shaughnessy] You won’t need much of anybody’s help. You’re good. It’s chiefly your eyes, I think, and that throb you get in your voice when you say things like ‘Be generous, Mr. Spade.’

Kasper Gutman

 * Well, Wilmer, I'm sorry indeed to lose you, but I want you to know I couldn't be fonder of you if you were my own son. Well, if you lose a son, it's possible to get another. There's only one Maltese falcon. When you're young, you simply don't understand these things.

 * Fake! It’s a phony! It—it’s lead! It’s lead! It’s a fake!

Joel Cairo

 * [to Kasper Gutman] You! It’s you who bungled it! You and your stupid attempt to buy it! You ... you imbecile! You bloated idiot! You stupid fat-head, you!

Brigid O'Shaughnessy

 * I’ve always been a liar.

 * I haven’t lived a good life—I’ve been bad.

Dialogue

 * Brigid: You've got to trust me, Mr. Spade. Oh, I'm so alone and afraid. I've got nobody to help me if you won't help me. Be generous, Mr. Spade. You're brave. You're strong. You can spare me some of that courage and strength surely. Help me, Mr. Spade. I need help so badly. I've no right to ask you, I know I haven't, but I do ask you. Help me.
 * Spade: You won't need much of anybody's help. You're good. It's chiefly your eyes, I think, and that throb you get in your voice when you say things like "Be generous, Mr. Spade."
 * Brigid: I deserve that. But the lie was in the way I said it. Not at all in what I said. It's my own fault if you can't believe me now.
 * Spade: [smiling] Now you are dangerous.

 * Spade: You, uh - you aren't exactly the sort of a person you pretend to be, are ya?
 * Brigid: I'm not sure I know exactly what you mean.
 * Spade: The schoolgirl manner, you know, blushing, stammering, and all that.
 * Brigid: I haven't lived a good life - I've been bad, worse than you could know.
 * Spade: That's good, because if you actually were as innocent as you pretend to be, we'd never get anywhere.
 * Brigid: I won't be innocent.
 * Spade: Good.

 * Brigid: It's more than I can ever offer you if I have to bid for your loyalty.
 * Spade: That's good coming from you. What have you ever given me beside money? Have you ever given me any of your confidence, any of the truth? Haven't you tried to buy my loyalty with money and nothing else?
 * Brigid: What else is there I can buy you with?
 * [Spade kisses her roughly]
 * Spade: I don't care what your secrets are. But I can't go ahead without more confidence in you than I've got now. You've got to convince me that you know what this is all about, that you aren't just fiddling around, hoping that it will all come out right in the end.

 * Spade: [smiling] You are a liar.
 * Brigid: I am. I've always been a liar.
 * Spade: Don't brag about it. Was there any truth at all in that yarn?
 * Brigid: Some...not very much...Oh, I'm - I'm so tired, so tired of lying and making up lies, not knowing what is a lie and what's the truth.

 * Spade: Let's go someplace where we can talk.
 * Cairo: No, no, no. Our private conversations have not been such that I'm anxious to continue them. Forgive my speaking so bluntly, but it is the truth.
 * Spade: You mean last night? What else could I do? I had to throw in with her. I don't know where the bird is and neither do you. She does. How are we gonna get it if I don't play along with her?
 * Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation...
 * Spade: What do you want me to do - learn to stutter?

 * Gutman: We begin well, sir. I distrust a man who says "when". If he's got to be careful not to drink too much, it's because he's not to be trusted when he does. Well, sir, here's to plain speaking and clear understanding. [They drink.] You're a close-mouthed man.
 * Spade: No, I like to talk.
 * Gutman: Better and better. I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously unless you keep in practice. Now, sir, we'll talk if you like. I'll tell you right out - I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk.
 * Spade: Swell. Will we talk about the black bird?
 * Gutman: [chuckling] You're the man for me, sir. No beating about the bush, right to the point. Let's talk about the black bird, by all means. But first, answer me a question. Are you here as Miss O'Shaughnessy's representative?
 * Spade: Well, there's nothing certain either way. It depends.
 * Gutman: It depends on? Maybe it depends on Joel Cairo.
 * Spade: Maybe.
 * Gutman: The question is, then, which you represent. It'll be one or the other.
 * Spade: I didn't say so.
 * Gutman: Who else is there?
 * Spade: There's me.
 * Gutman: Ah. That's wonderful sir, wonderful. I do like a man who tells you right out he's looking out for himself. Don't we all? I don't trust a man who says he's not.

 * Wilmer: Keep on riding me and they're gonna be picking iron out of your liver.
 * Spade: [laughs] The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.

 * Spade: Are you ready to make the first payment, and take the falcon off my hands?
 * [Gutman hands him an envelope of cash]
 * Spade: Ten thousand? We were talking about a lot more money than this.
 * Gutman: Yes sir, we were, but this is genuine coin of the realm. With a dollar of this, you can buy ten dollars of talk. And they're more of us to be taken care of now.
 * Spade: That may be, but I've got the falcon.
 * Cairo: You may have the falcon, but we certainly have you.

 * Spade: I'm in this up to my neck, Gutman. I've got to find somebody - a victim - when the time comes. If I don't, I'll be it. Let's give 'em the gunsel. He actually did shoot Thursby and Jacobi, didn't he? Anyway, he's made to order for the part, look at him. Let's give him to 'em.
 * Gutman: [laughing] By gad, sir, you are a character, that you are. There's never any telling what you'll say or do next, except that it's bound to be something astonishing.

 * Spade: If you kill me, how are you gonna get the bird? And if I know you can't afford to kill me, how are you gonna scare me into giving it to you?
 * Gutman: Well, sir, there are other means of persuasion besides killing and threatening to kill.
 * Spade: Yes, that's, that's true. But - they're none of 'em any good unless the threat of death is behind them - do you see what I mean? If you start something, I'll make it a matter of your having to kill me or call it off.
 * Gutman: [chuckling] That's an attitude, sir, that calls for the most delicate judgment on both sides. 'Cause as you know, sir, in the heat of action, men are likely to forget where their best interests lie and that their emotions carry them away.
 * Spade: Then the trick from my angle is to make my play strong enough to tie you up, but not make you mad enough to bump me off against your better judgment.
 * Gutman: By gad, sir, you are a character.
 * [Cairo whispers into Gutman's ear]
 * Spade: [To Wilmer] Six, two and even, they're selling you out, sonny. [To Gutman] I hope you're not letting yourself be influenced by the guns these pocket-edition desperados are waving around, because I've practiced taking guns away from these boys before so we'll have no trouble there.

 * Spade: Well, if you get a good break, you'll be out of Tehachapi in 20 years and you can come back to me then. I hope they don't hang you, precious, by that sweet neck...Yes, angel, I'm gonna send you over. The chances are you'll get off with life. That means if you're a good girl, you'll be out in 20 years. I'll be waiting for you. If they hang you, I'll always remember you.
 * Brigid: Don't, Sam. Don't say it even in fun. Ha, ha, ha. Oh, I was frightened for a minute. I really thought...You do such wild and unpredictable things.
 * Spade: Don't be silly. You're taking the fall.
 * Brigid: You've been playing with me. Just pretending you care to trap me like this. You didn't care at all. You don't love me!
 * Spade: I won't play the sap for you!
 * Brigid: Oh you know it's not like that. You can't say that.
 * Spade: You ever fight square with me for half an hour at a stretch since I've known you?
 * Brigid: You know down deep in your heart and in spite of anything I've done I love you.
 * Spade: I don't care who loves who! I won't play the sap for you. I won't walk in Thursby's - and I don't know how many other's - footsteps. You killed Miles and you're going over for it.
 * Brigid: How can you do this to me, Sam? Surely, Mr. Archer wasn't so much to you as... [crying]
 * Spade: When a man's partner's killed, he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him, he was your partner, and you're supposed to do something about it. And it happens we're in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed, it's - it's bad business to let the killer get away with it. Bad all around. Bad for every detective everywhere.
 * Brigid: You don't expect me to think that these things you're saying are sufficient reasons for sending me to the...
 * Spade: [interrupting] Wait'll I'm through. Then you can talk. I've no earthly reason to think I can trust you, and, if I do this and get away with it, you'll have something on me that you can use whenever you want to. Since I've got something on you, I couldn't be sure that you wouldn't put a hole in me some day. All those are on one side. Maybe some of them are unimportant – I won't argue about that – but look at the number of them. And what have we got on the other side? All we've got is that maybe you love me and maybe I love you.
 * Brigid: You know whether you love me or not.
 * Spade: Maybe I do. Well, I'll have some rotten nights after I've sent you over, but that will pass. If all I've said doesn't mean anything to you, then forget it and we'll make it just this: I won't because all of me wants to, regardless of consequences, and because you counted on that with me the same as you counted on that with all the others. Don't be too sure I'm as crooked as I'm supposed to be. That sort of reputation might be good business, bringing high-priced jobs and making it easier to deal with the enemy, but a lot more money would have been one more item on your side of the scale.
 * Brigid: If you'd loved me, you wouldn't have needed any more on that side.

 * Polhaus: [lifting the fake falcon] It's heavy. What is it?
 * Spade: The, uh, stuff that dreams are made of.
 * Polhous: Huh?
 * Note: bolded line is ranked #14 in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema.

Taglines

 * A story as explosive as his blazing automatics!
 * A guy without a conscience! A dame without a heart!
 * He's as fast on the draw as he is in the drawing room!
 * He's a Killer When He Hates!

Cast

 * Humphrey Bogart - Sam Spade
 * Mary Astor - Brigid O'Shaughnessy
 * Gladys George - Iva Archer
 * Peter Lorre - Joel Cairo
 * Barton MacLane - Det. Lt. Dundy
 * Lee Patrick - Effie Perine
 * Sydney Greenstreet - Kasper Gutman
 * Ward Bond - Det. Tom Polhaus
 * Jerome Cowan - Miles Archer
 * Elisha Cook Jr. - Wilmer Cook
 * Lee Patrick - Effie Perine

title: The Maltese Falcon (1941 film)


text:
Talk:Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Moved following quote which had no source, no attribution and no googlability here. If anyone finds out proper attribtion, please add it back. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 07:36, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 * And he used to go and sit by the ocean, and watch it for hours and hours. And one day it occoured to me, that I, as a viewer, am in fact seeing two oceans, for this man himself is an ocean.
 * Unknown
 * it was comment from Javed Kkhtar.. on his death in 1997.The two released an album the same year AvnishIT 09:54, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Attribution?
Is Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan credited as author of the quoted lyrics, or not? ~ Ningauble 13:50, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

He is not the author,most of the songs date back to 200 to 800 years old.But he is the one entirely responsible for worldwide popularization of these lyrics. The songs are known from his name.AvnishIT 09:54, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

title: Talk:Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan


text:
User talk:69.227.234.36

Hi. I removed the quote about Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan that you added, since it had no source and no attribution, and I could not find it attributed to anyone. If you have such source or attribution, please add it back with such information. Thanks in advance, ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 07:38, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:69.227.234.36


text:
User talk:Sasquatch

~ MosheZadka (Talk) 07:42, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Sasquatch


text:
User talk:Paul Stone

~ MosheZadka (Talk) 07:43, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Paul Stone


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User talk:Flippancy

~ MosheZadka (Talk) 07:45, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Flippancy


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Cory Doctorow

Cory Efram Doctorow (born 17 July 1971) is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist and science fiction author in favor of liberalizing copyright laws.

Quotes

 * I'm not a lawyer— I'm a kind of mouthpiece/activist type, though occasionally they shave me and stuff me into my Bar Mitzvah suit and send me to a standards body or the UN to stir up trouble. I spend about three weeks a month on the road doing completely weird stuff like going to Microsoft to talk about DRM.
 * Microsoft Research DRM talk (17 June 2004)

 * It is a mistake to let aesthetics drive your rational decision making.
 * "Pwned: How copyright turns us all into IP serfs", UNC iBiblio (22 February 2007)

 * There's something to the idea of the autonomous character. Big chunks of our wetware are devoted to simulating other people, trying to figure out if we are likely to fight or fondle them. It's unsurprising that when you ask your brain to model some other person, it rises to the task. But that's exactly what happens to a reader when you hand your book over to him: he simulates your characters in his head, trying to interpret that character's actions through his own lens.
 * "In Praise of Fanfic" in Locus (May 2007)

 * I'm of the opinion that science fiction writers suck at predicting the future. We mostly go around describing the present in futuristic clothes - (such as) Mary Shelley, Bill Gibson, and many others.
 * "Where is my flying car?", 3rd Degree (September 2007)

 * Any time someone puts a lock on something you own against your wishes, and doesn't give you the key, they're not doing it for your benefit.
 * "Digital Distribution and the Whip Hand: Don't Get iTunesed with your eBooks", O'Reilly (11 February 2009)

 * The real damage from terrorist attacks doesn't come from the explosion. The real damage is done after the explosion, by the victims, who repeatedly and determinedly attack themselves, giving over reason in favor of terror. Every London cop who stops someone from taking a picture of a public building, every TSA agent who takes away your kid's toothpaste, every NSA spook who wiretaps your email, does the terrorist's job for him. Terrorism is about magnifying one mediagenic act of violence into one hundred billion acts of terrorized authoritarian idiocy.
 * "BBC photographer prevented from shooting St Paul's because he might be 'al Qaeda operative'" BoingBoing (30 November 2009)

 * Open platforms and experimental amateurs … eventually beat out the spendy, slick pros. … Relying on incumbents to produce your revolutions is not a good strategy. They're apt to take all the stuff that makes their products great and try to use technology to charge you extra for it, or prohibit it altogether.
 * "Why I won't buy an iPad (and think you shouldn't, either)" on BoingBoing (2 April 2010)

 * A tablet without software is just an inconveniently fragile and poorly reflective mirror, so the thing I want to be sure of when I buy a device is that I don't have to implicitly trust one corporation's judgment about what software I should and shouldn't be using.
 * "Why Samsung's Galaxy Tab is 'meh'" in The Guardian (25 July 2011)

 * As someone once said, "Just because you're not interested in politics does not mean that politics won't be interested in you." And staying away from politics either because you think tech will make laws irrelevant or because there's no good way to influence laws just opens the field for people who don't cherish either of those illusions to make things very bad indeed.
 * Cory Doctorow on the Open Rights Group (Time: 3:25).
 * The quotation to which Doctorow refers is attributed to Charles Forbes René de Montalembert (in French, Vous avez beau ne pas vous occuper de la politique, la politique s'occupera de vous).

 * It's impossible to overstate how bonkers the idea of sabotaging cryptography is to people who understand information security. ... Use deliberately compromised cryptography, that has a back door that only the "good guys" are supposed to have the keys to, and you have effectively no security. You might as well skywrite it as encrypt it with pre-broken, sabotaged encryption.
 * "Encryption won't work if it has a back door only the 'good guys' have keys to" in The Guardian (1 May 2015)

 * One form of math denial is the belief in the ability to make computers that prevent copyright infringement. Computers only ever work by making copies: restricting copying on the internet is like restricting wetness in water.
 * The FBI wants a backdoor only it can use – but wanting it doesn't make it possible in The Guardian (24 February 2016)

 * Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop.
 * Medium article title (November 20, 2022)

 * Right to repair has no cannier, more dedicated adversary than Apple, a company whose most innovative work is dreaming up new ways to sneakily sabotage electronics repair while claiming to be a caring environmental steward, a lie that covers up the mountains of e-waste that Apple dooms our descendants to wade through.
 * "Apple fucked us on right to repair (again)", Pluralistic (22 September 2023)

When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth (2006)

 * Novelette which won the 2007 Locus Award. Published in the August 2006 issue of Jim Baen's Universe. Page number from the reprint in Doctorow's collection Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present, ISBN 1-56025-981-7

 * “It’s logical,” Sario said. “Lots of people don’t like coping with logic when it dictates hard decisions. That’s a problem with people, not logic.”
 * p. 24

There's a great big beautiful tomorrow / Now is the best time of your life (2010)

 * Page numbers from Godlike Machines (ed. Jonathan Strahan), published by The Science Fiction Book Club, ISBN 978-1-61664-759-9

 * “How’s your parents?” She didn't manage to hide her smile. “Their weirdness is terminal.”
 * p. 172

 * I lived in the future that they were talking about in the ride, but we didn't have “progress” anymore. We’d outgrown progress. What we had was change. Things changed whenever anyone wanted to change them: design and launch a fleet of wumpuses, or figure out a way to put an emotional antenna in your head, or create a fleet of killer robots, or invent immortality, or gengineer your goats to give silk. Just do it. It'll catch on, or it won't. Maybe it'll catch itself on. Then the world is…different. Then someone else changes it. The status quo doesn't protect itself, it needs defending if it's going to stay put. The problem is that technology gives more of an advantage to an attacker than to a defender. A defender needs to mount a perfect defense. An attacker needs to find one hole in the defense. So once technology gets going, anything can be knocked down—evil doesn't stand—but nothing much can be erected in its place.
 * p. 194

 * There are lots of things I try not to dwell upon. The fact that this is all my fault is one of those things.
 * p. 246

The Man Who Sold The Moon (2014)

 * Novella which won the 2015 Theodore Sturgeon Award. Published in Ed Finn & Kathryn Cramer (eds.) Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future (2014), ISBN 978-0-06-220469-1

 * But she was one of those doctors who hadn’t gotten the memo from the American health-care system that says that you should only listen to a patient for three minutes, tops, before writing him a referral and/or a prescription and firing him out the door just as the next patient was being fired in.
 * p. 98

 * Okay, this is the thing. We spend all our time doing, you know, stuff. Maintenance. Ninety-eight percent of the day, all you’re doing is thinking about what you’re going to be doing to go on doing what you’re doing. Worrying about whether you’ve got enough socked away to see you through your old age without ending up eating cat food. Worrying about whether you’re getting enough fiber or eating too many carbs. It’s being alive, but it’s hardly living.
 * p. 114

 * It turns out that teaching is one of those things like raising a kid or working out—sometimes amazing, often difficult and painful, but, in hindsight, amazing.
 * p. 129

 * “Look, whatever else happiness is, it’s also some kind of chemical reaction. Your body making and experiencing a cocktail of hormones and other molecules in response to stimulus. Brain reward. A thing that feels good when you do it. We’ve had millions of years of evolution that gave a reproductive edge to people who experienced pleasure when something pro-survival happened. Those individuals did more of whatever made them happy, and if what they were doing more of gave them more and hardier offspring, then they passed this on.” “Yes,” I said. “Sure. At some level, that’s true of all our emotions, I guess.” “I don’t know about that,” she said. “I’m just talking about happiness. The thing is, doing stuff is pro-survival—seeking food, seeking mates protecting children, thinking up better ways to hide from predators...Sitting still and doing nothing is almost never pro-survival, because the rest of the world is running around, coming up with strategies to outbreed you, to outcompete you for food and territory...If you stay still, they’ll race past you.”
 * p. 130

 * Existence proofs always trump theory. That’s engineering.
 * p. 135

 * He was a pushy, self-righteous prig, but that didn’t mean he was wrong. Necessarily.
 * p. 139

 * And don’t talk to me about having a positive attitude. The reason all those who’ve died of cancer croaked is because they had cancer, not because they were too gloomy.
 * p. 144

 * Things are true or they aren’t, no matter how old the person saying them happens to be.
 * p. 147

 * Doesn’t matter how old the speaker is, it’s the words that matter.
 * p. 148

 * “The problem with world hunger is that rich, powerful governments are more than happy to send guns and money to dictators and despots who’ll use food to control their populations and line their pockets. There is no ‘world hunger’ problem. There’s a corruption problem. There’s a greed problem. There’s a gullibility problem....” “So there’s a corruption problem,” I said. “Point taken. How about if we make a solution for the corruption problem, then? Maybe we could build some kind of visualizer that shows you if your Congresscritter is taking campaign contributions from companies and then voting for laws that benefit them?” “What, you mean like every single one of them?”
 * p. 149 (ellipsis represents a brief elision of text)

 * Greg, what are you talking about? Ending corruption? Like there’s a version of this society that isn’t corrupt? Corruption isn’t the exception, it’s the norm. It’s baked in. The whole idea of using markets to figure out who gets what is predicated on corruption—it’s a way to paper over the fact that some people get a lot, most of us get not much, and so we invent a deus ex machina called market forces that hands out money based on merit. How do we know that the market is giving it to deserving people? Well, look at all the money they have! It’s just circular reasoning.
 * p. 150

 * It’s a bitch when someone reminds you of all the contradictions in your life, I know. Your discomfort doesn’t make what I’m saying any less true, though. Come on, you all know this is true. Late-stage capitalism isn’t reformable. It’s an idea whose time has passed.
 * p. 150

 * They just hated and feared us because our government hated and feared them.
 * p. 154

 * It was nice to think that the key to feeding nine billion people was to measure return on investment by maximizing calories and minimizing misery, instead of minimizing capital investment and maximizing retained earnings to shareholders.
 * p. 166

Petard: A Tale of Just Deserts (2014)

 * Page numbers from the reprint in Rich Horton (ed.), The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015

 * The problem isn’t that the world has the wrong kind of sellers; it’s that it has the wrong kind of buyers. Powerless, diffused, atomized, puny, and insubstantial.
 * p. 313

 * All evil in the world is the result of an imbalance between the people who benefit from shenanigans and the people who get screwed by shenanigans.
 * p. 317

 * Again, I was torn between the impulse to hang up on him and to hear more. Nosiness won (nosiness always wins; bets on nosiness are a sure thing).
 * p. 323

 * There were only two reasons to call me after something like this: to confess his sins or to get revenge. And no one would ever mistake me for a priest.
 * p. 323

 * Beautiful was not the opposite of terrible. The two could easily co-exist.
 * p. 332

 * Maybe it’s just an elaborate game of sound bites and kabuki gestures that are all calibrated to the precise sociopathic degree necessary to convey empathy and ethics without ever descending into either.
 * p. 333

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003)

 * First-time novelists have a tough row to hoe. Our publishers don’t have a lot of promotional budget to throw at unknown factors like us. Mostly, we rise and fall based on word-of-mouth.
 * "A note about this book, January 9, 2003''

 * P2P nets kick all kinds of ass. Most of the books, music and movies ever released are not available for sale, anywhere in the world. In the brief time that P2P nets have flourished, the ad-hoc masses of the Internet have managed to put just about everything online. What’s more, they’ve done it far cheaper than any other archiving/revival effort ever. Yeah, there are legal problems. Yeah, it’s hard to figure out how people are gonna make money doing it. Yeah, there is a lot of social upheaval and a serious threat to innovation, freedom, business, and whatnot. It’s your basic end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario, and as a science fiction writer, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenaria are my stock-in-trade.
 * "A note about this book, January 9, 2003''

 * I released this book a little over a year ago under the terms of a Creative Commons license that allowed my readers to freely redistribute the text without needing any further permission from me. In this fashion, I enlisted my readers in the service of a grand experiment, to see how my book could find its way into cultural relevance and commercial success. The experiment worked out very satisfactorily. When I originally licensed the book under the terms set out in the next section, I did so in the most conservative fashion possible, using CC's most restrictive license. I wanted to dip my toe in before taking a plunge. I wanted to see if the sky would fall: you see writers are routinely schooled by their peers that maximal copyright is the only thing that stands between us and penury, and so ingrained was this lesson in me that even though I had the intellectual intuition that a "some rights reserved" regime would serve me well, I still couldn't shake the atavistic fear that I was about to do something very foolish indeed.  It wasn't foolish.
 * "A note about this book, February 12, 2004"

 * I lived long enough to see the cure for death; to see the rise of the Bitchun Society, to learn ten languages; to compose three symphonies; to realize my boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World; to see the death of the workplace and of work.
 * First lines

 * The Bitchun Society has had much experience with restores from backup—in the era of the cure for death, people live pretty recklessly. Some people get refreshed a couple dozen times a year.

 * The Bitchun Society had all but done away with any sort of dull, repetitious labor, and what remained—tending bar, mopping toilets—commanded Whuffie aplenty and a life of leisure in your off-hours.

 * I’d talk to him about the vast carpet of the future unrolling before us, of the certainty that we would encounter alien intelligences some day, of the unimaginable frontiers open to each of us. He’d tell me that deadheading was a strong indicator that one’s personal reservoir of introspection and creativity was dry; and that without struggle, there is no real victory. This was a good fight, one we could have a thousand times without resolving. I’d get him to concede that Whuffie recaptured the true essence of money: in the old days, if you were broke but respected, you wouldn’t starve; contrariwise, if you were rich and hated, no sum could buy you security and peace. By measuring the thing that money really represented—your personal capital with your friends and neighbors—you more accurately gauged your success.

 * I think that if I’m still here in ten thousand years, I’m going to be crazy as hell. Ten thousand years, pal! Ten thousand years ago, the state-of-the-art was a goat. You really think you’re going to be anything recognizably human in a hundred centuries?

 * I swore I'd be done, and that would be the end of it. And now I am. There isn't a single place left on-world that isn't part of the Bitchun Society. There isn't a single thing left that I want any part of.

 * Lying on my hotel bed, mesmerized by the lazy turns of the ceiling fan, I pondered the possibility that I was nuts. It wasn’t unheard of, even in the days of the Bitchun Society, and even though there were cures, they weren’t pleasant.

 * I’d seen how Imagineering worked when they were on their own, building prototypes and conceptual mockups—I knew that the real bottleneck was the constant review and revisions, the ever-fluctuating groupmind consensus of the ad-hoc that commissioned their work. Suneep looked sheepish. “Well, if all I have to do is satisfy myself that my plans are good and my buildings won’t fall down, I can make it happen very fast. Of course, my plans aren’t perfect. Sometimes, I’ll be halfway through a project when someone suggests a new flourish or approach that makes the whole thing immeasurably better.

 * The universe gets older. So do I. So does my backup, sitting in redundant distributed storage dirtside, ready for the day that space or age or stupidity kills me. It recedes with the years, and I write out my life longhand, a letter to the me that I’ll be when it’s restored into a clone somewhere, somewhen. It’s important that whoever I am then knows about this year, and it’s going to take a lot of tries for me to get it right.

Eastern Standard Tribe (2004)

 * Engineers are all basically high-functioning autistics who have no idea how normal people do stuff.

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (2005)

 * Larry poured himself a coffee. "I hate when they come in here with computers. They sit forever at their tables, and they don't talk to nobody, it's like having a place full of statues or zombies."

 * "Christ, you're dragging me out for that? I can tell you what they'll say. They'll drag out the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse: kiddie porn, terrorists, pirates, and the mafia. They'll tell us that any tool for communicating that they can't tap, log, and switch off is irresponsible. They'll tell us we're stealing from ISPs. It's what they say every time someone tries this: Philly, New York, London. All around the world same song."

 * All secrets are deep. All secrets become dark. That's in the nature of secrets.

 * No one should do a job he can do in his sleep.

 * It's not necessarily about what career you pick. It's about how you do what you do.

Little Brother (2008)

 * Abnormal is so common, it's practically normal.

 * Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time rich and cash poor.

 * This is why I loved technology: if you used it right, it could give you power and privacy.

title: Cory Doctorow


text:
Rita Mae Brown

Rita Mae Brown (born November 28, 1944) is a prolific American writer who became famous with her first novel Rubyfruit Jungle; she is also a mystery writer and an Emmy-nominated screenwriter.

Quotes

 * One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.
 * Life is too short to be miserable.
 * A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it's better than no inspiration at all.
 * You can't be truly rude until you understand good manners.
 * No animal on the face of the earth could conceive of taxation. You and I work roughly six months a year to pay our local, state and federal taxes. If nothing else, this should convince you that animals are smarter than people.
 * Divorce is the one human tragedy that reduces everything to cash.
 * About all you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won't like you at all.
 * I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.

 * If the world were a logical place, men would ride side saddle.
 * Sudden Death (1983)
 * Variant: "If the World Made Sense, Men Would Ride Sidesaddle" was the title of a 1993 one-man comedy by Ed Navis, performed at Wings Theatre, New York.
 * ''I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.

 * Normal is the average of deviance.
 * Venus Envy (1993)

 * I also think living in the country gives you faith. All you have to do is get up and look at the mountains and look at the other animals to realize that your problems are mostly made up or exacerbated by humans. But human life isn't necessarily life. There's so much more out there.
 * Interview in OutSmart magazine (January 1998)

 * Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
 * Alma Mater (2001), p. 108. — but not originally hers, see Misattributed below.

Starting from Scratch (1989)

 * I think the reason I choose the comic approach so often is because it's harder, therefore affording me the opportunity to show off. Also, a comic vision is my natural world view, but I've grown up in spite of myself and I can pass the comic twist if it detracts from what the characters need. Yes, the life of a saint is hard.

 * I have changed my definition of tragedy. I now think tragedy is not foul deeds done to a person... but rather that tragedy is irresolvable conflict. Both sides/ideas are right. Plot involves fragmentary reality, and it might involve composite reality. Fragmentary reality is the view of the individual. Composite reality is the community or state view. Fragmentary reality is always set against composite reality. Virginia Woolf did this by creating fragmentary monologues and for a while this was all the rage in literature. She was a genius. In the hands of the merely talented it came off like gibberish.
 * Rita Mae Brown, Starting from Scratch (1989)

Quotes about Rita Mae Brown

 * I also look at people like Rita Mae Brown and some of the writers who were supported by small presses that have switched over to mainstream presses. That's all right-that's their choice. But the fact is that I'm sensitive to the publishing history of dykes and women of color. It was women who put my work in print and I'm not going to turn my back on them. Ideally, I would like to do both: publish with a small press and enlarge my audience by publishing with a mainstream press.
 * Gloria E. Anzaldua interview in ‘’Backtalk : women writers speak out’’ by Donna Marie Perry (1993)

 * I had managed to rationalize my shock and dismay when I found the narrator of Ruby fruit Jungle describing the fat Jewish girl Barbara Spangenthau as someone who "always had her hand in her pants playing with herself, and worse, she stank. Until I was fifteen I thought that being Jewish meant you walked around with your hand in your pants." In 1974, as an emerging lesbian, I didn't want to admit that the movement's leading fiction writer was basing her humor on age-old anti-Semitic stereotypes. I simply couldn't afford to take it in. So I kept silent. In those early years of struggle it seemed unworthy to make a fuss. And worse-it seemed divisive. I could not yet claim my anger. I wanted too much to belong
 * Evelyn Torton Beck "Why Is This Book Different from All Other Books?" in Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology (1982)

 * In the early 1970s, women started national networks of small presses, such as Daughters Inc., which published Rita Mae Brown's groundbreaking lesbian novel Rubyfruit Jungle.
 * Michael Bronski A Queer History of the United States (2011)

Disputed

 * The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.
 * Many sources attribute this quote to Brown without giving a specific reference to her writings. The earliest located is the following variation from p. 47 of Musgrave Landing: Musings on the Writing Life by Susan Musgrave (1994), which Musgrave quotes as "Rita Mae Brown's warning": "If you become the kind of writer who calls forth heated emotional states, be careful. There are a lot of unbalanced people out there. The statistics on insanity are that one out of every four people is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's got to be you."

Misattributed

 * Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.
 * Brown did include this quote in her book Sudden Death (Bantam Books, New York, 1983), p. 68, but it appears she was just paraphrasing a quote that had already been written elsewhere. The earliest known appearance of a similar quote is the "approval version" of the Narcotics Anonymous "Basic Text" released in November 1981, which included the quote "Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results." A PDF scan of the 1981 approval version can be found here, with the quote appearing on p. 11 (p. 25 of the PDF), at the end of the fourth paragraph (which begins "We have a disease; progressive, incurable and fatal"). More in this article on Quote Investigator website.

 * Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
 * Brown may have used this quote in 2001 but it was in a 365 day "Quote" calendar in 1994.

title: Rita Mae Brown


text:
Category talk:Proverbs

"The meaning of life is to find meaning in life". = From Talk:List of proverbs = If you want to keep a friend, never borrow, never lend

I am contemplating listing this page on VFD. Unlike other list pages, which have some justification considering the massive subcategorization, the proverbs category is completely flat. Other than the four redlinked proverbs, we would lose nothing. Anyone has any thoughts on the matter? ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 12:17, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

 * OK, I found an easier way than the VfD route: I intend to redirect this page to Category:Proverbs. The only thing we would lose is the redlink Slovak proverbs. We would guess less maintenance hassle, not to mention the page is already out of date. If anyone has any objections, please let me know, otherwise I intend to do this within a week. The advantage is that this move is reversible by anyone, so if you came here after I made this change, and feel it is unwarranted, please reverse it and leave me a note on my talk page. Thanks ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 13:57, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

From main page
In the "n" category was the following:

Nepali Proverbs

Kaag lai bel pakyo harsa na bismat

I'm keeping it here in case anyone finds it useful. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 11:24, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Some others italian proverbs: ITALIAN POPULAR PROVERBS

We have afghanistan proverbs but no iraqi? Don't they have proverbs too?

Proposed new category: Mormon Proverbs
I was raised as a Mormon and taught by my Dad that "There's always two points of view, except that there's usually three or four." 207.135.154.96 16:09, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Common Proverbs category
How about introducing a new category for proverbs which are ~the same in many languages. It would be like: [Proverb], [language1], [language2] etc plus its variations perhaps.

= Category talk:Proverbs=

Etheopian proverbs
There is no catagory for Etheopean proverbs. Here's an example of one... "Because he hardly closes his mouth, the fool's teeth suffer from frost."

Marathi proverbs
I would like to add this category.Some examples for the beginning-- Nakatichya Lagnala Satrashe Sath Vighneliterally meaning-A girl with short nose has to face 1760 problems to fix marriage. One who lacks some basic skills has to suffer a lot. Bhatala Dili Osree Bhat Hatpay Pasariliterally meaning- A Brahmin was offered some place to sit and he immediately laid down to sleep One takes disadvantages of the facilities given o him.
 * Thanks, please not add to this category, create a new article instead. --Aphaia 10:12, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Australian Proverbs
How do we add a category just called, "Australian". The Aboriginal Australian is different to the rest of Australia.

For example:

“It is easy to remember your enemies, its easy to forget your friends” "One man's meat is another man's poison" or "To each his own." "Half a loaf is better than none." "A bad workman blames his tools." "Don't count your chickens before they are hatched." "Call on God, but row away from the rocks." "God helps those who help themselves." "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" "You can't judge a book by its cover" "Don't blow your own trumpet" "Who needs a bodyguard, I've got a donk"
 * You need to create an article Australian proverbs by clicking on this redlink, then adding Category:Proverbs at the foot of the article.-- Poetlister 20:59, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

the opening paragraph
Has a few errors. For example: 'reversed' where I assume 'revered' should be. and a ] instead of an "l" Novium 18:37, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

still has 'reversed'. knoxg 3:38pm 23rd Jan 2010 (somewhere in aus).

What goofus is in charge of the proverbs main page? They lock it down with a silly error, and when it's pointed out multiple times for 4 years they still don't fix it! Hello! The word should be "revered," not "reversed," in the 1st paragraph. Doesn't Wiki mean fast? Maybe they should change it!

Proverbial expressions
Hi, I was wondering if proverbial expressions are permitted in these pages. Here's a Turkish example to clarify:
 * Dimyat'a pirince giderken evdeki (or eldeki) bulgurdan olmak.
 * Literal translation: To lose one's bulgur while going to Dimyat to seek rice.
 * Interpretation: To lose less worthy but useful items one already owns while seeking for more in other places. 88.234.22.7 22:27, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Spelling error in first sentence
A proverb (from the Latin proverbium) is a simple and concrete saying popularly known and reversed,

I believe reversed should have been revered

✅. ~ Ningauble 14:58, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

English proverbs?
Is there a reason why english proverbs aren't linked? 83.84.118.255 14:05, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅. English proverbs is categorized now. ~ Ningauble 18:32, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Where are all the proverbs ?!
This category used to have much more pages.

Where have they all gone to?

Why are so many pages deleted?

Look: http://web.archive.org/web/20110629035008/http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Category:Proverbs

Sufi proverbs?
Will there be a list of Sufi proverbs in here? One such said thing as listed in an American edition (if I remember) of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is In the desert there is no sign that says, Thou shalt not eat stones. Is it genuine? Whatever it means, where did that come from? --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 20:44, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Igbo proverbs
A toad don't run in the afternoon for nothing

The egg is the father of the cock What an elder is see while siting children can not see it while standing

,

title: Category talk:Proverbs


text:
User talk:Sublime-sunrise

Hi. I have nominated Ekaangi for deletion, because I could find nothing about this film by searching and there was no intro or identifying information on the page. If you can find such information, please add it both to the article and to the VfD discussion. Thanks, ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 15:01, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Sublime-sunrise


text:
Leonard Wibberley

Leonard Wibberley (April 9, 1915 – November 22, 1983) was a prolific Irish author, best known for his comic novels about the imaginary country Grand Fenwick, particularly The Mouse That Roared.

The Mouse that Roared

 * Though the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword speaks louder and stronger at any given moment.
 * p. 5.

 * a Yea might turn in to a Nae and vice versa if a sufficient quantity of wordage was applied. In other talk you argument out until you get the answer you want.
 * p. 5.

 * I think women should make a habit of canceling the wars.
 * p. 145.

title: Leonard Wibberley


text:
Anne Bradstreet

Anne Bradstreet (March 20, 1612 – September 16, 1672) was the most prominent of early English poets of North America and first writer in England's North American colonies to be published. She is the first Puritan figure in American Literature and notable for her large corpus of poetry, as well as personal writings published posthumously.

Quotes

 * If for thy Father askt, say, thou hadst none; And for thy Mother, she alas is poor, Which caus'd her thus to send thee out of door.
 * The Author to Her Book.

 * What to my Saviour shall I give Who freely hath done this for me? I'll serve him here whilst I shall live And Loue him to Eternity
 * By Night when Others Soundly Slept.

 * A Spring returns, and they more youthful made; But Man grows old, lies down, remains where once he's laid.
 * Contemplations.

 * "Sister," quoth Flesh, "what liv'st thou on Nothing but Meditation?
 * The Flesh and the Spirit.

 * Such cold mean flowers the spring puts forth betime, Before the sun hath thoroughly heat the clime.
 * Of the Four Ages of Man.

 * Leave not thy nest, thy dam and sire, Fly back and sing amidst this choir.
 * In Reference to her Children, 23 June 1659.

 * If ever two were one, then surely we. If ever man were loved by wife, then thee; If ever wife was happy in a man, Compare with me ye women if you can.
 * To my Dear and Loving Husband.

 * The principal might yield a greater sum, Yet handled ill, amounts but to this crumb;
 * To Her Father with Some Verses.

Meditations Divine and Moral (1664)

 * Youth is the time of getting, middle age of improving, and old age of spending.
 * 3.

 * Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.
 * 12.

 * If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
 * 14.

 * Fire hath its force abated by water, not by wind; and anger must be allayed by cold words, and not by blustering threats.
 * 43.

Quotes about Anne Bradstreet

 * Anne Bradstreet wrote seven thousand lines of verse and most of it is derivative, unremarkable, sometimes even soporific, although her best is very good indeed; and her real achievements in poetry have not been duly recognized for almost three hundred years. But in greatness of spirit, generosity of outlook, love for learning as a path toward truth; in their quick responsive delight in the everyday wonder of the world and their deeply devout faith in the goodness of God, Anne Bradstreet and Juana Inés de la Cruz-the one a Puritan, the other a Roman Catholic-were very close akin. Remarking upon the brevity of human life, Anne Bradstreet wrote, "And though thus short, we shorten many ways, / Living so little while we are alive"; and Sor Juana said, "Angels are higher than men because they understand more."
 * Muna Lee (writer) "Two Seventeenth-Century Pen-Women: Anne Bradstreet of Massachusetts and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz of Mexico" address before the Biennial Convention of the National League of American Pen-Women, Pan American Union, Washington, D.C., April 10, 1954. Included in A Pan-American Life: Selected Poetry and Prose of Muna Lee edited by Jonathan Cohen (2004)

 * Anne Bradstreet's sweet-tempered moderation can be read as ironic or conformist, but the significant fact is that she persisted all her life in working and publishing as a poet. At what cost to herself and her art can only be surmised. As Adrienne Rich observed: "To have written poems, the first good poems in America, while rearing eight children, lying frequently sick, keeping house at the edge of wilderness, was to have managed a poet's range and extension within confines as severe as any American poet has confronted."
 * Gerda Lerner The Creation of Feminist Consciousness (1993)

title: Anne Bradstreet


text:
William Hughes Mearns

William Hughes Mearns (1875–1965), better known as Hughes Mearns, was an American educator and poet.

Antigonish
(This text differs from that given in the Wikipedia article on William Hughes Mearns)

title: William Hughes Mearns