Past: Website Footer Quotes

One of the great traditions of the IshCon.org website was the rotating quotations placed at the bottom of the site's pages. They often reflected the mood of the discussions, current events, or just the quirkiness of the site's maintainers. This ordered compilation may provide some insight into the thoughts that shaped our time here.

To work in the world lovingly means that we are defining what we will be for, rather than reacting to what we are against.
--Christina Baldwin

With IshCon.org moving on, is there hope for the forums?
With the forums moving on, is there hope for IshCon.org?

People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.
--Otto von Bismarck

In order to discover new lands, one must be willing to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind
There was something so pleasant about that Place.
Even your emotions have an echo in so much space
And when you're out there Without care,
Yeah, I was out of touch But it wasn't because I didn't know enough
I just knew too much
Does that make me crazy?
And I hope that you are having the time of your life
But think twice That's my only advice
Come on now, who do you, who do you, who do you, who do you think you are?
Ha ha ha bless your soul
You really think you're in control
Well, I think you're crazy
--Gnarls Barkley

I am a complex enough being that I can hold in my heart the understanding
that we are really, really fucked, and at the same time that life is really,
really good. I am full of rage, sorrow, joy, love, hate, despair, happiness,
satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and a thousand other feelings.
We are really fucked. Life is still really good.
--Derrick Jensen

How does a newness come into the world? How is it born?
Of what fusions, translations, conjoinings is it made?
How does it survive, extreme and dangerous as it is?
What compromises, what deals, what betrayals of its secret nature must it
make to stave off the wrecking crew, the exterminating angel, the guillotine?
Is birth always a fall? Do angels have wings?
--Salman Rushdie

They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.
--Andy Warhol

La distance n'y fait rien; il n'y a que le premier pas qui coute
--Marquise du Deffand

If love be rough with you, be rough with love. Prick love for pricking you and beat love down.
--William Shakespeare

We're never gonna survive unless we get a little bit crazy.
--Seal

Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.
-Mark Twain

Wal-Mart: Changing the American Landscape, Eighty Seven Acres at a Time

The possibilities that exist between two people, or among a group of
people, are a kind of alchemy. They are the most interesting thing in life.
The liar is someone who keeps losing sight of these possibilities.
--Adrienne Rich

Ubi dubium ibi libertas.

Many attempts to communicate are nullified by saying too much.
--Robert Greeleaf

I get up every morning determined both to change
the world and to have one hell of a good time.
Sometimes this makes planning the day difficult.
--E.B. White

The monkey died because it spent more time pleasuring itself than eating.
--Ghost

The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen.
Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is
our attention. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to
connect than the most well-intentioned words.
--Rachel Naomi Remen

Live as if you were to die tomorrow.
Learn as if you were to live forever.
--Mahatma Gandhi

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness.
Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost.
--H. Jackson Brown Jr.

I've been walking these streets at night
Just trying to get it right
It's hard to see with so many around
You know I don't like being stuck in a crowd
And the streets don't change but maybe the name
I ain't got time for the game
'Cause I need you
Yeah, yeah well I need you
Oh, I need you
Whoa, I need you
Ooh, this time....
--GNR

Father, forgive us for what we must do
You forgive us and we'll forgive you
We'll forgive each other till we both turn blue
Then we'll whistle and go fishing in heaven.
--John Prine

Liars do not fear the truth if there are enough liars.
--Fox Mulder

I honor your gods
I drink from your well
I bring an unprotected heart to our meeting place
I hold no cherished outcome
I will not negotiate by withholding
I am not subject to disappointment
--Druid Vow of Friendship

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
Only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness;
So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Guess what? I got a fever! And the only prescription.. is more cowbell!
--Bruce Dickinson

A true friend stabs you in the front.
--Oscar Wilde

Truth is a pathless land.
--J. Krishnamurti

It is an important and popular fact that things aren't always as they seem.
For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more
intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much -- the wheel, New York,
wars and so on-- while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water
having a good time. But conversely the dolphins had always believed that they
were far more intelligent than man--for precisely the same reasons.
--Douglas Adams

Wise people talk because they have something to say;
fools, because they have to say something.
--Plato

Don't approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back, or a fool from any side.
--Jewish Proverb

Why fools are endowed by nature with voices so much louder than sensible people possess is a mystery. It is a fact emphasized throughout history.
--Hertzler

Many clever men like you have trusted to civilisation.
Many clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome.
Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilisation,
what there is particularly immortal about yours?
--Gilbert K. Chesterton

There is only one force of history that can break the reign of
hatred and resentment and expose the pretensions of tyrants
and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant.
And that is the force of human freedom.
--George W. Bush

Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Begin it now.
--Goethe

[m]y crippling is a daily and living sculpture of certain truths:
we receive and we lose, and we must try to achieve gratitude;
and with that gratitude to embrace with whole hearts
whatever of life that remains after the losses.
--Andre Dubus

The opera ain't over until the fat lady sings.
--Daniel John Cook

You are captives and you have made a captive of the world itself.
If you don't discover what's keeping you in, the will
to get out soon becomes confused and ineffectual.
--Ishmael

Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace.
--Amelia Earhart

Modern Society will find no solution to the ecological
problem unless it takes a serious look at its lifestyles.
--Pope John Paul II

The poetry of the earth is never dead.
--John Keats

Obviously, we have a bunch of Godless tree monkeys as judges...
--TonyZ

We ascribe beauty to that which is simple;
which has no superfluous parts;
which exactly answers its end;
which stands related to all things;
which is the mean of many extremes.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's time we stop worrying, and get angry you know?
But not angry and pick up a gun, but angry and open our minds.
--Tupac Amaru Shakur

Two men in a burning house must not stop to argue.
--African Proverb

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human
being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind.
--William James, 1842-1910

Beyond civilization isn't a geographical space
up in the mountains or on some remote desert isle.
It's a cultural space that opens up among people with new mind
--Daniel Quinn

Much of the social history of the Western world
over the past three decades has involved replacing
what worked with what sounded good.
--Thomas Sowel

Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius--and a lot of courage--to move in the opposite direction.
--Albert Einstein

For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.
--Hunter S. Thompson

Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
--Will Rogers

When you live in the world, with nature,
your identity is no longer called into question.
The land gives you a foundation.
--Vine Deloria, Jr.

Once a person has all the things they need to live,
everything else is entertainment.
--Neal Stephenson

Almost all our faults are more pardonable
than the methods we resort to to hide them.
--Duc Francois de La Rochefoucauld

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.
--George Orwell

If God dwells inside us like some people say....
I sure hope He likes enchiladas, because that's what He's getting.
--Deep thought by Jack Handey

We all need money, but there are degrees of desperation.
--Anthony Burgess

You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen.
You need not even listen, simply wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary.
The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked.
It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
--Franz Kafka

Will you raise me up, will you help me down?
Will you get me right out of this godforsaken town?
Will you make it all a little less cold?
I can do that! I can do that!
 
Will you hold me sacred? will you hold me tight?
Can you colorize my life, I'?so sick of black and white?
Can you make it all a little less old?
I can do that! oh oh, now I can do that!
Will you make me some magic, with your own two hands?
Can you build an emerald city with these grains of sand?
Can you give me something I can take home?
--Meatloaf

The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and
hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives
of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods
of light and life no longer flow into our souls.
--Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, None but ourselves can free our minds.
--Bob Marley

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

This just sounds like yet another half-baked hippie philosophy, borne of Rousseauan naivete.
--ice-nine

Nothing brings people together more than mutual hatred.
--Henry Rollins

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth.
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
--Arthur O'Shaughnessy

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders.
Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
--Antoine de Saint Exupery

If you think you're geting away / I will prove you wrong
I'll take you all the way / Stay another song
I'll blow you all away / Hey
It's murder on the dance floor / But you better not kill the groove
It's murder on the dancefloor / But you better not steal the moves
DJ, gonna turn this house around somehow
--Bextor Sophie Ellis

There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.
--Homer

If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.
--Don Marquis