The Quote & Poem Thread
- Thread starter Sanai
- Start date
-
The masquerade of murder returns! A new game of Vampires Amongst Us has begun. Unmask the killers, trust no one, and try to survive the night. Find out more and sign up now!
Intelligence is knowing what to do when you don't know what to do.
- Anon.
And now lots of Churchill quotes:
"He has all of the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."
"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results."
"There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true."
"We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give."
There are so many of them, some of them inspirational and deep, others a little lighter and very witty. I do like Churchill.
- Anon.
And now lots of Churchill quotes:
"He has all of the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."
"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results."
"There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true."
"We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give."
There are so many of them, some of them inspirational and deep, others a little lighter and very witty. I do like Churchill.
Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do I, and so do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
Gandalf: So do I, and so do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
A few lines from William Blake by which I try to live my life:
"I CARE not whether a man is Good or Evil; all that I care
Is whether he is a Wise man or a Fool. Go! put off Holiness,
And put on Intellect; or my thund’rous hammer shall drive thee
To wrath, which thou condemnest, till thou obey my voice."
-- The Cry of Los
"I CARE not whether a man is Good or Evil; all that I care
Is whether he is a Wise man or a Fool. Go! put off Holiness,
And put on Intellect; or my thund’rous hammer shall drive thee
To wrath, which thou condemnest, till thou obey my voice."
-- The Cry of Los
spineyrequiem
Necromancer
'I know that you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward. You will only kill a man.'-Che Guevara
'One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.'-Josef Stalin, often badly misunderstood.
'In any situation, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the second best thing you can do is the wrong thing and the worst thing you can do is nothing at all'-Teddy Roosevelt, even if I completely ignore his advice...
'One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.'-Josef Stalin, often badly misunderstood.
'In any situation, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the second best thing you can do is the wrong thing and the worst thing you can do is nothing at all'-Teddy Roosevelt, even if I completely ignore his advice...
"Never put off 'til tomorrow what you can put off 'til the day after tomorrow" - Mark Twain. Advice I live by.
The Mathematician in Love by William J.M. Rankine
A mathematician fell madly in love
With a lady, young, handsome, and charming:
By angles and ratios harmonic he strove
Her curves and proportions all faultless to prove.
As he scrawled hieroglyphics alarming...
"Let x denote beauty, y, manners well-bred,-
"z, Fortune,- (this last is essential),-
"Let L stand for love"- our philosopher said,-
"Then L is a function of x, y, and z,
"Of the kind which is known as potential."
"Now integrate L with respect to d t,
"(t Standing for time and persuasion);
"Then, between proper limits, 'tis easy to see,
"The definite integral Marriage must be:-
"(A very concise demonstration)."
Said he-"If the wandering course of the moon
"By Algebra can be predicted,
"The female affections must yield to it soon"-
-But the lady ran off with a dashing dragoon,
And left him amazed and afflicted.
A mathematician fell madly in love
With a lady, young, handsome, and charming:
By angles and ratios harmonic he strove
Her curves and proportions all faultless to prove.
As he scrawled hieroglyphics alarming...
"Let x denote beauty, y, manners well-bred,-
"z, Fortune,- (this last is essential),-
"Let L stand for love"- our philosopher said,-
"Then L is a function of x, y, and z,
"Of the kind which is known as potential."
"Now integrate L with respect to d t,
"(t Standing for time and persuasion);
"Then, between proper limits, 'tis easy to see,
"The definite integral Marriage must be:-
"(A very concise demonstration)."
Said he-"If the wandering course of the moon
"By Algebra can be predicted,
"The female affections must yield to it soon"-
-But the lady ran off with a dashing dragoon,
And left him amazed and afflicted.
Something the modern world should pay more heed to...
And a passage i loved from Le Fanu's Carmilla, so good for a vampire forum.
"...dreams come through stone walls. They light up dark rooms, or darken light ones and their persons come and go as they please and laugh at locksmiths."
-Sun Tzu
And a passage i loved from Le Fanu's Carmilla, so good for a vampire forum.
"...dreams come through stone walls. They light up dark rooms, or darken light ones and their persons come and go as they please and laugh at locksmiths."
Well, most military institutions for officers in the western world teach Sun Tzu (and many is the eastern world too, the North Vietnamese Commander in the Vietnam war based his entire strategy on Sun Tzu to great success)
The problem is, the decision to go to war, or where to go to war, isn't in the hand of the military. It is in the hands of politicians who never read anything remotely philosophical and who care most about public opinion and emotion rather than practicalities.
The problem is, the decision to go to war, or where to go to war, isn't in the hand of the military. It is in the hands of politicians who never read anything remotely philosophical and who care most about public opinion and emotion rather than practicalities.
As a teacher this one often appeals to me when I am banging my head against a brick wall regarding spelling! I'm not sure who it's by but it's rather fun!
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough, and through.
Well don't! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps.
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard but sounds like bird.
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead,
For goodness sake don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth as in mother
Nor both as in bother, nor broth as in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear, for bear and pear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose--
Just look them up--and goose and choose
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword
And do and go, then thwart and cart,
Come, come! I've hardly made a start.
A dreadful Language? Why man alive!
I learned to talk it when I was five.
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn't learned it at fifty-five.
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough, and through.
Well don't! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps.
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard but sounds like bird.
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead,
For goodness sake don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth as in mother
Nor both as in bother, nor broth as in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear, for bear and pear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose--
Just look them up--and goose and choose
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword
And do and go, then thwart and cart,
Come, come! I've hardly made a start.
A dreadful Language? Why man alive!
I learned to talk it when I was five.
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn't learned it at fifty-five.
My favourite poem - I even keep a copy of it pinned to the noticeboard at the side of my desk.
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
- Rudyard Kipling
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
- Rudyard Kipling
So, on a more somber note, here's my favorite poem. You've probably all read it before, but it's still a classic:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe.
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not rest, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
'In Flanders Fields,' by Lt. Colonel John McCrae.
/edit: There are a few indents before some of the lines, but CN doesn't appear to support that in its posts.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe.
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not rest, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
'In Flanders Fields,' by Lt. Colonel John McCrae.
/edit: There are a few indents before some of the lines, but CN doesn't appear to support that in its posts.
Sirihar
Crypt Horror
Live every moment
Laugh every day
Love beyond words
Written on a small plaque that is on my grandparents grave.
Laugh every day
Love beyond words
Written on a small plaque that is on my grandparents grave.
Sanai said:
I love Ozymandias. How about this one? It's one of my all time favourites!
The Listeners - Walter de la Mare
‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:—
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.
Cheers Bravo. I'm surprised The Listeners hasn't reared its head yet to be honest! I've got hundreds of poems I love, I could go on for hours!
