At age 32, Buckminster Fuller was on the verge of suicide when he decided that he would see what he could accomplish. Eventually he held 818 patents in 55 countries and was awarded 48 honorary degrees. For more:
http://www.bfi.org/introduction_to_bmf.htm
In his last book, "Critical Path", he wondered about his existence, I don't know what I am. I know I am not a category. I am not a thing or a noun. I seem to be a verb". I love it, and I hope I am a verb!

Other favorite quotes?

What a wonderful thread Kalleh! I have this above my desk at work, as the folks who work for me, serve the public.

"Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."

~~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

For the women on the board, I love this one from Winston Churchill:
My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.

Two posts in a row may be a bit much. However, I just came across this quote, and, as an academic, I had to post it:

There is no crisis to which academics will not respond with a seminar -anonymous

How true!

There is no crisis to which academics will not respond with a seminar -anonymous

How true!
_______________________________________

Since seminar and semen share the same root, does that imply an orgy? Sure would put the crisis in perspective!

Although it runs contrary to Bucky Fuller's statement, one of my favorite sayings was expressed by an ex-girlfriend, a French woman: "Americans are not human beings; they are human doings. They are far too busy to simply be."

"The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome."

~~Helen Keller

"We are all pencils in the hand of God."

Mother Teresa

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:
Although it runs contrary to Bucky Fuller's statement, one of my favorite sayings was expressed by an ex-girlfriend, a French woman: "Americans are not human beings; they are human doings. They are far too busy to simply be."

---

Asa, I think that is exactly what Bucky Fuller was saying. After all, a verb is a word of action. Am I missing something?

"Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth. And you should save it for someone you love."

--Butch Hancock

Isn't it the truth?!

On another front:
Imagination is more important than knowledge - Albert Einstein

Somebody sent me this the other day:

"Somethings just aren't fair.

There are 270,000 people in the world making love right now, and you are on the computer."

quote:

---

Americans are not human beings; they are human doings. They are far too busy to simply be.

---

To be is to do. - Socrates¹

To do is to be. - Sartre

Do be do be do. - Sinatra


¹Socrates, or Plato, or Kant, or Decartes, or Rousseau, depending on which web-version you consult.

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."

~~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Somethings just aren't fair.

There are 270,000 people in the world making love right now, and you are on the computer."

lets see, so that's 135,000 men (allowing it all averages out regarding male/male, female/female, male/female). if 70% are straight, that's 94,500 men who might possibly be fantasizing about someone else during lovemaking. i remember reading somewhere that there are always at least 6 people in bed with every couple: the person he think s you are (anima) the person you think you are and the person you really are, and the same goes for him.

then there's the ex-wife, the guy who nearly ruined sex for you right up front in your college dorm room and if you could find him even right now, y ou'd still want to kill him, and of course, both people's mother. if you're catholic, you've got the nuns (3 nun minimum), then there's bruce lee (oh, sorry, that's just me, never mind), and of course the american media who are busy monitoring your way to o natural body. some people think that Jesus is also there, but please. Jesus has way better and less disgusting things to do.

so, rounding it off to ten each per, times 94,5000 equals 945,000. hmmm.that's almost a hundred thousand men. i don't know the statistics on how many men think about other women while making love, but out of that many, there must be some?, fantasizing about little me, all alone here on the computer. a ‡

that's almost a million men, and i AM one in a million. so.......that means there are 1,000 people in China who are exactly like me. and at least some of those men who are getting it on right now are fantasizing about me and the 1,000 Chinese chicks like me.

cool.

I was in an oyster bar while on my trip to Long Beach and read the following quote, which I totally agree with! I haven't even tried oysters because they look so slimey to me. BTW, I have no idea if this quote is legitimate or not.

He was a brave man who first swallowed an oyster
--King James I

correction

that's almost a million men, and i AM one in a million. so.......that means there are
1,000 people in China who are exactly like me. and at least some of those men who
are getting it on right now are fantasizing about me and the 1,000 Chinese chicks like
me.
_____________________________________

This fits with Oscar Wilde's observation: "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."

An article about Milton Levine, the inventer of ant farms (he almost named them antariums), reminds me of this quote:

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise. --Solomon

At a board meeting today, I heard these 2:
For our board of directors, we need:

"A man or woman with the versatility of Leonardo da Vinci, the financial acumen of Bernard Baruch, and the scholarly bent of Erasmus"

To that new director:

"If you're not fired with enthusiasm, you'll be fired with enthusiasm"
-Vince Lombardi

Bartleby's quote of the day, today, is a hoot!

"Gentlemen! You can’t fight in here! This is the war room!"
Stanley Kubrick

"No one is useless in the world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else." Charles Dickens

Said in reference to "I Love Lucy":

"Laughter shall drown the raucous shout;
And, though these shelt'ring walls are thin,
May they be strong to keep hate out
And hold love in.
-Louis Untermeyer

Bartelby's quote of the day:

"The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men."

~~Plato

Seen in someone's sig on another board:

Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

In England, too? Some things are worldwide!

The following quote, by Herbert Hoover (1933), appears on the National Archives Building in Washington DC, "The tie that binds the lives of our people in one indissoluble union are perpetuated in the archives of our government".

That quote reminds me of a story that my daughter's 4th grade teacher once told me. They were studying the constitution, and my daughter suddenly had a worried look on her face and said, "What will happen to our country if the constitution gets ripped?"

Shufitz quote by W. C. Fields in "Can I ask a question", reminded me of this one by him:

"Once ... in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were forced to live on nothing but food and water for days."

"Half of what we teach is wrong; the problem is we just have to know which half". I am not sure of the author; I heard this at a conference.

Boy, is that true with healthcare!

"Men will forgive a man anything except bad prose."--Churchill

"Minimalism....it's the least you can do."

"Let's just round to billions and call it a day."

"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."
~~Aristotle

If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams - the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.
Robert Southey (1774 - 1843)

The most dangerous aspect of communication is the mistaken
belief that it has occurred.
(A. Mullaly)

Oh, Asa, I will use that one again!

I am at a conference again and heard 2 wonderful quotes to live by (no authors, unfortunately, and the computers here are too expensive for me to Google!)

"You don't have to blow out another person's candle to make yours shine brighter"

"Yesterday's habits will bring yesterday's mistakes"

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kalleh:

"You don't have to blow out another person's candle to make yours shine brighter"

---

In a similar vein, "Mud thrown is ground lost."
Author unknown (by me, at least).

I also like, "A promise made is a debt unpaid."
In The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert Service.

Tinman

What! No link, tinman?? That's one of my favorites too.

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Whenever I am at conferences, I always hear the best quotes. However, I probably bore everyone to death with them!

Chaos often breeds life, while order breeds habit.

"A study in the Washington Post says that women have better verbal skills than men. I just want to say to the authors of that study: "Duh."

--Conan O'Brien

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hic et ubique:
What! No link, tinman??

---

Yikes! You're right, Hic! What was I thinking!

http://www.artdamage.com/service.htm
http://www.inch.com/~kdka/public_html/r~service.html
http://www.robertwservice.com/
http://www.robertwservice.com/verse/verse.html

Tinman

"My Mom said she learned how to swim when someone took her out in the lake and threw her off the boat. I said, 'Mom, they weren't trying to teach you how to swim."

--Paula Poundstone

"When I was born I was so ugly that the doctor slapped my mother."

Rodney Dangerfield

Funny, Asa!

This is not a renowned quote; however considering recent Michael Jackson events, it definitely qualifies as the quote of the day:

From the German Child Protection Agency - "We would advise anyone not to put babies or children at potential risk by dangling them over a balcony." Duh???

Found in today's newspaper:

"I believe that love, not imitation, is the sincerest form of flattery. Your imitator thinks that you can be duplicated; your lover knows you can't."

~~Marilyn vos Savant

"I sometimes wonder if the manufacturers of foolproof items keep a fool or two on their payroll to test things."
-- Alan Coren

keep a fool or two on
their payroll to test things."
**************************************
I find it interesting that in Shakespeare's works, the fool is usually the wisest character, and one who often tests the beliefs of his superiors. So, maybe your quotation has real merit!

quote:

---

Originally posted by LadyBeth:
"I sometimes wonder if the manufacturers of foolproof items keep a fool or two on their payroll to test things."
-- Alan Coren

---

Maybe but how would they fill that position? Who is going to answer a classified ad saying "Fool wanted"??

You are completely right, Asa; the "fool" in Shakespeare was always the "wisest". I found nothing about that in my dictionary, except that "fool" can mean "one with marked propensity or fondness for something". Interestingly, I also found that "fool" is a cold dessert of pureed fruit mixed with whipped cream or custard". I haven't heard of that!

Yes, Rhubard fool is common enough here.

Richard English

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away."

I don't know where it came from, but I love it! Can anyone find a source for it?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Morgan:
"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away."

I don't know where it came from, but I love it! Can anyone find a source for it?

---

On a similar theme I once saw on a T-Shirt

Everyone who lives, dies.
Not everyone who dies has lived.

I can't attribute it although searching on line I found the similar

Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.

attributed to A. Sachs.

About "A.Sachs" I know nothing and googling revealed only several hundred sites carrying this same quote.

Purgamentum init, exit purgamentum

Read all about my travels around the world here.