Intermeme: Quotes of Myself

[packbat]

From cadhla, here, with slight changes:

Go to the Random Quotations Page and look through the quotes until you find five that you think reflect who you are or what you believe. (If you are large and contain multitudes, feel free to pick ten.) Repost them in your journal, with this information, and with a brief explanation of what the chosen quotes say about you.

(I, for my own part, picked ten, then only included half of them. I like this policy.)

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Truth is the only safe ground to stand upon.
— Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815 - 1902)

I must preface this one with the admonition that I am taking it entirely out of context, but I agree with what I read here. That is to say, I agree that lies and delusions are anything but safe, not only because you may come to harm if people find you were wrong, but because so many others may come to harm believing you were right. I almost put a Sovereign quote that came up – "I must stand up in search of the truth, if I don't I only roll with the flow of the lie and make it stronger" – but I decided that this better emphasized the dangers of falsehood.

It is possible that the scrupulously honest man may not grow rich so fast as the unscrupulous and dishonest one; but success will be of a truer kind, earned without fraud or injustice. And even though a man should for a time be unsuccessful, still he must be honest; better to lose all and save character. For character is itself a fortune.
— Samuel Smiles

I am an Eagle Scout, as I have mentioned earlier. But even if I weren't, I would still be certain that no victory falsely earned is a victory. What do you prove by being willing to degrade yourself further than your opponents in a contest?

You thought I was writing The Truth? Honey, I don't even know what The Truth means.
— Hugh Elliott, Standing Room Only weblog, September 29, 2005

No-one knows what truth is, much less what is true. And once we admit that, we may begin trying to save ourselves from inheriting false beliefs.

When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others. It is much more nearly certain that we are assembled here tonight than it is that this or that political party is in the right. Certainly there are degrees of certainty, and one should be very careful to emphasize that fact, because otherwise one is landed in an utter skepticism, and complete skepticism would, of course, be totally barren and completely useless.
— Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970), "Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?", 1947

If I have learned anything from the Internet Infidels Discussion Board, it is this: some people believe that we must know things absolutely, or we don't know them at all.

Those people are wrong. We know no certainties. But we do know things, and by knowing we may be mistaken, we allow ourselves to learn.

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
— Jeannette Rankin (1880 - 1973)

This analogy is absolutely apt. And, in essence, it sums up my pacifism: though we may need to prepare ourselves for battle, it is insane to seek it.

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Now, the above has its virtues, but I can't resist adding a couple more quotes from my own stock. Ergo....

I'm not just the president of the Pedant Club for Losers, I'm also a member.
— WheelsOfConfusion, KeenSpot "Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire" forum.

I, too, am a member of the (sadly, rhetorical) Pedant Club for Losers. And there can be little better expression of our style than the above quote.

(I cite "WheelsOfConfusion" as the author because I don't know WoC's real name. Barring the guy stumbling upon this post, I doubt I will learn it, either.)

One request I must make of my reader, which is, that in judging these poems he would decide by his own feelings genuinely, and not by reflection upon what will probably be the judgment of others. How common is it to hear a person say, I myself do not object to this style of composition, or this or that expression, but to such and such classes of people it will appear mean or ludicrous! This mode of criticism, so destructive of all sound unadulterated judgment, is almost universal: let the reader then abide, independently, by his own feelings, and, if he finds himself affected, let him not suffer such conjectures to interfere with his pleasure.
— Wordsworth's preface to "Lyrical Ballads", qtd. in Forms of Verse, pg. 36

Good advice, which I decided to try and abide by from the moment I first read it. Besides, judgments of what others may like are notoriously unreliable.

Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.
— Sigmund Freud

Gracious admission of error is a fine virtue. Freud, of course, stated the principle much better than I did.

I thought about med school again, the anatomy class I had told Jason about. Candice Boone, my one-time almost-fiancée, had shared that class with me. She had been stoic during the dissection but not afterward. A human body, she said, ought to contain love, hate, courage, cowardice, soul, spirit ... not this slimy assortment of blue and red imponderables. Yes. And we ought not to be dragged unwilling into a harsh and deadly future.

But the world is what it is and won't be bargained with. I said as much to Candice.

She told me I was "cold". But it was still the closest thing to wisdom I had ever been able to muster.
— Robert Charles Wilson, "Spin"

(I'm not sure this makes as much sense absent context as it should, but the important part should still be clear. And really, I have nothing to add to it.)


Of course, I had to include this (which I found via ^z):

Quotation— yes, but how differently persons quote! I am as much informed of your genius by what you select, as by what you originate. I read the quotation with your eyes, & find a new & fervent sense... For good quoting, then, there must be originality in the quoter— bent, bias, delight in the truth, & only valuing the author in the measure of his agreement with the truth which we see, & which he had the luck to see first. And originality, what is that? It is being; being somebody, being yourself, & reporting accurately what you see & are. If another's words describe your fact, use them as freely as you use the language & the alphabet, whose use does not impair your originality. Neither will another's sentiment or distinction impugn your sufficiency. Yet in proportion to your reality of life & perception, will be your difficulty of finding yourself expressed in others' words or deeds.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, Oct.-Nov. 1867

Now, clearly my proportion of reality of life and perception is still small, for I find myself expressed everywhere. But still, I am glad to have at hand so eloquent a recognition of the legitimacy of using the words of others.