What is Digg?197 Comments
- Junkyarddawg, on 10/12/2007, -2/+150...and that quote really is: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759 - thelastknowngod, on 10/12/2007, -1/+79no stalin or churchill?
One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic.
-Joseph Stalin
History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.
-Sir Winston Churchill - appetite, on 10/12/2007, -2/+45can't you just say "25 great quotes" or something? do you have claim to be the authority on the best of what's ever been said?
- icepick314, on 10/12/2007, -6/+48my personal fav...
"I know kung-fu."
--Neo from The Maxtrix (1999) - orbit1979, on 10/12/2007, -0/+38 20. It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
-- Epictetus (c.55-c.135)
Wow, ain't that the truth! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+40"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice."
Einstein was just too cool. - bitcloud, on 10/12/2007, -0/+38Whats the quote along the lines of "judge not the past through the moral looking glass of the present"? (anyone know?)
Gandhi was married by 13... Michaelangelo was a thief... For every great man, there is a lesser man who can find flaws in him...
Yes, less civilised times created less civilised circumstances for the men who sought to move beyond them...
The future might judge you harshly for eating meat, being apathetic in the face of war and buying nike shoes, but that doesn't invalidate any of our attempts to rectify injustice... - codyman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+36Hmmm.. No Mark Twain Quotes?
"A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read."
"In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language."
"In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards."
"I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting."
"Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." - baxtermaddux, on 10/12/2007, -1/+35the most often misquoted Quote in the history of of time
- bitcloud, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27Another Gates quote:
"I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time... I keep bumping into that silly quotation attributed to me that says 640K of memory is enough. There's never a citation; the quotation just floats like a rumor, repeated again and again." - GiggleStick, on 10/12/2007, -6/+32They forgot "The jerk store called, and they're running out of you."
- AmishRefugee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26to his credit, he did release his slaves in 1785 and became and abolitionist, but he still said that long before he did so, which is very odd
And wikipedia says he only had 2 slaves to begin with
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+28"God gave men a brain and a penis, but not enough blood to run both at once."
I forgot who said it.. - tnsimonson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+26"The computer allows you to make mistakes faster than any other invention, with the possible exception of handguns and tequila."
-Mitch Ratcliffe - asskey, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22Another quote that should have made the list is also frequently misquoted.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -Voltaire - Gdjrptryjg, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18"Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love the truth."
-- Joseph Joubert
"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort."
-- Herm Albright
"What probably distorts everything in life is that one is convinced that one is speaking the truth because one says what one thinks."
-- Sacha Guitry
"Modesty and unselfishness - these are virtues which men praise - and pass by."
-- Andre Maurois
"It is always easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them."
-- Alfred Adler
"One says a lot in vain, refusing; The other mainly hears the "No."
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"We confess to little faults only to persuade ourselves that we have no great ones."
-- Francois Duc de La Rochefoucauld
"It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place."
-- Henry Mencken
"No matter how well you perform there's always somebody of intelligent opinion who thinks it's lousy."
-- Sir Laurence Olivier
"Never trust a man who speaks well of everybody."
-- John Churton Collins
"Don't tell your friends their social faults; they will cure the fault and never forgive you."
-- Logan Pearsall Smith
"When choosing between two evils, I always like to pick the one I never tried before."
-- Mae West
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
-- Bertrand Russell
"Sometimes we deny being worthy of praise, hoping to generate an argument we would be pleased to lose."
-- Cullen Hightower
"We are generally the better persuaded by the reasons we discover ourselves than by those given to us by others."
-- Blaise Pascal
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man."
-- Mark Twain
"He who doesn't lose his wits over certain things has no wits to lose."
-- Gotthold Lessing
"Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve."
-- Erich Fromm
"Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people."
-- George Bernard Shaw - captjc, on 10/12/2007, -3/+19Another Gates Quote:
"You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. All your base are belong to us." - vspazv, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16Beware the Leader who bangs the drum of war in order to whip the citizenry into a Patriotic Fervor.
For Patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword.
It both Emboldens the Blood, just as it narrows the mind.
And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch, and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed,
the Leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry.
Rather, the citizenry , both infused with fear and blinded by Patriotism,
will offer up their rights unto the Leader and gladly so.
How do I know?
For this is what I have done.
And I am Julius Ceaser. - VijchtiDoodah, on 10/12/2007, -6/+20Eh, to each his own. I especially enjoyed this one:
"To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer."
-- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) - codyman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Who said it I believe was Robin Williams regarding Clinton's fiasco...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14My favourite is still:
"I wear them. I also wash them and iron them"
Norman Thatcher (husband of Maggie when asked 'who wears the trousers in your house') - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14"I have an idea so great the my head would explode if I even began to know what I was talking about..."
- Peter Griffin - MakinBacon, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17My favorite is not on the list:
"If you're not a liberal at 20, you have no heart, and if you're not a conservative at 40, you have no brain."
- Winston Churchill
And I'm somewhere between the two... - qingshuo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12"Much of the myth of Washington's alleged Christianity came from Mason Weems influential book, "Life of Washington." Weems, a Christian minister portrayed Washington as a devote Christian, yet Washington's own diaries show that he rarely attended Church.
Washington revealed almost nothing to indicate his spiritual frame of mind, hardly a mark of a devout Christian. In his thousands of letters, the name of Jesus Christ never appears. He rarely spoke about his religion, but his Freemasonry experience points to a belief in deism. Washington's initiation occurred at the Fredericksburg Lodge on 4 November 1752, later becoming a Master mason in 1799, and remained a freemason until he died.
To the United Baptist Churches in Virginia in May, 1789, Washington said that every man "ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience."
After Washington's death, Dr. Abercrombie, a friend of his, replied to a Dr. Wilson, who had interrogated him about Washington's religion replied, "Sir, Washington was a Deist."
Read the rest at http://www.sullivan-county.com/id3/debate.htm
Pretty interesting stuff. Combine this with Dawkin's book and it becomes pretty clear that the 3 key founders (Washington, Jefferson, Franklin) intended our government to be a secular one. - heresy0, on 10/12/2007, -5/+16"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
-- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
This one really caught my attention. Too often in recent years have I heard the far right make claims that the founding fathers were speaking in the context of a Christian nation in respect to the First Amendment, et cetera. Well yeah. ***** you. - kloo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10mumble...
"Light a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life." -- TP
"I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it." -- TP
"There are no inconsistencies in the Discworld books; ocassionally, however, there are alternate pasts." -- TP - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11after reading through it, sounds more like hes trying to make a political statement than form a list of 'the best thing ever said by anyone'
- deannnnnn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10"An assortment of quotes is usually paraphrased greatly or wrongly attributed unless properly and thoroughly sourced unlike this one!"
- Abraham "The King" Lincoln
1864, A letter to Stonewall Jackson - nonannystate, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13You cannot apply modern enlightenment to 200 years ago. Then where's your condemnation of the Mayans throwing Virgins into the fire to appease the gods. Where is the condemnation of the sexism of the native american tribal structure; people love to quote Chief Joseph. Why not pick on him for not allowing women a role in the leadership? Where is your condemnation of the barbarism of the Spanish Moors who overran Ireland? Of the Hessians who warred our world apart from modern-day Germany? There's NO shortage of human evils. But there is one thing you cannot deny; the seed of Democracy as we know it arose from the men and women (primarily men,but again, another time, another place) of the American Revolution. Without it, the French still eat Marie A's cake (another quote taken out of context and again, that's another story) and the Eastern Europeans still bow to a Czar. IMHO.
- painkillr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8somewhere between no heart and no brain?
- isukeyo, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12@ captjc
You're a ***** moron!
Stop perpetuating that stupid Bill Gates rumor quote. Its just a rumor. I am not a fan boy, but I know he's never said it! He's stated time and again that he's never said it, and noboby who's ever claimed he's said it has ever offered the source of this so called quote.
Where's your source? When did he say it? Who did he say it to? What was the context?
You are just one in a million ***** who throws around quotes that's he's heard at some point in order to make himself feel important or intelligent! - ardarvin, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12Bah...another Digg story with "BEST EVER...." No digg.
- BigManOnCampus, on 10/12/2007, -6/+13I love that quote... I wish it weren't conveniently forgotten by both sides...
Liberals: When they argue for gun control.
Conservatives: When they talk about the war on terror. - ulyssesyt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7about 12 of these are misquotes and misattributions--including the one by Franklin. sorry, readers.
- ExCornelius, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7jrocknyc: You might WANT him to have said "have," but he only said "Deserve."
You note the important choice Mr. Franklin made with his words, but fail to grasp how much more scornful was his use of "deserve". He was not commenting on mere facts, nor of natural laws, but on the caliber of such men; that they would in so doing also throw away the liberty of their fellow man, and thus no longer merited the benefits of free men. - rlrr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself."
-- Sir Richard F. Burton - jimmy87lee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"You can't hug with nuclear arms.." - Unknown..
- phenolholic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6i bet anonymous is a woman
- Stemp, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Excuse me, but in the 25 best Sentences, most are in English (from English speaking people) ?
Do you understand there is others languages, civilizations, cultures ? - aviazn, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11I actually prefer one of the misquoted versions of the Ben Franklin quotation:
"Those who wish to trade essential liberty for temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither." - nreynolds, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6To quote Phillip J Fry (after seeing Bender steer the space ship with his ass): "That's the BEST THING I EVER SAW"
- ExCornelius, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5No H.L. Mencken quotes? He was downright prophetic...
"When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." - mishaco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5none more accurate than :
"The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it."
- George Bernard Shaw - cjstone, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7"Regarding the last, "favorite" quote, what is so great about it?
Why should we be concerned about other people's bellies?
Seriously, I'm confused."
Um, concern that their bellies are empty, i.e., that they are hungry. You know, how those loony liberals think (sarcasm). - brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -8/+13what a terribly coded page.
- cranium, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Of course he's going to flatter himself and call himself a "man", but he's hardly objective now is he?
- miestersean, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.
- Sir Francis Bacon
Everybody hates me because I'm so universally liked.
- Peter de Vries
The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
- James Baldwin
Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.
- George Eliot
We think in generalities, but we live in detail.
- Alfred North Whitehead
An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.
- Aldous Huxley
Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well.
- Joe Ancis - ExCornelius, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Nice. Post-mortem propaganda attributed to a mass murderer. Have anything from Pol Pot or Stalin?
- playerZero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4...and actually was not even authored by Franklin (at least according to him in his autobiography). He published the book, but claims to have authored very little of it. And the context is that of a letter from the Assembly to the Governor of Pennsylvania, concerning the inability of the colonists to defend themselves against the natives they had recently displaced. There's obviously a lot of context i'm leaving out (and i'm far from well educated on the subject anyway). But it's pretty clear that we don't know who actually authored the quote, though it may very well have originated with Franklin. And that it is almost universally misquoted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Those_who_would_give_up_Essential_Liberty
http://www.futureofthebook.com/stories/storyReader$605 - leboff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4and never said by Caesar, or written by Shakespeare
-
Show 51 - 100 of 193 discussions
Digg is coming to a city (and computer) near you! Check out all the details on our 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is