Most profound quotation you have read or heard?

the best thing in life, are not things

"There are People who make things happen, There are people who wondered what the h*** just happened, and then there are people who actually TOUCH the fire to see if it is hot..." - anon

rekar

Great quotes so far, but this one is my favourite.

“The truth is - we are the mice in the little test tube here and we are trying to determine who the scientist is studying us.
We are trying to understand the scientists, the higher beings, looking down and studying us.”

Lou Baldin, former ATS member sleeper.

As quotations go, Khalil Gibran has a lot of deep words. He'll never be as sharp as Bill Shankly, but who could be? Gibran coined the lines, 'An eye for an eye and the world will be blind.' Ignore the religious aspects, the essence is humanism...

These words are profound because they relate to every living person on the planet and all who ever lived...big words? Read on...

On Children
Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/385db2001dc0.jpg[/atsimg]




[edit on 13-5-2009 by Kandinsky]

This is my first post on ATS, not sure if this has already been posted, but it's inspiring.



Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.


By poet Marianne Williamson, quoted by Nelson Mandela in an inaugural speech


[edit on 13-5-2009 by care_1]

mine is my signature:"You must learn to understand understanding".
it is from a dream i once had about standing at the bottom of a 3 step staircase that lead to....well,i don't remember what ...i have been learning from that quote for years,though.

How about a few from songs..

All lies and jest, still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. - Simon and Garfunkel, The Boxer

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. - Rush, Freewill

Then one day you find, ten years have got behind you. No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun. - Pink Floyd, Time

You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. - Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues

"Ignorance and prejudice and fear go hand and hand"
— Rush, lyrics by Neil Peart

And He who made kittens put snakes in the grass.
He's a lover of life but a player of pawns --- Jethro Tull, Bungle in the Jungle

William Blake - Auguries of Innocence To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.

I love you

As soon as by one's own propaganda even a glimpse of right on the other side is admitted, the cause for doubting one's own right is laid.

How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.

I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.

If today I stand here as a revolutionary, it is as a revolutionary against the Revolution.

Sooner will a camel pass through a needle's eye than a great man be "discovered" by an election.

Struggle is the father of all things. It is not by the principles of humanity that man lives or is able to preserve himself above the animal world, but solely by means of the most brutal struggle.

The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force.

Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.

The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.


[edit on 13-5-2009 by Donkey_Dean]

reply to post by Grumble


First, FANTASTIC thread !!!
Really good topic !!!

I have a few favorite quotes

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."



"Those who would relinquish liberty to gain security, deserve neither and will soon lose both."



"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then... they came for me... And by that time there was no one left to speak up."



"If you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you".



AND MY FAVORITE QUOTE:
"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known." -Carl Sagan-






Thanks for creating this thread. It's nice to see a thread that doesn't include something about how the government is going to kill us all or about pain and suffering. Your thread gave me a big lift today



[edit on 13-5-2009 by jfj123]

My favourite quotes are from Buddha and this quote is something everyone should subscribe too.

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”

Another one which most women can no doubt relate too and when it comes to the opposite sex, us men know it only too well.

“The tongue like a sharp knife... Kills without drawing blood.”

The longer I live and the more I experience, the more I know that this quote is exactly how it is.

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.”

Robert McCloskey Quote: Confusing but funny.

“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”

Every one of us is precious in the cosmic perspective. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.


We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands.

__Carl Sagan___

Here's another good quote

Son, we live in a world that has walls and those walls need to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and curse the Marines; you have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives and that my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use then as the backbone of a life trying to defend something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said "thank you," and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest that you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

Originally posted by theSleepingMan
Every one of us is precious in the cosmic perspective. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.


We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands.

__Carl Sagan___

Nice quotes. Had to give you a star for those !

He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.

The Story behind It: In August of 338 B.C., the Athenian orator and statesman Demosthenes was an infantryman at Chaeronea, where a great battle took place between the Athenians and the Macedonians. The Macedonians were victorious, and 3,000 Athenians died. Demosthenes fled from the battlefield and was subsequently censured because of his desertion. To anyone who later called him a coward, Demosthenes retorted, "The man who runs away may fight again." From that line is derived the modern day version "He who fights and runs away will live to fight another day."

Those who know me know that I love lyrics......... cannot believe I didn't see anyone post this yet!

"did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?"
~Pink Floyd, Wish you were here

I didn't want to be a page hog and post the whole song, so if you care to look.....www.lyricsondemand.com...

"An armed society is a polite society, manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life"

"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."

Robert A. Heinlien.



[edit on 13-5-2009 by Galvatron]

We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not Forgive.
We do not Forget.

"Raiding is hard, sometimes there is fire, move out of the fire"

Valuable life lesson hidden in that.