Quotations and Literature Forum

How about a new annual feature? Every January ask members to submit candidates for the most memorable quote uttered during the past year--then voting to determine the winner.

_________________
Mr. Fussbudget

True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.

Let's do it! I'm moving this thread to quotation talk - please post your candidates as a reply.

The first one that comes to my mind is this, which probably shouldn't win:

"You know what's interesting about Washington? It's the kind of place where second-guessing has become second nature."
-- George W. Bush, Speech on May 17, 2002

_________________
Michael Moncur
Owner and maintainer, The Quotations Page

In early August of last year I labored over a poem that I wrote about the Quecreek Nine. I used almost all actual information and remarks in writing what I titled "Saving Nine Lives," and I was honored to have the poem featured in the e-zine Written Wisdom. The quote I found to accompany the piece was, for me, very powerful and moving, and had been said with emotion.

"You can't tell me nothin' about coal miners. They're the toughest men that walk the earth."
~ John Weir, [Quecreek] Mine Superintendant
http://www.disasternews.net/news/news.p ... cleid=1502

On July 24 [2002] a team of nine coal miners working 240 feet underground in the Quecreek Mine were trapped underground as approximately 50 million gallons of water, from an adjacent and long-idled mine, rushed in on them and flooded the mine. The men were trapped in an air pocket about 200 yards from the breach. For the next three days the world watched the dramatic attempt to rescue them. On July 28, after 77 hours and with hope fading, they were pulled from the ground and reunited with their families.
The QueCreek Mine is located in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, just 10 miles northwest of the spot where hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 crashed during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Every explicit duality is an implicit unity.

--Alan Watts
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Way back in the year of 02 I had raised a topic on quotations about duality. This one came to mind when I thought of post that I read over the past year. ( I can't recall who posted it but the topic is still on record. )

One day when I was reading the Essays of Arthur Shopenhaure I became edowed witih his opinion of religion and Christianity. Shope said that Christianity was duality. I am still pondering the logic of how every duality is an implicity unitity.

It's a nice quote, but...

My idea was that the entries should be quotations that originated in the year 2002. Is that the case here?

P.S. Thenostromo's Quecreek quote is definitely a keeper.

_________________
Mr. Fussbudget

True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.

I see Mike moved this post/thread over to the suggestion/feedback forum, so this should be picked up over there.

That quote is vintage 1975, and actually goes:

The key to the relationship between yang and yin is called hsing sheng (shi-ung shong), mutual arising or inseparability. There is never the ultimate possibility that either one will win over the other, for they are more like lovers wrestling than enemies fighting (there is no wish in either partner to annihilate the other). The yin-yang principle is not, therefore, dualism, but rather an explicit duality expressing an implicit unity.
~Taken from TAO: The Watercourse Way by Alan Watts (1975)
http://www.buyarticulate.com/hsingsheng.htm
http://www.deoxy.org/wattsbib.htm
http://www.napanet.net/~aripub/Yin_yang.htm
http://www.globalserve.net/~sarlo/Ywatts.htm
http://www.alanwatts.com/ac_lectures.html
http://www.alanwatts.net/forum/index.cgi?read=1472

Oh, and I bumped up your earlier "dualism" post.
I wonder how Schopenhauer stated that "Christianity is duality." I could not verify that.

I like the original idea, Mr. Fussbudget, and think we should pursue it. We're just living in such dark times bereft of courage and nobility that I've been hard-pressed to think of a meaningful quotation from 2002. thenostromo's quotation from John Weir gets me the most because I followed that story closely while it was happening--it was probably the most inspiring event of the year.

Here's one Russell Mokhiber asked Ari Fleischer at a press conference:

"Why is the President appointing convicted criminals like Eliot Abrams to policy positions at the White House?"

I like it for its rare, refreshing directness in an era of numbing Orwellian newspeak and because I believe the role of journalism in democracy is to question relentlessly.

Wow. What an amazing quote. Interesting.
Here's another I'd like to submit:

"There are a lot of heroes. If you look at the heroes in your life, if you look at heroes in hockey, all the people who have big hearts that do what they do, people who do things for other people because they want to help because of their heart. I think they are all heroes.
I don't think athletes should be heroes. They play a game that they love and most of them get paid a lot of money. While some athletes do things to help the community, they don't do as much as other people in regular life. Those are the people who should be heroes."
~Peter Bondra, hockey player for the Washington Capitals
This is two quotes combined from the article
Searching For Heroes By Jodi Cramer
August 29, 2002
http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/020829/23/omis.html

Actually, I started the thread over there and Mike moved it here. Now it appears in both places. Talk about dualism!

My problem is that I started this thing and now I have nothing to contribute. I don't even know where to look. How embarassing. Maybe if I do some random searches through the New York Times Online for 2002...

_________________
Mr. Fussbudget

True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.

I always think I should add some kind of 'current quotes' feature culled from news, but it's really hard to find memorable quotes in a year like this. Then again, it was really easy in 2001, and I don't want another year like that.

A nomination for 'stupidest quote' from Richard Gere:

"I know who I am. No one else knows who I am. If I was a giraffe, and someone said I was a snake, I'd think, no, actually I'm a giraffe."
-- Richard Gere, to The Guardian, June 2002

and an article about the above:
http://www.etonline.com/reuters/N04174810.htm

USA Today has some 9/11/2002 memorial quotes.

"Ted Williams demonstrated unique talent and love of country. We will always remember his persistence on the field and his courage off the field. Ted gave baseball some of its best seasons (1941) — and he gave his own best seasons to his country.''
-- George W. Bush on Ted Williams, 7/5/2002

Humorous Quotes on the Enron scandal from About.com:
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library ... candal.htm

_________________
Michael Moncur
Owner and maintainer, The Quotations Page

Have mouse, will browse.

The Richard Gere quote is hysterical!

_________________
Mr. Fussbudget

True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.

Here's a small sample of some of the over 100 hits I got with Google searching the Internet for the exact phrase "quotes of 2002"
http://www.itconsultmag.com/itcarchive/ ... tentID=263
http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/3253.0.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1231/p25s01-cogn.html
http://www.oregonwatchdog.com/quotes.htm
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro ... -0301.html
http://www.new.warsawvoice.pl/view/677
http://www.new.warsawvoice.pl/view/805
http://www.new.warsawvoice.pl/view/805

I neglected to maintain a file of original or new quotes of 2002. I don't even think that I stumbled upon anything current that I felt was worth posting. Nothing comes to mind but then I don't read newspapers religiously or keep abreast or U.S. News and World Reports. Outdoor Life Magazine featured quotes in an early issue of 2002 and I can recall some of the quotes that the writers and editors featured. (I just thought of that one.)

"Trout don't live in ugly places."

I have the issue on my desk at work but I will not be back in the office until sometime in February.

As for Shopenhaure and his statement about Christianity and Dualism, it was written in an essay. He said that Christianity was duality; heaven & hell, right and wrong, good and evil, Satan and God.

Here's a good one that just makes the 2002 requirement. Howard Kurtz reported it in the Washington Post on 1/03/03 from an interview from the weekend before, which would still be 2002. It illustrates that political opportunism is bipartisan.

"The fact that I see issues through the eyes of regular people is an enormous strength. Look at the way I reacted when I saw those planes going into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The first thing I asked was, 'Where is Elizabeth? Where are my kids?' People wanted to know whether their kids were safe." -- John Edwards, U.S. Senator from North Carolina running for President.

Thanks Nostromo. I'm having fun checking those sites. The Polish site is especially good. One of the many underrated qualities of Poles is their great sense of humor.

Here's a matched pair of Quotes of the Year from the Metroactive Features site:

"States like these--and their terrorist allies--constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of this world."
--President George W. Bush, in his State of the Union address

"I think it will take years before we can repair the damage done by that statement."
--Former President Jimmy Carter

_________________
Mr. Fussbudget

True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.