Post your favorite literature quotes here!

[Zinkovich]

"But there are causes worth dying for,' said Butterfly.
'No, there aren't! Because you've only got one life but you can pick up another five causes on any street corner!'
'Good grief, how can you live with a philosophy like that?'
Rincewind took a deep breath.
'Continuously!'"

-Interesting Times, by Terry Prachett

Now, uh, post your own!

[Heather]

One of my fav's:

You've seen the ads for sending food to starving peoples around the world. Have you ever seen ads for sending contraceptives?
- Daniel Quinn

[Hmm]

Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change. Don't give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are. They're Caesar's praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, 'Remember, Caesar, thou art mortal.' ... Don't ask for guarantees. And don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore.

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

[Jimmy the Pro]

I hope you don't mind if I just post an author instead of an actual book...

Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

[fushigi]

The greatest words ever written down, and words to live by:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that leads to total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past me I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

-- Frank Herbert, Dune

[tinybear]

"Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away."

---Charles Dickens, A Tale Of Two Cities

[fushigi]

Uh, that's pretty bleak for a little stuffed bear.

[Zinkovich]

"Quanti canicula ille in fenestra-The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret"

-Terry Pratchett, yet again

[tinybear]

Uh, that's pretty bleak for a little stuffed bear.

Nonetheless, a very fitting description of the hero of the story, Sydney Carton.

[CoffeeSaint]

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
. . . Else if you would be a man speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannonballs, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. Ah, then, exclaim the aged ladies, you shall be sure to be misunderstood! Misunderstood! It is a right fool's word. Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, "On Self-Reliance"

[Jimmy the Pro]

I just got through reading Les Miserables and though I cannot find a particular quote to suffice the thread requirements at this time, I assure you Hugo has created a work of literary genius.

I encourage all on here to read it.

[fushigi]

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

I can think of a dozen posters here who could really benefit from reading, and paying heed to, this quote.

Most of them are hard-core Libertarians.