“There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.”  -George Sand

That’s two things.  The word ‘and’ indicates two things.  C’mon, George, do better.

 

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”

-Marcus Aurelius 

Really?  ‘Very little is needed’?  This guy was the fucking Emperor of Rome.

 

“You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.”  -Indira Gandhi

Left hand: Clenched

Right hand: Shakes

Indira Gandhi: Wrong

 

“The only journey is the one within.”  -Rainer Maria Rilke, agoraphobe

 

“Keep your face always toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you.”  -Walt Whitman

And at times you’ll be staring straight up at the sky and maybe fall over backwards.

 

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”  -Sun Tzu

Tickle matches.  Sun Tzu is talking about tickle matches.

 

“Independence is happiness.”  -Susan B. Anthony

Incontinence is messy.

 

“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.”  -Thomas Jefferson

In case you didn’t know, old Tom was down with the swirl.

 

“Learning never exhausts the mind.”  -Leonardo da Vinci

Yes, it does.  In fact, it almost always exhausts the mind.

 

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”  -Lao Tzu

So does the journey of one step.  It also ends with one step.  Suck on that, Lao.

 

“Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.”  -Democritus

“I beg to differ.”  -Rich guy with lots of shit.

 

“Failure is impossible.”  -Susan B. Anthony

How’d that one dollar coin work out for you?

“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.”  -Theodore Roosevelt

Not.  Even.  Close.

 

“Do all things with love.”  -Og Mandino

Even butt stuff?

 

“Being entirely honest with oneself is good exercise.”  -Sigmund Freud

Entirely honest?  That, in actual fact, is terrible advice.

 

“I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.”  -Vincent van Gogh

…and some of my ears.

 

“When you do what you fear most, then you can do anything.”  -Stephen Richards

Or you could be dead, because, you know, that thing you feared was really fucking dangerous.

 

“Love is the beauty of the soul.”  -St. Augustine

Poop is the byproduct.

 

“Act as if what you do makes a difference.  It does.”  -William James

Maybe all the others are only acting as if it makes a difference.

 

“I love you the more in that I believe you had liked me for my own sake and for nothing else.”  -John Keats

“Whereas, man, oh, man, I love your tits.”  -J.K.

 

“Do not mind anything that anyone tells you about anyone else.  Judge everyone and everything for yourself.”  -Henry James, dickhead

 

“We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”  -William Shakespeare

“Bo Diddley, Bo Diddley.”  -Bo Diddley

 

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”  -Confucius

What about a sack-full of assholes?

 

“Life is an echo.  What you send out, comes back.”  -Zig Ziglar

Like a bounced check.

 

“Let a joy keep you.  Reach out your hands and take it when it runs by.”  -Carl Sandburg

Sounds like kidnapping.

 

“Conflict cannot survive without your participation.”  -Wayne Dyer

So… What?  When challenged, quit?  Let them roll over you?  Lie down and die?  Loser.

 

“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.”  -Robert Byrne

‘The purpose of eating a sandwich is to have eaten a sandwich.’  You see how dumb that sounds?   

 

“A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.”  -Ingrid Bergman

Oh, for Pete’s sake – will somebody please slip Ingrid some tongue?

 

“The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”  -William Arthur Ward

And the pointillist points off in some direction or other, I guess.  Whatever.

 

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”  -Robert Frost, dead guy

 

“Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.”  -Albert Camus

Fucked are the hearts that are squishy; for they shall be squished.

 

“Whatever you are, be a good one.”  -Abraham Lincoln

“Unless you are an assassin, please try to suck at that.”  -A.L.

 

“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”  -Aristotle

Three, if you’re into that kind of thing.

 

“Cheerfulness is what greases the axles of the world.  Don’t go through life creaking.”  -H.W. Byles

Actually, it’s money.  It’s always money.

 

“Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal.”  -E. Joseph Cossman

Sees AND avoids, you dumb fuck.

 

“What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.”  -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Except stuff that takes less than a day to do.

 

“Think in the morning.  Act in the noon.  Eat in the evening.  Sleep in the night.”  -William Blake

Wank when you can.

 

“There are two ways of spreading light:  to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”  -Edith Wharton

Or to unleash the Hounds of Hell and set to blaze the world of Man in a bonfire vast enough to engulf the very Cosmos itself!  But, no, probably just do the mirror thingy, I guess.

 

“Ever tried.  Ever failed.  No matter.  Try again.  Fail again.  Fail better.”  -Samuel Beckett

Is that really what you wanted to say, Sam?

 

“You can have everything you want if you are willing to give up everything you have.” – Oprah Winfrey

That’s dumb.

 

“No one can lay a hand on our dreams.”  -E.V. Lucas

Never saw ‘Inception’ or ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’, did ya?

 

“Your life is an occasion.  Rise to it.”  -Suzanne Weyn

Unfortunately, the occasion is something akin to Traffic Court.

 

“A heart that loves is always young.”  -Greek Proverb

Have you never met an old person?  Fucking Greeks.

 

“To create one’s own world takes courage.”  -Georgia O’Keeffe

As does the painting of thinly veiled vaginas.

 

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”  –John F. Kennedy   -JFK’s Ghost Writers

 

“Love isn’t something you find.  Love is something that finds you.”  -Loretta Young

“Love is blind.”  -Geoffrey Chaucer

“Well, what the fuck?”  -Me

 

“I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy.”  -Marie Curie

But at least the path is illuminated by an eerie glowing light…

 

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”  -Eleanor Roosevelt

Not a handsome woman.

 

“Your day will go the way the corners of your mouth turn.”  -Winston Churchill

My day is going to be a lecherous sneer?

 

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”  -Dr. Seuss

42

 

“Be a fountain, not a drain.”  -Rex Hudler

You should be both if you don’t want to make a fucking mess.

 

“Follow the grain in your own wood.”  -Howard Thurman, pervert

 

“Just living is not enough.  One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”  -Hans Christian Andersen

And some whiskey, cos’ whiskey helps too.

 

“Love cures people – both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.”  -Karl A. Menninger

How about the ones who pay good money for it?

 

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?'”  -Martin Luther King, jr.

A close second is, ‘Where’s the toilet?’

 

“Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities:  It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.” -Thomas Carlyle

Ummm…  Ahhh…  Shut up, Tom.

 

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”  –Harry S. Truman  Some guy.

 

“Always be smarter than the people who hire you.”  -Lena Horne

If they hired me, that ain’t gonna be a problem.

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”  -Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’ve decided to be rich and powerful…  Hello?  Universe?

 

“Be in love with your life.  Every minute of it.”  -Jack Kerouac

Like a big egotistical, narcissistic douche-bag.

 

“What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”  -Robert H. Schuller

I would attempt to fail.  And then I’d sit back and wait for Reality to implode.

 

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”  -Friedrich Nietzsche

So, God is dead but the collected works of the Doodle Town Pipers live on?  Well, that’s just fucking great.

 

“All knowledge is ambiguous.”  -J.S. Habgood

That is absolutely correct.

 

“A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.”  -Gore Vidal

Not possible.

 

“When one tears away the veils and shows them naked, people’s souls give off such a pungent smell of decay.”  -Octave Mirbeau

Belialaggog would love this.

 

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”  -Ralph Waldo Emerson

I once ate an entire box of Fig Newtons in one sitting.  So, yeah, I’m right there with ya, Ralph.

 

“There is something terribly wrong with a culture inebriated by noise and gregariousness.”  -George Steiner

That’s very deep.  You should put that on TikTok!

 

“The word of man is the most durable of all material.”  -Arthur Schopenhauer

A swing and a miss… The word of man is fragile, fleeting, nebulous and unreliable.

 

“Self-love seems so often unrequited.”  -Anthony Powell

You’re not doing it right.

 

“People resent articulacy, as if articulacy were a form of vice.”  -Frederic Raphael

Frederic Raphael: Arrested for possession, with intent to sell, of 5 Kilos of articulacy.

 

“There is no one thoroughly despicable.  We cannot descend much lower than an idiot; and an idiot has some advantages over a wise man.”  -William Hazlitt

Thank you.

 

“Man has an incurable habit of not fulfilling the prophecies of his fellow men.”  -Alistair Cooke

Time has certainly proven Alistair to have been correct.  Hey, wait a minute… 

 

“A widespread taste for pornography means that nature is alerting us to some threat of extinction.”  -J.G. Ballard

Uh, oh.

 

“Reason is a supple nymph, and slippery as a fish by nature.  She had as leave give her kiss to an absurdity any day, as to syllogistic truth.  The absurdity may turn out truer.”  -D.H. Lawrence

I think we just found ourselves another Arbitrary Juggernaut fan.

 

“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”  -J.K. Rowling

Be especially wary if he feels he doesn’t have any equals.  Wow, that’s actually good advice.  I’m the greatest.

 

“When a man meets an obstacle he can’t destroy, he destroys himself.”  -Ryszard Kapuscinski

Or goes home, or walks around it, or climbs over it, or graffiti’s it, or urinates on it… the list goes on and on before you eventually get to, ‘Oh, well, guess I’ll just destroy myself now.’

 

“The art of the parenthesis is one of the greatest secrets of eloquence in Society.”  -Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort  (known as ‘S-Roch’ to his friends)

 

“Well done is better than well said.”  -Benjamin Franklin

Fairly well said, but you could have done better.

 

“The most sincere compliment we can pay is attention.” -Walter Anderson

I’m sorry, what?

 

“No day in which you learn something is a complete loss.”  -David Eddings

Really?  I didn’t know that.  Hey!  Thanks, buddy.

 

“What I do today is important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it.”  -Hugh Mulligan

Damn.  That is very depressing, considering the complete lack of worthwhile activities with which I filled today.

 

“A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere.”  -Joyce A. Myers

 “Let me see that pencil for a minute, Joyce.”  -John Wick

 

 “There is only one certainty in life and that is that nothing is certain.”  -G.K. Chesterton 

If true, really it should say: ‘There is only one certainty in life and that is that only nothing is certain is certain.’  Right?

 

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”  -Herman Melville

What he said. 

 

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” -Winston Churchill

Substitute the word ‘stupidity’ for the word ‘success’ and you’ll be onto something.

 

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” -R.L. Stevenson

“Never count your chickens before they hatch.” -Anonymous

So, which is it?

 

“The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy.” -Arthur Schopenhauer

I have met my Spirit Animal and his name is Arthur.

 

“The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less.” -Eldridge Cleaver

No, not really.

 

“All that we are is a result of what we have thought.” -Buddha

Do you have any idea how fucked-up that makes me?  And, I’m guessing, all the rest of you too?

 

“A great man is always willing to be little.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

What do you want to bet that R.W.E. was a short little shit?

 

“Non-violence is a weapon of the strong.” -Mahatma Gandhi

Ultra-violence is a weapon of the victor.

 

“A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men.” -Roald Dahl

He gets it.

 

“Much wisdom often goes with the fewest words.” -Sophocles

Yup.

 

“Pain is the doorway to wisdom and to truth.” -Keith Miller

That is exactly what my dominatrix, Miss Stiletto Euphoria, said to me just before she stepped on my cubes.

 

“In an age of synthetic images and synthetic emotions, the chances of an accidental encounter with reality are remote indeed.”  -Serge Daney

Well, let me just take a quick peek around the old website for a minute…  Yup.  He’s right.

 

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” -Jane Austen