Favorite quotes

[FFTorched]

"Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am-- a reluctant enthusiast...a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it is still there. So go out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains, and bag the peaks.... and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over your enemies, over those deskbound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box... I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards." -- Edward Abbey

"I've always followed my father's advice: he told me, first to always keep my word and, second, to never insult anybody unintentionally. If I insult you, you can be ******* sure I intend to. And, third, he told me not to go around looking for trouble. "--John Wayne

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn." -- John Muir

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" -- Aleister Crowley (He's crazy but that line just makes some kind of sense to me)

"If I were to die tomorrow how would I judge my own life? I would think poorly of myself, for I missed everything that I probably would have loved. I devoted all of it to education which wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. When instead I could have been climbing every peak God put before me. Somedays I think to just throw everything I can't carry in a backpack in a pile, douse it with gasoline and toss a match into the center of it. Some say I have never loved, but love is ambiguous and can't be proven or disproven so how will I know if I've loved? I will when her face haunts my dreams and every waking moment, and so far the only thing that's been haunting me is the call of the mountain, so maybe I have loved..." -- Me

"...It happens to horses, dogs, men, nobody gets out of life alive!" -- Hud (Paul Newman)

"Why can't a woman be more like a dog, huh? So sweet, loving, attentive."--Kirk Douglas

Just to name a few not to mention the one in my signature.

[Lone Wolf]

"The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen.... Thank God for the United States Marine Corps."
Eleanor Roosevelt

[Ender]

"What is worse than death itself, is the death of hope, the death of dreams"
-unknown

"Great doubt, great awakening.
Little doubt, little awakening.
No doubt, no awakening"
-Buddhist proverb

[Midway Sam]

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." ~ Theodore Roosevelt

[Kerosene]

"You don't stop playing because you get old, you get old because you stop playing."

--Anon.

[Kerosene]

Poor beer math - "We have to replace 5000 Marines with 500 Cavalrymen, so that mean we will all have to work 5 times as hard" my squadron commander in Baghdad.

Of course, he could have been inferring that a Cavalryman is standardly worth two Marines! (I'm sure that the Leathernecks out there will have something to say on that equation!).

[Kerosene Charlie]

Better to wear out than to rust out.

[rocket04]

"A ship in harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are built for."
- William Shedd

"Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly."
- The Dalai Lama

[bearbag hanger]

"The misuse of language induces evil in the soul."
Socrates

"Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."
Benjamin Franklin

"Freedom is a funny word. People seem to use it all the time. But, after all I've seen and done, it's still the hardest thing I've tried to define."
Willy Carleton

"When it's time for us to panic, will there be a warning sound, or was that it?"

[Stumblefoot]

"Don't argue with the alligator until after you cross the river." -paraphrase from Cordell Hull.

[Dances with Mice]

Don't try to lay no boogie-woogie on the King of Rock and Roll!

[MOWGLI]

Ricky Fitts from American Beauty;


It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and... this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember... and I need to remember... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in.

[Rendezvous01]

Like Doctari, I carried several pages of great quotes on my hike. My plan was to insert them into my online journal at appropriate moments. Of course, I didn't. However, like Doctari's quotes, they turned out to be inspirational reading for me, particularly on those depressing rainy days. Like these two appropriate ones:
"After three days men grow weary, of a wench, a guest, and weather rainy." Benjamin Franklin
"Never make a permanent decision based on a temporary storm. No matter how raging the billows are today, remind yourself: 'This too shall pass!'" T. D. Jakes

More:
"The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender." Vince Lombardi

"You must keep your mind on the objective, not on the obstacle." William Randolph Hearst

"Right from the beginning I believed that staying on course was what counted. The sheer process of attrition would wear others down. Them that stuck it out was them that won." Harrison Ford

"To run a marathon you must have legs...to win a marathon you must have heart." Dave Weinbaum

'Never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was." Dag Hammerskjold

"When running up a hill, it is all right to give up as many times as you wish, as long as your feet keep moving." Shoma Morita

I could go on, but just one more:
"Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing...Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature." Helen Keller

[walkin' wally]

For lovers of the map and compass and GPS... Oliver's Law of Location;

No matter where you go, there you are.

[Doctari]

Breathe deep the gathering gloom, watch lights fade from every room. Bed-sitter people look back & lament, another day’s useless energies spent. Impassioned lovers wrestle as one, lonely man cries for love but has none, new mother picks up & suckles her son. Senior citizens wish they were young. Cold-hearted orb that rules the night, removes the colors from our sight. Red is gray & yellow white, but we decide which is right, & which is an illusion. Pinprick holes in a colorless sky; let insipid figures of light pass by. The mighty light of 10,000 suns, challenges infinity & is soon gone. Nighttime, to some, a brief interlude, to others, the fear of solitude. Brave Helios wake up your steeds; bring the warmth the countryside needs. Moody Blues.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, & sorry I could not travel both. And be one traveler, long I stood, & looked down one as far as I could, to where it bent in the undergrowth. Then took the other, as just as fair, And perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy & wanted wear; though as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same. And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how, way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages & ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, & I- I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference. R. Frost.

The woods are lovely, dark & deep. But I have promises to keep, & miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep. ????

There’s a patch of old snow in a corner, that I should have guessed, was blow-away paper the rain had brought to rest. It was speckled with grime as if small print overspread it, the news of a day I’ve forgotten, if I ever read it. R. Frost.

The journey, not the destination, becomes a source of wonder. In the end, one of the most important steps on our journey is the one in which we throw away the map. In jettisoning the grids & brambles of our own preconceptions, perhaps we are better able to find the real secrets of each place. ????

Hiking brings to mind a forced march in the army. What we refer here to a pleasant walk in the wilderness, even if you are walking as hard & fast as you can. If due to time constraints feel like you are on a forced march, perhaps you need to rethink your goals, walk just a little bit less & come back to finish another day. First, make sure the ways & means remain just that. They will always be threatening to take over & will tend, particularly at the start of a trip, to imprison your thoughts on a treadmill of trivial worries. Whether you like it or not, the trivia are always there. Never underrate them, either you subdue them or they subdue you. The important thing about running your tight little outdoor economy is that it must not run you. You must learn to deal with the practical details so efficiently that they become 2nd nature. Then you leave yourself free to get on with the important things: watch shadows race across a mountainside, or pass the time of day with a hummingbird. C. Fletcher.

[Pencil Pusher]

Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting "HOLY SH#T! WHAT A RIDE"
author unknown

Stim Bullitt? I may have the last name spelling wrong, but Stim's this old geeser leading 5.9 climbs here. Impressive as shlt since I'm the better part of 50 years younger and can't lead that hard. I had a word with him and he was very nice. He said it's the perfect sport for him because so long as you keep your weight down, you don't need stamina nor strength, just skill and a sense of balance. Anyhow, Stim made a book where one of the quotes was similar, if not the same, to the one above. He was a lawyer when he worked. Now he just traipses around with younger folks and climbs. I think he learned how to climb when he was around 60 or so. Versus the PNW climbing god Fred Beckey who is of similar age, in his eighties, and who has been climbing since his teens.

[Jack Tarlin]

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

From Tennyson's poem "Ulysses"; inscribed on the memorial cross for explorer Robert Falcon Scott, Ross Island, Antarctica.

[Mountain Hippie]

I was writing one of my world famous stories tonight and ended it with a quote of sorts. I don't know if it was an original thought or if I pulled it up from my subconscious. Anyway the quote is -
"Only you can prevent forum fires" Pretty catchy aint it?

Here is a couple from Rodney Dangerfield -

People say fish is good for a diet. But fish should never be cooked in butter. Fish should be cooked in its natural oils - Texaco, Mobil, Exxon...

Once I was so depressed that I decided to jump from the tenth floor. They sent up a priest. He said "On your mark... "

My wife had her drivers test the other day. She got 8 out of 10. The other 2 guys jumped clear.

When I was born, the doctor came out to the waiting room and said to my father, I'm very sorry. We did everything we could. But he pulled through.

Now for two of my favorite "serious" quotes.

Nature abhors a hero. For one thing, he violates the law of conservation of energy. For another, how can it be the survival of the fittest when the fittest keeps putting himself in situations where he is most likely to be creamed? Solomon Short

Have the courage to live. Anyone can die. Robert Cody


We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again -- and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore. Mark Twain

[-MYST-]

We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

T.S.Elliot



"20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do,
than by the ones you did do...
Sail away from safe harbour.
Explore.
Dream.
Discover."

- Mark Twain

[RenaissanceMan98]

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and endless plans:
That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves, too.
All sorts of things occur to help one. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would come his way.
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it!
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe