Cheeky Quote Day! 19 August 2009

From Denny: This was a fun category I discovered recently - genius quotes. Since I grew up in the intelligence community where they chased after geniuses, even tried to breed them, this has long been an area of interest for me. I even used to throw all my IQ tests just so my father's "blessed" colleagues would never know my level of ability.

They had already nailed my mother and older brother and the last thing I wanted to be labeled was as a genius. In my experience all it meant was you had to memorize useless trivia to prove how smart you were and act like a performing seal at a marina for your handlers. That translated as a lack of freedom to live your life as you chose.

Humor has always been my choice of how to best react to life, especially when other people who don't quite "get it" try to harass, bully or stress you. More than anything I found it amusing how people who are not defined as geniuses have decided they know how to define genius. Now does that practice make any sense to you? It sure didn't to me when I was growing up in the weird atmosphere.

It would have been pure heaven to have some of these cheeky quotes to whip out and use from time to time when my father's crowd got pushy about trying to control someone else's intelligence, like you were a willing robot to be used as they willed. Too bizarre. Some of these quotes are by people labeled as geniuses and they have a wonderful sense of the ironic and good humor!

Quotes

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others. - Mark Twain

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

I think the world is run by C students. - Al McGuire

Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one. - E.B. White

In every work of genius, we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self Reliance," Essays, 1841

Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius. - George Bernard Shaw

If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If the Aborigine drafted an I.Q. test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it. - Stanley Garn

The reluctance to put away childish things may be a requirement of genius. - Rebecca Pepper Sinkler

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer. - Albert Einstein

Character is higher than intellect. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. - Albert Einstein

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up. - Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad"

Perhaps imagination is only intelligence having fun. - George Scialabra

A great many people think that polysyllables are a sign of intelligence. - Barbara Walters

The invention of IQ does a great disservice to creativity in education. - Joel Hildebrand

If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't. - Emerson M. Pugh

I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb... and I also know that I'm not blonde. - Dolly Parton, singer and actress


Clown Photo by I'm Fantastic! @ flickr

Cheeky Quote Day! 12 August 2009

Photo by Tansan @ flickr

From Denny: For today's funny and ironic quotes it seems I hit the Mother Lode! In my research I ran across an additional category of Back to School quotes that was most amusing to add to the original idea of the Education category. Parents and kids are going back to school this week in Louisiana, very early in order to make room for any lost days due to hurricanes or if there is a flu outbreak. With some of those frazzled nerves out there from all the pressure of working AND getting kids back to school a few grins were in order...



If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylums would be filled with mothers. - Edgar W. Howe

Being a child at home alone in the summer is a high-risk occupation. If you call your mother at work thirteen times an hour, she can hurt you. - Erma Bombeck

Labor Day is a glorious holiday because your child will be going back to school the next day. It would have been called Independence Day, but that name was already taken. - Bill Dodds

You send your child to the schoolmaster, but 'tis the schoolboys who educate him. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. - Friedrich Nietzsche

As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in schools. - Anonymous

I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework. - Lily Tomlin as "Edith Ann"

Often, when I am reading a good book, I stop and thank my teacher. That is, I used to, until she got an unlisted number. - Anonymous

There are three good reasons to be a teacher - June, July, and August. - Anonymous

What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child. - George Bernard Shaw

A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep. - W.H. Auden

A cross-eyed teacher can keep twice the number of children in order than any other, because the pupils do not know who she's looking at. - Four Hundred Laughs: Or, Fun Without Vulgarity, compiled and edited by John R. Kemble, 1902

Anyone who thinks the art of conversation is dead ought to tell a child to go to bed. - Robert Gallagher

The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn - and change. - Carl Rogers

My education was only interrupted by my schooling. – Winston Churchill

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. - Mark Twain

It doesn't make much difference what you study, as long as you don't like it. - Finley Peter Dunne

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school. - Albert Einstein

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. - Attributed to both Andy McIntyre and Derek Bok



It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. – Albert Einstein

Education aims to give you a boost up the ladder of knowledge. Too often, it just gives you a cramp on one of its rungs. - Martin H. Fischer

Education would be much more effective if its purpose was to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they do not know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it. - William Haley

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing worth knowing can be taught. - Oscar Wilde, "The Critic as Artist," 1890

When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course. - Peter Drucker

Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know. - Daniel J. Boorstin, Democracy and Its Discontents

The founding fathers... provided jails called schools, equipped with tortures called education. School is where you go between when your parents can't take you and industry can't take you. ~ John Updike, The Centaur, 1963



You learn something every day if you pay attention. - Ray LeBlond

I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught. - Winston Churchill

Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes, we need gigantic revolutionary changes. Schools should be palaces. Competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be getting six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge for its citizens, just like national defense. That is my position. I just haven't figured out how to do it yet. - Aaron Sorkin, The West Wing

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook. - William James, Principles of Psychology

Intelligence appears to be the thing that enables a man to get along without education. Education enables a man to get along without the use of his intelligence. - Albert Edward Wiggam

Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily. - Thomas Szasz

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. - Alvin Toffler

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows. - Epictetus

If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn't want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher's job. - Donald D. Quinn

If the Romans had been obliged to learn Latin, they would never have found time to conquer the world. - Heinrich Heine

The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them. - Mark Twain

Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths pure theatre. – Gail Goodwin



I read Shakespeare and the Bible, and I can shoot dice. That's what I call a liberal education. - Tallulah Bankhead

America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week. - Evan Esar, American humorist, 1899-1995

No matter how long you teach a fool, he still knows everything. - Leonid S. Sukhorukov, All About Everything (2005)

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards. - Mark Twain

Home computers are being called upon to perform many new functions, including the consumption of homework formerly eaten by the dog. - Doug Larson

You can get all A's and still flunk life. - Walker Percy

I think everyone should go to college and get a degree and then spend six months as a bartender and six months as a cabdriver. Then they would really be educated. - Al McGuire

The more that learn to read the less learn how to make a living. That's one thing about a little education. It spoils you for actual work. The more you know the more you think somebody owes you a living. - Will Rogers

Did you know America ranks the lowest in education but the highest in drug use? It's nice to be number one, but we can fix that. All we need to do is start the war on education. If it's anywhere near as successful as our war on drugs, in no time we'll all be hooked on phonics. - Leighann Lord

College is about three things: homework fun and sleep ... but you can only choose two. - Andy Stern


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Society and Culture, United States, Kids and Teens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, Mark Twain, Education, Lily Tomlin

Cheeky Quote Day! 29 July 2009

From Denny: I've started developing a second quotes blog, Dennys Funny Quotes. The blog is set up with lists of quotes as opposed to how I do commentary on Beautiful Illustrated Quotations that are quotes used more as meditations.

Dennys Funny Quotes has a good start; rest assured I will be adding much more and creating new lists. This new blog is my own place to get a grin when life gets too serious - so I thought I'd share with you too. Of course, I couldn't resist the visual pun on my last name: Lyon = roaring with laughter lion logo. In my sometimes cracked mind that's just one more thing to find funny. Life is hard enough; laugh your way through it!

Here are some of the grins I'm finding these days for you to enjoy. Hey! It's Wednesday and it's Hump Day of the Work Week and we all need some giggle fuel to keep us going to TGIF. That's short for Thank God It's Friday to my readers outside America - can you tell I lived internationally and am accustomed to explaining word choices and customs to those who are not familiar? :) Whenever I travel people are kind enough to explain their culture to me and how they do things in their country so I always try to "pay it forward" and do the same for others.

Quotes

"Twitter was invented by men. A woman would have chosen a higher character limit." - Anonymous

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." - Bill Cosby

“If you must have motivation, think of your paycheck on Friday.” Noel Coward

“True love is like a pair of socks: you gotta have two and they've gotta match.” - Groucho Marx

“I don't have a photograph, but you can have my footprints. They're upstairs in my socks.” - Groucho Marx

Image via Wikipedia

Groucho Marx's title card for his show

“When you're up to your nose in sh*t, keep your mouth shut.” - Anonymous (Trying to keep the GP rating here, folks...)

"If it weren't for women, men would still be wearing last week's socks.” - Cynthia Nelms

(Amazing how many "socks" quotes there are out there. Do people really wear socks anymore?)

"Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy." - Steven Wright

“I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose.” Woody Allen

"Love lasteth as long as the money endureth." - William Caxton



"The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post." - George Bernard Shaw

"Love is like the measles; we all have to go through it." - Jerome K. Jerome

"True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked." - Erich Segal

"Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?' Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.'"

"'I am' is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that 'I do' is the longest sentence?" - (understandable) Anonymous

"I take my wife everywhere, but she keeps finding her way back." - Henny Youngman

Woody Allen in The Moose

"Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution yet." - Mae West

"In life, it's not who you know that's important, it's how your wife found out." - Joey Adams

"Cosmetics is a boon to every woman, but a girl's best friend is still a nearsighted man." - Yoko Ono


"Have a great Wednesday and keep laughing; Friday is so close by you can smell the weekend perfume!" - Denny Lyon


Groucho Marx, George Bernard Shaw, the social poets, English language, Humor, Quotation, Recreation, Yoko Ono, Woody Allen, Arts, Quotations, Noël Coward, Erich Segal, Cheeky Quote Day, Dennys Funny Quotes, Denny Lyon, Quotations, Humor, Relationships, Society and Culture