Guess who said this and you win.

" To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic abberation, could have been formed by natural selections, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."

"...Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory."

The "theory," being evolution.

Here's another one.

Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.

Guess and I'll send you a copy of one of my favorite books. Book has relevence to quote btw.

Oh, I personally like this one:

"It's better to stay quiet and let people think you are stupid, then to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

Or something like that. I forget who said it...

Actually, while the author is easy enough, I don't think I can ID the character/book.  They do tend to flow together...

I wanna say the book is ST, but it might also have been SISL.

brihard wrote: For shame. Lazarus Long, "Time Enough For Love". Lots of the best quotes are from that character/book.

lol - by the time he got around to that one, he had almost stopped writing fiction, and his books had dissolved into 300 pages of preaching ("Cat that Walks Through Walls", anyone?).  Still fun to read, though.

:)

Tae Kwon Do wrote: http://www.evanwiggs.com/articles/reasons.html - Here Clark, this one is for you.

You're just trying to set me off, aren't you...

;)

O.K., That one was too easy, here is another one from one of my favorite Towering Intellectuals, see if you can guess who.

" ...At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made... the people will have ceased to be thier own rulers, having resigned thier government into the hands of the eminent tribunal..." 

If you want this to be hard, you need to get more obscure.

Lincoln.

EDIT - more specifically, one of his inaugural addresses.  The first, I believe.

MT. Vigilante wrote: Correct, however, are you cheating? No search engines now. Any guessing has to be off the top of your head.

No need to cheat.  This is strictly High School reading list so far.

oreomann33 wrote: "No more indo, gin and juice.I'm on my way to Chino, rollin on the grey goose."

Hmm...  I think you mean "endo"...

Not sure about this one - "gin and juice" is so common in rap these days, it's hard to tell who is quoting whom.

I'm pretty sure that isn't the lyrics from Doggystyle, which means that it is probably more recent than that...

Wait - is this off Snoop Dogg's new album?

"There is something to be said for thinking with one's penis.  The average penis will stand up for what it wants more often than the average man."  - Dr. James Dobson, Focus on the Family.

Razgriz Ghost wrote: Well Clark if it's high school reading material why is mine unanswered?

I zoomed right by yours.

I recognize it, but can't quite spot it.  It is also high school reading, though... ugh.

It'll come to me.

EDIT - not 1984, but that other one...

O.K. I have a very easy one for you:

"Meaningless! Meaningless!
Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."

"What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round, ever returning on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full...."

Remember, no search engines ( Although I doubt you will need one). I know its very easy but I like it.

Now I want to hear some from you Clark Kent.

Bible.  OT.  Prophets or Kings.

I would have to search to get more specific than that, though. 

Razgriz Ghost wrote: That other one , who wrote it?

One of the Huxleys, or one of the Wells.  Can't remember which.  And I am having total TOT on the title, too.  I hate when that happens.

I read this book years ago.  Breeding programs, different "types", etc.  One of the early "totalitarianism is evil" works.

Clark Kent wrote: Razgriz Ghost wrote: That other one , who wrote it? One of the Huxleys, or one of the Wells.  Can't remember which.  And I am having total TOT on the title, too.  I hate when that happens. I read this book years ago.  Breeding programs, different "types", etc.  One of the early "totalitarianism is evil" works.

nvm brihard got it.

Alright how about this one,

Then nothingness was not, nor existence. There was no air then, nor heavens beyond it. Who covered it? Where was it? In whose keeping? Was there then cosmic water, in depths unfathomed?

And for fun another, both are seperate though, and should be challenging

For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinitely far from understanding either. The ends of things and their beginnings are impregnably concealed from him in an impenetrable secret. He is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness out of which he was drawn and the infinite in which he is engulfed

The first one is some Hindu or Buddhist text.  It's been ages since I read the veddas, so I couldn't tell you more than than.  But pretty sure it's Hindu.  I have a Hindu uncle that talks like that all the time.

I don't recognize the second one, but it sounds like something my man Hawking would say, except that Dr. H. most definitely does not talk like that.  So I am going to have to guess some long-ago European astronomer/philosopher.  But that's strictly a guess.

These are good ones, and this is fun.  I took at test a while back that had some problems that featured a text, and the question was "which of the following people most likely wrote the text?"

:)

Good old Pascal.  I guess I was pretty close, even though he didn't do astronomy (TMK).

Quick Pascal quiz:  Who knows what "Pascal's Wager" is?

EDIT - and a quote as well, to stick with the thread.  This is from a US government document.  Which one?  Shouldn't be too hard, but vaguely amusing in today's world.

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

You mean Pascal's gambit? Basically stating that the gain of believing in god is greater than that of not believing in him? You know what Occams Razor is?

This is fun I'm trying to think of another.

Ok here we go

Anarchy wears two faces both creator and destroyer. Thus destroyers topple empires; make a canvas of clean rubble where creators can then build a better world. Rubble, once achieved makes further ruins' means irrelevant.

Good job xeno. It wasn't in the movie. The movie had nothing to do with Anarchy, it was about the freedom fighter terrorist debate it really bothered me. V isn't a freedom fighter or a terrorist he's an Anarchist, More specifically an anarchist destroyer which is why he allows himself to be killed, becuase after destroying all he can there is no more use for him.

Alright here's a harder one hopefully. Although many of you have been ripping through them

In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them. I make it impossible for them to ever hurt me again. I grind them and grind them until they don't exist.

Good job again Xeno you're kicking ass. Both those books are awesome.

Video games are a waste of time for men with nothing else to do. Real brains don't do that. On occasion? Sure. As relaxation? Great. But not full time— And a lot of people are doing that. And while they're doing that, I'll go ahead and write another novel. 

Found that one humorous

MT. Vigilante wrote: " The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong..."

...nor bread to the wise, nor wealth to the brilliant...

Ecclesiastes.

Back in my world.   ;)

Hanlons Razor basically states that people may be doing damaging things out of ignorance rather than intently.

Another great Razor 

In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.

Correct.
Now lets try a more obvious one,
Concerning the Christian Religion this person said;

" Deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support. "

I was in fact stumped by the Wesley quote.  Didn't recognize it at all.  Have now read more about Wesley.

But your Jefferson quote above is mischaracterized.

A more complete quote is:  "Among the most inestimable of our blessings is that...of liberty to worship our Creator in the way we think most agreeable to His will; a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support "

That quote sounds very familiar, but I can't place it.

My point with the Jefferson quote was that you said he was talking about Christianity.  That quote is from a correspondence debate he was having with the Bishop of ...ugh about the place of religion in the state.  Jefferson as always was taking the position that freedom of religion - specifically as opposed to a single religion - was to be a foundation of the new country.

Not a founder?  I was leaning towards Franklin, but I guess not.

Hmm.  It feels too "old" to be Roosevelt or Kennedy, and not stilted enough to be Lincoln.

Razgriz Ghost wrote: Another great Razor  In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.

Hurrah, the Dilbert Principle!