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[Muse_Of_Fire]

I did 32, because I'm 32; and also because quite a few of them are just quotes that really resonate with me but I can't claim credit for them. Also, some seem like duplicates. I'm pretty sure Lao Tze's, "It is better to light one small candle than to sit and curse the darkness," is essentially the same thing as "No whining" (#32 on my list). So really, once you put the duplicates together and get rid of the quotes, I'm pretty sure it's actually just 15.

1.   We can do no great things. Only small things with great love. (Mother Teresa)
2.   One sees clearly only with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eye. (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)
3.   Do the best you can with what you have to work with. (my father)
4.   It takes pain to be beautiful (my mother)
5.   No matter how much you love someone, your chances of separating from them are infinitely better than your chances of separating from yourself.
6.   Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two. (Ambrose Bierce)
7.   When I am worm food, people will not say, “Oh she had a great car and perfectly manicured nails!” They will (hopefully) say, “She changed my life for the better, she was there for me when I needed her, she helped me be a better person,” etc.
8.   The only person you can count on to love you 100% of the time, and be there with you for your whole life, is yourself. Love your Self first. You are useless to others if you do not have the self-esteem to keep your body, mind, and spirit intact.
9.   Understand that loving yourself first does not mean loving yourself exclusively.
10.   Every day I count wasted in which there has been no dancing. (Friederich Nietzsche)…Dance every day. No excuses. Move. Stretch. Breathe. Fly. Smile.
11.   Remember What’s Important.
12.   You are always on time; you are always in the right place. Be here.
13.   No one can make you feel inferior without your permission (Eleanor Roosevelt)
14.   It is better to light one small candle than to sit and curse the darkness. (Lao Tzu)
15.   It is easier to be uncomfortable when we’re young than when we’re old. Live a modest lifestyle in your youth to enjoy comfort in age.
16.   Learning is lifelong. It is not something that happens to you, it is something you do, and you do it by living and by paying attention.
17.   A life without the arts is nothing.
18.   Humans, for all our languages, for all our art, for all our technology, are utterly incapable of communicating.
19.   When it comes to food and wine, consume the very best you can afford as often as is reasonable for your current life situation, and take the time to savor it. Anything less and you may as well get your nutrition via injection.
20.   Be responsible in how and what you savor.
21.   There’s treasure everywhere (Bill Watterson)
22.   It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.
23.   Love is essential, but is insufficient, for a lasting relationship.
24.   Relationships—romantic or otherwise—are work. And they are worth it.
25.   There are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going (a beloved dance teacher of mine)
26.   Do snakes sneeze? (Dr. Andrew Sihler)
27.   A woman confronting the world has no greater resource than those she finds within herself. What modern woman has to recapture is the wisdom that just being a woman is her central task and her greatest honor. It is a task that challenges her whole character, intelligence, and imagination. (Aline W. Hazard)
*I would change “woman” simply to “person” in the above.
28.   Life/Fate/God (whichever makes sense to you) never puts you in any situation you aren’t equipped to handle, even if you don’t realize it until after the difficulty has passed. Have faith, in yourself most of all.
29.   Four things come not back.  The spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity. (Arabian proverb)
30.   Embrace your internal Fuck It. (Mr. Muse)
31.   Every single day of your life is a clean slate if you let it be so.
32.   No whining.

[theinevitable]

"Don't take life too seriously-- you'll never get out alive."
-someone, who knows. It's probably a falsely mis-attributed quote.

[chuanoplast]

32.   No whining.

If every student at my school followed this rule, nobody would ever talk again.

[pmcd9]

No. 28 is from the bible.  I've always thought this was wrong.  It seems to me that people find themselves in situations they aren't capable of handling all the damn time.  This truth is particularly acute in the wake of what has occured at Virginia Tech this week.

[KeithHernandez]

My favorite Lao Tze moral/story/quote:

A Taoist and a Confucian were walking along, when the Taoist says, "look at that giraffe, how happy he must be to swim around all day".  The Confucian says, "You are not the giraffe, how do you know what makes it happy".  The Taoists says, "You are not me, how do you know I don't know what makes the giraffe happy". 

[side_show]

At least one thing I've failed to learn:  "It is better to remain silent and appear a fool than to speak and remove all doubt."  This was one I picked up in my World Relgion class back in the day, so I can't remember if it's attributed to Buddah, Confucious, The Tao... or something else, but I always remember it.  I think it is true, but I never remember this until after I've said too much.  Holding my tounge is something I just don't seem to do very well.

[ImpyChick]

I'll chime in with a couple...

1.  Don't disown your friends if they make one lousy err in judgement.  Forgive and forget.

2.  The most important people in your life are the ones who you can't wait to share news with.

3.  Never fry bacon in the nude.

[theinevitable]

-- you can put out a (small!) grease fire on a pan by putting the top on the pan.

...you do not need to call 911 and evacuate your pets. They will be amused when they show up and you are outside in the snow in a t-shirt, holding your various pets, afraid that your house is burning down.

(this happened to my friend, not me. He was making doughnuts while home alone.)

[jaydub]

My favorite Lao Tze moral/story/quote:

A Taoist and a Confucian were walking along, when the Taoist says, "look at that giraffe, how happy he must be to swim around all day".  The Confucian says, "You are not the giraffe, how do you know what makes it happy".  The Taoists says, "You are not me, how do you know I don't know what makes the giraffe happy". 

I like how these discussions between Confucians and Taoists frequently come down to an old school "p0wnd" exchange.

[jaydub]

No. 28 is from the bible.  I've always thought this was wrong.  It seems to me that people find themselves in situations they aren't capable of handling all the damn time.  This truth is particularly acute in the wake of what has occured at Virginia Tech this week.

There's a corollary to the statement that goes "The purpose of your life might be to serve as a warning to others".  I think there's a "demotivational" poster for it somewhere.

Edit: found it:

[Muse_Of_Fire]

No. 28 is from the bible.  I've always thought this was wrong.  It seems to me that people find themselves in situations they aren't capable of handling all the damn time.  This truth is particularly acute in the wake of what has occured at Virginia Tech this week.

Huh. Didn't realize it was from the Bible. I have to disagree, though. Just because you're "never in a situation you're not equipped to handle" doesn't mean you will never fail or will never die, or will never use poor judgment.

I am not seeing the connection between the VA Tech massacre and peoples' (in)ability to handle situations. Are you talking about the shooter, the victims, the emergency workers? *confused gaze*

[Doc]

I think the better way to phrase that one would be 'You can't change life so just suck it up and deal.'
It's not a matter of you being 'able' to deal with stuff or that life/god/flying spaghetti monster/whatever is ultimately benign it's that life is life and you haven't got a choice but to move on with it. Even if your way of moving on is curling up into a ball in your room and adopting 50 cats.
There's a line from the desiderata (that I thought was from the desiderata and now I've got no idea where I heard it) I've always liked 'This too shall pass'. It's good because it's true whether good or bad everything changes so you may as well get used to it.

[Muse_Of_Fire]

Yeah that's a better way to express it, Doc. Thank you. The voice of clarity!

"This too shall pass," is from the Bible. Or, as a friend's minister father used to say, "This, like gas, shall pass."

Oh... and one more thing I have learned: "Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right." I think it was Thomas Edison? *googling*

Ugh. Henry Ford. Wasn't he in cahoots with the Nazis or something?

[jaydub]

Ugh. Henry Ford. Wasn't he in cahoots with the Nazis or something?

Not directly.  I think he just admired their efficiency.  Or the way they talked about efficiency.  I don't think he cared much for Jews, either.

[theinevitable]

I don't know, people. "God won't dish out anything you can't handle" sounds exactly like what would be in the Bible. Maybe it's just me.