What is your favorite quote?
Seriously. Click the link (either at the top or the bottom, depending on your viewing device) that says something about “Comment” and share. Don’t get too hung up on having to decide your one-favorite-quote-of-all-time. Yeah, think of it as, “What is one of your favorite quotes?” Or two.
Give us the quote, who said it and include any other context you feel is relevant.
One reason I’m lax on the “favorite” part is that I’m not really a fan of picking a one-and-only-one favorite anything. Ask me about quotes, for example, and I’ll quickly give you two of them.
Quote 1
“The most dangerous words in language are, ‘We’ve always done it that way’.” – U.S. Navy Adm. Grace Hopper.
Adm. Hopper was one of the most amazing people who lived during my lifetime (and likely yours; she died in 1992) and yet you may not have heard about her.
Born in 1906, she earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale. She tried to enlist in the Navy during World War II but was denied based on her age and that her position as a mathematician and mathematics professor at Vassar College was valuable to the war effort. She then joined the Navy Reserves, serving there and eventually with the Navy for 42 years, twice retiring only to be returned to active duty. She finally retired at age 79 at the rank of rear admiral.
Her greatest contributions, though, was her work in the early ages of computers, inventing the compiler and laying the groundwork for the development of the computer language COBOL. She was awarded 40 honorary degrees from universities around the world. A residential college at Yale University was renamed after her, as was the U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Hopper. And President Barack Obama posthumously awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.
And that does not do her justice. Read up on Grace Hopper. Let her inspire the youth you know.
Everything I’ve read about her seems to underscore her quote above. I mean, she would have achieved little had she relied on doing everything the way it’s always been done. That can be said of every innovator and inventor.
Quote 2
“Not all those who wander are lost.” – J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Fellowship of the Ring.”
This is a no-brainer for my wife and me. We’ve always loved traveling. We’ve visited all 50 states. I’ve been to all seven continents and Leah’s been to all but Antarctica. We took early retirement in 2013 and – until COVID messed up 2020 – worked 4-5 months each year in another state to feed our travel bug.
Indeed, we sold our house and have been living in an RV just so we can more easily wander. And we’re seldom lost!
Don’t try to slip away without clicking the comment link and sharing one of your favorite quotes.
Steve Martaindale 
1. The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land. -Gilbert Chesterton
2. Life is Good
3. What goes around, comes around
4. Life is like a box of chocolates, never know what you are going to get. -Forest Gump
5. It’s good to have an end to journey toward; but its the journey that matters, in the end. -Ernest Hemingway
Steve, I guess I have a few that I like best. I do like GmaGma about dessert! Right On.
Sherry
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I struggle a lot with getting started because there’s never enough time to finish things in one go lately, so I often remind myself “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” (a paraphrase of Voltaire, I believe.
Also, “A rising tide lifts all boats.” I currently substitute teach in a district with a large number of disadvantaged kids. If we can help those kids, all of the students (and in turn all of society) benefits.
Similarly, “We rise by lifting others” from Robert Ingersoll.
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“Nothing ever doesn’t change, but nothing changes much.”
OK Go, “White Knuckles”
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For those as out of touch as me, the quote is lyrics from the song “White Knuckles” performed by the band OK Go. (Yeah, of course I had to look it up.)
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Nike got it right:
“Just do it!”
Don’t make excuses; just solve problems and get things done. I used to post that on my classroom bulletin board even before Nike made it famous.
I also like:
“Life is short; eat dessert first.”
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