Bretty always says....
Thursday, August 31, 2006
On slave drugs...
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animated contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsel or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
- Samuel Adams
On the Christian nation...
On fear versus choice...
He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; he that dares not reason is a slave.
- William Drummond
On fallacy...
The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.
-Mark Twain
On freedom of religion...
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
- H. L. Mencken
On faith...
Blind faith is an ironic gift to return to the Creator of human intelligence.
-Anonymous
On atheism...
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
- Stephen Roberts
On utility...
Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.
-Proverbs 6:6
On beauty...
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportions.
-Francis Bacon
On computing...
``Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.''
- E. W. Dijkstra
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
On manufacturing inspirado....
"If your finished screenplay contains every scene you've ever written, if you've never thrown an idea away, if your rewriting is little more than tinkering with dialogue, your work will almost certainly fail. No matter our talent we all know in the midnight of our souls that 90 percent of what we do is less than our best. If however, research inspires a pace of ten to one, even twenty to one, and if you then make brilliant choices to find that 10 percent of excellence and burn the rest, every scene will fascinate and the world will sit in awe of your genius.
No one has to see your failures unless you add vanity to folly and exhibit them."
-Robert McKee
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
On bipartaisan progress....
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum."
-Noam Chomsky
Monday, August 21, 2006
On accuracy counting...
"I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ."
Ghandi
On timing...
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."
- Claire Wolfe
On what the founding fathers intended....
"The Christian God can be easily pictured as virtually the same as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, evil and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed, beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of the people who say they serve him. The are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites."
- Thomas Jefferson
The Government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian religion.
- John Adams (2nd President of the United States)
"Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man"
- Thomas Jefferson
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
- James Madison
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
On brainstorming....
"When you try to formalize or socialize creative activity, the only sure result is commercial constipation . . . . The good ideas are all hammered out in agony by individuals, not spewed out by groups."
- - Charles Browder
On attacking blame....
"It is important to admit your mistakes, and to do so before you are charged with them. Many clients are surrounded by buckpassers who make a fine art of blaming the agency for their own failures. I seize the earliest opportunity to assume the blame."
- - David Ogilvy
On storytelling....
The "personal story" is unstructured, slice-of-life portraiture that mistakes verisimilitude for truth... Writers of portraiture must realize that the facts are neutral.
The weakest possible excuse to include anything in a story is: "But it actually happened." Everything happens. Everything imaginable happens. Indeed, the unimaginable happens. But story is not life in actuality. Mere occurence brings us nowhere near the truth. What happens is fact, not truth. Truth is what
we think about what happens.
-Robert McKee
Sunday, August 13, 2006
On stepping up....
"Man's humanity to man is not only perpetrated by the vitriolic actions of those who are bad, it is also perpetrated by the vitiating inaction of those who are good."
- Rev. Martin L. King Jr.
On advertising....
"Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better."
- George Santayana
On advertising....
"Advertising - a judicious mixture of flattery and threats."
- Northrop Frye
On advertising....
"Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket."
- George Orwell
On comic structure...
"All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl."
-Charlie Chaplain
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