What's your favorite quote of all time and why?

"Non hodie, nec heri, nec cras crede mulieri"

not today, not yesterday, not tomorrow, never believe in women.

I have an old book of latin quotes, almost everything is legal related, but there are some that could be included here.

"A good many times I have been presented at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: Have you ever read a work of Shakespeare's?" - C. P. Show “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race” - President Calvin Coolidge

likely heard of but i like them nonetheless:

de gustibus non est disputandum
(there is no disputing about taste)

and

quidquid latine dictum sit, alturm videtur
(everything sounds more profound in latin)

"Wherever you go, there you are." - Don't know what I like about that so much but it works on a lot of levels for me.

Also, lots by Mae West, Oscar Wilde, Churchill...

Not my favorite quote, but it's in Latin: Deus, sive natura (God, or nature) -Spinoza I'm not the religious sort, nor am I into metaphysics, but I liked his pantheist attempt at a "mathematical" metaphysics.

One of them: "Scientists sometimes deceive themselves into thinking that philosophical ideas are only, at best, decorations or parasitic commentaries on the hard, objective triumphs of science, and that they themselves are immune to the confusions that philosophers devote their lives to dissolving. But there is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination." Daniel Dennett

"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither, let my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy." (137, 5-7).

not a favourite, but i really like it. i take it as remember where you came from and be proud of who you are.

"Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title."

- Virginia Woolf


"I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past."

- Virginia Woolf

Because they have resounding pertinence in my life, and in everyones life.

How about, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

I've too many favorites but one I like for perspective is "I'll be alright by Thursday" from George Clinton.

Perhaps not my favorite, but the first two lines of Robert Hass's "Meditation at Lagunitas" will do in a pinch:

"All the new thinking is about loss.
In this it resembles all the old thinking."

Death is the solution to all problems. No man - no problem. (Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili)

It must break God's heart to see what we do in the name of religion. And just for some balance Have a good time all the time . (Viv Savage)