Afternoon InquisitionSkepticism
AI: shit happens
I chatted with a fellow recently who shared some tragic personal stories. These lead to a severe rift between him and his father. Happily, he eventually made amends with his father who pardoned his son with, “It’s okay son, shit happens.”
This modern maxim was of great comfort to him. To rationalize and cope with life’s hassles he often thinks, “Oh well, shit happens.”
Shit happens, whatever, always look on the bright side of life, c’est la vie. ..
What’s your favorite pithy proverb?
The Afternoon Inquisition (or AI) is a question posed to you, the Skepchick community. Look for it to appear daily at 3pm ET.
“No matter where you go, there you are.”
“There are no hero’s; just people like you and me.”
That reminds me of “There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be” from All You Need is Love; or any lyrics from that song.
“Know Jesus, no life”
“Life’s just one kick in the bollocks after another”
“Third Class riding is better than First Class walking”
“Nothing is better than Homeopathy”
“Do or do not there is no try”
just because somebody needs to quote Yoda
“Blessed are the easily pleased.”
“Lord, save me from your followers.”
“Jesus loves me, but with you he just wants to be friends.”
“It could be worse…I could be you.”
“Hindsight is 20/20.”
If, by favorite, you mean: least favorite, then, my “favorite” is:
At least X didn’t happen.
Where X is some predicament slightly worse than your current one. It’s a vague and vacuous sentiment people often use.
Also from the Beatles
Life goes on within you and without you.
“They say money can’t buy happiness. Give me 50 bucks and watch me smile”
The wit and wisdom of Bobby “The Brain” Heenan.
“You’re going to have a magical life. Because no matter where you go, it will always be better than Tuscon.”
With my provincial small-town roots, this line from “Hamlet 2” holds much gravity for me.
“You can’t fix stupid.”
You can’t change the past, but you can prepare for the future.
And while we’re looking to music for inspiration, this has always been a favorite, along the same vein as my previous comment, courtesy of Crosby, Stills, & Nash from the song Suite Judy Blue Eyes:
“Don’t let the past remind us of what we are not now.”
We all have our faults; mine’s in California.
Lex Luthor, Superman the Movie.
@mahlersoboes: I am from Tucson, and am vaguely offended – it’s not that bad here! (Nor is it a particularly small town. It’s a CITY.)
I’m not big on the platitudes and sayings…. but I can quote sixties music!
For everything (turn, turn, turn) there is a season (turn, turn, turn)
I generally avoid pithy proverbs.
And, no, it’s not just because I can’t remember one in time!
“There’s a difference between a chicken with its neck wrung and a chicken with its head cut off. But it makes no difference to the chicken.”
Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent.
@Shiyiya: I do hope you will forgive me for using a quotation that singles out your city – I meant it only to convey its metaphorical meaning. Gomen-nosai. *bows*
“You can’t polish shite”
“At least there aren’t any snakes in here with us.”
“Some days you’re the bug, some days you’re the windshield.”
“It’s a dog eat dog world and I’m wearing Milk-bone underwear.”
Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.
You have as much chance as a one legged man in an ass kicking contest.
I like mixed-up proverbs, too. Like, “it’s a doggie dog world,” or, “never punch a gift horse in the mouth,” or, “no skin off my teeth.”
@russellsugden: The Mythbusters did:
Keep moving forward
Just keep on swiming
Money might not buy happiness but poverty sucks balls
Don’t make me angry, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry
Be careful, stupid people are dangerous and the world is full of them.
Oh well, whaddaya gonna do?
That’s how I roll. (That’s the way we roll.)
Oh yeah, and “That’s what she said!”.
@Outsider: “Your mom.”
I’m not not licking toads. ;P
Life is not fair.
My personal favorite, “Mom always said, don’t play ball in the house.” :)
I taped a $20 bill to the street. Why don’t you go get it?
Really that is fascinating, why don’t you go tell someone else about it?
Life is to short to talk to you.
@Gabrielbrawley: “I’m sorry, was I wearing my caring face again? I have got to stop doing that.”
Alternately: “I’m sorry, you must have mistaken me for someone who cares.”
@Vengeful Harridan (Elexina): Oh I love that I will have to remember it. “Was I wearng my caring face again?’
As cheesy as it is, I have always been fond of the Rocky Horror Picture Show saying “Don’t Dream It, Be It”.
Or the amazing Neil Patrick Harris, “Yeah that was a dick move on my part”.
~
“I never try anything, I just do it. Wanna try me?” ;-)
If you believe in forever, then life is just a one-night-stand.
Without chemicals, life itself would be impossible.
So it goes.
and…
“Isn’t it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?” -Jonathan Coulton
I know it isn’t a pithy proverb but it’s my favorite string of words. Ever.
Mystical explanations are thought to be deep; the truth is that they are not even shallow.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Never trust anyone who can bleed for 7 days and not die.
From my friend Charles S.:
“The right to dream is absolute.”
it is what it is
mainly said after wishing it wasn’t what it is
I find it to be freeing.
Carrying the late, great Richard P. Feynman over here:
“I’d hate to die twice. It’s so boring.” – His last words.
If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Applies in a multitude of situations to get me off my shy ass.
@Vengeful Harridan (Elexina): I also like mixed up proverbs like
We’ll burn that bridge behind us after we cross it;
An apple a day keeps the doctor away; an apple a year keeps the doctor here.
If you’re going through hell, keep going.
-Churchill I think
The fastest way to a man’s heart is through his sternum
If you come to a fork in the road take it.
Yogi Berra
Any Ani fans out there?
For every hand extended, another lies in wait.
Smile pretty, and watch your back.
Life isn’t a warm up.
This life is more than just a read through.
You get one life, make the most of it.
Life is a death sentence.
Get busy living or get busy dying.
If you work for a living why do you kill yourself working?
You learn more from failure than you do from success.
Life is hard, it’s harder if your stupid.
If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice
I will choose a purpose here I will choose free will.
AA is for quiters
If you shake it more than once your just playing with yourself.
A high fiber diet will keep you regular
@Briarking: Who’s Ani? Is she one of those little blond singers out of Norway or Iceland?
So it goes…
Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one.
Have you ever picked up your teeth with broken fingers?
“Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it.”
David Lee Roth
My favorite lord of the pithy is Mark Twain: “Grab a cat by the tail and you will learn things you cannot learn any other way.”
“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
E.B. White
No one ever got pregnant from a blow job.
@Gabrielbrawley: Ani DiFranco. She’s a little folk singer out of New York or thereabouts.
Sex is like pizza. Even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.
@Briarking: Okay, I’ve heard of her but am not familiar with her music.
Life is like a penis, when it gets hard fuck it.
Once you go greek your ass hurts for a week.
when life gives you tang, make a buzzed aldrin and drink it from between a skepchick’s boobies.
@Briarking: Ani Rocks!
“What if no one’s watching? What if when we’re dead we are just dead?”
Some of my favs are:
Outside of a dog a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.
-Groucho Marx
I love deadlines, I love the whooshing noise they make as they fly past.
-DNA
Build a man a fire and he is warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he is warm for the rest of his life.
-Terry Pratchett
Jesus loves me but he can’t stand you.
-Austin Lounge Lizards
I don’t want to be immortal through my works, I want to be immortal by not dying.
-Woody Allen
I may be a sheep, but I have a nice wooly coat for the winter.
-Leo Laporte
Why Linux hippie? I wear shoes.
-Tom Merritt
If you’ve got it, flaunt it.
-Max Bialystock, The Producers
There are others I just can’t think of them at this moment.
“Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.”
My favorite joke-y ones:
“Decadence is its own reward.”
“Indecision is the key to flexibility.”
“Fuck it, let’s go camping.”
-Teddy Roosevelt, apocryphal
@Gabrielbrawley: Um, I am sensing a theme here…LOL
Don’t ask for credit as refusal often offends.
(A code I think we can all learn from)
I’ve got two I like.
The one I use, “Slow down high speed, we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.”
and the one I’ve only gotten to appropriately use twice, “Never meddle in the affairs of wizards, it makes them soggy and hard to light”
Bonus points to anyone who knows the origin of the second one. ;)
Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which to die.
If the shit fits, wear it!
If wishes were horses, we’d all be eating steak.
Anything too stupid to be said is sung.
A witty saying proves nothing.
(Those last two were by Voltaire…what a cheery guy.)
Getting old is painful, but it’s better than the alternative.
-Me
This goes back at least to my great-grandmother I think, and is for some reason in 19th century Swedish, but I’ll translate for you:
Now work you devils, rest you can have in the grave.
Back in high school, my buddy and I were bitching about something to his taciturn much older brother (who eventually became a judge). The older brother quietly listened, then said,
“Well, boys, life’s a shit sandwich, and everybody’s got to take a bite.”
@Gabrielbrawley: I am, of course, obligatorily and actually offended. Though, to be fair, if you’re bleeding for seven days straight then you should really see your doctor because a menstrual cycle shouldn’t really last that long.
@Tim3P0: My new mantra for life.
Every time god opens a window, he closes a door.
“Cheer up!” they said.
“It could be worse!” they said.
So I did.
And it was.
When something goes wrong for a friend of mine, I’ll sometimes say, “You can’t always get what you want…. (pause)… but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need”. Extra points if they join in and we break into our singing voices by the end.
“It is what it is.”
@Briarking: Yes, that was Churchill.
“Things are always darkest right before the dawn.”
Or its corollary:
“Things are always darkest right before it goes pitch black.”
another form Ani:
Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right.
and from friend of mine:
Could be worse…you could be on fire.
Just remember that where ever you go, there you are.
@Elexina: Another Buckaroo Banzai fan?
@QuestionAuthority: Um… no? It just one of those Yogi-ism-ish things my father used to say.
Also: don’t stick it out unless you intend to use it.
From one of my fave movies:
@PeteSchult & MoltenHotMagma:
“Let’s burn that bridge when we get there.”
“Life isn’t a hamburger. You can’t always get it just the way you want” as heard from the mouth of a salty old satellite earth-station integration engineer. Origin unknown.
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the the universe.”
-Albert Einstein
I’ve also always liked mixing them up in the most offensive way possible. Personal favorite:
“Does the Pope shit in the woods?!”
Elexina: for those extra special occasions “Here’s a quarter. Now go and call someone who gives a fuck.”
Or a recent coinage from myself “When you discover the hard way that your kids have been playing with water, just be grateful it wasn’t fire.”
I’ve always hated “It’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.”
And on the flipside, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” may just be a favorite.
Always aim for the center of mass.
@Briarking: Well yes my dear I may be drunk, but you are ugly, and tomorrow I will wake up sober. ~Churchill
@Gabrielbrawley: “Always aim for the center of mass.”
Hmmm.. I always heard it slightly differently. For me it was:
“Yes officer, just as I was trained, I was aiming center mass to wound.” ;)
“Yu guo tian qing” – sunshine comes after rain – corny but it sounds pretty in Chinese.
also Douglas Adams: “Isn’t it enough to know that the garden is beautiful without believing that there are fairies at the bottom of it?”
…and finally
“you CAN polish a turd, but you just end up with a shiny turd…”