I'm searching for a quotation that was paraphrased to me as
Talking about sustainability should not be like doing taxes, it must be like writing a love letter.
The person (architect, with interest in sustainable design) who paraphrased this to me is certain this is not the actual quotation and citation, and believes it came to her attention within the past seven years.
posted by Prince_of_Cups
on Apr 15, 2013 -
2 answers
Help me track down the origin of this Leonardo Da Vinci maxim, of which I can only find a French translation.
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posted by padraigin
on Feb 7, 2013 -
8 answers
It's easy for people to assume that the
usefulness of something to them is the same as its wider
purpose for existing. What's the quotation, literary situation, fable, or famous saying that sums up this phenomenon in far pithier or funnier terms than the ones I'm using?
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posted by Bardolph
on Aug 10, 2012 -
17 answers
QuotationFilter: Rincewind the Wizzard cast a spell that one time (when he was in peril and the eighth spell needed to work through him to fry the cause of the peril with octarine fire) and then Rincewind thought something to the effect that he now understood why most wizards were single and pale (because doing magic was really satisfying and more fun than a normal life, apparently). I can't remember the exact wording, or find it in the books-- do you know? (I want to know because I might feel the same way about engineering.)
posted by sninctown
on May 10, 2012 -
5 answers
APA citation filter: can I indicate the page number only once in a sentence that contains multiple quotes by the same author?
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posted by smilingtiger
on Feb 13, 2012 -
5 answers
"Why did I do it? If I hadn't, how could I ever have listened to music again?" Who said this, or something like it?
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posted by decagon
on Jan 5, 2012 -
3 answers
F. Scott FitzgeraldFilter: "Everyone's youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness." I've seen this quote attributed to F. Scott. Did he actually say it?
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posted by toomuchkatherine
on Nov 28, 2011 -
4 answers
Programmers soon learn that
“Any code of your own that you haven't looked at for six or more months might as well have been written by someone else.”
This maxim, generally cited as “Eagleson's Law [of Programming]” (and often extended “Eagleson is an optimist; the real number is more like 3 weeks”) has been floating around the internet for ages
*. But who is Eagleson, and where did this notion originally appear?
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posted by Songdog
on Nov 14, 2011 -
2 answers
Can you help me find a specific NYT Magazine article with an interview with a Bush administration official, or help me figure out where this article appeared that was not the NYTimes?
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posted by jessamyn
on Nov 8, 2011 -
10 answers
I am trying to find a quotation that addresses that feeling that one can never truly enjoy the good moments in life because one is constantly afraid that if things are presently good, then something bad must surely be on its way.
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posted by amro
on Mar 29, 2011 -
11 answers
Does anyone know where the Lévi-Strauss quote in the film
Sans Soleil comes from?
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posted by Beardman
on Sep 10, 2010 -
6 answers
I have a dim memory of a comment by the authors of a science textbook, stating that they had attempted to avoid making any statements that were not entirely true, and describing how difficult this had been. My attempts to find the quotation with Google, the Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations, and Gaither’s Dictionary of Scientific Quotations have all failed. It was probably an undergraduate textbook in physics, chemistry or biology.
posted by James Scott-Brown
on Sep 6, 2010 -
2 answers
Did Frida Kahlo actually say this, or is it just a line from the movie?
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posted by cubby
on Jul 10, 2010 -
6 answers
Does anyone know the actual source for the much-quoted Gandhi line, "I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet."
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posted by southvie
on Jun 24, 2010 -
2 answers
What are some good quotations involving the phrase "the dead" or the word "advice?"
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posted by avoision
on Jun 19, 2010 -
11 answers
The aphorism "Be Kind, For Everyone You Meet Is Fighting A Hard Battle" is widely attributed (at least online) to Plato of Athens. I am having a difficult time finding the particular line in the dialogues where he makes this statement. Is this quote apocryphal?
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posted by joe lisboa
on Jun 11, 2010 -
9 answers
Quotefilter: I know, I know, two in a row, but there is a fantastic quote about fostering a love of reading that I am looking for now. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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posted by ThaBombShelterSmith
on May 11, 2010 -
2 answers
Help me find a non-cheesy short poem/quote/verse to put inside a Mother's Day card.
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posted by ellieBOA
on Feb 24, 2010 -
4 answers
Does anyone know what the source text of this D.H. Lawrence quotation is, or if it's even correctly attributed to him? Quotation inside.
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posted by oinopaponton
on Nov 25, 2009 -
2 answers
Editors, I need your help with quotation marks! Which is correct?
a) I sent him an article about "The X Factor".
b) I sent him an article about "The X Factor."
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posted by HeyAllie
on Oct 26, 2009 -
40 answers
What is this quotation from? "...and tomorrow, and for the rest of our lives?" I think the beginning is something like "what are we going to do tonight..." and it might be from a young adult type novel. The person is carrying on a normal conversation and suddenly gets panicky/existential.
posted by lilbizou
on Oct 7, 2009 -
9 answers
Canonicalize this aphorism: "When you're 90% finished, you're half-way done."
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posted by rlk
on Sep 22, 2009 -
12 answers
Widely attributed, unreferenced Gandhi quotation: "I like your Christ..." Authentic?
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posted by goethean
on Sep 9, 2009 -
5 answers
Quotefilter: A wise junkie once told me something that sounded suspiciously like a quotation. He said, "They'll spend any amount of your money to protect theirs." Does this ring a bell for anyone? I've had no luck thus far googling for variations.
posted by well_balanced
on Jun 18, 2009 -
2 answers
What novel (possibly or probably by Haruki Murakami) contains a speech or inner monologue with the phrase "So maybe I'm not such a good person after all"? And what's the actual text of the quotation?
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posted by telegraph
on Jun 2, 2009 -
9 answers
I'm looking for quotations or citations about "the aquarium," from before it existed.
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posted by sleevener
on May 3, 2009 -
3 answers
I once heard this quotation by Bob Dylan to the effect that everybody is struggling in their own way. Anyone know the exact quotation?
posted by goethean
on Jan 20, 2009 -
16 answers
Help me identify this quote about death, dying, and the end of the world!
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posted by Doug
on Nov 19, 2008 -
1 answer
I am going the Nike+ route and am about to order an iPod Nano. I want an inspiring but not cheesy quotation engraved on the back. Ideas?
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posted by Rudy Gerner
on Oct 8, 2008 -
30 answers
Someone, somewhere--some cultural critic, I think, someone who has yet to die, or who was alive within the last half-century (but I could be wrong there), once said something along the lines of "Irony is the laughter of the slave." Do you know who that was?
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posted by ftrain
on Sep 29, 2008 -
2 answers
Quotefilter: Who said something along the lines of "The way to know a people is through its artists"?
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posted by Carillon
on Sep 28, 2008 -
2 answers
Where does the phrase "where the bee sups, there sups I" come from? I think that's a misquote because google fails me, and it's been bugging me.
posted by Grod
on Jul 30, 2008 -
8 answers
[Quotation source-filter] I've found many references on the Internet to two similar quotes about losing a good reputation. The quotes are attributed to Warren Buffett and Benjamin Franklin, but I haven't been able to pin down what the original source is. The full text of the quotes are inside.
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posted by eisenkr
on Jun 29, 2008 -
3 answers
Quotation-filter. I'm trying to remember how a quotation went concerning Richard Feynman's lectures on physics.
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posted by jmhodges
on May 2, 2008 -
5 answers
In , "Molecular Ethology: an Immodest Proposal for Semantic Clarification", Heinz von Foerster says
To escape this dilemma it is only necessary to recall that an urn is an urn, and it is animals that learn.
Is this a reference to some other phrase (quotation, idiom, or otherwise) of the form "an X is just an X, and it is Y that Z"?
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posted by ErWenn
on Mar 22, 2008 -
6 answers
Where is this idea from? "You can be a connoisseur of anything, even driveway gravel" I have this paraphrased idea in my mind that I swear I read somewhere. However, I can't seem to remember its source.
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posted by k7lim
on Dec 3, 2007 -
3 answers
Looking for some source of a quote about, or the general idea that, we are all slowly dying, but some are closer than others.
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posted by jckll
on Nov 20, 2007 -
12 answers
Why is the quote "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt" so often attributed to
Mark Twain? Is this not an anachronism? Does anyone know the real origin of this phrase?
posted by macinchik
on Aug 12, 2007 -
21 answers
Can anyone identity the source of this saying? "The young die young that they may avoid corruption. The old live long that they may repent."
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posted by Pater Aletheias
on Jul 30, 2007 -
2 answers
