Inspirational quotes look good at first but when you stop and consider them, you realize how incredibly stupid they are. Here are some that I find especially annoying:
With all due respect for Mark Twain, this is stupid. A person who chooses not to read for whatever reason has a sea of advantages over somebody who is illiterate and can’t even understand any of the papers s/he is signing. Do read Ruth Rendell’s A Judgment in Stone to get a perspective on what life looks like to an illiterate person in modern society. Rendell is no Twain, obviously, but the book is good.
I really hate these didactic, saccharine platitudes. Yeah, there are people who have to work 2 or 3 jobs and who can’t make time for things they really love doing. Let’s all sit here and feel superior to them. This quote really reminds me of the idea that people who don’t have jobs are simply not trying hard enough to find employment.
It turns out I just chose not to sprout wings and fly. This is really good news! The entire idea smacks of that horrible The Secret thing that was heavily promoted by Oprah a while ago. “If you are not a millionaire it’s because you don’t want to be one badly enough!” Vomit, vomit, vomit.
What is this, a threat for victims of stalking? There is nothing cute in people who pursue others against their will.
Except for people who throw out a knee, pull a muscle, sprain a leg, and meet their worst partner ever at the gym. Generalizations that are this wide always end up being ridiculous.
I found these priceless posters here.
Clarissa's Blog 
I get more inspired by quotes like this: http://i.imgur.com/BVJnr.jpg
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This is a perfect poster for an autistic. 🙂
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Someone who sets up a tumblr (or any other website) with the username “rainbowwithtears” probably should not be let outdoors without a minder.
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http://unsanesafe.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/share-if-you-agree.html
I have more too.
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I’d love to know what you think of my blog post related to a couple of these beauties. http://serenebabe.net/2010/08/18/if-you-focus-on-the-good/
That is, does it seem I am saying things that match your perspective?
I’d love to make a joke about you making time for reading my post (related to one of those posters), but I can’t find the snark required.
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Good post!
I also wrote these reviews of Ehrenreich’s book a while ago:
As you will see, I hated the book. 🙂
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Imma read that later tonight. Yay! 🙂
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Read and commented. Still grinning. 🙂
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Well, it is in fact possible to see things uncolored by your conditioned feelings and fantasies, which is to say colored by basic brain processes, which both reduce and expand awareness at the same time. And perhaps “as they are” has the form of an English idiom, hence the writer chooses to put that expression in quotation marks, although she does end up making reality as it is sound more glib than necessary.
To reduce knowledge to material reality, as some might try to do, is altogether unnecessary and unreasonable, I think. It is enough to know that there is a kind of morally indifferent material reality that does not correspond to our needs and wishes all the time, but can be made to do so sometimes. I think this form of knowledge is magical in a very inspiring sense, since it makes out that reality is both inside of us and outside of us at the same time. This viewpoint is ecstatic, exciting, as well as potentially dialectical.
Western thinking on the other hand is nearly always binary — nearly always an either-or proposition: either we believe that our destinies are totally in our hands or we deny we have any power and accept victimhood. So Western thinking has it. Rather, we participate in a reality larger than us, which sometimes we can influence and other times not, but in any case the participation itself is ecstatic, especially once we recognize it as such.
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These things are an annoying aspect of life in the U.S. that you must learn to ignore. Never try to interpret them. They mean nothing.
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Great comment. 🙂
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As antidotes, here are some demotivational posters…
Ambition: http://www.despair.com/ambition.html
Achievement: http://www.despair.com/achievement.html
Teamwork: http://www.despair.com/teamwork.html
Loneliness: http://www.despair.com/loneliness.html
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One of the reasons why I dislike facebook is that it enables these stupid things to travel like wildfire. I’ve noticed a generational gap- older people are more likely to post stupid inspirational quotes, younger people are more likely to post (somewhat equally annoying) cynical takes on such pictures.
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The most wonderful thing I discovered on Facebook was the ability to block updates from people who habitually share painfully naive and smug ‘love the world, it’s awesome!!!!!” messages. My FB now is like Clarissa’s blog — a place for me to exchange ideas and have heated debates. And that’s exactly how I like it.
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Hey Clarissa,
Thanks for the reblog. Always interesting to look at things from a different perspective.
BMP.
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Yeah, I’ve always hated that last one in particular – I’ve definitely regretted workouts, and not just due to injury during workouts, but due to the fact that 12 years as a gymnast has left my body in very miserable shape, such that if I do something as foolish as try to run for half a mile, I won’t be able to walk for 2 days. Doesn’t mean I don’t try to keep in shape – but I try not to do stuff I know will set my body off… not an easy feat when you don’t know what’s going to go next. (Tonight, for example, I managed to tweak my ankle walking to my car. Luckily it was my left ankle and I could still drive.) But seriously, “really regretted that workout” is definitely part of my vocabulary, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be.
And I think us autistics are less susceptible to these sorts of quotes than the general population…
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This post is why I keep coming back to your blog, even though I really, really can’t make time for reading blogs these days, no matter how much I want to. You say succinctly everything I feel about such inane feel-good “yes you can!” messages that determindedly refuse to take reality into account.
Also, I wish Twisted Spinster above would get a blog. I really rather like the way she thinks 🙂
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She does have a blog: http://returnofthetwistedspinster.wordpress.com/
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Aw, thanks.
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With the wide acess to the Internet and the rapid dissemination of ‘knowledge’ it entails we are now finding many of these famous people’s quotes polluting the web. I say polluting because often famous people are misquoted or quotes are entirely made up. Some careful readers try to figure out whether these ‘quotes’ are true or not but scanning all the written words of, say, Jefferson or Churchill. This is the wikipedia symptom.
The only inspirational quotes (well not really, but something vaguely related to them) I like are the messages I find in Chinese cookies. I have a collection of quite funny ones:
“Your exotic ideas will lead you to many new, exciting adventures” is the one I remember now.
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//What is this, a threat for victims of stalking? There is nothing cute in people who pursue others against their will.
I understood that quote differently. As “those previously important to you people (friends, SOs, etc), who left you? It’s not because you pushed them away, if they really wanted you, they would’ve found a way anyway”.
Ironically, this quote *is* unfortunately true for victims of stalking. Throwing acid at someone or smth equivalent does leave a forever mark.
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They’re even worse when they have a picture os someone supposedly uttering them. A month or two ago on Facebook there were a whole lot of things attributed to a bloke with a hat and a bow tie and a silly grin on his face. Some of them were quite contradictory, but he seemed to have one or more opinions on just about every possible topic.
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The more I read the comments in this thread, the happier I am that I don’t use Facebook. 🙂
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Oh yes, Condescending Wonka. Hurr. I’m glad that one lived out its lifespan.
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Haha, agreed!
On the last one:
Last January, I tripped and fell while running. I twisted my ankle, but it felt fine after resting for a few minutes, so I figured it’d be fine to keep running on it. I did two more miles. But…as the day wore on and the shock wore off, it started to hurt more and more. Long story short, I ended up in the emergency room with an ankle injury so bad that I was using crutches for weeks and couldn’t run for well over a month. So…yeah. I regret that workout. I think those two miles I did on the injured ankle were definitely not worth missing out on the next 6 1/2 weeks of running!
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