Self Help & Misc. Instresting Stuff.

DSM

Well-Known Member
#51
On life :

Three friends decide to go to China for vacation. Since they were new to the place they had to stay in a hotel. And their room ended up being on the 60th floor. The policy of the hotel was that at midnight the elevators were shut down. The next day, the friends rented a car and explored the city.

They enjoyed themselves and arrived at the hotel past midnight. The elevators were shut down. There was no other way to get to their room but to take the stairs all the way to the 60th floor.

One friend said: ‘For the first 20 floors, I will tell jokes to keep us going. Then another could say wise stories for the next 20 floors. Then, we will cover the final 20 floors with sad stories.’ So, he started with jokes. With laughs and joy, they reached the 20th floor. Another friend started saying stories full of wisdom. They learned a lot while reaching the 40th floor.

Now it was time for sad stories. So, the third friend started: ‘My first sad story is that I left the key for the room in the car.’

Moral: This story resembles our life cycle. For the first 20 years, we spend time in joking and enjoying whatever is out there.Then, at 20, we go into the work force, get married, have kids and this is the time when we use our wisdom. Then, if we reach 40, we see the white hair and begin to realize that life is coming to an end and I need to prepare for the Hereafter.

Sadly, many have left the keys behind. It’s better that we start life in the very beginning by remembering death rather than preparing for it at the end.

***

On a lighter note :

A city boy, Kenny, moved to the country and bought a donkey from an old farmer for $100.00. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day. The next day the farmer drove up and said, "Sorry son, but I have some bad news, the donkey died."

Kenny replied, "Well then, just give me my money back." The farmer said, "Can't do that. I went and spent it already." Kenny said, "OK then, just unload the donkey." The farmer asked, "What ya gonna do with him?" Kenny, "I'm going to raffle him off." Farmer, " You can't raffle off a dead donkey!" Kenny, "Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't tell anybody he is dead."

A month later the farmer met up with Kenny and asked, "What happened with that dead donkey?" Kenny, "I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece and made a profit of $898.00." Farmer, "Didn't anyone complain?" Kenny, " Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back."

Kenny’s future plan is to run for election and join politics!!
 

Dax Devil

Well-Known Member
#52
What a brilliant piece of sattrical writing.

Father upset with his son who even after years of smoking is unable to create smoke rings

by idiot420

New Delhi. Narayan Sharma, father of a 21 years old college student Vicky, is quite upset after finding that his son has been a regular smoker for last three years.
And what is worsening Mr. Sharma’s agony is that fact that even in the field of smoking, Vicky has proved himself a complete failure, as after smoking for 3 long years he is yet not able to create smoke rings.

“Look at our neighbor Gupta Ji’s son. Last month, I had caught him too smoking at a paan shop a km away from our apartment building. Even though he is our neighbor’s son and I couldn’t care less, I was sad that he was smoking. But when I saw him creating those awesome smoke rings, I thought at least he was excelling in what he was doing,” said an irked Narayan Sharma comparing his son with his neighbor’s son.
Yesterday when Mr. Sharma spotted his own son Vicky smoking, the first question he asked after slapping him hard was whether he knew how to create smoke rings. An ashamed Vicky bowed down his head saying no, and Mr. Sharma slapped him again.

“We never pressurized him to smoke. He chose that career path all by himself ( :lol: ), but even there he failed miserably. This boy lacks the zeal to shine even in things which he loves to do!” Narayan Sharma continued lambasting his son and quoted a dialogue from the movie Lakshya, “All I say is, agar ghaas kaatne wala bhi bano to ek achha ghaas kaatane wala bano.”

Adding further, Mr. Sharma said that all Vicky was doing these years was wasting his hard earned money. “If he would have learnt how to create smoke rings, I would have thought that despite wasting money and harming his lungs at least he learnt something new,” he rued.

Meanwhile, a guilt ridden Vicky has decided to quit smoking. But contrary to his expectations, his father is even more upset at his decision.

“He is saying that I shouldn’t accept defeat this quickly, and should quit smoking only after I am able to create perfect rings,” Vicky told Faking News as tears trickled down his cheeks making straight line.
from fakingnews firstpost com
 

DSM

Well-Known Member
#53
On a lighter note : A question of perspective :

A man feared his wife wasn't hearing as well as she used to, and he thought she might need a hearing aid. Not quite sure how to approach her, he called the family doctor to discuss the problem. The Doctor told him there is a simple informal test the husband could perform to give the doctor a better idea about her hearing loss.

Here's what you do," said the Doctor, "stand about 40 feet away from her, and in a normal conversational speaking tone see if she hears you. If not, go to 30 feet, then 20 feet, and so on until you get a response."

That evening, the wife was in the kitchen cooking dinner, and he was in the den. He says to himself, "I'm about 40 feet a way, let's see what happens."Then in a normal tone he asks, 'Honey, what's for dinner?" No response. So the husband moves closer to the kitchen, about 30 feet from his wife and repeats, "Honey, what's for dinner?" Still, no response. Next he moves into the dining room where he is about 20 feet from his wife and asks, "Honey, what's for dinner?" Again he gets no response. So, he walks up to the kitchen door, about 10 feet away.. "Honey, what's for dinner?" Again there is no response.

So he walks right up behind her... "Honey, what's for dinner?" "Ralph, for THE FIFTH time I'm telling you - it's CHICKEN!!" says the wife. :lol::lol::lol:

***

A reality of life :

This is a little story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.... :):):)
 

DSM

Well-Known Member
#54
 

DSM

Well-Known Member
#55
 

Catch22

Well-Known Member
#56
Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, asks why we aren't more compassionate more of the time.

http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_goleman_on_compassion

Transcript:

"You know, I'm struck by how one of the implicit themes of TED is compassion, these very moving demonstrations we've just seen: HIV in Africa, President Clinton last night. And I'd like to do a little collateral thinking, if you will, about compassion and bring it from the global level to the personal. I'm a psychologist, but rest assured, I will not bring it to the scrotal.

There was a very important study done a while ago at Princeton Theological Seminary that speaks to why it is that when all of us have so many opportunities to help, we do sometimes, and we don't other times. A group of divinity students at the Princeton Theological Seminary were told that they were going to give a practice sermon and they were each given a sermon topic. Half of those students were given, as a topic, the parable of the Good Samaritan: the man who stopped the stranger in -- to help the stranger in need by the side of the road. Half were given random Bible topics. Then one by one, they were told they had to go to another building and give their sermon. As they went from the first building to the second, each of them passed a man who was bent over and moaning, clearly in need. The question is: Did they stop to help?

The more interesting question is: Did it matter they were contemplating the parable of the Good Samaritan? Answer: No, not at all. What turned out to determine whether someone would stop and help a stranger in need was how much of a hurry they thought they were in -- were they feeling they were late, or were they absorbed in what they were going to talk about. And this is, I think, the predicament of our lives: that we don't take every opportunity to help because our focus is in the wrong direction

There's a new field in brain science, social neuroscience. This studies the circuitry in two people's brains that activates while they interact. And the new thinking about compassion from social neuroscience is that our default wiring is to help. That is to say, if we attend to the other person, we automatically empathize, we automatically feel with them. There are these newly identified neurons, mirror neurons, that act like a neuro Wi-Fi, activating in our brain exactly the areas activated in theirs. We feel "with" automatically. And if that person is in need, if that person is suffering, we're automatically prepared to help. At least that's the argument.

But then the question is: Why don't we? And I think this speaks to a spectrum that goes from complete self-absorption, to noticing, to empathy and to compassion. And the simple fact is, if we are focused on ourselves, if we're preoccupied, as we so often are throughout the day, we don't really fully notice the other. And this difference between the self and the other focus can be very subtle.

I was doing my taxes the other day, and I got to the point where I was listing all of the donations I gave, and I had an epiphany, it was -- I came to my check to the Seva Foundation and I noticed that I thought, boy, my friend Larry Brilliant would really be happy that I gave money to Seva. Then I realized that what I was getting from giving was a narcissistic hit -- that I felt good about myself. Then I started to think about the people in the Himalayas whose cataracts would be helped, and I realized that I went from this kind of narcissistic self-focus to altruistic joy, to feeling good for the people that were being helped. I think that's a motivator.

But this distinction between focusing on ourselves and focusing on others is one that I encourage us all to pay attention to. You can see it at a gross level in the world of dating. I was at a sushi restaurant a while back and I overheard two women talking about the brother of one woman, who was in the singles scene. And this woman says, "My brother is having trouble getting dates, so he's trying speed dating." I don't know if you know speed dating? Women sit at tables and men go from table to table, and there's a clock and a bell, and at five minutes, bingo, the conversation ends and the woman can decide whether to give her card or her email address to the man for follow up. And this woman says, "My brother's never gotten a card, and I know exactly why. The moment he sits down, he starts talking non-stop about himself; he never asks about the woman."

And I was doing some research in the Sunday Styles section of The New York Times, looking at the back stories of marriages -- because they're very interesting -- and I came to the marriage of Alice Charney Epstein. And she said that when she was in the dating scene, she had a simple test she put people to. The test was: from the moment they got together, how long it would take the guy to ask her a question with the word "you" in it. And apparently Epstein aced the test, therefore the article. (Laughter)

Now this is a -- it's a little test I encourage you to try out at a party. Here at TED there are great opportunities. The Harvard Business Review recently had an article called "The Human Moment," about how to make real contact with a person at work. And they said, well, the fundamental thing you have to do is turn off your BlackBerry, close your laptop, end your daydream and pay full attention to the person. There is a newly coined word in the English language for the moment when the person we're with whips out their BlackBerry or answers that cell phone, and all of a sudden we don't exist. The word is "pizzled": it's a combination of puzzled and pissed off. (Laughter)

I think it's quite apt. It's our empathy, it's our tuning in which separates us from Machiavellians or sociopaths. I have a brother-in-law who's an expert on horror and terror -- he wrote the Annotated Dracula, the Essential Frankenstein -- he was trained as a Chaucer scholar, but he was born in Transylvania and I think it affected him a little bit. At any rate, at one point my brother-in-law, Leonard, decided to write a book about a serial killer. This is a man who terrorized the very vicinity we're in many years ago. He was known as the Santa Cruz strangler. And before he was arrested, he had murdered his grandparents, his mother and five co-eds at UC Santa Cruz.

So my brother-in-law goes to interview this killer and he realizes when he meets him that this guy is absolutely terrifying. For one thing, he's almost seven feet tall. But that's not the most terrifying thing about him. The scariest thing is that his IQ is 160: a certified genius. But there is zero correlation between IQ and emotional empathy, feeling with the other person. They're controlled by different parts of the brain.

So at one point, my brother-in-law gets up the courage to ask the one question he really wants to know the answer to, and that is: how could you have done it? Didn't you feel any pity for your victims? These were very intimate murders -- he strangled his victims. And the strangler says very matter-of-factly, "Oh no. If I'd felt the distress, I could not have done it. I had to turn that part of me off. I had to turn that part of me off."

And I think that that is very troubling, and in a sense, I've been reflecting on turning that part of us off. When we focus on ourselves in any activity, we do turn that part of ourselves off if there's another person. Think about going shopping and think about the possibilities of a compassionate consumerism. Right now, as Bill McDonough has pointed out, the objects that we buy and use have hidden consequences. We're all unwitting victims of a collective blind spot. We don't notice and don't notice that we don't notice the toxic molecules emitted by a carpet or by the fabric on the seats. Or we don't know if that fabric is a technological or manufacturing nutrient; it can be reused or does it just end up at landfill? In other words, we're oblivious to the ecological and public health and social and economic justice consequences of the things we buy and use. In a sense, the room itself is the elephant in the room, but we don't see it. And we've become victims of a system that points us elsewhere. Consider this.

There's a wonderful book called Stuff: The Hidden Life of Everyday Objects. And it talks about the back story of something like a t-shirt. And it talks about where the cotton was grown and the fertilizers that were used and the consequences for soil of that fertilizer. And it mentions, for instance, that cotton is very resistant to textile dye; about 60 percent washes off into wastewater. And it's well known by epidemiologists that kids who live near textile works tend to have high rates of leukemia. There's a company, Bennett and Company, that supplies Polo.com, Victoria's Secret -- they, because of their CEO, who's aware of this, in China formed a joint venture with their dye works to make sure that the wastewater would be properly taken care of before it returned to the groundwater. Right now, we don't have the option to choose the virtuous t-shirt over the non-virtuous one. So what would it take to do that?

Well, I've been thinking. For one thing, there's a new electronic tagging technology that allows any store to know the entire history of any item on the shelves in that store. You can track it back to the factory. Once you can track it back to the factory, you can look at the manufacturing processes that were used to make it, and if it's virtuous, you can label it that way. Or if it's not so virtuous, you can go into -- today, go into any store, put your scanner on a palm onto a barcode, which will take you to a website. They have it for people with allergies to peanuts. That website could tell you things about that object. In other words, at point of purchase, we might be able to make a compassionate choice.

There's a saying in the world of information science: ultimately everybody will know everything. And the question is: will it make a difference? Some time ago when I was working for The New York Times, it was in the '80s, I did an article on what was then a new problem in New York -- it was homeless people on the streets. And I spent a couple of weeks going around with a social work agency that ministered to the homeless. And I realized seeing the homeless through their eyes that almost all of them were psychiatric patients that had nowhere to go. They had a diagnosis. It made me -- what it did was to shake me out of the urban trance where, when we see, when we're passing someone who's homeless in the periphery of our vision, it stays on the periphery. We don't notice and therefore we don't act.

One day soon after that -- it was a Friday -- at the end of the day, I went down -- I was going down to the subway. It was rush hour and thousands of people were streaming down the stairs. And all of a sudden as I was going down the stairs I noticed that there was a man slumped to the side, shirtless, not moving, and people were just stepping over him -- hundreds and hundreds of people. And because my urban trance had been somehow weakened, I found myself stopping to find out what was wrong. The moment I stopped, half a dozen other people immediately ringed the same guy. And we found out that he was Hispanic, he didn't speak any English, he had no money, he'd been wandering the streets for days, starving, and he'd fainted from hunger. Immediately someone went to get orange juice, someone brought a hotdog, someone brought a subway cop. This guy was back on his feet immediately. But all it took was that simple act of noticing, and so I'm optimistic.

Thank you very much."

(Applause)
 

DSM

Well-Known Member
#57
Steve jobs’ Last Words -

I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world.

In others’ eyes, my life is an epitome of success.

However, aside from work, I have little joy. In the end, wealth is only a fact of life that I am accustomed to.

At this moment, lying on the sick bed and recalling my whole life, I realize that all the recognition and wealth that I took so much pride in, have paled and become meaningless in the face of impending death.

In the darkness, I look at the green lights from the life supporting machines and hear the humming mechanical sounds, I can feel the breath of god of death drawing closer…

Now I know, when we have accumulated sufficient wealth to last our lifetime, we should pursue other matters that are unrelated to wealth…

Should be something that is more important:

Perhaps relationships, perhaps art, perhaps a dream from younger days ...

Non-stop pursuing of wealth will only turn a person into a twisted being, just like me.

God gave us the senses to let us feel the love in everyone’s heart, not the illusions brought about by wealth.

The wealth I have won in my life I cannot bring with me.

What I can bring is only the memories precipitated by love.

That’s the true riches which will follow you, accompany you, giving you strength and light to go on.

Love can travel a thousand miles. Life has no limit. Go where you want to go. Reach the height you want to reach. It is all in your heart and in your hands.

What is the most expensive bed in the world? - "Sick bed" …

You can employ someone to drive the car for you, make money for you but you cannot have someone to bear the sickness for you.

Material things lost can be found. But there is one thing that can never be found when it is lost – "Life".

When a person goes into the operating room, he will realize that there is one book that he has yet to finish reading – "Book of Healthy Life".

Whichever stage in life we are at right now, with time, we will face the day when the curtain comes down.

Treasure Love for your family, love for your spouse, love for your friends...

Treat yourself well. Cherish others.
 

toingpoing

Well-Known Member
#58
Undoubtedly,one of the best and most useful threads in TJ. If anyone planning to take up trading as career,has the patience and good sense to read such articles and posts,chances of failing is very less.:thumb:
 
#59
Steve jobs’ Last Words -

I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world.

In others’ eyes, my life is an epitome of success.

However, aside from work, I have little joy. In the end, wealth is only a fact of life that I am accustomed to.

At this moment, lying on the sick bed and recalling my whole life, I realize that all the recognition and wealth that I took so much pride in, have paled and become meaningless in the face of impending death.

In the darkness, I look at the green lights from the life supporting machines and hear the humming mechanical sounds, I can feel the breath of god of death drawing closer…

Now I know, when we have accumulated sufficient wealth to last our lifetime, we should pursue other matters that are unrelated to wealth…

Should be something that is more important:

Perhaps relationships, perhaps art, perhaps a dream from younger days ...

Non-stop pursuing of wealth will only turn a person into a twisted being, just like me.

God gave us the senses to let us feel the love in everyone’s heart, not the illusions brought about by wealth.

The wealth I have won in my life I cannot bring with me.

What I can bring is only the memories precipitated by love.

That’s the true riches which will follow you, accompany you, giving you strength and light to go on.

Love can travel a thousand miles. Life has no limit. Go where you want to go. Reach the height you want to reach. It is all in your heart and in your hands.

What is the most expensive bed in the world? - "Sick bed" …

You can employ someone to drive the car for you, make money for you but you cannot have someone to bear the sickness for you.

Material things lost can be found. But there is one thing that can never be found when it is lost – "Life".

When a person goes into the operating room, he will realize that there is one book that he has yet to finish reading – "Book of Healthy Life".

Whichever stage in life we are at right now, with time, we will face the day when the curtain comes down.

Treasure Love for your family, love for your spouse, love for your friends...

Treat yourself well. Cherish others.
So true for everyone...

Smart_trade
 
#60
Steve jobs’ Last Words -
DSM, what's your source on this ?

Here's another article about the last words of Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs's last words: 'Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow'

Mona Simpson, sister of the late Apple co-founder, reveals details of the final moments Jobs spent with his family
Steve jobs
Steve Jobs's last words, revealed by his sister Mona Simpson, were 'Oh wow'. Photograph: Jeff Chiu/AP

Sam Jones
@swajones

Monday 31 October 2011 20.14 GMT
Last modified on Wednesday 1 October 2014 12.28 BST

The last words of the late, much-lauded and much-quoted Steve Jobs have been revealed almost a month after the Apple co-founder died at the age of 56.

Jobs, who once memorably described death as "very likely the single best invention of life", departed this world with a lingering look at his family and the simple, if mysterious, observation: "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow."

Details of his final moments came from his sister Mona Simpson, who has allowed the New York Times to publish the eulogy she delivered at his memorial service on 16 October. In it, she explains how she rushed to Jobs's bedside after he asked her to come to see him as soon as possible.

"His tone was affectionate, dear, loving, but like someone whose luggage was already strapped onto the vehicle, who was already on the beginning of his journey, even as he was sorry, truly deeply sorry, to be leaving us," she writes.

When she arrived, she found Jobs surrounded by his family – "he looked into his children's eyes as if he couldn't unlock his gaze," – and managing to hang on to consciousness she said.

However, he began to deteriorate. "His breathing changed. It became severe, deliberate, purposeful. I could feel him counting his steps again, pushing farther than before. This is what I learned: he was working at this, too. Death didn't happen to Steve, he achieved it."

After making it through one final night, wrote Simpson, her brother began to slip away. "His breath indicated an arduous journey, some steep path, altitude. He seemed to be climbing.

"But with that will, that work ethic, that strength, there was also sweet Steve's capacity for wonderment, the artist's belief in the ideal, the still more beautiful later.

"Steve's final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times.

"Before embarking, he'd looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life's partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them.

"Steve's final words were: 'Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.'"

Simpson, a novelist and English professor, also used the eulogy to pay tribute to some of her late brother's beliefs – and idiosyncrasies.

"Novelty was not Steve's highest value," she writes. "Beauty was. For an innovator, Steve was remarkably loyal. If he loved a shirt, he'd order 10 or 100 of them. In the Palo Alto house, there are probably enough black cotton turtlenecks for everyone in this church."

Although the precise meaning of Jobs's ultimate utterance is hard to pin down, it will further fuel interest in a man who continues to captivate the business and creative worlds even after death.

His biography, written by Walter Isaacson, is topping many book charts and is even tipped to become the bestselling book on Amazon this year.

The company's latest offering, the iPhone 4S, is faring less well, however, with many users complaining of rapid battery drain on their new smartphones.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/oct/31/steve-jobs-last-words
You will find many sources for this by googling "steve jobs' last words".

Somehow, on internet, I find any quotations without mentioning the source to be very distasteful and irresponsible.

The above quote has recently been going around on the net and is very likely a hoax. Read the analysis of this quote here. http://wafflesatnoon.com/steve-jobs-last-words/


A good fallout of the above, I found another source of famous last words, which I quote below :

1. "Oh wow. Oh wow, oh wow."
--Steve Jobs
Honestly, I hope my last words are this good--suggesting wonder and amazement during the last seconds among the living and the first seconds among--well, that's the point, right? Although, there is some possibility that Jobs was playing a last-minute cosmic joke on the rest of us. Which brings us to--

2. "This wallpaper is dreadful, one of us will have to go."
Oscar Wilde
Dry, hilarious, lasting. If you want to go out with humor, this is the way to do it. Unless--

3. "Plaudite, amici, comedia finita est."
Ludwig van Beethoven
If you view comedy from a more philosophical vantage point, these might be good last words for you. I'm pretty sure this is Latin; anyway, it means, "Applaud, my friends, the comedy is over."

4. "He smelled the garden, the yellow shield of light smote his eyes, and he whispered, 'Life is so beautiful.'"
-- Mario Puzo, The Godfather
No fair cheating--you have to have read the book, not just seen the most amazing movie of all time. Granted, Vito Corleone is a fictional character, but the sentiments here are true-life.

5. "I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have."
Leonardo da Vinci
Really? Da Vinci thought his work wasn't good enough? Forget it, none of our work is good enough. This entire website should probably shut down.

6. "Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven't said enough!"
Karl Marx
That's Karl Marx: a funny, lighthearted guy from start to finish.

7. "Why do you weep? Did you think I was immortal?"
Louis XIV of France
Given that he was known as "the Sun King," and that he was one of the most powerful French monarchs--yes, some of his subjects probably did think he was immortal. But whether it was ironic or sincere, his last words packed punch.

8. "We are all going."
--President William McKinley
The third American president to be assassinated, McKinley was reportedly responding to his wife, who exclaimed as he died: "I want to go too! I want to go too!"

9. "I'm bored with it all."
Winston S. Churchill
This only makes sense given that Churchill was basically the manliest man in the history of manly men.

10. "Pardon me sir. I did not mean to do it."
Marie Antoinette
The French queen supposedly said this to one of her executioners on her way to the guillotine. She'd stepped on his foot by accident, or so they say.

11. "I love you, Janet."
--Isaac Asmiov
Asimov prophesied that his last words would reflect his devotion to his wife--and they reportedly were.

12. "I die the king's faithful servant, but God's first."
St. Thomas More
Short version: More was an English lawyer who refused to sign off on English King Henry VIII's divorce, and he wound up convicted of treason and executed as a result.

13. "More weight."
-- Giles Corey
In 1692, Corey. accused of witchcraft in Salem, Mass, was pressed to death, meaning he was stretched naked while his oppressors piled heavy rocks on him, for refusing to dignify the proceedings with a plea. Each time he was told to say whether he was guilty, the 80 year old Corey showed them who was the bravest: "More weight."

14. "I've always loved my wife and my children and my grandchildren. I've always loved my country. I want to go. God, take me."
--President Eisenhower
I'm moved by the last words of some of these larger-than-life human beings like Churchill, above, and Eisenhower, who not only led the Allied rescue of Europe but served two terms as president.

15. "Gentlemen, I bid you farewell."
--Wallace Hartley, bandmaster on RMS Titantic
You probably know this one because you saw that movie with Kate Winslet and Leo DiCaprio. Facing death, Hartley and his fellow musicians played as long as they could--and accepted the end.

16. "Sacrifices must be made."
--Otto Lilienthal
Nearly a decade before the Wright Brothers, Lilienthal made 2,000 flights in gliders before one of his designs stalled 50 feet in the air and crashed. He ultimately died of his injuries.

17. "I've had 18 straight whiskies; I think that's the record."
--Dylan Thomas
Okay, this isn't exactly inspiring; maybe it's funny in a black humor sort of way. But it is memorable. I included it here because Thomas is one of my favorite poets--but when it comes to last words, I think you can do better.
 

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