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I'm trying to decide what is the best quote of ancient earth history, and many, many choices have I. Can you help?

I've narrowed it down some, and ordered it is, significantly:

  1. People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.

  2. If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.

  3. Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.

  4. Nothing is impossible, the word itself says 'I'm possible'!

  5. We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
  6. Learning never exhausts the mind.
  7. All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
  8. Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.
  9. Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else’s can shorten it.
  10. You can't blame gravity for falling in love.
  11. The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
  12. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
  13. The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.
  14. I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
  15. Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!

  16. Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.

  17. If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.

  18. Might as well jump
  19. A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.
  20. If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.
  21. You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

Missing is one, it is sure: My ultimate nominee for the best quote of all time.

Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope! Knowing this is the only way for life in the Universe to move forward.

-Yoda



Maybe someone in CAPTIAL city can help?

Computer-aided deciphering is encouraged, not impermissible.

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2 Answers 2

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To finish off the puzzle... taking certain initials from the attributed quotes, we get the message:

I'LL HAVE WHAT SHE'S HAVING - From When Harry Met Sally

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    $\begingroup$ Blast from the past! You were instrumental in this answer Nice job. $\endgroup$
    – Chowzen
    Commented Jan 9, 2019 at 0:21
  • $\begingroup$ Can you explain how you knew which letters to use? And what has Yoda anything to do with the solution? $\endgroup$
    – yaara
    Commented Jan 9, 2019 at 16:09
  • $\begingroup$ Yoda was just fun. $\endgroup$
    – Chowzen
    Commented Jan 9, 2019 at 22:51
  • $\begingroup$ && ||| was the method. Keep solving! $\endgroup$
    – Chowzen
    Commented Jan 9, 2019 at 22:52
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    $\begingroup$ Thanks @Chowzen. I'm not always as available, but always watching. :) $\endgroup$
    – LeppyR64
    Commented Jan 15, 2019 at 4:17
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An attempt at a beginning of an answer, though I don't see where it would lead yet...

The quotes are so well-known that I'm tempted to collect the authors. The mention of the CAPITAL suggests that the initials taken in some order should spell something, but I can't see what - neither the first nor the last initials make any sense to me.

For reference, (Edited for posterity):

Here is the list of the authors I got:

1. Isaac Asimov
2. Lewis Carroll
3. John Lennon
4. Audrey Hepburn
5. Aesop
6. Leonardo da Vinci
7. Edgar Allan Poe
8. William Blake
9. Cullen Hightower
10. Albert Einstein
11. Sun Tzu
12. ??? (Carl Sagan via Martin Rees)
13. H. Jackson Brown Jr.
14. Thomas Edison
15. Dr. Seuss
16. Robert H. Schuller
17. A. A. Milne
18. Van Halen
19. Ingrid Bergman
20. Napoleon Hill
21. Indira Gandhi

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    $\begingroup$ You have learned well the lesson of the title, young Padawan! Now comes another lesson: "Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.” <(-_-)> $\endgroup$
    – Chowzen
    Commented Dec 30, 2018 at 10:59
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    $\begingroup$ Regarding the author of 12: "This quote is originally attributed to cosmologist Martin Rees. It is widely attributed to cosmologist Carl Sagan, but he was just quoting Martin Rees at the time." -Quora... so probably Martin Rees $\endgroup$
    – yaara
    Commented Dec 30, 2018 at 12:29
  • $\begingroup$ another thought: rot13(Znlor lbqn vf gur xrl gb qrpvcure gur zrffntr, gur dhbgrf va gur pbzzrag naq gur gvgyr ner uvf ) $\endgroup$
    – yaara
    Commented Dec 30, 2018 at 12:32
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    $\begingroup$ Dr. Seuss is Theodor Seuss Geisel. $\endgroup$
    – mkinson
    Commented Jan 8, 2019 at 15:22
  • $\begingroup$ With the Yoda reference and knowing this is a cipher I was thinking Enigma Machine Cipher with the Rotor sequence backwards, but I can't get any message using the initials of the authors so I guess not.. Or I'm just doing it wrong. $\endgroup$
    – mkinson
    Commented Jan 8, 2019 at 16:17

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