Stumped Meme Quotes

A meme a day keeps the planes away. ~ Meme McDonald

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
[Meme, Counter Meme, Wired.com] ~ Mike Godwin

Apparently, there was even a meme created already. The incredibly photogenic glowing-alien meme. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

Why yes, I have discovered the joy of cooking. It's when my husband does it. - MEME ~ Darynda Jones

The idea that memes exist is a meme meme. ~ Steven M. Wise

Evolution itself embodies an ongoing exchange of information between organism and environment ... The gene has its cultural analog, too: the meme. In cultural evolution, a meme is a replicator and propagator - an idea, a fashion, a chain letter, or a conspiracy theory. On a bad day, a meme is a virus. ~ James Gleick

It's obviously funny to be a meme, so I could be down with it in that regard, but it also belittles one's art. ~ Grimes

Safety first!

Just kidding. Coffee first, Safety's, like , third or fourth.

-MEME ~ Darynda Jones

Born too late to explore the world, born too early too explore the universe. ~ Internet Meme Proverb

I truly love 'Gangnam Style.' I guess it's a meme. I feel like it's one of the few times where the meme and the quality combines nicely. ~ Grimes

When you plant a fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme's propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell. ~ Richard Dawkins

The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry. ~ Richard Dawkins

Everyone had believed for capitalism and democracy to grow, the corporation had to grow; though that was wrong, the idea stuck. Democracy was the meme, but corporate growth was an idea imbedded into that meme. Hard to shake one from the other. ~ Carla R. Herrera

So, the first things we must do is decide which it is: A
substantive and hidden thing that produces cultural symptoms or it is the meme "hypothesis" and testable. If it is not falsifiable it cannot meet the criteria of scientific fact, according to the very structure of the scientific methodology itself. This would put it in the latter category of faith-based belief systems ~ L.B. Ó Ceallaigh

Manufacturing consent begins by weaponizing the meme and utilizing the censorship algorithms of Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. ~ James Scott, Senior Fellow, The Center For Cyber Influence Operations Studies

As for memes, the word 'meme' is a cliche, which is to say it's already a meme. We all hear it all the time, and maybe we even have started to use it in ordinary speech. The man who invented it was Richard Dawkins, who was, not coincidentally, an evolutionary biologist. And he invented it as an analog for the gene. ~ James Gleick

Whorf, even though he died in 1941, lent us a meme. ~ Anonymous

Where the hell did my bones go? I asked. This whole upright thing had me stumped. ~ Darynda Jones

First and foremost, the most profound weapon a nation or special interest can possess is "control" over information. This contributes to control over the narrative and the meme is the embryo of the narrative. ~ James Scott, Senior Fellow, The Center For Cyber Influence Operations Studies

Let's first ask, what is life? And immediately we are stumped. ~ Eric Chaisson

Time and again, my sociobiological colleagues have upbraided me as a turncoat, because I will not agree with them that the ultimate criterion for the success of a meme must be its contribution to Darwinian "fitness". At bottom, they insist, a "good meme" spreads because brains are receptive to it, and the receptiveness of brains is ultimately shaped by (genetic) natural selection. ~ Richard Dawkins

A meme (rhymes with dream) is a unit of information (a catchphrase, a concept, a tune, a notion of fashion, philosophy or politics) that leaps from brain to brain. Memes compete with one another for replication, and are passed down through a population much the same way genes pass through a species. Potent memes can change minds, alter behavior, catalyze collective mindshifts and transform cultures. Which is why meme warfare has become the geopolitical battle of our information age. Whoever has the memes has the power. ~ Kalle Lasn

I am the American heartbreak- The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe. ~ Langston Hughes

When is the last time an actual human interaction made you laugh more than a meme did? ~ Samantha Irby

curricular: they occur outside his playing remit. This is Lingard of the social media meme, the dab-dance ~ Andrew Kirby

Maruman does not loll. ~ Isobelle Carmody

Have you thought about what it means to be a god?" asked the man. He had a beard and a baseball cap. "It means you give up your mortal existence to become a meme: something that lives forever in people's minds, like the tune of a nursery rhyme. It means that everyone gets to re-create you in their own minds. You barely have your own identity any more. Instead, you're a thousand aspects of what people need you to be. And everyone wants something different from you. Nothing is fixed, nothing is stable. ~ Neil Gaiman

Remember that it's okay to ask for help when you're stumped, because sometimes you really can't be expected to handle everything alone. ~ Martha Beck

I tried to start a gang once.
It turned into a book club.
- MEME ~ Darynda Jones

Our task is to create memes ... Launch your meme boldly and see if it will replicate. ~ Terence McKenna

I'm pretty nifty at thinking on my feet, even when I'm actually sitting down with a renter in my embrace, but this fellow's sudden appearance had me more than a little stumped ~ Mark Gatiss

I never said I'd die without coffee. I said other people would." - Meme ~ Darynda Jones

I'll see when a trip's feasible. In the meantime you can sext or meme them."
"YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THOSE WORDS MEAN, DAD. ~ Zack Morrison

Women usually tell that version of the truth which flatters them the most. ~ Valentin V.

Put on a few eggs, there's a good fellow!" Gandalf called after him, as the hobbit stumped off to the pantries. "And just bring out the cold chicken and ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Poetry taught me a great deal about language and images, but when it came to plotting, I was stumped. It's been very much a learn-by-doing thing for me. ~ Jennifer McMahon

Yes, we have quite literally followed you to the end of the earth," Monty replied, "And there was only mild complaining ~ Mackenzi Lee

By the time he graduates, projected to be by his thirtieth birthday, Wheeler's transcript will be a meme used to scare children into studying harder. ~ Kurt Dinan

If ideas were viruses, then, like any virus, they would mutate rapidly and often arbitrarily, with only the fitter ideas spreading and continuing their lineage. We simply do not see this with any sort of knowledge. The only time knowledge might appear to mutate is when ideas are altered by the individuals holding them, but that does not prove the meme "hypothesis." In fact, if the meme "hypothesis" were true, then the evolution of ideas would be quite strange indeed. For every time a good idea was received through memetic transmission, there would be mutations of that idea, rapid one's, most of which would be complete nonsense. Sure, the nonsense ideas would "die", but they would appear at first and remain until they did. One might argue that this is made manifest in discursive thought, but one would be patently, at the base level, incorrect. This is, unfortunately, is one of the logical consequences of the meme "hypothesis" that, as a parasite, all information becomes discursive thought. Schizophrenics are typically the only people to experience discursive thoughts, and most people are not, in fact, schizophrenic. ~ Idav Kelly

Once upon a time there was a twat. It was you. The end. -Meme ~ Lani Lynn Vale

Ideology is a sick-soul-meme; it gnaws basic decency away until you can self-justify the most extreme acts as worthwhile to further the cause. Any cause. ~ Peter F. Hamilton

So ... " Kimball looks at his book helplessly. "There's nothing you can tell me about Paul Owen?"
"Well." I sigh. "He led what I suppose was an orderly life, I guess. " Really stumped, I offer, "He ... ate a balanced diet. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

I wasn't the only one that saw Sarah Palin vacillate between glorious highs on the campaign trail - and, you know, while she was speaking and at the convention - to really troubling lows when she seemed stumped in interviews. ~ Nicolle Wallace

A reporter asked me which famous woman was my role model, a question that always leaves me stumped. I know it's the wrong feminist answer, but most of my role models have been men. They always had the lives I wanted. ~ Tina Brown

Je pensais de meme que notre jeunesse etait finie et le bonheur manqué.

I thought too that our youth was over and we had failed to find happiness. ~ Alain-Fournier

That's impossible [ ... ] You need infinite energy for light travel. Haven't you heard of the theory of relativity?"
She thought she had him stumped with that one, but he just laughed again. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. ~ Shannon Messenger

Only get what you want after you get what you need. ~ Alonso Montori

The professor is stumped about why the decline is happening with the wolves and what, if anything, we can do to help them. You see, the problem is we've let nature take its course here. We observe but don't interfere. Kind of like the Prime Directive in Star Trek. ~ Marie Zhuikov

I never saw a meme; I never saw the sea. ~ Emily Dickinson

She acts all scary, but she's been unusually nice to us, so... I know! She's the Tsundere-type zombie, amiright?! ~ Sakazaki Freddie

Here was a man who defied all odds, lived by himself, worked, created beautiful art. A complex mind stumped by some of the simplest tasks.
If he could, he would keep trying until there was only absolute failure or success.
How many people could say that? ~ Adrienne Wilder

It [culture] invites people to diminish themselves, and dehumanize themselves by behaving like machines, meme processors of memes passed down from Madison Avenue, and Hollywood, and what have you. ~ Terence McKenna

If we take memetics seriously then the 'me' that could do the choosing is itself a memetic construct: a fluid and ever-changing group of memes installed in a complicated meme machine. ~ Susan Blackmore

We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.* 12 ~ Richard Dawkins

Will 2015 ever be noted as the year Ebola was decisively downgraded from a lurid horror meme to just one of many commonly treatable diseases? ~ T.K. Naliaka

There's people who actually have a whole science devoted to what makes a sticky meme and that idea of that question of why some ideas about how civilizations work catch on and others don't. ~ Jay Roach

The time of the photograph is [always] after. This imprecision accommodates the numerous successions, the end upon seismic end, in a time without time, un[re]countable: still. In this, it is a perfect crime, "l'anéantissement anéanti, la fin… privée d'elle-même. ~ Nathanaël

It's an internet meme," I said, matter-of-factly. "I'd tell you to Google it, but you've only got about five minutes to live and you're going to spend every one of those fighting for your life. ~ Robert J. Crane

Not even the most heavily-armed police state can exert brute force to all of its citizens all of the time. Meme management is so much subtler; the rose-tinted refraction of perceived reality, the contagious fear of threatening alternatives. ~ Peter Watts

Suddenly self-conscious, she shifted from one booted foot to the other. "I asked the cloud for battle-ready clothing, and this is what I got. There are slits all over the pants, for easy access to the weapons, I'm guessing. But the bustier has me stumped. Unless, of course, the cloud thinks my cleavage will stun my opponents into stupidity."
-Annabelle ~ Gena Showalter

That thing that everyone talks about. That really big newspaper in the sky that came along and ruined everything else, blah blah blah.'
Rosie was stumped, until light finally dawned. 'You mean the internet?'
'Well, yes. I hate that thing.'
'The whole thing?'
'Yes.'
'You hate the entire internet?'
'Yes. ~ Jenny Colgan

Humans are just barely intelligent tool users; Darwinian evolutionary selection stopped when language and tool use converged, leaving the average hairy meme carrier sadly deficient in smarts. ~ Charles Stross

Very interestingly in a movement that I call now the hijab lobby, sadly promulgated by women that some of us refer to as Muslim mean girls and their friends, are trying to put out this meme that we are denying women their choice. ~ Asra Nomani

The Strandbeest is a self-replicating meme, a brain virus. It infects the student's brain. In fact, the Strandbeest abuse students for their reproduction. For two years, this reproduction fell into a flow acceleration. Now, 3D printers produce walking mini Strandbeests. ~ Theo Jansen

And still, on occasion, I'll disable my social media blockers, and I'll sit there like a rat pressing the lever, like a woman repeatedly hitting myself on the forehead with a hammer, masturbating through the nightmare until I finally catch the gasoline whiff of a good meme. ~ Jia Tolentino

At first as they stumped along the path which edged the Hundred Acre Wood, they didn't say much to each other; but when they came to the stream, and had helped each other across the stepping stones, and were able to walk side by side again over the heather, they began to talk in a friendly way ... ~ A.A. Milne

No, the founders of our culture didn't just fall into a lifestyle of total dependence on agriculture, they had to whip themselves into it, and the whip they used was this meme: Growing all your own food is the best way to live. Nothing less could imaginably have done this amazing trick. ~ Daniel Quinn

I loved how the sun and salt spray perfused my skin, filling me with the memory of light. God surely meant for humans to live like that. He hadn't intended for us to wither into desiccated husks in front of brightly lit screens that leeched away our summer days one meme at a time. ~ Shaun David Hutchinson

The waitress comes over to me like, 'What'chu readin' for?' I had never been asked that. Not 'What am I reading?' but 'What am I reading for?' Goddammit, you stumped me. Hmm, why do I read? I suppose I read for a lot of reasons, one of the main ones being so I don't end up being a ... waffle waitress. ~ Bill Hicks

The no-secrets era of social media makes one consider the built-in risk factor of nominating high-testosterone men to positions of power at all. Everyone is under too much scrutiny now to take a chance on candidates who suddenly blow up into a comic meme, a punchline, a ribald hashtag. ~ Tina Brown

The Life of Pi' timelessly encapsulates an objectively true & real meme that God is Love and seeks out those He calls unto himself."

~R. Alan Woods [2013] ~ R. Alan Woods

Certainly almost everything we do and think is colored in some way by memes, but it is important to realize that not everything we experience is a meme. If I walk down the street and see a tree, the basic perception that's going on is not memetic. ~ Susan Blackmore

The same principle leads us to neglect a man of merit that induces us to admire a fool.
[Fr., Du meme fonds dont on neglige un homme de merite l'on sait encore admirer un sot.] ~ Jean De La Bruyere

To fight against a war or, better yet, and entire "war machine," we had to become warriors ourselves. This is the cunning symmetry of war: Enemies tend to come to resemble one another. And this was perhaps especially so in a culture that appallingly - to us - applied the war meme to just about anything, as in the "War on Poverty. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

An Internet meme is a hijacking of the original idea. Instead of mutating by random change and spreading by a form of Darwinian selection, Internet memes are altered deliberately by human creativity. There is no attempt at accuracy of copying, as with genes - and as with memes in their original version. ~ Richard Dawkins

Facebook is possibly more in the foreground for those who don't use it than for those who have accepted it as social infrastructure. You have to expend more effort not knowing a meme than letting it pass through you. Social relations are not one-way; you can't dictate how they are on the basis of personal preference. ~ Anonymous

Ryodan says softly, "Holy strawberries, Dani, we're in a jam."
I look at him like he's sprouted two heads. Holy strawberries? In a jam? Even Barrons looks stumped.
He continues, "But don't worry. Holy priceless collection of Etruscan snoods - you really butchered that one, by the way - I've got it in the bag. How about this one: holy borrowing bibliophile, let's book. ~ Karen Marie Moning

You know, a meme is now circulating that's called the Ostrich Brigade. And it's used to describe all those people who are burying their heads in the sand. I call it the three D strategy. It's denial, deflection, and a demonization of those of us who want to speak honestly about these issues of extremism. ~ Dalia Mogahed

Maybe I'm a bad writer."
"No. You're a very good writer. Kalipso was a chef d'oeuvre. So beautiful, Arthur. I admired it a lot."
Now Less is stumped. He probes his weaknesses. Too magniloquent? Too spoony? "Too old?" he ventures.
"We're all over fifty, Arthur. It's not that you're a bad writer." Finley pauses for effect. "It's that you're a bad gay. ~ Andrew Sean Greer

The psychiatric hierarchy decrees who can and cannot be high-functioning and "gifted." A much-liked meme on Facebook once circulated on my feed, in which a chart listed so-called advantages to various mental illnesses. Depression bestows sensitivity and empathy; attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder allows people to hold large amounts of information at once; anxiety creates useful caution. I knew immediately that schizophrenia wouldn't make an appearance. ~ Esmé Weijun Wang

When you get into statistical analysis, you don't really expect to achieve fame. Or to become an Internet meme. Or be parodied by 'The Onion' - or be the subject of a cartoon in 'The New Yorker.' I guess I'm kind of an outlier there. ~ Nate Silver

What's infinity plus one?" I interrupted Katy, asking Finn my own question. "It's still infinity," Finn said, sighing.
"Wrong. It's two."
"Oh yeah? How do you figure?"
I pointed at Finn and said, "Infinity." Then I pointed at myself and said, "Plus one. That's two, genius."
"I really wish I hadn't told you my name."
"Ha. Gotcha! You think you're so good at math, but I just stumped you. ~ Amy Harmon

Don't put your wand there, boy!" roared Moody. "What if it ignited? Better wizards than you have lost buttocks, you know!" "Who d'you know who's lost a buttock?" the violet-haired woman asked Mad-Eye interestedly. "Never you mind, you just keep your wand out of your back pocket!" growled Mad-Eye. "Elementary wand safety, nobody bothers about it anymore . . ." He stumped off toward the kitchen. "And I saw that," he added irritably, as the woman rolled her eyes at the ceiling. ~ J.K. Rowling

Think that it's fun, that you're guided,
and that all is well.
Think that there's time, that life is easy,
and that the best is yet to come.
Think that the reasons that elude you
will one day catch up,
that the lessons that have stumped you
will one day bring joy,
and that the sorrows that have crippled you
will soon give you wings.
Think that you're important, that you cannot fail,
and that happiness always returns.
And think that you're beautiful. ~ Mike Dooley

White people are notorious for trying to turn race conversations into debates, and then becoming angry or dismissive when people of color won't participate. White people believe this is because people of color haven't thought it through or are stumped by a well-made point. But the truth is, oftentimes people of color don't have the time, energy, or willpower to teach the white person enough to turn the conversation into a real debate. To do so would be a ton of work. ~ Austin Channing Brown

What, are you totally psycho?" I shouted.
"Maybe I am!" he screamed back at me. "Maybe that's just what I am. Maybe I'm that quiet guy who suddenly goes nuts and then you find half the neighborhood in his freezer."
I gotta admit, that one stumped me for a second - but only for a second. "Which half?" I asked.
"Huh?"
"Which half of the neighborhood? Could you make it the people on the other side of Avenue T, because I never really liked them anyway. ~ Neal Shusterman

I was stumped one day when a little boy asked, 'Do you draw Mickey Mouse?' And I had to admit I do not draw anymore. 'Then you think up all the jokes and ideas?' 'No,' I said, 'I don't do that.' Finally, he looked at me and said, 'Mr. Disney, just what do you do?' 'Well,' I said, 'sometimes I think of myself as a little bee. I go from one area of the studio to another, and I gather pollen. I sort of stimulate everybody. I guess that's the job I do.'" WALT DISNEY ~ Pat Williams

For some reason, Greg Ginn from Black Flag is recording an Access: Hollywood episode in my bathroom, doing an interview with one of those interchangeable video host babes. He's talking about how an important part of making it as a punk rock musician is to buy a good condo at a low interest rate, and then list it on Airbnb when you're on tour. While he talks, he eats a loaf of garlic bread that has currywurst on it, which is a trending meme that week. ~ Jon Konrath

We have inhabited both the actual and the imaginary realms for a long time. But we don't live in either place the way our parents or ancestors did. Enchantment alters with age, and with the age.
We know a dozen Arthurs now, all of them true. The Shire changed irrevocably even in Bilbo's lifetime. Don Quixote went riding out to Argentina and met Jorge Luis Borges there. Plus c'est la même chose, plus ça change. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

I became a little alarmed at the number of my readers who took the meme more positively as a theory of human culture in its own right - either to criticize it (unfairly, given my original modest intention) or to carry it far beyond the limits of what I then thought justified. This was why I may have seemed to backtrack. ~ Richard Dawkins

Joana starts looking around Beckett, stepping close like she's trying to find something. She pretends to search behind him.

Beckett frowns and gracefully one-eighties to face her. "What are you doing?" He has that iconic what the fuck face that has been meme'd to death on Reddit.

"Oh sorry," Joana says like she's not sorry at all. "I was looking for the mattress that's always attached to your back."

Charlie chokes on his champagne. ~ Krista Ritchie

Irving Wallace wrote a bestselling novel, The Man, in the 1960s about a black man becoming president of the United States. We thought that such a possibility was thousands of years in the future. Some people may still have some difficulty with the idea, but that's a major cultural meme shift. ~ Wayne Dyer

I do think the Roman Catholic religion is a disease of the mind which has a particular epidemiology similar to that of a virus ... Religion is a terrific meme. That's right. But that doesn't make it true and I care about what's true. Smallpox virus is a terrific virus. It does its job magnificently well. That doesn't mean that it's a good thing. It doesn't mean that I don't want to see it stamped out. ~ Richard Dawkins

learned only later what I'd seen: the manufacture of a term that would be used to increase traffic on the Word Exchange. For some users of the Meme - those whose devices had been infected with a new virus that had recently started circulating - terms like this one would replace "obscure" words - "cynical," "morbid," "integrity" - that those of us who'd grown dependent on our Memes no longer fully trusted to our memories. But I knew nothing then about these neologisms, or the virus, or why this "word" had just been fabricated. ~ Alena Graedon

Back in August, I wrote a post about the supposed race to the bottom with ebooks, refuting some nonsense written by an establishment bonehead.
This meme won't die. People are still convinced that new ebooks are going to be priced at ten cents, and writers will starve, and this will cause a second Great Depression where banks will close and people will be forced to buy Kindles with food stamps, and then the earth will enter another ice age where all the bunnies will freeze to death. ~ J.A. Konrath

The "Relationships are work" meme is a feminine Social Convention. How often do you hear men say these words? This convention has filtered into popular consciousness even amongst men now. For the LTR men who subscribe to this I'd also speculate that many of them are in relationships where they are "doing the work" for the women who are giving them the 'grade' so to speak. And of the single men who subscribe to this mythology, each had to be conditioned to believe this is the case in LTRs by women. ~ Rollo Tomassi

Professor Dawkins himself stated that "Religion is about turning untested belief, into unshakable truth through the power of institutions, and the passage of time." This is exactly what is happening with his meme conjecture. He is taking an untestable idea, by scientific standards, and through media and literature and a popular cult following, creating it into a social norm of truth where others believe his idea and propagate it as an unshakeable truth. This also is occurring faster because of computer technology in time. But nonetheless, it is an occurrence within a passage of time. ~ Idav Kelly

Yes, I was scared of the Daleks and the Zarbi and the rest, but I was taking other, stranger, more important lessons away from my Saturday tea time serial. For a start, I became infected by the idea that there are an infinite number of worlds only a foot step away. And another part of the meme was this- some things are bigger on the inside than they are on the outside. And perhaps some people are bigger on the inside than they are on the outside as well. And that was only the start of it. ~ Neil Gaiman

Meme A term introduced by the biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. Dawkins defined memes as small cultural units of transmission, analogous to genes, which are spread from person to person by copying or imitation. Examples of memes in his pioneering essay include cultural artifacts such as melodies, catchphrases, and clothing fashions, as well as abstract beliefs. Like genes, memes are defined as replicators that undergo variation, competition, selection, and retention. At any given moment, many memes are competing for the attention of hosts; however, only memes suited to their sociocultural environment spread successfully, while others become extinct. ~ Limor Shifman

I think the most common meme is that it's too difficult to change. It's too risky to change. My nature doesn't allow me to change. When you're thinking that, you're not understanding what your nature is. All of us come from this place of well-being, love, and kindness. But we've taken on these other things, and we think that they're our nature. Our nature really is to be like God. ~ Wayne Dyer