We live by memes. We die by memes. We kill and maim by memes. This is an attempt to show how absurd life can be when we simply accept/inherit/assume some slogan or concept we haven't thought through, felt through, for ourselves. I take a well-known quotation and turn it around simply by substituting the word "meme" for a word in the original. I hope it lights up some minds. (Linh Dinh's was perfect as is.)

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Quotes From The Book of Memes

Collated and Conflated By Gary Corseri

1. "Pride goeth before the meme."--from the revised Book of Proverbs

2. "I never met a meme I didn't like."--Will Rogers (sort of...)

3. "They hate us for our memes!"--George W. Bush (as above")

4. "Give me liberty, or give me memes!"--Patrick Henry  

5. "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this meme!"--Ronald Reagan

6. "We hold these memes to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of memes."--Thomas Jefferson (unpublished draft of the Declaration of Independence)

7. " I see one third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-memed."-- F.D.R.  

8. "It depends on what the meaning of "is' is."--Bill Clinton (really!)

9. "All you need is memes! [da-da! Dadada!]. All you need is memes [Da-da! Dadada!]. All you need is memes, memes" memes is all you need!"--John Lennon  

10. "You have nothing to lose but your memes!" --Karl Marx  

11. "To meme, or not to meme. That is the question."--from Hamlet (the lost Folio) 

12. "Two memes diverged in a yellow wood."--Robert Frost 

13. "E=MemesC2"--Albert Einstein 

14. "A little learning is a dang'rous meme."--Alexander Pope 

15. "Whose memes these are, I think I know/His house is in the village, though."--Robert Frost  

16. "The meme comes on little cat feet."--Carl Sandburg  

17. "No sooner met, but they looked; no sooner looked, but they memed."--from As You Like It (the lost Folio)   

18. "He who memes last, memes best"--folk saying 

19. "Fools rush in where angels fear to meme."--Alexander Pope 

20. "A fool and his meme are soon parted."--folk saying  

21. "Meme, be not proud, though some have called thee/Mighty and dreadful."--John Donne  

22. "You're either with us" or you're with the memes!" --George W. Bush 

23. "A meme is a meme is a meme"--Gertrude Stein.  

24. "Resilience!" (MSM/gov't meme, post-Boston Marathon bombing!) 

25. "I never saw a meme; I never saw the sea"--Emily Dickinson  

26. ""government of the memes, by the memes and for the memes"--Abraham Lincoln (lost draft of the Gettysberg Address)  

27. "Meme in my ear, and I'll follow you anywhere."--first girlfriend. 

28. "Kiss my meme!"--second girlfriend.  

29. "The meme that refreshes."--Ad campaign 

30. "Meme it my way."--Ad campaign  

31. "Thou shalt not meme!"--11^th commandment (lost)  

32. "Big Brother is meming you!"--George Orwell  

33. "Memes are the root of all evil."--from the (slightly revised) Bible.

34. "A thousand memes of light."--Peggy Noonan (disguised as George H. W. Bush)

35. "No one knows ish about ish, though some ish does get much closer to the real ish."--Linh Dinh

Authors Bio:
Gary Corseri has published & posted his work at hundreds of venues worldwide, including Op Ed News, The New York Times, CounterPunch, CommonDreams, DissidentVoice, L.A. (and Hollywood--) Progressive. He has been a professor in the US & Japan, has published 2 collections of poetry, 2 novels, and edited a literary anthology. He has performed his work at the Carter Presidential Library and Museum, and his dramas have been produced on Atlanta-PBS and elsewhere.