- Albert Einstein:
- Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
- Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
- As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
- Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.
- I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.
- If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
- If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.
- Imagination is more important than knowledge.
- Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.
- It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
- Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.
- Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
- The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
- The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
- The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.
- Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.
- Aristotle:
- Life in the true sense is perceiving or thinking.
- Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.
- Nature does nothing uselessly.
- Nature flies from the infinite, for the infinite is unending or imperfect, and Nature ever seeks amend.
- The basis of a democratic state is liberty.
- Wit is well-bred insolence.
- Edgar Allan Poe:
- All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream.
- And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams Are where thy grey eye glances, And where thy footstep gleams, In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams.
- And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted — nevermore!
- But as, in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day, or the agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.
- But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we, Of many far wiser than we And neither the angels in Heaven above Nor the demons down under the sea Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
- Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
- I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
- Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music without the idea is simply music; the idea without the music is prose from its very definitiveness.
- The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?
- They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
- Years of love have been forgot, In the hatred of a minute.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald:
- Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.
- All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.
- At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.
- You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.
- Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind.
- Nothing is as obnoxious as other people's luck.
- The world, as a rule, does not live on beaches and in country clubs.
- Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues.
- You can stroke people with words.
- To write it, it took three months; to conceive it three minutes; to collect the data in it all my life.
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau:
- As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State "What does it matter to me?" the State may be given up for lost.
- Conscience is the voice of the soul; the passions are the voice of the body.
- Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse.
- Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
- The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this imposter; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.
- The happiest is he who suffers least; the most miserable is he who enjoys least.
- The indifference of children towards meat is one proof that the taste for meat is unnatural; their preference is for vegetable foods, such as milk, pastry, fruit, etc. Beware of changing this natural taste and making children flesh-eaters, if not for their health's sake, for the sake of their character; for how can one explain away the fact that great meat-eaters are usually fiercer and more cruel than other men; this has been recognised at all times and in all places.
- JK Rowling:
- It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
- The stories we love best do live in us forever. So, whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.
- The wizards represent all that the true "muggle" most fears: They are plainly outcasts and comfortable with being so. Nothing is more unnerving to the truly conventional than the unashamed misfit!
- We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already. We have the power to imagine better.
- John Lennon:
- All kids draw and write poetry and everything, and some of us last until we're about eighteen, but most drop off at about twelve when some guy comes up and says, "You're no good." That's all we get told all our lives.
- I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?
- I don't believe in killing whatever the reason!
- It doesn't matter how long my hair is or what colour my skin is or whether I'm a woman or a man.
- Part of me suspects that I'm a loser and the other part of me thinks I'm God Almighty.
- Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
- Remember love. The only hope for any of us is peace. Violence begets violence. If you want to get peace, you can get it as soon as you like if we all pull together.
- Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.
- We're trying to sell peace, like a product, you know, and sell it like people sell soap or soft drinks. And it's the only way to get people aware that peace is possible, and it isn't just inevitable to have violence. Not just war — all forms of violence. People just accept it and think 'Oh, they did it, or Harold Wilson did it, or Nixon did it,' they're always scapegoating people. And it isn't Nixon's fault. We're all responsible for everything that goes on, you know, we're all responsible for Biafra and Hitler and everything. So we're just saying "SELL PEACE" — anybody interested in peace just stick it in the window. It's simple but it lets somebody else know that you want peace too, because you feel alone if you're the only one thinking 'wouldn't it be nice if there was peace and nobody was getting killed.' So advertise yourself that you're for peace if you believe in it.
- Joss Whedon:
- If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.
- Very occasionally, if you really pay attention, life doesn't suck.
- Marilyn Monroe:
- Dreaming about being an actress, is more exciting then being one.
- I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.
- I've never dropped anyone I believed in.
- Martin Luther King Jr.:
- A man who won't die for something, is not fit to live.
- A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
- Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
- Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
- I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
- Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
- The time is always right to do what is right.
- Oscar Wilde:
- A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
- A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
- Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
- Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
- Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.
- It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.
- One can survive everything nowadays except death.
- Only the shallow know themselves.
- René Descartes:
- Doubt is the origin of wisdom.
- I think, therefore I am.
- It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.
- One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another.
- So blind is the curiosity by which mortals are possessed, that they often conduct their minds along unexplored routes, having no reason to hope for success, but merely being willing to risk the experiment of finding whether the truth they seek lies there.
- The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.
- Woody Allen:
- I believe there is something out there watching us. Unfortunately, it's the government.
- Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon.
- If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative.
- I had a terrible education. I attended a school for emotionally disturbed teachers.
- What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.
- If my films don't show a profit, I know I'm doing something right.
sep 16 2012 ∞
oct 8 2012 +