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Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
If on the other hand he went to pay his respects to The Door and it wasn't there . . . what then? The answer, of course, was very simple. He had a whole board of circuits for dealing with exactly this problem, in fact this was the very heart of his function. He would continue to believe in it whatever the facts turned out to be, what else was the meaning of Belief? The Door would still be there, even if the Door was not.
No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.
It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
"Outside show is a poor excuse for inner worth."
"United we stand, divided we fall."
The paper burns, but the words fly away.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.
Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer sex raises some pretty good questions.
The difference between sex and death is that with death you can do it alone and no one is going to make fun of you.
Women like silent men. They think they're listening.
Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius.
Man forgives woman anything save the wit to outwit him.
Where all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing.
From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.
"Where love is concerned, too much is not even enough."
And none will hear the postman's knock
Without a quickening of the heart.
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?
W. H. Auden
You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however.
"The world's crazy, when it comes to beauty."
"It is by not always thinking of yourself, if you can manage it, that you might somehow be happy. Until you make room in your life for someone as important to you as yourself, you will always be searching and lost ..."
Knowledge is power.--Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est. 12 Meditationes Sacræ. De Hæresibus.
"Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within."
A life without cause is a life without effect
We are all failures--at least, all the best of us are.
A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.
If a man has come to that point where he is so content that he says; I do not want to know any more, or do any more or be any more, he is in a state of which he ought to be changed into a mummy.
"No one should drive a hard bargain with an artist."
What lies ahead of you and what lies behind you is nothing compared to what lies within you.
Destiny is not a matter of chance, it's a matter of your choice.
When one door closes another door opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.
"Life is a sexually transmitted disease."
Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways.
"Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter."
"I hope I never get so old I get religious."
Think like a man of action. Act like a man of thought.
"Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy."
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel."
*Osborn's Law: Variables won't; constants aren't.*
*Larkinson's Law: All laws are basically false.*
Dawn; the time when men of reason go to bed.
Big egos are big shields for lots of empty space
Seven National Crimes:
1. I don't think.
2. I don't know.
3. I don't care.
4. I am too busy.
5. I leave well enough alone.
6. I have no time to read and find out.
7. I am not interested.
That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
"Guilt, the gift that keeps on giving."
To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.
Contentment is not happiness. An oyster may be contented.
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evilminded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, wellmeaning but without understanding.
My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.
Take away love, and our life is a tomb.
"Dust is a protective coating for fine furniture."
The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible - and achieve it, generation after generation.
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.
"Thank God I'm still an atheist."
The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.
Man's love is of man's life a part; it is a woman's whole existence. In her first passion, a woman loves her lover, in all the others all she loves is love.
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.
Among my most prized possessions are the words that I have never spoken.
Remember this, foolish mortals, when ye stare headlong into the mind-paralyzing void, the inky black nothingness of existence, the hellish yawning maw of the abyss -- it's pretty damn dark, so give it a few minutes for your eyes to adjust.
"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these."
To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy , not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony.
The guilty think all talk is of themselves.
If it's stupid, but it works, it's not stupid.
"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind, and won't change the subject."
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't.
Every man is the architect of his own fortune.
Knowledge is two-fold, and consists not only in an affirmation of what is true, but in the negation of that which is false.
Friendship is different from all other relationships. Unlike acquaintanceship, it is based on love. Unlike lovers and married couples, it is free of jealousy. Unlike children and parents, it knows neither criticism nor resentment. Friendship has no status in law. Business partnerships are based on a contract. So is marriage. Parents are bound by the law, as are children. But friendship is freely entered into, freely given, freely exercised. Friends never cheat each other, or take advantage, or lie. Friends do not spy on one another, yet they have no secrets. Friends glory in each other's successes and are downcast by the failures. Friends minister to each other, nurse each other. Friends give to each other, worry about each other, stand always ready to help. Perfect friendship is rarely achieved, but at its height, is an ecstasy.
A tart temper never mellows with age; and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.
A wise man may look ridiculous in the company of fools.
"Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense."
Heav'n hath no rage like love to hatred turn'd, Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd.
Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.
"Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision."
At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.
The hottest place in hell is reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, hide behind their neutrality.
The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain any more so it eats it. It's rather like getting tenure.
I think; therefore I am.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all doing direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.
"Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent."
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.
"A dead atheist is someone who's all dressed up with no place to go."
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge"
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education"
"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources"
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen"
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds"
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods"
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious; It is the source of all true art and science"
"We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality"
"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality"
"Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity."
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
"Generations to come will find it difficult to believe that a man such as Gandhi ever walked the face of this earth"
"Not until we dare to regard ourselves as a nation, not until we respect ourselves, can we gain the esteem of others, or rather only then will it come of its own accord"
"A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to enhance all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty"
"I never think of the future - it comes soon enough"
"The important thing is not to stop questioning"
"The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one."
"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
There's no vocabulary
For love within a family, love that's lived in
But not looked at, love within the light of which
All else is seen, the love within which
All other love finds speech.
This love is silent.
In the small circle of pain within the skull
You still shall tramp and tread one endless round
Of thought, to justify your action to yourselves,
Weaving a fiction which unravels as you weave,
Pacing forever in the hell of make-believe
Which never is belief: this is your fate on earth
And we must think no further of you.
We boil at different degrees.
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.
With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousand miles closer to globular cluster 13 in the constellation Hercules, and still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no such thing as progress.
Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.
Family quarrels are bitter things. They don't go according to any rules. They're not like aches or wounds; they're more like splits in the skin that won't heal because there's not enough material.
I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet gone ourselves.
Life's Tragedy is that we get old to soon and wise too late.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
some say ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.
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