The Immortal Word

January 22, 2007

The reading of all good books...

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.

--Rene Descartes

The senses deceive from time to time...

The senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those who have deceived us even once.

--Rene Descartes

If you would be a real seeker...

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.

--Rene Descartes

It is not enough to have a good...

It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.

--Rene Descartes

See this quotation on Prometheus Unplugged.

Dubito ergo cogito...

Dubito ergo cogito; cogito ergo sum.
(I doubt, therefore I think; I think therefore I am.)

--Rene Descartes

Nietzsche and Modern Times; A Study of Bacon, Descartes, and Nietzsche

January 21, 2007

A creation of importance can only...

A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.

--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Who has not sat before his own...

Who has not sat before his own heart's curtain? It lifts: and the scenery is falling apart.

--Rainer Maria Rilke

Truly to sing...

Truly to sing, that is a different breath.

--Rainer Maria Rilke

Without a struggle...

Without a struggle, there can be no progress.

--Frederick Douglass

When you have loved as she has...

When you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully.

--W. Somerset Maugham

Where there is hatred, let me...

Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith.

--Saint Francis of Assisi

When love and skill work together...

When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.

--John Ruskin

Discouragement is simply the despair...

Discouragement is simply the despair of wounded self-love.

--Francois de Fenelon

Among those whom I like or admire...

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.

--W. H. Auden

For one human being to love another...

For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.

--Rainer Maria Rilke

Love thy neighbour as yourself...

Love thy neighbour as yourself, but choose your neighbourhood.

--Louise Beal

I love deadlines...

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

--Douglas Adams

Our national flower is...

Our national flower is the concrete cloverleaf.

--Lewis Mumford

I love Mickey Mouse more than...

I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I've ever known.

--Walt Disney

I know that there are people...

I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that!

--Tom Lehrer

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song...

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania.

--Dorothy Parker, Not So Deep as a Well

I think that I shall never see...

I think that I shall never see
a billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
I'll never see a tree at all.

--Ogden Nash

The significant problems we have...

The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.

--Albert Einstein

Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations On Just About Everything From The Greatest Mind Of The Twentieth Century (Hardcover)

The important thing is not...

The important thing is not to stop questioning.

--Albert Einstein

Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations On Just About Everything From The Greatest Mind Of The Twentieth Century (Hardcover)

Imagination is more important...

Imagination is more important than knowledge...

--Albert Einstein

Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations On Just About Everything From The Greatest Mind Of The Twentieth Century (Hardcover)

The release of atomic energy has not...

The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.

--Albert Einstein

Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations On Just About Everything From The Greatest Mind Of The Twentieth Century (Hardcover)

I know not with what weapons World War III...

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

--Albert Einstein

Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations On Just About Everything From The Greatest Mind Of The Twentieth Century (Hardcover)

Common sense is the collection of...

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

--Albert Einstein

Before God we are all equally wise...

Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.

--Albert Einstein

Only two things are infinite...

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

--Albert Einstein

As far as the laws of mathematics...

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.

--Albert Einstein

The harder the conflict...

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.

--Thomas Paine

Prosperity is a great teacher...

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.

--William Hazlitt

Problems are only opportunities...

Problems are only opportunities in work clothes.

--Henry Kaiser

Infidelity does not consist in...

Infidelity does not consist in believing or in disbelieving: it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe.

--Thomas Paine

To be an atheist requires...

To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith than to receive all the great truths which atheism would deny.

--Joseph Addison

They now have a 900 number for atheists...

They now have a 900 number for atheists. When you call, nobody answers and you get charged for the call.

--Anonymous

There are no atheists...

There are no atheists in the foxholes.

--William Cummings

That the universe was formed by a...

That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy.

--Jonathan Swift

Science is in its essence nothing but...

Science is in its essence nothing but the systematic pursuit of knowledge, and knowledge, whatever ill-uses bad men make of it, is in its essence good. To lose faith in knowledge is to lose faith in the best of man's capacities; and therefore I repeat unhesitatingly that the unyielding rationalist has a better faith and a more unbending optimism than any of the timid seekers after the childish comforts of a less adult age.

--Bertrand Russell