The Immortal Word: 2007

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

Nobody talks about God as those...

Nobody talks about God as those who insist that there is no God.

--Heywood Broun

No one is so thoroughly superstitious...

No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man.

--Harriet Beecher Stowe

Is there not something a trifle absurd...

Is there not something a trifle absurd in the spectacle of human beings holding a mirror before themselves, and thinking what they behold so excellent as to prove that a Cosmic Purpose must have been aiming at it all along?

--Bertrand Russell

If I were granted omnipotence...

If I were granted omnipotence, and millions of years to experiment in, I should not think Man much to boast of as the final result of all my efforts.

--Bertrand Russell

I do not consider it an insult...

I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure - that is all that agnosticism means.

--Clarence S. Darrow

I do not believe in God because...

I do not believe in God because I do not believe in Mother Goose.

--Clarence S. Darrow

The Oxford Dictionary Of Quotations

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

Brings together thousands of quotations from every era and location in a reference that provides a thematic and keyword index and such details as the earliest traceable source, birth and death dates, and career briefs for each person. Author: Knowles, Elizabeth (EDT). Number of Pages: 1140. Published On: 2004/09/04. Language: ENGLISH

Brewer's Famous Quotations

Brewer's Famous Quotations; 5000 Quotations and the Stories Behind Them

January 20, 2007

I'll say this for adversity...

I'll say this for adversity--people seem to be able to stand it, and that's more'n I kin say fer prosperity.

--Kim Hubbard

Great spirits have always encountered...

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

--Albert Einstein

Adversity, if a man is set down...

Adversity, if a man is set down to it by degrees, is more supportable with equanimity by most people than any great prosperity arrived at in a single lifetime.

--Samuel Butler

Paradoxical as it may seem...

Paradoxical as it may seem, to believe in youth is to look backward; to look forward we must believe in age.

--Dorothy L. Sayers

My age is 39...

My age is 39 plus tax.

--Liberace

Is not wisdom found among...

Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life bring understanding?

- Bible, Job 12:12

I'd like to go on being 35...

I'd like to go on being 35 for a long time.

--Margaret Thatcher

He was a wise man who...

He was a wise man who originated the idea of God.

--Euripides

To consult is to seek another's...

To consult is to seek another's advice on a course already decided upon.

--Ambrose Bierce

No one wants advice...

No one wants advice--only corroboration.

--John Steinbeck

I have found the best way to give...

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

--Harry S. Truman

Good advice is always certain...

Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it.

--Agatha Christie

Friendship will not stand the strain...

Friendship will not stand the strain of very much good advice for very long.

--Robert Lynd

Don't tell your friends their...

Don't tell your friends their social faults; they will cure the fault and never forgive you.

--Logan Pearsall Smith

Advice is like snow...

Advice is like snow--the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper in sinks into the mind.

--Samuel Taylor Coleridge

By night an atheist...

By night an atheist half believes in God.

--Edward Young

Atheism is rather in the life...

Atheism is rather in the life than in the heart of man.

--Francis Bacon

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

An atheist, like a Christian...

An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. The Christian holds that we can know there is a God; the atheist, that we can know there is not. The agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial...an agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold it so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice.

--Bertrand Russell

Art is not a handicraft...

Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.

--Leo Tolstoy

Art is either plagiarism...

Art is either plagiarism or revolution.

--Paul Guaguin

Art is a collaboration...

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

--Andre Gide

Another unsettling element in modern art...

Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.

--Edith Warton

How much more grievous are...

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.

--Marcus Aurelius

He who angers you...

He who angers you conquers you.

--Elizabeth Kenny

I saw the angel in the marble...

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

--Michelangelo

Unquestionably, there is progress...

Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.

--H. L. Mencken

Too many of us look upon Americans...

Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.

--Albert Einstein

Tip the world over on its side...

Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.

--Frank Lloyd Wright

The genius of you Americans is that...

The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them [which] we are missing.

--Gamel Abd Al-Nasser

You have not converted a man...

You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.

--John Morley

Trust the man who hesitates...

Trust the man who hesitates in his speech and is quick and steady in action, but beware of long arguments and long beards.

--George Santanyana

There is no conversation more boring...

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.

--Michel de Montaigne

The sounder your argument...

The sounder your argument, the more satisfaction you get out of it.

--Ed Howe

The fellow that agrees with everything...

The fellow that agrees with everything you say is either a fool or he is getting ready to skin you.

--Kin Hubbard

Silence is one of the hardest...

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

--Josh Billings

People generally quarrel...

People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.

--Gilbert K. Chesterton

It is better to debate a question...

It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.

--Jeseph Joubert

I have never in my life...

I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me.

--Dudley Field Malone

I do not think that the real reason...

I do not think that the real reason why people accept religion is anything to do with argumentation. They accept religion on emotional grounds. One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it.

--Bertrand Russell