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Quotes (unsorted)

I hate quotations.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

-- Henry David Thoreau

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice.

-- Albert Einstein

Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.

-- Wernher von Braun

Never mistake motion for action.

-- Ernest Hemingway

A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.

-- Albert Einstein

We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one else can take for us or spare us.

-- Marcel Proust

We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.

-- Michel de Montaigne

You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it for himself.

-- Galileo Galilei

All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.

-- Walter Scott

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

-- John F. Kennedy

Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as nothing happened.

-- Winston Chruchill

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

-- Mark Twain

It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.

-- Giordano Bruno

Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child as it is to the caterpillar.

-- Bradley Millar

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.

-- John Stuart Mill

Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

-- Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu

Solemnity is the shield of idiots.

-- Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu

In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.

-- Mohandas Gandhi

Each one has to find his peace within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.

-- Mohandas Gandhi

I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality.

-- Mohandas Gandhi

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.

-- Mohandas Gandhi

It is not what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.

-- Moliere (Jean Baptiste Poquelin)

The religions are obsolete when the reforms do not proceed from them.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

-- Blaise Pascal

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.

-- Albert Einstein

Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.

-- Albert Einstein

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

Money, like any other force such as electricity, is amoral and can be used for either good or evil.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

We are a nation that worships the frontier tradition, and our heroes are those who champion justice through violent retaliation against injustice. It is not simple to adopt a credo that moral force has as much strength and virtue as the capacity to return a physical blow; or that to refrain from hitting back requires more will and bravery than the automatic reflexes of defense.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. Even a superficial look at history reveals that no social advance rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of the sure signs of maturity is the ability to rise to the point of self-criticism.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The plea for unity is not a call for uniformity. There must always be a healthy debate.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

-- Albert Einstein

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

-- Albert Einstein

As knowledge increases, wonder deepens.

-- Charles Morgan

Wisdom begins in wonder.

-- Socrates

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

-- Ellen Parr

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reasons for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.

-- Albert Einstein

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

-- Albert Einstein

Things should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.

-- Albert Einstein

Our ideas must be as broad as nature if we are to interpret nature.

-- Sherlock Holmes

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

-- John Muir

All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.

-- T. E. Lawrence

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

-- Edgar Allen Poe

A vision without a task is a dream; A task without a vision is drudgery; But a vision with a task can change the world.

-- Black Elk

They sicken of calm that know the storm.

-- Dorothy Parker

I say unto you: one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves.

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

My brother, if you have a virtue and she is your virtue, then you have her in common with nobody.

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

I would believe only in a god who could dance. And when I saw my devil I found him serious, thorough, profound, and solemn: it was the spirit of gravity - through him all things fall.

Not by wrath does one kill but by laughter. Come, let us kill the spirit of gravity!

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

The most concerned ask today: "How is man to be preserved?" But Zarathustra is the first and only one to ask: "How is man to be surpassed?"

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Humanity looks to me like a magnificent beginning but not the final word.

-- Freeman Dyson

Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance.

-- Plato

The human brain is a wonderful thing, but it is also a result of three billion years' worth of "good enough" implementation, and backwards-compatibility back to the earliest chordates. As a result, it is a giant hack with more than a few quirks.

-- Andrew Arensburger

My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.

-- Thomas Paine

It is praiseworthy to do what is proper and not merely that which the law allows.

-- Seneca

Always do right -- this will gratify some and astonish the rest.

-- Mark Twain

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.

-- Susan B. Anthony

What folly it is to expect salvation from the death of another.

-- Ovid

There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.

-- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

No man is a failure who is enjoying life.

-- William Feather

There is only one success: to be able to spend your life in your own way, and not to give others absurd maddening claims upon it.

-- Christopher Darlington Morley

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.

-- Henry David Thoreau

I never found the companion that was companionable as solitude.

-- Henry David Thoreau

One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude.

-- Carl Sandburg

When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt.

-- Henry J. Kaiser

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

-- Mark Twain

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.

-- Charles Mingus

A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.

-- Abraham Maslow

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What one can be, one must be.

-- Abraham Maslow

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

-- Albert Einstein

One of the functions of intelligence is to take account of the dangers that come from trusting solely to intelligence.

-- Lewis Mumford

A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.

-- Sir Rabindranath "Tagore" Thakur

If there's a book you want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

-- Toni Morrison

Every man is a poet when he is in love.

-- Plato

Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.

-- Antoine de Saint Exupéry

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.

-- Henry David Thoreau

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

-- Sir Winston Churchill

What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight -- it's the size of the fight in the dog.

-- Dwight David Eisenhower

Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

-- Susan Ertz

Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die tomorrow.

-- James Dean

I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.

-- James Dean

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.

-- William Jennings Bryan

I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.

-- William E. Henley

Only the insane take themselves quite seriously.

-- Max Beerbohm

Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.

-- Carl G. Jung

Reality is the leading cause of stress for those in touch with it.

-- Jane Wagner

Reality is merely an illusion, although a very persistent one.

-- Albert Einstein

The human mind has first to construct forms, independently, before we can find them in things.

-- Albert Einstein

What we see depends mainly on what we look for.

-- John Lubbock

People only see what they are prepared to see.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

-- Carl Sagan

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in the field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods.

-- Albert Einstein

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.

-- Albert Einstein

The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.

-- Muhammad Ali

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

-- John Morley

No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other.

-- Jascha Heifetz

An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe in it.

-- Don Marquis

I am always an optimist, but frankly there is no hope.

-- Hosni Mubarek

Slashdot, with its uncontrolled content and participants' poor impulse control, remains Internet culture's answer to "Lord of the Flies."

-- Thomas Scoville

History is a vast early warning system.

-- Norman Cousins

It is not true that life is one damn thing after another, it is the same damn thing over and over.

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Rest satisfied with doing well, and leave others to talk of you as they please.

-- Pythagoras

The more he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

There's no limit to what a man can achieve if he isn't concerned whether or not he gets the credit for it.

-- General George C. Marshall

You don't win a war by dying for your country. You win a war by making the other son-of-a-bitch die for his.

-- General George S. Patton, Jr.

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

-- General George S. Patton, Jr.

The real leader has no need to lead -- he is content to point the way.

-- Henry Miller

You are always remembered for the rules you break.

-- General Douglas MacArthur

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear -- kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor -- with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it ...

-- General Douglas MacArthur

The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.

-- Stanley Milgram

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.

-- Albert Einstein

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

-- Albert Einstein

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Love your country always, but respect your government only when it deserves it.

-- Mark Twain

The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.

-- Noam Chomsky

The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations.

-- Noam Chomsky

When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist.

-- Archbishop Helder Camara

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.

-- Abraham Lincoln

A woman is the only thing that I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.

-- Abraham Lincoln

I married beneath me; all women do.

-- Lady Astor

I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough. What do you want -- an adorable pancreas?

-- Jean Kerr

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.

-- Confucius

Wherever there is number, there is beauty.

-- Proclus Diadochus

I spent a year in that town, one Sunday.

-- Warwick Deeping

I am not young enough to know everything.

-- James M. Barrie

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.

-- H. L. Mencken

Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.

-- H. L. Mencken

Firmness in decision is often merely a form of stupidity. It indicates an inability to think the same thing out twice.

-- H. L. Mencken

For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.

-- H. L. Mencken

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

-- H. L. Mencken

No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

-- H. L. Mencken

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.

-- Linus Carl Pauling

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.

-- Plato

Silence is the virtue of fools.

-- Francis Bacon

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

-- W. Somerset Maugham

A fool always has a greater fool to admire him.

-- Nicolas Boileau

It must never be forgotten that dogs achieved space travel before humankind. The fact that they had a little help from so-called Humanity, and that they didn't want to go in the first place, should not in any way diminish their achievement in getting there first.

-- Jon DeCles

When a man is finally boxed in, and he has no choice, he begins to decorate his box.

-- John Steinbeck

If you hear muffled screams, consider that a request for a beam-out.

-- Tom Paris