Aaron Fuegi's Collected Quotations
aarondf@bu.edu
Please also be welcome at the Last Homely House, run by Aaron.
Note on Quotes
These quotes have been collected by me over many years. I
choose those quotes which I feel express something about me. A few of
these quotes are included entirely for humor value or as a beautiful
expression. Basically all of the others, for me, have a philosophy behind them
which I believe in one way or the other. Of course, I actually follow the
principles of some far more than others.
-Enjoy, Aaron
And now for the
QUOTES
Frodo was now safe in the Last Homely House
east of the Sea. That house was, as Bilbo had long ago reported, "a
perfect house, whether you like food or sleep, or story-telling or singing, or
just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all." Merely
to be there was a cure for weariness, fear and sadness.
J.R.R.
Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
His house was perfect, whether you liked
food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and
thinking, best, or a pleasant mixture of them all.
In a hole in the ground there lived a
hobbit.
J.R.R.
Tolkien, opening line of The Hobbit
When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced
that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party
of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.
J.R.R.
Tolkien, opening line of The Fellowship of the
Ring
Sunlight dances through the leaves
Soft winds stir the sighing trees
Lying in the warm grass
Feel the sun upon your face
Elven songs and endless nights
Sweet wine and soft relaxing lights
Time will never touch you
Here in this enchanted place
You feel there's something calling you
You're wanting to return
To where the misty mountains rise and friendly fires burn
A place you can escape the world
Where the dark lord cannot go
Peace of mind and sanctuary by loud water's flow
I've traveled now for many miles
It feels so good to see the smiles of
Friends who never left your mind
When you were far away
From the golden light of coming dawn
Till the twilight where the sun is gone
We treasure every season
And every passing day
We feel the coming of a new day
Darkness gives way to light a new way
Stop here for a while until the world,
The world calls you away
Yet you know I've had the feeling
Standing with my senses reeling
This is the place to grow old 'til
I reach my final day.
RUSH, Rivendell, written by Geddy Lee and Neil Peart
I don't wish to be everything to everyone,
but I would like to be something to someone.
Katherine
Kurtz, spoken by Javan
Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Don't
walk in front of me, I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.
Albert Camus
It did not matter, after all. He was only
one man. One man's fate is not important.
"If it is not, what is?"
He could not endure those remembered words.
Ursula K. Le
Guin, spoken by Gaverel Rocannon, Rocannon's
World
"Do you think it's possible to discuss
politics without preaching? Or just not for you?"
SKB: "Not for me personally. I spent years and years and years studying
intensely, carefully, putting a lot of time and energy and work into it. I
therefore am convinced I know a lot. Even if I don't, I think I do. So I run
into someone who makes, generally speaking, a dismissive remark, which shows
that he has not put in anywhere near the time, energy and effort and study I
have, and I turn into an arrogant, pompous asshole. So I'd rather not do that.
That's why I just stay loose on it."
Steven K. Brust
"There. There," said the marquis
de Carabas, awkwardly, patting her shoulder. And he added, for good measure,
"There." He did not comfort well.
Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere
Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't
it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and
it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up these
defenses, you build this whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you,
then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into
your stupid life. You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They do
something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't
your own any more. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and
leaves you crying in the darknes, so working its way into your heart. It hurts.
Not just in the imagination. not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a
body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.
Neil Gaiman
...that was the first thing I had to learn
about her, and maybe the hardest I've ever learned about anything--that she is
her own, and what she gives me is of her choosing, and the more precious
because of it. Sometimes a butterfly will come to sit in your open palm, but if
you close your hand, one way or the other, it--and its choice to be there--are
gone.
Barbara
Hambly, Spoken by John Aversin, Dragonsbane
And though I came to forget or regret all I
have ever done, yet would I remember that once I saw the dragons aloft on the
wind at sunset above the western isles; and I would be content.
Ursula K.
LeGuin, The Tombs of Atuan
What you've done becomes the judge of what
you're going to do especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling,
you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold
against you. No yesterdays on the road.
William Least
Heat Moon, Blue Highways
. . He had by now divested himself of
schoolboy attitudes. He was unburdened by the desire to be a martyr or a hero.
Any thoughts in that direction, Belgica effectively had quashed. Heroism in the
corrupt sense of the age almost by definition, meant wanton self-sacrifice and
bungling. For neither had he any taste. He wanted rational attainment; victory,
but not at any price. No point upon the globe was worth the cost of a single
life.
Roland
Huntford, SCOTT and AMUNDSEN The Race to The
South Pole referring to polar explorer Roald Amundsen.
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.
Buddha
In science it often happens that scientists
say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and
then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view
from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because
scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day.
I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or
religion.
Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP Keynote Address
There is no God.
But it does not matter.
Man is enough.
Edna St.
Vincent Milay, Conversation at Midnight
"I was saying," continued the
Rocket, "I was saying - What was I saying?"
"You were talking about yourself," replied the Roman Candle.
"Of course; I knew I was discussing some interesting subject when I was so
rudely interrupted."
Oscar Wilde, The Remarkable Rocket
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to
live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
Oscar Wilde
The books that the world calls immoral are
the books that show the world its own shame.
Oscar Wilde
The avalanche has started, it is too late
for the pebbles to vote.
Vorlon
Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5: Believers
God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be
changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
Reinhold
Niebuhr, The Serenity Prayer (1934)
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 going 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.
Charles
Dickens, opening line of A Tale of Two Cities
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.
Charles
Dickens, end of A Tale of Two Cities
To err is human, to forgive divine.
Alexander
Pope, An Essay on Criticism
Aim for the stars and maybe you'll reach
the sky.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share,
and no one dare disturb the Sound of Silence.
Simon &
Garfunkel, Sounds of Silence
All lies and jest; still, a man hears what
he wants to hear and disregards the rest.
Simon &
Garfunkel, The Boxer
Nothing endures but change.
Heraclitus
No man ever steps in the same river twice,
for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.
Heraclitus
Every man is the architect of his own
fortune.
Appius
Claudius
I think; therefore I am.
Rene
Descartes
Better to light a candle than to curse the
darkness.
Chinese
Proverb
Our care should not be to have lived long as
to have lived enough.
Seneca
Better to rule in Hell than to serve in
Heaven.
Milton
. . is to attempt seeing Truth without
knowing Falsehood. It is the attempt to see the Light without knowing Darkness.
It cannot be.
Frank Herbert, Dune
People need hard times and oppression to
develop psychic muscles.
Frank Herbert, Dune
Beyond a critical point within a finite
space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. . . . the human question is not
how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is
possible for those who do survive.
Frank Herbert, Dune
What do you despise? By this are you truly
known.
Frank Herbert, Dune, Manual of MuadDib by Princess Irulan
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I
will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will
turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be
nothing. Only I will remain.
Frank Herbert, Dune, Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
There was only one catch and that was
Catch22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers
that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy
and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask, and as soon as he did, he
would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be
crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to
fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't
want to he was sane and had to.
Joseph Heller, Catch22
The enemy is anybody who's going to get you
killed, no matter which side he's on.
Joseph Heller, Catch22
"And don't tell me God works in
mysterious ways", Yossarian continued "There's nothing mysterious
about it, He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else He's forgotten all
about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about, a country bumpkin, a
clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much
reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include
such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of Creation? What
in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatalogical mind of His
when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in
the world did He ever create pain?"
Joseph Heller, Catch22
"First pancake problem" Generally
you toss it out and serve the second pancake, which is not burned on the
outside and raw in the middle. But sometimes, you gotta eat that first pancake.
David Lance
Goines
My close relationship with Alice Waters
illustrates the kind of client with whom I get along best. We have a clear
aesthetic, are dedicated to our work, and leave each other to do the best we
can for each other. I cannot imagine a finer relationship.
David Lance
Goines, Graphic Designer
Insisting on perfect safety is for people
who don't have the balls to live in the real world.
Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
I don't speak for others and they don't
speak for me.
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than
itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.
Arthur Conan
Doyle, Complete Sherlock Holmes, Valley
of Fear
Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very
late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up
all night, was seated at the breakfast table.
Arthur Conan
Doyle, opening line of The Hound of the
Baskervilles
Dr. Strauss says I should rite down what I
think and remembir and evrey thing that happins to me from now on..
Daniel Keys, opening line of Flowers for Algernon
Buck did not read the newspapers, or he
would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every
tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to
San Diego.
Jack London, opening line of The Call of the Wild
If you really want to hear about it, the
first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy
childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had
me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going
into it, if you want to know the truth.
J.D. Salinger, opening line of The Catcher in the Rye
All happy families are alike; each unhappy
family is unhappy in its own way.
Leo Tolstoy, opening line of Anna Karenina
Once upon a time there was a Martian named
Valentine Michael Smith.
Robert A.
Heinlein, opening line of Stranger in a Strange
Land
When any government . . . undertakes to say
to its subjects, 'This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are
forbidden to know,' the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how
holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has
been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man
whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything--you
can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.
Robert A.
Heinlein, If This Goes On...
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.
Douglas Adams, spoken by the Electric Monk, Dirk Gently: Holistic Detective
Agency
"I meant," said Ipslore bitterly,
"what is there in this world that truly makes living worth while?"
Death thought about it "Cats," he said eventually, "Cats are
Nice."
Terry
Pratchett, Sourcery
Nigel gave the lamp a cautious buff and
small smoking red letters appeared in the air.
"Hi," Nigel read aloud, "Do not put down the lamp because your
custom is important to us. Please leave a wish after the tone and, very
shortly, it will be our command. In the meantime, have a nice eternity."
Terry
Pratchett, Sourcery
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise.
I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Terry
Pratchett, Small Gods
In a mad world, only the mad are sane.
Akiro
Kurosawa
If at first you don't succeed, well, so
much for skydiving.
Victor
O'Reilly, Games of the Hangman
Necessity, who is the mother of invention.
Plato, The Republic. Book II. 369C
The beginning is the most important part of
the work.
Plato, The Republic. Book II. 377B
Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards
and leads us from this world to another.
Plato, The Republic. Book VII. 529
Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no
harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no
hold on the mind.
Plato, The Republic. Book VII. 536
Democracy, which is a charming form of
government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to
equals and unequals alike.
Plato, The Republic. Book VIII. 558
What a poor appearance the tales of poets
make when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in
simple prose.
Plato, The Republic. Book X. 601B
The mass of men lead lives of quiet
desperation.
Henry David
Thoreau, Walden(1854),I,Economy
Beware of all enterprises that require new
clothes.
Henry David
Thoreau, Walden(1854),I,Economy
The man who goes alone can start today; but
he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.
Henry David
Thoreau, Walden(1854),I,Economy
I went to the woods because I wished to
live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could
not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I
had not lived.
Henry David
Thoreau, Walden(1854), II, Where I Lived,
and What I Lived For
The works of the great poets have never yet
been read by mankind, for only great poets can read them.
Henry David
Thoreau, Walden(1854), III, Reading
I never found the companion that was so
companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go
abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working
is always alone, let him be where he will.
Henry David
Thoreau, Walden(1854),V, Solitude
In wildness is the preservation of the
world.
Henry David
Thoreau, Walking(1862)
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will
mind it.
Henry David
Thoreau
If I were asked to say what is at once the
most important production of Art and the thing most to be longed for; I should
answer; A beautiful House; and if I were further asked to name the production
next in importance and the thing next to be longed for; I should answer; A
beautiful Book. To enjoy good houses and good books in self-respect and decent
comfort, seems to me to be the pleasurable end towards which all societies of
human beings ought now to struggle.
William
Morris (1892)
It was enough to make a body ashamed of the
human race.
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), spoken by Huck Finn, The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
Humor is the great thing, the saving thing.
The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a
sunny spirit takes their place
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet
broke a chain or freed a human soul.
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), Inscription beneath his bust in the Hall
of Fame.
The fact that man knows right from wrong
proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he
can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), What Is Man?(1906)
Good breeding consists in concealing how
much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), Notebooks(1935)
It is better to deserve honours and not
have them than to have them and not to deserve them.
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience:
this is the ideal life. (The conviction of the rich that the poor are happier
is no more foolish than the conviction of the poor that the rich are.)
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
The radical of one century is the
conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them
out, the conservative adopts them.
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
Let us endeavor to live that when we come
to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), from Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar(1894)
It is not best that we should all think
alike; it is difference of opinion that make horseraces.
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), from Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar(1894)
The secret source of humour itself is not
joy, but sorrow. There is no humour in heaven.
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
Man is the only animal that blushes. Or
needs to.
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
There are people who strictly deprive
themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable, and smokable which has in any
way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health. And health is
all they get for it. How strange it is. It is like paying out your whole
fortune for a cow that has gone dry.
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
A man's ethical behavior should be based
effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is
necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear
of punishment and hope of reward after death.
Albert
Einstein
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
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
Heroism on command, senseless violence, and
all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how
passionately I hate them!
Albert
Einstein
Never do anything against conscience even
if the state demands it.
Albert
Einstein
How I wish that somewhere there existed an
island for those who are wise and of good will.
Albert
Einstein
Everything should be as simple as possible,
but no simpler.
Albert
Einstein
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
William
Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet,(Act II, scene
ii)
This above all: to thine own self be true
William
Shakespeare, Hamlet,(Act I, scene iii)
He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.
William
Shakespeare, Hamlet,(Act I, scene ii)
What a piece of work is man! how noble in
reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable!
in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world, the paragon of animals!
William
Shakespeare, spoken by Hamlet, Hamlet,(Act
II, scene ii)
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
William
Shakespeare, spoken by Macbeth, Macbeth,(Act
V, scene v)
One man scorned and covered with scars
still strove with his last ounce of courage
to reach the unreachable stars;
and the world will be better for this.
Mitch Leigh, The Quest, based on Cervantes
Some people come into our lives, leave
footprints on our hearts, and we are never the same.
No one feels another's grief, no one
understands another's joy. People imagine that they can reach one another. In
reality they only pass each other by.
Franz
Schubert
"Do you know what I learned from you?
I learned what is possible, and now I must hold out for what I thought we had.
I want to be very close to someone I respect and admire and have somebody who
feels the same way about me. That or nothing. I realized that what I'm looking
for is not what you're looking for. You don't want what I want."
"What do you think I want?" I asked.
"Exactly what you have. Many women you know a little and don't care very
much about. Superficial flirtations, mutual use, no chance of love. That's my
idea of hell. Hell is a place, a time, a consciousness, Richard, in which there
is no love. Horrible! Leave me out of it."
Richard Bach, Spoken by Leslie Parrish and Richard Bach, The Bridge Across
Forever
Respect for sovereignity, for privacy, for
total independence. Gentle alliances against loneliness, they were, cool
rational love-affairs without the love.
Richard Bach, Thoughts of Richard Bach, The Bridge Across Forever
The world's crazy, when it comes to beauty.
Richard Bach, Spoken by Leslie Parrish, The Bridge Across Forever
Sooner I'd try to change history than turn
political, than try convincing others to write letters or to vote or to march
or to do something they didn't already feel like doing.
Richard Bach, Thoughts of Richard Bach, The Bridge Across Forever
Two things I do value a lot, intimacy and
the capacity for joy, didn't seem to be on anyone else's list. I felt like the
stranger in a strange land, and decided I'd better not marry the natives.
Richard Bach, Spoken by Leslie Parrish, The Bridge Across Forever
That she won the game startled me cold. The
way she won, the pattern of her thought on the chessboard, charmed me warm
again and then some.
Richard Bach, Thoughts of Richard Bach, The Bridge Across Forever
That's what learning is, after all; not
whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it
and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other
games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning.
Richard Bach, note written by Richard Bach, The Bridge Across Forever
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 ...
Richard Bach, Spoken by Leslie Parrish, The Bridge Across Forever
A soulmate is someone who has locks that
fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the
locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we
are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we're pretending to be.
Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around
us, with that one person we're safe in our own paradise. Our soulmate is
someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we're two
balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we've found the right
person. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life.
Richard Bach, The Bridge Across Forever
We're different, we're the same. You
thought you'd never find a word to say to a woman who didn't fly airplanes. I
couldn't imagine myself spending time with a man who didn't love music. Could
it be it's not as important to be alike as it is to be curious? Because we're
different, we can have the fun of exchanging worlds, giving our loves and
excitements to each other. You can learn music, I can learn flying. And that's
only the beginning. I think it would go on for us as long as we live.
Richard Bach, spoken by Leslie Parrish, The Bridge Across Forever
You thought you knew what pain was. You
thought that whatever happened, you could handle it. You thought that you were
in control. You thought wrong. Now you've lost it all. She's gone. All that's
left is the numbing pain. You have to let go to stop the pain, but you can't.
It's like a drug to you now. You don't want to need it, but it has become a
part of you, and it won't loosen its grip on you. The control you once fought
for, is gone. You have no control. And you just don't care.
Sanjay Singh
________________________________________________
Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear.
For I wear a thousand masks, masks that I am afraid to take off and none of
them are me.
Pretending is an art that's second nature with me, but don't be fooled. For
God's sake don't be fooled.
I give the impression that I am secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me,
within as well as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game;
that the waters are calm and I am in command,
and that I need no one.
But don't believe me, please.
My surface may seem smooth, but my surface
is my mask, ever-varying and ever-concealing
'Neath this lies no complacence.
Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know.
I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear of being exposed.
That is why I frantically create a mask to hide behind;
a nonchalant, sophisticated facade,
to help me pretend, to shield me from the glance that knows.
But such a glance is precisely my salvation.
My only salvation. And I know it.
That is, if it is followed by acceptance, if it is followed by love.
It is the only thing that will assure me of what I can't assure myself,
that I am worth something.
But, I don't tell you this. I don't dare. I
am afraid to.
I am afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance and love.
I am afraid you will think less of me, that you will laugh at me,
and that you will see this and reject me.
So I play my game, my desperate game,
with a facade of assurance without, and a trembling child within.
And so begins the parade of masks, and my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of
surface talk.
I tell you everything that is really nothing,
and nothing of what is everything,
of what is crying within me;
So when I am going through my routine do not be fooled by what I am saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am not saying.
What I would like to be able to say,
what for survival I need to say, but I can't say.
I dislike hiding, Honestly!
I dislike the superficial game I am playing, the phony game.
I would really like to be genuine and spontaneous, and me,
but you have got to help me. You have got to hold out your hand,
even when that is the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes that blank stare of breathing death.
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you try to understand and because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings, very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings.
With your sensitivity and sympathy, and your power of understanding,
you can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
how you can be the creator of the person that is me if you choose to.
Please choose to. You alone can break down the wall
behind which I tremble, you alone can remove my mask.
You alone can release me from my shadowworld of panic and uncertainty;
From my lonely person.
Do not pass me by.
Please... do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you;
a long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach me, the blinder I strike back.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for. But I am told that
love is stronger than walls, and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls with firm hands,
but with gentle hands for a child is very sensitive.
Who am I, you may wonder? I am someone you
know very well.
For I am every man you meet and I am every woman you meet.
_________________Jill
Zevallos-Solak, 1974_____________________
[ Death scene of Cyrano ]
It is coming... I feel
Already shod with marble... gloved with lead...
Let the old fellow come now! He shall find me
On my feet sword in hand [ He draws his sword. ]
I can see him there he grins
He is looking at my nose that skeleton
What's that you say? Hopeless? Why, very well!
But a man does not fight merely to win!
No no better to know one fights in vain! ...
You there Who are you? A hundred against one
I know them now, my ancient enemies
[ He lunges at the empty air. ]
Falsehood! ... There! There! Prejudice Compromise
Cowardice [ Thrusting ] What's that? No! Surrender? No!
Never never! ... Ah, you too, Vanity!
I know you would overthrow me in the end
No! I fight on! I fight on! I fight on!
Edmond
Rostand, spoken by Cyrano de Bergerac
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly
strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge,
and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
Bertrand
Russell, Autobiography
Most people would rather die than think; in
fact, they do so.
Bertrand
Russell
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and
be killed for trivial reasons.
Bertrand
Russell
The Christian view that all intercourse
outside marriage is immoral was, as we see in the above passages from St. Paul,
based upon the view that all sexual intercourse, even within marriage, is
regrettable. A view of this sort, which goes against biological facts, can only
be regarded by sane people as a morbid aberration. The fact that it is embedded
in Christian ethics has made Christianity throughout its whole history a force
tending towards mental disorders and unwholesome views of life.
Bertrand
Russell
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else
on earth, more than ruin, more even than death....Thought is subversive and
revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege,
established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of
hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the
world, and the chief glory of man.
Bertrand Russell
If it were true that men could achieve
their good by means of turning some men into sacrificial animals, and ... if I
were asked to serve the interests of society apart from, above and against my
own I would refuse....I would fight in the full confidence of the justice of my
battle and of a living being's right to exist.
Ayn Rand
Civilization is the progress toward a
society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws
of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (1943)
The First Amendment is often inconvenient.
But that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of
its obligation to tolerate speech.
Justice
Anthony Kennedy
With the first link, a chain is forged. The
first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied,
chains us all irrevocably.
Jean-Luc
Picard, quoting a fictional judge, Star Trek :
The Next Generation, The Drumhead
They that can give up essential liberty to
obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin
Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania,
1759
Necessity is the plea of every infringement
of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
William Pitt
(1756-1806), speech on the India Bill 18 November
1783
Respect for individual rights is the
essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, ... and that only
through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized.
Preamble to
the Libertarian Platform
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, well meaning but without understanding.
Justice Louis
D. Brandeis, dissenting, Olmstead v. United
States, 277 U.S. 479 (1928)
Since when is "public safety" the
root password to the Constitution?
C. D. Tavares
He that would make his own liberty secure
must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he
establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
Thomas Paine
You do not examine legislation in the light
of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of
the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.
Lyndon
Johnson
The main problem with today's
high-technology society is that we allow politicians to run it instead of
people equipped with the wherewithal to understand it. Their mentalities are
still in the nineteenth century. How can they hope to manage complex economies
when they're not competent to run a yard-sale. What can they do that requires
even a smattering of knowledge or intellect?
People let them get away with it. If people are gonna elect turkeys to tell
them what to do, then the people are gonna have problems. You can't blame the
turkeys. The Constitution never guaranteed smart government; it guaranteed
representative government. And it works - that's what we've got.
The trouble with the damn system is that it selects for the skills needed to
get elected, and nothing else... which requires only an ability to fool a
sufficient number of people for just long enough to get the votes.
Unfortunately the personal qualities necessary for attaining office are
practically the opposite of those demanded by the office itself. A test that
you can pass only by cheating can't possibly select honest people, can it?
James P.
Hogan, Code of the Lifemaker
Take Nothing but Pictures. Leave nothing
but footprints. Kill nothing but time.
Motto of the
National Speleological Society
Money often costs too much.
Ralph Waldo
Emerson
Somebody once said that in looking for
people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and
energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you. You
think about it; it's true. If you hire somebody without the first, you really
want them to be dumb and lazy.
Warren Buffet
You can choose a ready guide
In some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice
You can choose from phantom fears
and kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that's clear
I will chose free will.
RUSH, Free Will
Certain flaws are necessary for the whole.
It would seem strange if old friends lacked certain quirks.
Goethe
All religions are founded on the fear of
the many and the cleverness of the few.
Stendhal
Faith: not *wanting* to know what is true.
Friedrich
Wilhelm Nietzsche
In heaven all the interesting people are
missing.
Friedrich
Wilhelm Nietzsche
It is the final proof of God's omnipotence
that he need not exist in order to save us.
Peter De
Vries
Faith, noun. Belief without evidence in
what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
Ambrose
Bierce
Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy
religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all
other faiths are based.
Ambrose Bierce
Which is it, is man one of God's blunders
or is God one of man's?
Friedrich
Wilhelm Nietzsche
I do not feel obliged to believe that the
same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us
to forgo their use.
Galileo
Galilei
I have recently been examining all the
known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular
superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded
on fables and mythology.
Thomas
Jefferson
The clergy believe that any portion of
power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they
believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility
against every form of tyrrany known to the mind of man.
Thomas
Jefferson
Shake off all fears of servile prejudices,
under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat,
and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness
even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of
the homage of reason than that of blind faith.
Thomas
Jefferson
Say nothing of my religion. It is known to
God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life:
if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated
it cannot be a bad one.
Thomas
Jefferson
The strongest reason for the people to
retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect
themselves against tyranny in government.
Thomas
Jefferson
For those who believe in God, most of the
big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the
God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new
conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith
a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church,
state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to
kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that
Death will tremble to take us.
Charles
Bukowski
If it turns out that there is a God, I
don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that
basically he's an underachiever.
Woody Allen
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
I'm trying to tell you something about my
life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
And the best thing you've ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously
It's only life after all
Emily
Saliers, the Indigo Girls, Closer to Fine
I went to the doctor, I went to the
mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in a crooked line.
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.
Emily
Saliers, the Indigo Girls, Closer to Fine
And now someone's on the telephone
desperate in his pain
Someone's on the bathroom floor doing her cocaine
Someone's got his finger on the button in some room
No one can convince me we aren't gluttons for our doom
Emily
Saliers, the Indigo Girls, Prince Of Darkness
But I can't do the talks like they talk on
my tv screen
I can't do a love song not the way you sang them to me
I can't do everything but I would do anything for you
Oh no I can't do anything except be in love with you
Dire Straits, Romeo & Juliet
There's only us, there's only this.
Forget regret or life is yours to miss....
There's only now, there's only here.
Give in to love or live in fear.
No other path, no other way, no day but today.
RENT, Jonathan Larson
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.
William J. H.
Boetcker
In Germany they came first for the
Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came
for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for
the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a
Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak
up.
Martin
Niemoeller, German Lutheran Pastor
The aging process has you firmly in its
grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball.
Doug Larson
The reasonable man adapts himself to the
world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
George
Bernard Shaw
The more things a man is ashamed of, the
more respectable he is.
George
Bernard Shaw
There is only one religion, though there
are a hundred versions of it.
George
Bernard Shaw
Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic
form of idiocy.
George
Bernard Shaw
Patriotism is your conviction that this
country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
George
Bernard Shaw
Democracy: The substitution of election by
the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
George
Bernard Shaw
Some men see things as they are and say
"Why." He dreamed things that never were and said "Why
not?"
George
Bernard Shaw, John Bull's Other Island
Do not do unto others as you would they
should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
George
Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903), Maxims
for Revolutionists: The Golden Rule
The universe is not indifferent to
intelligence, it is actively hostile to it.
Love thy neighbor as yourself, but choose
your neighborhood.
Louise Beal
A free society is a place where it's safe
to be unpopular.
Adlai
Stevenson
If one is master of one thing and
understands one thing well, one has at the same time, insight into and
understanding of many things.
Van Gogh
The most difficult thing in the world is to
know how to do a thing and to watch someone else do it wrong without comment.
Theodore H.
White
Laws are only words words written on paper,
words that change on society's whim and are interpreted differently daily by
politicians, lawyers, judges, and policemen. Anyone who believes that all laws
should always be obeyed would have made a fine slave catcher. Anyone who
believes that all laws are applied equally, despite race, religion, or economic
status, is a fool.
John J.
Miller, And Hope to Die (in Jokertown
Shuffle Wild Cards IX)
All national institutions of churches,
whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human
inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and
profit.
Thomas Paine
I do not believe in the creed professed by
the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish
church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind
is my own church.
Thomas Paine
The quality of an organization can never
exceed the quality of the minds that make it up.
Harold R.
McAlindon
Better contraceptives will control
population only if people will use them. A nuclear holocaust can be prevented
only if the conditions under which nations make war can be changed. The
environment will continue to deteriorate until pollution practices are
abandoned. We need to make vast changes in human behavior.
B. F. Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity
When a true genius appears in this world,
you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against
him.
Jonathan
Swift, Thoughts on Various Subjects
I have my faults, but changing my tune is
not one of them.
Samuel
Beckett, The Unnameable
To be nobody but yourself in a world which
is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the
hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
e. e.
cummings
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.
E. M. Forster
Man has always sacrificed truth to his
vanity, comfort and advantage. He lives by makebelieve.
W. Somerset
Maugham, The Summing Up, 1938
Love is not just looking at each other,
it's looking in the same direction.
Antoine de
SaintExupery, Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939
It is a most mortifying reflection for a
man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.
Samuel
Johnson, (in Boswell's Life, 1770)
There was once a man, Harry, called the
Steppenwolf. He went on two legs, wore clothes and was a human being, but
nevertheless he was in reality a wolf of the Steppes. He had learned a good
deal of all that people of a good intelligence can, and was a fairly clever
fellow. What he had not learned, however, was this: to find contentment in
himself and his own life.
Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf
Even in the presence of others he was
completely alone.
Robert M.
Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
People have to talk about something just to
keep their voice boxes in working order so they'll have good voice boxes in
case there's ever anything really meaningful to say.
Kurt Vonnegut
Jr., Cat's Cradle
. . . hummings and clickings could be heard--the
sounds attendant to the flow of electrons, now augmenting one maze of
electromagnetic crises to a condition that was translatable from electrical
qualities and quantities to a high grade of truth.
Kurt
Vonnegut, Jr., Player Piano
Foolproof systems don't take into account
the ingenuity of fools.
Gene Brown
Are cats lazy? Well, more power to them if
they are. Which one of us has not entertained the dream of doing just as he
likes, when and how he likes, and as much as he likes?
Fernand Mery
Cat: a pygmy lion who loves mice, hates
dogs, and patronizes human beings.
Oliver
Herford
Cats are smarter than dogs. You can not get
eight cats to pull a sled through snow.
Jeff Valdez
If a dog jumps in your lap, it is because
he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is
warmer.
Alfred North
Whitehead
An intelligent hell would be better than a
stupid paradise.
Victor Hugo, Ninetythree, 1874
The greatest happiness of life is the
conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite
of ourselves.
Victor Hugo
Some people have a large circle of friends
while others have only friends that they like.
Unknown
Rule a kingdom as though you were cooking a
small fish - don't overdo it.
Lao Tzu
Where ignorance is our master, there is no
possibility of real peace.
Dalai Lama
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody
has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
Albert von
Szent-Gyorgy
If I have seen farther than others, it is
because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.
Isaac Newton
I share no man's opinions; I have my own.
Ivan Turgenev
To give pleasure to a single heart by a
single kind act is better than a thousand head-bowings in prayer.
Saddi
Wear the old coat and buy the new book.
Austin Phelps
We live in an age when pizza gets to your
home before the police.
Jeff Marder
Boggies are an unattractive but annoying
people whose numbers have increased rather precipitously since the bottom fell
out of the fairy-tale market. Slow and sullen, and yet dull, they prefer to
lead simple lives of pastoral squalor. They don't like machines more
complicated than a garotte, a blackjack, or a luger, and they have always been
shy of the 'big folk' or 'biggers' as they call us. As a rule they avoid us,
except on rare occasions when a hundred or so will get together to dry-gulch a
lone farmer or hunter. They seldom exceed three feet in height, but are fully
capable of overpowering creatures half their size when they get the drop on
them ... Their beginnings lie far back in the Good Ole Days when the planet was
populated with the kind of colorful creatures you have to drink a quart of Old
Overcoat to see nowadays.
Bored of the
Rings, by the staff of the Harvard Lampoon
Do not fear your enemies. The worst they
can do is kill you. Do not fear friends. At worst, they may betray you. Fear
those who do not care; they neither kill nor betray, but betrayal and murder
exists because of their silent consent.
Bruno
Jasienski (Yasensky)
We tell lies when we are afraid, . . .
afraid of what we don't know, afraid of what others will think, afraid of what
will be found out about us. But every time we tell a lie, the thing that we
fear grows stronger
Tad Williams, Spoken by Dr. Morgenes, To Green Angel Tower (part of Memory,
Sorrow and Thorn)
In the beginner's mind there are many
possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few.
Shunryu
Suzuki
The trouble with fighting for human freedom
is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against
scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped
at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
H. L. Mencken
I'm the one that has to die when it's time
for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.
Jimi Hendrix
The boys throw rocks at the frogs in jest.
But the frogs die in earnest.
Bion
Show me the books he loves and I shall know
the man far better than through mortal friends.
S. Weir
Mitchell
Young love is a flame; very pretty, often
very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older
and disciplined heart is as coals, deep burning, unquenchable.
Henry Ward
Beecher
Any business arrangement that is not
profitable to the other person will in the end prove unprofitable for you. The
bargain that yields mutual satisfaction is the only one that is apt to be
repeated.
B. C. Forbes
The most wonderful of all things in life, I
believe, is the discovery of another human being with whom one's relationship
has a glowing depth, beauty, and joy as the years increase. This inner
progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing, it
cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a
sort of Divine accident.
Sir Hugh
Walpole
I have learned throughout my life as a
composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by
my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.
Igor
Stravinsky
The conception of two people living
together for twenty-five years without having a cross word suggests a lack of
spirit only to be admired in sheep.
Alan Patrick
Herbert
If two men agree on everything, you may be
sure that one of them is doing the thinking.
Lyndon Baines
Johnson
Each man takes care that his neighbor shall
not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat
his neighbor. Then all goes well -- he has changed his market-cart into a
chariot of the sun.
Ralph Waldo
Emerson
Just because an animal is large, it doesn't
mean he doesn't want kindness; however big Tigger seems to be, remember that he
wants as much kindness as Roo.
Pooh's Little
Instruction Book, inspired by A. A. Milne
Trouble is part of your life -- if you
don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you
enough.
Dinah Shore
Know people for who they are rather than
for what they are.
Anthony J.
D'Angelo, The College Blue Book
Efficiency is intelligent laziness.
David Dunham
I am become death, shatterer of worlds.
J. Robert
Oppenheimer (1904-1967), citing from the Bhagavadgita,
after witnessing the world's first nuclear explosion
The right to swing my fist ends where the
other man's nose begins.
Oliver
Wendell Holmes (1841-1935)
Doing easily what others find difficult is
talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius.
Henri-Frederic
Amiel
That man is successful who has lived well,
laughed often, and loved much, who has gained the respect of the intelligent
men and the love of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his
task; who leaves the world better than he found it, whether by an improved
poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of
earth's beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and
gave the best he had.
Robert Louis
Stevenson
Civilization is a stream with banks. The
stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting
and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed,
people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and
even whittle statues. The story of civilization is what happened on the banks.
Will Durant, The History of Civilization
Television is the first truly democratic
culture - the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by
what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want.
Clive Barnes
We all agree on the necessity of
compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise.
Larry Wall
If you mean whiskey, the devil's brew, the
poison scourge, the bloody monster that defiles innocence, dethrones reason,
destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread
from the mouths of little children; if you mean that evil drink that topples
Christian men and women from the pinnacles of righteous and gracious living
into the bottomless pits of degradation, shame, despair, helplessness, and
hopelessness, then, my friend, I am opposed to it with every fiber of my being.
However, if by whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine,
the elixir of life, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together,
that puts a song in their hearts and the warm glow of contentment in their
eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer, the stimulating sip that puts a little
spring in the step of an elderly gentleman on a frosty morning; if you mean
that drink that enables man to magnify his joy, and to forget life's great
tragedies and heartbreaks and sorrow; if you mean that drink the sale of which
pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars each year, that provides
tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb,
our pitifully aged and infirm, to build the finest highways, hospitals,
universities, and community colleges in this nation, then my friend, I am
absolutely, unequivocally in favor of it.
This is my position, and as always, I refuse to be compromised on matters of
principle.
Address to the
legislature by a Mississippi state senator, 1958, "Whiskey Speech"
Good communication is as stimulating as
black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.
Anne Morrow
Lindbergh
You've achieved success in your field when
you don't know whether what you're doing is work or play.
Warren Beatty
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
Art has no function. It is not necessary.
It has nothing to do with what anyone wants you to do or wants it to be,
nothing but you and itself. The work generates itself and ideas and progress
and learning come out of doing the work in a particular way. Creative art is a
learning process for the artist and not a description of what is already known.
An audience is always warming but it must never be necessary to your work. The
work needs concentration and one is often exhausted by it. It takes so much
effort just to begin and although going on is mostly a pleasure it is also a
great effort. The only thing for a creative artist to do is to do his chosen
work. But really there is no choice. Nobody chooses. The only thing left for a
creative artist to do is to do his chosen work in spite of everything and
regardless of anything because when living draws to its end there are no excuses
he can make to himself or to anyone else for not having done it. Either he did
do it or he did not do it and very often he did not. Alas very often he did
not.
Gertrude
Stein
You should not turn a man's generosity as a
sword against him. Any virtue that a man has, even if he has many vices, should
not be used as a tool against him.
I. I. Rabi, as quoted in Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman,
by James Gleick
An ordinary genius is a fellow that you and
I would be just as good at, if we were only many times better.
Marc Kac, as quoted in Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman,
by James Gleick
You cannot rule the world El-ahrairah, for
I will not have it so. All the world will be your enemy, Prince With a Thousand
Enemies. And whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first, they must
catch you--digger, listener, runner, Prince with the swift warning. Be cunning,
and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed.
Richard Adams, Watership Down
Details are all that matters; God dwells
there, and you never get to see Him if you dont struggle to get them right.
Stephen Jay
Gould
"Suppose that we are wise enough to
learn and know and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge,
so that we use it to destroy ourselves?"
"Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance. It is better
to know even if the knowledge endures only for the moment that comes before
destruction than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack
of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder.
That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too."
Isaac Asimov, The New Hugo Winners
________________________________________________
In tribute to David Gerard Cohen, rest well
Best of all he liked to sleep. Sleeping was a very
important activity for him. He liked to sleep for longish periods, great
swathes of time. Merely sleeping overnight was not taking the business
seriously. He enjoyed a good night's sleep and wouldn't miss one for the world,
but found it as anything halfway near enough. He liked to be asleep by
half-past eleven in the morning if possible, and if that should come directly
after a nice leisurely lie-in then so much the better. A little light breakfast
and a quick trip to the bathroom while fresh linen was applied to his bed is
really all the activity he liked to undertake, and he took care that it didn't
janate the sleepiness out of him and disturb his afternoon of napping.
Sometimes he was able to spend an entire week asleep, and this he regarded as a
good snooze. He had also slept through the whole of 1986 and hadn't missed it.
Douglas Adams, The Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
NOTE on Quotes: I am
somewhat ashamed to admit that some number of the above quotes are from texts
which I have not YET read but I am afraid there are only so many hours in the
day. This bothers me since obviously the context of a quotation is extremely
important to its meaning and one's understanding. What bothers me even more
than this fact is the number of wonderful quotes from texts I HAVE read but
just wasn't wise enough to note down the quotation. One reads for pleasure and
intellectual stimulation and it is a sad dilemma that when one is most
intrigued by a work one is paying the least attention to individual quotations
of interest.
I also have a set of, generally humorous, secondary quotations which
you might enjoy and a set of quotes
from Babylon 5 and finally a set of quotes relating to playing
games. You might also want to look at lists of My Favorites or read more
quotations at Generation
Terrorists or The Quotations Page
or QuoteDB. For a set of humorous quotes
look at the Fortunes
page.
Access
Count: 
Please send me EMAIL if you have any
comments on or suggestions for these pages or if you just want to say hi.
Alternatively, you can sign in to the House's
Guestbook.
