Below are some of my favorite quotations that I have collected over the years.
- The universe is not only queerer than we imagine, it is queerer than we
can imagine.-J.B.S. Haldane “On Being the Right Size” in the (1928) book “Possible
Worlds” - The tragedies of science are the slayings of beautiful hypotheses by ugly
facts. -T.H. Huxley - Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles
and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.-Benoit
Mandelbrot - I know I myself waver, between being a feather in your cap and a thorn in
your side.-Peter DeVries,Into Your Tent I’ll Creep - As long as the body is warm and the bowels move regularly no problem can
be other than minor and temporary.-Maureen Johnson in Robert Heinlein’s To
Sail Beyond the Sunset - …but King Max was one of those who believed that psychology was at the
point in its development that surgery was at when in it was practiced by barbers…
-Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker - Primitive people and societies can usually solve all their problems. -John
Alan Paulos, Beyond Numeracy - Love does not entreat; or demand. Love must have the strength to become
certain within itself. Then it ceases merely to be attracted and begins to
attract. -Herman Hesse, Demian - When the going get weird, the weird turn pro.-Hunter S. Thompson
- It is sound policy to take serious the rages of certain Alabamians. -Howell
Raines, Fly Fishing Through the Midlife Crisis - ….if you have to test something carefully to see the difference it makes,
then it is not making enough of a difference in the first place. -Nicholas
Negroponte, Being Digital - …we make our networks and our networks make us. -William Mitchell,
City of Bits - Since it is all evidence – regardless of the method of presentation
– the highest standards of statistical thinking should apply to every
data representation, including visual displays. – Edward R. Tufte, Visual
Explanations - …for a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can
afford to let alone. – Henry David Thoreau, Walden - They don’t want to share. They’d rather suffer. -Rachel Silverman in Robert
Rimmer’s The Premar Experiments - The more intelligent one is, the more men of originality one finds. Ordinary
people find no difference between men. -Blaise Pascal in Pensees - A soul mate is someone to whom we feel profoundly connected, as though
the communicating and communing that take place between us were not the product
of intentional efforts, but rather a divine grace. This kind of relationship
is so important to the soul that many have said there is nothing more precious
in life. We may find a soul partner in many different forms of relationship—in
friendship, marriage, work, play, and family. It is a rare form of intimacy,
but is not limited to one person or to one form. -Thomas Moore in Soul
Mates - Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and
absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin
it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson - A mind that is fast is sick. A mind that is slow is sound. A mind that is still is
divine. -Meher Baba - A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is
invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity. – Lazarus Long in Robert Heinlein’s Time
Enough For Love - A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson - Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man. – Swamy Vivekananda
- …it’s a crazy quilt reflected in a fun-house mirror! – Zippy the Pinhead, Jan. 17, 2005
- With frantic Dean I was rushing through the world without a chance to see it. – Jack Kerouac,
On the Road - Jeff Douglas: …There’s nothing a woman hates more than her fiancee’s best friend. He knows all
the secrets she’s going to spend the rest of her life trying to find out. – Lerner and Lowe,
Brigadoon - There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
– Friedrich Nietzsche, “On Reading and Writing” - If you do lots of zazen you often end up going for longer and longer periods where few thoughts occur. The brain goes quiet and Descartes’ old axiom “I think therefore I am” makes no sense anymore because you’re not thinking, yet existence still is. – Brad Warner in Hardcore Zen
- We cant put it together. It is together. – Stweart Brand, The Last Whole Earth Catalog
- Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. – John Muir, Our National Parks
- Knowledge of the possibility of unconscious factors distorting our view of our situation places on us a special duty of skeptical scrutiny. This duty is not primarily to examine our own motives, but is rather a duty to look with special care at our grounds for holding factual beliefs that are suspiciously convenient to us. – Jonathan Glover, Freud, morality, and responsibility. In Philosophy and Psychoanalysis
- I feel ancient, as though I had
Lived many lives.
And may never now know
If I am a fool
Or have done what my
karma demands.
-Gary Synder, Four Poems for Robin – December in Yase - If we can’t find something pleasant, we will at least find something new. – Voltaire, Candide
- Things are not what they seem to be; nor are they otherwise. – Lankavatara Sutra
- Temptation is a woman’s weapon and man’s excuse. – H.L. Mencken
- Wittgenstein was “brutally intolerant of any remark he considered sloppy or pretentious.” Stephen Toulmin attended Wittgenstein’s twice-weekly seminars: “For our part, we struck him as intolerably stupid. He would denounce us to our faces as unteachable.” – Edmonds and Eidinow, Wittgenstein’s Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosphers
- It is why Asana is not gymnastics, why pranayama is not deep breathing, why dhyana is not self-induced trance, why yama is not just morality. -B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali