World History Quotes

Lin Yutang Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Neal) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:29:00 +0000

Click here for Lin Yutang books

"Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother."

"In the West, the insane are so many that they are put in an asylum, in China the insane are so unusual that we worship them."

"It is not so much what you believe in that matters, as the way in which you believe it and proceed to translate that belief into action."

"The best that we can hope for in this life is that we shall not have sons and grandsons of whom we need to be ashamed."

"When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set."

"One can learn such a lot and enjoy such a lot in seventy years, and three generations is a long, long time to see human follies and acquire human wisdom."

"Anyone who is wise and has lived long enough to witness the changes of fashion and morals and politics through the rise and fall of three generations should be perfectly satisfied to rise from his seat and go away saying, 'It was a good show,' when the curtain falls."

"When you take a bath, you are civilized, when you don't take a bath, you are cultured."

"Instead of holding on to the Biblical view that we are made in the image of God, we come to realize that we are made in the image of the monkey."

"If man is so generally less happy in the cities than in the country, it is because all these variations and nuances of sight and smell and sound are less clearly marked and lost in the general monotony of gray walls and cement pavements."

"The three great American vices seem to be efficiency, punctuality, and the desire for achievement and success. They are the things that make the Americans so unhappy and so nervous."

"What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?"

"A man who has to be punctually at a certain place at five o'clock has the whole afternoon from one to five ruined for him already."

"When there are too many policemen, there can be no liberty. When there are too many soldiers, there can be no peace. When there are too many lawyers, there can be no justice."

"If the early Chinese people had any chivalry, it was manifested not toward women and children, but toward old people."

"By association with natures enormities, a man's heart may truly grow big also."

"When the mirror meets with an ugly woman, when a rare ink-stone finds a vulgar owner, and when a good sword is in the hands of a common general, there is utterly nothing to be done about it."

"I feel, like all modern Americans, no consciousness of sin and simply do not believe in it."

"All I know is that if God loves me only half as much as my mother does, he will not send me to Hell."

"I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud."

"I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death."

"Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials."

"Neckties strangle clear thinking."

Henri Bergson Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Neal) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 16:03:00 +0000

Click Here for Henri Bergson books

"The eyes see only what the mind is prepared to comprehend."

"Intuition is a method of feeling one's way intellectually into the inner heart of a thing to locate what is unique and inexpressive in it."

"Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought."

"To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly."

"Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science."

"Homosapiens, the only creature endowed with reason, is also the only creature to pin its existence on things unreasonable."

"Life does not proceed by the association and addition of elements, but by dissociation and division."

"The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause."

"To perceive means to immobilize. We seize, in the act of perception, something which outruns perception itself."

"The only cure for vanity is laughter, and the only fault that is laughable is vanity."

"Sex appeal is the keynote of our civilization."

"There is no greater joy than that of feeling oneself a creator. The triumph of life is expressed by creation."

"The motive power of democracy is love."

"Some other faculty than the intellect is necessary for the apprehension of reality."

"An absolute can only be given in an intuition, while all the rest has to do with analysis."

"Genius is that which forces the inertia of humanity to learn."

"The prestige of the Nobel Prize is due to many causes, but in particular to its twofold idealistic and international character: idealistic in that it has been designed for works of lofty inspiration; international in that it is awarded after the production of different countries has been minutely studied and the intellectual balance sheet of the whole world has been drawn up. Free from all other considerations and ignoring any but intellectual values, the judges have deliberately taken their place in what the philosophers have called a community of the mind."

"Our laughter is always the laughter of a group."

"There is nothing in philosophy which could not be said in everyday language."

"We regard intelligence as man's main characteristic and we know that there is no superiority which intelligence cannot confer on us, no inferiority for which it cannot compensate."

"In reality, the past is preserved by itself automatically."

"It seems that laughter needs an echo."

Desiderius Erasmus Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Neal) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 15:42:00 +0000

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"In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."

"I have turned my entire attention to Greek. The first thing I shall do, as soon as the money arrives, is to buy some Greek authors; after that, I shall buy clothes."

"For what is life but a play in which everyone acts a part until the curtain comes down?"

"This type of man who is devoted to the study of wisdom is always most unlucky in everything, and particularly when it comes to procreating children; I imagine this is because Nature wants to ensure that the evils of wisdom shall not spread further throughout mankind."

"Believe that you have it, and you have it!"

"Do not be guilty of possessing a library of learned books while lacking learning yourself."

"Indeed, a constant element of enjoyment must be mingled with our studies, so that we think of learning as a game rather than a form of drudgery."

"I have no patience with those who say that sexual excitement is shameful and that venereal stimuli have their origin not in nature, but in sin. Nothing is so far from the truth."

"If we were willing to evaluate things not according to the opinion of the crowd, but according to nature itself, how is it less repulsive to eat, chew, digest, evacuate, and sleep after the fashion of dumb animals, than to enjoy lawful and permitted carnal relations?"

"Education is of far greater importance than heredity in forming character."

"I am a citizen of the world, known to all and to all a stranger."

"I consider as lovers of books not those who keep their books hidden in their store-chests and never handle them, but those who, by nightly as well as daily use thumb them, batter them, wear them out, who fill out all the margins with annotations of many kinds, and who prefer the marks of a fault they have erased to a neat copy full of faults."

"I am a lover of liberty. I cannot and will not serve parties."

"It is the friendship of books that has made me perfectly happy."

"The rules of grammar are crabbed things to many persons... it is important early to instill a taste for the best things into the minds of children, and I cannot see that anything is learned with greater success than what is learned by playing, and this is, in truth, a very harmless kind of fraud, to trick a person into his own profit."

"The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war."

"There is nothing I congratulate myself on more heartily than on never having joined a sect."

"He who lives far from neighbors may safely praise himself."

"They say that the AntiChrist will be born of a monk and a nun. If so, there must already be thousands of AntiChrists."

"Whenever you encounter truth, look upon it as Christianity."

"Fortune favors the audacious."

C.S. Lewis Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Neal) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 15:20:00 +0000

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"All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be."

"For me, reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning. Imagination, producing new metaphors or revivifying old, is not the cause of truth, but its condition."

"Only the skilled can judge the skillfulness, but that is not the same as judging the value of the result."

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive."

"It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true Word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers, will bring us to Him."

"Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness."

"To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence."

"When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

"You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you."

"Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment."

"God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."

"God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love."

"Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself."

"There is wishful thinking in Hell as well as on Earth."

"When they have really learned to love their neighbours as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbours."

"Courtship is the time for sowing those seeds which will grow up ten years into domestic hatred."

"The safest road to Hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

"There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them."

"Of course a war is entertaining. The immediate fear and suffering of the humans is a legitimate and pleasing refreshment for our myriads of toiling workers."

"Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows."

"As long as this deliberate refusal to understand things from above, even where such understanding is possible, continues, it is idle to talk of any final victory over materialism."

"Perfect humility dispenses with modesty."

"We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship."

"100 per cent of us die, and the percentage cannot be increased."

"This year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people."

"Goodness is either the great safety or the great danger — according to the way you react to it."

"Badness is only spoiled goodness."

"God lends us a little of His reasoning powers and that is how we think: He puts a little of His love into us and that is how we love one another."

"God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself."

"The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation."

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken."

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival."

"Nothing is yet in its true form."

"All that is not eternal is eternally out of date."

Cicero Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Neal) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 05:08:00 +0000

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"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others."

"In anger nothing right nor judicious can be done."

"Genius is fostered by energy."

"While there's life, there's hope."

"We do not destroy religion by destroying superstition."

"There is nothing so ridiculous but some philosopher has said it."

"Let the punishment match the offense."

"The welfare of the people is the ultimate law."

"History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquity."

"No sane man will dance."

"True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions."

"A war is never undertaken by the ideal State, except in defense of its honor or its safety."

"Though silence is not necessarily an admission, it is not a denial, either."

"The shifts of Fortune test the reliability of friends."

"If you aspire to the highest place, it is no disgrace to stop at the second, or even the third, place."

"To be ignorant of the past is to forever be a child."

"The Republic is a common law and the common good."

"Let your desires be ruled by reason."

"It is a great thing to know our vices."

"Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide."

"Politicians are not born; they are excreted."

"Strain every nerve to gain your point."

"The first duty of a man is the seeking after and the investigation of truth."

"There is no duty more obligatory than the repayment of kindness."

"We are obliged to respect, defend and maintain the common bonds of union and fellowship that exist among all members of the human race."

"We must not say every mistake is a foolish one."

"Where is there dignity unless there is honesty?"

Uta Hagen Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Neal) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 04:57:00 +0000

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"If you want a bourgeois existence, you shouldn't be an actor. You're in the wrong profession."

"We must overcome the notion that we must be regular - it robs you of the chance to be extraordinary and leads you to the mediocre."

"Nobody ever learns how. The search for human behavior is infinite. You'll never understand it all. I think that's wonderful."

"Talent is an amalgam of high sensitivity; easy vulnerability; high sensory equipment (seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting - intensely); a vivid imagination as well as a grip on reality; the desire to communicate one's own experience and sensations, to make one's self heard and seen."

"I love going to the movies; I love watching good movie actors. They must know something I don't."

"I love playing Chekhov. That's the hardest; that's why I love it most."

"Maybe the one I enjoyed playing most was A Month in the Country."

"The Country Girl was the only successful play I've done that I was glad when it closed. I had great success in it, but I never liked the last act."

"They still had the Lord Chamberlain, so we had this idiotic censorship. We were allowed three Jesus Christs instead of 10. Why three were OK, I don't know."

"We were not allowed to say, Screw, but we could say, Hump the hostess, because hump is in Shakespeare."

"I won't go to England because they won't let my dog in."

Elizabeth Kenny Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Neal) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 04:45:00 +0000

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"He who angers you conquers you."

"Panic plays no part in the training of a nurse."

"Some minds remain open long enough for the truth not only to enter, but to pass on through by way of a ready exit without pausing anywhere along the route."

"The record of one's life must needs prove more interesting to him who writes it than to him who reads what has been written."

"It is better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life."

David Hume Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Neal) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 04:17:00 +0000

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"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence."

"Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous."

"When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities."

"Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man."

"Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few."

"He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to any circumstances."

"It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom."

"All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignorance and obscurity, is to be skeptical, or at least cautious; and not to admit of any hypothesis, whatsoever; much less, of any which is supported by no appearance of probability."

"Everything in the world is purchased by labor."

"The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny; flattery to treachery; standing armies to arbitrary government; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy."

"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."

"Truth springs from argument amongst friends."

"Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principals."

"The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds."

"And what is the greatest number? Number one."

"Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them."

"Where ambition can cover its enterprises, even to the person himself, under the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible of passions."

"A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker."

"Avarice, the spur of industry."

"Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad. But the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue."

"It is a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave."

"Men often act knowingly against their interest."

"Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded the growth of all true knowledge."

"The law always limits every power it gives."

"The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster."

"To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see; all this is nothing but to perceive."

"God's power is infinite. Whatever he wills is executed."

"Art may make a suit of clothes; but nature must produce a man."

Carlos Castaneda Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Neal) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:57:00 +0000

Click here for Carlos Castaneda books

"The Spirit does not accept volunteers."

"It doesn’t matter how one was brought up. What determines the way one does anything is personal power."

"A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting."

"A rule of thumb for a warrior is that he makes his decisions so carefully that nothing that may happen as a result of them can surprise him, much less drain his power."

"A path without a heart is never enjoyable. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy— it does not make a warrior work at liking it; it makes for a joyful journey; as long as a man follows it, he is one with it."

"A warrior is never concerned about his fear."

"On the Path of Knowledge there are four natural enemies: fear, clarity, power and old age."

"A warrior acts as if he knows what he is doing, when in effect he knows nothing."

"A warrior considers himself already dead, so there is nothing to lose. The worst has already happened to him, therefore he’s clear and calm; judging him by his acts or by his words, one would never suspect that he has witnessed everything."

"A warrior doesn’t know remorse for anything he has done, because to isolate one’s acts as being mean, or ugly, or evil is to place an unwarranted importance on the self."

"A warrior must learn to make every act count, since he is going to be here in this world for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it."

"A warrior seeks to act rather than talk."

"A warrior thinks of death when things become unclear. The idea of death is the only thing that tempers our spirit."

"The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse."

"An average man is too concerned with liking people or with being liked himself. A warrior likes, that’s all. He likes whatever or whomever he wants, for the hell of it."

"The self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness. The average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the warrior is hooked only to infinity."

"Do you know at this very moment you are surrounded by eternity? And do you know that you can use that eternity if you so desire?"

"Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy and vain. To be a warrior one needs to be light and fluid."

"Impeccability is nothing else but the proper use of energy."

"Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated."

"Nothing in this world is a gift. Whatever must be learned must be learned the hard way."

"Personal history must be constantly renewed by telling parents, relatives, and friends everything one does."

"The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same."

"The world is incomprehensible. We won’t ever understand it; we won’t ever unravel its secrets. Thus we must treat the world as it is: a sheer mystery."

"No person is important enough to make me angry."

"To seek freedom is the only driving force I know. Freedom to fly off into that infinity out there. Freedom to dissolve; to lift off; to be like the flame of a candle, which, in spite of being up against the light of a billion stars, remains intact, because it never pretended to be more than what it is: a mere candle."

"We hardly ever realize that we can cut anything out of our lives, anytime, in the blink of an eye."

"The things that people do cannot under any conditions be more important than the world."

"It's better to get something worthwhile done using deception than to fail to get something worthwhile done using truth."

"The only thing that is real is the being in you that is going to die."

Laozi Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Neal) — Wed, 28 May 2008 16:50:00 +0000

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"A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step."

"Muddy water, let stand becomes clear."

"A leader is best when people barely know that he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him."

"Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power."

"Wise men don't need to prove their point. Men who need to prove their point aren't wise."

"If I have even just a little sense, I will walk on the main road and my only fear will be of straying from it. Keeping to the main road is easy, but people love to be sidetracked."

"Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing."

"The sage seeks freedom from desire. He does not collect precious things. He learns not to hold on to ideas. He brings men back to what they have lost."

"A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving."

"For the wise man looks into space and he knows there is no limited dimensions."

"The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white. Neither need you do anything but be yourself."

"Seek not happiness too greedily, and be not fearful of happiness."

"He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough."

"He who knows others is wise; He who know himself is enlightened."

"He who loves the world as his body may be entrusted with the empire."

"Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love."

"People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge."

"The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be."

"To know that you do not know is the best. To pretend to know when you do not know is a disease."

"To have little is to possess. To have plenty is to be perplexed."

Winston Churchill Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Neal) — Mon, 12 May 2008 21:39:00 +0000

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"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference."

"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty."

"Never believe any war will be smooth and easy or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter."

"Where my reason, imagination or interest were not engaged, I would not or I could not learn."

"I wonder whether any other generation has seen such astounding revolutions of data and values as those through which we have lived. Scarcely anything material or established which I was brought up to believe was permanent and vital, has lasted. Everything I was sure or taught to be sure was impossible, has happened."

"I pass with relief from the tossing sea of Cause and Theory to the firm ground of Result and Fact."

"It is better to be making the news than taking it; to be an actor rather than a critic."

"What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?"

"The truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is."

"The choice was clearly open: crush them with vain and unstinted force, or try to give them what they want. These were the only alternatives and most people were unprepared for either. Here indeed was the Irish spectre — horrid and inexorcisable."

"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more."

"I do think unpunctuality is a vile habit, and all my life I have tried to break myself of it."

"India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation than the equator."

"It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer of the type well-known in the East, now posing as a fakir, striding half naked up the steps of the Viceregal palace to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor."

"Mr. Gandhi has gone very high in my esteem since he stood up for the untouchables."

"The world looks with some awe upon a man who appears unconcernedly indifferent to home, money, comfort, rank, or even power and fame."

"Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonour. They chose dishonour. They will have war."

"Hitler is a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his lust for blood and plunder. Not content with having all Europe under his heel, or else terrorized into various forms of abject submission, he must now carry his work of butchery and desolation among the vast multitudes of Russia and of Asia."

"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat."

"We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it."

"Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential."

"The British nation is unique in this respect. They are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst."

"Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense."

"I am prepared to meet my maker; whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."

"The empires of the future are the empires of the mind."

"The object of presenting medals, stars, and ribbons is to give pride and pleasure to those who have deserved them."

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

"In War: Resolution. In Defeat: Defiance. In Victory: Magnanimity. In Peace: Good Will."

"I am an optimist — it does not seem to be much use being anything else."

"I think I can save the British Empire from anything — except the British."

Albert Einstein Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Neal) — Mon, 12 May 2008 20:47:00 +0000

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"Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value."

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

"It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it."

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."

"A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future."

"Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens."

"I am by heritage a Jew, by citizenship a Swiss, and by makeup a human being, and only a human being, without any special attachment to any state or national entity whatsoever."

"Make a lot of walks to get healthy and don’t read that much but save yourself some until you’re grown up."

"What lead me more or less directly to the special theory of relativity was the conviction that the electromotive force acting on a body in motion in a magnetic field was nothing else but an electric field."

"Subtle is the Lord, but malicious He is not."

"I have second thoughts. Maybe God is malicious."

"Whether you can observe a thing or not depends on the theory which you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed."

"I believe in Spinoza's God, Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind."

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution."

"We see a universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws."

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving."

"To punish me for my contempt of authority, Fate has made me an authority myself."

"I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war."

"Falling in love is not at all the most stupid thing that people do — but gravitation cannot be held responsible for it."

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler."

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

"Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world."

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."

"Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it."

"Taken on the whole, I would believe that Gandhi's views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time."

"Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it."

"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious."

"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions."

"Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down by the mind before you reach eighteen."

"The important thing is not to stop questioning; curiosity has its own reason for existing."

"When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity."

"Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But I do not doubt that the lion belongs to it even though he cannot at once reveal himself because of his enormous size."

"Never memorize what you can look up in books."

"It is high time the ideal of success should be replaced with the ideal of service...Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."

"My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized."

"I always have a high regard for the individual and have an insuperable distaste for violence and clubmanship."

"Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated."

"The main source of the present-day conflicts between the spheres of religion and of science lies in this concept of a personal God."

"The great moral teachers of humanity were, in a way, artistic geniuses in the art of living."

"The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained to liberation from the self."

"The state is made for man, not man for the state. And in this respect science resembles the state."

"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."

"Any fool can know. The point is to understand."

Louis Pasteur Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Neal) — Mon, 12 May 2008 20:21:00 +0000

Click here for Louis Pasteur books

"Science brings men nearer to God."

"Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity."

"I am on the verge of mysteries and the veil is getting thinner and thinner."

"In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind."

"The universe is asymmetric and I am persuaded that life, as it is known to us, is a direct result of the asymmetry of the universe or of its indirect consequences."

"As long as the mystery of the infinite weighs on human thought, temples will be erected for the worship of the Infinite, whether God is called Brahma, Allah, Jehovah, or Jesus; and on the pavement of these temples, men will be seen kneeling, prostrated, annihilated by the thought of the Infinite."

"Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world."

"There are no such things as applied sciences, only applications of science."

"One does not ask of one who suffers: What is your country and what is your religion? One merely says: You suffer, that is enough for me."

"It is surmounting difficulties that makes heroes."

"I am utterly convinced that Science and Peace will triumph over Ignorance and War, that nations will eventually unite not to destroy but to edify, and that the future will belong to those who have done the most for the sake of suffering humanity."

"When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments; tenderness for what he is, and respect for what he may become."

"Do not let yourself be tainted with a barren skepticism."

Blaise Pascal Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Neal) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 22:11:00 +0000

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"Thinking too little about things or thinking too much both make us obstinate and fanatical."

"People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive."

"A trifle consoles us because a trifle upsets us."

"All men naturally hate one another; there could not be four friends in the world."

"An advocate who has been well paid in advance will find the cause he is pleading all the more just."

"Caesar was too old, it seems to me, to go off and amuse himself conquering the world. Such a pastime was all right for Augustus and Alexander; they were young men, not easily held in check, but Caesar ought to have been more mature."

"Curiosity is nothing more than vanity. More often than not we only seek knowledge to show it off."

"Equality of possessions is no doubt right, but, as men could not make might obey right, they have made right obey might."

"Few friendships would remain, if each knew what his friend said of him when he wasn't there."

"God is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere."

"How hollow is the heart of man, and how full of excrement!"

"I cannot imagine a man without thought; he would be a stone or an animal."

"It is not certain that everything is uncertain."

"It is not shameful for a man to succumb to pain and it is shameful to succumb to pleasure."

"Man is a reed, the weakest of nature, but he is a thinking reed."

"Man is so made that if he is told often enough that he is a fool he believes it."

"Nothing is so conformable to reason as to disavow reason."

"Silence is the greatest persecution; never do the saints keep themselves silent."

"The senses deceive reason through false appearances, and the senses are disturbed by passions, which produce false impressions."

"Thought constitutes the greatness of man."

"What amazes me the most is to see that everyone is not amazed at his own weakness."

"Wisdom leads us back to childhood."

Kahlil Gibran Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Neal) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 03:44:00 +0000

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"Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be."

"He who does not see the kingdom of heaven in this life will never see it in the coming life."

"Let us teach this miserable nation to smile and rejoice with heaven's bounty and glory of life and freedom."

"I believe that even as your fathers came to this land to produce riches, you were born here to produce riches by intelligence, by labor. I believe that it is in you to be good citizens."

"The tears that you spill, the sorrowful, are sweeter than the laughter of snobs and the guffaws of scoffers."

"To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but what he aspires to."

"I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us."

"I know faces, because I look through the fabric my own eye weaves, and behold the reality beneath."

"Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself."

"I was dead. I was a woman who had divorced her soul. I was living apart from this self which you now see."

"We whose senses have been dulled, we gaze in full daylight and yet we do not see. We would cup our ears, but we do not hear; and stretch forth our hands, but we do not touch."

"Many indeed are the owls who know no song unlike their own hooting."

"Am I less man because I believe in a greater man?"

"I have existed from all eternity and, behold, I am here; and I shall exist till the end of time, for my being has no end."

"Life without Liberty is like a body without spirit. Liberty without thought is like a disturbed spirit. Life, liberty, and thought - three persons in one substance, eternal, never-ending, and unceasing."

"Love and what generates it. Rebellion and what creates it. Liberty and what nourishes it. Three manifestations of God. And God is the conscience of the rational world."

"Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love."

"My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me to love what the people abhor and to show good will toward the one they hate."

"My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me never to delight in praise or to be distressed by reproach."

"My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me and demonstrating to me that I am not exalted over the panhandler nor less than the mighty."

"My thought is a tender leaf that sways in every direction and finds pleasure in its swaying."

"Your thought advocates Judaism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. In my thought there is only one universal religion, whose varied paths are but the fingers of the loving hand of the Supreme Being."

"I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers."

"If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees."

Aristotle Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Neal) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 03:14:00 +0000

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"He who has overcome his fears will truly be free."

"It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of reason is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs."

"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous."

"Thus every action must be due to one or other of seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, or appetite."

"Misfortune shows those who are not really friends."

"The young have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations; moreover, their hopeful disposition makes them think themselves equal to great things—and that means having exalted notions."

"Evils draw men together."

"It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences."

"Wit is well-bred insolence."

"He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god."

"Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all."

"Man is by nature a political animal."

"It is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it."

"Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered."

"They should rule who are able to rule best."

"If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost."

"The good citizen need not of necessity possess the virtue which makes a good man."

"Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions."

"Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship."

"The law is reason unaffected by desire."

"The basis of a democratic state is liberty."

"Law is order, and good law is good order."

"The appropriate age for marriage is around eighteen for girls and thirty-seven for men."

"Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods."

"When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they need friendship in addition."

"To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence."

"Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends."

"Hope is a waking dream."

"Any one can get angry — that is easy — or give or spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy."

"For the things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing."

"Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because youth is sweet and they are growing."

"Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular."

"Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully."

"Liars when they speak the truth are not believed."

Saint Thomas Aquinas Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Neal) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 05:12:00 +0000

Click here for books about Saint Thomas Aquinas

"Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do."

"Law: an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community."

"Reason in man is rather like God in the world."

"The most hopeful people in the world are the young and the drunk. The first because they have little experience of failure, and the second because they have succeeded in drowning theirs."

"Man cannot live without joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures."

"Music is the exaltation of the mind derived from things eternal, bursting forth in sound."

"One cannot use an evil action with reference to a good intention."

"The reason, however, why the philosopher may be likened to the poet is this: both are concerned with the marvellous."

"Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine."

"That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell. "

"If forgers and malefactors are put to death by the secular power, there is much more reason for excommunicating and even putting to death one convicted of heresy."

"Beware the man of one book."

Demosthenes Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Neal) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 04:45:00 +0000

Click here for books about Demosthenes

"Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises."

"Every advantage in the past is judged in the light of the final issue."

"The man who has received a benefit ought always to remember it, but he who has granted it ought to forget the fact at once."

"You cannot have a proud and chivalrous spirit if your conduct is mean and paltry; for whatever a man's actions are, such must be his spirit."

"Delivery, delivery, delivery."

Anne Frank Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Neal) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:11:00 +0000

Click here for books about Anne Frank

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before beginning to improve the world."

"Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!"

"God never deserted our people. Right through the ages there were Jews. Through the ages they suffered, but it also made us strong."

"There is an urge and rage in people to destroy, to kill, to murder, and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars will be waged, everything that has been built up, cultivated and grown, will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again."

"I don't think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains."

"I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to people, even those I've never met."

"I soothe my conscience now with the thought that it is better for hard words to be on paper than that Mummy should carry them in her heart."

"It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality."

"Laziness may appear attractive but work gives satisfaction."

"Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands."

"People can tell you to keep your mouth shut, but it doesn't stop you having your own opinions. Even if people are still very young, they shouldn't be prevented from saying what they think."

"People will always follow a good example; be the one to set a good example, then it won't be long before the others follow."

"The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature."

"The only way to truly know a person is to argue with them. For when they argue in full swing, then they reveal their true character."

"Who would ever think that so much went on in the soul of a young girl?"

"Whoever is happy will make others happy, too."

"I trust to luck and do nothing but work, hoping that all will end well."