The universe was made on purpose, the circle said. In whatever galaxy you happen to find yourself, you take the circumference of a circle, divide it by its diameter, measure closely enough, and uncover a miracle — another circle, drawn kilometres downstream of the decimal point. There would be richer messages farther in. It doesn't matter what you look like, or what you're made of, or where you come from. As long as you live in this universe, and have a modest talent for mathematics, sooner or later you'll find it. It's already here. It's inside everything. You don't have to leave your planet to find it. In the fabric of space and in the nature of matter, as in a great work of art, there is, written small, the artist’s signature. Standing over humans, gods, and demons, subsuming Caretakers and Tunnel builders, there is an intelligence that antedates the universe.
Carl SaganAmerican astrophysicist, cosmologist and author1934 - 1996
When the pope sits on the chamber pot to shit, does he believe in his own infallibility? Does not every imposter occasionally recognise his own hairy, homely humanity? Perhaps not; worn long enough, sometimes the Mask of Authority becomes the man. Even looking in a mirror, he will see the sacred Mask and not his own ordinary human face.
Robert Anton WilsonAmerican author, futurist, and agnostic mystic1932 - 2007
Yuri GagarinSoviet pilot and cosmonaut, first human in space1934 - 1968
Reportedly spoken after his flight (1961) and quoted in Wayne Lee, To Rise from Earth (1996); its authenticity is disputed.
Sometimes quoted as ‘I see no god up here’.
Reportedly spoken after his flight (1961) and quoted in Wayne Lee, To Rise from Earth (1996); its authenticity is disputed.
Sometimes quoted as ‘I see no god up here’.
So often, a visit to a bookshop has cheered me, and reminded me that there are good things in the world.
The Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.
Even as it stands, the Home Guard could only exist in a country where men feel themselves free. The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do: they cannot give the factory-worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. THAT RIFLE HANGING ON THE WALL OF THE WORKING-CLASS FLAT OR LABOURER'S COTTAGE, IS THE SYMBOL OF DEMOCRACY. IT IS OUR JOB TO SEE THAT IT STAYS THERE.
George OrwellBritish writer and journalist1903 - 1950
For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
You must stop using too many adjectives. Surely it is better to say 'she was a tall girl with a bosom' than 'she was a tall girl with a shapely, prominent bosom', or some such rubbish. The first one says it all.
I love to revel in philosophical matters, especially astronomy. I study astronomy more than any other foolishness there is. I am a perfect slave to it. I am at it all the time. I have got more smoked glass than clothes. I am as familiar with the stars as the comets are. I know all the facts and figures and I have all the knowledge there is concerning them. I yelp astronomy like a sun-dog, and paw the constellations like Ursa Major.
The agnostic, the sceptic, is neurotic, but this does not imply a false philosophy; it implies the discovery of facts to which he does not know how to adapt himself. The intellectual who tries to escape from neurosis by escaping from the facts is merely acting on the principle that 'where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.'
Alan WattsBritish American author and lecturer1915 - 1973
Watts, A. (1968). The Wisdom of Insecurity. Vintage.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
John F. KennedyPresident of the United States from 1961 to 19631917 - 1963
Amid the vastness of the things among which we live, the existence of nothingness holds the first place; its function extends over all things that have no existence, and its essence, as regards time, lies precisely between the past and the future, and has nothing in the present. This nothingness has the part equal to the whole, and the whole to the part, the divisible to the indivisible; and the product of the sum is the same whether we divide or multiply, and in addition as in subtraction; as is proved by arithmeticians by their tenth figure which represents zero; and its power has not extension among the things of Nature.