I owe my solitude to other people.
Alan W. Watts 1915 - 1973
1915 - 1973
Entire Collection
Others may know pleasure, but pleasure is not happiness. It has no more importance than a shadow following a man.
Muhammad Ali 1942 - 2016
1942 - 2016
Truth, when witty, is the wittiest of all things.
Julius Hare 1795 - 1855
1795 - 1855
Stolen sweets are best.
Colley Cibber 1671 - 1757
1671 - 1757
He thought about himself, and the whole earth, Of man the wonderful, and of the stars, And how the deuce they ever could have birth; And then he thought of earthquakes, and of wars, How many miles the moon might have in girth, Of air-balloons, and of the many bars To perfect knowledge of the boundless skies; And then he thought of Donna Julia’s eyes.
Lord Byron 1788 - 1824
1788 - 1824
For the rest of it, the last and greatest art is to limit and isolate oneself.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749 - 1832
1749 - 1832
Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard but not seen.
Leonardo da Vinci 1452 - 1519
1452 - 1519
The conventional definition of management is getting work done through people, but real management is developing people through work.
Agha Hasan Abedi 1922 - 1995
1922 - 1995
On young couples who have not yet matured enough to recognise and respect each other's solitude.
Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 - 1926
1875 - 1926
To remain stable is to refrain from trying to separate yourself from a pain because you know that you cannot. Running away from fear is fear, fighting pain is pain, trying to be brave is being scared. If the mind is in pain, the mind is pain. The thinker has no other form than his thought. There is no escape.
1915 - 1973
Watts, A. (1968). The Wisdom of Insecurity. Vintage.
To have a great man for a friend seems pleasant to those who have never tried it; those who have, fear it.
Horace 65 - 8 BC
65 - 8 BC
It will be a great day in science if we sometime discover a damp shadow in the universe where a fungus has sprouted. And here we are, a gaudy efflorescence of consciousness, staggeringly improbable in light of everything we know of the reality that contains us.
born 1943
Robinson, M. (2010). Absence of mind. New Haven: Yale University Press.
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
Winston Churchill 1874 - 1965
1874 - 1965
Human beings have an inalienable right to invent themselves; when that right is pre-empted it is called brain-washing.
Germaine Greer born 1939
born 1939
To lie is so vile, that even if it were in speaking well of godly things it would take off something from God's grace; and Truth is so excellent, that if it praises but small things they become noble.
Leonardo da Vinci 1452 - 1519
1452 - 1519
I would remind you that extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!
Barry Goldwater 1909 - 1998
1909 - 1998
The end point of rationality is to demonstrate the limits of rationality.
Blaise Pascal 1623 - 1662
1623 - 1662
This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.
Douglas Adams 1952 - 2001
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy ‘‘Fit the Fifth’’ (radio program) (1978)
1952 - 2001
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy ‘‘Fit the Fifth’’ (radio program) (1978)
Why is there something rather than nothing?
Gottfried Leibniz 1646 - 1716
1646 - 1716
The desire to appear clever often prevents one from being so.
François de La Rochefoucauld 1613 - 1680
1613 - 1680
Mind, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavour to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with.
Ambrose Bierce 1842 - 1914
Bierce, A. (1906). The cynic's word book. New York: Doubleday, Page, & Company.
1842 - 1914
Bierce, A. (1906). The cynic's word book. New York: Doubleday, Page, & Company.
When the President does it, that means that it's not illegal.
Richard Nixon 1913 - 1994
1913 - 1994
A normal human being does not want the Kingdom of Heaven: he wants life on earth to continue. This is not solely because he is "weak," "sinful" and anxious for a "good time." Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise. Ultimately it is the Christian attitude which is self-interested and hedonistic, since the aim is always to get away from the painful struggle of earthly life and find eternal peace in some kind of Heaven or Nirvana. The humanist attitude is that the struggle must continue and that death is the price of life.
George Orwell 1903 - 1950
1903 - 1950
It was thinking about Casagemas’s death that started me painting in blue.
Pablo Picasso 1881 - 1973
1881 - 1973
In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our universe is simply one of those things that happen from time to time. Although the creation of a universe might seem very unlikely, I'll emphasise that no one has counted the failed attempts.
1940 - 2019
Paraphrase : A Short History of Nearly Everything