Entire Collection
This thing we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.
1892 - 1979
Used in 'Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy' (2017). With thanks to C-Lee
94% of problems in business are systems driven and only 6% are people driven.
W. Edwards Deming 1900 - 1993
1900 - 1993
The most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened.
Albert Einstein 1879 - 1955
Comment after hearing a description of the 'Big Bang theory' given by its inventor Georges Lemaitre. :
1879 - 1955
Comment after hearing a description of the 'Big Bang theory' given by its inventor Georges Lemaitre. :
Politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
Charles de Gaulle 1890 - 1970
1890 - 1970
According to convention, I am not simply what I am doing now. I am also what I have done, and my conventionally edited version of my past is made to seem almost more the real 'me' than what I am at this moment. For what I am seems so fleeting and intangible, but what I was is fixed and final. It is the firm basis for predictions of what I will be in the future, and so it comes about that I am more closely identified with what no longer exists than what actually is!
1915 - 1973
Watts, A. (1957). The way of Zen. New York: Pantheon.
During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man.
Thomas Hobbes 1588 - 1679
1588 - 1679
It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds.
c. 620 - 564 BC
The Jay and the Peacock
Peace, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
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.
He more had pleased us, had he pleased us less.
Joseph Addison 1672 - 1719
referring to Cowley : Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1672 - 1719
referring to Cowley : Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
I'm so bored with it all.
1874 - 1965
Spoken before slipping into a coma and dying nine days later.
If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.
George Orwell 1903 - 1950
1903 - 1950
What experience and history teach is this—that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770 - 1831
1770 - 1831
A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.
Vincent van Gogh 1853 - 1890
1853 - 1890
The key to wisdom is this - constant and frequent questioning, for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth.
Peter Abelard 1079 - 1142
1079 - 1142
The more cunning a man is, the less he suspects that he will be caught in a simple thing. The more cunning a man is, the simpler the trap he must be caught in.
1821 - 1881
Crime and Punishment (1866)
When I speak of the importance of the scientific method in regard to the conduct of human life, I am thinking of scientific method in its mundane forms. Not that I would undervalue science as a metaphysic, but the value of science as metaphysic belongs in another sphere. It belongs with religion and art and love, with the pursuit of the beatific vision, with promethean madness that lead the greatest men to strive to become gods. Perhaps the only ultimate value of human life is to be found in this Promethean madness. But it is a value that is religious, not political, or even moral.
1872 - 1970
The Scientific Outlook
Paranoia is an illness I contracted in institutions. It is not the reason for my sentences to reform school and prison. It is the effect, not the cause.
Jack Henry Abbott 1944 - 2002
1944 - 2002
Because I don’t trust him, we are friends.
Bertolt Brecht 1898 - 1956
1898 - 1956
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.
1903 - 1950
Orwell, G. (1949). Nineteen eighty-four. London: Secker & Warburg.
I have seen the science I worshipped, and the aircraft I loved, destroying the civilisation I expected them to serve.
Charles Lindbergh 1902 - 1974
1902 - 1974
It's clearly a crisis of two things: of consciousness and conditioning. We have the technological power, the engineering skills to save our planet, to cure disease, to feed the hungry, to end war; But we lack the intellectual vision, the ability to change our minds. We must decondition ourselves from 10,000 years of bad behaviour. And, it's not easy.
Terence McKenna 1946 - 2000
1946 - 2000
The only reason we die, is because we accept death as an inevitability.
Seth MacFarlane born 1973
born 1973
We must touch his weaknesses with a delicate hand. There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence, that we can scarce weed out the fault without eradicating the virtue.
Oliver Goldsmith 1728 - 1774
1728 - 1774
Future, n. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true, and our happiness is assured.
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.