No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.
Robert Frost 1874 - 1963
1874 - 1963
Entire Collection
But to us, probability is the very guide of life.
Joseph Butler 1692 - 1752
1692 - 1752
The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line. The objection to it is not that it is predominantly painful, but that it is lacking in sense.
1880 - 1956
A Mencken Chrestomathy
If I paint a wild horse, you might not see the horse... but surely you will see the wildness!
Pablo Picasso 1881 - 1973
1881 - 1973
We know what happened in the first trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second, but what happened in the beginning?
Christopher Potter born 1959
born 1959
If you trust in Nature, in the small Things that hardly anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behind, astonished, but in your innermost awareness, awakeness, and knowledge.
Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 - 1926
1875 - 1926
Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.
William Shakespeare 1564 - 1616
1564 - 1616
There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn’t give a damn what goes on in between.
Thomas Beecham 1879 - 1961
1879 - 1961
If some great Power would agree to make me always think what is true and do what is right, on condition of being turned into a sort of clock and wound up every morning before I got out of bed, I should instantly close with the offer.
Thomas Henry Huxley 1825 - 1895
1825 - 1895
A guilty system recognises no innocents. As with any power apparatus which thinks everybody’s either for it or against it, we’re against it. You would be too, if you thought about it. The very way you think places you among its enemies. This might not be your fault, because every society imposes some of its values on those raised within it, but the point is that some societies try to maximise that effect, and some try to minimise it. You come from one of the latter and you’re being asked to explain yourself to one of the former. Prevarication will be more difficult than you imagine; neutrality is probably impossible. You cannot choose not to have the politics you do; they are not some separate set of entities somehow detachable from the rest of your being; they are a function of your existence. I know that and they know that; you had better accept it.
1954 - 2013
The player of games
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom, in the pursuit of truth as in the endeavour after a worthy manner of life.
1872 - 1970
'An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish' (1943), in Unpopular Essays (1950)
Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.
Pablo Picasso 1881 - 1973
1881 - 1973
Historically, all ethics undoubtedly begin with religion; but I do not now deal with historical questions. I do not ask who was the first lawgiver. I only maintain that it is we, and we alone, who are responsible for adopting or rejecting some suggested moral laws; it is we who must distinguish between the true prophets and the false prophets. All kinds of norms have been claimed to be God-given. If you accept 'Christian' ethics of equality and toleration and freedom of conscience only because of its claim to rest upon divine authority, then you build on a weak basis; for it has been only too often claimed that inequality is willed by God, and that we must not be tolerant with unbelievers. If, however, you accept the Christian ethics not because you are commanded to do so but because of your conviction that it is the right decision to take, then it is you who have decided.
Karl Popper 1902 - 1994
1902 - 1994
We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.
1903 - 1950
Orwell, G. (1949). Nineteen eighty-four. London: Secker & Warburg.
Most men make use of the first part of their life to render the last part miserable.
Jean de La Bruyère 1645 - 1696
1645 - 1696
The first requirement for a composer is to be dead.
Arthur Honegger 1892 - 1955
1892 - 1955
Hey. Whatever you should be doing right now. Go do it.
Too much consistency is as bad for the mind as it is for the body. Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead.
Aldous Huxley 1894 - 1963
1894 - 1963
Half of wisdom is learning what to unlearn.
Larry Niven born 1938
born 1938
Two hours of writing fiction leaves this writer completely drained. For those two hours he has been in a different place with totally different people.
Roald Dahl 1916 - 1990
1916 - 1990
To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.
Voltaire 1694 - 1778
1694 - 1778
The broad mass of a nation...will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.
Adolf Hitler 1889 - 1945
1889 - 1945
The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable.
H. L. Mencken 1880 - 1956
1880 - 1956
Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?
George W. Bush born 1946
born 1946
So long as aliens do not exist, human beings are the aliens in the scientific woodpile.
Christopher Potter born 1959
born 1959