If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.
Alexander the Great 356 - 323 BC
356 - 323 BC
Entire Collection
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
G. K. Chesterton 1874 - 1936
1874 - 1936
Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.
Pablo Picasso 1881 - 1973
1881 - 1973
William Tell could take an apple off your head, Taylor could take out a processed pea.
1940 - 2012
Darts Commentary
I don't think whole populations are villainous, but Americans are just extraordinarily unaware of all kinds of things. If you live in the middle of that vast continent, with apparently everything your heart could wish for just because you were born there, then why worry? [...] If people lose knowledge, sympathy and understanding of the natural world, they're going to mistreat it and will not ask their politicians to care for it.
David Attenborough born 1926
born 1926
We're living among infinite possibilities. And the prevalent philosophies of post-modernist pessimism that come out of the universities are really a major tragedy. The opportunities for progress and change… are absolutely tremendous. Anybody who tells you that we're running out of resources or in a terrible mess--they are idiots. We can't run out of resources. Resources exist when the human mind sees how to use something. To say we are running out of resources is like saying we are running out of brain cells.
Robert Anton Wilson 1932 - 2007
1932 - 2007
Mathematics is the only religion that has proved itself a religion.
Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.
born 1965
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Like too much alcohol, self-consciousness makes us see ourselves double, and we make the double image for two selves - mental and material, controlling and controlled, reflective and spontaneous. Thus instead of suffering we suffer about suffering, and suffer about suffering about suffering.
Alan Watts 1915 - 1973
1915 - 1973
If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.
Thomas De Quincey 1785 - 1859
1785 - 1859
Last night I had a dream, when I got to Africa, I had one hell of a rumble. I had to beat Tarzan’s behind first, For claiming to be King of the Jungle. For this fight, I’ve wrestled with alligators, I’ve tussled with a whale. I done handcuffed lightning and throw thunder in jail. You know I’m bad. Just last week, I murdered a rock, Injured a stone, Hospitalised a brick. I’m so mean, I make medicine sick. I’m so fast, man, I can run through a hurricane and don't get wet. When George Foreman meets me, he’ll pay his debt. I can drown the drink of water, and kill a dead tree, Wait till you see Muhammad Ali.
Muhammad Ali 1942 - 2016
A poem about his match with George Foreman, known as the Rumble in the Jungle (1974)
1942 - 2016
A poem about his match with George Foreman, known as the Rumble in the Jungle (1974)
If you live for others, you must live for others, and not as a roundabout way of getting an advantage for yourself.
George Orwell 1903 - 1950
1903 - 1950
One of the biggest paradoxes of our world: memories vanish when we want to remember, but fix themselves permanently in the mind when we want to forget.
Emil Cioran 1911 - 1995
1911 - 1995
Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.
John Maynard Keynes 1883 - 1946
1883 - 1946
If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair.
Samuel Johnson 1709 - 1784
1709 - 1784
London; a nation, not a city.
Benjamin Disraeli 1804 - 1881
1804 - 1881
That all things are changed, and that nothing really perishes, and that the sum of matter remains exactly the same, is sufficiently certain.
Francis Bacon 1561 - 1626
1561 - 1626
Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.
1903 - 1950
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), part 1, ch. 7: Winston Smith
Only the madman is absolutely sure.
1932 - 2007
Masks of the Illuminati
Liberty is liberty, not equality or fairness or justice or human happiness or a quiet conscience.
Isaiah Berlin 1909 - 1997
1909 - 1997
Religion is a conceited effort to deny the most obvious realities.
H. L. Mencken 1880 - 1956
1880 - 1956
What colour is in a picture, enthusiasm is in life.
Vincent van Gogh 1853 - 1890
1853 - 1890
The secret to happiness is low expectations.
Barry Schwartz born 1946
born 1946
The Fundamentalist Christians have told me that I am a slave of Satan and should have my demons expelled with an exorcism. The Fundamentalist Materialists inform me that I am a liar, charlatan, fraud and scoundrel. Aside from this minor difference, the letters are astoundingly similar. Both groups share the same crusading zeal and the same lack of humour, charity and common human decency. These intolerable cults have served to confirm me in my agnosticism by presenting further evidence to support my contention that when dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases.
1932 - 2007
Cosmic Trigger Volume I: Final Secret of the Illuminati
By the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young; but, in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression.
Edmund Burke 1729 - 1797
1729 - 1797