Anything you can do, I can do better, I can do anything better than you.
Irving Berlin 1888 - 1989
1888 - 1989
Entire Collection
I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.
Richard Feynman 1918 - 1988
1918 - 1988
If someone was to introduce hope and idealism into our political system, I think the tension that would create in other areas would certainly be ripe. You would think that if you bring oxygen to the organism, the organism lives. But there may be other organisms in there that thrive in darkness and in a more anaerobic environment. Watching those creatures writhe will always be interesting.
born 1962
On whether satire would be difficult under an Obama administration
Cities are no more artificial than the hives of bees. The internet is as natural as a spider's web.
born 1948
Straw Dogs
Anti-Semitism, for instance, is simply not the doctrine of a grown-up person.
1903 - 1950
As I Please (1943–1947)
Three and a half million years separate the individual who left these footprints in the sands of Africa from the one who left them on the moon. A mere blink in the eye of evolution. Using his burgeoning intelligence, this most successful of all mammals has exploited the environment to produce food for an ever-increasing population. In spite of disasters when civilisations have over-reached themselves, that process has continued, indeed accelerated, even today. Now mankind is looking for food, not just on this planet but on others. Perhaps the time has now come to put that process into reverse. Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps it's time we control the population to allow the survival of the environment.
David Attenborough born 1926
born 1926
He who can copy can do.
Leonardo da Vinci 1452 - 1519
1452 - 1519
A tiny blue dot set in a sunbeam. Here it is. That's where we live. That's home. We humans are one species and this is our world. It is our responsibility to cherish it. Of all the worlds in our solar system, the only one so far as we know, graced by life.
1934 - 1996
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1990 Update)
It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living.
David Attenborough born 1926
born 1926
I don't think the intelligence reports are all that hot. Some days I get more out of the New York Times.
John F. Kennedy 1917 - 1963
1917 - 1963
It is only empathy and openness that can inspire the community to go beyond the mediocrity of unilaterally legislated values.
Dao De Jing: A Philosophical Translation
Dao De Jing: A Philosophical Translation
I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realised who was telling me this.
Emo Philips born 1956
born 1956
The most important things are unknown or unknowable.
W. Edwards Deming 1900 - 1993
1900 - 1993
Things don't have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What's the function of a galaxy?
1929 - 2018
The Lathe of Heaven (1971)
Power is the great aphrodisiac.
Henry Kissinger 1923 - 2023
1923 - 2023
Life is more fun if you play games.
1916 - 1990
My Uncle Oswald
I'm saying with very few exceptions nothing lasts forever, and amongst those exceptions, no work or thought of man is numbered.
1954 - 2013
Use of Weapons
What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.
T. S. Eliot 1888 - 1965
1888 - 1965
Man is by his constitution a religious animal; atheism is against not only our reason, but our instincts.
Edmund Burke 1729 - 1797
1729 - 1797
Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come.
born 1949
Murakami, H. (2009). 1Q84. Tōkyō: Shinchōsha.
And you who wish to represent by words the form of man and all the aspects of his membrification, relinquish that idea. For the more minutely you describe the more you will confine the mind of the reader, and the more you will keep him from the knowledge of the thing described. And so it is necessary to draw and to describe.
Leonardo da Vinci 1452 - 1519
1452 - 1519
People drain me, even the closest of friends, and I find loneliness to be the best state in the union to live in.
Margaret Cho born 1968
born 1968
Science always changes our perception of reality.
Bernard Baars born 1946
born 1946
The effect of boredom on a large scale in history is underestimated. It is a main cause of revolutions, and would soon bring to an end all the static Utopias and the farmyard civilisation of the Fabians.
1860 - 1954
The End of an Age (1948), ch. 6 'Escapism'
Physics is really nothing more than a search for ultimate simplicity, but so far all we have is a kind of elegant messiness.
born 1951
A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003)