One of my favourite quotes....
Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our
lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the
journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never
come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we've lived.
Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: Generations
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Voltaire
..so many centuries after the Creation it is unlikely that anyone could
find hitherto unknown lands of any value.
- Committee advising Ferdinand and
Isabella regarding Columbus' proposal, 1486
There is a race between mankind and the universe. Mankind is trying
to build bigger, better, faster, and more foolproof machines. The universe
is trying to build bigger, better, and faster fools. So far the universe
is winning.
Albert Einstein
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
Voltaire
Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're
crazy.
Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill
for oil in 1859.
We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy.
Simon Newcomb, astronomer, 1888
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin
Little by little, one travels far.
J.R.R. Tolkien
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless
they kill in large numbers and to the sound of
trumpets.
Voltaire
Political correctness is not mad - it's `reality-challenged'.
Vanessa Simpson, Poster on BBC News: Have your say discussion
The true civilization is where every man
gives to every other every right that he claims for himself.
Robert Ingersoll
The penalty that good men pay for failing to participate in public affairs
is to be governed by others worse than themselves.
Bernard Weatherill, Speaker of the House of Commons 1983-1992
After the
last tree has been cut down; after the last river has been poisoned;
after the
last fish has been caught, only then will you find that money cannot be
eaten.
A Cree Prophecy - Anon.
It is better to risk sparing a guilty person than to condemn an innocent
one.
Voltaire
Take a music bath once or twice a week
for a few seasons,
and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the
body.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
Lord Kelvin, president,
Royal Society, 1895.
Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.
Gimli, in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings", Book 2, "The Ring goes South"
When I compose that, I was conscious of being inspired by God Almighty. Do you think I can consider your puny little fiddle when He speaks to me?
Ludwig van Beethoven, said when a violinist complained that a passage was unplayable.
Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light.
Claude Debussy
Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
Voltaire
I am in too great doubt to rule. To prepare or to let be? To prepare for war, which is yet only guessed: train craftsmen and tillers in the midst of peace for bloodspilling and battle: put iron in the hands of greedy captains who will love only conquest, and count the slain as their glory? Will they say to Eru: At least your enemies were amongst them? Or to fold hands, while friends die unjustly: let men live in blind peace, until the ravisher is at the gate? What then will they do: match naked hands against iron and die in vain, or flee leaving the cries of women behind them? Will they say to Eru: At least I spilled no blood?
Tar-Meneldur, in J.R.R. Tolkien's "Aldarion and Erendis", published in Unfinished Tales. (Eru is a Quenya (High-elven) word for God).
Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.
Marechal
Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.
Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?
H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers,
1927.
All men by nature desire knowledge
Aristotle
640K ought to be enough for anybody.
Bill Gates, 1981
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
Immanuel Kant
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ...'
Issac Asimov
Always plan for the worst, that way all your surprises will be pleasant ones.
Verin Mathewin, in Robert Jordan's The Dragon Reborn, part of the Wheel of Time Cycle
Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.
Gandalf the Grey, in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings", Book 1, "The Shadow of the Past"
In the end, we all are who we are, no matter how much we may appear to have changed.
Giles, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episode 7.1 "Lessons"
Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy, the mad
daughter of a wise mother.
Voltaire
He who breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.
Gandalf the Grey, in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings", Book 2, "The Council of Elrond"
He should not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.
Elrond Halfelven, in response to Gimli's quote above, in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings", Book 2, "The Ring goes South"
The survival value of intelligence is that it allows us to extinct a bad idea, before the idea extincts us
Karl Popper
To pray to God is to flatter oneself that with words one can alter nature.
Voltaire
Perl is designed to give you several ways to do anything, so consider
picking the most readable one.
Larry Wall in the perl man page
If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor.
Voltaire
(in case you were wondering, some of Voltaire's quotes make me smile!)
Now is no time to be making new enemies.
Attributed to Voltaire, when asked on his deathbed by a
priest to renounce the devil and turn to God.
Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies
the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen an angry
penguin charging at them in excess of 100mph. They'd be a lot more careful
about what they say if they had.
Linus Torvalds
People get the government their behavior deserves. People deserve
better than that.
Richard Stallman
Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Winston Churchill
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
Oscar Wilde
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative.
Winston Churchill
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.
Voltaire
The many truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view.
Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi, in "Return of the Jedi"
A Conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.
Benjamin Disraeli
Music creates order out of chaos; for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous.
Yehudi Menuhin
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
Galileo Galilei
The higher the voice the smaller the intellect
Ernest Newman
Music is well said to be the speech of angels.
Thomas Carlyle
America is a mistake, a giant mistake.
Sigmund Freud
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