Quotes with a more or less deep sense related to life itself
Don't walk in front of me, I might be unable to follow you.
Don't walk after me, I might be unable to lead you.
Just walk by my side and be my friend.
He is no fool - who gives what he cannot keep -
to gain what he cannot lose. -- Jim Eliot
I have a firm grip on reality. Now I can strangle it.
To see is not to perceive,
to perceive is to not live,
to live is not to die,
not to die...is not life.
"The trust and respect of a child is an honor to be earned, not demanded."
"I viewed my fellow man not as a fallen angel, but as a risen ape"
- Desmond Morris, "The Naked Ape"
From a bumper-sticker:
ALCOHOL leaves you breathless
DRUGS leave you senseless
RELIGION leaves you mindless
Love your enemies: they'll go crazy trying to figure out what you're up
to.
"I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my
body. Then I realized who was telling me this."
-- Emo Phillips
As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its
fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be
popular.
-- Oscar Wilde
"If you want to know what happens to you when you die, go look at some dead
stuff."
-- Dave Enyeart
The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events
the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the
side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature.
For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists
as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine
of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be
refuted [italics his], in the real sense, by science, for this
doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific
knowledge has not yet been able to set foot.
But I am convinced that such behavior on the part of representatives
of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a
doctrine which is to maintain itself not in clear light but only in
the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with
incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the
ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up
the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear
and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of
priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those
forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the
Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult
but an incomparably more worthy task...
It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious
convictions, a lie which is being systematically repetead. I do not
believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have
expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called
religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of
the world so far as our science can reveal it.
-- Albert Einstein
"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward,
then we are a sorry lot indeed."
-- Albert Einstein
The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it
seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the
fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving
after rational knowledge.
- Albert Einstein
The surest protection against temptation is cowardice.
-- Mark Twain
"You can't have everything. Where would you put it?"
-- Steven Wright
You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.
-- Booker T. Washington
Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a
great crystal river. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to
the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of
life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But
one creature said at last, "I trust that the current knows where it is
going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I
shall die of boredom."
The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that
current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the
rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!"
But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go,
and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.
Yet, in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current
lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.
And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried,
"See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the
Messiah, come to save us all!" And the one carried in the current
said, "I am no more Messiah than you. The river delight to lift us
free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this
adventure.
But they cried the more, "Saviour!" all the while clinging to
the rocks, making legends of a Saviour.
-- ??? in some newsgroup
pepke@scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke) in alt.atheism.moderated:
As for love, in the human realm, real worship in the context of love is a
warning sign that there's some seriously dysfunctional behavior going on.
Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest
way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.
-- Sinclair Lewis
Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
-- Groucho Marx
"When people stop believing in God, the problem is not that thereafter they believe in
nothing, it is that thereafter they will believe in anything."
-- G.K. Chesterton (?)
For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat,
and wrong.
-- H. L. Mencken
Going to church does not make a person religious, nor does going to
school make a person educated, any more than going to a garage makes a
person a car.
This planet has -- or rather had -- a problem, which was this: most of
the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many
solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were
largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper,
which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of
paper that were unhappy.
-- Douglas Adams
``I think it would be a good idea.'' -- Mahatma Ghandi, when asked what he
thought of Western civilization
Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.
-- Harry Emerson Fosdick
"I call Christianity the *one* great curse, the *one* great intrinsic
depravity, the *one* great instinct for revenge for which no expedient
is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, *petty* -- I call it
the *one* mortal blemish of mankind."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
God is Dead
-- Nietzsche
Nietzsche is Dead
-- God
Nietzsche is God
-- The Dead
"We should make things as simple as possible, but not simpler."
---- Albert Einstein
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go
away".
-- Philip K. Dick
"The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity
and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted
activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy ...
neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water."
"The stars are made of the same atoms as the earth." I usually pick one small
topic like this to give a lecture on. Poets say science takes away from the
beauty of the stars -- mere gobs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere." I too can
see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?
The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination -- stuck on this carousel
my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern -- of which
I am a part -- perhaps my stuff was belched from some forgotten star, as one
is belching there. Or see them with the greater eye of Palomar, rushing all
apart from some common starting point when they were perhaps all together.
What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the *why?* It does not do harm to the
mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than
any artists of the past imagined! Why do the poets of the present not speak
of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were like a man, but
if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?
-- Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988)
One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious.
-- Chateaubriand (1768-1848)
I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending
their lives doing things they detest to make money they don't want to
buy things they don't need to impress people they dislike.
-- Emile Henry Gauvreay
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum --
"I think that I think, therefore I think that I am."
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
-- Bohr
"Person who say it cannot be done should not interrupt person doing it."
-- Chinese Proverb
"As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual
certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life -- so I
became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can
meet girls."
-- Matt Cartmill
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not
certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
-- Albert Einstein
'If there is any religion that would cope with modern
scientific needs, it would be Buddhism' - Albert Einstein
Religion is not a good thing because of the number of people who believe it,
any more than a disease is a good thing because of the number of people who
have caught it.
Inside every little problem there's a BIG problem, struggling to get out.
reinvent the wheel: v. To design or implement a tool equivalent to
an existing one or part of one, with the implication that doing so
is silly or a waste of time. This is often a valid criticism.
On the other hand, automobiles don't use wooden rollers, and some
kinds of wheel have to be reinvented many times before you get them
right. On the third hand, people reinventing the wheel do tend to
come up with the moral equivalent of a trapezoid with an offset
axle.
-- Hacker Jargon File 2.9.11
the bible is a source of wisdom, but is not the repository of truth.
-- key@netcom.com (peter li'ir key)
Science is what happens when preconception meets verification.
A real person has two reasons for doing anything ... a good reason and
the real reason.
Four blind men went to the zoo and visited the elephant. One blind man
touched its side and said, 'The elephant is like a wall.' The next blind man
touched its trunk and said, 'The elephant is like a snake.' The next blind
man touched its leg and said, 'The elephant is like a column.' The last
blind man touched its tail and said, 'The elephant is like a broom.' Then
the four blind men started to fight, each one believing that his opinion was
the right one. Each only understood the part he had touched; none of them
understood the whole.
-- someone
Life is too important to be taken seriously.
Gauls! We have nothing to fear; except perhaps that the sky may fall
on our heads tomorrow. But as we all know, tomorrow never comes!!
-- Adventures of Asterix.
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
--Macbeth V.v.24-28
History is a lie commonly agreed upon. - Nietzsche
Maybe in order to understand mankind we have to look at that
word itself. MANKIND. Basically, it's made up of two separate words
"mank" and "ind." What do these words mean? It's a mystery
and that's why so is mankind.
Statistics are like lampposts: they are good to lean on, but
they don't shed much light.
-- Storm P (Robert Storm-Petersen), 1882-1946, Danish black-and-white artist
The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency.
-- Eugene McCarthy
The best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want
and then advise them to do it.
-- Harry S. Truman
THE CARDINAL CONUNDRUM:
An optimist believes we live in the best of all possible worlds.
A pessimist fears this is true.
The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
- Chinese proverb
No question is stupid, as long as you do not know the answer.
Of all sexual aberrations, chastity is surely the strangest. Andre Gide
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims
may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons
than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron's cruelty may
sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who
torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with
the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis, _God in the Dock_
"Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today?
Today is a gift. That's why we call it The Present."
-- Babatunde Olatunji
Once there was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled.
This time is called the Dark Ages.
"Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western
religion, Rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of
Western science."
-- Gary Zukav, "The Dancing Wu Li Masters"
God may be subtle, but He isn't plain mean.
-- Albert Einstein
Remember when you were a kid and the boys didn't like the girls? Only
sissies liked girls? What I'm trying to tell you is that nothing's
changed. You think boys grow out of not liking girls, but we don't
grow out of it. We just grow horny. That's the problem. We mix up
liking pussy for liking girls. Believe me, one couldn't have less to
do with the other.
-- Jules Feiffer
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt
Education is learning that you did not even know what you did not even know
you did not even know.
Clay is moulded to make a vessel, but the utility of the vessel lies in the
space where there is nothing. ... Thus, taking advantage of what is, we
recognize the utility of what is not.
Lao Tze
Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes.
Don't resist them.- that only creates sorrow.
Let reality be reality.
-- Lao-Tse, Chinese philosopher
Nature is not human-hearted.
Lao Tzu
To lead the people, walk behind them.
-- Lao-Tzu
Better stop short than fill to the brim.
Oversharpen the blade, and the edge will soon blunt. Amass a store
of gold and jade, and no one can protect it. Claim wealth and
titles, and disaster will follow. Retire when the work is done.
This is the way of heaven.
-- Tao Te Ching
"Given that God is infinite, and the Universe is also infinite,
would you like a toasted tea-cake?" - Toaster, Red Dwarf
As you go the way of life you will see a great chasm.
Jump.
It is not as wide as you think. - Native American advice
Two leaps per chasm is fatal. -- Chinese proverb
In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that
our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time."
-- Edward P. Tryon
If you don't enjoy what you have, how can you be happy with more?
--
Unsere größte Angst ist nicht, daß wir unfähig sind, unsere größte Angst ist,
daß wir unvorstellbare Kraft in uns haben. Es ist unser Licht, nicht unsere
Dunkelheit, das uns am meisten ängstigt. Wir fragen uns, wer bin ich, um
talentierrt, großartig und wunderbar zu sein? Aber warum maßen wir uns an zu
glauben, wir wären es nicht? Du bist ein Lind Gottes, wenn du dich klein
machtst, dienst du nicht der Welt. Es ist nichts erleuchtendes daran, sich
klein zu machen, damit andere sich nicht unsicher in deiner Nähe fühlen.
Wir wurden geboren, um Gottes Glanz, der in uns ist, zu verkörpern. Er ist
nicht nur in Einigen von uns, er ist in uns allen. Und wenn wir unser eigenes
Licht scheinen lassen, dann geben wir anderen Menschen unbewußt die
Erlaubnis das Gleiche zu tun. Wenn wir uns von unsere Angst befreien, dann
wird unsere Gegenwart wie von selbst andere befreien.
-- Nelson Mandela
Aus: Terry Prattchett "The fifth Elephant"
Vetinari was looking intently at the blind, blank map. It was, as he felt, very much like the future: a few things were outlined, there were some rough guesses, but everything else was waiting to be created.
When people say "We must move with the times," they really mean "You must do it my way." And there are some who would say that Ankh-Morpork is ... a kind of vampire. It bites, and what it bites it turns into copies of itself. It sucks, too.
"Ich denke, also bin ich." -- Descartes
"Ich denke nicht. Was dann?" -- Zen-Meister Seung Sahn
"I am what I do" -- C.S. Lewis
"Es gibt zwei Arten, das Geschirr abzuwaschen. Die erste ist das Geschirr
zu spuelen, um sauberes Geschirr zu haben, und die zweite ist, das Geschirr
zu spuelen, um das Geschirr zu spuelen." -- Thich Nhat Hanh
"Das Wunder ist nicht, auf dem Wasser zu wandeln,
sondern auf der Erde zu gehen." -- Thich Nhat Hanh
