Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I am older now, and sleep less, and have seen most of what there is to see and am not very much impressed any more, I suppose, by anything.
Customs tell a man who he is, where he belongs, what he must do. Better illogical customs than none; men cannot live together without them.
There were many, many times thereafter that Don regretted having enlisted - but so has every man who ever volunteered for military service.
All knowledge that is not the real product of observation, or of consequences deduced from observation, is entirely groundless and illusory.
A surprising proportion of mathematicians are accomplished musicians. Is it because music and mathematics share patterns that are beautiful?
There are perhaps 5% of the population that simply can't think. There are another 5% who can, and do. The remaining 90% can think, but don't
Subconsciously the genius is feared as an image breaker; frequently he does not accept the opinions of the mass, or man's opinion of himself.
From the strictest humanitarian viewpoint, any attempt to stop the processes by which over crowded cities purge themselves is not a kindness.
When the need arises - and it does - you must be able to shoot your own dog. Don't farm it out — that doesn't make it nicer, it makes it worse.
Geniuses and supergeniuses always make their own rules about sex as on everything else; they do not accept the monkey customs of their lessers.
The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship.
I've never understood how God could expect His creatures to pick the one true religion by faith-it strikes me as a sloppy way to run a universe.
The killer looked up as the bullet hit him. He looked as if he were puzzled by some strange occurence, being too freshly dead to be aware of it.
I scrolled on down to the obituaries. I usually read the obituaries first as there is always the happy chance that one of them will make my day.
Age does not bring wisdom... but it does give perspective... and the saddest sight of all is to see, far behind you, temptations you've resisted.
To get anywhere, or even to live a long time, a man has to guess, and guess right, over and over again, without enough data for a logical answer.
Pain is the basic mechanism built into us by millions of years of evolution which safeguards us by warning when something threatens our survival.
It is impossible for a man to love his wife whole heartedly without loving all women somewhat. I suppose that the converse must be true of women.
And since time sets its own tempo, like a heartbeat or an ebb tide, timepieces don't really keep time. They just keep up with it, if they're able.
Governments are trying to achieve unanimity by stifling any scientist who disagrees. Einstein could not have got funding under the present system.
It's up to the artist to use language that can be understood, not hide it in some private code... obscurity is usually the refuge of incompetence.
Daughters can spend ten percent more than a man can make in any usual occupation. That’s a law of nature, to be known henceforth as ‘Harshaw’s Law.
I'll give you an exact definition. When the happiness of another person becomes as essential to yourself as your own, then the state of love exists.
Teaching causes people to go into situations from which they cannot escape, except by thinking. Do not handicap children by making their lives easy.
But, do you know, once you get used to it's rather cute. I mean, if a girl looks alright to start with, she still looks alright with her head smooth.
Women seem to have almost unlimited capacity for forgiveness. (Since it is usually a man who needs forgiveness, this must be a racial survival trait.
The worst that can possibly have happened to him is death and that we are all in for---if not this morning, then in days, or weeks, or years at most.
In many cases a dull proof can be supplemented by a geometric analogue so simple and beautiful that the truth of a theorem is almost seen at a glance.
God split himself into a myriad parts that he might have friends. This may not be true, but it sounds good, and is no sillier than any other theology.
There is no conclusive evidence of life after death, but there is no evidence of any sort against it. Soon enough you will know, so why fret about it?
I don't see why human people make such a heavy trip out of sex. It isn't anything complex, it is simply the best thing in life, even better than food.
But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.
A fake fortuneteller can be tolerated. But an authentic soothsayer should be shot on sight. Cassandra did not get half the kicking around she deserved.
If tempted by something that feels 'altruistic,' examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it!
The natural pattern of current astronomy is provided by the cryptic unity of nature itself (belief in which is the chief act of faith of the scientist).
What we think of as 'Physical beauty' is almost certainly a tag for a complex of useful survival characteristics. Smartness - intelligence - among them.
The truth is, natural organisms have managed to do everything we want to do without guzzling fossil fuels, polluting the planet or mortgaging the future.
Nature works with five polymers. Only five polymers. In the natural world, life builds from the bottom up, and it builds in resilience and multiple uses.
It is not enough to discover and prove a useful truth previously unknown, but that it is necessary also to be able to propagate it and get it recognized.
What nature does in the course of long periods we do every day when we suddenly change the environment in which some species of living plant is situated.
Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.
Unarmed hand-to-hand fighting does not change through the ages; only the name changes, and it has only one rule: do it first, do it fast, do it dirtiest.
We came here for a small, informal meeting. We find you've turned it into a circus. Well, if you're going to have a circus, you've got to have elephants.
The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion - in the long run, these are the only people who count.
Without the gift of flowers and the infinite diversity of their fruits, man and bird, if they had continued to exist at all, would be today unrecognizable.
The launch of Nautilus, the world's first atomic submarine marked a transition in naval warfare-a transition as sudden as that associated with the Monitor.
Figure out for yourself what you want to be really good at, know that you'll never really satisfy yourself that you've made it, and accept that that's okay.
Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay; and claims a halo for his dishonesty.
Sex, whatever else it is, is an athletic skill. The more you practice, the more you can, the more you want to, the more you enjoy it, the less it tires you.
Physicians had gone to their graves calling Pasteur a liar, a fool, or worse—without examining evidence which their “common sense” told them was impossible.