Philosophy
For me, making predictions about the future is easy. It’s trying to figure out what’s going on now that’s making my life miserable.
paraphrase of Fritz Dressler
If you keep your mind sufficiently open, people will throw a lot of rubbish into it.
John Scarry
They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.
Thomas Brackett Reed
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things… It doesn’t frighten me.
Richard Feynman
You cannot reason people out of positions they didn’t reason themselves into.
Ben Goldacre, MD
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it —and stop there—lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again, and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more.
Mark Twain
Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.
Mark Twain
If it ain’t broke, you’re not tryin’.
Dan Downing
My father said “There are two groups of people in the world: those who do the work and those who take the credit.” He said I should always try to be in the first group because there was a lot less competition.
Indira Ghandi
The capacity of the human mind to resist the intrusion of new knowledge is infinite.
Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.
Vince Lombardi
Change is never fine. They say it is. But it’s not.
Sheldon Cooper—Big Bang Theory
Ain’t no man can avoid being born average, but there ain’t no man got to be common.
Satchel Paige
To modify another quote from Blazing Saddles, “Oh no, don’t do that, don’t do that. If you reason with him, you’ll just make him mad.”
Rogue Medic
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Look back and learn how to look forward better.
Joe Girard
Everything happens to a man precisely now. Centuries of centuries and only in the present do things happen; countless men in the air, on the face of the earth and the sea and all that really is happening is happening to me.
Jorge Luis Borges
Pride, Envy, Lust, Anger, Gluttony, Avarice, Sloth
Someone in favor of most of them.
You only grow by coming to the end of something and beginning something else.
[She] knows the difference between the times one has to compromise and the times when one is compromised.
Ellen Goodman
Get your facts first, then you can distort them as much as you please.
Mark Twain
Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers.
Inscribed on the Rotunda of the Library of Congress
“Well, Harold,” she said with just a trace of sternness, “we must cling to hope.”
Six year old Rachel as quoted by Harold Henderson
“Mit der Dummheit kämpfen die Götter selbst vergebens”
Friedrich von Schiller
Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.
George S. Patton to his son as a cadet.
To persons committed to the most difficult and revolutionary of activities—thinking.
Ignorance is the only sin, knowledge the only good.
Socrates ?
I don’t want to fight for the people, I don’t want to fight against the people, I don’t want the ear of the people. I just want to be left alone—to live.
Kira - Ayn Rand
The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.
Wilhelm Stekel quoted in Catcher in the Rye
That’s the whole trouble. You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful because there isn’t any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you’re not looking, somebody will sneak up and write, “Fuck you” right under your nose. Try it sometime.
Holden Caulfield
The world is full of “Fuck you’s”. So don’t conform, be different. You’ll get screwed but you’ll enjoy it.
John Scarry
White is distinguishable from black, even though there is a continuum between them.
Everything is what it appears to be, not what is it.
When the storm is in your face, you can fight it.
Human dignity and worth should be assessed only in terms of those qualities of mind and spirit that are within the reach of every human being.
The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality.
James Michener—The Drifters
My old man shouts “Goddamit, you should listen to my fifty-eight years of experience; but what he had was one year of experience repeated fifty-eight times.
Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish.
When Maurice Chevalier was asked how it felt to have reached his advanced age, he replied, “Fine, relative to the alternative.”
Well here we are Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.
Kurt Vonnegut—Slaughterhouse-Five
Knowledge, knowledge, knowledge, death.
Why not, Knowledge, knowledge, knowledge, wisdom, death.
When I’m dead, I’m going to forget everything and I advise you to do the same.
Kurt Vonnegut—Cat’s Cradle
Beware the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before, Bokonon tells us. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.
Kurt Vonnegut—Cat’s Cradle
He always said he would never take his own advice, because he knew it would be worthless.
Kurt Vonnegut—Cat’s Cradle
Veblen neglected to remind the reader that a given assertion may not be ‘the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth’, but that ‘it is true enough’, or ‘truer than the converse’.
Truth is neither joyful nor sad, neither good nor bad. It is simply truth.
Wisdom begins when a man finds out he does not know what he thinks he knows.
Socrates
Whether ’tis better in mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them.
Shakespeare
I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations.
And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you and I am I.
And by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful.
If not, it can’t be helped.
Gestalt Therapy
But I retained the landscape, and I have since annually carried off what it yielded without a wheelbarrow.
Henry David Thoreau
From exertion come wisdom and purity; from sloth ignorance and sensuality.
Henry David Thoreau
When the meaning of life has been suppressed, there still remains life.
Existentialists declare that they are in complete despair, yet go on writing.
W. H. Auden
I would rather be ashes than dust! I would that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
Jack London
There are no atheists in foxholes.
Erroneous
Do not walk in front of me—I may not follow.
Do not walk behind me—I may not lead.
Walk beside me and be my friend.
paraphrase of Camus
A very popular error: having the courage of one’s convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one’s convictions.
Frederick Nietzsche
If you would converse with me, define your terms.
Voltaire
Whether I am on the winning or the losing side is not the point with me. It is being on the side where my sympathies lie that matters.
A. Seeger
I went for a walk once. It was raining and there was this man by the river, drawing on the pavement in the rain. Fancy that! Drawing with chalk, and the rain just washing it away.
John le Carré
Because a question can be posed, does not mean that it has an answer, or even that it can have an answer. The question may just not make sense.
The history of ideas is a history of gradually discarding the assumption that it’s all about us.
Paul Graham
Have you ever noticed that Wiley never falls until he looks down? Don't look down!
Diandra Leslie-Pelecky
First they came for the asshats, but I didn't not say anything, because I was not an asshat.
dogmeatib
Is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's?
Friedrich Nietzsche
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Carl Sagan
Yes, it is a meaningless universe; the universe doesn't care about us, doesn't love us, and is mindless and indifferent. That's simple reality. What we human beings do is wrest meaning for ourselves from a pitiless, uncaring background.
PZ Myers
It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late. It does not improve the temper.
Somerset Maugham
It is not necessarily the case that people who move from one place to another want their destination place to transform itself into a simulacrum of the place they left behind. People don't generally leave home in order to find the same thing elsewhere.
Ophelia Benson
I’ve challenged people over and over again to tell me what “truths” religion offers that could not be apprehended by science and rational thinking. I’ve never gotten a satisfactory answer.
Jerry A. Coyne
Some ideas do merit marginalisation, and some opponents do lack intellectual legitimacy. That isn't to say that these ideas and opponents should be censored. There are many reasons why it is best to allow people to speak their minds. But the political freedom to speak your mind does not entail a right to be taken seriously or given deference, or even to be accorded intellectual legitimacy.
Russell Blackford
There are basically three types of philosophical question:
What is there? [Metaphysics]
How do we know? [Epistemology]
What is it worth? [Moral and Aesthetic Philosophy]
John Wilkins
One of the primary tenets of a rationalist philosophy should be that we should be especially skeptical about claims that we want to be true.
Sean Carroll
That is the way with wise people—the are so wise and practical that they always know to a dot just why something cannot be done; they always know the limitations.
Henry Ford
Nothing shows a man’s character more than what he laughs at.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Benford's Law of Controversy: Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available.
Gregory Benford
I love the future. Which is good, because I’ll be spending the rest of my life there. You too.
Phil Plait
I tell my children 'it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game.' I'm trying to take the edge off their competitive drive to ensure that I can always beat them.
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.
Marcus Aurelius
Here, among others, are some of the things I “believe” in. I believe in trying to be nice to other people, and helping them with their problems. I believe that there should be no discrimination against people based on things they can’t change, like gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. I believe in being kind to animals and respecting and preserving nature. I believe that science helps make a better world for everyone. I believe that teaching people science will expand their world. I believe that, in general, Republicans are selfish, greedy, and far inferior to Democrats. I believe that governments should strive to make free medical care available for everyone. I believe that the most important thing in life is the love of friends, family, and companions, and that achievement and work ranks below that. I believe that good food and drink are essential pleasures of life. I believe that literature, art, and music are components of a well-lived life.
Jerry A. Coyne
Cast away your delusions and embrace the hopelessness of your fate.
Regret. It piles up around us like books we never read.
Viktor Cherevin
Move through the world knowing your footsteps matter.
Anthony Pinn’s mother
There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby.
Terry Pratchett
Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
Joseph Addison
People are just fish plus time.
Dilbert
So I’m not a talented cat. I can’t act and I can’t paint and I can’t write. No sense fooling myself. I’m no artist. So pretty soon I’ll be selling insurance in Yonkers. I’ll find some chick and get married and buy a house and sell insurance to people who don’t want to buy it. I mean, what the hell, there’s nothing else I’m keyed up to do. So the old man has a good thing going and I’ll go into it.” He shrugged. “And in the meantime I might as well bounce around a little. The papers call me a beatnik. The cops don’t like me. The people around here stare at me like I have gonorrhea or something. I’m not hurting anybody. I stay nice and quiet and don’t get in anybody’s way. I’m just having a little fun. I figure it’s not going to be any big gas selling insurance, and I’ll be selling insurance for a hell of a long time, and after that I’ll be dead. And that will be for an even longer time. So the Zen kick and the beat kick are just something to do first. Make sense?
Lennie Schwerner
Math departments are the second cheapest to run, since you only need pen, paper, and a trash can. The cheapest department to run is Philosophy, since you only need pen and paper.
…the really important thing is not to live, but to live well.…
And that to live well means the same thing as to live honorably or rightly?
Socrates
Our belief is that you really should not have beliefs, only tentative conclusions.
Some Skeptic
What happens when we die?—Stephen Colbert
The ones who love us will miss us.—Keanu Reeves
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
Philip K. Dick
This year I respectfully request that you consider the possibility that the beliefs upon which you base your lives, although sincerely held, are not actually true.
The Barmaid
Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
Voltaire
There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.
George Orwell
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.
Robert M. Pirsig
von Neumann gave me an interesting idea, you don’t have to be responsible for the world that you’re in. So I have developed a very powerful sense of social irresponsibility as a result of von Neumann’s advice. It’s made me a very happy man ever since.
Richard Feynman
Of course, you only live one life, and you make all your mistakes, and learn what not to do, and that’s the end of you.
Richard Feynman
There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.
Soren Kierkegaard
In any art one of the deepest secrets of excellence is a discerning elimination.
Nero Wolfe
I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here. I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.
Richard P. Feynman
There is a price to pay for speaking the truth. There is a bigger price for living a lie.
Cornel West
If you cannot defend your belief when questioned, get another belief.
Sarah Phillimore. @SVPhillimore