The only reward of virtue is virtue.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson We have a habit in writing articles published in scientific journals to make the work as finished as
possible, to cover up all the tracks, to not worry about the blind alleys or describe how you had When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the
problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
- Buckminster If you were plowing a field, which would you rather use? Two strong oxen or 1024 chickens?
- Seymour Cray (1925-1996), father of supercomputing Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in
accordance with the dictates of reason.
-- Oscar Wilde Politics Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.
-- Norman R. Augustine "Not only is there no guarantee of the temporal immortality of the human soul, that is to say of its eternal survival after death; but, in any case, this assumption completely fails to accomplish the Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.
-- John Stuart Mill Politics
In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how
many can get through to you.
-- Mortimer J. Adler A husband is what's left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted.
-- Helen Rowland Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the
moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future
generations Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and
begin slitting throats.
- Henry Louis Mencken "A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy." (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche) Politics "Crime like death is not confined to the old and withered alone. The youngest and fairest are too often its chosen victims." (Charles Dickens, 1812-70, Oliver Twist) The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with
the wish to teach himself.
-- Edward Bulwer-Lytton "The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it." (Abbie Hoffman) Politics
"In every gathering of thirteen, expect one guest will turn out to be a Judas." (Aleister Crowley) We all agree that your theory is crazy, but is it crazy enough?
- Niels Bohr 'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.
-- ee cummings A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.
-- Joseph Addison Hey, you can't fight in here! This is the war room!
-- Dr. Strangelove Politics "The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all." (Harry S. Truman) "The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd." (Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 1872-1970) Soul meets soul on lovers lips.
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley Politics
The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet.
-- Andy Warhol If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing.
-- Kingsley Amis Many a wife thinks her husband is the world's greatest lover. But she can never catch him at it. In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by side with the giants on whose
shoulders we stand.
-- Gerald Holton Education ... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth
reading.
-- G. M. Trevelyan Politics "God is a gentleman. He prefers blondes." (Joe Orton, Loot) Defeat never comes to any man until he admits it.
-- Josephus Daniels We are not retreating - we are advancing in another Direction.
- General Douglas MacArthur Politics
Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule.
-- Samuel Butler We have drugs to make women speak, but none to keep them silent.
-- Anatole France Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by fighting back.
- Paul Erdos There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the
instrument plays itself.
-- Johann Sebastian Bach Men have a much better time of it than women; for one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier. --H.L. Mencken Politics I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all
over it and put your name at the top.
-- English Professor, Ohio University It is never too late to be what you might have been.
-- George Eliot "A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized." (Fred Allen) Politics
Every child is born a genius.
-- R. Buckminster Fuller And gain is gain, however small.
-- Robert Browning Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting.
-- Karl Wallenda "It ends not with a bang, but a whimper." (Thomas Stearns Eliot, aka T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Man) "Bread feeds the body, indeed, but flowers feed also the soul." (The Prophet Mohammad) Politics When he first ran for office, he appealed to the voters: "I never stole anything in my life. All I ask
is a chance."
-- Anon. When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.
-- Sacha Guitry Be willing to make decisions. That's the most important quality in a good leader. Don't fall victim
to what I call the 'ready-aim-aim-aim-aim syndrome.' You must be willing to fire.
-- Gen. George Politics
"Marriage excuses no one the freak's roll-call." (Joe Orton, What the Butler Saw) He who laughs last has not yet heard the bad news.
-- Bertolt Brecht Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem
mild harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's
chara In marriage, the bridge gets a shower. But for the groom, it's curtains! Politics Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
- Gail Godwin When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.
-- Ernest Hemingway Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something.
-- Pancho Villa, dying words Politics
What we anticipate seldom occurs: but what we least expect generally happens.
-- Benjamin Disraeli Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read.
-- Groucho Marx Did you ever notice when you blow in a dog's face he gets mad at you? But when you take him in
a car he sticks his head out the window.
-- Steve Bluestone I am going to put myself to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call the time Eternity." (Jerzy Kosinski, Polish novelist, from his suicide note) The eyes are not responsible when the mind does the seeing.
-- Publilius Syrus Politics In a novel, the hero can lay ten girls and marry a virgin for the finish. In a movie, that is not
allowed. The villain can lay anybody he wants, have as much fun and as he wants cheating,
stealing, They had a dispute about a night out with the boys. But he finally decided to let her go.
-- Anonymous It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are
difficult.
-- Seneca Politics
Youth is wasted on the young.
-- George Bernard Shaw Before you put on a frown, make absolutely sure there are no smiles available.
-- Jim Beggs "Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers." (Socrates) Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
-- LaRouchefoucauld Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. President Politics At every crossroads on the path that leads to the future, tradition has placed 10,000 men to guard
the past.
-- Maurice Maeterlink blah "This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver." (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche) Marriage is like a cage--one sees the birds outside desperate to get in and those inside equally
desparate to get out.
-- Di Peatlins Politics
If it weren't for electricity we'd all be watching television by candlelight.
-- George Gobel "Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily." (Napoleon Bonaparte) Where there is an unknowable there is a promise.
-- Thornton Wilder It destroys one's nerves to be amiable everyday to the same human being.
-- Benjamin Disraeli The graveyards are full of indispensable men.
- Charles de Gaulle Politics You cannot think about thinking, without thinking about thinking about something.
-- Seymour Papert A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness.
-- Elsa Schiapirelli For a male and female to live continuously together is...biologically speaking, an extremely
unnatural condition.
-- Robert Briffault Politics
Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft...and the only one that can be mass
produced with unskilled labor.
-- Wernher von Braun Question: If you could live forever, would you and why? Answer: I would not live forever, because
we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live
forever, blah "To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift." (Steve Roland Prefontaine) "I am convinced that it is not the fear of death, of our lives ending that haunts our sleep so much as the fear ... that as far as the world is concerned, we might as well never have lived." (Rabbi H "The perception of beauty is a moral test." (Henry David Thoreau) Politics It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are
difficult.
-- Seneca There are three types of people in this world: Those who can count, and those who can't.
-- Seen on a bumper sticker Marriage isn't a word... it's a sentence.
-- King Vidor, in the 1928 film, The Crawl Politics
