Quotes
- John Adams I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy…in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, [and] Musick.
- Sarah Bakewell Perhaps everything exists because of fluctuations in quantum particles, or because an initial zero separated itself into +1 and -1, forming matter and antimatter. Perhaps only mathematical entities are real, and our physical world is an “outcropping” of mathematics.
- James Carville We have to appeal to the spirit of Henry Ford, who doubled workers’ pay in 1914 to $5 a day, so that they could aspire to be middle class and buy automobiles for their families.
- Jacelyn Champagne If you’re afraid that books will change someone’s thinking, you’re not afraid of books, you’re afraid of thinking.
- Dalai Lama If the twentieth century was a century of violence, let us make the twenty-first a century of dialogue.
- Dalai Lama Of course, all the world’s major religions, with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness, can and do promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I believe the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.
- Charles Darwin There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
- Charles Darwin Dr. Posey’s attack will be as powerless to retard by a day the belief in evolution as were the virulent attacks made by divines fifty years ago against Geology, & the still older ones of the Catholic church against Galileo, for the public is wise enough always to follow scientific men when they agree on any subject; & now there is almost complete unanimity amongst Biologists about Evolution…
- Richard Dawkins Darwin’s theory, supremely powerful yet supremely simple, is one of the most beautiful ideas ever to occur to a human mind, and the uninitiated are missing it. Worse, if they thrust their misunderstanding on children they are denying children that beauty, the beauty of intellectual consummation.
- Richard Dawkins We are surrounded by endless forms, most beautiful and most wonderful, and it is no accident, but the direct consequence of evolution by non-random natural selection—the only game in town, the greatest show on Earth.
- Frans de Waal The big difference for scientists is that the thirst for knowledge itself, the lifeblood of our profession, fills a spiritual void taken up by religion in most other people.
- Albert Einstein When I am judging a theory, I ask myself whether, if I were God, I would have arranged the world in such a way.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower The sum of our international effort should be this, the waging of peace, with as much resourcefulness, with as great a sense of dedication and urgency, as we have ever mustered in defense of our country in time of war. In this effort, our weapon is not force. Our weapons are the principles and ideas embodied in our historic traditions, applied with the same vigor that in the past made America a living promise of freedom for all mankind.
- Richard Feynman My interest in science is to simply find out more about the world, and the more I find out, the better it is.
- Richard Feynman The prize is the pleasure of finding things out.
- Richard Feynman I don’t feel frightened by 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. Possibly. It doesn’t frighten me.
- Vivian Greene Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…It’s about learning to dance in the rain.
- Stephen Hawking Asking what came before the Big Bang is meaningless—like asking what is south of the South Pole—because there is no notion of time available to refer to.
- Stephen Hawking So remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And howeve3r difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. In matters that you don’t just give up. Unleash your imagination. Shape the future.
- William Hazlitt The true barbarian is he who thinks everything barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices.
- Walter Isaacson For some people, miracles serve as evidence of God’s existence. For Einstein it was the absence of miracles that reflected divine providence. The fact that the world was comprehensible, that it followed laws, was worthy of awe.
- George Patton If everyone thinks the same thing, then someone is not thinking.
- Henri Poincare The scientist does not study nature because it is useful. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful.
- Dan Rather Nationalism is a monologue in which you place your country in a position of moral and cultural supremacy over others. Patriotism, while deeply personal, is a dialogue with fellow citizens, and a larger world, about not only what you love about your country but also how it can be improved. Unchecked nationalism leads to conflict and war. Unbridled patriotism can lead to the betterment of society. Patriotism is rooted in humility. Nationalism is rooted in arrogance.
- Charles Bernard Renouvier Strickly speaking, there is no certainty; there are only people who are certain.
- Theodore Roosevelt To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
- Chief Seattle of the Duwanish tribe Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory of my people…The white man…is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother but his enemy…Continue to contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.
- George Bernard Shaw The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
- Meryl Streep Evil prospers when good men do nothing.
- Steven Weinberg With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion.
- Paul Wellstone We all do better when we all do better.
