A Few Quotable Quotes...

All kids are gifted; some just open their packages earlier than others. -Michael Carr

A few Chineese proverbs:

- Behind every able man, there are always other able men.
- Teacher opens the door, but you must enter by yourself.
- A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows the public opinion.
- He who cannot agree with his enemies is controlled by them.
- If your strength is small, don't carry heavy burdens. If your words are worthless, don't give advice.
- A flawed diamond is better than a common stone that is perfect.
- Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.
- If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, teach people.
- You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.
- The one who gives up his own, should dig two graves.

"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them" - Galileo

"During times of universal deceipt, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act" - George Orwell

There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for. -Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)

Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty. -Stephen King, novelist (b. 1947)

"I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses."-- Johannes Kepler

Invention requires an excited mind; execution, a calm one. -Johann Peter Eckermann, poet (1792-1854)

We love flattery, even though we are not deceived by it, because it shows that we are of importance enough to be courted.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty, of nature ... If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in.
- Richard Feynman, Nobel Laureate in Physics, 1965.


Some foolish men declare that a Creator made the world. The doctrine that the world was created is ill-advised, and should be rejected. If God created the world, where was He before creation?...How could God have made the world without any raw material? If you say He made this first, and then the world, you are faced with an endless regression...Know that the world is uncreated, as time itself is, without beginning and end. And it is based on the principles...
- The Mahapurana (The Great Lege) Jinasena (India, ninth century) (May 29-Jun 4)

Appearance is the adornment of a human; character is the adornment of that appearance. Knowledge is the adornment of character; mercy, forgiveness is the adornment of such knowledge.

It cannot be stolen by thieves... Nor can it be taken away by kings... It cannot be divided among brothers... It does not cause a load on your shoulders... If spent..it indeed always keeps growing.... The wealth of knowledge..is the most superior wealth of all !!

If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people. If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas. - Irish playwright, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1925

Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect. -Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher (1788-1860)

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain. -Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.
-Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)

Most people measure their happiness in terms of physical pleasure and material possession. Could they win some visible goal which they have set on the horizon, how happy they could be! Lacking this gift or that circumstance, they would be miserable. If happiness is to be so measured, I who cannot hear or see have every reason to sit in a corner with folded hands and weep. If I am happy in spite of my deprivations, if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith, so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life, —if, in short, I am an optimist, my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing.

Helen Adams Keller (27 June 1880 – 1 June 1968) American writer and social activist; illness (possibly scarlet fever) at the age of 19 months left her deaf, blind, and mute.

If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.

Bertrand Russell
British author, mathematician, & philosopher (1872 - 1970)

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them. -Patrick Henry, revolutionary (1736-1799) 

Tear man out of his outward circumstances; and what he then is; that only is he. -Johann Gottfried Seume, author (1763-1810) 

The struggle with evil by means of violence is the same as an attempt tostop a cloud, in order that there may be no rain. - 

Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)

"In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperatecircumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied often to prayer."- Mark TwainHeavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by theletting of a little water. -Christopher Morley, writer (1890-1957)

Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of
what they had seen. -Louis L'Amour, novelist (1908-1988)

“Peace is not an absence of war; it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence and justice.”- Baruch Spinoza

Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts. -Madame de Stael,writer (1766-1817)

This is my living faith, an active faith, a faith of verbs: to question, explore, experiment, experience, walk, run, dance, play, eat, love, learn, dare, taste, touch, smell, listen, argue, speak, write, read, draw, provoke, emote, scream, sin, repent, cry, kneel, pray, bow, rise, stand,look, laugh, cajole, create, confront, confound, walk back, walk forward, circle, hide, and seek.
-Terry Tempest Williams, naturalist and author (b. 1955)

There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't.

The Rig Veda:
Ano bhadrah Krtavo yantu Viswatah (Let noble thought come to us from every side.)

Adulthood is the ever-shrinking period between childhood and old age. It is the apparent aim of modern industrial societies to reduce this period to a minimum.
-Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (1920- )

Nothing is more humbling than to look with a strong magnifying glass at an
insect so tiny that the naked eye sees only the barest speck and to discover that nevertheless it is sculpted and articulated and striped with the same care and imagination as a zebra. Apparently it does not occur to nature whether or not a creature is within our range of vision, and the suspicion arises that even the zebra was not designed for our benefit.
-Rudolf Arnheim, psychologist and author (1904-2007)

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of
those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have
too little. -Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)


For all our conceits about being the center of the universe, we live in
a routine planet of a humdrum star stuck away in an obscure corner ... on
an unexceptional galaxy which is one of about 100 billion galaxies. ...
That is the fundamental fact of the universe we inhabit, and it is very good
for us to understand that. -Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)


Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of
power. -John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1902-1968)



The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them. -George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)

True remorse is never just a regret over consequences; it is a regret over motive.
-Mignon McLaughlin, author (1915-)

Every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity an obligation; every possession a duty.
-- John D. Rockefeller, American Philanthropist

Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
-Desmond Tutu, clergyman (b. 1931)

Carl Sagan, in Pale Blue Dot:
How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant'? Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.

Some foolish men declare that the Creator made the world. The doctrine the world has created is ill-advised and should be rejected. If God created the Universe-or, at least, the world-where was he before creation?... How could God have made the world without any raw materials? If you say he made this first, and then the world, you are faced with an endless regression... Know that the world is uncreated, as time itself is, without beginning and end.
-The MahaPurana, 9th Century Indian/Hindu-Jain Text

Religion is an insult to human dignity. Without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
- Steven Weinberg

I come from a people who gave the Ten Commandments to the world. Time has come to strengthen them by three additional ones, which we ought to adopt and commit ourselves to: thou shall not be a perpetrator; thou shall not be a victim; and thou shall never, but never, be a bystander.
- Yehuda Bauer, professor (b.1926)

The objections to religion are of two sorts - intellectual and moral. The intellectual objection is that there is no reason to suppose any religion true; the moral objection is that religious precepts date from a time when men were more cruel than they are and therefore tend to perpetuate inhumanities which the moral conscience of the age would otherwise outgrow.
- Bertrand Russell

We are all equal before the law, but not before those appointed to apply it.
-Stanislaw J. Lec, poet and aphorist (1909-1966)