Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[covingtoncat73]

"Weak as I am, I carry on the war to the last moment, I get a hundred pike-thrusts, I return two hundred, and I laugh. I see near my door Geneva on fire with quarrels over nothing, and I laugh again; and, thank God, I can look upon the world as a farce even when it becomes as tragic as it sometimes does. All comes out even at the end of the day, and all comes out still more even when all the days are over."

~Voltaire, quoted in The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature by William James. Found on Brain Pickings.

[covingtoncat73]

"With pockets, women could conquer the world." ~Theodora Goss, The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter

[gmw]

From this article: Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition (by Kaidi Wu, David Dunning, 2018):

We wander about the unknown terrains of life as novices more often than experts, complacent of what we know and oblivious to what we miss.

So if ever you need an excuse for reading, just remember that we face an ongoing battle against hypocognitition. It's a desperate and seemingly hopeless battle, my friends, but we face it bravely and resolutely. Read on, my comrades, read on!

[rainerm]

"Words are nothing more than refined grunts."

Yann Martel quoting Gertrude Stein in his "Beatrice and Virgil."

[AlexBell]

Is the poor privilege to turn the key
Upon the captive, freedom? He's as far
From the enjoyment of the earth and air
Who watches o'er the chains, as they who wear.
Byron

From Clotel, or, the President's Daughter by William Wells Brown.

[AlexBell]

Even such is Time that takes on trust,
Our youth, our joy, our all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days.

Attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh by William Wells Brown in Three Years in Europe.

[gmw]

Warning: the following quote is self-referential and recursion can do your head in.


"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are some one else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."

-- Oscar Wilde, De Profundis, published (posthumously) 1905


(Which in no way derides my enjoyment of this thread.)

[Angst]

Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.

--Arthur C. Clarke

[drjd]

Originally Posted by Angst

Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.

--Arthur C. Clarke

Stealing for my collection.

[gmw]

I couldn't make up my mind which quote to put up, so here are a few from the same book:


"... you tell yourself, I am not my thoughts, even though deep down you’re not sure what exactly that makes you."

"Worrying is the correct worldview. Life is worrisome."

"Maybe I’m just a lie that I’m whispering to myself."

"Who cares if she can kiss? She can see through the clouds."

-- John Green, Turtles All The Way Down, 2017

[covingtoncat73]

"—O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place."

Beatrice, William Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing, Act IV, Scene 1

[KenMagee]

To sell something you have to someone who wants it, that's not business. But to sell something you don't have to someone who doesn't want it, that's business. Leo Rosten

[covingtoncat73]

"But man, proud man,
Dressed in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven 150
As makes the angels weep, who with our spleens
Would all themselves laugh mortal."

-Isabella, MEASURE FOR MEASURE: ACT 2, SCENE 2, William Shakespeare

/Shakespeare Uncovered is giving me life.

[BenG]

“Cheery was aware that Commander Vimes didn't like the phrase 'The innocent have nothing to fear', believing the innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like 'The innocent have nothing to fear'.”

― Terry Pratchett, Snuff

[covingtoncat73]

From "The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage (Book of Dust, Volume 1)" by Philip Pullman -

"Then Sister Benedicta picked up Lyra with the utmost care and held her tight.

'Did you seriously think for one moment,' she said, sounding fierce now, 'that I would let this little baby, who has been given into our care, be taken away by three strangers on the strength of a single piece of paper? Three men who practically forced their way into this holy building without any invitation? Who frightened the oldest and the least well of us with threats and weapons—yes, weapons—waving your guns in her face? Who do you think you are? What do you think this place is? The sisters have been giving care and hospitality here for eight hundred years. Think what that means. Am I going to abandon all our holy obligations because three bullies in uniform come shouldering their way in and try to frighten us? And for a helpless baby not six months old? Now go. Get out and don’t come back.'"