One of the great commandments of science is, 'Mistrust arguments from authority'. (Scientists, being primates, and thus given to dominance hierarchies, of course do not always follow this commandment.)
The astonishing fact is that similar mathematics applies so well to planets and to clocks. It needn’t have been this way. We didn’t impose it on the Universe. That’s the way the Universe is. If this is reductionism, so be it.
You looked like the sexiest woman in the world." "Well, in fairness, I am the sexiest woman in the world." "And you're always right." "You are so brilliant to recognize that.
Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge. It is a bulwark against mysticism, against superstition, against religion misapplied to where it has no business being.
(On surviving on the raft for 47 days) We had truly made it on a wing and prayer.
I want to burn the world because Alan is gone," he said. "I want to destroy everything I see. But you mean something to me. I will not destroy the world, because it has you in it.
Why has he taken this job?... For the sake of the dogs? But the dogs are dead; and what do dogs know of honour and dishonour anyway? For himself then. For his idea of the world, a world in which men do not use shovels to beat corpses into a more conv...
This is one of the cruelties of the theatre of life; we all think of ourselves as stars and rarely recognize it when we are indeed mere supporting characters or even supernumeraries.
Want to change the world? Upset the status quo? This takes more than run-of-the-mill relationships. You need to make people dream the same dream that you do.
The fact that both ego and self say "I" is a source of confusion and misidentification. The well-informed ego says truly, "I am what I know myself to be." The self says merely, "I am.
...the best Evil Plan offers something much more for people--a chance to buy into an idea that matters, and share it with people who matter to them.
The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or of joy. The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present. Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck...
You do not own the molecules. They are stardust. They belong to God. What you do own is your soul. Nobody can take that away from you.
A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more.
The real world has its limits; the imaginary world is infinite. Unable to enlarge the one, let us restrict the other, for it is from the difference between the two alone that are born all the pains which make us truly unhappy.
We spend so much time on the whole world instead of on those who really need us, in a world where rumours are a trend and truth is an afterthought.
Energy is the currency of the universe. When you 'pay' attention to something, you buy that experience.
(Marlowe's) Faustus stubbornly reverts to his atheistic beliefs and continues his elementary pagan re-education ~ the inferno to him is a 'place' invented by men.
Men are stupid and ignorant. That is why they suffer. Instead of thinking, they believe all that they are told, all that they are taught. They choose their lords and masters without judging them, with a fatal taste for slavery.
No less a bold and pugnacious figure than Winston Churchill broke down and was unable to finish his remarks at the sendoff of the British Expeditionary Force into the maelstrom of World War I in Europe.
As human beings, how do we choose to react in that instant when someone walks toward us, smiles, and begins to speak?
