Life is an endless attempt to word the unwordable, to make what cannot be touched walk on the ground, to embody what can never be fit inside a single lifetime. We see reflections of ourselves in sunrises, hear our perfection in thunderstorms and babi...
The first man, who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into his head to say, "This is mine," and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, how many wars, how many murders, how many misf...
Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it and it has not changed except to become more needed. The skalds, the bards, the writers are not separate and exclusive. From the beginning, their functions, their duties, and their resp...
There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. If, for the sake of argument, 1 million are violent, that's a mere .000625 percent of them. I wonder who among you wants to be judged on such a tiny minority. Further, at 1.6 billion, if all Muslims - or ev...
It is no longer just engineers who dominate our technology leadership, because it is no longer the case that computers are so mysterious that only engineers can understand what they are capable of. There is an industry-wide shift toward more "product...
Reading is a dialog with oneself; it is self-reflection, which cultivates profound humanity. Reading is therefore essential to our development. It expands and enriches the personality like a seed that germinates after a long time and sends forth many...
People are more willing to support the exercise of authority over themselves when they believe it to be an objective, neutral feature of the natural world. This was the idea behind the concept of the divine right of kings. By making the king appear t...
Engineer: If they were to give me two more excavators, I'd be a year ahead of the plan by now. Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago: You're an impatient generation. Engineer: Weren't you? Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago: Yes, we were, very. Oh, don't be so impatient, Comrade E...
Jack Lucas: Hey! Edwin! Hey, c'mon now, I told you about these people, they only mate with their own kind, it's called yuppie inbreeding. That's why so many of them are retarded and wear the same clothes. They're not human, they don't feel love, they...
Dr. Edward Morbius: The fool, the meddling idiot! As though his ape's brain could contain the secrets of the Krell! Altaira: [shocked] Father, he's *dead*! Dr. Edward Morbius: He was warned, and now he's paid! Let him be buried with the other victims...
Major Motoko Kusanagi: There are countless ingredients that make up the human body and mind, like all the components that make up me as an individual with my own personality. Sure I have a face and voice to distinguish myself from others, but my thou...
Scarlett: Now I didn't come to talk silliness about me, Rhett. I came 'cause I was so miserable at the thought of you in trouble. Oh, I know I was mad at you the night you left me on the road to Tara, and I still haven't forgiven you! Rhett Butler: O...
Soto: Just you look at the cute little baby, Diego. Isn't it nice that he'll be joining us for breakfast? Diego: It wouldn't be breakfast without him. Soto: Especially after his daddy wiped out half our pack. And wears our skin to keep warm. An eye f...
Alan Turing: [Explaining the Turing Test] "The Imitation Game." Detective Robert Nock: Right, that's... that's what it's about? Alan Turing: Would you like to play? Detective Robert Nock: Play? Alan Turing: It's a game. A test of sorts. For determini...
Sulley: [Sulley and Mike have just been banished to the Himalayas on Earth - Sulley opens the door to find nothing beyond it] BOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Sulley: [Opens and closes door, pushes frame, nothing happens] No, no! No, no, no, no, NO! Mike: It's too la...
Yupa: In the midst of my travels, I heard of an ominous rumor... It said that a monster from the ancient world had been excavated from beneath the city of Pejite where it had been sleeping. Mito: A monster from the ancient world? Yupa: It's a God War...
Lady Eboshi: Stay here. Help me kill the Forest Spirit, Ashitaka. Prince Ashitaka: You would do that? Kill the very heart of the forest? Lady Eboshi: Without that ancient god, the animals here would be nothing but dumb beasts once again. Once the for...
[discussing the Doomsday machine] President Merkin Muffley: How is it possible for this thing to be triggered automatically and at the same time impossible to untrigger? Dr. Strangelove: Mr. President, it is not only possible, it is essential. That i...
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: I've accessed a Borg neuroprocessor and I've discovered what they're trying to do. They're transforming the deflector dish into an interplexing beacon. Lt. Hawk: [confused] "Interplexing"? Captain Jean-Luc Picard: It's a subs...
Kirk: We are assembled here today to pay final respects to our honored dead. And yet it should be noted that in the midst of our sorrow, this death takes place in the shadow of new life, the sunrise of a new world; a world that our beloved comrade ga...
[first lines] Teacher: Earth that was could no longer sustain our numbers, we were so many. We found a new solar system, dozens of planets and hundreds of moons. Each one terraformed, a process taking decades, to support human life, to be new Earths....
