Intellectual freedom begins when one says with Socrates that he knows that he knows nothing, and then goes on to add: Do you know what you don’t know and therefore what you should know? If your answer is affirmative and humble, then you are your ow...
The dominant myth of the day seemed to be that anybody could do anything, even go to the moon. You could do whatever you wanted -in the ads and in the articles, ignore your limitations, defy them. If you were an indecisive person, you could become a ...
Having confronted the world with little except a battered typewriter and a certain resilience, he can now take posthumous credit for having got the three great questions of the 20th century essentially 'right.' Orwell was an early and consistent foe ...
The works of the great poets have never yet been read by mankind, for only great poets can read them. Most men have learned to read to serve a paltry convenience, as they have learned to cipher in order to keep accounts and not be cheated in trade; b...
The Greeks made Space the subject-matter of a science of supreme simplicity and certainty. Out of it grew, in the mind of classical antiquity, the idea of pure science. Geometry became one of the most powerful expressions of that sovereignty of the i...
I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it...
Dark influences from the American past congregate among us still. If we are a democracy, what are we to make of the palpable elements of plutocracy, oligarchy, and mounting theocracy that rule our state? How do we address the self-inflicted catastrop...
I am a lifelong lover of form–content interplay, and this book is no exception. As with several of my previous books, I have had the chance to typeset it down to the finest level of detail, and my quest for visual elegance on each page has had coun...
Janine Melnitz: You're very handy, I can tell. I bet you like to read a lot, too. Dr. Egon Spengler: Print is dead. Janine Melnitz: Oh, that's very fascinating to me. I read a lot myself. Some people think I'm too intellectual but I think it's a fabu...
Marylin Delpy: What are you doing? Mark Zuckerberg: Checking in to see how it's going in Bosnia. Marylin Delpy: Bosnia. They don't have roads, but they have Facebook. [Mark says nothing] Marylin Delpy: You must really hate the Winklevosses. Mark Zuck...
Not all deceptions are palatable. Untruths are too easy to come by, too quickly exploded, too cheap and ephemeral to give lasting comfort. Mundus vult decipi, but there is a hierarchy of deceptions. Near the bottom of the ladder is journalism: a stea...
A good life is the best sermon.
I want to waste my life Just by thinking, Just by writing, Just by dreaming my life. I want to spend my life Just by loving, Just by caring, Just by sharing my life. I want to destroy my life Just by giving, Just by forgiving, Just by living my life.
Art is about the 'I' in life not the 'we', about private life rather than public. A public life that doesn't acknowledge the private is a life not worth having.
A purposeful life is a happy life.
Don't ask in this life for the three most difficult things: good sons, long life and a long beard.
Baseball life is a tough life on the family.
For me, my life is a journey.
...quality of life lies in knowledge, in culture. Values are what constitute true quality of life, the supreme quality of life, even above food, shelter and clothing.
Live a life that leaves a memory, nobody can steal.
The destination is a happy life, an accomplished life that doesn't end with death but with eternal life.
