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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 1cea455 | Nonetheless, they remind us that ignorance is the natural state of mind for a research scientist. | Neil deGrasse Tyson | ||
| 0b4dbc7 | When Newton breached this philosophical barrier by rendering all motion comprehensible and predictable, some theologians criticized him for leaving nothing for the Creator to do. | Neil deGrasse Tyson | ||
| 9b23b2f | We conquer the Independence Day aliens by having a Macintosh laptop computer upload a software virus to the mothership (which happens to be one-fifth the mass of the Moon), thus disarming its protective force field. I don't know about you, but back in 1996 I had trouble just uploading files to other computers within my own department, especially when the operating systems were different. There is only one solution: the entire defense system.. | apple computers funny software space | Neil deGrasse Tyson | |
| 674f841 | Our five senses even interfere with sensible answers to stupid metaphysical questions like, "If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" My best answer is, "How do you know it fell?" But that just gets people angry. So I offer a senseless analogy, "Q: If you can't smell the carbon monoxide, then how do you know it's there? A: You drop dead." In modern times, if the sole measure of what's out there f.. | Neil deGrasse Tyson | ||
| 04a5d28 | During the heat of the space race in the 1960s, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration decided it needed a ballpoint pen to write in the zero gravity confines of its space capsules. After considerable research and development, the Astronaut Pen was developed at a cost of approximately $1 million US. The pen worked and also enjoyed some modest success as a novelty item back here on earth. The Soviet Union, faced with the same p.. | Neil deGrasse Tyson | ||
| d290664 | The real inferiority of women to men is shown by their hate of , which they regard as unfair competition. Men on the other hand rather approve of , as saving them trouble & expense. -- . 1929-03-09 diary entry. | cynicism sex | Lawrence Sutin | |
| 5bc3755 | SeDuciR es MoRir ComO ReaLidaD y reProDuciRse CoMo IlusiOn | Jean Baudrillard | ||
| 80dc684 | It is the simulacrum which ensures the continuity of the real today, the simulacrum which now conceals not the truth, but the fact that there isn't any--that is to say, the continuity of the nothing... Well, that is paradise: we are beyond the Last Judgment, in immortality. The only problem is to survive there. For there the irony, the challenging, the anticipation, the maleficence come to an end, as inexorably as hope dies at the gates of .. | Jean Baudrillard | ||
| a8f7646 | What have we got?" Ashford said. "Short form." "It's fucking weird, sir," Chan said." | James S.A. Corey | ||
| 5e205a8 | The trouble with me, he thought unhappily, is that I have been about the world long enough to know that God's plans for us, however infallibly good, may not take the form we expect and demand. | Ellis Peters | ||
| 6ecd4bf | For many years now I have had the quaint idea that all humans-yes, the whole six billion of them on this planet-are out of their fucking minds. | Albert Ellis | ||
| dc2c901 | We gather at night to celebrate being human. Sometimes we call out low to the tamborine. Fish drink the sea, but the sea does not get smaller! We | Rumiko Takahashi | ||
| 1c7c63e | If he were alive, she might come to see his flaws...but a dead man is perfect. | love | Rumiko Takahashi | |
| dc0c55a | A real man--real in all the ways that we recognize as real--finds himself suddenly abstracted from the world and deposited in a physical situation which could not possibly exist: sounds have aroma, smells have color and depth, sights have texture, touches have pitch and timbre. There he is informed by a disembodied voice that he has been brought to that place as a champion for his world. He must fight to the death in single combat against a.. | cowardice ethics reality | Stephen R. Donaldson | |
| 9771960 | He was too many things at once - a boy, a man, and everything in between - and the differing parts of himself seldom came into balance. She found him attractive in that way. Yet the perception saddened her: she herself wasn't too many things, but too few. | description people self-perception | Stephen R. Donaldson | |
| 751a43f | The only exercise I get is jumping to conclusions. | Glen Cook | ||
| 260672e | I guess each of us, at some time, finds one person with whom we are compelled toward absolute honesty, one person whose good opinion of us becomes a substitute for the broader opinion of the world. And that opinion becomes more important than all our sneaky, sleazy schemes of greed, lust, self-aggrandizement, whatever we are up to while lying the world into believing that we are just plain nice folks. | Glen Cook | ||
| de43964 | Ah, the smell of mystery and dark doings, of skulduggery and revenge. The meat of a good tale. | Glen Cook | ||
| 47fe106 | Religion is something that gets hammered in early, and never really goes away. And has powers to move which go beyond anything rational. | Glen Cook | ||
| 7a5a093 | On Tolkien: "His fussiness threatened to overwhelm his creativity." | spontaneity | Alister E. McGrath | |
| db4c8e4 | The English experience suggested that nobody really doubted the existence of God until theologians tried to prove it. | god proof theology | Alister E. McGrath | |
| 5e79f17 | Realizing you've got shit on your fingers is the first step toward washing your hands. | James S.A. Corey | ||
| 17bc76e | The world is full of unrequited love,' I said finally. 'You and Patrick having problems?' Dad said, reaching around to get the butter out of the fridge. 'No, I was just wondering what you would say if I was a lesbian.' 'Come again?' said Lester. 'I'm having a hard time following this conversation. | brother conversation dinner family father fridge funny lesbian love problems random sexuality unrequited-love | Phyllis Reynolds Naylor | |
| 1972229 | He kind of wished he had a hat. | James S.A. Corey | ||
| 2d9972c | All was strange in a fog, buildings grew vague, human beings groped and became lost, the landmarks, the compass points, by which they navigated melted into nothingness and the world was transfigured into a country of the blind. But if the sighted became blind, then the blind - and for some odd reason I have always regarded myself as one of the blind - the blind became sighted, and I remember felling at home in the fog, happily at ease in th.. | Patrick McGrath | ||
| f2bb95a | When you fall, be there to catch you, I will. | Sean Stewart | ||
| 4ef014f | There is a devilishly direct relationship between the significance of an idea and how nervous we become at the prospect of having to think about it. | decisions ideas life significance thinking | Alain de Botton | |
| ecadf12 | The true nature of bureaucracy may be nowhere more obvious to the observer than in a developing country, for only there will it still be made manifest by the full complement of documents, files, veneered desks and cabinets - which convey the strict and inverse relationship between productivity and paperwork. | Alain de Botton | ||
| be395ba | What makes the prospect of death distinctive in the modern age is the background of permanent technological and sociological revolution against which it is set, and which serves to strip us of any possible faith in the permanence of our labours. Our ancestors could believe that their achievements had a chance of bearing up against the flow of events. We know time to be a hurricane. Our buildings, our sense of style, our ideas, all of these .. | anachronisms death permanence revolution sociology technology time work | Alain de Botton | |
| 3a286d1 | The benefits of a philosophy of neo-religious pessimism are nowhere more apparent than in relation to marriage, one of modern society's most grief-stricken arrangements, which has been rendered unnecessarily hellish by the astonishing secular supposition that it should be entered into principally for the sake of happiness. Christianity and Judaism present marriage not as a union inspired and governed by subjective enthusiasm but rather, and.. | Alain de Botton | ||
| 505ba11 | Once we are involved in a relationship, there is no longer any such thing as a minor detail. | Alain de Botton | ||
| 124c568 | There is a danger of developing a blanket distaste for modern life which could have its attractions but lack the all-important images to help us identify them. | modern-life | Alain de Botton | |
| 6505ead | Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but Do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test. Do you love me stripped of everything that might be lost, for only the things I will have for ever? | Alain de Botton | ||
| acf4755 | The quickest way to stop noticing something, may be to buy it--just as the quickest way to stop appreciating someone may be to marry him or her. | marriage psychology | Alain de Botton | |
| 0a83568 | We would not love if there were no lack within us, but we are offended by the discovery of a similar lack in the other. | Alain de Botton | ||
| 65d2462 | Growth occurs when we discover how to remain authentically ourselves in the presence of potentially threatening things. Maturity is the possession of coping skills: we can take in our stride things that previously would have knocked us off course. We are less fragile, less easily shocked and hence more capable of engaging with situations as they really are | maturity | Alain de Botton | |
| 154012b | creature on earth seemed to Schopenhauer to be equally committed to an equally meaningless existence: Contemplate the restless industry of wretched little ants ... the life of most insects is nothing but a restless labour for preparing nourishment and dwelling for the future offspring that will come from their eggs. After the offspring have consumed the nourishment and have turned into the chrysalis stage, they enter into life merely to beg.. | Alain de Botton | ||
| fc5d78c | It is the most ambitious and driven among us who are the most sorely in need of having our reckless hopes dampened through immersive dousings in the darkness which religions have explored. This is a particular priority for secular Americans, perhaps the most anxious and disappointed people on earth, for their nation infuses them with the most extreme hopes about what they may be able to achieve in their working lives and relationships. | americans anxiety atheism disappointment drive hope optimism pessimism | Alain de Botton | |
| 35448ef | Try, before taking off for distant hemispheres to notice what we have already seen. | alain de botton | ||
| cb01293 | In literature, too, we admire prose in which a small and astutely arranged set of words has been constructed to carry a large consignment of ideas. 'We all have strength enough to bear the misfortunes of others,' writes La Rochefoucauld in an aphorism which transports us with an energy and exactitude comparable to that of Maillard bridge. The Swiss engineer reduces the number of supports just as the French writer compacts into a single line.. | engineering literature simplicity words writing | Alain de Botton | |
| 89a15b8 | There is an Arabic saying that the soul travels at the pace of a camel. While most of us are led by the strict demands of timetables and diaries, our soul, the seat of the heart, trails nostalgically behind, burdened by the weight of memory. If every love affair adds a certain weight to the camel's load, then we can expect the soul to slow according to the significance of love's burden. | Alain de Botton | ||
| 03be017 | However powerful our technology and complex our corporations, the most remarkable feature of the modern working world may in the end be internal, consisting in an aspect of our mentalities: in the widely held belief that our work should make us happy. All societies have had work at their centre; ours is the first to suggest that it could be something more than a punishment or a penance. Ours is the first to imply that we should seek to work.. | happiness work | Alain de Botton | |
| 9dd950e | Whatever the benefits of prolific and convenient air travel, we may curse it for its smooth subversion of our attempts to use journeys to make lasting changes in our lives. | Alain de Botton | ||
| 0140d91 | Whatever modern democracies may tell themselves about their commitment to free speech and to diversity of opinion, the values of a given society will uncannily match those of whichever organizations have the scale to pay for runs of thirty-second slots around the nightly news bulletin. | democracies free-speech money opinion organizations values | Alain de Botton |