September 2008 Quotes

…it is appalling to reflect upon the billions of hours and the masses of material which are utterly wasted every single day all over the world, by being thrown away on trashy amusements, none of them providing more than a single day's excitement, most of them offereing much less, and all of them based on the idea of Having a Good Time, which really means having a momentary impulse and satisfying it. We must be related to the monkeys, because so few of us seem to realize that pleasure is not the same as happiness.
- Gilbert Highet (Man's Unconquerable Mind)

As we go down life's lonesome highway
Seems the hardest thing to do is to find a friend or two
A helping hand - some one who understands
That when you feel you've lost your way
You've got some one there to say Ill show you
- Lionel Richie (Say You, Say Me)

...to the well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure.
-J.K Rowling (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone)

It is not by the consolidation, or concentration of powers, but by their distribution that good government is effected.
- Thomas Jefferson

...all achievement in life requires the overcoming of fear.
- Isaac Asimov (Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain)

…power will always end up with the sort of people who crave it…
- Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game)

People are people and it is not wise to overtempt even the best of them.
- Isaac Asimov (Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain)

Beware of all, but most beware of Man!
- Alexander Pope (The Rape of the Lock, Canto I)

…past glories are poor feeding.
- Isaac Asimov (Foundation)

When a government begins to die…mistakes are about all that it can make.
- Bruce Hutchison (Mr. Prime Minister 1867-1964)

Since when is the evidence of our senses any match for the clear light of rigid reason?
- Isaac Asimov (I, Robot)

…being…rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.
- J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince)

I think that’s what people most almost always do with the stuff they can’t make out – just forget it. Doesn’t do a person much good to remember stuff that doesn’t make any sense.
- Stephen King (The Green Mile)

…for the sake of unity we cannot be neutral in Canada.
- Ernest Lapointe

Not always Actions show the man: we find
Who does a kindness, is not therefore kind;
- Alexander Pope (Moral Essays, Epistle I)

And I, too, am nothing but a silly old ass
- Robin Brockman (The Message)

People are the most interesting things in the world. They are also the scariest.
- Dean Koontz (Dragon Tears)

It may be possible for human beings to learn good habits under pressure, but relieve the pressure and the bad habits are back at once.
- Isaac Asimov (Nemesis)

...when one had an opportunity to choose between power and honour, honour was more important.
- Karen Molson (The Molson's: Their Lives & Times 1780-2000)

If trouble were as easy to get out of-as into-life would be one sweet song.
- Isaac Asimov (Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain)

…luck is an unwelcome intrusion into the illusion of an ordered universe…
- Leonard Koppett (The Thinking Fan's Guide to Baseball)

The truth…It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.
- J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone)

The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them – words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried when you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.
- Stephen King (The Body)

Some men…choose to seek greatness, while others are forced to it. It is always better to choose then to be forced. A man who's forced is never completely his own master. He must dance on the strings of those who forced him.
- Robert Jordan (The Great Hunt)