March 2009 Quotes

…a man had to look after himself. When all was said and done, that was the long and short of it.
- Robert Jordan (The Fires of Heaven)

We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
- Pink Floyd (Wish You Were Here)

…for a man of sensitivity and compassion to exercise great powers in a time of crisis is a grim and agonizing thing.
- Richard Hofstadtler (The American Political Tradition)

No one axiom…can be laid down as wise and expedient for all times and circumstances.
- Thomas Jefferson

Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.
- Thomas Jefferson

As with any other strong drug, true first love is really only interesting to those who have become its prisoners. And, as is true of any other strong and addicting drug, true first love is dangerous.
- Stephen King (Wizard and Glass)

Fear wasn't better than respect, but by God it was better than nothing.
- Stephen King (Wolves of the Calla)

Something can be understood. Something can be divined. All cannot be known.
- Gilbert Highet (Man's Unconquerable Mind)

Our mind wishes to take in everything, yet knows it cannot. There is the paradox. Knowledge must know its own limits.
- Gilbert Highet (Man's Unconquerable Mind)

Thinking. Learning, remembering, knowing; imagining and creating new ideas; preserving and communicating knowledge over distances in time and space. Not only is it wonderful in its compass and variety: it is unique. It makes us human.
- Gilbert Highet (Man's Unconquerable Mind)

Knowledge acquired and extended for its own sake is the specific quality that makes us human.
- Gilbert Highet (Man's Unconquerable Mind)

Mankind speedily become unable to conceive diversity, when they have been for some time unaccustomed to see it.
- John Stuart Mill (On Liberty)

…for the free man there should be no element of slavery in learning. Enforced exercise does no harm to the body, but enforced learning will not stay in the mind. So avoid compulsion, and let your children's lessons take the form of play. This will also help you to see what they are naturally fitted for.
- from The Republic of Plato, translated by Francis MacDonald Cornford

…men do right only under compulsion; no individual thinks of it as good for him personally, since he does wrong whenever he finds he has the power. Every man believes that wrongdoing pays him personally much better…
- from The Republic of Plato, translated by Francis MacDonald Cornford

…a man can live well only if he knows clearly what is the end of life, what things are of real value, and how they are to be attained. This knowledge is the moral virtue of man…and constitutes the art of living. If a man imagines that the end of life is to gain wealth or power, which are valueless in themselves, all his actions will be misdirected...It leads to the central thesis that society must be ruled by men who have learnt, by long and severe training, not only the true end of human life, but the meaning of goodness in all its forms.
- from The Republic of Plato, translated by Francis MacDonald Cornford

It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that.
- J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone)

…what would come, would come…and he would have to meet it when it did.
- J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)

Time is making fools of us again
- J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince)

It is important…to be able to reach many kinds of people, for each type has its own variety of use…
- Isaac Asimov (Prelude to Foundation)

Oddity is in the mind of the receiver.
- Isaac Asimov (Prelude to Foundation)

Anything you make forbidden gains sexual attractiveness.
- Isaac Asimov (Prelude to Foundation)

At the slightest stress, human beings seemed to divide themselves into antagonistic groups.
- Isaac Asimov (Prelude to Foundation)

If we are always to draw back from change with the thought that the change may be for the worse, then there is no hope at all of ever escaping injustice.
- Isaac Asimov (Prelude to Foundation)

Emotions…are a a powerful engine of human action…
- Isaac Asimov (Prelude to Foundation)

It does not actually take much to rouse resentment and latent fear of women in any man.
- Isaac Asimov (Prelude to Foundation)

…childishness comes almost as naturally to a man as to a child…
- Isaac Asimov (Foundation)

…I have accomplished in life what I have intended and under what circumstances may one better die.
- Isaac Asimov (Foundation)

Violence…is the last refuge of the incompetent…
- Isaac Asimov (Foundation)

It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.
- Isaac Asimov (Foundation)

Memories sting when they come suddenly…
- Isaac Asimov (Foundation)