Some Quotes

Return to my Issues and Opinions pages
Go to my home page

Some Quotes

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways - I to die, and you to live. Which is better, God only knows. [Socrates, from The Apology of Socrates, by Plato]
Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it. [Proverbs 25:16, King James Bible]
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. [Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, introductory notice]
As soon as dinner was over, both Candide and Cacambo thought they should pay very handsomely for their entertainment by laying down two of those large gold pieces which they had picked off the ground; but the landlord and landlady burst into a fit of laughing and held their sides for some time. [Voltaire, Candide]
Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. [Homer, the Iliad, first sentence]
The name of my country will pass into obscurity; all is scattered far and wide, and hapless Troy has ceased to be. [Euripides, The Trojan Women]
"Well!" thought Alice to herself. "After such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down-stairs! How brave they'll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn't say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!" (Which was very likely true.) [Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland]
Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that! [Red Queen, Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll]
To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage. [Confucius]
Shortly after the shock, a great wave was seen from the distance of three or four miles, approaching in the middle of the bay with a smooth outline; but along the shore it tore up cottages and trees, as it swept onwards with irresistible force. At the head of the bay it broke in a fearful line of white breakers, which rushed up to a height of 23 vertical feet above the highest spring-tides. Their force must have been prodigious; for at the Fort a cannon with its carriage, estimated at four tons in weight, was moved 15 feet inwards. A schooner was left in the midst of the ruins, 200 yards from the beach. The first wave was followed by two others, which in their retreat carried away a vast wreck of floating objects. In one part of the bay, a ship was pitched high and dry on shore, was carried off, again driven on shore, and again carried off. In another part, two large vessels anchored near together were whirled about, and their cables were thrice wound round each other; though anchored at a depth of 36 feet, they were for some minutes aground. The great wave must have travelled slowly, for the inhabitants of Talcahuano had time to run up the hills behind the town. [Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle, account of a tidal wave, following an earthquake in Chile]
MY DEAR WATSON: I write these few lines through the courtesy of Mr. Moriarty, who awaits my convenience for the final discussion of those questions which lie between us. He has been giving me a sketch of the methods by which he avoided the English police and kept himself informed of our movements. They certainly confirm the very high opinion which I had formed of his abilities. I am pleased to think that I shall be able to free society from any further effects of his presence, though I fear that it is at a cost which will give pain to my friends, and especially, my dear Watson, to you. I have already explained to you, however, that my career had in any case reached its crisis, and that no possible conclusion to it could be more congenial to me than this. Indeed, if I may make a full confession to you, I was quite convinced that the letter from Meiringen was a hoax, and I allowed you to depart on that errand under the persuasion that some development of this sort would follow. Tell Inspector Patterson that the papers which he needs to convict the gang are in pigeonhole M., done up in a blue envelope and inscribed "Moriarty." I made every disposition of my property before leaving England and handed it to my brother Mycroft. Pray give my greetings to Mrs. Watson, and believe me to be, my dear fellow, Very sincerely yours, SHERLOCK HOLMES. [Arthur C. Doyle, The Final Problem, letter from Sherlock Holmes to Watson]
I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohulhulsote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say no and yes. He who led the young men is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, Have run away to the hills And have no blankets, no food. No one know where they are- Perhaps they are freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children And see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired. My heart is sad and sick. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever. [Chief Joseph]
The Egyptians, they said, were the first to discover the solar year, and to portion out its course into twelve parts. They obtained this knowledge from the stars. (To my mind they contrive their year much more cleverly than the Greeks, for these last every other year intercalate a whole month, but the Egyptians, dividing the year into twelve months of thirty days each, add every year a space of five days besides, whereby the circuit of the seasons is made to return with uniformity.) [The History of Herodotus]
A PRINCE ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else for his study, than war and its rules and discipline; for this is the sole art that belongs to him who rules. [Machiavelli, The Prince]
53++!305))6#;4826)4+.)4+);806#;48!8'60))85;]8#:+#8!83(88)5#!; 46(;88#96#?;8)#+(;485);5#!2:#+(;4956#2(5#-4)8'8#;4069285);)6 !8)4++;1(+9;48081;8:8+1;48!85;4)485!528806#81(+9;48;(88;4(+
?3 4;48)4+;161;:188;+?; [Edgar Allan Poe, Captain Kidd's cipher in the Gold Bug]
A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's seat twenty-one degrees and thirteen minutes northeast and by north main branch seventh limb east side shoot from the left eye of the death's-head a bee line from the tree through the shot fifty feet out. [Above cipher, decoded by Poe]
The Fowls were, indeed, legendary criminals. For generations they had skirmished on the wrong side of the law, hoarding enough funds to become legitimate. Of course, once they were legitimate they found it not to their liking, and returned almost immediately to crime. [Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl]
We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families. [Letter from genocide victim, Rwanda, 1994]
Elk City, Kansas is a snaky tickle! [Palindrome, author unknown]
There are two things that are certain, men are smarter than women, and the world is flat. [Hagar the Horrible, Dik Browne]
That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind. [Neil Armstrong, small misspeak upon stepping onto the Moon]
I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration which this margin is too narrow to contain. [Pierre de Fermat, concerning the lost proof of his "Last Theorem"]
I sat with rifle to shoulder trying to think what it would be best for me to do when she charged, for the rifle was empty and I had no more cartridges. Three cartridges were all that I had brought with me, for I never thought I should get a chance of firing more than two shots, and the third cartridge was for an emergency. [Man-Eaters of Kumaon, by Jim Corbett, about facing a wounded man-eating tiger with an empty rifle]
I never met a kid I liked. [W. C. Fields]
Who is the greater fool, the fool or he who follows the fool? [Obiwan Kenobi, Star Wars]
We know from experience that, when it is proving very difficult to make any headway in some investigation, the first efforts usually cast very little light on our problem; and it is only by trying again and again, and by considering the same thing from several points of view, that we arrive at complete understanding. [Leonhard Euler]
Would that I could as easily discover the truth as point out error. [Cicero]
The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it. [Francis Bacon]
Please bring me the mirror, and do not contaminate it with your own visage. [Moliere]
Not to be certain is, I think, one of the essential things of rationality. [Bertrand Russell]
One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it does not fall. [Paul Valery]
If error is corrected whenever it is recognized as such, the path of error is the path of truth. [Hans Reichenbach]
An intelluctual is someone whose mind watches itself. [Albert Camus]
The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before. [Thorstein Veblen]
Why should I worry about dying? It's not going to happen in my lifetime. [Raymond Smullyan]

Return to my Issues & Opinions pages
Go to my home page