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Must not fear, fear is the mind killer, fear is the little death
that brings oblivion to us all...
Petey, Earthworm Jim
It is the ability to take a joke, not make one, that proves you have a sense of humor.
Max Forrester Eastman (1883-1969) American
writer and editor Enjoyment of Laughter
I'm interested in the fact that the less
secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice.
Clint Eastwood (b. 1930) American
actor, politician
Men and nations behave wisely once they have
exhausted all the other alternatives.
Abba Eban (1915-2002) Israeli politician and diplomat
There is a little immaturity stuck away in
the crannies of even the most judicious of us, and we should treasure it.
Roger Ebert (b. 1942) American
film critic Review
of _The Mummy_ (May 1999)
“That’s
the centre of all power, Aunt Pol,” he mused. “We can
try to act civilized and polite, but at the bottom of it all, the power of any
ruler is based on threat.”
David and Leigh
Eddings, Polgara the Sorceress
A normal
human’s grasp of reality is very tenuous at best. Our imaginary lives are
usually much nicer.
David and Leigh
Eddings, Polgara the Sorceress
I have not failed 700 times. I have not
failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work.
When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that
will work.
Thomas Edison
INTERVIEWER: Can you
destroy the Earth?
THE TICK: Egad, I hope not! That's where I keep all my
stuff!
Ben Edlund (contemp.) American
cartoonist The Tick
Arthur, I just had the strangest dream. I
was taking some math test I hadn't studied for ... and then you tried to saw
off my head. Weird, huh?
Ben Edlund (contemp.) American
cartoonist The Tick
Destiny's powerful hand has made the bed of
my future and it's up to me to lie in it. I am destined to be a superhero to
right wrongs and pound two-fisted justice into the hearts of evil-doers
everywhere. You don't fight destiny, no sir! And you don't eat crackers in the
bed of your future or you get all ... scratchy. Hey, I'm narrating here!
Ben Edlund (contemp.) American
cartoonist The Tick
Everybody was a baby once, Arthur. Oh, sure,
maybe not today, or even yesterday. But once! Babies, chum: tiny, dimpled,
fleshy mirrors of our us-ness, that we parents hurl
into the future, like leathery footballs of hope! And you've got to get a good
spiral on that baby, or evil will make an interception!
Ben Edlund (contemp.) American
cartoonist The Tick
I don't know the meaning of the word
surrender! I mean, I know it, I'm not dumb. Just not in this context.
Ben Edlund (contemp.) American
cartoonist The Tick
I'm betting that I'm just abnormal enough to
survive.
Ben Edlund (contemp.) American
cartoonist The Tick
Isn't sanity really just a one trick pony
anyway? I mean all you get is one trick, rational thinking,
but when you're good and crazy, oooh oooh oooh, the sky is the limit!
Ben Edlund (contemp.) American
cartoonist The Tick
Life is a big wild crazy tossed salad, but
you don't eat it, no sir! You live it! Isn't it great?
Ben Edlund (contemp.) American
cartoonist The
Tick
Well, once again my friend, we find that
science is a two-headed beast. One head is nice, it gives us aspirin and other
modern conveniences, ... but the other head of science
is bad! Oh beware the other head of science, Arthur, it bites!
Ben Edlund (contemp.) American
cartoonist The Tick
Yes, evil comes in many forms, whether it be
a man-eating cow or Joseph Stalin, but you can't let the package hide the
pudding! Evil is just plain bad! You don't cotton to it. You gotta smack it in the nose with the rolled-up newspaper of
goodness! Bad dog! Bad dog!
Ben Edlund (contemp.) American
cartoonist The Tick
Perhaps one of the only pieces of advice
that I was ever given was that supplied by an old courtier who observed: Only
two rules really count. Never miss an opportunity to relieve yourself; never
miss a chance to sit down and rest your feet.
Edward VIII (1894-1972) King of
There
can be no more ancient and traditional American value than ignorance.
English-only speakers brought it with them to this country three centuries ago,
and they quickly imposed it on the Africans-who were not allowed to learn to
read and write-and on the Native Americans, who were simply not allowed.
Barbara Ehrenreich
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very
persistent one.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) American
physicist
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a
judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) American
physicist
Being a
lover of freedom, when the [Nazi] revolution came, I looked to the universities
to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the
cause of truth; but no, the universities were immediately silenced. Then I
looked to the great editors of the newspapers, whose flaming editorials in days
gone had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities,
were silenced in a few short weeks.... Only the Church stood squarely across
the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing the truth. I never had any
special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and
admiration for it because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence
to stand for intellectual and moral freedom. I am forced to confess that what I
once despised I now praise unreservedly.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) American
physicist
God does not play dice with the universe.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) American
physicist
If only
I had known. I would have been a locksmith.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) American
physicist
We are
in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in
many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books . It does not know how. It does not understand the
languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious
order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it
seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward
God. We see a universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only
dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious
force that moves the constellations.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) American
physicist
Human
beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned
in the distance by an invisible player
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) American
physicist
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It
is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt
in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) American
physicist
It is
strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely.
Albert Einstein
(1879-1955) American physicist
He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my
contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal
cord would suffice.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) American
physicist
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the
rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the
servant and has forgotten the gift.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) American
physicist
The world is a dangerous place to be not because of the people who
do evil; but because of the people who stand by and let them.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) American
physicist
Man no
longer dreams over a book in which a soft voice, a constant companion, observes,
exhorts, or sighs with him through the pangs of youth and age. Today he is more
likely to sit before a screen and dream the mass dream which comes from
outside.
Loren Eiseley
Strangeness
in the Proportion
I grew
up assuming women were our equals. I can't imagine thinking I'm better suited
to hack C code because of my penis-- frankly, I rarely use my penis at all
while I'm working.
Dave Eisen
You don't lead by hitting people over the
head -- that's assault, not leadership.
Dwight David
Eisenhower (1890-1969)
I hate
war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its
brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969)
You don't promote the cause of peace by
talking only to people with whom you agree.
Dwight David
Eisenhower (1890-1969)
I like
not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that
you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the
grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell
you that you are very dear.
George Eliot
Any
coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning, but give me the man who
has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir; and there are
many victories worse than a defeat.
George Eliot
I've got
a bust of [Abraham] Lincoln on my desk, and everytime
the going gets tough he looks at me and says, 'Ray...I tried 27 times to be
elected to public office. Twenty seven times I tried to be somebody. And I
failed 25 times.
Ray Eliot
Footfalls
echo the memory
down the
passage which we did not take
towards
the door we never opened
into the
rose garden.
T.S. Eliot
If you
want to understand America, you must first understand how a country whose
citizens are known the world over for their outgoing self-confidence should
emerge as a leading consumer of drugs for social anxiety; how a nation
dedicated to the freedom of the individual should enforce standards for
physical beauty with such rigidity that grown women race to restaurant toilets
to throw up their dinners; and how a nation famed for its dedication to the
pursuit of happiness should also be such a fertile market for antidepressant
medication.
Carl Elliott, MD, PhD, author and professor at the
There’s one hole in every revolution, large or small. And it’s one
word long----PEOPLE. No matter how big the idea they all stand under, people
are small and weak and cheap and frightened. It’s people that kill every
revolution.
Warren Ellis
Transmetropolitan
That’s what a monoculture is. It’s everywhere, and it’s all the
same. And it takes up alien cultures and digests them and shits them out in a
homogenous building-block shape that fits seamlessly into the vast blank wall
of the monoculture. This is the future. This is what we built. This is what we
wanted. It must have been. Because we all had
the fucking choice, didn’t we? It is only our money that allows commercial culture
to flower. If we didn’t want to live like this, we could have changed it any
time, by not fucking paying for it.
So lets celebrate by all going out and
buying the same burger.
Warren Ellis
Transmetropolitan: I Hate It Here
I am invisible, understand, simply
because people refuse to see me.
Ralph Ellison (1914-1994)
Good men must not obey the laws too well.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American
essayist and poet
It seems as if heaven had sent its insane angels
into our world as to an asylum, and here they will break out in their native
music and utter at intervals the words they have heard in heaven; then the mad
fit returns and they mope and wallow like dogs.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American
essayist and poet
We may climb into the thin and cold realm of pure geometry and
lifeless science, or sink into that of sensation.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American
essayist and poet
By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In
fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to
invent.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American
essayist and poet
Stay at home in your mind. Don’t recite other people’s opinions. I
hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American
essayist and poet
I wish to say what I think & feel today, with the proviso that
tomorrow perhaps I shall contradict it all.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American
essayist and poet
Tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good
sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be
forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American
essayist and poet
Truth is
beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American
essayist and poet
Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American
essayist and poet
What you
do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American
essayist and poet
You shall have joy, or you shall have power,
said God; you shall not have both.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American
essayist and poet Journal
(October 1842)
I’m classified as a Drinker with a writing problem.
Garth Ennis
Good does tend to triumph one way or another. It just has to learn
to fight dirtier than evil.
Garth Ennis
In my sex fantasy, nobody ever loves me for
my mind.
Nora Ephron (b. 1941) American screenwriter, author
There is no good cause for religious
persecution. No convert is true who comes to the faith through pain and fear.
All persecution does is plant seeds of doubt amongst the hearts of the faithful
as to the truth of their cause.
Graham Ericsson (b. 1947) American
writer
To say, "You're angry over such a
little thing," is like saying, "The fire started with just a little
match." It may well be true, but it does nothing to alleviate the present
situation.
Graham Ericsson (b. 1947) American
writer
Aesthetics are not morality. Don't confuse Taste for Truth, Icky for
Evil, or Preference for Perfection.
Graham Ericsson (b. 1947) American
writer My So-Called Deep Thoughts (2002)
I don't use drugs; my dreams are frightening
enough.
M. C. Escher (1898-1972) Dutch
artist
Maybe
it’s in the basement, let me go up stairs and check .
M. C. Escher (1898-1972) Dutch
artist
That is the essence of a witch-hunt, that
any questioning of the evidence or the procedures in itself
constitutes proof of complicity.
The mere abhorrence of vice is not a virtue
at all.
Winning is always better than losing; that's why we call
it 'winning'.
Craig Ewert
F
Intellectual brilliance is no guarantee
against being dead wrong.
David Fasold (contemp.) American ship
salvager, amateur archaeologist
If a
writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate. The “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
is worth any number of old ladies.
William
Faulkner
An artist
is a creature driven by demons. He doesn't know why they chose him and he's
usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob,
borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done.
William Faulkner, Interview in Malcolm Cowley (1958). Writers at Work,
First Series
If I
were reincarnated, I'd want to come back a buzzard. Nothing hates him or envies
him or wants him or needs him. He is never bothered or in danger, and he can
eat anything.
William Faulkner, Interview in Malcolm Cowley (1958). Writers at Work,
First Series
With every passing hour our solar system
comes forty-three thousand miles closer to globular cluster M13 in the
constellation Hercules, and still there are some misfits who continue to insist
that there is no such thing as progress.
Ransom K. Ferm
I have argued flying saucers with lots of
people. I was interested in this: they keep arguing that it is possible. And
that's true. It is possible. They do not appreciate that the problem is not to
demonstrate whether it's possible or not, but whether it's going on or not.
Richard Feynmann (1918-1988) American physicist
Scientists take it for granted that it is
perfectly consistent to be unsure -- that it is possible to live and *not*
know. But I don't know whether everyone realizes that this is true.
Richard Feynmann (1918-1988) American physicist
“So I
know why people kill themselves.”
“Okay.” Orley tried to be diffident. “Tell me why, then.”
“They do it because there’s nowhere else to hide.”
Timothy Findley, Headhunter
A mother
is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary.
Dorothy Fisher
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two
opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to
function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and
yet be determined to make them otherwise.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
(Referring to Ernest Hemingway) He’s a great writer. If I didn’t
think so I wouldn’t have tried to kill him... I was the champ and when I read
his stuff I knew he had something. So I dropped a heavy glass skylight on his
head at a drinking party. But you can’t kill the guy. He’s not human.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity, and her flaming
self- respect and it’s these things I’d believe in even if the whole world
indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn’t all she should be. I love her and
that’s the beginning of everything.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
The kiss originated when the first male reptile licked the first female reptile, implying in a subtle, complimentary way that she was as succulent as the small reptile he had for dinner the night before.F. Scott Fitzgerald
I’m not
at a fork in the road, I’m at an eggbeater in the
road.
Thom Fitzgerald
You couldn’t get a clue during the clue mating season in a field
of horny clues if you smeared your body with clue musk and did the clue mating
dance.
Edward Flaherty
The one
way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual
orgy.
Gustave Flaubert
It is only when you recognize that you CAN
do what Hitler did that you can consciously choose not to.
Joseph C. Fletcher (1905-1991) American
ethicist
Enlightened self-interest is a wonderful
thing. Turning on the light can be hard.
Peter Flom (contemp.) Belief-L (
Money can't buy happiness, but poverty can't
buy anything.
Peter Flom (contemp.) Belief-L
(
It isn't what they say about you, it's what
they whisper.
Errol Flynn
Heroes come in many forms. Some are more
frightening than others.
Phil Foglio (b. 1957) American cartoonist Bill & Barry - The Heterodyne Boys!
(1987)
We are living in a new culture, one of
responsibility dodgers and corner cutters. Nobody cares if a thing is right or
not. If you try to trace a poor job or craftsmanship back, you will find,
inevitably, that nobody did it.
Robert Fontaine
Anyone who says businessmen deal in facts,
not fiction, has never read old five-year projections.
Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990) American
billionaire
Education’s
purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
Malcolm Forbes
(1919-1990) American billionaire
A government big enough to give you
everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you
have.
Gerald
R. Ford (b. 1913)
If I had to choose between betraying my
country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my
country.
E. M. Forster (1879-1970) English
novelist, essayist, critic Two Cheers for Democracy, "What I Believe"
I would rather live in a world where my life
is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could
comprehend it.
Henry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) American clergyman, author, teacher
Jodie Foster
It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the
trouble, how hopeless the outlook, how muddled the tangle, how great the
mistake. A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all.
Emmet
Fox
Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I
have in my library are books that other folk have lent to me.
Anatole
The
truth is that life is delicious, horrible, charming, frightful, sweet, bitter,
and that it is everything.
Anatole
An
education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you
know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you know and what you
don’t.
Anatole
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids
the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and
to steal bread.
Anatole
I don't
believe the war is simply the work of politicians and capitalists. Oh no,
the common man is every bit as guilty; otherwise, people and nations would have
rebelled long ago! There's a destructive urge in people, the urge to
rage, murder, and kill. And until all of humanity, without exception,
undergoes a metamorphosis, wars will continue to be waged, and everything that
has been carefully built up, cultivated and grown will be cut down and
destroyed, only to start all over again!
Anne Frank
(1929-1945) German-Dutch Jewish diarist The Diary of a YoungGirl: the Definitive
Edition
I keep my ideals, because in spite of
everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.
Anne Frank (1929-1945)
German-Dutch Jewish diarist The Diary of a Young Girl (1952)
I become
more and more convinced people were never really all that homophobic to start
with, mostly. They thought they were supposed to be.
Congressman Barney Frank
HAWKINS: I've got it! I've
got it! The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice
from the palace has the brew that is true! Right?
GRISELDA: Right. But there's been a change: they broke the
chalice from the palace!
HAWKINS: They *broke* the chalice from the palace?
GRISELDA: And replaced it with a flagon.
HAWKINS: A flagon...?
GRISELDA: With the figure of a dragon.
HAWKINS: Flagon with a dragon.
GRISELDA: Right.
HAWKINS: But did you put the pellet with the poison in the
vessel with the pestle?
GRISELDA: No! The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with
the dragon! The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true!
HAWKINS: The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the
dragon; the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true.
GRISELDA: Just remember that.
Melvin Frank (1913-1988) American
screenwriter, director The Court Jester (with Norman Panama)
(1956)
Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real
lovers to be silly.
Rose Franken (1925-1966) American
novelist and playwright
A clean desk is a sign of an empty mind.
Justice Felix
Frankfurter (1882-1965) US Supreme Court Justice; jurist and teacher
It is a fair summary of history to say that
the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged ... [by] not very nice
people.
Justice Felix
Frankfurter (1882-1965) US Supreme Court Justice; jurist and teacher
United States v. Rabinowitz, 339
We who lived in concentration camps can
remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away
their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer
sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing:
the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of
circumstances, to choose one's own way.
Victor Frankl (1905-1997) German-American psychologist, writer
Humor is another of the soul's weapons in
the fight for self-preservation. It is well known that humor more than anything
else in the human makeup, can afford an aloofness and
an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds.
Victor Frankl (1905-1997) German-American psychologist, writer
No man should judge unless he asks himself
in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the
same.
Victor Frankl (1905-1997) German-American psychologist, writer
Since
Victor Frankl (1905-1997) German-American psychologist, writer
What is to give light must endure burning.
Victor Frankl (1905-1997) German-American psychologist, writer
Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure,
when he is really selling himself to it.
Benjamin Franklin