"It is triple ultra forbidden to respond to criticism with violence. There are a very few injunctions in the human art of rationality that have no ifs, ands, buts, or escape clauses. This is one of them. Bad argument gets counterargument. Does not get bullet. Never. Never ever never for ever.
-- Eliezer Yudkowsky
"I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work
great changes, and accomplish
great affairs among mankind,
if he first forms a good plan,
and, cutting off all
amusements or other
employments that would divert
his attention, make the
execution of that same plan
his sole study and
business."
--- Benjamin Franklin
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the
point however is to change it."
- Karl Marx, 1845, Eleven Theses on Feurback
The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent, but if we can come to terms with the indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light."
-- Stanley Kubrick
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," -- that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
-- John Keats (1795-1821)
"Everything to excess. Moderation is for monks."
-- Lazarus Long, from Robert A. Heinlein's
"Time Enough For Love"
"Existence is random. It has no pattern save what we imagine after
staring at it for too long.
-- Rorschach, "Watchmen"
"Do not speak of what men deserve. For we each of us deserve everything,
every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead Kings, and we each
of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten
while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for
the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man
earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of *deserving*, of *earning*, and
you will begin to be able to think."
-- Odo, The Prison Letters (Ursula LeGuin, "The Dispossessed")
"Do not be angry with me if I tell you the truth."
-- Socrates (470?-399 B.C.)
"A commercial, and in some respects a social, doubt has been started within the
last year or two, whether or not it is right to discuss so openly the security
or insecurity of locks. Many well-meaning persons suppose that the
discussion respecting the means for baffling the supposed safety of locks
offers a premium for dishonesty, by showing others how to be dishonest. This
is a fallacy. Rogues are very keen in their profession, and already know much
more than we can teach them respecting their several kinds of roguery. Rogues
knew a good deal about lockpicking long before locksmiths discussed it among
themselves, as they have lately done. If a lock -- let it have been made in
whatever country, or by whatever maker -- is not so inviolable as it has
hitherto been deemed to be, surely it is in the interest of *honest* persons
to know this fact, because the *dishonest* are tolerably certain to be the
first to apply the knowledge practically; and the spread of knowledge is
necessary to give fair play to those who might suffer by ignorance. It cannot
be too earnestly urged, that an acquaintance with real facts will, in the end,
be better for all parties."
-- Charles Tomlinson's Rudimentary Treatise
on the Construction of Locks, published around 1850
" 'He deserves death'.
'Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that
die deserve life. Can you give it to them ? Then do not be too eager to deal
out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.' "
-- J. R. R. Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings
When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure
clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer
to a definite problem. For better or worse you have acted decisively.
In a way, the next move is up to him.
-- Raphael Aloysius Lafferty
Time, because it is so fleeting, time, because it is beyond recall, is
the most precious of human goods and to squander it is the most delicate form
of dissipation in which man can indulge.
-- W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), "The Bum"
There was a cage with several apes in it. In the cage there
was a banana hung on a string, and stairs under it. Before long an ape
went to the stairs to get the banana, but as soon as it even touched
the stairs, all apes were sprayed with water. After a while the same
ape or another one made another attempt, with the same result: all
apes are sprayed. If later another ape tries to climb the stairs, the
others will try to prevent it.
Now they took one ape from the cage and put in a new one. The
new ape saw the banana, and wanted to climb the stairs. To his horror
all other apes attacked him. After another attempt he knew: if he
wanted to climb the stairs, he would be beaten up. Then they removed a
second ape and replaced it by another new one. The newcomer went to
the stairs and got beaten up. The previous new ape took part in the
punishment with enthusiasm.
A third old ape was replaced by a third new one. The new one
made it to the stairs and got beaten up as well. Two of the apes who
beat him have no idea why they may not climb the stairs. They replace
the fourth old ape, and the fifth, etc. until all apes which have been
sprayed with water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no ape ever tries
to climb the stairs.
One day a new, young ape asks, "But Sir, why not?"
"Because that's the way we do things around here, my boy."
-- A Parable.
Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.
-- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
Ambition is a lust that is never quenched, but grows more inflamed and
madder by enjoyment.
-- Thomas Otway
Always remember, however, that there's usually a simpler and better way
to do something than the first way that pops into your head.
-- Donald E. Knuth, "TeXbook"
Against boredom, even the gods themselves struggle in vain.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand
and chaining a soul,
And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning and company doesn't mean
security,
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't
promises,
And you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open,
with the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child,
And you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow's ground
is too uncertain for plans.
After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting
for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure... that you really are strong,
And you really do have worth.
A would-be disciple came to Nasrudin's hut on the mountain-side. Knowing that every action of such an enlightened one is significant, the seeker watched the teacher closely. "Why do you blow on your hands?" "To warm myself in the cold." Later, Nasrudin poured bowls of hot soup for himself and the newcomer, and blew on his own. "Why are doing that, Master?" "To cool the soup." Unable to trust a man who uses the same process to arrive at two different results -- hot and cold -- the disciple departed.
"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last,
"what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said
Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said.
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness."
-- Mark Twain (1835-1910)
"To steal from a thief is not theft. It is merely irony."
-- Zorro, while retrieving money taxed from Californians
A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
-- Gloria Steinem
A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can
be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the
right man's brow.
-- Charlie Brower
There are two possibilities; either we are totally alone in the universe, or we are not. Either one is mind boggling.
If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't.
Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.
Intelligent people talk about ideas. Average people talk about things. Small people talk about other people.
It is difficult to believe that someone can differ from us and be right.
It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Do it! It's easier to get forgiveness than permission.
If you can't create it - respect it.
Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.
Don't tell me I'm burning the candle at both ends -- tell me where to get more wax!!
If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.
If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost.
If you must choose between the lesser of two evils, choose the one you've never tried before.
It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.
It is better to wear out than to rust out.
Never say you know a man until you have divided an inheritance with him.
Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.
A bird does not sing because it has an answer...
it sings because it has a song.
-- Ancient Chinese proverb
"Mathematicians are the least expensive researchers to support. All they need is pencils, paper, and a wastebasket -- and when they turn philosopher, they don't even need the wastebasket!"
"It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling
exception, is composed of others."
-- John Andrew Holmes
" 'He deserves death'.
'Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that
die deserve life. Can you give it to them ? Then do not be too eager to deal
out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.' "
-- J. R. R. Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings
Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart
and his friends can only read the title.
- Virginia Woolf
"Any man more right than his neighbors is a majority of one."
--- Henry David Thoreau
Anything not nailed down is mine. Anything I can pry loose is not nailed down.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's
character, give him power.
--- Abraham Lincoln
"I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want
to be liked by all the people around them. I don't care if people
hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question
is: 'What are they in a position to do about it?'"
--- (William S. Burroughs)
The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I
think is right.
--- H.D. Thoreau