A WITTY STATESMAN SAID, YOU MIGHT PROVE ANYTHING BY FIGURES.$Thomas Carlyle, “Chartism”
IT IS IN MATHEMATICS THAT THE ARTIST HAS THE FULLEST SCOPE OF HIS IMAGINATION.$Havelock Ellis, “The Dance of Life”
THE MATHEMATICIAN HAS REACHED THE HIGHEST RUNG ON THE LADDER OF HUMAN THOUGHT.$Havelock Ellis, “The Dance of Life”
MATHEMATICS POSSESSES NOT ONLY TRUTH, BUT SUPREME BEAUTY - A BEAUTY COLD AND AUSTERE, LIKE THAT OF SCULPTURE.$Bertrand Russell, “The Study of Mathematics”
THE SCIENCE OF PURE MATHEMATICS MAY CLAIM TO BE THE MOST ORIGINAL CREATION OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT.$Alfred North Whitehead, “Science and the Modern World”
GIVE ME A FIRM SPOT ON WHICH TO STAND, AND I WILL MOVE THE EARTH.$Archimedes, remark about the lever, quoted by Pappus of Alexandria in “Collectio”
IF YOU AREN'T CONFUSED BY QUANTUM PHYSICS, THEN YOU HAVEN'T REALLY UNDERSTOOD IT.$Niels Bohr, attributed
NOTHING EXISTS EXCEPT ATOMS AND EMPTY SPACE; EVERYTHING ELSE IS OPINION.$Democratus, fragment
PHYSICAL CONCEPTS ARE FREE CREATIONS OF THE HUMAN MIND, AND ARE NOT, HOWEVER IT MAY SEEM, UNIQUELY DETERMINED BY THE EXTERNAL WORLD.$Albert Einstein, “The Evolution of Physics”
NOTHING PUZZLES ME MORE THAN TIME AND SPACE; AND YET NOTHING TROUBLES ME LESS AS I NEVER THINK ABOUT THEM.$Charles Lamb, letter to Thomas Manning, 1806
ASTRONOMY COMPELS THE SOUL TO LOOK UPWARDS AND LEADS US FROM THIS WORLD TO ANOTHER.$Plato, “The Republic”
IT MIGHT BE SAID OF PSYCHOANALYSIS THAT IF YOU GIVE IT YOUR LITTLE FINGER, IT WILL SOON HAVE YOUR WHOLE HAND.$Sigmund Freud, “Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis”
DREAMS ARE THE TRUE INTERPRETERS OF OUR INCLINATIONS; BUT THERE IS ART REQUIRED TO SORT AND UNDERSTAND THEM.$Montaigne, “Essays”
THERE IS NOTHING MORE ENTICING, DISENCHANTING, AND ENSLAVING THAN THE LIFE AT SEA.$Joseph Conrad, “Lord Jim”
BEING IN A SHIP IS BEING IN JAIL, WITH THE CHANCE OF BEING DROWNED.$Samuel Johnson, quoted by James Boswell in “Life of Johnson”
A MAN WHO IS NOT AFRAID OF THE SEA WILL SOON BE DROWNED.$J. M. Synge, “The Aran Islands”
IN TIME OF WAR, WHEN TRUTH IS SO PRECIOUS, IT MUST BE ATTENDED BY A BODYGUARD OF LIES.$Winston Churchill, remark at Teheran, 1943
THE MAN WHO MASTERS HIMSELF IS DELIVERED FROM THE FORCE THAT BINDS ALL CREATURES.$Goethe, “Die Geheimnisse”
WHAT OTHER DUNGEON IS SO DARK AS ONE'S OWN HEART! WHAT JAILOR SO INEXORABLE AS ONE'S SELF!$Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The House of the Seven Gables”
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD IS TO KNOW HOW TO BELONG TO ONESELF.$Montaigne, “Essays”
TO UNDERSTAND ONESELF IS THE CLASSIC FORM OF CONSOLATION; TO ELUDE ONESELF IS THE ROMANTIC.$George Santayana, “Winds of Doctrine”
WE KNOW WHAT WE ARE; BUT KNOW NOT WHAT WE MAY BE.$William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”
MORAL INDIGNATION IS IN MOST CASES TWO PERCENT MORAL, FORTY-EIGHT PERCENT INDIGNATION, AND FIFTY PERCENT ENVY.$Vittorio De Sica, quoted in the “Observer”, 1961
TO MANY, TOTAL ABSTINENCE IS EASIER THAN PERFECT MODERATION.$St. Augustine, “On the Good of Marriage”
SEX LIES AT THE ROOT OF LIFE, AND WE CAN NEVER LEARN TO REVERENCE LIFE UNTIL WE KNOW HOW TO UNDERSTAND SEX.$Havelock Ellis, “Studies in the Psychology of Sex”
IF YOUR NIGHT LIFE IS GOOD, YOU THINK YOU HAVE EVERYTHING.$Euripides, “Medea”
MOST MOTHERS THINK THAT TO KEEP YOUNG PEOPLE AWAY FROM LOVEMAKING IT IS ENOUGH NEVER TO SPEAK OF IT IN THEIR PRESENCE.$Marie Madeleine de La Fayette, “La Princesse de Clèves”
CIVILIZED PEOPLE CANNOT FULLY SATISFY THEIR SEXUAL INSTINCT WITHOUT LOVE.$Bertrand Russell, “Marriage and Morals”
IT IS NOT STRANGE THAT DESIRE SHOULD SO MANY YEARS OUTLIVE PERFORMANCE.$William Shakespeare, “Henry IV, Part II”
IGNORANCE IS PREFERABLE TO ERROR; AND HE IS LESS REMOTE FROM THE TRUTH WHO BELIEVES NOTHING, THAN HE WHO BELIEVES WHAT IS WRONG.$Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on the State of Virginia”
THE PRAGMATIST KNOWS THAT DOUBT IS AN ART WHICH HAS TO BE ACQUIRED WITH DIFFICULTY.$C. S. Peirce, “Collected Papers”
MEN HAVE CONCEIVED A TWOFOLD USE OF SLEEP: THAT IT IS A REFRESHING OF THE BODY IN THIS LIFE, AND THAT IT IS A PREPARING OF THE SOUL FOR THE NEXT.$John Donne, “Meditation xv”
HE WHO IS UNABLE TO LIVE IN SOCIETY, OR WHO HAS NO NEED BECAUSE HE IS SUFFICIENT FOR HIMSELF, MUST EITHER BE A BEAST OR A GOD.$Aristotle, “Politics”
FULL MANY A FLOWER IS BORN TO BLUSH UNSEEN, AND WASTE ITS SWEETNESS ON THE DESERT AIR.$Thomas Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”
THE STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD IS HE WHO STANDS MOST ALONE.$Henrik Ibsen, “An Enemy of the People”
I NEVER FOUND THE COMPANION THAT WAS SO COMPANIONABLE AS SOLITUDE.$Henry David Thoreau, “Walden”
HAPPINESS IS BENEFICIAL FOR THE BODY, BUT IT IS GRIEF THAT DEVELOPS THE POWERS OF THE MIND.$Marcel Proust, “Remembrance of Things Past: The Past Recaptured”
WHEN SORROWS COME, THEY COME NOT AS SINGLE SPIES, BUT IN BATTALIONS!$William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”
WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT A MAN, IF HE SHALL GAIN THE WHOLE WORLD, AND LOSE HIS OWN SOUL?$Bible, “Mark”
THOSE THINGS THAT NATURE DENIED TO HUMAN SIGHT, SHE REVEALED TO THE EYES OF THE SOUL.$Ovid, “Metamorphoses”
