Quote collection
427 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. 'Something cannot emerge from nothing,' he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable 'the truth' can be."
"Killing with the point lacks artistry, but don't let that hold your hand when the opening presents itself."
"The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future."
"We are generalists. You can't draw neat lines around planet-wide problems. Planetology is a cut-and-fit science."
"The most persistent principles in the universe are accident and error."
"To be a god can ultimately become boring and degrading. There'd be reason enough for the invention of free will! A god might wish to escape into sleep and be alive only in the unconscious projections of his dream-creatures."
"The truth always carries the ambiguity of the words used to express it."
"No matter how exotic human civilization becomes, no matter the developments of life and society nor the complexity of the machine/human interface, there always come interludes of lonely power when the course of humankind, the very future of humankind, depends upon the relatively simple actions of single individual."
"Law always chooses sides on the basis of enforcement power. Morality and legal niceties have little to do with it when the real question is: Who has the clout?"
"One of the best things to come out of the home computer revolution could be the general and widespread understanding of how severely limited logic really is."
"Never attempt to reason with people who know they are right!"
"The surest way to keep a secret is to make people believe they already know the answer."
"The universe does not work by our rules"
"Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he or she is in. That person must reflect what is projected upon him or her."
"A leader is one of the things that distinguishes a mob from a people. He maintains the level of individuals. Too few individuals and a people reverts to a mob."
"Experts and specialists lead you quickly into chaos. They are a source of useless nit-picking, the ferocious quibble over a comma."
"Atrocity is recognized as such by victim and predator alike, by all who learn about it at whatever remove. Atrocity has no excuses, no mitigating argument. Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity. It is self-perpetuating upon itself - a barbarous form of incest. Whoever commits atrocity also commits those future atrocities thus bred."
"Technology is both a tool for helping humans and for destroying them. This is the paradox of our times which we're compelled to face."
"The joy of living, its beauty, is all bound up in the fact that life can surprise you."
"Caution is the path to mediocrity."