Great Quotes

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything." - Alexander Hamilton

"Religion is just a relic from a more ignorant past." - Anon

"Religion makes assertions based on faith and asks us to suspend reason – science asks that we suspend faith based assertions and follow the evidence wherever it may lead." - Anon

"I'm so used to being outside of my comfort zone, that when I am actually in it, I'm really quite uncomfortable" - Guss Wilkinson

"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please." - Mark Twain

"The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them." - Mark Twain

"Sacred cows make the best hamburger." - Mark Twain

"One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives." - Mark Twain

"When I think of all the harm the Bible has done, I despair of ever writing anything to equal it." - Oscar Wilde

“Many people have delusions of grandeur but most are deluded by triviality.”- Eugéne Ionesco, French dramatist

“I would rather be an opportunist and float than go to the bottom with my principles around my neck.” - Stanley Baldwin, British statesman

“I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings.” - Pearl Buck, US novelist

“You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it is going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.” - Robert T. Pirsig, US writer (from “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”)

“Probably no invention came more easily to man than Heaven.” - George Christoph Lichtenberg, German physicist and writer

“It is not the ape, nor the tiger in man that I fear, but the donkey.” - William Temple, British churchman

“An idealist is a man who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.” - H.L. Mencken, US journalist

“A radical is man with both feet firmly planted in the air.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt, US Democratic president

“Never argue with a fool - people might not know the difference” - Anonymous

“The first sign of a nervous breakdown is when you start thinking your work is terribly important.” - Milo Bloom

“To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, and call whatever you hit the target.” - Ashleigh Brilliant

“Before you kill something make sure you have something better to replace it with; something better than political opportunists slamming hate horseshit in the public park.” - Charles Bukowski

On the media: “As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it.” - Dick Cavett

“Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most times he will pick himself up and carry on.” - Winston Churchill

“Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.” - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

“Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance” - Will Durant

“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.” - Albert Einstein

“Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.” – Andre Gide

“Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.” - Sydney Harris

“The great masses of the people... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.” - Adolf Hitler

"You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you." - Eric Hoffer

“Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.” - Elbert Hubbard

“The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.” - Hubert H. Humphrey

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” - William James

“The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.” - William James

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” – Rudyard Kiplin

“Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.” - Aaron Levenstein

“Where all men think alike, no one thinks very much.” - Walter Lippman

“A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something.” - Wilson Mizner

“Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.” - H. L. Mencken

"Any party which takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponants blame it for the drought." - Dwight Morrow

“Nobody believes the official spokesman... but everybody trusts an unidentified source.” - Ron Nesen

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.” - Bertrand Russell

“You can outdistance that which is running after you, but not what is running inside you.” - Rwandan proverb

"Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so." - Bertrand Russell

"When ideas fail, words come in very handy." - Goethe

"The covers of this book are too far apart." - Ambrose Bierce

"Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you." - C.G. Jung

"Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers." - T. S. Eliot

"The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense. " - Tom Clancy

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." - Douglas Adams

"The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has been asleep for 30 years of his life." - Muhammad Ali

"Our lives improve only when we take chances -- and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves." - Walter Anderson

"From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life." - Arthur Ashe

"Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you're alive, it isn't." - Richard Bac

"Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think." - Niels Bohr

"We find comfort among those who agree with us--growth among those who don't." - Frank A Clark

"If life were fair, Dan Quayle would be making a living asking 'Do you want fries with that?' " - John Cleese

"What we need is not the will to believe but the will to find out." - Bertrand Russel

"The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking." - John Kenneth Galbraith

"Whoever controls the media--the images--controls the culture." - Allen Ginsberg

"We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special." - Stephen Hawking

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored" - Aldous Huxley

"Great ideas need landing gear as well as wings." - C. D. Jackson

"It wasn't until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say 'I don't know'." - W. Somerset Maugham

"Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof." - Ashley Montague

"Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects." - Will Rogers

"Truth is more of a stranger than fiction." - Mark Twain

"I sometimes think that God, in creating man, overestimated His ability." - Oscar Wilde

"In the long run, we are all dead." - John Maynard Keynes

"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it." - Oscar Wilde

"To be willing to die for an ideal is to set a rather high price on conjecture.” - Oscar Wild

"Wherever you get near the human race, there's just layers and layers of nonsense." - Thornton Wilder

"Belief is the death of intelligence." - Robert Anton Wilson

"When you sling mud, you lose ground." - Adlai Stevenson

"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live. It is asking other people to live as one wishes to live." - Oscar Wilde

"Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that he sometimes has to eat them." - Adlai Stevenson

"Christianity started out in Palestine as a fellowship; it moved to Greece and became a philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution; it moved to Europe and became a culture; it came to America and became an enterprise." - Sam Pascoe, American scholar.

"The TV business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." - Hunter S. Thompson.

“In the beginning there was nothing. And the Lord said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was still nothing, but now you could see it.” – Terry Pratchett

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” - Max Planck

"Doubt everything or believe everything: these are two equally convenient strategies. With either we dispense with the need for reflection." - Henri Poincare

"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?" - Albert Einstein