My Commonplace Book

A Commonplace Book is a very old way to compile knowledge, here a collection of personally illuminating quotations, proverbs, etc.

Highlighted Quote

We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane. Kilgore Trout
-Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions, Ch 1.
  80

Active Quotes

[A great nation is saved] by speaking, writing, voting reasonably; by smiting corruption swiftly; by good temper between parties; by the people knowing true men when they see them, and preferring them as leaders to rabid partisans and empty quacks
-William James, Essays in Religion and Morality, Robert Gould Shaw: Oration
  1

The best part of writing is not the communication of knowledge to other people, but the acquisition and synthesizing of knowledge for oneself.
-Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic, A Last Tango with Paris, June 2014
  2

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool
-William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act V, Scene I, Touchstone
  3

I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything.
-Richard Feynman,Horizon, 1981
  4

Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. Then they don't have a plan.
-Mike Tyson
  5

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
-Mark Twain
  6

It is amusing to detect character in the vocabulary of each person. The adjectives habitually used, like the inscriptions on a thermometer, indicate the temperament.
-Henry Tuckerman, The Optimist, Conversation essay
  7

Animals are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.
-Henry Beston, The Outermost House, p. 25
  8

Of course, one cannot declare that only my faith is correct and all other faiths are not. Of course God is endlessly multi-dimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God.
-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Interview by Joseph Pearce, St. Austin Revew 2 No. 2, February 2003
  9

In the world of politics, the degree to which scruples are exercised is in inverse proportion to the degree to which moral rectitude is claimed.
-Thomas A. Wiebe
  10

There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.
-Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 3
  11

Don't forget to be happy.
-Dalton Trumbo, in conversation with Donald Sutherland
  12

For the present, then, three things matter - believing, hoping, and loving. But supreme is loving. (translated by Garry Wills, What Paul Meant)
-St. Paul, I Corinthians 13:13
  13

Man owes his strength in the struggle for existence to the fact that he is a social animal.
-Albert Einstein, from Address, October 15, 1936
  14

Ideology is a partial truth masquerading as the whole truth.
-Rod Dreher, from Tea Party Literature, the American Conservative, July 10,2014
  15

Old leaves drifting down, vermilion and ochre, resplendent in death.
-Thomas A. Wiebe
  16

Can a man who's warm understand one who's freezing?
-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
  17

Don't judge a man by his opinions, but what his opinions have made of him.
-Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
  18

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
-Franklin Roosevelt, 2nd Inaugural Address
  19

From so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
-Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 528
  20

We always imagine eternity as something beyond our conception, something vast, vast! But why must it be vast?
-Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, p. 293
  21

What is politics if not a dangerous temptation toward controlling others rather than reforming oneself?
-Andrew Sullivan, Christianity in Crisis, Newsweek 4-2-2012
  22

Political ideologies, or ideologies wielded in the service of politics, share the property that they can erase any reality that contradicts them.
-Thomas A. Wiebe
  23

America, it may be, is doing very well upon the whole, notwithstanding these antics of the parties and their leaders . . . It behooves you to convey yourself implicitly to no party, nor submit blindly to their dictators, but steadily hold yourself judge and master over all of them.
-Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas, p. 47-48
  24

Control is a tough nut.
-Judith Guest, Ordinary People, p. 21
  25

Your strength is just an accident owed to the weakness of others.
-Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, p. 13
  26

That which is far off, and exceeding deep, who can find it out?
-Solomon, Ecclesiastes 7:24, KJV
  27

No matter how righteous a war, it's a terrible, sad and awful thing. Sometimes the reasons are defensible. But most of the time, they're not.
-Tim O'Brien
  28

There are only two kinds of certain knowledge: Awareness of our own existence and the truths of mathematics.
-Jean le Rond d'Alembert, Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot
  29

[Regarding] a beneficent and omnipotent God . . . I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton.
-Charles Darwin, Letter to Rev. Asa Gray, May 22, 1860
  30

The world is complicated and full of grays, but there's still truth there to be found.
-Barack Obama, Conv. w/Marilynne Robinson 9/14/2015
  31

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.
-Heraclitus
  32

Just because we don't know everything, that doesn't mean we know nothing.
-Naomi Oreskes, Merchants of Doubt
  33

Patriotism means unqualified and unswerving love for the nation, which implies not uncritical eagerness to serve, not support for unjust claims, but frank assessment of its vices and sins.
-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, From Under the Rubble, Repentence and Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations, p. 120
  34

Star glows in the void, pin point in the firmament: quintessential!
-Thomas A. Wiebe
  35

Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.
-Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
  36

For now we see through a glass, darkly. (KJV) For we know things only partially, or prophesy partially. (Garry Wills, What Paul Meant)
-St. Paul, I Corinthians 13:12
  37

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind,
-Albert Einstein
  38

As far as the propositions of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
-Albert Einstein, Geometry and Experience, 1921
  39

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
-Theodore Roosevelt, Kansas City Star, 5/7/1918
  40

Dare to know! (Sapere aude!)
-Immanuel Kant, What is Enlightenment, from Horace's Epistles (II)
  41

Acquaintance, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
-The Devils Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce
  42

Don't long for 'the good old days'. This is not wise.
-Solomon, Ecclesiastes 7:10, NLT
  43

But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
-1st Epistle of St. John, 3:17-18
  44

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
-Epistle of St. Matthew, 19:24
  45

Snap out of it!
-Loretta Castorini, Moonstruck
  46

Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.
-The Devils Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce
  47

Politeness, n. The most acceptable hypocrisy.
-The Devils Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce
  48

Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
-The Devils Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce
  49

Positive: To be mistaken at the top of one's voice.
-The Devils Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce
  50

Quotation, n. The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
-The Devils Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce
  51

Most men are not curious to know; nay, some make no bones about saying, 'What does it matter whether we know this or not'?
-Letter from van Leeuwenhoek to Leibniz, Sep 28, 1715, Epistolae Physiologicae, Send-brief XVIII
  52

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
-The Life of Samuel Johnson, Vol 2, p. 547, by James Boswell
  53

Religions of the world generally have good relationships with one another until one of them claims to worship the one and only true God.
-Britt Towery
  54

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one-another.
-Jonathan Swift, Miscellanies: Thoughts on Various Subjects, p. 257
  55

There is always an easy solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong.
-H.L. Mencken, Mencken Chrestomathy, p. 443
  56

The uncertainty principle describes an inherent fuzziness that must exist in any attempt to describe nature. Our most precise description of nature must be in terms of probabilities.
-Richard Feynman, Lectures on Physics, I, 6-10
  57

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge'.
-Isaac Asimov, A Cult of Ignorance, Newsweek, 21 Jan 1980
  58

Tyranny ... finds it impossible to continue to live with science.
-Robert Oppenheimer, Physics in the Contemporary World, A.D. Little Lecture 1947
  59

Thoughtful observers should suspect any historical narrative that paints the world in black and white.
-K. R. Ghodsee, aeon, Anti anti-communism
  60

The common sense of the eighteenth century, its grasp of the obvious facts of human suffering, and of the obvious demands of human nature, acted on the world like a bath of moral cleansing.
-Alfred Lord Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, p. 59
  61

Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks - no form of government can render us secure.
-James Madison, Virginia Ratifying Convention
  62

Writing - the all-remembering skill, the mother of many arts.
-Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, 460-61
  63

Life is like a beer - once you lose your head you're all finished.
-Sergeant Carter, Gomer the Peacemaker
  64

The fanatic is always concealing a secret doubt.
-Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, 2001 film, O'Connor & Straughan
  65

If you were depressed after being exposed to the cosmic perspective, you started your day with an unjustifiably large ego.
-Neil deGrasse Tyson
  66

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel in order to be tough.
-Franklin Roosevelt, Radio address 1940
  67

True religion begins in doubt and continues in spiritual exploration. Debased religion begins in fear and terminates in certainty.
-Neal Gabler
  68

Avoid oversimplifying ideas, and presenting exaggerated claims.
-Charles Simonyi
  69

I cannot live without books.
-Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Adams, June 10, 1815
  70

The contemplation of nature alone is not sufficient to fill the human heart and mind.
-H.W.Bates, The Naturalist on the River Amazons, p. 722
  71

It takes many years of training to ignore the obvious.
-The Economist, Theories of Economic Growth
  72

The hill we climb if only we dare it, because being American is more than a pride we inherit, it’s the past we step into and how we repair it.
-Amanda Gorman, The Hill We Climb
  75

Fervour is necessary only in commending an opinion which is doubtful or demonstrably false.
-Alan Grometstein, The Root of Things, 281.
  76

For all those that have to fight for the respect that everyone else is given without question.
-N. K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season dedication
  77

The true logic of this world is the Calculus of Probabilities.
-James Clerk Maxwell, The Life, p 97
  78

If the Jew did not exist, the anti-Semite would invent him.
-Jean-Paul Sartre, Réflexions sur la question juive
  79

Miscellany

To begin recovery from the coronavirus, the United States must must test widely to find infected people; trace their contacts, who might themselves have been infected; and isolate that potentially infectious group from the rest of the susceptible population. This can be done most quickly and effectively with leadership by the federal government.
-R. Meyer, The Atlantic, May 8 2020
  73

I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance infect and pollute others, and so cause their death as a result of my negligence.
-Martin Luther, 1527, WA:23:365
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