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 TroutActive 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
The best part of writing is not the communication of knowledge to other people, but the acquisition and synthesizing of knowledge for oneself.
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool
I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything.
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.
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.
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.
There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.
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)
Ideology is a partial truth masquerading as the whole truth.
Old leaves drifting down, vermilion and ochre, resplendent in death.
-Thomas A. Wiebe 16
Don't judge a man by his opinions, but what his opinions have made of him.
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.
From so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
We always imagine eternity as something beyond our conception, something vast, vast! But why must it be vast?
What is politics if not a dangerous temptation toward controlling others rather than reforming oneself?
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.
Control is a tough nut.
-Judith Guest, Ordinary People, p. 21 25
Your strength is just an accident owed to the weakness of others.
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.
There are only two kinds of certain knowledge: Awareness of our own existence and the truths of mathematics.
The world is complicated and full of grays, but there's still truth there to be found.
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.
Just because we don't know everything, that doesn't mean we know nothing.Star glows in the void, pin point in the firmament: quintessential!
-Thomas A. Wiebe 35
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind,
-Albert Einstein 38
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.
Dare to know! (Sapere aude!)
-Immanuel Kant, What is Enlightenment, from Horace's Epistles (II) 41
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.
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.
Snap out of it!
-Loretta Castorini, Moonstruck 46
Politeness, n. The most acceptable hypocrisy.
-The Devils Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce 48
Positive: To be mistaken at the top of one's voice.
-The Devils Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce 50
Most men are not curious to know; nay, some make no bones about saying, 'What does it matter whether we know this or not'?
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Religions of the world generally have good relationships with one another until one of them claims to worship the one and only true God.
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one-another.
There is always an easy solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong.
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'.
Tyranny ... finds it impossible to continue to live with science.
Thoughtful observers should suspect any historical narrative that paints the world in black and white.
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.
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.
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.
The fanatic is always concealing a secret doubt.
If you were depressed after being exposed to the cosmic perspective, you started your day with an unjustifiably large ego.
True religion begins in doubt and continues in spiritual exploration. Debased religion begins in fear and terminates in certainty.
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.
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.
Fervour is necessary only in commending an opinion which is doubtful or demonstrably false.
For all those that have to fight for the respect that everyone else is given without question.
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.
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.
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.