Plato
- Phaedrus (Jowett Translation)
The beginning is unbegotten, for that which is begotten has a beginning; but the beginning is begotten of nothing, for if it were begotten of something, then the begotten would not come from a beginning. But if unbegotten, it must also be indestructible; for if beginning were destroyed, there could be no beginning out of anything, nor anything out of a beginning; and all things must have a beginning.
Plato
- Phaedrus (Jowett Translation)
All good counsel begins in the same way; a man should know what he is advising about, or his counsel will all come to nought. But people imagine that they know about the nature of things, when they don't know about them, and, not having come to an understanding at first because they think that they know, they end, as might be expected, in contradicting one another and themselves.
Hunter S Thompson
- The Motorcycle Gangs - A Portrait of an Outsider Underground
The vast majority of motorcycle outlaws are uneducated, unskilled men between 20 and 30, and most have no credentials except a police record. So at the root of their sad stance is a lot more than a wistful yearning for acceptance in a world they never made; their real motivation is an instinctive certainty as to what the score really is. They are out of the ball game and they know it - and that is their meaning; the Hell's Angels not only know but spitefully proclaim exactly where they stand.
Plato
- Apology (Jowett Translation)
A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong - acting the part of a good man or of a bad.
Douglas R. Hofstadter
- Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid
Whereas it is very simple to talk about language in language, it is not at all easy to see how a statement about numbers can talk about itself. In fact, it took genius merely to connect the idea of self-referential statements with number theory. Once Godel had the intuition that such a statement could be created, he was over the major hurdle. The actual creation of the statement was the working out of this one beautiful spark of intuition.
A.I. Markushevich
- Theory of Functions of a Complex Variable
It is hardly surprising that the most important classes of functions encountered in classical analysis and in its applications to problems of mechanics and physics consist of functions which are analytic everywhere except at certain singular points. This is the reason why it is so important to make a special study of the general properties of analytic functions.
A.N. Shiryaev
- Probability
Laplace's most important contribution was the application of probabilistic methods to errors of observation. He formulated the idea of considering errors of observation as the cumulative results of adding a large number of independent elementary errors. From this it followed that under rather general conditions the distribution of errors of observation must be at least approximately normal.
David Foster Wallace
- Shipping Out: On the (nearly lethal) comforts of a luxury cruise
How long has it been since you did absolutely nothing? I know exactly how long it's been for me. I know how long it's been since I had every need met choicelessly from someplace outside me, without my having to ask. And that time I was floating, too, and the fluid was warm and salty, and if I was in any way conscious I'm sure I was dreadless, and was having a really good time, and would have sent postcards to everyone wishing they were here.
Terry Pratchett
- The Hogfather
Then Jack chopped down the beanstalk, adding murder and ecological vandalism to the theft, enticement and trespass charges already mentioned, but he got away with it and lived happily ever after without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done. Which proves that you can be excused just about anything if you're a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
Bertrand Russell
- Nice People
It has become sadly common to wish children to enjoy themselves, and it is to be feared that those who have been educated on these lax principles will not display adequate horror of pleasure when they grow up.
Bertrand Russell
- Nice People
When I was young, I remember hearing it advanced by a nice woman, as an argument against capital punishment, that the hangman could hardly be a nice man. I have never known any hangmen personally, so I have not been able to test this argument empirically.
Bertrand Russell
- The Triumph of Stupidity
Force tends increasingly to fall into the hands of those who are enemies of civilization. The danger is profound and terrible; it cannot be waved aside with easy optimism. The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
Bertrand Russell
- The Conquest of Happiness
The man capable of greatness of soul will open wide the windows of his mind, letting the winds blow freely upon it from every portion of the universe.
Bertrand Russell
- The Conquest of Happiness
The tragedy of one successful politician after another is the gradual substitution of narcissism for an interest in the community and the measures for which he stands. The man who is only interested in himself is not admirable, and is not felt to be so. Consequently the man whose sole concern with the world is that it shall admire him is not likely to achieve his object.
Bertrand Russell
- The Conquest of Happiness
At the age of five, I reflected that, if I should live to be seventy, I had only endured, so far, a fourteenth part of my whole life, and I felt the long spread out boredom ahead of me to be almost unendurable.
D. H. Lawrence
- Fantasia of the Unconscious
There should be no effort made to teach children to think, to have ideas. Only to lift them and urge them into dynamic activity. Never have ideas about children - and never have ideas for them.
D. H. Lawrence
- Fantasia of the Unconscious
I warn the generality of readers, that this present book will seem to them only a rather more revolting mass of wordy nonsense than the last. I would warn the generality of critics to throw it in the waste paper basket without much ado.
The Mountaineers
- Mountaineering: Freedom of the Hills
As a rule, the least skilled climber should be last on the rope while ascending and first on the rope while descending. This puts the climber most likely to fall in a position where a fall will be less serious: below the other climbers, where the impact will be felt quickly along the rope.
Beatrice Santorini and Anthony Kroch
- The Syntax of Natural Language
Rules of prescriptive grammar make statements about how people ought to use language. In contrast, rules of descriptive grammar have the status of scientific observations, and they are intended as insightful generalizations about the way that speakers use language in fact, rather than about the way that they ought to use it.
William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
- The Elements of Style
The position of the words in a sentence is the principal means of showing their relationship. Confusion and ambiguity result when words are badly placed. The writer must, therefore, bring together the words and groups of words that are related in thought and keep apart those that are not so related.
