The German method is to go to the principle of things, to select the wrong principle, and to build on that.
Every woman needs one man in her life who is strong and responsible. Given this security, she can proceed to do what she really wants to do -- fall in love with men who are weak and irresponsible.
In some of the poorer areas of the world it is sadly true that sex is the only luxury available to the ordinary man. Whether the ordinary woman also considers it a luxury is open to question.
"Why is The McGill Daily?" / Asked the pessimist sourly. / "Thank God," said the optimist gaily, / "That it isn't hourly!"
Wherever a set of alternative possible routes toward achieving a given end presents itself, a student movement will tend to choose the one which involves a higher measure of violence or humiliation directed against the older generation.
And after all, why should I go to bed every night? Sleep is only a habit.
You could dress up a pigeon in a tiny suit of evening clothes and put a tiny silk hat on his head and a tiny gold-headed cane under his wing and send him walking into my room at night. It would make no impression on me. I would not shout, "Good god almighty, the birds are in charge!" But you could send an owl into my room, dressed only in the feathers it was born with, and no monkey business, and I would pull the covers over my head and scream.
"There's An Owl in My Room", in The Thurber Carnival
I know a lot of my friends who won't drive a car that is of a model more than two years old. A great many of us have machinery in our heads that is of a model a hundred years old.
Quoted by F.H. Underhill in In Search of Canadian Liberalism
But I was not, to use the theological phrase, receptive. The great obstacle to the influx of grace was my own perfect happiness, and it is well known that God takes no thought for the happy, any more than He does for birds and puppies, perhaps realizing they have no need of Him and mercifully letting them alone.
Memoirs of Montparnasse
The stupidity of a stupid man is mercifully intimate and reticient, while the stupidity of an intellectual is cried from the rooftops.
Dear Me
If ye break faith with us who die / We shall not sleep, though poppies grow / In Flanders fields.
"In Flanders Fields"
This is a work of fiction. All the characters in it, human and otherwise, are imaginary, excepting only certain of the fairy folk, whom it might be unwise to offend by casting doubts on their existence. Or lack thereof.
Books of Magic III
It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much -- the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons.
The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best!
Joe's Garage
The mind, in fact, is trained to be able to deal with routine: the routine of working in an office, the routine of working in a factory, the routine even of teaching, the routine of going to school. The mind is routinized. And under those circumstances it is understandable that the most uncreative and frequently destructive aspects of the human mind are brought out.
A wise man can do no better than to turn from the churches and look up through the airy majesty of the wayside trees with exultation, with resignation, at the unconquerable unimplicated sun.
The Pathetic Fallacy
One form to rule them all, one form to find them, one form to bring them all and in the darkness rewrite the hell out of them.
In a comment from SENDMAIL Ruleset 3
I love religion. I could make up religions all day. I sort of think that in an ideal world I'd like to be a religion designer. I'd like people come up to me and say, "I need a religion." I'd go talk to them for awhile, and I'd design a religion for them. That would be a great job. There's a need for people like that. Fortunately, seeing that one can't actually do it, I get paid for sort of making them up anyway.
I look around and it's obvious to me: spreadsheet programming is turning the users into humorless accountant types. It is the embodiment of the bookkeeper's thought pattern. If you don't already have this peculiar pattern, then using a spreadsheet for any length of time will slowly turn your mind into the mind of a bookkeeper. The final result is not unlike the creation of mindless pod people seen in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
I'm aware someone might pump a few bullets into me. But that won't deter me because I believe what I do is important. We have a safer, better society as a result. I felt it was my duty. And I've never regretted it.
Quoted in the Toronto Globe and Mail, Nov. 3, 1998
Advertising reaches out to touch the fantasy part of people's lives. And, you know, most people's fantasies are pretty sad.
The Way The Future Was
What is termed "disrespect for law" in fact may only be the manifestation of a burning desire for justice. Order, like law, to be respected, must deserve respect. Disrespect for an order that does not deserve respect ought not to be condemned as degeneration, but commended as a healthy regeneration. What I am concerned about is that lawyers and judges too often regard "order" as a shield for the protection of privilege.
We can't go on living on a planet that's two-thirds slum -- not with safety.
If I die, the turtle will carry the secret of the trip and reveal it at the proper time.
Mathematical concepts and facts gain in vividness and clarity if they are well connected with the world around us and with general ideas, and if we obtain them by our own work through successive stages instead of in one lump.
And they all agreed that the expression on the face was not one of happiness. There were many possible explanations for that expression, but no one would have said terror, for it was not terror. They would not have said helplessness, for it was not that, either. They might have settled on a pathetic sense of loss, had their sensibilities run that deep, but none of them would have felt that the expression said, with great finality: a man may truly live in his dreams, his noblest dreams, but only, only if he is worthy of those dreams.
"Delusion for a Dragon Slayer"
Jargon: Jargon consists of words, phrases and syntactic usages which make communication easier between insiders in any field of study while making it harder for outsiders, thereby linguistically enforcing the elitism of expertise. Unless you use jargon liberally your career is likely to stagnate, especially in the computer industry.
Machine Learning (definition in the glossary)
... it is the peculiar and perpetual error of human intellect to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives; whereas it ought properly to hold itself indifferently disposed toward both alike.
"Idols of the Mind"
I never make stupid mistakes. Only very, very clever ones.
In John Peel's Timewyrm: Genesys
But the only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
"Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination"
Whenever I hear the word "share" I would reach for a gun if I had one. "Share" is frequently followed by the word "feelings," and I have enough of my own thank you; please do us both a favor and repress yours.
Society does not need more children; but it does need more loved children. Quite literally, we cannot afford unloved children -- but we pay heavily for them every day. There should not be the slightest communal concern when a woman elects to destroy the life of her thousandth-of-an-ounce embryo. But all society should rise up in alarm when it hears that a baby that is not wanted is about to be born.
That is the problem with this rich and anguished generation. Somewhere a long time ago they fell in love with the idea that politicians -- even the slickest and brightest presidential candidates -- were real heroes and truly exciting people. That is wrong on its face. They are mainly dull people with corrupt instincts and criminal children.
Generation of Swine
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reasons for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.