Quotes
54
What ended the _Age of Aquarius_?
“The Stone Age didn’t end for lack of stone…” Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, former Saudi oil minister....
Dad • Quotes • 10/05/08 • 1 commentsWhat’s wrong with America?
Bill Moyers in his interview with Charlie Rose said of our body politic that, “too many powerful interests have a...
Dad • Quotes • 05/17/08 • 0 commentsThe theology of horseshoes
If God doesn't exist, why did He create mathematics?
Dad • Quotes • 01/13/08 • 1 commentsJust what I need
A vendor making a presentation in my Philadelphia office wanted to emphasize how his company would work in partnership with...
Dad • Quotes • 12/20/07 • 3 commentsWhen you can’t win
I heard an interesting expression on a radio talk show tonight regarding why John McCain might have declined to come...
Dad • Quotes • 06/14/07 • 0 commentsHazlitt on meditation
"For many years of my life I did nothing but think."
Patrick • Quotes • 09/01/06 • 0 commentsAugustine on Time
I know it when I see it says Augustine, or something to that effect.
Patrick • Quotes • 07/28/06 • 2 commentsJohnson on Writers and Reading
"The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write"
Patrick • Quotes • 05/22/06 • 0 commentsOn Time
Time is the most unpredictable and secret thing in our life.
Patrick • Quotes • 05/16/06 • 8 commentsIrish philosophy
On spending money.
Dad • Quotes • 03/17/06 • 0 commentsPursuing truth with shots of nonsense
"It's worth knowing that lively intelligence even when it makes mistakes or tries to pursue truth with shots of nonsense."
Patrick • Quotes • 01/16/06 • 1 commentsIntolerance of Ambiguity
Says Theodor Adorno: "Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality."
Patrick • Quotes • 12/17/05 • 1 commentsThis, too, is life
"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another..."
Patrick • Quotes • 11/04/05 • 3 commentsVoltaire on patriotism
"To be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind."
Patrick • Quotes • 10/23/05 • 3 commentsJustification for the essayist
Balzac justifies the essayist's attention deficit disorder.
Patrick • Quotes • 10/07/05 • 2 commentsSearching for Meaning
Accept it's brief invitation to a small adventure.
Dad • Quotes • 03/26/05 • 1 commentsThe Nigger of the Narcissus
A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.
Dad • Quotes • 03/06/05 • 5 commentsPeart on Travel Writing
Neil Peart wears baggy pants when traveling and writing.
Patrick • Quotes • 02/17/05 • 5 commentsPessoa on perfectionism in writing
"I'm astounded whenever I finish something." --Fernando Pessoa.
Patrick • Quotes • 02/06/05 • 7 commentsWhy is it necessary to know who said it?
Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?
Dad • Quotes • 02/05/05 • 3 commentsThe end and the means
I've been thinking lately about whether or not the end can ever justify the means.
Dad • Quotes • 01/27/05 • 0 commentsQuotes on Humanity & War
Two quotes - one from MLK and one from Eleanor Roosevelt - on humanity and war.
David • Quotes • 12/09/04 • 1 comments“Do They Know It’s Christmas” Yet?
Bono says to thank God it's them instead of you. Primo Levi says different.
Patrick • News/Quotes • 11/17/04 • 1 commentsSebald on Writing
W. G. Sebald tries to encapsulate the neurosis of writing.
Patrick • Quotes • 11/12/04 • 1 commentsStupid Quotes
What do egotism, ignorance, confidence, and stupidity have in common?
Patrick • Quotes • 11/10/04 • 5 commentsUseful Science
...one of those strong statements that you're not sure you agree with
Dad • Quotes • 09/26/04 • 3 commentsHenry Miller on politicians
Henry Miller thinks politicians are lowbrows.
Patrick • Quotes • 09/07/04 • 0 commentsThe Universe
The universe knew we were coming?
Dad • Quotes • 09/02/04 • 2 commentsScience and Poetry
Paul Dirac says that poetry is obtuse.
Patrick • Quotes • 09/02/04 • 2 commentsHow we learn
The wise are instructed by reason. And others?
Patrick • Quotes • 08/26/04 • 1 commentsA Yiddish Proverb
A man is not old until his regrets take the place of dreams.
Patrick • Quotes • 08/20/04 • 2 commentsThe Life of a Day
Tom Hennen's intriguing poem about letting life slip by.
Patrick • Quotes • 08/09/04 • 1 commentsThrough Writer’s Block
A nice, aphoristic way of approaching writer's block.
Patrick • Quotes • 08/09/04 • 1 commentsBest Movie Lines
Amazingly, the first four entries in this Entertainment Weekly list of "Best movie lines ever" are from _The Princess Bride_.
Dad • Connections/Movies/Quotes/Stuffs • 08/04/04 • 2 commentsLife of Pi
Yann Martel's _Life of Pi_ is a wonderfully strange book. You should read it.
Patrick • Quotes/Reviews • 07/31/04 • 2 commentsWhy poetry?
[Poetry] may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.
Patrick • Quotes • 07/16/04 • 1 commentsThoughts on Singing
Some useful Spanish quotes about singing and songs.
Patrick • Quotes • 05/27/04 • 0 commentsBelief and Drunkenness
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
Patrick • Quotes • 05/19/04 • 7 commentsWriting Everything
Gary Fincke has, like me, tried to make literature out of the diarist Robert Shields.
Patrick • Quotes • 05/01/04 • 1 commentsWhence Language?
Coetzee derives it from song and "the need to fill out with sound the overlarge and rather empty human soul."
Patrick • Quotes • 04/24/04 • 7 commentsImproved, yes; good, no
Improvement is not the same as being good, says John Gruber.
Patrick • Quotes • 04/14/04 • 5 commentsPlato sees our day
The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves.
Patrick • Quotes • 03/09/04 • 4 commentsAmbiguity
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" -- Wayne Gretzky
Dad • Quotes • 01/30/04 • 30 commentsWriting’s Demons
Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle... -- George Orwell.
Patrick • Quotes • 01/27/04 • 0 commentsGovernment
I’m preparing a talk on freedom of religion for Church tomorrow. I’ve come across some excellent quotes, and I thought...
Patrick • Quotes • 11/22/03 • 2 commentsRage for Order
I actually wrote this the other day, but I’ll post it now. I think it’s a small example of how...
Patrick • Observations/Quotes • 06/21/03 • 3 commentsWhy We Write
This is a sort of followup to the Practice Writing entry by Dad, but I wanted to get the quote...
Patrick • Quotes/Recommendations • 06/12/03 • 0 commentsGod’s Grandeur
I’ll try not to turn this site into a repository for others’ poems, but here’s one more, and a recommendation...
Patrick • Quotes/Recommendations • 06/12/03 • 0 commentsThose Winter Sundays
Robert Hayden, the first black US poet laureate, is mentioned in Darryl Pinckney’s essay. I thought I’d share Hayden’s best-known...
Patrick • Quotes • 06/11/03 • 4 commentsSelf-love, La Rochefoucauld, and -isms
From La Rochefoucauld’s introduction to his Maxims, from Theodore Dalrymple’s essay “Dicovering La Rochefoucauld,” from New Criterion, April 2001, Vol....
Patrick • Quotes • 05/13/03 • 2 commentsInspiration/Discouragement
From an article by Neil Peart: However, the effect [of hearing great drummers] on me was to make me determined...
Patrick • Quotes • 05/13/03 • 5 commentsLiving in the Present Tense
I think, somewhat vainly, about living and especially now that i have to do something besides attend school and it...
Dan • Quotes • 05/04/03 • 3 commentsHume on Life
Patrick and I were talking about a quote from David Hume that appears in the recent book I am reading,...
Dad • Quotes • 04/26/03 • 5 commentsTrash-Talking in Iraq
I got this from CNN, which tells about a clash between the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit and a group of...
Patrick • Funnies/News/Quotes • 03/23/03 • 2 comments