Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2010-06-21 Jun 21, 2010Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think.~ Benjamin DisraeliLittle strokes fell great oaks.~ Benjamin FranklinMan has existed for about a million years. He has possessed writing for about 6,000 years, agriculture somewhat longer, but perhaps not much longer. Science, as a dominant factor in determining the belief of educated men, has existed for about 300 years; as a source of economic technique, for about 150 years. In this brief period it has proved itself an incredibly powerful revolutionary force. When we consider how recently it has risen to power, we find ourselves forced to believe that we are at the very beginning of its work in transforming human life.~ Bertrand Russell Jun 18, 2010In my profession, it is not enough to know your history, speak a language and be widely traveled. Equally important is how to weigh and organize evidence. How to listen. How to see a situation from the other person's point of view. How to deal with complexity and realize that few issues in the world come with just one side. How to learn, not what to think.~ John E. McLaughlinI think the greatest single enemy is the misuse of information, the perversion of truth in the hands of terribly skillful people.~ John le Carré....it is always easier to tell people what to do than to find out what is happening...~ Martin Pawley Jun 17, 2010...for that nothing doth more hurt in a state, than that cunning men pass for wise.~ Francis BaconA false conclusion once arrived at and widely accepted is not easily dislodged and the less it is understood the more tenaciously it is held.~ Georg CantorThe last few decades have been marked by a special cultivation of the romance of the future. We seem to have made up our minds to misunderstand what has happened; and we turn, with a sort of relief, to stating what will happen-which is apparently much easier...The modern mind is forced towards the future by a certain sense of fatigue, not unmixed with terror, with which it regards the past.~ Gilbert Keith Chesterton Jun 16, 2010As for the rage to believe that we have found the secret of liberty in general permissiveness from the cradle on, this seems to me a disastrous sentimentality, which, whatever liberties it sets loose, loosens also the cement that alone can bind society into a stable compound -- a code of obeyed taboos. I can only recall the saying of a wise Frenchman that `liberty is the luxury of self-discipline.' Historically, those peoples that did not discipline themselves had discipline thrust on them from the outside. That is why the normal cycle in the life and death of great nations has been first a powerful tyranny broken by revolt, the enjoyment of liberty, the abuse of liberty -- and back to tyranny again. As I see it, in this country -- a land of the most persistent idealism and the blandest cynicism -- the race is on between its decadence and its vitality.~ Alistair CookeWhenever you look at a piece of work and you think the fellow was crazy, then you want to pay some attention to that. One of you is likely to be, and you better find out which one it is. It makes an awful lot of difference.~ Charles F. KetteringTalk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.~ Euripides Jun 15, 2010Indifference must be a crime in us, to be ranked but one degree below treachery; for deserting the commonwealth is next to betraying it.~ Henry St. JohnTo be ignorant of what happened before you were born... is to live the life of a child for ever.~ Marcus Tullius CiceroWe see many instances of cities going down like sinking ships to their destruction. There have been such wrecks in the past and there surely will be others in the future, caused by the wickedness of captains and crews alike. For these are guilty men, whose sin is supreme ignorance of what matters most.~ Plato Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print