In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.
“In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.”
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
“We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead.”
“So you have to figure out what your own aptitudes are. If you play games where other people have the aptitudes and you don’t, you’re going to lose. And that’s as close to certain as any prediction you can make. You have to figure out where you’ve got an edge. And you’ve got to play within your own circle of competence.”
“I think that to keep trying new solutions is the way to do everything.”
“Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”
“To whom thy secret thou dost tell, to him thy freedom thou dost sell.”
“You will be careful, if you are wise; how you touch men’s religion, or credit, or eyes.”
“It was a reaction I learned from my father: have no respect whatsoever for authority; forget who said it and instead look at what he starts with, where he ends up, and ask yourself, Is it reasonable?”
“What is the hardest task in the world? To think.”
“Men follow their sentiments and their self-interest, but it pleases them to imagine that they follow reason. And so they look for, and always find, some theory which, a posteriori, makes their actions appear to be logical. If that theory could be demolished scientifically, the only result would be that another theory would be substituted for the first one, and for the same purpose.”
“The life of Darwin demonstrates how a turtle may outrun a hare, aided by extreme objectivity, which helps the objective person end up like the only player without a blindfold in a game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey.”
“Altogether too often, people substitute opinions for facts and emotions for analysis.”
“I think the two things most opposed to good counsel are haste and passion; haste usually goes hand in hand with folly, passion with coarseness and narrowness of mind.”
“Distrust and caution are the parents of security.”
“There is no little enemy.”
“Any one who in discussion relies upon authority uses, not his understanding, but rather his memory.”
“I have never seen the philosopher’s stone that turns lead into gold, but I have known the pursuit of it turn a man’s gold into lead.”
“With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.”
“All successful men have agreed in one thing—they were causationists.”
“Looking back at the worst times, it always seems that they were times in which there were people who believed with absolute faith and absolute dogmatism in something.”
“Our problems are manmade—therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.”
“A problem thoroughly understood is half solved.”
“If you would keep your secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend.”
“And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter,—we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications?”
“So convenient a thing is it to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.”
“Take counsel in wine, but resolve afterwards in water.”
“Take a simple idea and take it seriously.”
“I’m afraid that’s the way it [reality] is. If there are twenty factors and they interact some, you’ll have to learn to handle it—because that’s the way the world is. But you won’t find it that hard if you go at it Darwin-like, step by step with curious persistence. You’ll be amazed at how good you can get.”
“He who thinks little, errs much.”
“Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk.”
“Hold your council before dinner; the full belly hates thinking as well as acting.”
“An egg today is better than a hen tomorrow.”
“If you don’t get elementary probability into your repertoire, you go through a long life like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.”
“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
“Since then I never pay any attention to anything by experts. I calculate everything myself.”
“The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality ought to be.”
“It’s common for men to give pretended reasons instead of one real one.”
“The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”
“’Tis easy to see, hard to foresee.”
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.”
“How unreasonable people are! They never use the freedoms they have but demand those they do not have; they have freedom of thought—they demand freedom of speech.”
“I prefer to talk with children, for one may still dare to hope that they may become rational beings; but those who have become that—good Lord!”
Explore the subcategory
15 authors · 23 works · 85 themes · 150 tags