Samuel Butler book The Way of All Flesh
Life, xvi
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part I - Lord, What is Man?
Source: The Way of All Flesh
Samuel Butler book The Way of All Flesh
Life, xvi
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part I - Lord, What is Man?
Source: The Way of All Flesh
“The ashes of your existence will fertilize the soil for the universe to follow.”
Richard Kadrey (1957) San Francisco-based novelist, freelance writer, and photographer
Source: Sandman Slim
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host
As quoted in Visions : How Science Will Revolutionize the Twenty-First Century (1999) by Michio Kaku, p. 295
2000s and attributed from posthumous publications
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist
Source: The Collected Poems of Rudyard Kipling
“The man had arrived at that stage of drunkenness where affection is felt for the universe.”
Stephen Crane book Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
Source: Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
“The universe doesn't decide what's right or not right. You do.”
Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer
Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator
“Who in the universe halts when the enemy tells them to?”
Sherwood Smith book Crown Duel
Source: Crown Duel (Crown & Court #1 - 2, 1997)
“Earth is the insane asylum of the universe.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
“I love the smell of the universe in the morning.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator
John Fante book The Brotherhood of the Grape
Source: The Brotherhood of the Grape (1977)
Context: Nobody crossed him without a battle. He disliked almost everything, particularly his wife, his children, his neighbors, his church, his priest, his town, his state, his country, and the country from which he emigrated. Nor did he give a damn for the world either, or the sun or the stars, or the universe, or heaven or hell. But he liked women.
Jane Addams (1860–1935) pioneer settlement social worker
"The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements" http://www.infed.org/archives/e-texts/addams6.htm; this piece by Jane Addams was first published in 1892 and later appeared as chapter six of Twenty Years at Hull House (1910) <br class="br">Context: These young people accomplish little toward the solution of this social problem, and bear the brunt of being cultivated into unnourished, oversensitive lives. They have been shut off from the common labor by which they live which is a great source of moral and physical health. They feel a fatal want of harmony between their theory and their lives, a lack of coördination between thought and action. I think it is hard for us to realize how seriously many of them are taking to the notion of human brotherhood, how eagerly they long to give tangible expression to the democratic ideal. These young men and women, longing to socialize their democracy, are animated by certain hopes which may be thus loosely formulated; that if in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave; that it is difficult to see how the notion of a higher civic life can be fostered save through common intercourse; that the blessings which we associate with a life of refinement and cultivation can be made universal and must be made universal if they are to be permanent; that the good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain, is floating in mid-air, until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.
“I’m living in separate universes, and I have no idea where I actually belong.”
Jonathan Tropper (1970) American writer
Source: This is Where I Leave You
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
“The universe only makes sense when we have someone to share our feelings with.”
Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes
Source: Eleven Minutes
“The universe is not short on wake-up calls. We’re just quick to hit the snooze button.”
Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor
Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are
“every human heart beat is a universe of possibilities.”
Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram
Source: Shantaram
“To know the history of science is to recognize the mortality of any claim to universal truth.”
Evelyn Fox Keller (1936) American physicist, author and feminist
Source: Reflections on Gender and Science
“Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow.”
William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist
“Wow, you're awesome and The universe loves a winner, so the universe must really love you!”
Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer
Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944) American academic
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are - Mindfulness Meditation In Everyday Life
“Only if we are secure in our beliefs can we see the comical side of the universe.”
Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer
Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth
Source: The Power of Myth (book), p. 28
Context: Now, what is a myth? The dictionary definition of a myth would be stories about gods. So then you have to ask the next question: What is a god? A god is a personification of a motivating power or a value system that functions in human life and in the universe - the powers if your own body and of nature.
Brian Greene (1963) American physicist
Source: The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
“Certificates from top US universities adorned the walls like tiger head in a hunter’s home.”
Chetan Bhagat book 2 States: The Story of My Marriage
Source: 2 States: The Story of My Marriage
George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist
Source: Lilith A and Lilith, 1896: A Duplex
Anne Rice book Blackwood Farm
Source: Blackwood Farm (2002)
Context: "No, but one can feel desperate at any age, don't you think? The young are eternally desperate," he said frankly. "And books, they offer one hope – that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that universe, one is saved.
Paul Fussell (1924–2012) Recipient of the Purple Heart medal
Source: Class: A Guide Through the American Status System
Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo
Source: Magic Strikes
Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist
Speech accepting the John Burroughs Medal (April 1952); also in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1999) edited by Linda Lear, p. 94
Context: Mankind has gone very far into an artificial world of his own creation. He has sought to insulate himself, in his cities of steel and concrete, from the realities of earth and water and the growing seed. Intoxicated with a sense of his own power, he seems to be going farther and farther into more experiments for the destruction of himself and his world.
There is certainly no single remedy for this condition and I am offering no panacea. But it seems reasonable to believe — and I do believe — that the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race. Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.
Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher
Pearls of Wisdom
Variant: Who makes us ignorant? We ourselves. We put our hands over our eyes and weep that it is dark.
Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist
The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
Stephen Crane (1871–1900) American novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist
A Man Said to the Universe, No. 20
War Is Kind and Other Lines (1899)
Source: War Is Kind and Other Poems
“I am always in quest of being open to what the universe will bring me.”
Jill Bolte Taylor (1959) American neuroscientist
Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor
Nobel acceptance speech (1986)
Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo
Source: Magic Burns
Koren Zailckas (1980) American writer
Source: Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
Franz Kafka book The Trial
Variant: No," said the priest, "you don't need to accept everything as true, you only have to accept it as necessary." "Depressing view," said K. "The lie made into the rule of the world.
Source: The Trial (1920), Chapter 9
George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism
"On My Friendly Critics"
Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922)
Source: Soliloquies in England & Later Soliloquies
Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes
Source: Eleven Minutes (2003), p. 9.
Context: When we meet someone and fall in love, we have a sense that the whole universe is on our side. And yet if something goes wrong, there is nothing left! How is it possible for the beauty that was there only minutes before to vanish so quickly? Life moves very fast. It rushes from heaven to hell in a matter of seconds.
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
1930s, Wisehart interview (1930)
Context: I do not believe in a God who maliciously or arbitrarily interferes in the personal affairs of mankind. My religion consists of an humble admiration for the vast power which manifests itself in that small part of the universe which our poor, weak minds can grasp!
“I can't imagine a universe in which I try to unlove her.”
Maria Dahvana Headley (1977) American writer
Source: Magonia
“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
Attributed to Emerson in The Gift of Depression : Twenty-one Inspirational Stories Sharing Experience, Strength, and Hope (2001) by John F. Brown, p. 56, no prior occurrence of this a statement has been located; it seems to be derived from one which occurs in The Alchemist (1988) by Paulo Coelho, p. 22: When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
Misattributed
John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher
Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom