Recommended quotes
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“If you had to make a list of the top 5 things most important to you, what would you put? Here's mine 1. God 2. Family 3. friends 4. my future 5. myself.”

Rachel Scott (1981–1999) American murder victim

Source: "May 4, 98" https://66.media.tumblr.com/7f99426ff633f0e174ad13f215dc6b85/tumblr_phql76LS101v18yoxo1_1280.png (4 May 1998)

“There is a God and I'm going to serve him for the rest of my life.”

Rachel Scott (1981–1999) American murder victim

Source: Letter to Mark Bodiford http://racheljoyscott.tumblr.com/post/159838052080/rachels-suicide-journal-entry-to-mark-bodiford (1998)

“Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature. Unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshiping.”

Hubert Reeves (1932) Canadian astrophysicist and popularizer of science

“These are the limits of the scientific method and of logic itself, insofar as they must rely on language. Our words are built on the objects of our experience. They have acquired their effectiveness by adapting themselves to the occurrences of our everyday world. But when we approach realities of another scale, these words can become obstacles.”

Hubert Reeves (1932) Canadian astrophysicist and popularizer of science

Hubert Reeves (1984) Atoms of silence: an exploration of cosmic evolution Massachusetts Institute of Technology. p. 37

“But do these people never come up with the idea that I might be artificial by nature?”

Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) French composer

"Mais est-ce qu'il ne vient jamais à l'idée de ces gens-là que je peux être 'artificiel' par nature?"
Answering M. D. Calvocoressi on a question insinuating that many people thought Ravel's music rather "artificial" than "natural".
quoted in Calvocoressi's Musicians gallery, London, Faber, 1933

“From then on, when anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it.”

Grace Hopper (1906–1992) American computer scientist and United States Navy officer

On the removal of a 2-inch-long moth from the Harvard Mark II experimental computer at Harvard in 1947, as quoted in Time (16 April 1984). Note that the term "bug" was in use by people in several technical disciplines long before that; Thomas Edison used the term, and it was common AT&T parlance in the 1920s to refer to bugs in the wires. Hopper is credited with popularizing the term's use in the computing field.

“It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.”

Grace Hopper (1906–1992) American computer scientist and United States Navy officer

As quoted in the U.S. Navy's Chips Ahoy magazine (July 1986) As quoted in Built to Learn: The Inside Story of How Rockwell Collins Became a True Learning Organization (2003) by Cliff Purington, Chris Butler, and Sarah Fister Gale, p. 171 The future: Hardware, Software, and People in Carver https://books.google.com/books?id=5Q7uAAAAMAAJ, 1983 Actually attested since mid-19th century. Variant: If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission. Variant: That brings me to the most important piece of advice that I can give to all of you: if you've got a good idea, and it's a contribution, I want you to go ahead and DO IT. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission. Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/06/19/forgive/

“One free man will say with truth what he thinks and feels amongst thousands of men who by their acts and words attest exactly the opposite. It would seem that he who sincerely expressed his thought must remain alone, whereas it generally happens that every one else, or the majority at least, have been thinking and feeling the same things but without expressing them.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: Patriotism and Christianity http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Patriotism_and_Christianity (1896), Ch. 17 Context: One free man will say with truth what he thinks and feels amongst thousands of men who by their acts and words attest exactly the opposite. It would seem that he who sincerely expressed his thought must remain alone, whereas it generally happens that every one else, or the majority at least, have been thinking and feeling the same things but without expressing them. And that which yesterday was the novel opinion of one man, to-day becomes the general opinion of the majority. And as soon as this opinion is established, immediately by imperceptible degrees, but beyond power of frustration, the conduct of mankind begins to alter. Whereas at present, every man, even, if free, asks himself, "What can I do alone against all this ocean of evil and deceit which overwhelms us? Why should I express my opinion? Why indeed possess one? It is better not to reflect on these misty and involved questions. Perhaps these contradictions are an inevitable condition of our existence. And why should I struggle alone with all the evil in the world? Is it not better to go with the stream which carries me along? If anything can be done, it must be done not alone but in company with others." And leaving the most powerful of weapons — thought and its expression — which move the world, each man employs the weapon of social activity, not noticing that every social activity is based on the very foundations against which he is bound to fight, and that upon entering the social activity which exists in our world every man is obliged, if only in part, to deviate from the truth and to make concessions which destroy the force of the powerful weapon which should assist him in the struggle. It is as if a man, who was given a blade so marvelously keen that it would sever anything, should use its edge for driving in nails. We all complain of the senseless order of life, which is at variance with our being, and yet we refuse to use the unique and powerful weapon within our hands — the consciousness of truth and its expression; but on the contrary, under the pretext of struggling with evil, we destroy the weapon, and sacrifice it to the exigencies of an imaginary conflict'.