Quotes

Marcus Aurelius photo
Clifford D. Simak photo

“We've got a motto here-you're tougher than you think you are, and you can do more than you think you can.”

Christopher McDougall (1962) American journalist and writer

Source: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Slavoj Žižek photo
Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo
Bill Whittle photo
Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool photo

“France is your natural enemy; she is more so as a republic than as a monarchy. We know less at what point a nation will stop than a king.”

Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (1770–1828) British politician

History of the War in the Peninsula, Under Napoleon, Volume 1, p. 122

William Lane Craig photo

“More often than not, it is what you are rather than what you say that will bring an unbeliever to Christ.
This, then, is the ultimate apologetic. For the ultimate apologetic is: your life.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

Source: Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (1994), p. 302.

Georges Sorel photo

“Mussolini is a man no less extraordinary than Lenin. He, too, is a political genius, of a greater reach than all the statesmen of the day, with the only exception of Lenin…”

Georges Sorel (1847–1922) French philosopher and sociologist

As quoted in The Myth of the Nation and the Vision of Revolution: The Origins of Ideological Polarization in the 20th Century, Jacob L. Talmon, University of California Press (1981) p. 451. Sorel’s March 1921 conversations with Jean Variot, published in Variot’s Propos de Georges Sorel, (1935) Paris, pp. 53-57, 66-86 passim

Samuel Butler photo

“It is said of money that it is more easily made than kept and this is true of many things, such as friendship; and even life itself is more easily got than kept.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Colour http://books.google.com/books?id=JHguFYrTEQ0C&q=%22It+is+said+of+money+that+it+is+more+easily+made+than+kept+and+this+is+true+of+many+things+such+as+friendship+and+even+life+itself+is+more+easily+got+than+kept%22&pg=PA141#v=onepage
Often paraphrased as "Friendship is like money, easier made than kept."
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part IX - A Painter's Views on Painting

Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“6472. Nothing more smooth than Glass, yet nothing more brittle;
Nothing more fine than Wit, yet nothing more fickle.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Eric Hoffer photo

“The uncompromising attitude is more indicative of an inner uncertainty than of deep conviction. The implacable stand is directed more against the doubt within than the assailant without.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Section 13
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

Francis Bacon photo
Lama Ole Nydahl photo

“It has been said: The whole is more than the sum of its parts. It is more correct to say that the whole is something else than the sum of its parts,”

Kurt Koffka (1886–1941) German psychologist

Source: Principles of Gestalt Psychology, 1935, p. 176
Context: Even these humble objects reveal that our reality is not a mere collocation of elemental facts, but consists of units in which no part exists by itself, where each part points beyond itself and implies a larger whole. Facts and significance cease to be two concepts belonging to different realms, since a fact is always a fact in an intrinsically coherent whole. We could solve no problem of organization by solving it for each point separately, one after the other; the solution had to come for the whole. Thus we see how the problem of significance is closely bound up with the problem of the relation between the whole and its parts. It has been said: The whole is more than the sum of its parts. It is more correct to say that the whole is something else than the sum of its parts, because summing is a meaningless procedure, whereas the whole-part relationship is meaningful.

G. K. Chesterton photo

“To have known the things that from the weak are furled,
Perilous ancient passions, strange and high;
It is something to be wiser than the world,
It is something to be older than the sky.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Poems (1917), The Great Minimum
Context: To have seen you and your unforgotten face,
Brave as a blast of trumpets for the fray,
Pure as white lilies in a watery space,
It were something, though you went from me today.
To have known the things that from the weak are furled,
Perilous ancient passions, strange and high;
It is something to be wiser than the world,
It is something to be older than the sky.

Harlan Ellison photo

“Griffin stood silently, watching the waterfall, sensing more than he saw, understanding more than even his senses could tell him.”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

Delusion for a Dragon Slayer (1966)
Context: Griffin stood silently, watching the waterfall, sensing more than he saw, understanding more than even his senses could tell him. This was, indeed, the Heaven of his dreams, a place to spend the rest of forever, with the wind and the water and the world another place, another level of sensing, another bad dream conjured many long times before. This was reality, an only reality for a man whose existence had been not quite bad, merely insufficient, tenable but hardly enriching. For a man who had lived a life of not quite enough, this was all there ever could be of goodness and brilliance and light. Griffin moved toward the falls.
The darkness grew darker.

Zeno of Citium photo

“That which exercises reason is more excellent than that which does not exercise reason; there is nothing more excellent than the universe, therefore the universe exercises reason.”

Zeno of Citium (-334–-263 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

As quoted in De Natura Deorum by Cicero, ii. 8.; iii. 9.

Louisa May Alcott photo

“Simple, sincere people seldom speak much of their piety. It shows itself in acts rather than in words, and has more influence than homilies or protestations.”

Source: Little Women (1868), Ch. 36 : Beth's Secret
Context: Simple, sincere people seldom speak much of their piety. It shows itself in acts rather than in words, and has more influence than homilies or protestations. Beth could not reason upon or explain the faith that gave her courage and patience to give up life, and cheerfully wait for death. Like a confiding child, she asked no questions, but left everything to God and nature, Father and Mother of us all, feeling sure that they, and they only, could teach and strengthen heart and spirit for this life and the life to come. She did not rebuke Jo with saintly speeches, only loved her better for her passionate affection, and clung more closely to the dear human love, from which our Father never means us to be weaned, but through which He draws us closer to Himself. She could not say, "I'm glad to go," for life was very sweet for her. She could only sob out, "I try to be willing," while she held fast to Jo, as the first bitter wave of this great sorrow broke over them together.