“How is clean, painless nonexistence any worse than clean, painless death?”
Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus (1996)
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Quotes
“The only person who is a worse liar than a faith healer is his patient.”
Abraham Lincoln
(1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Quoted in Victor J. Stenger (1990), Physics and Psychics
Misattributed
“Some smart moves were little more than nicely padded traps.”
David Brin
book
Glory Season
Source: Glory Season (1993), Chapter 1 (p. 19)
“God has given to man no sharper spur to victory than contempt of death.”
nullum contemptu m[ortis incitamentum] ad uincendum homini ab dis immortalibus acrius datum est.
Hannibal
(-247–-183 BC) military commander of Carthage during the Second Punic War
As quoted by Livy, :la:s:Ab Urbe Condita/liber XXI 44, as translated by Aubrey De Sélincourt, in The War with Hannibal (1965).
“Fools, they do not even know how much more is the half than the whole.”
Hesiod
book
Works and Days
Source: Works and Days (c. 700 BC), line 40; often translated as "The half is greater than the whole."
Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012), p. 49
“Nothing in the world was more terrible than an empty bottle! Unless it was an empty glass.”
Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. III (p. 86)
“Though blood be the best sauce for victory, yet must it not be more than the meat.”
Thomas Fuller
(1608–1661) English churchman and historian
The History of the Holy War (1639), Book I, Ch. 24.
“What the cinema can do better than literature or the spoken drama is to be fantastic.”
Aldous Huxley
(1894–1963) English writer
"Where are the Movies Moving?" in Essays Old and New (1926)
“Knowing how to keep a friend is more important than gaining a new one.”
Saberlos conservar es más que el hazerlos amigos.
Maxim 158 (p. 90)
The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)
“Destroying Kabaa stone by stone, is less evil than killing a single Muslim…”
Muhammad
(570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam
Narrated by An-Nasaie and At-Termithi [citation needed]
Sunni Hadith
Preface http://books.google.com/books?id=T70Ahd88jSMC&q=%22It+is+difficult+if+not+impossible+for+most+people+to+think+otherwise+than+in+the+fashion+of+their+own+period%22&pg=PA46#v=onepage to Saint Joan: A Chronicle Play In Six Scenes And An Epilogue (1923)
1920s
“You knew better than to pay mind to what people and the devil say.”
Disaster Tourism.
Catch For Us The Foxes (2004)
“I think no book is more stimulating than the history of a devoted and successful life.”
Frederick Winslow Taylor
(1856–1915) American mechanical engineer and tennis player
F.W. Taylor (1911) in letter to John Fritz, who just published his autobiography; Cited in: Frank Barkley Copley, Frederick W. Taylor, father of scientific management https://archive.org/stream/frederickwtaylor01copl, 1923. p. v.
“Can there be a more horrible object in existence than an eloquent man not speaking the truth?”
Thomas Carlyle
(1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher
Address as Lord Rector of Edinburgh University, (1866), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Attributed
“There's no such thing as addiction, there's only things that you enjoy doing more than life.”
Doug Stanhope
(1967) American stand-up comedian, actor, and author
Before Turning the Gun on Himself (2012)
“[I would] rather discover one cause than gain the kingdom of Persia.”
Democritus
Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory
Freeman (1948), p. 155
Durant (1939),Ch. XVI, §II, p. 352, citinas G.Grote, Plato and the Other Companions of Socrates (London, 1875), vol. 1, p. 68; and citing C. Bakewell, Sourcebook in Ancient Philosophy, New York, 1909, p. 62.
Variant: I would rather discover a single demonstration [in geometry] than become king of the Persians.
2. Complexity and Contradiction vs. Simplification or Picturesqueness
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966)
“You know, they can't keep me here for more than six months.”
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
(1920–1975) Bengali revolutionary, founder ("father") of Bangladesh
While speaking with a western journalist during proceedings of the Agartala conspiracy trial. Mujib was released within in seven months of his arrest as a result of mass agitation and wide scale civil disobedience in East Pakistan. http://www.thedailystar.net/magazine/2008/08/04/chintito.htm
Quote, Other
“I'm more determined than ever that my husband's dream will become a reality.”
Coretta Scott King
(1927–2006) American author, activist, and civil rights leader. Wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Statement soon after her husband's slaying in April 1968, as quoted in CNN obituary (January 31, 2006) http://www2.cnn.com/2006/US/01/31/king.obit.ap/