“Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance.”
Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea
Tout existant naît sans raison, se prolonge par faiblesse et meurt par rencontre.
Nausea (1938)
Quotes about thing page 66
“I am suspicious of all the things that the average people believes.”
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer
“One doesn’t let her fiancé fight a horde of ghouls by himself. Some things were just not done.”
Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo
Source: Magic Shifts
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Obituary for physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach (Nachruf auf Ernst Mach), Physikalische Zeitschrift 17 (1916), p. 101
1910s
Context: How does it happen that a properly endowed natural scientist comes to concern himself with epistemology? Is there not some more valuable work to be done in his specialty? That's what I hear many of my colleagues ask, and I sense it from many more. But I cannot share this sentiment. When I think about the ablest students whom I have encountered in my teaching — that is, those who distinguish themselves by their independence of judgment and not just their quick-wittedness — I can affirm that they had a vigorous interest in epistemology. They happily began discussions about the goals and methods of science, and they showed unequivocally, through tenacious defense of their views, that the subject seemed important to them.
Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens. [Begriffe, welche sich bei der Ordnung der Dinge als nützlich erwiesen haben, erlangen über uns leicht eine solche Autorität, dass wir ihres irdischen Ursprungs vergessen und sie als unabänderliche Gegebenheiten hinnehmen. ] Thus they might come to be stamped as "necessities of thought," "a priori givens," etc. The path of scientific progress is often made impassable for a long time by such errors. [Der Weg des wissenschaftlichen Fortschritts wird durch solche Irrtümer oft für längere Zeit ungangbar gemacht. ] Therefore it is by no means an idle game if we become practiced in analysing long-held commonplace concepts and showing the circumstances on which their justification and usefulness depend, and how they have grown up, individually, out of the givens of experience. Thus their excessive authority will be broken. They will be removed if they cannot be properly legitimated, corrected if their correlation with given things be far too superfluous, or replaced if a new system can be established that we prefer for whatever reason.
“It is not the same thing to be good and to be kind.”
Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel
Source: Clockwork Angel
“Most good things come with the risk of something bad.”
Richelle Mead (1976) American writer
Source: Succubus Blues
“When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.”
Matt Groening (1954) American cartoonist
“That's the thing about destiny: It can't be predicted, and it's usually pretty odd.”
Jasper Fforde book The Last Dragonslayer
Source: The Last Dragonslayer
F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby
Variant: They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.
Source: The Great Gatsby
“It is when people do wrong things wilfully that they are the more likely to do them again.”
George MacDonald book The Princess and the Goblin
Source: The Princess and the Goblin
“Sometimes, fewer choices can be a good thing.”
Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer
Source: Saint Anything
John Grogan (1958) American journalist
Source: Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog
“The most ordinary things could be made extraordinary.”
Nicholas Sparks book The Lucky One
Variant: Even the most ordinary things can be made extraordinary simply by doing it with the right people.
Source: The Lucky One
George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist
The Fantastic Imagination (1893)
Source: A Dish of Orts
Context: A fairytale, a sonata, a gathering storm, a limitless night, seizes you and sweeps you away: do you begin at once to wrestle with it and ask whence its power over you, whither it is carrying you? The law of each is in the mind of its composer; that law makes one man feel this way, another man feel that way. To one the sonata is a world of odour and beauty, to another of soothing only and sweetness. To one, the cloudy rendezvous is a wild dance, with a terror at its heart; to another, a majestic march of heavenly hosts, with Truth in their centre pointing their course, but as yet restraining her voice. The greatest forces lie in the region of the uncomprehended.
I will go farther. The best thing you can do for your fellow, next to rousing his conscience, is — not to give him things to think about, but to wake things up that are in him; or say, to make him think things for himself. The best Nature does for us is to work in us such moods in which thoughts of high import arise. Does any aspect of Nature wake but one thought? Does she ever suggest only one definite thing? Does she make any two men in the same place at the same moment think the same thing? Is she therefore a failure, because she is not definite? Is it nothing that she rouses the something deeper than the understanding — the power that underlies thoughts? Does she not set feeling, and so thinking at work? Would it be better that she did this after one fashion and not after many fashions? Nature is mood-engendering, thought-provoking: such ought the sonata, such ought the fairytale to be.
Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear
Source: The Wise Man's Fear (2011), Chapter 43, “The Flickering Way” (p. 318)
Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
The Analects, The Great Learning
Context: The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the Kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.
Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy.
From the Son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything besides.
“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and let it come in”
Morrie Schwartz (1916–1995) American sociologist
Source: Morrie: In His Own Words
“Americans Will Always Do the Right Thing — After Exhausting All the Alternatives.”
Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
This is a modification of a March 1967 quote by Israeli politician Abba Eban who said, "Men and nations behave wisely when they have exhausted all other resources." Eban used various versions of this quote over the years. In 1979 he said, "My experience teaches me this: Men and nations do act wisely when they have exhausted all the other possibilities." http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternatives/ <br class="br">In a 1970 Congressional hearing, a version of the quote first referenced Americans. It was attributed to an unnamed Irishman. "And indeed, we often know how to do things by the philosophy that was expounded by another Irishman I know. He said that you can depend on Americans to do the right thing when they have exhausted every other possibility." http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternatives/ <br class="br">The earliest known attribution of the quote to Churchill occurred in 1980. http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternatives/ <br class="br">Misattributed
“Happiness is a mysterious thing, to be found somewhere between too little and too much.”
Ruskin Bond (1934) British Indian writer
Source: A Book of Simple Living
Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …
“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.”
Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie
Source: Tuesdays with Morrie (1997)
Thomas Harris (1940) American author and screenwriter
René Descartes book Principles of Philosophy
Original Latin: Veritatem inquirenti, semel in vita de omnibus, quantum fieri potest, esse dubitandum
Variant translation: If you would be a real seeker after truth, you must at least once in your life doubt, as far as possible, all things.
Principles of Philosophy (1644)
Variant: In order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life, to doubt, as far as possible, of all things.
“If you can find one good thing to say about her I'll turn vegetarian!”
L.J. Smith (1965) American author
Source: The Night of the Solstice
Anita Shreve (1946–2018) American writer
Source: Testimony
Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist
Statement before his fight with George Foreman (31 March 1973)
Michelle Rowen (1971) Canadian writer
Source: The Demon in Me
“The most sensible thing to do to people you hate is to drink their brandy.”
Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) British-American actress
Source: A View of the Harbour
“Life was so short; so many beautiful things slipped away.”
Kate DiCamillo The Magician's Elephant
Source: The Magician's Elephant
“Dreaming carries no risks. The dangerous thing is trying to transform your dreams into reality.”
Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra
Source: Manuscript Found in Accra
Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer
“Always remember that the most important thing in a good marriage is not happiness, but stability.”
Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera
Source: Love in the Time of Cholera
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness”
Bk. I, l. 1
Endymion (1818)
Context: A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books
Source: Oh, The Places You’ll Go!
“Thou art a dreaming thing,
A fever of thyself.”
John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet
Source: Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne
“Blood!… Blood!… That's a good thing! A ghost who bleeds is less dangerous!”
Gaston Leroux book The Phantom of the Opera
Source: The Phantom of the Opera
“Do you like to eat things?
-I love eating. I list it as a hobby.”
James Patterson (1947) American author
