Yogi Berra

"I'm not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did."

Plato

He reduced political evolution to a simple formula: a sequence of monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, and dictatorship. History will support his analysis. Civilizations decay quite leisurely, however. For example, Rome was at nadir when Caesar came (60BC); yet it did not succomb to the barbarians until 465AD. Our civilization is still very young as compared with some in the past. Hopefully, we will not be a supporting statistic for Plato's formula.

Sir Peter Medawar

Some philosophers have criticized physicists for being satisfied that the quantum theory works without knowing how. Nobel prize winner Sir Peter responds:
"Medical scientists use the word "iatrogenic" to refer to disabilites that are the consequences of medical treatment. We believe that some such word might be coined to refer to philosophical difficulties for which the philosophers themselves are responsible."

Charles M. Schulz

Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia.

Wierd Computer

It seems especially fond of Dorothy Parker.

Dorothy Parker

"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity."

Dorothy Parker

"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity."

Dorothy Parker

"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity."

Proverbs 17-22 (RSV)

"A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a downcast spirit dries up the bones." Nobody is ammune to boredom and depression - it comes with the territory. But I think we are lucky to be here to be exposed to it since our existence is but a fortuitous flash in time and space. I have observed that those who handle it best are those with a sense of humor - those who can laugh at themselves - after all, nobody ever promised us a rose garden.

Oops!

If everything is coming your way, you're probably in the wrong lane.

Bernard Lewis

This world recognized authority on Islamic history concluded his lecture of 7/16/2006 as folows: "The forces working against us are very powerful and well entrenched. And one of the greatist dangers is that on their side,they are firm and convinced and resolute. Whereas on our side, we are weak and undecided and irresolute. And in such a combat, it is not difficult to see which side will prevail. I think that the effort is difficult and the outcome uncertain, but I think the effort must be made. Either we bring them freedom, or they destroy us."

Reasoning

It has been my observation that most opinions or judgements are based upon "subjective" reasoning - reasoning that is heavily influenced by feelings, moods, attitudes, prejudices. "Objective" reasoning is a rare and precious jewel embraced by very few. Total objectivity may be unattenable but judgements based strictly on unbiased truth and facts, whether we like them or not, are extremely rare and to be respected by men and women everywhere.

Joan Rivers

"The first time I see a jogger smiling, I'll consider it."

Dorothy Parker

"I might repeat to myself slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound - if I can remember any of the damned things."

History

The Old Testament ends with the book of Malachi. The following four hundred years is sometimes called the "period of silence." During this period Babylon fell, Alexander and the Greeks displaced the Persian rule, later to be displaced by the rule of Syria, followed by the Maccabees, and finally the rise of the Roman Empire. The silence was finally broken by the greatest event in the history of man, the birth of Jesus Christ.

e e commings

"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter."

Our Precarious Existence

One human life span is but an instant as viewed over the awesome expanse of time. We live that instant on the cool crust of an orbiting rotating molten orb. In terms of a globe, we could not survive one paint layer depth below the suface because of intolerable heat. We could not survive one paint layer above the surface because of the thin layer of life supporting atmosphere. We live on the crust of a speck in a universe of such enormity that it exceeds our imagination.

T. S. Eliot

"If you arn't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?"

Rev. Gene Britton

Views he expressed in the East Point Georgia "Southside Sun": "It took two people, your parents, to get you here. Each of your parents has two parents, so in the generation just prior to your mother and father, there were four people whose pairing off and sharing love contributed to your existence. You are the product of eight great-grandparents, 16 great-great-grnndparents, 32 great-great-great-grandparents,etc.
A scant 500 years ago there were 1,048,576 people on this planet beginning the production of you."

Rudyard Kipling

"Take everything you like seriously, except yourselves."

Albert Einstein

He was devastated when he learned that a nuclear bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. He said: "If I knew they were going to do this, I would have become a shoemaker instead of a physicist."

Thomas Hardy

"If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have left him alone."

Mathematics

Few of us appreciate the scope of mathematics. The air around us is filled with radio waves. But we did not detect them in the air. They were first predicted by a set of mathematical equations. As Robyn Arianrhod says: "they were mathematically imagined into being, you might say, because physicists then went looking for physical evidence of their existence. When they found it they learned to produce these waves so sucessfully that no one with a television or moble phone aerial doubts the waves exist, even if most of us do not understand what they actually are."

James Thurber

"Well, if I called the wrong number why did you answer the phone?"

Malcolm Muggeridge

This British journalist wrote: "A sense of how extraordinarily happy I have been, overwhelms me often. I believe with a passionate unshakable conviction that in all circumstances and at all times life is a blessed gift; that the spirit that animates it is one of love, not hate or indifference; of light, not darkness; of creativity, not destruction; of order, not chaos."