caldron's quotes

(showing 1-50 of 69)

"A society is defined not only by what it creates but also by what it refuses to destroy.
"
— John C. Sawhill

1 person liked it

"It is better to light one candle than it is to curse the darkness."
— Chinese Proverb

15 people liked it

"The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think."
— Horace Walpole

tags: comedy, emotions, life, perspective, thinking, tragedy
71 people liked it

"“As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air – however slight – lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.” "
— William O. Douglas

13 people liked it

"sunt lacrimae rērum et mentem mortālia tangunt"
— Virgil

1 person liked it

"Ageing is a process of exchanging hope for insight"
— Sheridan Hay

1 person liked it

"Every advance in information technology involves choosing what you want to preserve and what you want to ditch. Scanning rare books on to microfilm is a costly business. The library won't let you do it yourself - they decide first which books should be scanned and which should just rot away in the basement.
Against that eventuality, people should start hoarding the kind of books committees of rational people will decide against scanning into a database."
— Robert Twigger

1 person liked it

"I didn't lose my mind,
it was mine to give away"
— Robbie Williams

2 people liked it

"There is no gene for the Human spirit"
— Gattaca

1 person liked it

"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in infomation?"
— T.S Eliot

1 person liked it

"The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking."
— John Kenneth Galbraith

tags: conformity, food-for-thought, thinking
22 people liked it

"Every reformation must have its victims. You can’t expect the fatted calf to share the enthusiasm of the angels over the prodigal’s return."
— H.H. Munro

4 people liked it

"Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend."
— Albert Camus

tags: friends, friendship
9,819 people liked it

"More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones."
— Truman Capote (Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel)

51 people liked it

"We live as we dream--alone...."
— Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness)

tags: dream, loneliness
77 people liked it

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."
— George Eliot

tags: inspirational
3,314 people liked it

"A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended."
— Ian McEwan (Atonement)

116 people liked it

"I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled."
— P.G. Wodehouse

76 people liked it

"You know, one of the tragedies of real life is that there is no background music."
— Annie Proulx

18 people liked it

"There is no reasoning someone out of a position he has not reasoned himself into."
— Clive James

2 people liked it

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."
— Albert Einstein

tags: einstein, human, humor, infinity, nature, philosophy, science, stupidity, universe
12,504 people liked it

"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt."
— Abraham Lincoln

tags: wisdom
9,598 people liked it

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference."
— Elie Wiesel

tags: activism, apathy, hate, indifference, love, opposite, philosophy
7,373 people liked it

"Women are like teabags; you never know how strong they are until they're put in hot water."
— Eleanor Roosevelt

tags: women
7,279 people liked it

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."
— Mark Twain

tags: individuality, majority, minority, pause, reflect, wisdom
6,432 people liked it

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."
— William Shakespeare (As You Like It)

tags: wisdom
6,605 people liked it

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
— Douglas Adams

tags: deadlines, humor, work
5,497 people liked it

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
— Oscar Wilde (Lady Windermere's Fan)

tags: inspirational, optimism, perception, pessimism
5,251 people liked it

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth. "
— Umberto Eco

39 people liked it

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
— Arthur C. Clarke (Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible)

tags: science, technology
159 people liked it

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but 'That's funny...'"
— Isaac Asimov

tags: science
221 people liked it

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."
— Dr. Seuss

tags: cry, crying, experience, happiness, joy, life, optimism, sadness, smile, smiling
15,279 people liked it

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."
— Maya Angelou

tags: life
11,636 people liked it

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."
— Marilyn Monroe

tags: best, life, love, mistakes, out-of-control, truth, worst
11,308 people liked it

"Whenever I feel the need to exercise, I lie down until it goes away."
— Robert Maynard Hutchins

tags: exercise, humor, laziness
6,045 people liked it

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."
— Mark Twain

tags: literacy
6,303 people liked it

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
— Mark Twain

tags: action, actions, disappointed, disappointment, discover, dream, dreams, explore, sail
8,088 people liked it

"If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything."
— Malcolm X

tags: belief, integrity
6,832 people liked it

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
— Douglas Adams (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe)

tags: humor, scifi
3,364 people liked it

"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people."
— Eleanor Roosevelt

tags: dreams
3,812 people liked it

"If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there."
— George Harrison

tags: beatles, direction, roads, travel
105 people liked it

"Process as process is neither morally good nor morally bad. We may judge results but not process. The morally bad agent may perform the deed which is good. The morally good agent may perform the deed which is bad. Maybe a man has to sell his soul to get the power to do good."
— Robert Penn Warren (All the King's Men)

6 people liked it

"The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable."
— John Kenneth Galbraith

14 people liked it

"If you feed enough oats to the horse, some will pass through to feed the sparrows (referring to "trickle down" economics)."
— John Kenneth Galbraith

4 people liked it

"Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be."
— William Hazlitt

12 people liked it

"Happiness is good health and a bad memory."
— Ingrid Bergman

30 people liked it

"A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines."
— Frank Lloyd Wright

tags: architecture, humor
8 people liked it

"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."
— Marie Curie

4 people liked it

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's really a stupid thing to want to do."
— Elvis Costello

tags: music, writing
19 people liked it