"And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries."
— Kurt Vonnegut (A Man Without a Country)

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."
— Kurt Vonnegut (Mother Night)

"I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center."
— Kurt Vonnegut

"Dance Like No One is Watching...
Love Like You Have Never Been Hurt Before...
Go to Work Like You Don't Need The Money."
— Kurt Vonnegut

"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile."
— Kurt Vonnegut

"A sane person to an insane society must appear insane."
— Kurt Vonnegut (Welcome to the Monkey House)

"I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, 'The Beatles did.'"
— Kurt Vonnegut

"Self-taught, are you?" Julian Castle asked Newt.
"Isn't everybody?" Newt inquired.
"Very good answer."
— Kurt Vonnegut (Cat's Cradle)

"Wake up, you idiots! Whatever made you think that money was so valuable?"
— Kurt Vonnegut

"Ting-a-ling mother fucker."
— Kurt Vonnegut (Timequake)

"If you can do no good, at least do no harm."
— Kurt Vonnegut (Slapstick)

"So, you're the man who can't spell 'fuck.'"
Dorothy Parker to Norman Mailer after publishers had convinced Mailer to replace the word with a euphemism, 'fug,' in his 1948 book, "The Naked and the Dead."
— Dorothy Parker

"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all."
— Oscar Wilde

"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, and that is his."
— Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest)

"No good deed goes unpunished."
— Oscar Wilde

"The suspense is terrible. I hope it will last."
— Oscar Wilde

"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."
— Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)

"The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them."
— Joseph Heller (Catch-22)

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you"
— Joseph Heller

"Outside the hospital the war was still going on. Men went mad and were rewarded with medals. "
— Joseph Heller, Catch-22

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

"Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood."
— George Orwell (1984)

""The very word 'war', therefore, has become
misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that
by becoming continuous, war has ceased to exist...
War is Peace."
— George Orwell

"You are a slow learner, Winston."
"How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four."
"Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane."
— George Orwell (1984)

"A sense of humor...is superior to any religion so far devised."
— Tom Robbins (Jitterbug Perfume)

"Those who shun the whimsy of things will experience rigor mortis before death."
— Tom Robbins

"The world is a wonderfully weird place, consensual reality is significantly flawed, no institution can be trusted, certainty is a mirage, security a delusion, and the tyranny of the dull mind forever threatens -- but our lives are not as limited as we think they are, all things are possible, laughter is holier than piety, freedom is sweeter than fame, and in the end it's love and love alone that really matters."
— Tom Robbins

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle."
— Plato

"Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
— Plato

"There is truth in wine and children"
— Plato (Symposium and Phaedrus)

"Ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?...Morons."
— William Goldman (The Princess Bride)

"good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws"
— Plato

"Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever."
— Aristophanes

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."
— William Gibson

"Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding... "
— William Gibson (Neuromancer)

"She walked on, comforted by the surf, by the one perpetual moment of beach-time, the now-and-always of it."
— William Gibson

"That which exists without my knowledge exists without my consent."
— Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West)

"Men of God and men of war have strange affinities."
— Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West)

"Whatever exists…Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge, exists without my consent.”

--the judge"
— Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West)

"Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric."
— Bertrand Russell

"One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways."
— Bertrand Russell

"This was what Bertrand Russell called his 'Ten Commandments' as a teacher.

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worthwhile to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet opposition, even if it should come from your husband, wife or children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority- for victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinion you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence, as you should, the former implies a deeper argument than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness."
— Bertrand Russell

"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important."
— Bertrand Russell

"I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong. "
— Bertrand Russell

"I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine. "
— Bertrand Russell

"To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness."
— Bertrand Russell

"If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company. "
— -Jean-Paul Sartre

"Better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees."
— Jean-Paul Sartre

"Only the guy who isn't rowing has time to rock the boat."
— Jean-Paul Sartre

"Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.
"
— TAO TE CHING