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Think only of planting, not reaping, and as you concentrate, an entire lifetime will pass before you know it. That’s what people mean by settling down. Or do the opposite, and make earning money your only goal. Spend all of your time thinking about how to make money, not about what you’ll do with it when you make it, until you’re on your deathbed clutching a pile of gold coins like Monsieur Grandet, saying: ‘It warms me…’ The key to a wonderful life is a fascination with something.
with something.” Now I understood how right he was. My life was a speeding missile, and I had no other desire than to hear it explode as it hit its target.
Society was plagued by stoicism in the face of the profound mysteries of the natural world: its existence was the bane of science. If science had less of that sort of person, who knows, maybe humanity would have reached Alpha Centauri by now!
“People like him are suited only to the sort of work that will be done entirely by machines in the future. Creativity and imagination have no meaning for them, and they employ rigor and discipline in their scholarship to cover up their mediocrity.
Einstein once said that every tree outside, every flower attracting pollinating bees, escapes all book knowledge.
“Take stars. If they didn’t exist, it’d be very easy to prove that their existence is impossible.”
“So young. You’re still worth saving.”
The direction of a man or woman’s life might be determined by the era they found themselves in. It’s impossible for someone to distance themselves very far from the times they live in.
Sometimes you fly all the way only to discover it would have been better to have fallen halfway.
Sometimes what we find hardest to tolerate in others is our own reflection.
“That’s what scientific research is. Every step you’ve taken, no matter how absurd, is a necessary one.”
Ding Yi said that, from the perspective of quantum mechanics, death is the process of transitioning from a strong observer to a weak observer, and then to a non-observer.
When I come to death’s door and open my eyes for the final time, all of my intellect and memories will be lost into the abyss of the past, and I will return to the pure feeling and fantasies of childhood. At that moment, I’m sure the quantum rose will smile at me.
