Big Books of 2026

Jim > Jim's Quotes

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  • #1
    Neil deGrasse Tyson
    “The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.”
    ― Neil deGrasse Tyson
    tags: universe
    695 likes

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  • #2
    Thomas Jefferson
    “I cannot live without books.”
    ― Thomas Jefferson
    tags: books
    7341 likes

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  • #3
    Henry David Thoreau
    “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things..”
    ― Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
    tags: life, self-actualization, unrealized-potential
    2589 likes

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  • #4
    Neil deGrasse Tyson
    “Ignorance is a virus. Once it starts spreading, it can only be cured by reason. For the sake of humanity, we must be that cure.”
    ― Neil deGrasse Tyson
    tags: ignorance, knowledge, reason, science
    132 likes

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  • #5
    Marcus Tullius Cicero
    “A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
    ― Marcus Tullius Cicero
    tags: attributed-no-source, books, simile, soul
    135484 likes

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  • #6
    H.L. Mencken
    “Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”
    ― H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy
    tags: attitude, definitions, fear, happiness, orthodoxy, puritanism, strictness
    518 likes

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  • #7
    Zane Grey
    “Recipe For Greatness - To bear up under loss; To fight the bitterness of defeat and the weakness of grief; To be victor over anger; To smile when tears are close; To resist disease and evil men and base instincts; To hate hate and to love love; To go on when it would seen good to die; To look up with unquenchable faith in something ever more about to be. That is what any man can do, and be great.”
    ― Zane Grey
    69 likes

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  • #8
    Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
    “Self-taught, are you?" Julian Castle asked Newt.
    "Isn't everybody?" Newt inquired.
    "Very good answer.”
    ― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle
    213 likes

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  • #9
    Isaac Asimov
    “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.”
    ― Isaac Asimov
    tags: atheism, bible, organized-religion, religion
    1564 likes

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  • #10
    Stephen Jay Gould
    “Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview - nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty.”
    ― Stephen Jay Gould
    1095 likes

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  • #11
    Kirk Douglas
    “So they became superpatriots. And to prove themselves right-minded, they were more than willing to sacrifice the lives of others, even their fellow Jews. They were like the Vichy government in France, collaborators who held on to their influence and position at the expense of their fellow countrymen.”
    ― Kirk Douglas, I Am Spartacus!: Making a Film, Breaking the Blacklist
    4 likes

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  • #12
    H.P. Lovecraft
    “From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent.”
    ― H.P. Lovecraft, Tales of H.P. Lovecraft
    tags: horror, irony
    1651 likes

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  • #13
    Ralph Waldo Emerson
    “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”
    ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
    tags: life, regrets
    18617 likes

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  • #14
    Edgar Rice Burroughs
    “The whole fabric of our religion is based on superstitious belief in lies that have been foisted upon us for ages by those directly above us, to whose personal profit and aggrandizement it was to have us continue to believe as they wished us to believe.”
    ― Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Princess of Mars / The Gods of Mars
    tags: belief, lies, profit, scam, superstition
    9 likes

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  • #15
    I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.
    “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
    ― Jorge Luis Borges
    tags: books, library
    29747 likes

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  • #16
    Mark Twain
    “′Classic′ - a book which people praise and don't read.”
    ― Mark Twain
    tags: books, classic, reading
    18882 likes

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  • #17
    Robert A. Heinlein
    “Don't explain computers to laymen. Simpler to explain sex to a virgin.”
    ― Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
    tags: computers, humor, sex, technology, technophobes, wit
    116 likes

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  • #18
    Aldous Huxley
    “Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly – they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”
    ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
    tags: reading, words, writing
    5372 likes

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  • #19
    “We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.”
    ― Stephen Hawking
    tags: inspirational, science
    3952 likes

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  • #20
    Albert Einstein
    “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
    ― Albert Einstein
    tags: attributed-no-source, human-nature, humor, infinity, philosophy, science, stupidity, universe
    148352 likes

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  • #21
    Larry J. Sabato
    “Every election is determined by the people who show up.”
    ― Larry J. Sabato , Pendulum Swing
    tags: democracy, democracy-fascism, democracy-freedom, democracy-voting, democrats, elections, freedom, liberty, political-science, politics-observation, politics-science, politicsics, republicans, responsibility, vote, voters, voting, voting-rights
    141 likes

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  • #22
    Louis L'Amour
    “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”
    ― Louis L'Amour
    tags: inspirational, writing
    4695 likes

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  • #23
    Leo Tolstoy
    “Just as a painter needs light in order to put the finishing touches to his picture, so I need an inner light, which I feel I never have enough of in the autumn.”
    ― Leo Tolstoy
    tags: autumn, inner-light, letter-to-strakhov, light, tolstoy
    118 likes

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  • #24
    David Halberstam
    “I added another chapter, the story of John Paton Davies, one of the most distinguished of the China hands who had had his career savaged during the McCarthy years. The section reflected my belief that in a better and healthier society he or someone like him might have been sitting in as Assistant Secretary of State during the Vietnam decisions.”
    ― David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest: Kennedy-Johnson Administrations
    3 likes

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  • #25
    Harry Truman
    “The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know.”
    ― Harry S. Truman
    tags: education, history, past
    264 likes

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  • #26
    Dalai Lama XIV
    “If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.”
    ― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality
    tags: science-buddhism
    183 likes

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  • #27
    John Steinbeck
    “It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”
    ― John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
    tags: life
    1335 likes

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  • #28
    Robert Bolt
    “I'm breathing . . . Are you breathing too? . . . It's nice, isn't it? It isn't difficult to keep alive, friends just don't -make trouble-or if you must make trouble, make the sort of trouble that's expected. Well, I don't need to tell you that. Good night. If we should bump into one another, recognize me”
    ― Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons: A Play in Two Acts
    16 likes

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  • #29
    David Sedaris
    “Happiness is harder to put into words. It’s also harder to source, much more mysterious than anger or sorrow, which come to me promptly, whenever I summon them, and remain long after I’ve begged them to leave.”
    ― David Sedaris, Calypso
    41 likes

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  • #30
    David S. Reynolds
    “The cross-fertilization of different images, he hoped, might help to disperse the various ills he and the nation faced.”
    ― David S. Reynolds, Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography
    1 likes



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