Andi Abes > Andi's Quotes

“We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all of the power we need inside ourselves already.”
― J.K. Rowling, Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination

“We now know the basic rules governing the universe, together with the gravitational interrelationships of its gross components, as shown in the theory of relativity worked out between 1905 and 1916. We also know the basic rules governing the subatomic particles and their interrelationships, since these are very neatly described by the quantum theory worked out between 1900 and 1930. What's more, we have found that the galaxies and clusters of galaxies are the basic units of the physical universe, as discovered between 1920 and 1930.

...The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern 'knowledge' is that it is wrong...

My answer to him was, when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.

The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that 'right' and 'wrong' are absolute; that everything that isn't perfectly and completely right is totally and equally wrong.

However, I don't think that's so. It seems to me that right and wrong are fuzzy concepts, and I will devote this essay to an explanation of why I think so.

When my friend the English literature expert tells me that in every century scientists think they have worked out the universe and are always wrong, what I want to know is how wrong are they? Are they always wrong to the same degree?”
― Isaac Asimov

“Tell me why the stars do shine,
Tell me why the ivy twines,
Tell me what makes skies so blue,
And I'll tell you why I love you.

Nuclear fusion makes stars to shine,
Tropisms make the ivy twine,
Raleigh scattering make skies so blue,
Testicular hormones are why I love you. ”
― Isaac Asimov

“We are ever striving after what is forbidden, and coveting what is denied us.”
― Ovid

“or that writing a poem you can read to no one
is like dancing in the dark.”
― Ovid, The Poems of Exile: Tristia and the Black Sea Letters

“Happy are those who dare courageously to defend what they love.”
― Ovid

“Neither can the wave that has passed by be recalled, nor the hour which has passed return again.”
― Ovid

“Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.”
― Ambrose Bierce