Travis > Travis's Quotes

“It is therefore scientifically correct to say that 'natural selection has been proved to be an agent of evolutionary change' - we can, in fact, prove it by doing. But it is totally illegitimate to claim that the discovery of this mechanism - natural selection - proves that the cause of evolution 'was automatic with no room for divine guidance or design'.”
― E.F. Schumacher, A Guide for the Perplexed

“The mind commands the body and is instantly obeyed. The mind commands itself and meets resistance.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

“How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it and why was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought by a peddling shanghaier of human beings? How did I get involved in this big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn't it a matter of choice? And if I am compelled to be involved, where is the manager—I have something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I make my complaint?”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved.”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“The world says: "You have needs -- satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.”
― Leo Tolstoy, A Confession

“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”
― Leo Tolstoy

“If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Essays, Letters and Miscellanies

“Because I'm a Karamazov. Because when I fall into the abyss, I go straight into it, head down and heels up, and I'm even pleased that I'm falling in just such a humiliating position, and for me I find it beautiful.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“The Christian philosopher has a perfect right to the point of view and prephilosophical assumptions he brings to philosophic work; the fact that these are not widely shared outside the Christian or theistic community is interesting but fundamentally irrelevant.”
― Alvin Plantinga

“A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion at all—and more amusing.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

“The huge modern heresy is to alter the human soul to fit modern social conditions, instead of altering modern social conditions to fit the human soul.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories

“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.”
― J.D. Salinger

“And what is good, Phaedrus,
And what is not good—
Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

“To a philosopher all news is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, the Whale

“Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure..... Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle , and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself?”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”
― C.S. Lewis

“A dragon has just flown over the tree-tops and lighted on the beach. Yes, I am afraid it is between us and the ship. And arrows are no use against dragons. And they're not at all afraid of fire."

"With your Majesty's leave-" began Reepicheep.

"No, Reepicheep," said the King very firmly, "you are not to attempt a single combat with it.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“Money is dirt.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“If it's half as good as the half we've known, here's Hail! to the rest of the road.”
― Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy: A Story of Faith, Tragedy, and Triumph

“Are the gods not just?"

"Oh no, child. What would become of us if they were?”
― C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces