Dirk > Dirk's Quotes

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
― Charles Bukowski

“Karl Marx was right, socialism works, it is just that he had the wrong species”
― Edward O. Wilson, The Ants

“You teach me, I forget. You show me, I remember. You involve me, I understand.”
― Edward O. Wilson

“The love of complexity without reductionism makes art; the love of complexity with reductionism makes science.”
― Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

“If you're not confused, you're not paying attention.”
― Tom Peters, Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution

“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.”
― Seneca

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”
― Seneca

“Hang on to your youthful enthusiasms -- you’ll be able to use them better when you’re older.”
― Seneca

“An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.”
― Victor Frankl, Man's Search For Ultimate Meaning

“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”
― Sigmund Freud

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
― Carl Gustav Jung

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.”
― Erich Fromm

“If our brains were simple enough for us to understand them, we'd be so simple that we couldn't.”
― Ian Stewart, The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
― Dr. Seuss

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.”
― Philip K. Dick, I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

“Nicht die Wahrheit, in deren Besitz irgend ein Mensch ist oder zu sein vermeinet, sondern die aufrichtige Mühe, die er angewandt hat, hinter die Wahrheit zu kommen, macht den Wert des Menschen.”
― Gotthold Ephraim Lessing