Dan > Dan's Quotes

“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

“Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. ”
― Pericles

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
― Howard Thurman

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
― Mark Twain

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“The nation that will insist on drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking done by cowards.”
― William Francis Butler, Charles George Gordon

“Humans don't mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary.”
― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
― Alan Kay

“Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”
― Richard Feynmann

“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”
― Aristotle

“A friend to all is a friend to none.”
― Aristotle

“Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.
But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants "just a few minutes of your time, please—this won't take long." Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time—and squawk for more!
So learn to say No—and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.
(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because it is "expected" of you.)”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“Once a month, some women act like men act all the time.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“Sex should be friendly. Otherwise stick to mechanical toys; it's more sanitary.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
― Robert J. Hanlon

“Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.”
― Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“Be wary of strong drink, it can make you shoot at the tax collector...and miss.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“What are the facts? Again and again and again – what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” – what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!”
― Robert Heinlein

“No woman ever ages beyond eighteen in her heart.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series

“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”
― Socrates

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
― Socrates

“To find yourself, think for yourself.”
― Socrates

“By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.”
― Socrates