Crystalline B. > Crystalline's Quotes

“To Strauss the composer I take off my hat; to Strauss the man I put it back on again.”
― Arturo Toscanini

“LET us twain walk aside from the rest;
Now we are together privately, do you discard ceremony,
Come! vouchsafe to me what has yet been vouchsafed to none—Tell me the whole story,
Tell me what you would not tell your brother, wife, husband, or physician.”
― Walt Whitman

“In order to understand how engineers endeavor to insure against such structural, mechanical, and systems failures, and thereby also to understand how mistakes can be made and accidents with far-reaching consequences can occur, it is necessary to understand, at least partly, the nature of engineering design. It is the process of design, in which diverse parts of the 'given-world' of the scientist and the 'made-world' of the engineer are reformed and assembled into something the likes of which Nature had not dreamed, that divorces engineering from science and marries it to art. While the practice of engineering may involve as much technical experience as the poet brings to the blank page, the painter to the empty canvas, or the composer to the silent keyboard, the understanding and appreciation of the process and products of engineering are no less accessible than a poem, a painting, or a piece of music. Indeed, just as we all have experienced the rudiments of artistic creativity in the childhood masterpieces our parents were so proud of, so we have all experienced the essence of structual engineering in our learning to balance first our bodies and later our blocks in ever more ambitious positions. We have learned to endure the most boring of cocktail parties without the social accident of either our bodies or our glasses succumbing to the force of gravity, having long ago learned to crawl, sit up, and toddle among our tottering towers of blocks. If we could remember those early efforts of ours to raise ourselves up among the towers of legs of our parents and their friends, then we can begin to appreciate the task and the achievements of engineers, whether they be called builders in Babylon or scientists in Los Alamos. For all of their efforts are to one end: to make something stand that has not stood before, to reassemble Nature into something new, and above all to obviate failure in the effort.”
― Henry Petroski

“The beautiful has but one type, the ugly has a thousand. The fact is that the beautiful, humanly speaking, is merely form considered in its simplest aspect, in its most perfect symmetry, in its most entire harmony with our make-up. Thus the ensemble that it offers us is always complete, but restricted like ourselves. What we call the ugly, on the contrary, is a detail of a great whole which eludes us, and which is in harmony, not with man but with all creation. That is why it constantly presents itself to us in new but incomplete aspects...”
― Victor Hugo

“The truth is that science started its modern career by taking over ideas derived from the weakest side of the philosophies of Aristotle's successors. In some respects it was a happy choice. It enabled the knowledge of the seventeenth century to be formularised so far as physics and chemistry were concerned, with a completeness which has lasted to the present time. But the progress of biology and psychology has probably been checked by the uncritical assumption of half-truths. If science is not to degenerate into a medley of ad hoc hypothesis, it must become philosophical and must enter upon a thorough criticism of its own foundations.”
― Alfred North Whitehead

“Wil Wheaton Says: Don't be a dick.”
― Wil Wheaton

“True character arises from a deeper well than religion. It is the internalization of moral principles of a society, augmented by those tenets personally chosen by the individual, strong enough to endure through trials of solitude and adversity. The principles are fitted together into what we call integrity, literally the integrated self, wherein personal decisions feel good and true. Character is in turn the enduring source of virtue. It stands by itself and excites admiration in others.”
― Edward O. Wilson

“As you think, so shall you become.”
― Bruce Lee

“I have learned that to be with those I like is enough”
― Walt Whitman

“Be authentic to your dreams. Be authentic to your own idea about yourself. Grind away at your own minds and bodies until you become your own invention. Be Mad Scientists.”
― Warren Ellis, Doktor Sleepless, Volume 1: Engines of Desire

“If you believe that your thoughts originate inside your brain, do you also believe that television shows are made inside your television set?”
― Warren Ellis

“Don't fear failure. — Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.”
― Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living

“Time means a lot to me because you see I am also a learner and am often lost in the joy of forever developing.”
― Bruce Lee

“For it is easy to criticize and break down the spirit of others, but to know yourself takes a lifetime.”
― Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living

“[D]on't ever apologise to an author for buying something in paperback, or taking it out from a library (that's what they're there for. Use your library). Don't apologise to this author for buying books second hand, or getting them from bookcrossing or borrowing a friend's copy. What's important to me is that people read the books and enjoy them, and that, at some point in there, the book was bought by someone. And that people who like things, tell other people. The most important thing is that people read...”
― Neil Gaiman

“I would like to see anyone, prophet, king or God, convince a thousand cats to do the same thing at the same time.”
― Neil Gaiman

“What's your name,' Coraline asked the cat. 'Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?'
'Cats don't have names,' it said.
'No?' said Coraline.
'No,' said the cat. 'Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“What power would hell have if those imprisoned here would not be able to dream of heaven?”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes

“You don't have to stay anywhere forever.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

“There is a proverbial saying chiefly concerned with warning against too closely calculating the numerical value of un-hatched chicks.”
― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

“There is always something to do. There are hungry people to feed, naked people to clothe, sick people to comfort and make well. And while I don't expect you to save the world I do think it's not asking too much for you to love those with whom you sleep, share the happiness of those whom you call friend, engage those among you who are visionary and remove from your life those who offer you depression, despair and disrespect.”
― Nikki Giovanni

“Floating to shore...riding a low moon...on a slow cloud.”
― Nikki Giovanni

“The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.”
― William Gibson

“The book is almost always better than the movie. You could have no better case in point than FROM HELL, Alan Moore's best graphic novel to date, brilliantly illustrated by Eddie Campbell. It's hard to describe just how much better the book is.

It's like, "If the movie was an episode of Battlestar Galactica with a guest appearance by the Smurfs and everyone spoke Dutch, the graphic novel is Citizen Kane with added sex scenes and music by your favourite ten bands and everyone in the world you ever hated dies at the end."

That's how much better it is.”
― Warren Ellis

“Sure, this will probably end up being another in a long line of emotionally crippling misadventures...but let's try to have some fun along the way.”
― Brian K. Vaughan

“Dance first. Think later. It's the natural order.”
― Samuel Beckett

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“Of all sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.”
― Anatole France

“The lemming types came out of their houses with flashlights. Going to light up the world with those flashlights, I guess." He laughed. "I stopped them all from watching Happy Days. Forced their IQs up a couple notches.”
― Chris Fuhrman, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys

“I’m not the person you left behind anymore. There’s no one here to miss.”
― Iain Thomas