Josiah Sutton > Josiah's Quotes

“But everywhere the religious dance came before the religious hymn, and man was a ritualist before he could speak.”
― g.k. chesterton, Heretics

“Cela est bien, repondit Candide, mais il faut cultiver notre jardin.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that's just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it's a joke.”
― Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, Part I

“Let us cultivate our garden.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”
― Søren Kierkegaard , The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin

“Martyrs, my friend, have to choose between being forgotten, mocked or used. As for being understood - never.”
― Albert Camus

“Man lives consciously for himself, but serves as an unconscious instrument for the achievement of historical, universally human goals. ”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“Freedom is the content. Inevitability is the form.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“I don't believe in God, but I miss him.
”
― Julian Barnes

“A common response in surveys of religious attitudes is to say something like, 'I don't go to church, but I have my own personal idea of God.' This kind of statement makes me in turn react like a philosopher. Soppy, I cry. You have your own personal idea of God, but does God have His own personal idea of you? Because that's what matters. Whether He's an old man with a white beard sitting in the sky, or a life force, or a disinterested prime mover, or a clockmaker, or a woman, or a nebulous moral force, or nothing at all, what counts is what He, She, It, or Nothing thinks of you rather than you of them.”
― Julian Barnes, Nothing to Be Frightened Of

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”
― Soren Kierkegaard