William > William's Quotes

“Swords, Lances, arrows, machine guns, and even high explosives have had far less power over the fates of nations than the typhus louse, the plague flea, and the yellow-fever mosquito. Civilizations have retreated from the plasmodium of malaria, and armies have crumbled into rabbles under the onslaught of cholera spirilla, or of dysentery and typhoid bacilli. Huge areas have bee devastated by the trypanosome that travels on the wings of the tsetse fly, and generations have been harassed by the syphilis of a courtier. War and conquest and that herd existence which is an accompaniment of what we call civilization have merely set the stage for these more powerful agents of human tragedy.”
― Hans Zinsser, Rats, Lice and History

“A specialist is a doctor who has trained patients to be sick during office hours.”
― House Calls and Hitching Posts

“I might have made a tactical error not going to a physician for 20 years. It was one of those phobias that didn't pay off.”
― Warren Zevon

“A lot of the people who read a bestselling novel, for example, do not read much other fiction. By contrast, the audience for an obscure novel is largely composed of people who read a lot. That means the least popular books are judged by people who have the highest standards, while the most popular are judged by people who literally do not know any better. An American who read just one book this year was disproportionately likely to have read ‘The Lost Symbol’, by Dan Brown. He almost certainly liked it.”
― The Economist

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“the mind is a neural computer”
― Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works

“There are more old drunks than there are old doctors.”
― Willie Nelson

“If God had intended us to drink beer, He would have given us stomachs.”
― David Daye

“Everyday you wake up on the right side of the dirt is a good one.”
― Paula Deen

“Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas ... with the music at top volume and at least a pint of ether.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

“The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. Most of your time is spent lying on your back. The brain has shut down. The flesh begins to soften. Nothing much new happens, and nothing is expected of you.”
― Mary Roach, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

“You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn't want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named "Bush", "Dick", and "Colin." Need I say more?”
― Chris Rock

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
― Benjamin Franklin, Memoirs of the life & writings of Benjamin Franklin

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters.”
― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

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

“De mortuis nil nisi bonum (Speak naught but the good of the dead)”
― Latin quote