Leta > Leta's Quotes

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

“A god who is capable of sending intelligible signals to millions of people simultaneously, and of receiving messages from all of them simultaneously, cannot be, whatever else he might be, simple. Such Bandwidth!”
― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

“Indeed, organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority.”
― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

“Goodnight you princes of Maine, you kings of New England.”
― John Irving, The Cider House Rules

“Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man?”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“But recently I have learned from discussions with a variety of scientists and other non-philosophers (e.g., the scientists participating with me in the Sean Carroll workshop on the future of naturalism) that they lean the other way: free will, in their view, is obviously incompatible with naturalism, with determinism, and very likely incoherent against any background, so they cheerfully insist that of course they don't have free will, couldn’t have free will, but so what? It has nothing to do with morality or the meaning of life. Their advice to me at the symposium was simple: recast my pressing question as whether naturalism (materialism, determinism, science...) has any implications for what we may call moral competence. For instance, does neuroscience show that we cannot be responsible for our choices, cannot justifiably be praised or blamed, rewarded or punished? Abandon the term 'free will' to the libertarians and other incompatibilists, who can pursue their fantasies untroubled. Note that this is not a dismissal of the important issues; it’s a proposal about which camp gets to use, and define, the term. I am beginning to appreciate the benefits of discarding the term 'free will' altogether, but that course too involves a lot of heavy lifting, if one is to avoid being misunderstood.”
― Daniel C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained

“You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Revolt in 2100/Methuselah's Children

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
― Albert Einstein

“Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.”
― Susan B. Anthony

“When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle

“To ride a bicycle is in itself some protection against superstitious fears, since the bicycle is the product of pure reason applied to motion. Geometry at the service of man! Give me two spheres and a straight line and I will show you how far I can take them. Voltaire himself might have invented the bicycle, since it contributes so much to man’s welfare and nothing at all to his bane. Beneficial to the health, it emits no harmful fumes and permits only the most decorous speeds. How can a bicycle ever be an implement of harm?”
― Angela Carter

“Sorry, old girl," I said to [my bicycle] Gladys in the gray dishwater light of early morning, "but I have to leave you at home."

I could see that she was disappointed, even though she managed to put on a brave face.

"I need you to stay here as a decoy," I whispered. "When they see you leaning against the greenhouse, they'll think I'm still in bed."

Gladys brightened considerably at the thought of a conspiracy. [...]

At the corner of the garden, I turned, and mouthed the words, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do," and Gladys signaled that she wouldn't.

I was off like a shot.”
― Alan Bradley, A Red Herring Without Mustard

“I had a dream about you. You were on a bike going 70 miles an hour, I could see you approaching my car in the mirror. You were trying to say something so, I jumped on the brakes as hard as I could, I guess I forgot I had tied your bike on my bumper.”
― Georgia Saratsioti, Dreaming is for lovers

“There is beauty in silence and there is silence in beauty and you can find both in a bicycle!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Being human is a complicated gig. So give that ol' dark night of the soul a hug. Howl the eternal yes!
[N.B. this is obviously a humorous paraphrase]”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“...some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
― Michael Caine