Lisa > Lisa's Quotes

“Medicine, and Law, and Philosophy -
You've worked your way through every school,
Even, God help you, Theology,
And sweated at it like a fool.
Why labour at it any more?
You're no wiser now than you were before.
You're Master of Arts, and Doctor too,
And for ten years all you've been able to do
Is lead your students a fearful dance
Through a maze of error and ignorance.
And all this misery goes to show
There's nothing we can ever know.
Oh yes you're brighter than all those relics,
Professors and Doctors, scribblers and clerics,
No doubts or scruples to trouble you,
Defying hell, and the Devil too.
But there's no joy in self-delusion;
Your search for truth ends in confusion.
Don't imagine your teaching will ever raise
The minds of men or change their ways.
And as for worldly wealth, you have none -
What honour or glory have you won?
A dog could stand this life no more.
And so I've turned to magic lore;
The spirit message of this art
Some secret knowledge might impart.
No longer shall I sweat to teach
What always lay beyond my reach;
I'll know what makes the world revolve,
Its mysteries resolve,
No more in empty words I'll deal -
Creation's wellsprings I'll reveal!”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, and the Urfaust

“Confidence is what you have before you understand the problem.”
― Woody Allen

“My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.”
― Woody Allen

“I'm not afraid of death; I just don't want to be there when it happens.”
― Woody Allen

“Desire is no light thing.”
― Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

“Then a miracle occurred in the form of a plate of sandwiches.
Geryon took three and buried his mouth in a delicious block of white bread filled with tomatoes and butter and salt.
He thought about how delicious it was, how he liked slippery foods, how slipperiness can be of different kinds.
I am a philosopher of sandwiches, he decided. Things good on the inside.”
― Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

“...And tonight—Geryon? You okay?
Yes fine, I'm listening. Tonight—?
Why do you have your jacket over your head?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Can't hear you Geryon. The jacket shifted. Geryon peered out. I said sometimes
I need a little privacy.”
― Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

“He had a respect for facts maybe this was one.”
― Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

“The monster does not need the hero. it is the hero who needs him for his very existence. When the hero confronts the monster, he has yet neither power nor knowledge, the monster is his secret father who will invest him with a power and knowledge that can belong to one man only, and that only the monster can give.”
― Roberto Calasso

“We read deeply for varied reasons, most of them familiar: that we cannot know enough people profoundly enough; that we need to know ourselves better; that we require knowledge, not just of self and others, but of the way things are. Yet the strongest, most authentic motive for deep reading…is the search for a difficult pleasure.”
― Harold Bloom

“Never memorize something that you can look up.”
― Albert Einstein

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

“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”
― Albert Einstein

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.”
― Albert Einstein

“The difference between genius and stupidity is: genius has its limits.”
― Alexandre Dumas-fils

“Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources”
― C.E.M. Joad

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
― Albert Einstein

“Everything must be made as simple as possible. But not simpler.”
― Albert Einstein

“I love children, especially when they cry, for then someone takes them away.”
― Nancy Mitford

“If I had a girl I should say to her, 'Marry for love if you can, it won't last, but it is a very interesting experience and makes a good beginning in life. Later on, when you marry for money, for heaven's sake let it be big money. There are no other possible reasons for marrying at all.”
― Nancy Mitford, Christmas Pudding

“Consistency is the playground of dull minds.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need the society as it is.”
― Ivan Illich