Ross > Ross's Quotes

“Pretend to be good always and even God will be fooled.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

“...if you do not even understand what words say,
how can you expect to pass judgement
on what words conceal?”
― H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Trilogy: The Walls Do Not Fall / Tribute to the Angels / The Flowering of the Rod

“I have received your new book against the human race, and thank you for it. Never was such a cleverness used in the design of making us all stupid. One longs, in reading your book, to walk on all fours. But as I have lost that habit for more than sixty years, I feel unhappily the impossibility of resuming it. Nor can I embark in search of the savages of Canada, because the maladies to which I am condemned render a European surgeon necessary to me; because war is going on in those regions; and because the example of our actions has made the savages nearly as bad as ourselves. [in response to Rousseau's "The Social Contract"]”
― Voltaire

“There is no document of civilization that is not at the same time a document of barbarism.”
― Walter Benjamin

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“I am not a number; I am a free man.”
― Patrick McGoohan

“Free speech is the right to shout 'theater' in a crowded fire.”
― Abbie Hoffman, Steal This Book

“The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet black bough.”
― Ezra Pound

“If I am ever put to death on the hook, expect a very human performance.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.”
― Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

“China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese. ”
― Charles de Gaulle

“Gilgamesh, where are you hurrying to? You will never find that life for which you are looking. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping. As for you, Gilgamesh, fill your belly with good things; day and night, night and day, dance and be merry, feast and rejoice. Let your clothes be fresh, bathe yourself in water, cherish the little child that holds your hand, and make your wife happy in your embrace; for this too is the lot of man.”
― Anonymous, The Epic of Gilgamesh

“This solitude opressed her; she was accustomed to have her thoughts confirmed by others or, at all events, contradicted; it was too dreadful not to know whether she was thinking right or wrong.”
― E. M. Forester, A Room with a View

“It is too soon to say.”
― Zhou Enlai

“Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle