Nikolay

“the old story of the man who was going to fight a duel the next day. His second asked him, "Are you a good shot?" "Well," said the duelist, "I can snap the stem of a wineglass at twenty paces," and he looked modest. "That's all very well," said the unimpressed second. "But can you snap the stem of the wineglass while the wineglass is pointing a loaded pistol straight at your heart?”
― Edwin Lefèvre, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.”
― William Styron, Conversations with William Styron

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

“This might suggest that the so-called imaginary time is really the real time, and that what we call real time is just a figment of our imaginations. In real time, the universe has a beginning and an end at singularities that form a boundary to space-time and at which the laws of science break down. But in imaginary time, there are no singularities or boundaries. So maybe what we call imaginary time is really more basic, and what we call real is just an idea that we invent to help us describe what we think the universe is like.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time