Monday, July 31, 2006

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 148

"In democracy it's your vote that counts; In feudalism it's your count that votes." --Mogens Jallberg

"It was on my fifth birthday that Papa put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Remember, my son, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.'" --Sam Levenson

"Works of art, in my opinion, are the only objects in the material universe to possess internal order, and that is why, though I don't believe that only art matters, I do believe in Art for Art's sake." --E.M. Forster

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 147

"I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image." --Stephen Hawking

Friday, July 28, 2006

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 146

"The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives." --Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 145

"The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating." --Pearl S. Buck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1892-1973)

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 144

"Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are." --Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)

Monday, July 24, 2006

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 143

"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves." --Carl Jung

Friday, July 21, 2006

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 142

"A great writer is, so to speak, a second government in his country. And for that reason no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones." --Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, novelist, Nobel laureate (1918- )

"Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters."
--Margaret Halsey

Friday, July 14, 2006

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 141

"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them." --Isaac Asimov

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 140

"I'm not a person who thinks the world would be entirely different if it was run by women. If you think that, you've forgotten what high school was like." --Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright

Monday, July 10, 2006

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 139

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God." --Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)

"No man has a prosperity so high or firm, but that two or three words can dishearten it; and there is no calamity which right words will not begin to redress." --Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 138

"The man who prefers his country before any other duty shows the same spirit as the man who surrenders every right to the state. They both deny that right is superior to authority." --Lord Acton, historian (1834-1902)

"The object of most prayers is to wangle an advance on good intentions."
--Robert Brault

"Count no day lost in which you waited your turn, took only your share and sought advantage over no one." --Robert Brault

"I pray that an omnipotent providence will summon all persons of goodwill to to the realization of the utter futility of war. We have known the bitterness of defeat, the exultation of triumph, and from both we have learned that there is no turning back. We must preserve in peace, what we won in war.

The destructiveness of the war potential, through progressive advances in scientific discovery has in fact now reached a point that revises the traditional concept of war. War, the most malignant scourge, and greatest sin of mankind, can no longer be controlled, only ABOLISHED!

We are in a new era. If we do not devise some greater and more equitable means of settling disputes between nations, Armageddon will be at our door. We have had our last chance."
--Douglas MacArthur, (U.S.) General of the Army

"Humor is the spiciest condiment in the feast of existence. Laugh at your mistakes but learn from them, joke over your troubles but gather strength from them, make a jest of your difficulties but overcome them." --Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of the Island

"Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them." --Bill Vaughan