Quotes

Philosophy and religion

Confucious

We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

If you make a mistake and do not correct it, this is called a mistake.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.

Aristotle

No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Friedrich Nietzsche

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster . . . when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you.

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.

The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night.

Blaise Pascal

All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter. [*]

Misc

Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là. (I had no need of that hypothesis.) - Pierre-Simon Laplace

Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist. - Epicurus

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. - Seneca

The best is the enemy of good. - Voltaire

Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you. - Rashi

I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again 'I know that that’s a tree', pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell him: 'This fellow isn’t insane. We are only doing philosophy. - Ludwig Wittgenstein

Science

Carl Sagan

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known. [Pale Blue Dot]

Isaac Asimov

People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.".

Arthur C. Clarke

I don’t believe in astrology; I’m a Sagittarius and we’re skeptical.

Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.

Misc

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - Robert A. Heinlein

Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible. - Richard Feynman

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty. - Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune

If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants. - Isaac Newton

Books, movies, TV shows, video games

Star Trek

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before! [*]

Spock

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.

Live Long and Prosper. 🖖

You mistake my choice not to feel as a reflection of my not caring. Well, I assure you, the truth is precisely the opposite.

Jean-Luc Picard

It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness, that is life.

The IT Crowd

Maurice Moss

I came here to drink milk and kick ass. And I've just finished my milk.

I like being weird. Weird's all I've got. That and my sweet style.

Misc

...if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all. - Geralt of Rivia, The Last Wish, The Witcher

Damn ye! Let Neptune strike ye dead Winslow! HAAARK! Hark Triton, hark! Bellow, bid our father the Sea King rise from the depths full foul in his fury! Black waves teeming with salt foam to smother this young mouth with pungent slime, to choke ye, engorging your organs til' ye turn blue and bloated with bilge and brine and can scream no more - only when he, crowned in cockle shells with slitherin' tentacle tail and steaming beard take up his fell be-finned arm, his coral-tine trident screeches banshee-like in the tempest and plunges right through yer gullet, bursting ye - a bulging bladder no more, but a blasted bloody film now and nothing for the harpies and the souls of dead sailors to peck and claw and feed upon only to be lapped up and swallowed by the infinite waters of the Dread Emperor himself - forgotten to any man, to any time, forgotten to any god or devil, forgotten even to the sea, for any stuff for part of Winslow, even any scantling of your soul is Winslow no more, but is now itself the sea! - Thomas Wake, The Lighthouse

Humankind cannot gain something without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. This is Alchemy's First Law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only, truth. - Fullmetal Alchemist

The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy isn't a search for meaning. It's to keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually you'll be dead. - Mr. Peanutbutter, BoJack Horseman

I have no idea where this will lead us, but I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange. - Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks

When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. - Sherlock Holmes

Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul. - The Principal, Billy Madison

I believe in a universe that doesn't care and people who do. - Night In The Woods

What is better? To be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort? - Paarthurnax, Skyrim

We've been tricked, we've been backstabbed and we've been quite possibly, bamboozled. - Super Colonel Sarge, Red vs. Blue

Misc

Douglas Adams

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be. [The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, Dirk Gently #2]

We don't have to save the world. The world is big enough to look after itself. What we have to be concerned about is whether or not the world we live in will be capable of sustaining us in it.

Mark Twain

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.

Erik Naggum

Life is hard, and then you die.

People search for the meaning of life, but this is the easy question: we are born into a world that presents us with many millennia of collected knowledge and information, and all our predecessors ask of us is that we not waste our brief life ignoring the past only to rediscover or reinvent its lessons badly.

The secret to feeling great about yourself is not to be found in searching for people who are less than you and then show yourself superior to them, but in searching for people who are more than you and then show yourself worthy of their company.

Charles Bukowski

The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way.

We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.

Misc

I've said it before: there are two sorts of atheists. One sort claims that there is no deity, the other claims that there is no evidence that proves the existence of a deity; I belong to the latter group, because if I were to claim that no god exists, I would have to produce evidence to establish that claim, and I cannot. Religious persons have by far the easier position; they say they believe in a deity because that's their preference, and they've read it in a book. That's their right. - James Randi

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. - Rob Siltanen

I'm gonna do what's called a pro gamer move. - Michael Stevens (Vsauce)

My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined. - TheReportOfTheWeek

The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer. - Ward Cunningham, Cunnigham's Law

Think deeply about things. Don’t just go along because that’s the way things are or that’s what your friends say. Consider the effects, consider the alternatives, but most importantly, just think. - Aaron Swartz

If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything. - Ronald Coase

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not. - Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. - Philip K. Dick

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. - Thomas Paine

The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life. - Paul Morphy

And so it goes... - Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

Please accept my resignation. I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member. - Groucho Marx

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, uh, your opinion, man. - The Dude, The Big Lebowski

Years of love have been forgot, In the hatred of a minute. - Edgar Allan Poe

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. - Ernest Hemingway

Catchphrases

Back to the Future

Dr. Emmet Brown

Great Scott!

1.21 GIGAWATTS!!!!!!

Star Wars

May the Force be with you.

Star Trek

The Borg

Resistance is futile.

Futurama

Professor Fansworth

Good news, everyone!

Bender

Bite my shiny metal a**!

Hermes Conrad

Sweet lamprey of Santa Fe!

Cursed bacteria of Liberia!

Great bonda of Uganda!

Great cow of Moscow!

Sacred boa of West and Eastern Samoa!

Sacred hog of Prague!

Sweet bongo of the Congo!

Sweet candelabra of Le Havre, LaBarbara!

Sweet coincidence of Port-au-Prince

Sweet ego of Montego!

Sweet freak of Mozambique!

Sweet ghost of Babylon!

Sweet giant anteater of Santa Anita!

Sweet guinea pig of Winnipeg!

Sweet honey bee of infinity!

Sweet kookaburra of Edinburgh!

Sweet lion of Zion!

Sweet llamas of the Bahamas!

Sweet manatee of Galilee!

Sweet orca of Mallorca!

Sweet orgy of Georgia!

Sweet pyro of Cairo!

Sweet reawakenin' of me, a Jamaican-in!

Sweet robot swan of Botswana!

Sweet squid of Madrid!

Sweet three-toed sloth of the ice planet Hoth!

Sweet toke of Ocracoke!

Sweet topology of cosmology!

Sweet yeti of the Serengeti!

Sweet fireball of Montreal!

Sweet gorilla of Manila!

Sweet something... of... someplace...

The Lord of the Rings

My precious! - Gollum

Harry Potter

Merlin's beard!

The IT Crowd

0118 999 881 999 119 725 3 - Maurice Moss

American Psycho

I have to return some video tapes.

Hyouka

Watashi, Kininarimasu! - Eru Chitanda

The Big Bang Theory

Sheldon Cooper

Bazinga!