Favourite Quotes

[Rath Darkblade]

I love Mark Twain quotes. He always had interesting and/or funny things to say. Here's another.

Twain was tired of receiving photographs from men claiming to be his double. To cope with the heavy correspondence this entailed, he composed the following form letter and had his printer run off a few hundred copies:

"My dear Sir,

I thank you very much for your letter and your photograph. In my opinion you are more like me than any other of my numerous doubles. I may even say that you resemble me more closely than I do myself. In fact, I intend to use your picture to shave by.

Yours thankfully,
S. Clemens."

 

[Louanne Learning]

The highest use of the great masters of literature is not literary; it is apart from their superb style and even from their emotional inspiration. The first use of good literature is that it prevents a man from being merely modern.

~ G.K. Chesterton

 

[Rath Darkblade]

After many years as an actress, Shirley MacLaine began to explore the paranormal world, writing several bestselling books about other dimensions and past lives she had led.

Much of her public scoffed, including fellow actor Yves Montand, who said, "Shirley MacLaine - who does she think she isn't?"

 

[Louanne Learning]

 

[Rath Darkblade]

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."
~ Clarence Darrow

 

[Louanne Learning]

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.

—"Old Man's Advice to Youth: 'Never Lose a Holy Curiosity.'" LIFE Magazine (2 May 1955) p. 64”
― Albert Einstein

 

[JLT]

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.

—"Old Man's Advice to Youth: 'Never Lose a Holy Curiosity.'" LIFE Magazine (2 May 1955) p. 64”
― Albert Einstein

I think it was Richard Feynman who remarked that all children are born scientists. They're always questioning and looking for answers to "Why is the sky blue?" or "When the snow melts, where does the white go?" But by the time they get to junior high, that natural curiosity has mostly disappeared, except in the very few who will go on to become scientists or break new ground in other arts, and he wondered how on earth that happened.

 

[Louanne Learning]

and he wondered how on earth that happened.

I guess there can be different reasons. One big one is how much support they get at home. If the parents aren't interested, and don't encourage, or worse, if they don't provide a stable home environment, learning loses its importance.

If governments funded education to a larger extent, and we could afford smaller classes, with more one-on-one attention, I bet we would see a lot of students doing a lot better, and finding out earlier where their talents and their interests lie.

 

[JLT]

One of the few things I remember from my grade school days is when I was called on to participate in an experiment in front of a bunch of teachers. I and a couple of classmates were given a shoe box with something inside and tasked with figuring out what it was without opening the box. We figured it was solid, from the way it rattled when we shook the box. Then we decided that it was round in some way, because it seemed to be rolling when we tilted the box. But as it rolled, some parts of it seemed to be rolling more than the other parts, and it wouldn't roll in a straight line. That was as far as we got. When the box was finally opened, there was a twenty-penny nail inside. The experiment was considered a success, and the teachers appreciated the demonstration.

In high school, my biology class was studying statistics, which we demonstrated by tossing pennies and keeping track of the "heads and tails." Each student flipped a coin twenty times. There was one student who got only heads, and one that got only tails (that one was myself). But when all the results were tallied, it produced a very nice bell curve.

I think that such experiments should be part of every science class curriculum.

 

[JLT]

I love being wrong because that means in that instant, I learned something new that day.

--Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

[Louanne Learning]

I and a couple of classmates were given a shoe box with something inside and tasked with figuring out what it was without opening the box. We figured it was solid, from the way it rattled when we shook the box. Then we decided that it was round in some way, because it seemed to be rolling when we tilted the box. But as it rolled, some parts of it seemed to be rolling more than the other parts, and it wouldn't roll in a straight line. That was as far as we got. When the box was finally opened, there was a twenty-penny nail inside. The experiment was considered a success, and the teachers appreciated the demonstration.

Yes! The Black Box Experiment! I did it in grade 9.

my biology class was studying statistics, which we demonstrated by tossing pennies and keeping track of the "heads and tails." Each student flipped a coin twenty times. There was one student who got only heads, and one that got only tails (that one was myself). But when all the results were tallied, it produced a very nice bell curve.

I think I did something similar with our study of Mendelian genetics

 

[Rath Darkblade]

Now I feel like I've missed out. Due to being an immigrant (and not knowing much English), I was bullied in science classes and therefore didn't pursue science study beyond grade 9. (Thank $deity$ my English improved so much the following year, due to my voracious reading and not letting the bastards grind me down).

I did study scientific subjects after that, but in a haphazard way and on my own. So please don't ask me to explain relativity, I couldn't tell you. (On the other hand, I could probably talk anyone's ear off about evolution).

Speaking of science and scientists, I just finished reading a chapter about Kurt Gödel. Poor old Kurt Gödel. He proved logically that time didn't exist, but he was so mentally bunched up that he suspected everyone except his wife of trying to poison him.

There are so many other things he discovered, but perhaps the most disturbing is Gödel's Loophole, which apparently proves that the Constitution can be subverted to turn the U.S. into a Nazi-style dictatorship ... but nobody except Gödel knows what the loophole is. He started to explain it in his citizenship ceremony, but Einstein basically told him to shut up and say he loved Uncle Sam, and everything would be OK.

It sounds like Gödel's psychological troubles could've been studied by an entire seminar of psychologists and therapists. Poor, poor guy. He devoted his life to being a logician and mathematician, and then he ended up starving himself to death because he wouldn't trust anyone but his wife to make food for him.

 

[defaux]

You can think clearly only with your clothes on.

~ Margaret Atwood

 

[Rath Darkblade]

A famous quote, but I just couldn't resist:

"Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to."
~ Mark Twain

 

[Rad Scribbler]

Stay away from those people who try to disparage your ambitions.
~ Mark Twain

 

[JLT]

There are so many other things he discovered, but perhaps the most disturbing is Gödel's Loophole, which apparently proves that the Constitution can be subverted to turn the U.S. into a Nazi-style dictatorship

That's one of the things that Jill Lepore, one of my favorite historians, explores in her new book We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution. A long read, but an excellent one, since the subject of amendment was uppermost in the minds of the people who cobbled the document together.

 

[JLT]

You can think clearly only with your clothes on.

~ Margaret Atwood

Speak for yourself, Ms, Atwood, but I think more clearly without clothes.

 

[Rath Darkblade]

Speak for yourself, Ms, Atwood, but I think more clearly without clothes.

Where's the "spit-take" emoticon when you need one? ;-P "Beer" was the closest I could find.

 

[Louanne Learning]

“If the universe is meaningless, so is the statement that it is so… The meaning and purpose of dancing is the dance."

~ Alan Watts

 

[Rad Scribbler]

'Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes'
~ Jim Carey