To worship to other than one's own ancestral spirits is brown-nosing. If you see what is right and fail to act on it, you lack courage. Variant: To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage or of principle.

Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.

...whoever is not against us is for us. 9:40

In a quarrel for earth, turn not to earth.

It is my own experience ... that commentators are far more ingenious at finding meaning than authors are at inserting it.

The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath. Mark 2:27 (KJV)

I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea. Revelation 1:11

Give place: for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. 9:24 (KJV) Said about a girl thought to be dead.

Do not imagine that it is less an accident by which you find yourself master of the wealth which you possess, than that by which this man found himself king.

Science fiction may be defined as that branch of literature which deals with the response of human beings to advances in science and technology. Actual change in science and technology, occurring quickly enough and striking deeply enough to affect a human being in the course of his normal lifetime, is a phenomenon peculiar to the world only since the Industrial Revolution ... The first well-known writer who responded to this new factor in human affairs by dealing regularly with science fiction, by studying the effect of additional scientific advance upon mankind ... was Jules Verne. In the English language, the early master was H. G. Wells. Between them, they laid the foundation for every theme upon which science fiction writers have been ringing variations ever since.

Earth governments in moments of stress are not famous for being reasonable.

Since the science of nature is conversant with magnitudes, motion, and time, each of which must necessarily be either infinite or finite...[we] should speculate the infinite, and consider whether it is or not; and if it is what it is. ...[A]ll those who appear to have touched on a philosophy of this kind... consider it as a certain principle of beings. Some, indeed, as the Pythagoreans and Plato, consider it, per se, not as being an accident to any thing else, but as having an essential subsistence... the Pythagoreans... consider the infinite as subsisting in sensibles; for they do not make number to be separate; and they assert that what is beyond the heavens is infinite; but Plato says that beyond the heavens there is not any body, nor ideas, because these are no where: he affirms, however, that the infinite is both in sensibles, and in ideas. ...Plato establishes two infinities, viz. the great and the small.

What wilt thou? 20:21 (KJV) Asked of the mother of the sons of Zebedee, who answered that she wanted one son to sit on Jesus's left hand and one on his right.

Rules for Demonstrations. I. Not to undertake to demonstrate any thing that is so evident of itself that nothing can be given that is clearer to prove it. II. To prove all propositions at all obscure, and to employ in their proof only very evident maxims or propositions already admitted or demonstrated. III. To always mentally substitute definitions in the place of things defined, in order not to be misled by the ambiguity of terms which have been restricted by definitions.

We all have a weakness for beauty.

It is not among extraordinary and fantastic things that excellence is to be found, of whatever kind it may be. We rise to attain it and become removed from it: it is oftenest necessary to stoop for it.

Now, justification in this life is given to us according to these three things: first by the laver of regeneration by which all sins are forgiven; then, by a struggle with the faults from whose guilt we have been absolved; the third, when our prayer is heard, in which we say: Forgive us our debts, because however bravely we fight against our faults, we are men; but the grace of God so aids as we fight in this corruptible body that there is reason for His hearing us as we ask forgiveness.

It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. 4:4 (KJV) Said to Satan. The reference is to Deuteronomy 8:3, "... that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live." (KJV)

Then the case is the same in all the other arts for the orator and his rhetoric; there is no need to know the truth of the actual matters, but one merely needs to have discovered some device of persuasion which will make one appear to those who do not know to know better than those who know.

Show that you know this only, how you may never either fail to get what you desire or fall into what you avoid.

Of all the cultural aspects of humanity, the only one which is not broken up into national or regional splinters is science. Different nations have different languages, they may have different religions, may have different dietaries, may have different holidays, different ways of thinking, but here's only one science. Interview by Richard Heffner on The Open Mind (19 June 1988); video (25:31)

There can never be a man so lost as one who is lost in the vast and intricate corrdiors of his own lonely mind, where none may reach and none may save. There never was a man so helpless as one who cannot remember.

Since, of desires some are natural and necessary; others natural, but not necessary; and others neither natural nor necessary, but the offspring of false judgment; it must be the office of temperance to gratify the first class, as far as nature requires: to restrain the second within the bounds of moderation; and, as to the third, resolutely to oppose, and, if possible, entirely repress them.

In the course of my fight with the school, I couldn't help but notice that I became a pariah. [...] Once, however, a fellow faculty member, making sure we were unobserved, said to me, "Isaac, the faculty is proud of you for your courage in fighting the administration for academic freedom."I said, "There's no courage involved in it. Don't you know my definition of academic freedom?""No. What's your definition of academic freedom?"I said, "Independent income."

I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.

Is Wagner a human being at all? Is he not rather a disease? He contaminates everything he touches - he has made music sick.

Who is not tempted by attractive and wide-awake children to join their sports, and crawl on all fours with them, and talk baby talk with them?

How then to enforce peace? Not by reason, certainly, nor by education. If a man could not look at the fact of peace and the fact of war and choose the former in preference to the latter, what additional argument could persuade him? What could be more eloquent as a condemnation of war than war itself? What tremendous feat of dialectic could carry with it a tenth the power of a single gutted ship with its ghastly cargo?

To be fond of learning is to be near to knowledge. To practice with vigor is to be near to magnanimity. To possess the feeling of shame is to be near to energy.

Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold. What does the scientist have to offer in exchange? Uncertainty! Insecurity!

Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.

The similarity between Christ and Socrates consists essentially in their dissimilarity. Just as philosophy begins with doubt, so also a life that may be called human begins with irony.

Virtue (or the man of virtue) is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.

The highest perfection of human life consists in the mind of man being detached from care, for the sake of God.

Heaven, in the production of things, is sure to be bountiful to them, according to their qualities. Hence the tree that is flourishing, it nourishes, while that which is ready to fall, it overthrows.

I came to set fire to the earth, and I wish it were already on fire! 12:49 (CEV)

Recompense hatred with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.

Now men seem, not unreasonably, to form their notions of the supreme good and of happiness from the lives of men.

Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days. 12:11-12 (KJV) Said to the Pharisees.

A lifetime is a child playing, playing checkers; the kingdom belongs to a child.

Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.

Man is a goal-seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for goals.

I will destroy this house, and no one will be able to build it....(71)

There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like schoolboys; they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a book without having worked out the sum for themselves.

O sons of Peace, sons of the One Catholic [Church], walk in your way, and sing as you walk. Travelers do this in order to keep up their spirits.

Everything which distinguishes man from the animals depends upon this ability to volatilize perceptual metaphors in a schema, and thus to dissolve an image into a concept. For something is possible in the realm of these schemata which could never be achieved with the vivid first impressions: the construction of a pyramidal order according to castes and degrees, the creation of a new world of laws, privileges, subordinations, and clearly marked boundaries, a new world, one which now confronts that other vivid world of first impressions as more solid, more universal, better known, and more human than the immediately perceived world, and thus as the regulative and imperative world.

The greatest states have been overthrown by the young and sustained and restored by the old. ... Rashness is the product of the budding-time of youth, prudence of the harvest-time of age.

How great is the path proper to the Sage! Like overflowing water, it sends forth and nourishes all things, and rises up to the height of heaven. All-complete is its greatness! It embraces the three hundred rules of ceremony, and the three thousand rules of demeanor. It waits for the proper man, and then it is trodden. Hence it is said, "Only by perfect virtue can the perfect path, in all its courses, be made a fact."