Quotables

Some words are worth keeping, if nothing else, because having somebody else say something that you wanted to say saves you time. (Somebody probably already said that, eh?)

In any case, here are some of my collected quotes. In time, I will organize these into categories:

Give me a fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth to yourself.
(Pareto, commenting to Kepler, quoted by Stephen Jay Gould, Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes)

By idolizing those whom we honor, we do a dissservice both to them and to ourselves.... We fail to recognize that we could go and do likewise.
(Charles V. Willie, quoted by James Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me)

Once you have learned how to ask questions--relevant and appropriate and substantial questions--you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know.
(Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner, quoted by James Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me)

Do not try to satisfy your vanity by teaching a great many things. Awaken people's curiosity. It is enough to open minds; do not overload them.
(Anatole France)

Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs. (P. J. O'Rourke)

The goal of science is to build better mousetraps. The goal of nature is to build better mice.

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
-Plato

"The more rapidly we force changes in the [climate] system, the more likely it is to exhibit inscrutable behavior."
-Stephen H Schneider, Stanford University

Ask not what the cost of doing this will be. Ask what the cost of not doing it will be.
-Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper

Natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirit are objects of scorn to smart Americans who blow horns to break up traffic jams.
-Mary Ellen Kelly

A friend in Washington DC is someone who stabs you in the chest.
-The Honorable Jim Woolsey

For every human problem there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
-H. L. Mencken

Not everything that can be counted counts; and not everything that counts can be counted.
-Albert Einstein

Government does two things well—nothing and overreact.
-Tom Korologos

The opposite of a simple truth is false; the opposite of a deep truth is also true.
-Niels Bohr

Napoleon was asked who he thought were the greatest generals. He answered: “the victors.”

Every government looking at the actions of another government and trying to explain them always exaggerates rationality and conspiracy and underestimates incompetency and fortuity.

Never attribute to conspiracy that which can be explained by incompetence. -US Circuit Court Judge Laurence Silberman

Never assume the other guy will ever do something you would never do. -Machiavelli (?)

"I'm not saying it's safe for humans. I'm not saying it's unsafe for humans. All I'm saying is it that it makes hermaphrodites of frogs."
-- Tyrone Hayes, the lead researcher on a study concluding that atrazine, the most popular herbicide in the U.S., causes a wide range of sexual abnormalities in frogs (New York Times, Associated Press, 17 Apr 2002).

"The history of liberty has largely been the history of observance of procedural safeguards."
--Felix Frankfurter

"Look in your hearts, and recognize that there is no room for neutrality on the issue of terrorism. The evidence of terrorism's brutality and inhumanity, of its contempt for life and the concept of peace, is living beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center less than two miles from where we meet today."
Mayor Rudy Guiliani, speaking at the United Nations on Oct. 1, 2001.

“God creates difference; therefore it is in one-who-is-different that we meet God.” --Jonathan Sacks, Britain’s Chief Orthodox Rabbi

“God is our objective; the Quran is our constitution; the Prophet is our leader; Struggle (Jihad) is our way; and death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations.”
--Credo of the Muslim Brotherhood

Planning for the future without a sense of history is like planting cut flowers (Daniel Boorstin, historian)