Quotes
I highly recommend Wikiquote for sourcing quotes you’re not sure on.
…our brains are no more than reducing valves which limit our reality, reducing our perception of the universe so that we are not driven mad by an endless wash of sensa, data, sights, colors, smells, sounds, thoughts, feelings, heat, cold, bits and bytes, a swirling, soul-swallowing ocean of information.— David Zindell, Neverness
…words literally create things, or rather they create the way our minds divide and categorize the indivisible wholeness of the world into things. Too often words determine what we do and do not see.— David Zindell, The Broken God
And like the ocean, day by day receiving Floods from all lands, which never overflows; Its boundary-line not leaping, and not leaving, Fed by the rivers, but unswelled by those;–So is the perfect one! to his soul’s ocean The world of sense pours streams of witchery, They leave him as they find, without commotion, Taking their tribute, but remaining sea.— The Bhagavad-Gita
As experts warn that action is necessary now to curb the booming rise in international air travel – the most polluting form of transport – jet-setting celebrities appear to show no signs of ditching their Lears. Just one trans-Atlantic flight produces emissions equivalent to 40,000 cars traveling from London to Leeds.— The Scotsman online Nov 20, 2000
Behold the good and just! Whom do they hate most? Him who breaketh up their tables of values, the breaker, the lawbreaker:- he, however, is the creator. Behold the believers of all beliefs! Whom do they hate most? Him who breaketh up their tables of values, the breaker, the law-breaker- he, however, is the creator.— Friedrich W. Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
Certain problems cause computers to get stuck in a particular loop. The loop leads to meltdown, but right before they crash they become “aware” of their own structure. The computer has a sense of its own silicon nature and it prints out its ingredients.— Darren Arronofsky, Pi
Don’t believe in any god that requires faith as a prerequisite for salvation. If God is not self-evident God is irrelevant.— Freydis, Holology
Each of us – gods, men, or worms in the belly of a bird, in our every thought, feeling or action no matter how trivial or base – we create this strange universe in which we live. We create God.— David Zindell, The Broken God
Faith – what is this emotion but a desperate attempt to escape from mind-burning fear?— David Zindell, The Broken God (Requiem for Homo Sapiens)
For it is only in accepting death that one can truly live, and for the human animal, death has always been the great black beast from the abyss to be dreaded or defeated or avoided or hated – but never looked upon clearly face to face.— David Zindell, The Wild
I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.— Stephen F. Roberts, alt.atheism
I don’t believe in an afterlife, so I don’t have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.— Isaac Asimov, Philosophy on the Go (2007) by Joey Green, p. 222
In time, the heart of each religion grows hard and dies. And so seekers of the godly will always turn to new prophets and new ways, never realizing that, ultimately, all religions separate man from God.— David Zindell, The Broken God (Requiem for Homo Sapiens)
In your friend you should possess your best enemy. Your heart should feel closest to him when you oppose him.— Friedrich W. Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most adaptable to change.— Clarence Darrow, Improving the Quality of Life for the Black Elderly
Kinetic energy does not wound. Temporary cavity does not wound. The much discussed ‘shock’ of bullet impact is a fable and “knock down” power is a myth. The critical element is penetration. The bullet must pass through the large, blood bearing organs and be of sufficient diameter to promote rapid bleeding. Penetration less than 12 inches is too little, and, in the words of two of the participants in the 1987 Wound Ballistics Workshop, ‘too little penetration will get you killed.’ Given desirable and reliable penetration, the only way to increase bullet effectiveness is to increase the severity of the wound by increasing the size of hole made by the bullet. Any bullet which will not penetrate through vital organs from less than optimal angles is not acceptable. Of those that will penetrate, the edge is always with the bigger bullet.— John C. Hall, FBI Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness
One circumstance in particular used to torment me – namely the circumstance that no one else was like me, and that I was like no one else. I am a person to myself, whereas they are everybody.— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes From Underground
Pain is irrelevant to survival and is commonly suppressed until some time later. In order to be a factor, pain must first be perceived, and second must cause an emotional response. In many individuals, pain is ignored even when perceived, or the response is anger and increased resistance, not surrender.— John C. Hall, FBI Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness
TANSTAAFL (There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch)— Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
Taxonomy, i.e. the classification of the natural world, is a system of order imposed by man and not an objective reflection of nature. Its categories are actively applied and contain the assumptions, values and associations of human society.— Mark Dion, Holology
The more complex the programs of an organism, the greater is the danger of insanity. It is very, very hard to be a god.— David Zindell, The Broken God
The will to survive and to fight despite horrific damage to the body is commonplace on the battlefield, and on the street. Barring a hit to the brain, the only way to force incapacitation is to cause sufficient blood loss that the subject can no longer function, and that takes time. Even if the heart is instantly destroyed, there is sufficient oxygen in the brain to support full and complete voluntary action for 10-15 seconds.— John C. Hall, FBI Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness
We are prisoners of our natural brains. As children we grow, and new programs are layered down, set into the jelly of our brains. When we are young we write many of these programs in order to adapt to a bizarre and often dangerous environment. And then we grow some more. We mature. We find our places in our cities, in our societies, in ourselves. We form hypotheses as to the nature of things. These hypotheses shape us in turn, and yet more programs are written until we attain a certain level of competence and mastery, even of comfort, with our universe. Because our programs have allowed us this mastery, however limited, we become comfortable in ourselves, as well. And then there is no need for new programs, no need to erase or edit the old. We even forget that we were once able to program ourselves. Our brains grow opaque to new thoughts, as rigid as glass, and our programs are frozen for life, hardwired, so to speak, within our hardened brains.— David Zindell, The Broken God (Requiem for Homo Sapiens)
We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.— David Zindell, The Broken God
When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun, so once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood.— Darren Arronofsky, Pi
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gry
8 Aug 10 at 9:43 AM