Quotes by Authors - S
Quotes by Authors - S
It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.
(from the 1987 CSICOP Keynote Address) In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.
All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.
A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.
But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.
Francois SaganA dress makes no sense unless it inspires men to want to take it off of you.
Antoine de Saint-Exupry(from The Little Prince) Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.
A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
I know but one freedom, and that is the freedom of the mind.
Adela Rogers St. JohnsGod made man, and then said I can do better than that and made woman.
SakiThe young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened.
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
George SandThere is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.
Carl SandburgOur lives are like a candle in the wind.
(from The People, Yes) Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come
George SantayanaThere is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.
That life is worth living is the most necessary of assumptions, and, were it not assumed, the most impossible of conclusions.
My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.
Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer: there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness.
Each religion, by the help of more or less myth which it takes more or less seriously, proposes some method of fortifying the human soul and enable it to make its peace with its destiny.
SapphoDeath is an evil; the gods have so judged; had it been good, they would die.
Jean-Paul SartreWhen the rich make war it's the poor that die.
(from Existentialism and Human Emotions) I can always choose, but I ought to know that if I do not choose, I am still choosing.
John Ralston Saul(from The Unconscious Civilization) Whenever governments adopt a moral tone -- as opposed to an ethical one -- you know something is wrong.
Alexi SayleAmericans have different ways of saying things. They say `elevator', we say `lift'...they say `President', we say `stupid psychopathic git'....
Johann Christoph Friedrich von SchillerAgainst stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain.
Deeper meaning resides in the fairy tales told to me in my childhood than in the truth that is taught by life.
Mary SchmidtLadies and gentlemen of the Class of '97:
Wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.
Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 pm some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Sing.
Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss.
Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.
Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch.
Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.
Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.
Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.
Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.
Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.
Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.
Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise, Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.
Respect your elders.
Don't expect anyone to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.
Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.
But trust me on the sunscreen.
Arthur SchopenhauerWe forfeit three-fourths of ourselves to be like other people.
J. W. SchopfFor four-fifths of our history, our planet was populated by pond scum.
Florence SchovelThe game of life is a game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later with outstanding accuracy.
Pat Schroeder, US RepresentativeNobody ever says to men, how can you be a Congressman and a father.
Charles SchultzDon't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia.
Carl SchurzIdeals are like stars; you will not succeed in reaching them with your hands. But like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny.
Dr. Albert Schweitzer, French philosopher, physician, and musicianWe are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness.
As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible, but more mysterious.
Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality.
Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.
A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.
Sir Walter ScottOh, what tangled webs we weave,
When first we practice to deceive.
It is regrettable for the education of the young that war stories are always told by those who survived.
Chief SeattleMan did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
SenecaIf you judge, investigate.
Drunkenness is simply voluntary insanity.
The hour which gives us life begins to take it away.
Leisure without books is death, and burial of a man alive.
Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness.
A great fortune is a great slavery.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
Dr. Seuss(as quoted in his obituary in Time) ...adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them.
Anna Sewell(from Black Beauty) There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to other animals as well as humans, it is all a sham.
Ronnie ShakesAfter twelve years of therapy my psychiatrist said something that brought tears to my eyes. He said, 'No hablo ingles.'
William ShakespeareThe course of true love never did run smooth.
Sonnet XXIX(from Hamlet, Act II, scene ii) There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
(from Midsummer Night's Dream, Act I, scene i) Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind
And therefore is winged Cupid is painted blind.
A certain person may have, as you say, a wonderful presence: I do not know. What I do know is that he has a perfectly delightful absence.
Karl ShapiroThe worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
(from Back to Methuselah) You see things; and you say, Why? But I dream things that never were; and I say, Why not?
England and America are two countries seperated by the same language.
She had lost the art of conversation, but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
[Schools are] machines for forcing spurious learning on children in order that your universities may stamp them as educated men when they have finally lost all power to think for themselves.
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity.
There is no love sincerer than the love of food.
Robert Gould ShawWe fight for men and women whose poetry is not yet written.
J. A. Shedd(from Salt from my Attic) It is the sick oyster which possesses the pearl.
General Phil SheridanIf I owned Hell and Texas, I'd live in Hell and rent out Texas.
Solomon ShortThe only winner in the War of 1812 was Tchaikovsky
I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.
Jean SibeliusPay no attention to what the critics say; there has never been set up a statue in honor of a critic.
Philip Sidney, from Defense of Poesie...it is not riming and versing that maketh a Poet, no more than a long gowne maketh an Advocate; who though he pleaded in armor should be an Advocate and no Souldier.
Only the Poet, disdayning to be tied to any such subjection, lifted up with the vigor of his owne invention, dooth growe in effect into another nature, in making things either better than Nature bringeth forth, or, quite anewe, formes such as never were in Nature, as the Heroes, Demigods, Cyclops, Chimeras, Furies, and such like: so as hee goeth hand in hand with Nature, not enclosed within the narrow warrant of her gifts, but freely ranging onely within the Zodiac of his owne wit.
This purifying of wit, this enriching of memory, enabling of judgment, and enlarging of conceyt, which commonly we call learning, under what name soever it come forth, or to what immediate end soever it be directed, the final end is, to lead and draw us to as high a perfection as our degenerate soules, made worse by theyr clayey lodgings, can be capable of.
Peter da Silva, peter@sugar.hackercorp.comAhhh. A man with a sharp wit. Someone ought to take it away from him before he cuts himself.
Shel SilversteinGod has no place within these walls, just as facts have no place within organized religion.
Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nobel LaureateWhen you betray somebody else, you also betray yourself.
Even in the worm that crawls in the earth there glows a divine spark. When you slaughter a creature, you slaughter God.
Peter Singer(from Animal Liberation) All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals.
B. F. SkinnerWe shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
The real problem is not whether machines think, but whether men do.
Yakov SmirnoffI found out that when you get married the man becomes the head of the house. And the woman becomes the neck, and she turns the head any way she wants to.
Alexander SmithLove is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition.
Charles Smith, (1887 - 1964) U.S. attorney, authorThe Bible is the greatest hoax in all history. The leading characters of the Old Testament would today be in the penitentiary and those of the New would be under observation in psychopathic wards.
Yale management prof in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service:The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
Walter Red Smith(from Reader's Digest, July 1982) There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.
Douglas Soccio(from Archetypes of Wisdom: An Introduction to Philosophy) The problem [of evil] in its basic form: If God can prevent the suffering of the innocent, yet chooses not to, He is not good. If God chooses to prevent the suffering, but cannot, He is not omnipotent. If God cannot recognize the suffering of the innocent, He is not wise.
Ralph W. SockmanThe larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.
SocratesThe unexamined life is not worth living.
(from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, bk. II, sec. 31)
There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.
Stephen SondheimOne word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is love.
(from Electra) There is a point beyond which even justice becomes unjust.
The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves.
Wisdom outweighs any wealth.
Time eases all things.
Robert SoutheyIt is not for man to rest in absolute contentment. He is born to hopes and aspirations as the sparks fly upward, unless he has brutified his nature and quenched the spirit of immortality which is his portion.
Spanish ProverbsIf you want good service, then serve yourself.
A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools.
After all, to make a beautiful omelet, you have to break an egg.
Herbert Spencer...skill such as yours is evidence of a misspent youth.
Edwin M. Stanton(at the death of Lincoln, 15 April 1865) Now he belongs to the ages.
Freya StarkOn the whole, age comes more gently to those who have some doorway into an abstract world-art, or philosophy, or learning-regions where the years are scarcely noticed and the young and old can meet in a pale truthful light.
Richard Steele(from The Tatler) Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
Gloria SteinhemIf the shoe doesn't fit, must we change the foot?
It's an incredible con job when you think about it, to believe something now in exchange for something after death. Even corporations with their reward systems don't try to make it posthumous.
I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career.
Wilhelm StekelThe mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.
Adlai StevensonMan does not live by words alone, despite the fact that he sometimes has to eat them.
...it is difficult to picture the great Creator conceiving of a program of one creature (which He has made) using another living creature for purposes of experimentation. There must be other, less cruel ways of obtaining knowledge.
Jimmy Stewart(from Harvey, 1950) I've wrestled reality for 35 years, and I'm happy, Doctor, I finally won out over it.
(in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) Sometimes, a lost cause is the only one worth fighting for.
Elizabeth StoneMaking the decision to have a child -- it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.
Igor StravinskyIn order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?
August StrindbergI loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves.
Harriet Beecher StoweThe bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
J. Michael StraczynskiThe quality of our thoughts is bordered on all sides by our facility with language.
Barbra StreisandWhy is it men are permitted to be obsessed about their work, but women are only permitted to be obsessed about men?
Wallace StevensRationalists, wearing square hats, think in square rooms, looking at the floor, looking at the ceiling. They confine themselves to right-angled triangles. If they tried rhomboids, cones, waving lines, ellipses---as, for example, the ellipse of the half-moon---rationalists would wear sombreros.
Sufi ProverbsHe who knows himself knows his Lord.
I searched for God and found only myself. I searched for myself and found only God.
Sufi teaching storyPast the seeker as he prayed, came the crippled and the beggar and the beaten. And seeing them . . . he cried, "Great God, how is it that a loving creator can see such things and yet do nothing about them?" . . . God said, "I did do something. I made you."
Jonathan SwiftWe have enough religion to hate each other, but not enough to love each other.
Albert von Szent-GyorgyiDiscovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
Wislawa Szymborska, recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature