Kenneth C. Johnson > Quotes

“He declared that ignorance was the parent of fear, that knowledge was power.”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“I quickly realized that the press was a double-edged sword because of what instantly became the world’s most popular book: it was the Bible. With mounting frustration I saw that while some people were eager to absorb history, poetry, science, and philosophy from printed pages, the great majority of unwashed masses wanted only to embrace the biblical writings that validated their lifelong indoctrination of religious dogma. Strident”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“Y’know, if man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man, but deteriorate the cat.”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“The more that humanity can understand and harness the powers of nature,” Bacon insisted, “the more they will understand the nature of God. And the more opportunity they will gain for personal contemplation that will evolve them to higher wisdom, empathy, and compassion.”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“It vas callt serge de Nîmes,” Jacob explained, proffering some stiff blue britches for my examination. “But now everyone iss only callink it denim,” Levi said, smiling. “Vee don’t care vat zey call it, zo long as zey buy it. Come! Look!”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“mounting frustration I saw that while some people were eager to absorb history, poetry, science, and philosophy from printed pages, the great majority of unwashed masses wanted only to embrace the biblical writings that validated their lifelong indoctrination of religious dogma.”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“I know, I know.” He shook his head, looked away, trying to frame it. “But I always feel like I’m a teenager in a roomful of grown-ups. I’m positive that at any moment they’re all gonna realize I’m way out of my depth, nowhere close to their levels of competence—particularly yours and—”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Darwin Variant

“I felt like the personification of a storm cloud: a mountainous cumulonimbus thunderhead stretching up into the dark stratosphere, churning with volatile currents, threatening to unleash stabs of lightning at any moment in any direction. A”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“That Christianity should never have been a religion. What it should be is an ethic: a way of living right.” Hanna paused to let that sink in. And I processed it, puzzling over it. “A way of living right. An ethic . . . Where have I . . . ?” “You probably read Thoreau.”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“Qu’est-ce que l’homme dans la nature? Un néant à l’égard de l’infini, un tout à l’égard du néant.’” I hadn’t meant to say it in French, but it automatically came out the exact way I’d first heard it. Nicole and the other two looked rather startled. So I translated quietly, “‘What is man in nature: Nothing in regard to everything and everything in regard to nothing.’ A middle between everything and nothing. That’s what Pascal said.”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“One foot in the grave and the other on a bar of soap, as my grandmother used to say.”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“The pagan mythologists had gods for everything, so the Christian mythologists created saints for everything.”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“about the most ideal results coming when people treat others ethically, with respect.” “Not exactly a complicated concept, huh?”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“Mitchell could also quote poetically from T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom, which gave insights into Lawrence’s brilliance at using the prejudices of one Arabian tribe against another or bending them to unify.”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Darwin Variant

“You can love a person dear to you with a human love . . . like we’ve shared, Will.” Her blue eyes grew sharper. “But an enemy . . . an enemy can only be loved . . . with divine love. Like Gandhi . . . or Jesu had . . . in spades. That special sort of love . . . is the very essence of the soul.”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“That Christianity should never have been a religion. What it should be is an ethic: a way of living right.”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“I loved his Arrowsmith, about doctors like us, but what was It Can’t Happen Here?” “He wrote it in 1935,” she said, “about a wave of autocratic demagoguery and Fascism suddenly rising up in the United States, like what was happening in Germany and Italy then.”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Darwin Variant

“I saw the unjust trials, the condemnations for alleged witchcraft, the guiltless people, usually women, hanged or burned alive.”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“: “Amazing . . . what a little blood of One Good Man can accomplish.”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“Well, you know those Frenchmen. Always anxious to share their big baguettes.’” I”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“I squinted from the thick tobacco smoke, the breath of cheap alcohol, and the sweet or very sour smells of wildly divergent hygiene. “Hey!”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“I love how you weave in your philosophy, about the most ideal results coming when people treat others ethically, with respect.” “Not exactly a complicated concept, huh? Wish more people would get on board.”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“And whatever you practice is what you get better at.”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“Like what you told us about Animal Farm,” Katie piped up. “How the handwriting on the barn wall said ‘All animals are equal—’” “‘But some animals are more equal than others,’” Lilly quoted flatly while still reading her Spinoza. “George Orwell, 1945, chapter ten.”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Darwin Variant

“Her voice was barely audible as she murmured, “. . . There is . . . A Larger Plan . . .”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“I was, however, determined to bloom where I was planted”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“Imp of the Perverse. To”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“Transmitted orally,” I translated for Eric and Katie. “That narrows the construct. It also explains how it was likely spread to farm animals through droppings from birds who’d eaten the infected fruit. Those crows that pecked at the migrant child could have gotten it directly into his blood. Get a PCR going, Hutch.” I glanced at our new friends. “That’s polymerase chain reaction. It creates more samples of the virus so we can study it in various growth media. And Hutch, do it in the level four lab. But don’t let Lauren get in there with you.”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Darwin Variant

“I thought of the Indians who called themselves Manhattoes paddling their birch-bark canoes downstream past that very spot in 1626, en route to making a very bad real estate deal.”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends

“Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.” But my very favorite of his has to be “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?”
― Kenneth C. Johnson, The Man of Legends