Mary > Mary's Quotes

“We learn a great deal from our failures in math and science.”
― Barbara Oakley, A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science

“Procrastination is like addiction. It offers temporary excitement and relief from boring reality.”
― Barbara Oakley, A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science

“Those who are threatened by marriage equality are, many things suggest, as threatened by the idea of equality between heterosexual couples as same-sex couples.”
― Rebecca Solnit, Men Explain Things to Me

“Doomed every four years to disappointment when a demigod turns out to have feet of clay, when the most powerful man in the world turns out not to have much power to change the world, the American people none the less never lose faith in the presidential religion.”
― Matt Ridley, The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge

“Though politicians are regarded as scum, government as a machine is held to be almost infallible.”
― Matt Ridley, The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge

“Purge everyone who “brings you down,” and you risk being very lonely or, what is worse, cut off from reality.”
― Barbara Ehrenreich, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America

“The advice that you must change your environment—for example, by eliminating negative people and news—is an admission that there may in fact be a “real world” out there that is utterly unaffected by our wishes. In the face of this terrifying possibility, the only “positive” response is to withdraw into one’s own carefully constructed world of constant approval and affirmation, nice news, and smiling people.”
― Barbara Ehrenreich, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America

“When fanatics say, “Obey our religious laws even if you’re not a believer,” the immediate response must be to break whatever religious laws they are talking about.”
― David Silverman, Fighting God: An Atheist Manifesto for a Religious World

“Giving in to terrorism will yield more terrorism, because it works.”
― David Silverman, Fighting God: An Atheist Manifesto for a Religious World

“The stuff in religion that you hate has no less of a basis in the source material than the stuff in religion you love.”
― David Silverman, Fighting God: An Atheist Manifesto for a Religious World

“Hating the scientific method is hating learning.”
― David Silverman, Fighting God: An Atheist Manifesto for a Religious World

“That’s why anyone claiming morality is fixed is simply ignorant of world history, or even American history, not to mention the state of the world today.”
― David Silverman, Fighting God: An Atheist Manifesto for a Religious World

“We have fought long and hard to escape medieval superstition and I, for one, do not want to go back. —JAMES RANDI”
― David Silverman, Fighting God: An Atheist Manifesto for a Religious World

“This is why the RFRA and laws like it are so dangerous—they allow people to break laws if they say they think their god (which always agrees with them) wants them to.”
― David Silverman, Fighting God: An Atheist Manifesto for a Religious World

“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. —SUSAN B. ANTHONY”
― David Silverman, Fighting God: An Atheist Manifesto for a Religious World

“Nationwide, any child can pray to any god they wish at any time, so why do we need organized prayers in schools? To pressure those who don’t want to pray into doing so, and for no other reason.”
― David Silverman, Fighting God: An Atheist Manifesto for a Religious World

“The real reason people oppose marriage equality is religious in nature. Marriage equality is therefore not only a civil rights issue, but also a separation-of-church-and-state issue.”
― David Silverman, Fighting God: An Atheist Manifesto for a Religious World

“The hunter who consistently brought meat back displayed daring and courage, two qualities that females desired in a potential mate. Thus hunting possessed an erotic overtone: meat was an aphrodisiac.”
― Leonard Shlain, The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image

“If a problem has no solution, it may not be a problem, but a fact - not to be solved, but to be coped with over time.”
― Shimon Peres

“Some people see things that are and ask, Why?
Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not?
Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that.”
― George Carlin

“Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.”
― Jonas Salk