Fred Jenkins > Fred's Quotes

“Lesen, viel lesen, sehr viel lesen, möglichst viel lesen.”
― Friedrich Ritschl

“Non minima pars eruditionis est bonos nosse libros”
― Joseph Justus Scaliger

“ad Graecas literas totum animum applicui; statimque ut pecuniam accepero, Graecos primum autores, deinde vestes emam”
― Erasmus

“Two things in life are infinite; the stupidity of man and the mercy of God.”
― G.I. Gurdjieff

“In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true, either is true or becomes true within certain limits. These limits are to be found experientially and experimentally. When the limits are determined, it is found that they are further beliefs to be transcended. In the province of the mind, there are no limits. The body imposes definite limits.”
― John C. Lilly, The Deep Self: Consciousness Exploration in the Isolation Tank

“J’ay souvent dit, que tout le malheur des hommes vient de ne sçavoir pas se tenir en repos dans une chambre.”
― Blaise Pascal

“I have put these last words in quotation marks for they stand for two of the great frauds of our time. 'Education' does not educate and 'defence' does not defend.”
― J.G. Bennett, Witness: The autobiography of John Bennett

“Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this: Great God, grant that twice two be not four.”
― Ivan Turgenev

“I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is a disgrace, that two become a lawfirm, and that three or more become a congress. -John Adams”
― Sherman Edwards, 1776

“Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear.”
― Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War

“Ignorance is bold, and knowledge is reserved”
― Thucydides

“Let me advise you to study Greek, Mr Undershaft. Greek scholars are privileged men. Few of them know Greek; and none of them know anything else; but their position is unchallengeable. Other languages are the qualifications of waiters and commercial
travellers: Greek is to a man of position what the hallmark is to silver.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Nor can I do better, in conclusion, than impress upon you the study of Greek literature, which not only elevates above the vulgar herd, but leads not infrequently to positions of considerable emolument.”
― Thomas Gaisford

“Surprising what you can dig out of books if you read long enough, isn't it?”
― Robert Jordan

“Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men. Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“Desire is when you do what you want, will is when you can do what you do not want.”
― P.D. Ouspensky, The Fourth Way: An Arrangement by Subject of Verbatim Extracts from the Records of Ouspensky's Meetings in London and New York, 1921-46

“No one wants the complete picture, the whole story. It would leave no room for the fictions we need to tell ourselves about ourselves.”
― Caite Dolan-Leach, Dead Letters

“Leadership is the easy way of achieving results, but it can destroy both the leader and the led.”
― J.G. Bennett, Witness: The autobiography of John Bennett

“In Greece, I first began to experience the undyingness of the past. I saw that history is more than fact, and that it cannot be known by the mind alone.”
― J.G. Bennett, Witness: The autobiography of John Bennett

“Stand at the brink of despair, and when you see that you cannot bear it anymore, draw back a little, and have a cup of tea.”
― Sophrony Sakharov

“And that's why books are never going to die. It's impossible. It's the only time we really go into the mind of a stranger, and we find our common humanity doing this. So the book doesn't only belong to the writer, it belongs to the reader as well, and then together you make it what it is.”
― Paul Auster

“Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.”
― Edward Gibbon

“My early and invincible love of reading--I would not exchange for the treasures of India.”
― Edward Gibbon

“I make it a point never to argue with people for whose opinion I have no respect.”
― Edward Gibbon

“Every person has two educations, one which he receives from others, and one, more important, which he gives to himself.”
― Edward Gibbon

“Why am I always going into places everyone else is leaving?”
― Robert L. Leach, The Magic Cantina

“What you believe may have nothing to do with reality.”
― Robert L. Leach, The Magic Cantina

“Simplicity could only have been bought at a great price in accuracy.”
― Ramsay MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire: A.D. 100-400

“One should not be daunted by hazards, nor should one do nothing for fear of making mistakes.”
― John G. Bennett, Introduction to Gurdjieff's Third Series LIFE IS REAL ONLY THEN, WHEN "I AM"

“Sometimes, immersed in his books, there would come to him the awareness of all that he did not know, of all that he had not read; and the serenity for which he labored was shattered as he realized the little time he had in life to read so much, to learn what he had to know.”
― John Williams, Stoner