TJ > TJ's Quotes

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“Think before you speak. Read before you think.”
― Fran Lebowitz, The Fran Lebowitz Reader

“I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.”
― Albert Einstein

“My passionate interest in social justice and social responsibility has always stood in curious contrast to a marked lack of desire for direct association with men and women. I am a horse for single harness, not cut out for tandem or team work. I have never belonged wholeheartedly to country or state, to my circle of friends, or even to my own family. These ties have always been accompanied by a vague aloofness, and the wish to withdraw into myself increases with the years. Such isolation is sometimes bitter, but I do not regret being cut off from the understanding and sympathy of other men. I lose something by it, to be sure, but I am compensated for it in being rendered independent of the customs, opinions, and prejudices of others, and am not tempted to rest my peace of mind upon such shifting foundations.”
― Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“What would happen if the autism gene was eliminated from the gene pool?

You would have a bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and socializing and not getting anything done.”
― Temple Grandin, The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism & Asperger's

“talk about her mind
compliment her eyes more
she's too rare
for average compliments”
― R.H. Sin, Whiskey, Words & a Shovel I

“The problem with experts is that they do not know what they do not know”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

“The only difference between genius and insanity is that genius has its limits.”
― Albert Einstein

“When you develop your opinions on the basis of weak evidence, you will have difficulty interpreting subsequent information that contradicts these opinions, even if this new information is obviously more accurate.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

“My being charming…is not quite enough to induce me to marry. I must find other people charming - one other person at least.”
― Jane Austen, Emma

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.”
― Zeno of Citium, as quoted by Diogenes Laërtius

“You love me. Real or not real?"
I tell him, "Real.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born to people you could not possibly have met.”
― Fran Lebowitz, The Fran Lebowitz Reader

“Sometimes, just saying that you hate something, and having someone agree with you, can make you feel better about a terrible situation.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Bad Beginning

“So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass. Your life story would not make a good book. Do not even try.”
― Fran Lebowitz, The Fran Lebowitz Reader

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
― Mae West

“I am different, not less.”
― Temple Grandin

“But I'd do it again. I know that now. I'd make that promise a thousand times over and lose her a thousand times over to have heard her play last night or to see her in the morning sunlight. Or even without that. Just to know that she's somewhere out there. Alive.”
― Gayle Forman, Where She Went

“It is my great hope someday, to see science and decision makers rediscover what the ancients have always known. Namely that our highest currency is respect.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

“I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity and her flaming self respect and it’s these things I’d believe in even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn’t all that she should be. . . . I love her and that’s the beginning and end of everything. —F. SCOTT FITZGERALD”
― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything

“It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for any body who asks her.”
― Jane Austen

“I am most often irritated by those who attack the bishop but somehow fall for the securities analyst--those who exercise their skepticism against religion but not against economists, social scientists, and phony statisticians. Using the confirmation bias, these people will tell you that religion was horrible for mankind by counting deaths from the Inquisition and various religious wars. But they will not show you how many people were killed by nationalism, social science, and political theory under Stalin or during the Vietnam War. Even priests don't go to bishops when they feel ill: their first stop is the doctor's. But we stop by the offices of many pseudoscientists and "experts" without alternative. We no longer believe in papal infallibility; we seem to believe in the infallibility of the Nobel, though....”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

“Categorizing is necessary for humans, but it becomes pathological when the category is seen as definitive, preventing people from considering the fuzziness of boundaries,”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

“There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.”
― Jane Austen

“A day might be just twenty-four hours but sometimes getting through just one seems as impossible as scaling Everest.”
― Gayle Forman, Where She Went

“That is the case with us all, papa. One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.”
― Jane Austen, Emma

“If you survive until tomorrow, it could mean that either a) you are more likely to be immortal or b) that you are closer to death.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable