Michael > Michael's Quotes

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Visit many good books, but live in the Bible.”
― Charles Spurgeon

“Our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strengths.”
― C. H. Spurgeon

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.”
― William Butler Yeats

“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”
― Albert Einstein

“Those are my principles, and if you don't like them...well I have others.”
― Groucho Marx

“It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.”
― George Washington

“And yet all loneliness, angers, hatreds, envies, and itchings that (Hell) contains, if rolled into one single experience and put into the scale against the least moment of the joy that is felt by the least in Heaven, would have no weight that could be registered at all. Bad cannot succeed even in being bad as truly as good is good.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

“Journalism largely consists in saying "Lord Jones is dead" to people who never knew Lord Jones was alive.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Reality denied comes back to haunt.”
― Philip K. Dick, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

“Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error of judgment.”
― Philip Dick

“Everything in life is just for a while.”
― Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly

“Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.”
― Philip K. Dick

“Everything must be taken into account. If the fact will not fit the theory---let the theory go.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles

“There's no sense to being Irish unless you know the world's going to break your heart.”
― Thomas Adcock

“The great Gaels of Ireland are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse

“More than once have I thought, Why does crime, even when as powerful as Cæsar, and assured of being beyond punishment, strive always for the appearances of truth, justice, and virtue? Why does it take the trouble? I consider that to murder a brother, a mother, a wife, is a thing worthy of some petty Asiatic king, not a Roman Cæsar; but if that position were mine, I should not write justifying letters to the Senate. But Nero writes. Nero is looking for appearances, for Nero is a coward. But Tiberius was not a coward; still he justified every step he took. Why is this? What a marvellous, involuntary homage paid to virtue by evil! And knowest thou what strikes me? This, that it is done because transgression is ugly and virtue is beautiful. Therefore a man of genuine æsthetic feeling is also a virtuous man. Hence I am virtuous.”
― Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Matthew 6:34”
― Anonymous, The Holy Bible: King James Version

“Truth can only be found in one place: the code.”
― Robert C. Martin, Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship

“You're being reasonable again!" snapped Angua. "You're deliberately seeing everyone's point of view! Can't you try to be unfair even once?”
― Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay

“Be great in act, as you have been in thought.”
― William Shakespeare, King John

“It is the curse of kings to be attended
By slaves that take their humours for a warrant
To break within the bloody house of life,
And on the winking of authority
To understand a law, to know the meaning
Of dangerous majesty, when perchance it frowns
More upon humour than advised respect.”
― William Shakespeare, King John

“He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.”
― Francis Bacon

“Books speak plain when counselors blanch.”
― Sir Francis Bacon

“But there is in everything a reasonable division of labour. I have written the book, and nothing on earth would induce me to read it.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Anticipatory plagiarism occurs when someone steals your original idea and publishes it a hundred years before you were born.”
― Robert Merton

“Intellect is not wisdom.”
― Thomas Sowell, Intellectuals and Society