Mo > Mo's Quotes

“The best that can be said about Victorian hospitals is that they were a slight improvement over their Georgian predecessors. That’s hardly a ringing endorsement when one considers that a hospital’s “Chief Bug-Catcher”—whose job it was to rid the mattresses of lice—was paid more than its surgeons.”
― Lindsey Fitzharris, The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine

“Remarkably, Bichat was able to describe and name twenty-one membranes in the human body, including connective, muscle, and nerve tissue, before he died accidentally in 1802 after falling down the steps of his own hospital.”
― Lindsey Fitzharris, The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine

“Anything that leads a man to think it a matter of indifference whether he writes or tells a lie is most pernicious,” Lister wrote; “he comes to write lies afterwards with the same indifference.”
― Lindsey Fitzharris, The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine

“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is almost certainly wrong. —ARTHUR C. CLARKE”
― Lindsey Fitzharris, The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine

“Lister understood that being in a hospital could be a terrifying experience and followed his own golden rule: “Every patient, even the most degraded, should be treated with the same care and regard as though he were the Prince of Wales himself.”
― Lindsey Fitzharris, The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine

“It's the basic condition of life to be required to violate our own identity.”
― Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

“You mean old books?"

"Stories written before space travel but about space travel."

"How could there have been stories about space travel before --"

"The writers," Pris said, "made it up.”
― Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

“Ford!" he said, "there's an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they've worked out.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“So long, and thanks for all the fish.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“So this is it," said Arthur, "We are going to die."
"Yes," said Ford, "except... no! Wait a minute!" He suddenly lunged across the chamber at something behind Arthur's line of vision. "What's this switch?" he cried.
"What? Where?" cried Arthur, twisting round.
"No, I was only fooling," said Ford, "we are going to die after all.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“This must be Thursday,' said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer. 'I never could get the hang of Thursdays.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Several of them would have protested if they could have found the right arguments.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Four legs good, two legs better! All Animals Are Equal. But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Surely, comrades, you don't want Jones back?”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“The distinguishing mark of man is the hand, the instrument with which he does all his mischief.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Windmill or no windmill, he said, life would go on as it had always gone on--that is, badly.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“In this sense, littering is an exceedingly petty version of claiming a billion-dollar bank bailout or fraudulently claiming disability payments. When you throw trash on the ground, you apparently don’t see yourself as truly belonging to the world that you’re walking around in. And when you fraudulently claim money from the government, you are ultimately stealing from your friends, family, and neighbors—or somebody else’s friends, family, and neighbors. That diminishes you morally far more than it diminishes your country financially.”
― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

“The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion; it is the 'Living Infinite'...The globe began with sea, so to speak; and who knows if it will not end with it? In it is supreme tranquility.”
― Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“Of course it was Loki. It's always Loki.”
― Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology

“Cease your weeping!" he said. "It is I, Loki, here to rescue you!"
Idunn glared at him with red-rimmed eyes. "It is you who are the source of my troubles." she said.
"Well, perhaps. But that was so long ago. That was yesterday's Loki. Today's Loki is here to save you and take you home.”
― Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology

“It is a long story, and it does no credit to anyone: there is murder in it, and trickery, lies and foolishness, seduction and pursuit. Listen.”
― Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology

“Loki makes the world more interesting but less safe.”
― Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology

“Because,” said Thor, “when something goes wrong, the first thing I always think is, it is Loki’s fault. It saves a lot of time.”
― Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology

“The Norse myths are the myths of a chilly place, with long, long winter nights and endless summer days, myths of a people who did not entirely trust or even like their gods, although they respected and feared them.”
― Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology