James > James's Quotes

“We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains.”
― Li Po

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
― Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.

—T.S. Eliot, from “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets (Gardners Books; Main edition, April 30, 2001) Originally published 1943.”
― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”
― Confucious

“Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.”
― Confucius

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
― Confucius

“If you make a mistake and do not correct it, this is called a mistake.”
― Confucius

“Respect yourself and others will respect you.”
― Confucius, The Sayings of Confucius

“Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“The funniest people are the saddest ones”
― Confucius

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”
― Confucious

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.”
― Confucius

“To see what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.”
― Confucius

“Consideration for others is the basis of a good life, a good society.”
― Confucius

“Some people have a way with words, and other people...oh, uh, not have way.”
― Steve Martin

“The longer and more carefully we look at a funny story, the sadder it becomes.”
― Nikolai V. Gogol

“We are made of the same stardust of which all things are made, and when we are immersed in suffering or when we are experiencing intense joy we are being nothing other than what we can’t help but be: a part of our world.”
― Carlo Rovelli, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.”
― Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man

“Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent.”
― Steve Martin, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

“The world under heaven, after a long period of division, tends to unite; after a long period of union, tends to divide. This has been so since antiquity. ”
― Luo Guanzhong, Romance of the Three Kingdoms Vol. 1

“Success is not worth rejoicing over, failure is not worth grieving over.”
― Luo Guanzhong, Three Kingdoms

“When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.”
― Will Rogers

“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
― Mark Twain

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
― Mark Twain

“Who shot him? I asked.
The grey man scratched the back of his neck and said: Somebody with a gun.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.”
― OMAR KHAYYAM, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

“...there is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

“I don't know a movement more self-centered and further removed from the facts than Marxism. Everyone is worried only about proving himself in practical matters, and as for the men in power, they are so anxious to establish the myth of their infallibility that they do their utmost to ignore the truth. Politics don't appeal to me. I don't like people who don't care about the truth.”
― Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

“It's said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That's false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.

Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known; we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible. In the end, the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: "I beseech you in the bowels of Christ: Think it possible you may be mistaken."

I owe it as a scientist to my friend Leo Szilard, I owe it as a human being to the many members of my family who died here, to stand here as a survivor and a witness. We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people.”
― Jacob Bronowski