Z. Flaherty > Z.'s Quotes

“Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have lent me.”
― Anatole France

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“To know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything.”
― Anatole France

“The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of the mind for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.”
― Anatole France

“If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.”
― Anatole France

“We have never heard the devil's side of the story, God wrote all the book.”
― Anatole France

“If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living.”
― Anatole France

“Of all sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.”
― Anatole France

“Stupidity is far more dangerous than evil, for evil takes a break from time to time, stupidity does not.”
― Anatole France

“An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't.”
― Anatole France

“Time deals gently only with those who take it gently.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“When a thing has been said and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.”
― Anatole France

“We should realize that, if [Socrates] demanded that the wisest men should rule, he clearly stressed that he did not mean the learned men; in fact, he was skeptical of all professional learnedness, whether it was that of the philosophers or of the learned men of his own generation, the Sophists. The wisdom he meant was of a different kind. It was simply the realization: how little do I know! Those who did not know this, he taught, knew nothing at all. This is the true scientific spirit.”
― Karl Raimund Popper

“Philosophy is a necessary activity because we, all of us, take a great number of things for granted, and many of these assumptions are of a philosophical character; we act on them in private life, in politics, in our work, and in every other sphere of our lives -- but while some of these assumptions are no doubt true, it is likely, that more are false and some are harmful. So the critical examination of our presuppositions -- which is a philosophical activity -- is morally as well as intellectually important.”
― Karl Popper

“No book can ever be finished. While working on it we learn just enough to find it immature the moment we turn away from it”
― Karl Popper

“But the secret of intellectual excellence is the spirit of criticism ; it is intellectual independence. And this leads to difficulties which must prove insurmountable for any kind of authoritarianism. The authoritarian will in general select those who obey, who believe, who respond to his influence. But in doing so, he is bound to select mediocrities. For he excludes those who revolt, who doubt, who dare to resist his influence. Never can an authority admit that the intellectually courageous, i.e. those who dare to defy his authority, may be the most valuable type. Of course, the authorities will always remain convinced of their ability to detect initiative. But what they mean by this is only a quick grasp of their intentions, and they will remain for ever incapable of seeing the difference.”
― Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies - Volume One: The Spell of Plato

“If a traveller does not meet with one who is his better, or his equal, let him firmly keep to his solitary journey; there is no companionship with a fool.”
― Gautama Buddha

“Though one should live a hundred years without wisdom and control, yet better, indeed, is a single day’s life of one who is wise and meditative.”
― Gautama Buddha

“The forest is a peculiar organism of unlimited kindness and benevolence that makes no demands for its sustenance and extends generously the products of its life activity; it affords protection to all beings, offering shade even to the axe-man who destroys it.”
― Gautama Buddha

“Why should we place Christ at the top and summit of the human race? Was he kinder, more forgiving, more self-sacrificing than Buddha? Was he wiser, did he meet death with more perfect calmness, than Socrates? Was he more patient, more charitable, than Epictetus? Was he a greater philosopher, a deeper thinker, than Epicurus? In what respect was he the superior of Zoroaster? Was he gentler than Lao-tsze, more universal than Confucius? Were his ideas of human rights and duties superior to those of Zeno? Did he express grander truths than Cicero? Was his mind subtler than Spinoza’s? Was his brain equal to Kepler’s or Newton’s? Was he grander in death – a sublimer martyr than Bruno? Was he in intelligence, in the force and beauty of expression, in breadth and scope of thought, in wealth of illustration, in aptness of comparison, in knowledge of the human brain and heart, of all passions, hopes and fears, the equal of Shakespeare, the greatest of the human race?”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, About The Holy Bible

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
― Buddha Siddhartha Guatama Shakyamuni

“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.”
― Buddha

“Doubt everything. Find your own light.”
― Gautama Buddha, Sayings of Buddha

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”
― Buddha Siddhartha Guatama Shakyamuni

“Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it”
― Buddha

“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.”
― Gautama Buddha, Sayings of Buddha

“You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.”
― Siddhārtha Gautama

“Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking and pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness.”
― Siddhārtha Gautama

“Greater in battle
than the man who would conquer
a thousand-thousand men,
is he who would conquer
just one —
himself.
Better to conquer yourself
than others.
When you've trained yourself,
living in constant self-control,
neither a deva nor gandhabba,
nor a Mara banded with Brahmas,
could turn that triumph
back into defeat.”
― Buddha

“Words do not express thoughts very well; every thing immediately becomes a little different, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom of one man seems nonsense to another.”
― Siddhartha Gautama