Anthony Hendrickson > Anthony's Quotes

“Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth. Let us reflect that it is inhabited by a thousand millions of people. That these profess probably a thousand different systems of religion. That ours is but one of that thousand. That if there be but one right, and ours that one, we should wish to see the 999 wandering sects gathered into the fold of truth. But against such a majority we cannot effect this by force. Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free enquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves.”
― Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia

“A house without books is like a room without windows. No man has a right to bring up his children without surrounding them with books, if he has the means to buy them. It is a wrong to his family. He cheats them! Children learn to read by being in the presence of books. The love of knowledge comes with reading and grows upon it.”
― Henry Ward Beecher, Eyes and ears

“When we see religion split into so many thousand of sects, and I may say Christianity itself divided into its thousands also, who are disputing, anathematizing and where the laws permit burning and torturing one another for abstractions which no one of them understand, and which are indeed beyond the comprehension of the human mind, into which of the chambers of this Bedlam would a man wish to thrust himself.

[Letter to George Logan, 12 November 1816]”
― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“The art of life is the art of avoiding pain.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
― William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

“Exuberance is beauty.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.”
― William Blake

“Great things are done when men and mountains meet.”
― William Blake

“Dissonance / (if you are interested) / leads to discovery.”
― William Carlos Williams

“Time is a storm in which we are all lost.”
― William Carlos Williams

“A new music is a new mind.”
― William Carlos Williams

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

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
― Albert Einstein

“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.”
― Albert Einstein

“A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.”
― Albert Einstein

“Never memorize something that you can look up.”
― Albert Einstein

“Black holes are where God divided by zero.”
― Albert Einstein

“You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.”
― Albert Einstein

“The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”
― Albert Einstein

“Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.”
― Albert Einstein

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”
― Albert Einstein

“What a sad era when it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice.”
― Albert Einstein

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.”
― Beverly Sills

“A pier is a disappointed bridge; yet stare at it for long enough and you can dream it to the other side of the Channel.”
― Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

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

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

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
― William Shakespeare, As You Like It