Dave > Dave's Quotes

“It now transpired that the man in front of her didn’t actually have a ticket at all, and the argument then began to range freely and angrily over such topics as the physical appearance of the airline check-in girl, her qualities as a person, theories about her ancestors, speculations as to what surprises the future might have in store for her and the airline for which she worked, and finally lit by chance on the happy subject of the man’s credit card. He didn’t have one.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“The process of thinking itself requires us to view the universe in the direction of entropy, since an abstraction always involves information loss, since symbols 'abstract' complexity from observed objects.”
― John C. Wright, Awake in the Night Land

“Truth does not become more or less true, whether those who know it are many or few.”
― John C. Wright, The Golden Age

“When power is the only coin, they said, you have nothing left to sell but your soul.”
― John C. Wright, The Golden Transcendence

“When the worry about the baby crying ceases, the worry about the baby not breathing begins.”
― Jonathan V. Last, The Dadly Virtues: Adventures from the Worst Job You'll Ever Love

“Appearing in Mummy and Daddy’s room in the middle of the night and claiming to be “scared” is strictly verboten.”
― Jonathan V. Last, The Dadly Virtues: Adventures from the Worst Job You'll Ever Love

“Being told that he was immune to flattery was the nicest thing he had heard someone say about him in a long time.”
― John C. Wright, The Last Guardian of Everness

“And oft I harked into the night of the Land; but there was nowhere any sound, or disturbing of the aether, to trouble me.”
― William Hope Hodgson, The Night Land

“ARIEL sings Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell Burthen Ding-dong Hark! now I hear them,--Ding-dong, bell.”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“Democritus[3] says: "One man means as much to me as a multitude, and a multitude only as much as one man." 11.”
― Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

“There be some sports are painful, and their labour Delight in them sets off: some kinds of baseness Are nobly undergone and most poor matters Point to rich ends. This”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“Yet with my nobler reason 'gaitist my fury Do I take part: the rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent, The sole drift of my purpose doth extend Not a frown further. Go”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“The first is the matter of judging evidence–well, the first thing really is, before you begin you must not know the answer. So you begin by being uncertain as to what the answer is. This is very, very important, so important that I would like to delay that aspect, and talk about that still further along in my speech. The question of doubt and uncertainty is what is necessary to begin; for if you already know the answer there is no need to gather any evidence about it. Well,”
― Richard Feynman, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

“Now we have found that this is of paramount importance in order to progress. We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty. People”
― Richard Feynman, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

“Gil said to Elfine, “I cannot make you an American if that is what you are asking. There is an ordeal all must pass. A trial by paperwork and years of waiting.”
― John C. Wright, Tithe to Tartarus

“They say Cat was the last of all to leave Eden and was less afraid of the Seraphim than Lucifer, and for that reason, to this day, is permitted to stare at kings, unabashed.”
― John C. Wright, Feast of the Elfs

“More Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? Roper I’d cut down every law in England to do that! More (roused and excited) Oh? (Advances on Roper.) And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? (Leaves him.) This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast – Man’s laws, not God’s—and if you cut them down – and you’re just the man to do it – d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? (Quietly.) Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.”
― Robert Bolt, A Man For All Seasons

“Who put you up to this? Was it Greene? This is just the sort of thing he’d put together.”
― Paul Melko, The Walls of the Universe

“A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand.”
― Seneca

“Topology is destiny,' he said, and put the drawers on. One leg at a time.”
― Neal Stephenson, Anathem

“Another pilot study published in 2011 showed that an extreme calorie-restricted diet (only 600 kilocalories per day) for eight weeks reversed diabetes in 100 percent of the study’s participants. This pilot study has single-handedly altered our understanding of type 2 diabetes, which was thought to be a lifelong, irreversible condition. What’s more is that 64 percent of the subjects in the study remained diabetes-free three months after the end of dietary intervention.”
― Lee Know, Mitochondria and the Future of Medicine: The Key to Understanding Disease, Chronic Illness, Aging, and Life Itself

“They did not look at these things as good or bad, exciting, rational or terrible. They did not look at them at all, but accepted them as Done.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“IT WAS CHRISTMAS night, the eve of the Boxing Day Meet. You must remember that this was in the old Merry England of Gramarye, when the rosy barons ate with their fingers, and had peacocks served before them with all their tail feathers streaming, or boars’ heads with the tusks stuck in again—when there was no unemployment because there were too few people to be unemployed—when the forests rang with knights walloping each other on the helm, and the unicorns in the wintry moonlight stamped with their silver feet and snorted their noble breaths of blue upon the frozen air. Such marvels were great and comfortable ones. But in the Old England there was a greater marvel still. The weather behaved itself. In the spring, the little flowers came out obediently in the meads, and the dew sparkled, and the birds sang. In the summer it was beautifully hot for no less than four months, and, if it did rain just enough for agricultural purposes, they managed to arrange it so that it rained while you were in bed. In the autumn the leaves flamed and rattled before the west winds, tempering their sad adieu with glory. And in the winter, which was confined by statute to two months, the snow lay evenly, three feet thick, but never turned into slush.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“But scarcely less surprising to me was the enthusiastic welcome accorded to the book by many whom I never expected to read a volume of this type—and from many more of whom I still doubt whether in fact they ever read it.”
― Friedrich A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom

“But the essential features of that individualism which, from elements provided by Christianity and the philosophy of classical antiquity, was first fully developed during the Renaissance and has since grown and spread into what we know as Western civilization—are the respect for the individual man qua man, that is, the recognition of his own views and tastes as supreme in his own sphere, however narrowly that may be circumscribed, and the belief that it is desirable that men should develop their own individual gifts and bents.”
― Friedrich A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom

“Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.”
― Seneca

“The Hunters had gently tried to turn him away. That had never happened before and their actions had confused Edward. The Hunters always seemed to love when Edward stabbed things for them.”
― Larry Correia, Target Rich Environment

“When she saw him come nigh, she said, Away, kitchen knave, out of the wind, for the smell of thy bawdy clothes grieveth me.”
― Thomas Malory, Le Morte D' Arthur

“Not all persons would be equally believed, Demerzel. A mathematician, however, who could back his prophecy with mathematical formulas and terminology, might be understood by no one and yet believed by everyone.”
― Isaac Asimov, Prelude to Foundation

“You don’t alter the past, turn the tide, or change yourself by brooding about your hidden motives. You will surprise yourself every time, anyway. Nobody ever figures out why.”
― Glen Cook, Bitter Gold Hearts