Tim > Tim's Quotes

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“It’s a strange myth that atheists have nothing to live for. It’s the opposite. We have nothing to die for. We have everything to live for.”
― Ricky Gervais

“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.”
― Steven Weinberg

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
― Mark Twain

“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
― Albert Einstein, Albert Einstein: The Human Side

“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
― Carl Sagan

“Just because you're offended, doesn't mean you're right.”
― Ricky Gervais

“I see Atheists are fighting and killing each other again, over who doesn't believe in any God the most. Oh, no..wait.. that never happens.”
― Ricky Gervais

“Remember, when you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It is only painful for others.
The same applies when you are stupid.”
― Ricky Gervais

“… Science is constantly proved all the time. You see, if we take something like any fiction, any holy book… and destroyed it, in a thousand years’ time, that wouldn’t come back just as it was. Whereas if we took every science book, and every fact, and destroyed them all, in a thousand years they’d all be back, because all the same tests would [produce] the same result.”
― Ricky Gervais

“Two thousand years of monotheistic brainwashing have caused most Westerners to see polytheism as ignorant and childish idolatry. This is an unjust stereotype.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“Two Catholics who have never met can nevertheless go together on crusade or pool funds to build a hospital because they both believe that God was incarnated in human flesh and allowed Himself to be crucified to redeem our sins. States are rooted in common national myths. Two Serbs who have never met might risk their lives to save one another because both believe in the existence of the Serbian nation, the Serbian homeland and the Serbian flag. Judicial systems are rooted in common legal myths. Two lawyers who have never met can nevertheless combine efforts to defend a complete stranger because they both believe in the existence of laws, justice, human rights – and the money paid out in fees. Yet none of these things exists outside the stories that people invent and tell one another. There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible

“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“How inappropriate to call this planet "Earth," when it is clearly "Ocean.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary connection. But the basis of morality is really very simple and doesn't require religion at all.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.”
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
― Epicurus

“Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.”
― Epicurus

“If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all humankind would quickly perish since they constantly pray for many evils to befall one another.”
― Epicurus

“We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.”
― Stephen Hawking

“It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished.

But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, 'whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,' and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.”
― John Adams, The Portable John Adams

“I've begun worshipping the sun for a number of reasons. First of all, unlike some other gods I could mention, I can see the sun. It's there for me every day. And the things it brings me are quite apparent all the time: heat, light, food, and a lovely day. There's no mystery, no one asks for money, I don't have to dress up, and there's no boring pageantry. And interestingly enough, I have found that the prayers I offer to the sun and the prayers I formerly offered to 'God' are all answered at about the same 50% rate.”
― George Carlin, Brain Droppings

“Nations that went down fighting rose again, but those who surrendered tamely were finished.”
― Winston Churchill

“I always find myself gravitating to the analogy of a maze. Think of film noir and if you picture the story as a maze, you don't want to be hanging above the maze watching the characters make the wrong choices because it's frustrating. You actually want to be in the maze with them, making the turns at their side, that keeps it more exciting...I quite like to be in that maze.”
― Christopher Nolan