Josef H. > Josef's Quotes

“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

“I believe the simplest explanation is, there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization that there probably is no heaven and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe and for that, I am extremely grateful.”
― Stephen Hawking

“I have noticed that even those who assert that everything is predestined and that we can change nothing about it still look both ways before they cross the street.”
― Stephen Hawking, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays

“There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.”
― Stephen Hawking

“One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn't exist.....Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist”
― Stephen Hawking

“When people ask me if a god created the universe, I tell them that the question itself makes no sense. Time didn’t exist before the big bang, so there is no time for god to make the universe in. It’s like asking directions to the edge of the earth; The Earth is a sphere; it doesn’t have an edge; so looking for it is a futile exercise. We are each free to believe what we want, and it’s my view that the simplest explanation is; there is no god. No one created our universe,and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization; There is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that I am extremely grateful.”
― Stephen Hawking

“The universe doesn't allow perfection.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

“My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.”
― Stephen Hawking

“Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.”
― Isaac Asimov

“Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.”
― Isaac Asimov, Roving Mind

“Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.”
― Isaac Asimov

“I prefer rationalism to atheism. The question of God and other objects-of-faith are outside reason and play no part in rationalism, thus you don't have to waste your time in either attacking or defending.”
― Isaac Asimov

“They won't listen. Do you know why? Because they have certain fixed notions about the past. Any change would be blasphemy in their eyes, even if it were the truth. They don't want the truth; they want their traditions.”
― Isaac Asimov, Pebble in the Sky

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“For me, literacy means freedom. For the individual and for society.”
― LeVar Burton

“Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.”
― Victor Frankl

“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
― Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I wept because i had no shoes,
until i met a man who had no feet.”
― Ruta Sepetys, Salt to the Sea

“Religious doctrines … are all illusions, they do not admit of proof, and no one can be compelled to consider them as true or to believe in them.”
― Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion

“The willing, Destiny guides them. The unwilling, Destiny drags them.”
― Seneca

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.”
― Seneca

“All cruelty springs from weakness.”
― Seneca, Seneca's Morals: Of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
― Seneca

“Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.”
― Seneca

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.”
― seneca, Peace of Mind: De Tranquillitate Animi

“There is no genius without a touch of madness.”
― Seneca

“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“He who spares the wicked injures the good.”
― Seneca