Tom Kiefer > Tom's Quotes

“America wasn't founded so that we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damned well pleased.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

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

“Being a geek is all about being honest about what you enjoy and not being afraid to demonstrate that affection. It means never having to play it cool about how much you like something. It’s basically a license to proudly emote on a somewhat childish level rather than behave like a supposed adult. Being a geek is extremely liberating.”
― Simon Pegg

“Loneliness is black coffee and late-night television; solitude is herb tea and soft music. Solitude, quality solitude, is an assertion of self-worth, because only in the stillness can we hear the truth of our own unique voices.”
― Pearl Cleage, Deals With the Devil: And Other Reasons to Riot

“That many if not most people...who want fresh leafy greens in January buy them at the supermarket after they've been bleached and plastic-bag shipped from California or beyond is not a tribute to modern technology; it's an unprecedented abdication of personal responsibility and a ubiquitous benchmark of abnormality.”
― Joel Salatin, Folks, This Ain't Normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World

“Optimist: Someone who figures that taking a step backward
after taking a step forward is not a disaster, it's a cha-cha.”
― Robert Brault

“The sign of intelligence is that you are constantly wondering. Idiots are always dead sure about every damn thing they are doing in their life.”
― Jaggi Vasudev

“Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.”
― Edward Abbey

“Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy - in fact, they are almost incompatible; one emotion hardly leaves room for the other.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
― Albert Einstein

“Our culture made a virtue of living only as extroverts. We discouraged the inner journey, the quest for a center. So we lost our center and have to find it again.”
― Anaïs Nin

“None of our men are 'experts.' We have most unfortunately found it necessary to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert because no one ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the 'expert' state of mind a great number of things become impossible.”
― Henry Ford

“The question is, why is the USDA in charge of the country’s nutrition anyway? In 2003 the Chicago Tribune reported the comments of Senator Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.)15: “The primary mission of the USDA is, after all, to promote the sale of agricultural products…So putting the USDA in charge of dietary advice is in some respects like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.” So who should be in charge of our nutrition? How about anyone without a vested interest in pushing the poison?”
― Robert H. Lustig, Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease

“I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You

“Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.”
― Marcus Aurelius , Meditations

“The things we love weave themselves into the framework of our being. They are the trellises on which our thoughts grow; we shape ourselves, our habits, our vocabularies, to accommodate them. If someone asks, “Why do you love this?” the question is as impossible to answer as “Why are you?” You cannot isolate the part of you that loves from the rest of you, or mark its beginning and ending. Old couples grow to look like each other. Old ruins blur into their ivy. Star Wars fans name their kids Luke and Leia and show up at conventions dressed as Jabba the Hutt. At first we loved the Millennium Falcon, so we wanted to build a scale replica in our basement. Now we love the Millennium Falcon because of the scale replica in our basement. Every time I watched Star Wars I used to hold my breath to see if it felt the same. But now I know it won’t. It hasn’t moved, but I have. It’s always there. It’s magic, still, but a different magic every time. I turn off all the lights in the house so there’s no reflection or glare, shut all the doors and windows, and settle in a chair with my arms folded over my knees and wait for takeoff.”
― Alexandra Petri, A Field Guide to Awkward Silences

“Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”
― Mark Twain

“The Republican and Democratic parties both feed out of the same bag provided by the monied system, and where the list frequently differs the same interests are represented.”
― George Seldes

“The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

“Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...It's about learning to dance in the rain.”
― Vivian Greene

“I don't think..." then you shouldn't talk, said the Hatter.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.”
― Terry Pratchett

“He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.”
― Lao Tzu

“Knowing yourself is life's eternal homework”
― Felicia Day, You're Never Weird on the Internet

“When we graduate from childhood into adulthood, we're thrown into this confusing, Cthulhu-like miasma of life, filled with social and career problems, all with branching choices and no correct answers.”
― Felicia Day, You're Never Weird on the Internet

“I knew that making something discoverable on the Internet was like sending someone on a scavenger hunt into the universe's biggest flea market.”
― Felicia Day, You're Never Weird on the Internet

“Quiet people have the loudest minds.”
― 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