Gavin > Gavin's Quotes

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
― Voltaire

“The Patrician took a sip of his beer. “I have told this to few people, gentlemen, and I suspect I never will again, but one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I’m sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged on to a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters, who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature’s wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining on mother and children. And that’s when I first learned about evil. It is built into the nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.”
― Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

“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

“Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.”
― Ovid

“Love truth, but pardon error.”
― Voltaire

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain

“Go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company.”
― Benjamin Franklin Wade

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
― Mark Twain

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
― Mark Twain

“Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”
― Mark Twain

“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”
― Mark Twain

“Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.”
― Aldous Huxley

“We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”
― Oscar Wilde

“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground

“‎Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.”
― Voltaire

“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”
― Voltaire

“The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.”
― Voltaire

“Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.”
― Voltaire

“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.”
― Voltaire, The Age of Louis XIV

“We are ever striving after what is forbidden, and coveting what is denied us.”
― Ovid

“A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man's brow.”
― Ovid

“In our play we reveal what kind of people we are”
― Ovid

“Eurydice, dying now a second time, uttered no complaint against her husband. What was there to complain of, but that she had been loved?”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“On a scale from one to ‘invade Russia in winter,’ how stupid is this plan?”
― Andy Weir, Artemis

“People will trust a reliable criminal more readily than a shady businessman.”
― Andy Weir, Artemis

“By the way, we also hate it when people . . . call Artemis "the city in space." We're not in space; we're on the moon. I'm mean, technically, we're in space, but so is London.”
― Andy Weir, Artemis

“Quality is quality,” Jin said. “Age is irrelevant. No one bitches about Shakespeare fans.”
― Andy Weir, Artemis

“Don't be smart. Smart is only a polished version of dumb. Try intelligence. It will surely see you through.”
― Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

“And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.”
― Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.”
― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time