Pawan > Pawan's Quotes

“Discovery is a child’s privilege. I mean the small child, the child who is not afraid to be wrong, to look silly, to not be serious, and to act differently from everyone else. He is also not afraid that the things he is interested in are in bad taste or turn out to be different from his expectations, from what they should be, or rather he is not afraid of what they actually are. He ignores the silent and flawless consensus that is part of the air we breathe – the consensus of all the people who are, or are reputed to be, reasonable.”
― Alexander Grothendieck

“It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.”
― Albert Einstein

“Blessed are the flexible, for change is inevitable. To fulfill our true destiny as spiritual beings we must trust in our divine power to adapt.”
― Anthon St. Maarten

“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”
― Robert Frost

“Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee
And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.”
― Robert Frost

“If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane.”
― Robert Frost

“Freedom lies in being bold.”
― Robert Frost

“The best way out is always through.”
― Robert Frost

“Poetry is what gets lost in translation.”
― Robert Frost

“Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.”
― Robert Frost

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
― Robert Frost

“I am not a teacher, but an awakener.”
― Robert Frost

“Chance favors the prepared mind.”
― Louis Pasteur

“A bottle of wine contains more philosophy than all the books in the world.”
― Louis Pasteur

“The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator.”
― Louis Pasteur

“A bit of science distances one from God, but much science nears one to Him.”
― Louis Pasteur

“If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.”
― Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–82

“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.”
― Charles Darwin, The Life & Letters of Charles Darwin

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.”
― Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man

“Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
― Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

“We stopped looking for monsters under our bed when we realized that they were inside us.”
― Charles Darwin

“The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.”
― Charles Darwin

“I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men”
― Charles Darwin

“...Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers... for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality... But I had gradually come by this time, i.e., 1836 to 1839, to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow at sign, &c., &c., and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian.

...By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported, (and that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become), that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost uncomprehensible by us, that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events, that they differ in many important details, far too important, as it seemed to me, to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eyewitnesses; by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The fact that many false religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wild-fire had some weight with me. Beautiful as is the morality of the New Testament, it can be hardly denied that its perfection depends in part on the interpretation which we now put on metaphors and allegories.

But I was very unwilling to give up my belief... Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct. I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished.

And this is a damnable doctrine.”
― Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–82

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives,
not the most intelligent that survives.
It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
― Charles Darwin

“The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic.”
― Charles Darwin

“An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men.”
― Charles Darwin

“The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognise that we ought to control our thoughts.”
― Charles Darwin

“Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions.”
― Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals

“Intelligence is based on how efficient a species became at doing the things they need to survive.”
― Charles Darwin