Silas Vincent

“I stood up to go shake hands with him and I don’t remember anything else. What I do recall is the crowd yelling and me crying, while everything seemed to be moving in slow motion.”
― Vernon Davis, Playing Ball: Life Lessons from My Journey to the Super Bowl and Beyond

“The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the Universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern 'knowledge' is that it is wrong.

The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. 'If I am the wisest man,' said Socrates, 'it is because I alone know that I know nothing.' The implication was that I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal.

Alas, none of this was new to me. (There is very little that is new to me; I wish my correspondents would realize this.) This particular theme was addressed to me a quarter of a century ago by John Campbell, who specialized in irritating me. He also told me that all theories are proven wrong in time.

My answer to him was, 'John, when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.”
― Isaac Asimov, The Relativity of Wrong

“Gossip is like thread wound over a spindle of truth, changing its shape.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“The best writers tend to look the roughest in photos. At least that's the excuse I use for why I look so bad in mine.”
― R.D. Ronald