Tag: Carl Sagan

Religion and Death Quotes

Posted on August 13, 2011 by

There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread, but there are many more dying for a little love. – Mother Teresa

The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A Death! What’s that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you’re too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating… and you finish off as an orgasm. – George Carlin

Truth, in its struggles for recognition, passes through four distinct stages. First, we say it is damnable, dangerous, disorderly, and will surely disrupt society. Second, we declare it is heretical, infidelic and contrary to the Bible. Third, we say it is really a matter of no importance either one way or the other. Fourth, we aver that we have always upheld it and believed it. – Elbert Hubbard

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. – Voltaire

My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. – Thomas Paine

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. – Louis Hector Berlioz

Once the game is over, the King and the Pawn go back in the same box. – Italian Proverb

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there’s little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides. – Carl Sagan

Which is it, is man one of God’s blunders or is God one of man’s? – Nietzsche

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. – Napoleon

The ink of the scholar is holier than the blood of the martyr. – Prophet Muhammad

I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. – Mohandas Gandhi

Lighthouses are more helpful then churches. – Benjamin Franklin

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. – George Bernard Shaw

Morality is doing what is right regardless of what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, regardless of what is right. – Anonymous

It is always darkest just before the day dawneth. – Thomas Fuller, 1650

Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end. – Unknown

Quotes to make your day better

Posted on October 30, 2010October 30, 2010 by

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity. ~Christopher Morley

You don’t get harmony when everybody sings the same note. ~Doug Floyd

Don’t think you’re on the right road just because it’s a well-beaten path. ~Author Unknown

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. ~Dr. Seuss

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life. ~Winston Churchill

Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don’t practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us – and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along. ~Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it. ~Albert Einstein

Dare to do things worthy of imprisonment if you mean to be of consequence. ~Juvenal

Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one. ~Chinese Proverb

When leaders act contrary to conscience, we must act contrary to leaders. ~Veterans Fast for Life

If… the machine of government… is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. ~Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobediance, 1849

You’re not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it. ~Malcolm X

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality. ~Bishop Desmond Tutu

Famous People Quotes #5

Posted on September 20, 2010September 17, 2010 by

“Basically, I no longer work for anything but the sensation I have while working.” – Albert Giacometti (sculptor)

“There’s a limit to how many times you can read how great you are and what an inspiration you are, but I’m not there yet.” –Randy Pausch (1960-2008)

“It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” – Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” – Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

“Many a man’s reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.” – Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)

“There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.” – Frank Zappa

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” – Antoine de Saint Exupery

“Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.” – Isaac Asimov

“If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.” – Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

“It is much more comfortable to be mad and know it, than to be sane and have one’s doubts.” – G. B. Burgin

“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.” – Auric Goldfinger, in “Goldfinger” by Ian L. Fleming (1908-1964)

“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance” – Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.” – Jimi Hendrix

“A clever man commits no minor blunders.” – Goethe (1749-1832)

“Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they’re yours.” – Richard Bach

“A witty saying proves nothing.” – Voltaire (1694-1778)

“Sleep is an excellent way of listening to an opera.” – James Stephens (1882-1950)

“The nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore people they think it’s their fault.” – Henry Kissinger (1923-)

“Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.” – Will Durant

“I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.” – Xenocrates (396-314 B.C.)

“It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion.” – Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

“If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” – Mario Andretti

“I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure — that is all that agnosticism means.” – Clarence Darrow, Scopes trial, 1925.

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” – Henry Ford (1863-1947)

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” – Warren Zevon (1947-2003)

“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” – Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

“When you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” – Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Imagination Quotes

Posted on March 13, 2010 by

– “A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

– “All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.” – Orison Swett Marden

– “Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.” – Joseph Addison

– “Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures.” – Jessamyn West

– “I am imagination. I can see what the eyes cannot see. I can hear what the ears cannot hear. I can feel what the heart cannot feel.” – Peter Nivio Zarlenga

– “I believe in the imagination. What I cannot see is infinitely more important than what I can see.” – Duane Michals

– “I doubt that the imagination can be suppressed. If you truly eradicated it in a child, he would grow up to be an eggplant.” – Ursula K. Le Guin

– “I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.” – Theodor Geisel

– “I never did very well in math – I could never seem to persuade the teacher that I hadn’t meant my answers literally.” – Calvin Trillin

– “I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.” – Pablo Picasso

– “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” – Michelangelo

– “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” – George S. Patton

– “Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.” – Simone Weil

– “Imagination has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led – “Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity.” – L. Frank Baum

– “Imagination rules the world.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

– “Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.” – Carl Sagan

– “It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block.” – Paul Gauguin

– “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.” – Lewis Carroll

– “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” – Henry David Thoreau

– “Live out of your imagination, not your history.” – Stephen Covey