Archive

Quotes

Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind.

—Woody Allen, 1979

All things are filled full of signs, and it is a wise man who can learn about one thing from another.

—Plotinus, c. 255

To ensure the adoration of a theorem for any length of time, faith is not enough; a police force is needed as well.

—Albert Camus, 1951

One thing alone not even God can do: to make undone whatever has been done.

—Aristotle, c. 350 BC

Many are the wonders of the world, and none so wonderful as man.

—Sophocles, c. 441 BC

In the past, men created witches; now they create mental patients.

—Thomas Szasz, 1970

Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.

—Lucretius, c. 58 BC

On no other stage are the scenes shifted with a swiftness so like magic as on the great stage of history when once the hour strikes.

—Edward Bellamy, 1888

A miracle entails a degree of irrationality—not because it shocks reason, but because it makes no appeal to it.

—Emmanuel Lévinas, 1952

Have you ever, looking up, seen a cloud like to a centaur, a leopard, a wolf, or a bull?

—Aristophanes, 423 BC

There are times when reality becomes too complex for oral communication. But legend gives it a form by which it pervades the whole world.

—Jean-Luc Godard, 1965

Once something becomes discernible, or understandable, we no longer need to repeat it. We can destroy it.

—Robert Wilson, 1991

Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.

—Derek Walcott, 1986