©2008-2009 Roedy Green, Canadian Mind Products
There are always going to be more actors than anybody can ever use.
~ Edward Albee (born: 1928-03-12 age: 81) WNBC TV interview, 1966-01-09
He listens well who takes notes.
~ Dante Alighieri (born: 1265 died: 1321-09-14 at age: 56)
One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
~ Woody Allen (born: 1935-12-01 age: 73)
If I have said anything untrue, it was because I was mistaken, not because I tried to mislead you.
~ Anonymous
Come to the edge, he said. They said: We are afraid. Come to the edge, he said. They came. He pushed them and they flew.
~ Guillaume Apollinaire (born: 1880-08-26 died: 1918-11-09 at age: 38)
Bring me a bowl of coffee before I turn into a goat.
~ Johann Sebastian Bach (born: 1685-03-31 died: 1750-07-28 at age: 65)
Somebody was saying to Picasso that he ought to make pictures of things the way they are — objective pictures. He mumbled he wasn’t quite sure what that would be. The person who was bullying him produced a photograph of his wife from his wallet and said, ‘There, you see, that is a picture of how she really is.’ Picasso looked at it and said, ‘She is rather small, isn’t she? And flat?
~ Gregory Bateson (born: 1904-05-09 died: 1980-07-04 at age: 76)
It’s not what you don’t know that will bite you; it’s what you don’t know that you don’t know.
~ William Brody (born: 1944-01-04 age: 65)
If people become accustomed to lying, they will unconsciously commit every possible wrong deed. Before they can act wickedly, they must lie, and once they begin to lie they will act wickedly without concern.
~ Gautama Buddha (born: 563 BC died: 483 BC at age: 80)
You are not responsible for what your friends do, but you will be judged by the company you keep.
~ Leonard Cole
You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends.
~ Joseph Conrad (born: 1857-12-03 died: 1924-08-24 at age: 66)
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common that unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
~ Calvin Coolidge (born: 1872-07-04 died: 1933-01-05 at age: 60)
We don’t know who discovered water, but we’re certain it wasn’t a fish.
~ John Culkin (born: 1928 died: 1993-07-23 at age: 65)
A man’s friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.
~ Charles Darwin (born: 1809-02-12 died: 1882-04-19 at age: 73)
Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.
~ Denis Diderot (born: 1713-10-05 died: 1784-07-31 at age: 70) French philosopher
Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.
~ Denis Diderot (born: 1713-10-05 died: 1784-07-31 at age: 70) French philosopher
I have 600 channels in my house and 400 of them are selling Bow Flex. The other 200 are mostly selling Jesus. What happened to diversity?
~ Phil Donahue (born: 1935-12-21 age: 73)
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76)
Force always attracts men of low morality.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76)
If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76)
No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76)
The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76)
It’s never too late to be who you might have been.
~ George Eliot (born: 1819-11-22 died: 1880-12-22 at age: 61) (Mary Ann Evans)
Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.
~ George Eliot (born: 1819-11-22 died: 1880-12-22 at age: 61) (Mary Ann Evans)
We are all apt to believe what the world believes about us.
~ George Eliot (born: 1819-11-22 died: 1880-12-22 at age: 61) (Mary Ann Evans)
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
~ Thomas Stearns Eliot (born: 1888-09-26 died: 1965-01-04 at age: 76) Four Quartets
A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (born: 1803-05-25 died: 1882-04-27 at age: 78)
Always do what you are afraid to do.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (born: 1803-05-25 died: 1882-04-27 at age: 78)
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (born: 1803-05-25 died: 1882-04-27 at age: 78)
Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (born: 1803-05-25 died: 1882-04-27 at age: 78)
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (born: 1803-05-25 died: 1882-04-27 at age: 78)
Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of nature.
~ Michael Faraday (born: 1791-09-22 died: 1867-08-25 at age: 75)
Yep, somebody sure cut through that fence, all right.
~ Stan Freberg (born: 1926-07-07 age: 83)
Sometimes I think we’re alone. Sometimes I think we’re not. In either case, the thought is staggering.
~ Richard Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller (born: 1895-07-12 died: 1983-07-01 at age: 87)
I call architecture frozen music.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (born: 1749-08-28 died: 1832-03-22 at age: 82)
Nothing shows a man’s character more than what he laughs at.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (born: 1749-08-28 died: 1832-03-22 at age: 82)
Don’t worry about where you are. Watch the first derivative.
translation:
Don’t worry about how things are. Watch where they are headed.
~ Fred Green (born: 1913-07-12 died: 1992-04-10 at age: 78) (my Dad, an electrical engineer)
I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
~ J.B.S. Haldane (born: 1892-11-05 died: 1964-12-01 at age: 72)
Neurons that fire together wire together.
~ Donald Hebb (born: 1904-07-22 died: 1985-08-20 at age: 81) (on the biology behind Pavlovian conditioning)
How well do you know Canada?~ Mel Hurtig (born: 1932-06-24 age: 77), stats from The Truth About Canada: Some Important, Some Astonishing, and Some Truly Appalling Things All Canadians Should Know About Our Country
Statistics about Canada % statistic % statistic 0 percent improvement in child poverty since 1989. 56 percent drop in foreign aid since 1975. 0 percent increase in middle class income, inflation-adjusted income since 1980. 76 percentage of print and TV media in Vancouver BC owned by one company. 0.75 percent of Canadians who donated to any political party in 2006. 80 percent of Canadians who have never belonged to any political party. 2.4 percent of direct foreign investment that created new jobs, 97.6% was for takeover of existing companies which diverted the profits to offshore tax havens. 100 percent increase in GDP since 1989. 21 percent of jobs that are paid too low to provide food, shelter and heat. 8-12% is typical in Europe. 400 percent increase in share of the economic pie by taken by investors at the expense of workers since 1992. 55 percent foreign takeovers financed by Canadian banks.
How well do you know Canada? You might imagine it is an overtaxed, innovative, prosperous, generous, socialised, well-educated country. Here is how it rates relative to other countries.~ Mel Hurtig (born: 1932-06-24 age: 77), stats from The Truth About Canada: Some Important, Some Astonishing, and Some Truly Appalling Things All Canadians Should Know About Our Country
Canada’s International Ranking rank criterion rank criterion 17 foreign aid as a percentage of GNP. Half of what it was in 1980. 27 corporate taxes. 20 per capita investment in new equipment. 30 patents. 21 per capita taxation. 40 income equality. 22 elimination of poverty. 54 U.N. peacekeeping. 22 per capita financial aid to the unemployed. 54 doctors per capita. 25 per capita social services spending. 57 per capita spending on education. 25 research and development investment.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
~ Aldous Huxley (born: 1894-07-26 died: 1963-11-22 at age: 69) Proper Studies 1927
Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.
~ Aldous Huxley (born: 1894-07-26 died: 1963-11-22 at age: 69)
Heisenberg might have slept here.
~ sign on a Bavarian inn
It is that our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all completeness, definite types of mentality which probably somewhere have their field of application and adaptation. No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded. How to regard them is the question for they are so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness. Yet they may determine attitudes though they cannot furnish formulas, and open a region through which they fail to give a map. At any rate, they forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality.
~ William James (born: 1842-01-11 died: 1910-08-26 at age: 68), Varieties of Religious Experience
I find it easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
~ Clay Johnson fictitious father of the fictitious Brenda Leigh Johnson in The Closer
If you could not keep this secret yourself, how did you expect me to keep it for you?
~ Robert Allan Jones (born: 1947 age: 62)
’The only flower known to have wings is the butterfly; all others stand helpless before the destroyer.
~ Okakura Kakuzo (born: 1862-02-14 died: 1913-09-02 at age: 51), The Book of Tea
’Tis said that Chowmushih slept in a boat so that his dreams might mingle with those of the lotus.
~ Okakura Kakuzo (born: 1862-02-14 died: 1913-09-02 at age: 51), The Book of Tea
A thing hasn’t been said until its been said a thousand times.
~ Ring Lardner (born: 1885-03-06 died: 1933-09-25 at age: 48)
But better die than live mechanically a life that is a repetition of repetitions.
~ David Herbert Lawrence (born: 1885-09-11 died: 1930-03-02 at age: 44)
In the province of the mind what one believes to be true, either is true or becomes true within certain limits. These limits are to be found experimentally and experientially. When so found these limits turn out to be further beliefs to be transcended. In the province of the mind there are no limits.
~ Dr. John Lilly (born: 1915-01-06 died: 2001-09-30 at age: 86)
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
~ John Locke (born: 1632-08-29 died: 1704-10-28 at age: 72) 1795-04-20
To prejudge other men’s notions before we have looked into them is not to show their darkness but to put out our own eye.
~ John Locke (born: 1632-08-29 died: 1704-10-28 at age: 72) 1795-04-20
We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.
~ John Locke (born: 1632-08-29 died: 1704-10-28 at age: 72) 1795-04-20
The fluttering of a butterfly’s wing in Rio de Janeiro, amplified by atmospheric currents, could cause a tornado in Texas two weeks later.
~ Edward Lorenz (born: 1917-05-23 died: 2008-04-16 at age: 90)
A man sufficiently gifted with humor is in small danger of succumbing to flattering delusions about himself, because he cannot help perceiving what a pompous ass he would become if he did.
Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (born: 1903-11-07 died: 1989-02-27 at age: 85)
The bond with a true dog is as lasting as the ties of this earth will ever be.
Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (born: 1903-11-07 died: 1989-02-27 at age: 85)
We do not take humor seriously enough.
Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (born: 1903-11-07 died: 1989-02-27 at age: 85)
The violinist must possess the poet’s gift of piercing the protective hide which grows on propagandists, stockbrokers and slave traders, to penetrate the deeper truth which lies within.
~ Yehudi Menuhin (born: 1916-11-22 died: 1999-03-12 at age: 82)
The structure of a play is always the story of how the birds came home to roost.
~ Arthur Miller (born: 1915-10-17 died: 2005-02-10 at age: 89)
What makes literature interesting is that it does not survive its translation. The characters in a novel are made out of the sentences. That’s what their substance is.
~ Jonathan Miller (born: 1934-07-21 age: 75)
Whenever a new discovery is reported to the world, they say first, ‘It is probably not true,’ Then after, when the truth of the new proposition has been demonstrated beyond question, they say, ‘Yes, it may be true, but it is not important.’ Finally, when sufficient time has elapsed to fully evidence its importance, they say, ‘Yes, surely it is important, but it is no longer new.’
~ Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (born: 1533 died: 1592 at age: 59)
We like people for their qualities, but we love them for their flaws.
~ John Myers played by Rupert Evans in Hellboy.
When you encounter obstacles, you know what you are doing is important.
~ Gottfried Johannes Müller (born: 1914-04-10 died: 2009-09-26 at age: 95)
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
~ Sir Isaac Newton (born: 1643-01-04 died: 1727-03-31 at age: 84)
I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
~ Sir Isaac Newton (born: 1643-01-04 died: 1727-03-31 at age: 84)
Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.
~ George Orwell (born: 1903-06-25 died: 1950-01-21 at age: 46)
Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.
~ George Orwell (born: 1903-06-25 died: 1950-01-21 at age: 46)
Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.
~ George Orwell (born: 1903-06-25 died: 1950-01-21 at age: 46)
Do not then train boys to learning by force and harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds.
~ Plato (born: 428 BC died: 348 BC at age: 80)
Never discourage anyone… who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.
~ Plato (born: 428 BC died: 348 BC at age: 80)
There is no end to what can be accomplished if you don’t care who gets the credit.
~ Art Rennison
Adults are so angry about drugs not because they are Puritanical but because they have seen, over time, how drugs create untold misery for both the drug takers and those around them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
After you are dead, it depends completely on what others think of you how much of your life work is preserved.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
Almost nobody reads books written by dead people. The exposure to their work is limited to quotations. So, if you want to have legacy influence, you need to express your ideas in concise, self-contained, quotable paragraphs.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
Are beautiful humans ever aware how soon the gift will evaporate in a mist, like Cinderella’s pumpkin.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
Complementary medicine is something you do in addition to the usual scientific medicine to make people feel better, e.g. home-made chicken soup. Alternative medicine is something you do in place of scientific medicine, e.g. homeopathy — something not yet shown to work. As soon as it is shown to work, it becomes scientific medicine. This suggests that any alternative therapy that has been around for decades and still has not been shown to work, almost certainly doesn’t.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
Consider how many crucial life skills are not taught in high school:~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
- How to compute income tax.
- How to register to vote.
- How to get a passport.
- How to recognise a con.
- How mortgages work.
- How to deal with car dealers and car repairmen.
- How to buy insurance.
- All the ways to avoid catching HIV.
- How to handle being dumped.
- Marriage and divorce.
- How to detect the catches in an advertisement.
Coors Light beer features mountains on the can that change from white to blue when the beer cools to 4°C (39°F). If someone is so out of it they need help telling them if their beer is as cold as they like it, they probably should not be drinking more beer.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
Even being in the top 1% of intelligence is frustrating. Others simply can’t understand what is blindingly obvious to you. They persist in doing stupid things for the most idiotic of reasons. Imagine if you were 100 or 1000 times more intelligent than normal. Life would be unbearably lonely. Interacting with normal humans would like having only an anthill as your social outlet. Spoken language would be so unbearably clumsy and slow to communicate the torrent of ideas.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
HDTV’s greatest gift will be making it easier to see through the deception of informercials.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
How come some people have unruly hair, but no one has ruly hair? If they did, what are the rules?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61) (after the manner of Don Ferguson’s confused philosopher character the Royal Canadian Air Farce)
I attempt to encapsulate any obvious idea in a sound bite so posterity will have a dead guy to quote to support it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
I find it hard to take anyone seriously who hides their face behind layers of paint and powder.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
I have never understood the appeal of Las Vegas. It is like spending your vacations spiritually dumpster diving or visiting some future-hell theme park. I have never seen more depressed and bored people in my life.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
I wonder if people would continue to use Febreze if they understood it works by covering your sofa in cyclodextrin, tiny molecular tubes that encircle the odiferous molecules of wet dog preventing them from wafting into the air. It is like cleaning your house my putting the dirt in tiny plastic bags and leaving it to accumulate in place.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
If an alien species wanted to distract humans from attending to their survival, all they needed to do was introduce the video game.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
If golfing were some how necessary to tend the lawn, then you would immediately see the invention of all manner of labour-saving machines to reduce the time you had to spend doing it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
If you want to serve your species, you must be willing to fail. People who want personal glory pursue safe mainstream success. But the most valuable discoveries are off the beaten track, and most of that prospecting will not pan out. There is no glory for all by a handful of those who devote themselves to this most valuable exploration.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
In ancient China, fathers gave their sons opium to make them sober, tend the family business and avoid chasing women. This suggests our current societal problems with opiates stem from how we treat them, not something inherently destructive. I suspect Christian Puritanical beliefs cloud our thinking about the best way to handle them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
It is odd how much effort we put into never being cornered into admitting we are wrong, when that is the one thing others seem to want most of us.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
It is too obvious to mention, but… If there are several different ways of doing something, one of them is probably noticeably better. If you do something more than once a day, it is probably worth a little experiment and a few moments contemplating the advantages and disadvantages of doing it each way. Then you can put your choice on automatic.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
It would be so cool if someone could show me a totally new colour, one no one has ever seen before, not just a new shade, a new colour, and different from any you have ever seen as green is from red, even if through direct brain stimulation.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
Maturity is primarily a matter of broadening loyalty. It starts with self absorption, then loyalty to the family, then loyalty to the neighbourhood, then the state, then to the human species, then to all life on earth, then to the cosmos.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
Most of what I have said in my life soap box can be summed up in a few sentences:~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
- Play fair, especially with those weaker than you.
- Whomever makes a mess should be obligated to clean it up.
- We should not tolerate lying, because, as Gautama Buddha said, ‘If people become accustomed to lying, they will unconsciously commit every possible wrong deed. Before they can act wickedly, they must lie, and once they begin to lie they will act wickedly without concern.’
- Echoing Gandhi: ‘An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.’
- Again echoing Gandhi: ‘Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.’
Much of the appeal of music is its repetition and predictability. People come to appreciate a piece the more they hear it. The repetition fosters the illusion that the universe is a safe, predictable place.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
My dad was head of production at BC Hydro, the BC electric power utility. One of his least favourite jobs was allocating office space because of all the resentments it created with petty jealousies. His strategy was to present an atrocious office layout that offended absolutely everyone. He would then announce he would consider an alternate layout if the employees affected wanted to propose one. They would fight it out and present their plan. My dad would accept it, and all would be happy at the terrible fate they had so narrowly escaped.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
My parents warned me this would happen, but it still caught me off guard. I was discounted for my youth, then one day I woke up and suddenly I was discounted for my decrepitude.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
Nothing can prepare you for the shock of waking up one day, and seeing an old person staring back at you in the mirror.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
One of the main themes in television is that hunches, superstition and religion are more reliable than logic, sponsored by corporations who would have you believe that buying a different brand of dusting cloth will bring fresh love into your life.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
One of the odd things about growing old is my past actions seem much more embarrassing than they did at the time and my past angsts seem much ado about nothing.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
One the pleasant things about growing older is your clothes last much longer.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
People like to ridicule, condemn and threaten me. It is not so much that I am out of step with popular opinions; it is just that I am a few decades ahead of most people. For example:It seems it is only a matter of time until most people come around to my point of view.
- In 1960 I started debunking Christianity.
- In 1965 I protested nuclear testing in Amchitka.
- In 1968, before Greenpeace was officially founded, I sent them (2.5 months room and board at the time). They told me it was the biggest donation they had ever received.
- In 1969 I was preaching strict gay equality when even gays were still opposed to it.
- In 1975 I gave away my 3 year old car and thereafter walked, used a bicycle or public transportation.
- In 1976 my Christmas tree was lit with LEDs.
- In 1977 my house was controlled by a thermostat that automatically turned down the heat when people went out or went to sleep saving me 50% on my gas bill.
- In 1986-10 I published an article in Byte magazine about why computer languages should have what today we call large standard class libraries, to handle problems such as sorting, dealing with the calendar and international zip codes.
- In 2000 I opposed the Bush presidency.
- On 2001-09-11 I expressed doubts about Bush’s story of what happened on 9-11.
- In 2000 I protested the Makah Whale hunt.
- In 2001 I opposed the Afghan war.
- In 2002 I opposed the Iraq war, before it even started.
- In 2003 I started harassing politicians to get on with solving homelessness.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
Pop psychologists ask ‘Is the glass half full or half empty?’ Don’t they realise it depends if you are pouring water into it, or drinking it?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
Quaker advertises its chocolate bars have half the sugar of the competition. How do they do it? Their bars are half the size!
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
Smokers know that every cigarette shortens life. They dismiss the loss by saying, ‘who wants extra years as a senile nonagenarian anyway?’ But the years are stolen from your teens, twenties and thirties.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
The main difference between sleeping dreams and the waking dreams we call ordinary consciousness is waking dreams accept more inputs from the outside world to influence the course of the dream.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)I elaborate on this theme in my essay Reality is a Hallucination
The more channels of TV there are, the worse your odds are of finding something interesting to watch. This is because the fixed advertising-funded programming budget pie is spread thinner over more channels. To improve program content, we need funding to come from the viewers based on what they actually watch, possibly delivered a program at a time through the Internet.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
The most frustrating thing about being human is that you have to watch your fellows treating each other in the most unimaginably cruel ways, and destroying the planet that sustains us while knowing that whatever you do to counter will be insignificant because you are only one in 7 billion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
The most frustrating thing about getting old is your to-do list grows at least a 100 times longer than your done-list.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
The octopus has 8 arms, 3 hearts, no skeleton and no hands. Its skin can flash messages or be used for near perfect camouflage in both colour and texture. The whale has no arms. It can see with sound like a bat. Why should intelligent creatures from off planet be more like man than even other intelligent terrestrial creatures?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
The prime directive of weight control is avoid attending feasts. You do more damage in one feast than in months of ordinary overindulgence.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
The problem with good weather is it brings out mosquitos, leaf blowers and road pavers.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
The toothpaste, mouthwash and whitening strip companies are selling you watered down hydrogen peroxide at stupendous markup. You can buy generic full strength hydrogen peroxide to whiten your teeth rapidly at any drug store for peanuts.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
There are four degrees of liar:~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
- Liars who repeat things that are not true without ever bothering to check if they are indeed true.
- Liars who knowingly say things that are not true.
- Liars who make it obvious they know they are saying things that are not true.
- Liars who keep repeating the same old lies, no matter how many times their lies are debunked.
There was a time when young Einstein did not yet know how to add 2 + 2. What if someone had belittled him for not already knowing, and put him off math?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
To make a new idea sound respectable, you need to find a dead guy who espoused it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
Travel when you are young, ideally in the year after high school before you go to university. Why?
- There is nothing better to show you on a deep level there is more than one way to do something.
- It is cheaper to travel when you are young.
- You will have more adventure traveling while you are young.
- Later in life, your finances, health or energy may restrict you.
- It will be much harder to get away later with ties of family, job, home, pets and community.
- Life is over so fast, if you don’t do it now, you may never find time.
- Many of the most interesting places on earth are being McDonaldised. This is your last chance to see.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
Wade Davis said that everyone who takes a certain South American psychedelic plant has similar visions, among them viewing the activities of ‘rock people’. I can think of three explanations for that:
- People who take the hallucinogen first study up on its effects. Suggestibility takes it from there.
- These visions are archetypes built-in to all human brains.
- Analogously to infrared goggles, the psychedelic allows a different view of reality that emphasises things not normally visible.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
We die of accumulated embarrassments.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
What causes humans to lose interest in their own survival, to withdraw from all human contact, to stop sleeping, to avoid sunlight? The video game!
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
When a rat philosopher heads down a tunnel and finds no cheese, he does not say to himself ‘Rats! I failed’. He says, ‘I have learned something. I now know one more place where the cheese isn’t.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
When Shakespear referred to life as a ‘brief candle’, he meant it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
When you are old, it feels as if you should be able to do all the things you did at 30, if only you can get it together.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
When you are six, a month takes an eternity of subjective time. When you are sixty, a year whips by like a chase in a Mack Sennett silent film.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
Why are you here? for your personal pleasure or for the general benefit? If comfort is not your goal, there is no need to fret or panic when life becomes uncomfortable. You are free to procrastinate personal pleasure.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
‘Going forward’ is the new ‘um’.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 61)
Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
~ Theodore Roosevelt (born: 1858-10-27 died: 1919-01-06 at age: 60)
The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.
~ Theodore Roosevelt (born: 1858-10-27 died: 1919-01-06 at age: 60)
A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) The History of Western Philosophy
It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won’t go.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)Russell is not counseling apathy, just not getting your tail in a knot while you take rational action to oppose life’s idiots.
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 (born: 1788-02-22 died: 1860-09-21 at age: 72)
Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don’t.
~ Pete Seeger (born: 1919-05-03 age: 90)
Tragedy, for me, is not a conflict between right and wrong, but between two different kinds of right.
~ Peter Shaffer (born: 1926-05-15 age: 83)
The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.
~ William Shakespear (born: 1564-04-23 died: 1616-04-23 at age: 52) Julius Caesar Act II scene ii
All evolution in thought and conduct must at first appear as heresy and misconduct.
~ George Bernard Shaw (born: 1856-07-26 died: 1950-11-02 at age: 94)
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
~ George Bernard Shaw (born: 1856-07-26 died: 1950-11-02 at age: 94)
Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children!
~ George Bernard Shaw (born: 1856-07-26 died: 1950-11-02 at age: 94)
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
~ Upton Sinclair (born: 1878-09-20 died: 1968-11-25 at age: 90)
A coincidence is a trend we’ve decided not to take seriously.
~ Philip Slater (born: 1927 age: 82)
Every invention creates new needs, but the biggest needs are not for new and more advanced versions of the last invention but for solutions to the social problems the last invention created.
~ Philip Slater (born: 1927 age: 82)
Many people would object that most women don’t want careers. I suspect that women themselves would agree, but I also wonder if deep inside they don’t feel the kind of puzzled uneasiness that we always experience when obliged to accept a formulation that makes us lose either way…. When we say ‘career’ it connotes a demanding, rigorous, preordained life pattern, to whose goals everything else is ruthlessly subordinated — everything pleasurable, human, emotional, bodily, frivolous… Thus when a man asks a woman if she wants a career, it is intimidating. He is saying, are you willing to suppress half of your being as I am, neglect your family as I do, exploit personal relationships as I do, renounce all personal spontaneity as I do? Naturally, she shudders a bit and shuffles back to the broom closet. She even feels a little sorry for him, and bewails the unkind fate that has forced him against his will to become such a despicable person…A more effective (revolutionary, confronting) response would be to admit that a ‘career’, thus defined, is indeed undesirable — that (now that you mention it) it seems like a pernicious activity for any human being to engage in, and should be eschewed by both men and women.
~ Philip Slater (born: 1927 age: 82)
Motors make noise, and that tells you about the feelings and attitudes that went into it. Something was more important than sensory pleasure — nobody would invent a chair or dish that smelled bad or that made horrible noises — why were motors invented noisy? How could they possibly be considered complete or successful inventions with this glaring defect? Unless, of course, the aggressive, hostile, assaultive sound actually served to express some impulse of the owner.
~ Philip Slater (born: 1927 age: 82), The Wayward Gate: Science and the Supernatural
The attempt to silence a man is the greatest honour you can bestow on him. It means that you recognise his superiority to yourself.
~ Joseph Sobran (born: 1946-02-23 age: 63)
The pail by the wall
Would be half full of water and stars.
~ Robert Louis Stevenson (born: 1850-11-13 died: 1894-12-03 at age: 44) Escape at Bedtime
I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity.
~ Tom Stoppard (born: 1937-07-03 age: 72)
The deeper the sorrow the less tongue it hath.
~ Publius Cornelius Tacitus (born: 56 AD died: 117 AD at age: 61)
The desire for gold is the desire to make others do what they do not want to do.
~ Emile de Tocqueville
Most people can’t understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do.
~ Ivan Turgenev (born: 1818-11-09 died: 1883-09-03 at age: 64)
Consider well the proportion of things. It is better to be a young June-bug than an old bird of paradise.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English — it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them — then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before.
~ Thorstein Veblen (born: 1857-07-30 died: 1929-08-03 at age: 72)
A good deed never goes unpunished.
~ Gore Vidal (born: 1925-10-03 age: 84)
If most men and women were forced to rely upon physical charm to attract lovers, their sexual lives would be not only meager but in a youth-worshiping country like America, painfully brief.
~ Gore Vidal (born: 1925-10-03 age: 84)
Stephen Harper is 300 pounds of condemned beef.
~ Mary Walsh (born: 1952-05-15 age: 57)
Knowledge keeps no better than fish.
~ Alfred North Whitehead (born: 1861-02-15 died: 1947-12-30 at age: 86)
All faults may be forgiven of him who has perfect candor.
~ Walt Whitman (born: 1819-05-31 died: 1892-03-26 at age: 72)
Imagine this butterfly, exactly as it is, but ugly instead of beautiful.
~ Ludwig Wittgenstein (born: 1889-04-26 died: 1951-04-29 at age: 62)
Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded.
~ Virginia Woolf (born: 1882-01-25 died: 1941-03-28 at age: 59)
Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.
~ Frank Zappa (born: 1940-12-21 died: 1993-12-04 at age: 52)
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