January Quotations

"Genius is the ability to avoid work by doing it right the first time."
~~ old saying

"The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do."
~~ B.F. Skinner

"Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius."
~~ William Blake [1757–1827]

"If the brain were so simple we could understand it, [then] we would be so simple [that] we couldn't."
~~ Lyall Watson

"Most people would sooner die than think. In fact, they do."
~~ Bertrand Russell [1872-1970]

"Geniuses are like thunderstorms. They go against the wind, terrify people, cleanse the air."
~~ Søren Kierkegaard [1813-55]

"When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."
~~ Jonathan Swift [1667–1745]

"The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth."
~~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe [1749-1832]

“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.”
~~ Gore Vidal

"Some superior minds are unrecognized because there is no standard by which to weigh them."
~~ Joseph Joubert

"A genius is one who can do anything except make a living."
~~ Joey Adams

"There's nothing as stupid as an educated man, if you get him off the thing that he is educated in."
~~ Will Rogers [1879-1935]

"Talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius, being the action of reason or imagination, rarely or never."
~~ Samuel T. Coleridge [1772-1834]

"The only thing that makes a man able to get along in this world is his brain. A man doesn't have the claws of a bear, nor the strength of a bull. He doesn't have the nose of a wolf, nor the wings of a hawk, but he has a brain. You're going to get along in this world as long as you use it."
~~ Louis L'Amour [1908-88] [in 'Down The Long Hills']

"People often say that, in a democracy, decisions are made by a majority of the people. Of course, that is not true. Decisions are made by a majority of those who make themselves heard and who vote – a very different thing."
~~ Walter H. Judd

"Life is hard, but it's wonderful."
~~ François Truffaut [1932-84] (in "Small Change", 1976)

"In general, one is only right when either wish or fear coincides with reality ... sooner or later a false belief bumps up against the solid reality, usually on a battlefield."
~~ George Orwell

"People on a jet have only been on a trip; people on a train have been on a journey."
~~ Ray Bradbury

"I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I've said."
~~ former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan

"Every animal knows more than you do."
~~ Nez Perce proverb

"Give Light and the people will find their own way."
~~ masthead motto of the Rocky Mountain News [est. 1859] of Denver, Colorado

"[Marijuana] is safer than aspirin, which kills thousands every year."
~~ William S. Eidelman, MD

"Tragedy arises when you are in the presence of a man who has missed accomplishing his joy."
~~ Arthur Miller [1915-2005] (in 1950)

"Man must shape his tools lest they shape him."
~~ Arthur Miller [1915-2005]

{previous quotations are posted
at the Working Minds website}