Quotes are the advice of history made works of poetry....
"I am not at all interested in immortality, only in the taste of tea." --Lao Tzu "Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited while imagination embraces the entire world." -Albert Einstein "On the other side of madness lies immortality." -Nikodemis "Only two things are infinite: The Universe, and the Mind." -Albert Einstein "Men . . . employ speech only to conceal their thoughts." --Voltaire "The man who has no inner life is the slave of his surroundings." --Henri Frederic Amiel "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. " - Albert Einstein (1879-1955) "In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. " - Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) "Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome." - Isaac Asimov "I have often regretted my speech, never my silence." - Xenocrates (396-314 B.C.) "It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. " - Albert Einstein (1879-1955) "If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. " - Mark Twain (1835-1910) "The life so short, the craft so long to learn." --Hippocrates "The real difference between man and other animals is that humans alone have perception of good and evil, just and unjust, etc. It is the sharing of a common view in these matters that makes a household and a state." - Aristotle, Politics, Bk. I. c.334-23 b.c. "Man is a history-making creature who can neither repeat his past nor leave it behind." - W.H. Auden, Dyer's Hand, 1963. "The passions rage like tyrants, and throw into confusion the whole soul and life of men with storms from every quarter, fear on one side, desire on another, another anxiety, or false empty joy, here pain for the thing which was loved and lost, there eagerness to win what was not possessed, there grief for an injury received, here burning desire to avenge it. Wherever he turns, avarice can confine him, self-indulgence dissipate him, ambition master him, pride puff him up, envy torture him, sloth drug him, obstinacy rouse him, oppression afflicted him, and the countless other feelings which crowd and exploit the power of passion." - Saint Augustine. Man is an animal impelled by his nature to live in a Polis. - Aristotle, The Politics. c.334-23 b.c. Now it must be wrong to say, as some do, that the structure of man is not good, in fact that it is worse than that of any other animal. Their grounds are: that man is barefoot, unclothed, and void of any weapon of force.... Take the hand: this is as good as a talon, or a claw, or a horn, or again, a spear or a sword, or any other weapon or tool: it can be all of these, because it can seize and hold them all. - Aristotle. Drinking when we are not thirsty and making love at all seasons, Madam: That is all there is to distinguish us from other animals. - Beaumarchais. Man, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada. - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary. 1911. “No man can be brave who thinks pain the greatest evil; nor temperate, who considers pleasure the highest good.” - Cicero “No barriers, no masses of matter, however enormous, can withstand the powers of the mind; the remotest corners yield to them; all things succumb, the very heaven itself is laid open.” - Manilius “To wish for death is a coward’s part.” - Ovid “Either there are no corporeal substances, and bodies are merely phenomena which are true or consistent with each other, such as a rainbow or a perfectly coherent dream, or there is in all corporeal substances something analogous to the soul...” - Gotfried Wilhelm Leibniz “There is a world of created beings-living things, animals, entelechies, and souls-in the least part of matter.... Thus there is nothing waste, nothing sterile, nothing dead in the universe; no chaos, no confusions, save in appearance.” - Gotfried Wilhelm Leibniz “Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! It is a dangerous servant and a terrible master.” - George Washington “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” - Thomas Jefferson “Which is the best government? That which teaches us to govern ourselves.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” - John Quincy Adams “Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson “Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within us.” - Thomas Browne “Life is a mission. Every other definition of life is false, and leads all who accept it astray. Religion, science, philosophy, though still at variance upon many points, all agree in this, that every existence is an aim.” - Giuseppe Mazzini “Too low they build who build beneath the stars.” - Edward Young “[L]et us carry Skepticism ever so far, let us doubt, if we can, of every thing about us; we cannot doubt of what passes within ourselves. Our Passions and Affections are known to us. They are certain, whatever the Objects may be, on which they are employ’d.” - Earl of Shaftesbury “The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.” - Abraham Lincoln “Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.” - William James “To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” - Theodore Roosevelt “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” - Winston Churchill “Life is the enjoyment of emotion, derived from the past and aimed at the future.” - Alfred North Whitehead “Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. That is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil.” - Albert Schweitzer “If one believes in nothing, if nothing makes sense, if we can assert no value whatsoever, everything is permissible and nothing is important.” - Albert Camus “[A]bsolute tolerance is altogether impossible; the allegedly absolute tolerance turns into ferocious hatred of those who have stated clearly and most forcefully that there are unchangeable standards founded in the nature of man and the nature of things.” - Leo Strauss “There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits on the human capacity for intelligence, imagination and wonder.” - Ronald Reagan “Nothing worthy can be built on a neglect of higher meanings and on a relativistic view of concepts and culture as a whole. Indeed, something greater than a phenomenon confined to art can be discerned shimmering here beneath the surface - shimmering not with light but with an ominous crimson glow.” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn “When everyone is moving towards depravity, no one seems to be moving, but if someone stops he shows up the others who are rushing on, by acting as a fixed point.” - Blaise Pascal “We have all of us to some extent become inured to a culture where viciousness and depravity are simply taken for granted, like some hideous wallpaper we have lived with for years.” - Roger Kimball “The important thing is to stop lying to yourself. A man who lies to himself and believes his own lies becomes unable to recognize the truth, either in himself or anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself as well as for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and in order to divert himself, having no love in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest form of pleasure, and behaves like an animal in satisfying his vices.”- Fyodor Dostoyevsky “The will, the will not ever to die, the refusal to resign oneself to death, ceaselessly builds the house of life while the keen blasts and icy winds of reason unceasingly batter at the structure and beat it down.” - Miguel de Unamuno “Those who are devoid of purpose will make the void their purpose.” - Friedrich Nietzsche “One must open men's eyes, not tear them out.” - Alexander Herzen “Formality is sufficiently revenged upon the world for being so unreasonably laughed at; it is destroyed, it is true, but it hath the spiteful satisfaction of seeing everything destroyed with it.” - Lord Halifax “But there are no institutions on earth which enable each separate person to have a hand in the exercise of Power, for Power is command, and everyone cannot command. Sovereignty of the people is, therefore, nothing but a fiction, and one which must in the long run prove destructive of individual liberties.” - Bertrand de Jouvenel “But there is no place for genuine ugliness, for final, unresolved self-contradiction or incoherence, in a work of art as a whole.” - Louis Arnaud Reid “The experience of a cosmos existing in precarious balance on the edge of emergence from nothing and returning to nothing must be acknowledged, therefore, as lying at the center of the primary experience of the cosmos.” - Eric Voegelin Personally, I rather look forward to a computer program winning the world chess championship. Humanity needs a lesson in humility. -- Richard Dawkins I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest to make money they don't want to buy things they don't need to impress people they dislike. -- Emile Henry Gauvreau I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. -- Benjamin Franklin To the right, books; to the left, a tea-cup. In front of me, the fireplace; behind me, the post. There is no greater happiness than this. -- Teiga Where there is much light, the shadow is deep. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood. -- William Shakespeare Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing. -- Robert Benchley Conceit causes more conversation than wit. -- François de La Rochefoucauld Silence is one great art of conversation. -- William Hazlitt Never hold anyone by the button or the hand in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue than them. -- Lord Chesterfield So long as you are ready to die for humanity, the life of your country is immortal. -- Giuseppe Mazzini "You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everybody dances with the Grim Reaper." Robert Alton Harris (gassed April 21, 1992) (after injection) "I'm still awake..." Robyn Leroy Parks (injected March 10, 1992) "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." -Galileo Galilei "Laughter is nothing else but a sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly." -Thomas Hobbes "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage." -Lao-Tzu "When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you." -Lao-Tzu Every good communist should know that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. -Mao Tse Tung "Author: A fool who, not content with having bored those who have lived with him, insists on tormenting generations to come." -Montesquieu "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." -Michelangelo "Un croquis vaut mieux qu’un long discours." Fr., "A picture is worth a thousand words." -Napoleon "Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." -Napoleon "At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet." -Plato "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." -Plato "Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once." -William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar, Act II, Sc. 2, line 32." "This above all; to thine own self be true." -William Shakespeare "He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened." -Lao Tzi, Tao Te Ching "Man is free at the moment he wishes to be." -Voltaire "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him." -Voltaire "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language." -Ludwig Wittgenstein "My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you’ll be happy; if not, you’ll become a philosopher." -Socrates "Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things." --Denis Diderot "There is time for everything." --Thomas A. Edison "To attain happiness in another world we need only to believe something; to secure it in this world, we must do something." --Charlotte Perkins Gilman "Needless fear and panic over disease and misfortune that seldom materialize are simply bad habits. By proper ventilation and illumination of the mind it is possible to cultivate tolerance, poise and real courage." --Elie Metchnikoff "We most always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden." --Johann von Goethe "When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge." -- Tuli Kupferberg "Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win." --Jonathan Kozol "Ideas won't keep; something must be done about them." -- Alfred North Whitehead "If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it." -- Mary Engelbreit "You live longer once you realize that any time spent being unhappy is wasted." -- Ruth E. Renkl "Kill the snake of doubt in your soul, crush the worms of fear in your heart and mountains will move out of your way." -- Kate Seredy "Forever contemplating the torment of existence, versus the horror of non-being." --Hanno "Judge a tree from its fruit; not from the leaves." --Euripedes "Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux." -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry; Translation: "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." "One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." --Elbert Hubbard "Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital.... The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket." --Andrew Carnegie "The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck." --Ralph Waldo Emerson "Dying seems less sad than having lived too little." --Gloria Steinem "Life is a series of collisions with the future; it is not a sum of what we have been but what we yearn to be." --Jose Ortega y Gassett "The cure for grief is motion." --Elbert Hubbard "Two men look out through the same bars: / One sees the mud, and one the stars." --Frederick Langbridge "You're going to have to learn to fake cheerfulness. Believe it or not eventually that effort will pay off: you'll actually start feeling happier." --Jean Bach "One man is no more than another if he does no more than another." --Miguel de Cervantes "It is necessary to try to surpass oneself always; this occupation ought to last as long as life." --Queen Christina, of Sweden "I am made from the dust of the stars And the oceans flow in my veins." --"Presto"--Neil Peart "Enjoy your life! Live it to the fullest! because you will die a miserable death alone in a ditch somewhere... but dont laugh on the way to your execution.. because the other people wont understand" -- Richard Bach "I have often been adrift, but I have always stayed afloat." --David Berry "We are all motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is, the more he is inspired by glory." --Cicero "If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things." --Rene Descartes
The Immortality Institute is a forum, news port, and community for those dedicated to the pursuit of physical or metaphysical immortality.
The Arizona Fencing Center is my fencing club! If you'd like to learn how to fence, and you live in the Pheonix/Mesa area of Arizona, I highly recommend this club. If you live elsewhere, and would like to learn how to fence, please visit The United States Fencing Association
Omnido's Page is a great site by a friend of mine featuring philosophy, music, art, and poetry. It has wonderful graphics and set-up.
More to come!