Echos in the Deep

Words are powerful. Some are more powerful than others, especially when used in powerful phrases. This page is a series of quotes I find useful to keep in mind, their messages echo in the deep of my subconscious.

Favourite Quotes

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
- Douglas Adams

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.
- Isaac Asimov

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
- Voltaire

Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
- Terry Prachett

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
- Arthur C. Clarke, “Profiles of The Future”

Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.
- Democritus

Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to be ever more highly structured and to struggle against entropy.
- Vaclav Havel

The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.
- Stephen Jay Gould

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay to mould me Man, did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?
- Paradise Lost

Insightful Quotes

Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.
- Isaac Asimov

Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.
- George Bernard Shaw

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
- Voltaire

Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.
- George Orwell, 1984

I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough, it’ll make sense.
- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.
- Laurence J. Peter

Cynics regarded everybody as equally corrupt… Idealists regarded everybody as equally corrupt, except themselves.
- Robert Anton Wilson

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

There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.
- Hippocrates

If the sky were to suddenly open up there would be no law, there would be no rule. There would only be you, the choices you’ve made and the people you’ve touched. If this world were to end, there would only be you, and him.
- Donnie Darko [movie name]

Yet at the back of their personal troubles, hopes and fears, this less immediate trepidation grew, this intangible suggestion of change, that most unforgivable of all heresies.
- Titus Groan [book name]

“But who prays for Satan? Who in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most, our one fellow and brother who most needed a friend yet had not a single one, the one sinner among us all who had the highest and clearest right to every Christian’s daily and nightly prayers, for the plain and unassailable reason that his was the first and greatest need, he being among sinners the supremest?” – Mark Twain

Funny Quotes

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
- Oscar Wilde

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
- Oscar Wilde

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
- Douglas Adams

There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
- Douglas Adams

Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.
- Fletcher Knebel

It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It’s called living. – Terry Pratchett

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
- Terry Pratchett

In the beginning there was nothing, and it exploded.
- Terry Pratchett, (on the big bang theory)

Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.
- Terry Pratchett

Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.
- Terry Pratchett

In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.
- Terry Pratchett

Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.
- Terry Pratchett

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it’s not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.
- Terry Pratchett