Quotes

… do nothing because it is righteous, or praiseworthy, or noble, to do so; do nothing because it seems good to do so; do only that which you must do, and which you cannot do in any other way.

One of the most cowardly things ordinary people do is to shut their eyes to facts.

Never try and answer a question you don't understand. Insist people clarify the question until it's clear, and often they will supply the answer themselves.

He never grew up, but he never stopped growing.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from nature.

Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travellers.

The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.

You don’t need a roadmap, you need caffeine and unreasonable optimism.

The traitor, the self, the self that cries "I want to live, let the world rot so long as I can live!" The little traitor soul in us, in the dark, like a spider in a box. He talks to all of us. But only some understand him. The wizards, the singers, the makers. And the heros, the ones who seek to be themselves. To be oneself is a rare thing, and a great one.

They are not our teachers.

Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

Nothing makes me feel more alive than caring more about what I don’t know, than what I do.

One day, everyone will have always been against this.

Mind and breath have the same source. Hence, breath is controlled when mind is controlled and mind, when breath is controlled. Breath is the gross form of the mind. When mind stops, the breath also stops and the other way around.

Become unemployable.

If your medical doctor is so great, why are you still so sick?

When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right.

We reject: kings, presidents, and voting.

We believe in: rough consensus and running code.

What she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. Freedom is a heavy load, a great a strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward toward the light; but the laden traveller may never reach the end of it.

there are only two genders, finding people hot and finding scenarios hot

Conrad said that only two things sold, the very best and the very worst. From my recent efforts, it has been borne to me that I am not capable of writing the very best yet. I have no doubt that I shall be able to in the future, but at present, I cannot. It remains to be seen whether I can write the very worst.

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

Suffering less, noticing it more.

If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy.

Confidence is when you are able to see yourself as a flawed person and still hold yourself in high regard.

Sovereignty starts where obedience ends.

you can't figure out the right amount to do something without first overdoing it

We don’t fight weeds, we grow weeds.

Never try and sneak out a fart while wearing headphones.

Men argue, nature acts.

The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good.

The hope of the future lies not in curbing the influence of human occupancy … but in creating a better understanding of the extent of that influence and a new ethic for its governance.

A master is someone who is able to remain true to themselves in any situation.

Wisdom creates the fragrance of rebellion.

I did not know, I went and looked; everything else was vanity.

Adventures are never fun while you're having them.

For progress there is no cure. Any attempt to find automatically safe channels for the present explosive variety of progress must lead to frustration. The only safety possible is relative, and it lies in an intelligent exercise of day-to-day judgment.

The paradox of a disaster is that it brings out the best in so many of us. The paradox of comfort is that it brings out the worst in so many of us.

When it's over, leave. Don't keep watering dead flowers.

The world is full of people who are very clever at seeming much smarter than they really are.

The public has a distorted view of science, because children are taught in school that science is a collection of firmly established truths. In fact, science is not a collection of truths. It is a continuing exploration of mysteries.

All that you've loved is all you own.

I can fail at any speed you like.

It's not an easy life, but it's simple … and you're free.

I think what we fear most about finding a mind equal to our own, but of another species, is that they will truly see us—and find us lacking, and turn away from us in disgust. That contact with another mind will puncture our species' self-satisfied feeling of worth. We will have to confront, finally, what we truly are, and the damage we have done to our home. But that confrontation, perhaps, is the only thing that will save us. The only thing that will allow us to look our short-sightedness, our brutality, and our stupidity in the face, and change.

The privilege of a lifetime is to become who we truly are.

No disease that can be treated by diet should be treated with any other means.

When one is pretending, the entire body revolts.

Be careful fighting gravity. If you win, it's a long way down.

The perfect man breathes as though he is not breathing.

Clay will break your back, but sand will break your heart.

You can count the seeds in an apple, but you can't count the apples in a seed.

We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.

You cannot friend a hawk, they said, unless you are a hawk yourself, alone and only a sojourner in the land, without friends or the need of them.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialisation is for insects.