Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we’re here for something else besides ourselves.
—Eric Sevareid (American Broadcast Journalist)
Not to be bound by rules, but to be creating one’s own rules—this is the kind of life which Zen is trying to have us live.
—D. T. Suzuki (Japanese Buddhist Philosopher)
Human nature is not simple and any classification that roughly divides men into good and bad, superior and inferior, slave and free, is and must be ludicrously untrue and universally dangerous as a permanent exhaustive classification.
—W. E. B. Du Bois (American Sociologist, Activist)
He who knoweth not what he ought to know, is a brute beast among men; he that knoweth no more than he hath need of, is a man among brute beasts; and he that knoweth all that may be known, is as a God among men.
—Pythagoras (Greek Philosopher)
To lay aside all prejudices, is to lay aside all principles.—He who is destitute of principles is governed by whims.
—Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (German Philosopher)
Animals are born, are sentient and are mortal. In these things they resemble man. In their superficial anatomy—less in their deep anatomy—in their habits, in their time, in their physical capacities, they differ from man. They are both like and unlike.
—John Berger (English Art Critic, Essayist, Novelist)
The methods of science aren’t foolproof, but they are indefinitely perfectible. Just as important: there is a tradition of criticism that enforces improvement whenever and wherever flaws are discovered.
—Daniel C. Dennett (American Philosopher, Atheist)
Nature never deserts the wise and pure; no plot so narrow, be but nature there; no waste so vacant, but may well employ each faculty of sense, and keep the heart awake to love and beauty!
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (English Poet)
In every work of art the subject is primordial, whether the artist knows it or not. The measure of the formal qualities is only a sign of the measure of the artist’s obsession with his subject; the form is always in proportion to the obsession.
—Alberto Giacometti (Swiss Sculptor, Painter)
The best way to keep good acts in memory is to refresh them with new.
—Cato the Elder (Marcus Porcius Cato) (Roman Statesman)
People who fear death live no longer than those who don’t, and live scared.
—Gene Wolfe (American Science Fiction, Fantasy Writer)
Not prayer without faith, nor faith without prayer, but prayer in faith, is the cost of spiritual gifts and graces.
—Henry Clay Trumbull (American Clergyman)