Posts in the category “quotations”
The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state. … The rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.
Adam Smith (June 5, 1723 – July 17, 1790)
Wealth of Nations
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. – John Wayne
People who believe in absurdities will eventually commit atrocities.
Voltaire
There is pleasure in recognising old things from a new viewpoint.
Richard P. Feynman
“The appeal seems universal. To social historians it is a microcosm of the early 1900s. To nautical enthusiasts it is the ultimate shipwreck. To students of human nature it is an endlessly fascinating laboratory. For lovers of nostalgia it has the allure of yesterday. For daydreamers it has all those might-have-beens.”
Walter Lord, on the tale of the RMS Titanic
“I like good company, but I like hard work still better.”
Camille Saint-Saëns
I’m going to do what every San Franciscan does who goes to Heaven. I’ll look around and say, ‘It’s not bad, but it ain’t San Francisco.’
Herb Caen
One thing is that I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs, in different degrees of certainty, about different things. But I’m not absolutely sure of anything and of many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little bit, if I can’t figure it out, then I go onto something else. But I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me.
Richard P. Feynman
Happy Birthday, W. Somerset Maugham
To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life. W. Somerset Maugham, January 25, 1874 – December 16, 1965