Sayings & Quotes

[Lilith7]

Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.


For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. "Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!

Kurt Vonnegut

[Lilith7]

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

Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside

Kurt Vonnegut

[Lilith7]

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.
Kurt Vonnegut

[Lilith7]

Future generations will look back on TV as the lead in the water pipes that slowly drove the Romans mad.


While on the subject of burning books, I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and destroyed records rather than have to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles. So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the media. The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.
Kurt Vonnegut

[Lilith7]

Unannounced changes in life's itinerary are like dancing lessons from God.


About belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort. I am a humanist, which mean, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead.

Kurt Vonnegut

[Lilith7]

Never trust a survivor until you know how they survived.


Science is magic that works.

Kurt Vonnegut

[Lilith7]

I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle.

Music is, to me, proof of the existence of God. It is so extraordinarily full of magic, and in tough times of my life I can listen to music and it makes such a difference.


Kurt Vonnegut

[zqwerty]

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

John Rogers

[Lilith7]

Everything is nothing, with a twist.
Kurt Vonnegut

“For me,the fact that there's a rise in flat earthers is evidence of two things. One, we live in a country that protects free speech. And two, we live in a country with a failed education system.”

Neil de Grasse Tyson

[Lilith7]

“War itself is, of course, a form of madness. It's hardly a civilised pursuit. It's amazing how we spend so much time inventing devices to kill each other & so little time working on how to achieve peace.”
Walter Cronkite

“I would much rather be led by a decent human being who sometimes misses the mark, than a purposely cruel sociopath who has no concern for other people's pain.”
John Pavlovitz

[zqwerty]

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

—Martin Niemöller

[Lilith7]

“Frederick Douglass taught that literacy is the path from slavery to freedom. There are many kinds of slavery & many kinds of freedom, but reading is still the path.”
Carl Sagan

“We know they are lying.
They know that they're lying.
They know that we know they're lying.
We know that they know that we know
they are lying.
And still they continue to lie.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

[zqwerty]

"A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on" is often attributed to Mark Twain

[Lilith7]

“Having a dog or cat will open your heart.Reading a book will open your mind.
Having both a pet & a book...absolute heaven.”
Mark Rubinstein

“The enemies of liberal democracy, they have a method.They hack our feelings. Not our emails, not our bank accounts – they hack our feelings of fear & hate & vanity, & then use these feelings to polarise & destroy democracy from within....They cannot create these feelings out of nothing. So they get to know our own pre-existing weaknesses. And then use them against us,”
Yuval Noah Harari from TED talk why fascism is so tempting & how your data could power it.

[Lilith7]

“All beings quiver before violence.
All beings fear death.
All beings love life.
Remember that you are like them,
As they are like you.
Then whom would you hurt?
What harm would you do?
He who seeks happiness
Will never find happiness.
Not in the sky,
Nor in the depths of the sea,
Nor in the deepest mountains,
Can you hide from your misdeeds.
Hokukyo, Japanese Buddhist

“Calling bigotry an opinion is like
calling arsenic a flavour.”
Jack Cameron

[Lilith7]

“I do not know with what weapons world war 3 will be fought, but world war 4 will be fought with sticks & stones.”
Albert Einstein

“I allow myself to hope that the world will emerge from its present troubles, that it will one day learn to give the direction of its affairs not to cruel swindlers & scoundrels, but to men possessed of wisdom & courage.”
Bertrand Russell

[Lilith7]

“You can also committ an injustice by doing nothing.”
Marcus Aurelius

“Education is not something you can finish.”
Isaac Asimov

[zqwerty]

"The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. Man has been cut adrift in a rudderless boat on an uncharted sea; if he is going to stay sane throughout the voyage, he must have someone to care about, something that is more important than himself."

Stanley Kubrick

[Lilith7]

“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”
Margaret Mead

“The test of our progress is not whether we add to the abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide enough to those who have little.”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt

[Lilith7]

“The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them knows anything about the subject.”

Marcus Aurelius

“People turn to religion not to be informed, but to be massaged. It tells them what they want to hear, not what they need to know.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson