• Euclid

    Proof. Suppose that p1=2 < p2 = 3 < ... < pr are all of the primes. Let P = p1p2...pr+1 and let p be a prime dividing P; then p can not be any of p1, p2, ..., pr, otherwise p would divide the difference P-p1p2...pr=1, which is impossible. So this prime p is still another prime, and p1, p2, ..., pr would not be all of the primes. (Ribenboim's statement of Euclid's proof)

  • Lewis Caroll

    “I see nobody on the road,” said Alice.

    “I only wish I had such eyes,” the King remarked in a fretful tone. “To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance, too! Why, it’s as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!”

  • Eugene Guillevic

    Elegies

    He probably held too tightly
    (In the palm of his hand,
    Looking out on the sea)

    To the sand the wind
    Was taking, grain by grain —

    He who is held by the fear
    Of becoming mist.

    Il aura trop tenu
    Dans le fond de sa paume
    En face de la mer

    Du sable que le vent
    Y prenait grain par grain

    Celui que tient la peur
    De devenir nuage.

  • Plato

    Let no one enter who does not know geometry.

    (inscription over the gate of his academy)

  • Henry Adams

    No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

  • Roger McGough

    The Leader

    I wanna be the leader
    I wanna be the leader
    Can I be the leader?
    Can I? I can?
    Promise? Promise?
    Yippee I’m the leader
    I’m the leader

    OK what shall we do?

  • G K Chesterton

    An adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered, an inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.

  • Katherine Mansfield

    The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody’s fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind.

  • Jenny Joseph

    Warning

    When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
    With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
    And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
    And satin sandles, and say we’ve no money for butter.
    I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
    And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
    And run my stick along the public railings
    And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
    I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
    And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
    And learn to spit.

    You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
    And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
    Or only bread and pickle for a week
    And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

    But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
    And pay our rent and not swear in the street
    And set a good example for the children.
    We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

    But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
    So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
    When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

  • C S Lewis

    We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

  • A Limerick

    The Limerick Packs Laughs Anatomical

    The limerick packs laughs anatomical
    Into space that is quite economical.
    But the good ones I’ve seen
    So seldom are clean –
    And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

  • Nathaniel Hawthorne

    Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

  • Douglas Adams

    The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at and repair.

  • William Butler Yeats

    Cloths of Heaven

    Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
    Enwrought with golden and silver light,
    The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
    Of night and light and the half-light,
    I would spread the cloths under your feet:
    But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
    I have spread my dreams under your feet;
    Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

  • Thales

    I will be sufficiently rewarded if when telling it to others you will not claim the discovery as your own, but will say it was mine.

  • Democritus

    By convention there is colour, by convention sweetness, by convention bitterness, but in reality there are atoms and space.

    (460-400 BC)

  • Christopher Isherwood

    The common cormorant (or shag)
    Lays eggs inside a paper bag,
    You follow the idea, no doubt?
    It’s to keep the lightning out.

    But what these unobservant birds
    Have never thought of, is that herds
    Of wandering bears might come with buns
    And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.

  • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

    The Eagle (a fragment)

    He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
    Close to the sun in lonely lands,
    Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.

    The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
    He watches from his mountain walls,
    And like a thunderbolt he falls.

  • George Macdonald

    It has been well said that no man ever sank under the burden of the day. It is, when tomorrow’s burden is added to the burden of today, that the weight is more than a man can bear. Never load yourselves so, my friends. If you find yourselves so loaded, at least remember this: it is your own doing, not God’s. He begs you to leave the future to Him, and mind the present.

  • Christopher Logue

    London Airport

    Last night in London Airport
    I saw a wooden bin
    labelled UNWANTED LITERATURE
    IS TO BE PLACED HEREIN.
    So I wrote a poem
    and popped it in.