Month: August 2006

Karl Popper

We are social creatures to the inmost centre of our being. The notion that one can begin anything at all from scratch, free from the past, or unindebted to others, could not conceivably be more wrong.…

Euler

Although to penetrate into the intimate mysteries of nature and thence to learn the true causes of phenomena is not allowed to us, nevertheless it can happen that a certain fictive hypothesis may suffice for explaining many phenomena.…

Emily Dickinson

“Heaven” – is what I cannot reach! “Heaven” – is what I cannot reach! The Apple on the Tree – Provided it do hopeless – hang – That – “Heaven” is – to Me! The Color, on the Cruising Cloud – The interdicted Land – Behind the Hill – the House behind – There – Paradise – is found! Her teasing Purples – Afternoons – The credulous – decoy – Enamored – of the Conjuror – That spurned us – Yesterday!…

David Hume

Methinks I am like a man, who having struck on many shoals, and having narrowly escap’d shipwreck in passing a small frith, has yet the temerity to put out to sea in the same leaky weather-beaten vessel, and even carries his ambition so far as to think of compassing the globe under these disadvantageous circumstances.…

Jerome K Jerome

Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need – a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.…

Ian Duhig

From the Irish According to Dineen, a Gael unsurpassed in lexicographical enterprise, the Irish for moon means ‘the white circle in a slice of half-boiled potato or turnip’. A star is the mark on the forehead of a beast and the sun is the bottom of a lake, or well. Well, if I say to you your face is like a slice of half-boiled turnip, your hair is the colour of a lake’s bottom and at the centre of each of your eyes is the mark of the beast, it is because I want to love you properly, according to Dineen.…

Howard Nemerov

Because You Asked About the Line Between Prose and Poetry Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle That while you watched turned into pieces of snow Riding a gradient invisible From silver aslant to random, white, and slow. There came a moment that you couldn’t tell. And then they clearly flew instead of fell.…

Richard Feynman

From a long view of the history of mankind – seen from, say, ten thousand years from now, there can be little doubt that the most significant event of the 19th century will be judged as Maxwell’s discovery of the laws of electrodynamics. The American Civil War will pale into provincial insignificance in comparison with this important scientific event of the same decade.…

C S Lewis

You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.…

Andrew Motion

To whom it may concern This poem about ice cream has nothing to do with government with riot, with any political scheme It is a poem about ice cream. You see ? About how you might stroll into a shop and ask; One Strawberry Split. One Mivvi. What did I tell you ? No one will die. No licking tongues will melt like candle wax. This is a poem about ice cream. Do not cry.…

Dr E E Peacock

One day when I was a junior medical student, a very important Boston surgeon visited the school and delivered a great treatise on a large number of patients who had undergone successful operations for vascular reconstruction. At the end of the lecture, a young student at the back of the room timidly asked, “Do you have any controls?” Well, the great surgeon drew himself up to his full height, hit the desk, and said, “Do you mean did I not operate on half of the patients” The hall grew very quiet then. The voice at the back of the room very hesitantly replied, “Yes, that’s what I had in mind.” Then the visitor’s fist really came down as he thundered, “Of course not. That would have doomed half of them to their death.” God, it was quiet then, and one could scarcely hear the small voice ask, “Which half?”…

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