Month: December 2010

Thinking must never submit itself, neither to a dogma, nor to a party, nor to a passion, nor to an interest, nor to a preconceived idea, nor to whatever it may be, if not to facts themselves, because, for it, to submit would be to cease to be.

from “King John’s Christmas.”

Forget about the crackers,
And forget about the candy;
I’m sure a box of chocolates
Would never come in handy;
I don’t like oranges,
I don’t want nuts,
And I HAVE got a pocket-knife
That almost cuts.
But, oh! Father Christmas, if you love me at all,
Bring me a big, red India-rubber ball!

The person you are the most afraid to contradict is yourself.

What are lawyers really? To me a lawyer is basically the person that knows the rules of the country. We’re all throwing the dice, playing the game, moving our pieces around the board, but if there’s a problem, the lawyer is the only person that has actually read the inside of the top of the box.

A Dozen, a Gross and a Score,
plus three times the square root of four,
Divided by seven,
Plus five times eleven,
Equals nine squared and not a bit more.

The Integral of tee-squared dee tee,
From one to the cube root of three,
Times half the cosine,
Of three-pi over nine,
Is the log of the sixth root of e.

Pure mathematics consists entirely of assertions to the effect that, if such and such a proposition is true of anything, then such and such another proposition is true of that thing. It is essential not to discuss whether the first proposition is really true, and not to mention what the anything is, of which it is supposed to be true.

Every chess master was once a beginner.

You can only be free if I am free.