“As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life—so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.” –Matt Cartmill “Of course, you become an archbishop to meet boys. –Doug Nelson “Scientists don’t meet girls either” [...]
Look at me. Look at me. If you look away I will remove two stars. –Yelping with Cormac, December 2011 Genius.
“In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it’s the exact opposite.” — Paul Dirac
“Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom.” –Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 3, 1776 “Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. [...]
“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of [...]
“We are alone, absolutely alone on this chance planet: and, amid all the forms of life that surround us, not one, excepting the dog, has made an alliance with us.” – Maurice Maeterlinck, My Dog 1906
“Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The [...]
“There are those who argue that everything breaks even in this old dump of a world of ours. I suppose these ginks who argue that way hold that because the rich man gets ice in the summer and the poor man gets it in the winter things are breaking even for both. Maybe so, but [...]
“Long exile from Christendom and civilization inevitably restores a man to that condition in which God placed him, i.e. what is called savagery. Your true whale-hunter is as much a savage as an Iroquois. I myself am a savage, owning no allegiance but to the King of the Cannibals; and ready at any moment to [...]
Sidney Coleman, on his time at Caltech: Caltech, at that time was (and still is) a much smaller school than this. There were something like a thousand students, graduate and undergraduate together when I was at Caltech. Also it was out in Pasadena so it was the Caltech students, the Caltech faculty and a bunch [...]
Tagged quoteIf you work hard, and become successful, it does not necessarily mean you are successful because you worked hard [...] Success requires hard work, but so does working three jobs just to keep your family fed, and the latter usually precludes the former. Lots of self-made people forget that there’s a fair amount of, well, [...]
Tagged OWS
First they negated the fourth, now it’s the first
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Charles P. Pierce says it better than I: Your right [...]
Tagged OWSRant Comments Off