“We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.”
Albert Einstein, quoted in Jon Winokur Zen to Go
“‘Everything is possible for him who possesses courage and activity,’ she said, with a look resembling one of those heroines of the age of chivalry whose encouragement was wont to give champions double valour at the hour of need, ‘and to the timid and hesitating everything is impossible, because it seems so.’”
Sir Walter Scott Rob Roy (the words are spoken by Diana “Die” Vernon to the hero Frank Osbaldistone)
“In this pathetic and simple-minded view, humans are to be but life-support systems for free-wheeling genitalia.”
William Gairdner The Trouble with Democracy
“You will be extremely lucky to get this person to work for you.”
Another “he’s an extraordinary man” veiled insult for use in an insincere letter of recommendation [again I don’t know the source but do not claim to have invented it].
“No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye.”
Elizabeth Bowen, quoted in Jon Winokur Zen to Go
“History has always, and properly, been regarded as ‘the school of princes’. We should not hesitate – we should be eager – to make it the school of peoples.”
Paul Johnson The Offshore Islanders
“The anointed don’t like to talk about painful trade-offs. They like to talk about happy ‘solutions’ that get rid of the whole problem - at least in their imagination.”
Thomas Sowell Is Reality Optional?
“brilliant, but not correct.”
Quoted in Horace Porter Campaigning with Grant as “what Cuvier said of the French Academy’s definition of a crab”.