Serious Quotes

When a distinguished and elderly scientist says that something is possible, he's almost certainly correct; when he says something is impossible, he's very probably wrong.
Arthur C. Clarke

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Arthur C. Clarke

Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.
Vaclav Havel

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them.
George Bernard Shaw

Those who believe without reason cannot be convinced by reason.
James Randi

The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.
Thomas Jefferson

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
Samuel Johnson

I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.
Paul Anderson

If a book is worth reading at all it is worth reading more than once ... Suspense drags you on; appreciation causes you to linger.
William Gerhardie

Simple things should be simple and complex things should be possible.
Alan Kay

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The key to performance is elegance, not battalions of special cases. The terrible temptation to tweak should be resisted unless the payoff is really noticeable.
Jon Bentley and Doug McIlroy

I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but the people. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take power from them, but to inform them by education.
Thomas Jefferson (in 1820)

If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
Winston Churchill

Nothing is so strong as gentleness; nothing so gentle as real strength.
St. Francis de Sales

We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert.
J. Robert Oppenheimer

When you were born you cried, and the world rejoiced. Try to live your life so that when you die you will rejoice, and the world will cry.
Unknown

As complexity rises, precise statements lose meaning, and meaningful statements lose precision.
Lotfi Zadeh

A charlatan makes obscure what is clear; a thinker makes clear what is obscure.
Hugh Kingsmill

Good judgement is the result of experience ... Experience is the result of bad judgement.
Fred Brooks

Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation, and is thus a source of civilized delight.
William Safire

The question shouldn't be, "Will it happen?" but "Do we want it to happen, and can we help it happen?"
Peter G. W. Keen

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