“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." (Sherlock Holmes in The Fourth Sign, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"I have no faith in political arithmetic." (Adam Smith)

"The problem with computers is that there is not enough Africa in them." (Brian Eno, 1995)

“The power possessed by the Church proves, again, that the power of certain illusions is sufficiently great to create, at least momentarily, sentiments as contrary to the interests of the individual as they are to that of society--such as the love of the monastic life, the desire for martyrdom, the crusades, the religious wars, etc." (The Psychology of Revolution, Gustave Le Bon)

"Only silence is great; the rest is weakness" (Franz Kafka)

"...regaining consciousness, I found myself lying on the ground covered with pieces of wood. When I stood up in a frantic effort to look around, there was darkness. Terribly frightened, I thought I was alone in a world of death, and groped for any light." (Haruko Ogasawara a survivor of Hiroshima)

‎"There will come a time when the earth is sick and the animals and plants begin to die. Then the Indians will regain their spirit and gather people of all nations, colors and beliefs to join together in the fight to save the Earth" ~ Sioux prophecy

"...and we give express charge, that in our marches through the country, there be nothing compelled from the villages, nothing taken but paid for, none of the French upbraided or abused in disdainful language; for when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner."
Henry V, Scene VI

Quotes

"It is my job to create universes, as the basis of one novel after another. And I have to build them in such a way that they do not fall apart two days later. Or at least that is what my editors hope. However, I will reveal a secret to you: I like to build universes which do fall apart. I like to see them come unglued, and I like to see how the characters in the novels cope with this problem. I have a secret love of chaos. There should be more of it. Do not believe — and I am dead serious when I say this — do not assume that order and stability are always good, in a society or in a universe. The old, the ossified, must always give way to new life and the birth of new things. Before the new things can be born the old must perish. This is a dangerous realization, because it tells us that we must eventually part with much of what is familiar to us. And that hurts. But that is part of the script of life. Unless we can psychologically accommodate change, we ourselves begin to die, inwardly. What I am saying is that objects, customs, habits, and ways of life must perish so that the authentic human being can live. And it is the authentic human being who matters most, the viable, elastic organism which can bounce back, absorb, and deal with the new." (How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later, Philip K. Dick)

"Works of art are indeed always products of having been in danger, of having gone to the very end in an experience, to where man can go no further." (Rainer Maria Rilke, from Letters)

"I want to make people see." (Joseph Conrad)

“After Buddha was dead people showed his shadow for centuries afterwards in a cave,—an immense frightful shadow. God is dead: but as the human race is constituted, there will perhaps be caves for millenniums yet, in which people will show his shadow.—And we—we have still to overcome his shadow!” (The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzsche)

“There is nothing new in art, except talent." (Anton Chekhov)

“If we set as the goal creating a Central Asian Valhalla, we will lose.” (US Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, January 2007)

“ Nature is a labyrinth in which the very haste you move with will make you lose your way. ”

— Francis Bacon

“My trouble took the strangest form. I could not persuade myself that the men and women I met were not also another Beast People, animals half wrought into the outward image of human souls, and that they would presently begin to revert,—to show first this bestial mark and then that. But I have confided my case to a strangely able man,—a man who had known Moreau, and seemed half to credit my story; a mental specialist,—and he has helped me mightily, though I do not expect that the terror of that island will ever altogether leave me. At most times it lies far in the back of my mind, a mere distant cloud, a memory, and a faint distrust; but there are times when the little cloud spreads until it obscures the whole sky. Then I look about me at my fellow-men; and I go in fear. I see faces, keen and bright; others dull or dangerous; others, unsteady, insincere,—none that have the calm authority of a reasonable soul." (The Island of Dr. Moreau, H.G. Wells)