"My idea of heaven is, eating pâté de foie gras to the sound of trumpets."

Sydney Smith Philosophy See all quotes by Sydney Smith →

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“When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law, the only effect it produces upon me is to convince me that he is an unalterable fool.”

“I am old, but I certainly have not that sign of old age, extolling the past at the expense of the present.”

“My living in Yorkshire was so far out of the way, that it was actually twelve miles from a lemon.”

“I look upon Switzerland as an inferior sort of Scotland.”

“Bishop Berkeley destroyed this world in one volume octavo; and nothing remained after his time, but mind — which experienced a similar fate from the hand of Mr. Hume, in 1737.”

“Madam, I have been looking for a person who disliked gravy all my life; let us swear eternal friendship.”

Resonant Thoughts

"Once you change your philosophy, you change your thought pattern. Once you change your thought pattern, you change your — your attitude. Once you change your attitude, it changes your behavior pattern…"

— Malcolm X

Social Activism1925–1965

#mind

"The thinking in the show, the hacker thinking of how do you approach every problem, I think they're hacking life more than they're hacking systems."

— Walter O'Brien

Business1910

#mind

"An ink bottle, which now seems impossibly quaint, was still thinkable as a symbol in 1970."

— Jonathan Franzen

Literature1959

#mind

"On sound volume and arrangement: "No, high volume levels cause less harm than the awkward arrangement of sounds. Assuming that the sound is a wave: if this wave is not balanced by itself, it causes gr…"

— Vangelis

Music1943–2022

#friendship