"He was no respecter of windy theories about inborn racial traits, but there was something to be said for traditions so ancient as to be unconscious and ineradicable."

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“Life isn’t a fairy tale; the knight who kills the dragon doesn’t necessarily get the princess. So what? Who’d want to live in a cosmos less rich and various than the real one?”

“On our Earth, we’ve perforce learned all the knavery there is to know.”

“Men, whose span is cruelly short, rush nonetheless to death in their youth as to a maiden’s arms.”

“It was lonely, not even knowing yourself.”

“Heim ignored the mob scene on the 3V, rested his eyes on the cold serenity of the Milky Way and thought that this, at least, would endure.”

“What’s the point of our living all these centuries if we haven’t grown up even a little?”

Resonant Thoughts

"This preposterous quackery flourishes lushly in the back reaches of the Republic, and begins to conquer the less civilized folk of the big cities. As the oldtime family doctor dies out in the country …"

— H. L. Mencken

Literature1880–1956

#life

"The major sweep of this book's living is too often marred by qualifying. It is hedged about with ifs and buts and if onlys and howevers, excuses for a life that is about to shut its covers for the las…"

— Peter Greenaway

Art1942

#life

"Abu Hurayra 'Abdu'r-Rahman ibn Sakhr said that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Allah does not look at your bodies nor your forms but He looks at your hearts and…"

— Prophet Muhammad ﷺ

Religion570–632

#life

"In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theatre before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin. It is a bles…"

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Philosophy1788–1860

#family