#aria

Philosophy cannot be taught; it is the application of the sciences to truth. ↗

— Alexandre Dumas

#philosophy #truth #science

My dad said to me a few years ago: "There's no harm in thinking." We were talking about Crazy Uncle Albert and whether it was right to use your brain to build weapons. He said, "You can't expect people not to think. Not to know things just because they COULD be bad." I said, "Yeah, but then they built it and a hundred thousand people died." My dad laughed and said there were a lot of steps between the thinking and the doing. Which I know, duh. All I was saying is that when you think of doing something, you don't always know the consequences. For a while people THOUGHT about building the bomb, but nothing happened. In the end it was a lot of different people doing a lot of different things, most of which had nothing to do with the bomb, that did make it happen. I think about that sometimes. Who was the person who had the first thought, the one that started it all? And after they had the thought, what was the first thing they did? I know my uncle never thought, Hey, all this great science- one day I'll use it to kill a whole bunch of people. You just look at his picture; he's not that kind of person. And yet, I guess in a way he sort of is. ↗

— Mariah Fredericks

#head-games #judith-ellis #mariah-fredericks #thinking #science

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy? ↗

— Mahatma Gandhi

#fascism #liberty #loss #politics #society

The real heroes are the librarians and teachers who at no small risk to themselves refuse to lie down and play dead for censors. ↗

— Bruce Coville

#heroes #librarians #teachers #teacher

You can judge a man's true character by the way he treats his fellow animals. ↗

— Paul McCartney

#beatles #character #man #vegetarianism #true

Adult librarians are like lazy bakers: their patrons want a jelly doughnut, so they give them a jelly doughnut. Children’s librarians are ambitious bakers: 'You like the jelly doughnut? I’ll get you a jelly doughnut. But you should try my cruller, too. My cruller is gonna blow your mind, kid. ↗

— John Green

#books #donuts #librarians #simile #kids

FALLING STARS: Do you remember still the falling stars that like swift horses through the heavens raced and suddenly leaped across the hurdles of our wishes -- do you recall? And we did make so many! For there were countless numbers of stars: each time we looked above we were astounded by the swiftness of their daring play, while in our hearts we felt safe and secure watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate, knowing somehow we had survived their fall. ↗

— Rainer Maria Rilke

#rainer-maria-rilke #security

Every reader his or her book. Every book its reader. ↗

— S.R. Ranganathan

#libraries #librarians

Not me, of course, as I am now officially a spinster librarian and must stay home with my cat and drink tea. ↗

— Eleanor Brown

#librarians

It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;—it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others. ↗

— Jane Austen

#intimacy #marianne-dashwood #openness #opportunity #self-disclosure