#bse

The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#effects #himself #observer #observing #physics

Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#defined #desires #freedom #general #may

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#animal #bad #belief #believe #credulous

At the risk of appearing disingenuous, I don't really think of myself as 'writing humor.' I'm simply reporting on the world I observe, which is frequently hilarious. ↗

— Richard Russo

#disingenuous #frequently #hilarious #humor #i

If my career continues along its current arc, people will probably look at me and see a writer who is obsessed with the relationship between rich and poor and with how the rich somehow or other always manage to betray the poor, even when they don't mean to. ↗

— Richard Russo

#always #arc #betray #between #career

One of the best known, and one of the least intelligible, facts of literary history is the lateness, in Western European Literature at any rate, of prose fiction, and the comparative absence, in the two great classical languages, of what we call by that name. ↗

— George Saintsbury

#any #best #call #classical #comparative

The situation in the region is flammable and may explode at any moment, because of the crucial events and because of the absence of justice in executing the international legitimacy resolutions, regarding the Israeli Arab cause and the oppression on Palestinians by Israelis. ↗

— Ali A. Saleh

#any #arab #because #cause #crucial

God is absence. God is the solitude of man. ↗

— Jean-Paul Sartre

#god #man #solitude

Knowledge is recognition of something absent; it is a salutation, not an embrace. ↗

— George Santayana

#embrace #knowledge #recognition #salutation #something

The universal human laws - need, love for the beloved, fear, hunger, periodic exaltation, the kindness that rises up naturally in the absence of hunger/fear/pain - are constant, predictable, reliable, universal, and are merely ornamented with the details of local culture. ↗

— George Saunders

#beloved #constant #culture #details #exaltation