#ok

Academic masochism reflects a metaphysical prejudice that the truth should be a hard-won treasure, that what is read or learnt easily must therefore be flighty and inconsequential. The truth should be like a mount to be scaled, it is dangerous, obscure and demanding. Under the light of the library reading room, the academics' motto reads: the more a text makes me suffer, the truer it must be. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#books #love #truth #love

Books and drafts mean something quite different for different thinkers. One collects in a book the lights he was able to steal and carry home swiftly out of the rays of some insight that suddenly dawned on him, while another thinker offers us nothing but shadows - images in black and grey of what had built up in his soul the day before. ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#drafts #ideas #insight #notes #thinkers

God knows what possessed me, but having that science book in my hand propelled me to immediate action. So I hit her with it. ↗

— Melina Marchetta

#hit #ivy #josephine #science-book #science

Horned humans are not unknown to medical science as there is a rare skin disease, which goes by the name of ‘Cornu Cutaneum’, a cutaneous growth, which resembles a horn and grows from the scalp. ↗

— Carole Carlton

#carole-carlton #cornu-cutaneum #horned-humans #horns-from-the-scalp #imbolc

Once the cells in a biological machine stop working, it can never be started again. It goes into a cascade of decay, falling toward disorder and randomness. Except in the case of viruses. They can turn off and go dead. Then, if they come in contact with a living system, they switch on and multiply. (194) ↗

— Richard Preston

#nature

Only the sixth sense can expose what the other five have hidden. ↗

— Matthew A. Petti

#book-of-revelation #great-pyramid #greek-gods #religion-and-science #religion-christianity

I was flipping channels, watching this cheerleading program on MTV. They took a field hockey girl and “transformed” her into a cheerleader by the end of the show. I was just wondering: what if she liked field hockey better? ↗

— Jess C. Scott

#books #cool #culture #desire #emotion

Americans worship technology. It's an inherent trait in the national zeitgeist. ↗

— Max Brooks

#max-brooks #science-fiction #technology #world-war-z #zombie

The book itself is a curious artifact, not showy in its technology but complex and extremely efficient: a really neat little device, compact, often very pleasant to look at and handle, that can last decades, even centuries. It doesn't have to be plugged in, activated, or performed by a machine; all it needs is light, a human eye, and a human mind. It is not one of a kind, and it is not ephemeral. It lasts. It is reliable. If a book told you something when you were fifteen, it will tell it to you again when you're fifty, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you're reading a whole new book." (Staying Awake: Notes on the alleged decline of reading, Harper's Magazine, February 2008) ↗

— Ursula K. Le Guin

#technology

Only bad books have good endings. If a book is any good, it's ending is always bad - because you don't want the book to end. ↗

— Pseudonymous Bosch

#secret