#stein

Numerous are the academic chairs, but rare are wise and noble teachers. Numerous and large are the lecture halls, but far from numerous the young people who genuinely thirst for truth and justice. Numerous are the wares that nature produces by the dozen, but her choice products are few. We all know that, so why complain? Was it not always thus and will it not always thus remain? Certainly, and one must take what nature gives as one finds it. But there is also such a thing as a spirit of the times, an attitude of mind characteristic of a particular generation, which is passed on from individual to individual and gives its distinctive mark to a society. Each of us has to his little bit toward transforming this spirit of the times. ↗

— Albert Einstein

#attitude

A book is like a man - clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#beauty

I'm in the back of a limousine with Charlie Chaplin and it’s 1928. Charlie is beautiful; his body language seems to skip, and reel and rhyme, heartbreaking and witty at the same time. It seems to promise a better world. ↗

— Geoff Ryman

#body-language #charlie-chaplin #history #memory #beauty

Bad philosophers are like slum landlords. It's my job to put them out of business. ↗

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

#business

There are as many worlds as there are kinds of days, and as an opal changes its colors and its fire to match the nature of a day, so do I. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#new-beginnings #steinbeck #travel #change

It is the human habit to think in centuries from a grandparent to a grandchild because it just does take about a hundred years for things to cease to have the same meaning as they did before, ↗

— Gertrude Stein

#four-lectures #gertrude-stein #history #narration #change

It's because I haven't courage,' said Samuel. 'I could never quite take the responsibility. When the Lord God did not call my name, I might have called his name - but I did not. There you have the difference between greatness and mediocrity. It's not an uncommon disease. But it's nice for a mediocre man to know that greatness must be the loneliest state in the world.' 'I'd think there are degrees of greatness,' Adam said. 'I don't think so,' said Samuel. 'That would be like saying there is a little bigness. No. I believe when you come to that responsibility the hugeness and you are alone to make your choice. On one side you have warmth and companionship and sweet understanding, and on the other - cold, lonely greatness. There you make your choice. I'm glad I chose mediocrity, but how am I to say what reward might have come with the other? None of my children will be great either, except perhaps Tom. He's suffering over the choosing right now. It's a painful thing to watch. And somewhere in me I want him to say yes. Isn't that strange? A father to want his son condemned to greatness! What selfishness that must be. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#father #greatness #john-steinbeck #mediocrity #son

When your mother is the grave and your father is a lightning bolt it tends to make you kind of horny. And death has a way of removing one's inhibitions. ↗

— Aussiescribbler

#frankenstein #horniness #monster #death

The whole series of my life appeared to me as a dream; I sometimes doubted if indeed it were all true, for it never presented itself to my mind with the force of reality. ↗

— Mary Shelley

#dreams

If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut. ↗

— Albert Einstein

#equality