The corner of quotes

We must not say that science is useful because it allows us to build machines. It must be said: machines are useful because they allow us to do science.

Geological history shows us that life is only a short episode between two eternities of death, and that in this very episode conscious thought has lasted and will last only for a moment. The thought is only a flash in the middle of a long night, but it is that flash that is all.

In life, nothing is to be feared, everything is to be understood.

Beautiful chains of reason, all simple and easy.

There is nothing entirely in our power, only our thoughts.

Compound interest is the greatest force in the universe.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Some books are tasted, others are devoured, others are chewed and digested slowly.

Do not laugh, lament, hate but understand.

It is not the most powerful species that survives but the one that best adapts to change.

Electricity will be so cheap that only the rich will still light up with candles.

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.

I look forward to the day when we invest the equivalent of the cost of one or two rockets in the search for a more adequate understanding of human relationships.

We already have the knowledge that, when applied, would help to reduce the tensions raised by the industrial, racial and international problems that currently exist.

I am increasingly convinced that we will eventually discover, with regard to personality and behaviour, laws as significant for human understanding or human progress as those of gravity and thermodynamics.

If I succeed in making a large number of people understand the resources of unused knowledge already available in the field of interpersonal relations, then I will consider myself highly rewarded.

Neither the Bible, nor the prophets – neither Freud, nor the search – nor the revelations emanating from God or from men – can take precedence over my direct and personal experience.

It is not because it is infallible that my experience is authoritative. It is the basis of any authority because it can always be verified by primary means. That’s why her frequent mistakes – her fallibility – can always be corrected.

One of the deepest needs of people is to be fully heard, fully understood, and fully accepted.

Perfection is achieved not because there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away.

To love is not to look at each other, it is to look together in the same direction.

When the truth is not free, freedom is not true.

The real question is not whether machines think but whether humans think.

Earth is the cradle of humanity, but who wants to spend their whole life in a cradle?

The print media changed the mind as gunpowder changed the war.

A society willing to sacrifice a little freedom for a little security does not deserve either and ends up losing both!

If God did not exist, it would have to be invented.

We must learn to live together as brothers, or we will all die together as idiots.

No free man will be seized, imprisoned or executed in any way without a legal judgment of his peers.

From sublime to ridiculous, there is only one step.

Everybody knew it was impossible to do. Then one day someone came in who didn’t know, and he did.

It is a fact that the masses swallow a big lie more easily than a small one.

You get more by politely asking for a gun in your hand than just politely asking.

Commercial society, definition: ingenious device promoting individual profit without individual responsibility.

In a car race, to arrive first, you must first arrive.

Beware of a computer you can’t throw out the window.

Who does not know how to be servant could not be master.

If you have a library and a garden, you have everything you need.

Disorder is the order seen differently.

Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. In French: Happy he who penetrates the secret cause of things.

Glory is gained by doing what is worth writing and writing what is worth reading.

Doubt is the beginning of wisdom.

The totality is more than the sum of the parts.

Astronomy forces the soul to turn to the heavens and guides us from this world to another.

The wise man follows his own direction.

Words have the power to destroy and heal. When they are just and generous, they can change the world.

The wise man devotes himself to meditation; the ignorant refuses to do so. Learn to recognize what makes you progress and what hinders your progress.

Choose a job you love and you won’t have to work a single day of your life.

The man who moves a mountain begins with the small stones.

The greatest glory is not never to fall, but to rise at every fall.

The real fault is the one we don’t correct.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him to fish, and you feed him forever.

The victor triumphs even before going to war, the vanquished goes to war and then dreams of triumph.

The whole world is a huge stage! All, men and women, actors who play their exits, who play their entrances there; each one plays many roles in his life!

If music feeds love, then play!

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.

Live your life as if you had to live it forever.

We like to guess others, but we don’t like to be guessed.

The painter who is about to paint the sun makes theories, and when he wants to start, the sun is no longer there.

The best way to impose an idea on others is to make them believe it comes from them.

Only one who knows how to leave any shore discovers new lands.

Eternity is long... especially towards the end.

The verb love is difficult to conjugate: its past is not simple, its present is only indicative, and its future is always conditional.

A life is worth nothing, but nothing is worth a life.

We kill a man, we are a murderer. We kill millions of men, we are a conqueror. We kill them all, we are a god.

Art is not the representation of a beautiful thing but the representation of a beautiful thing.

Who sees the human figure correctly? The photographer, the mirror or the painter?

Some painters turn the sun into a yellow spot; others turn a yellow spot into a sun.

Only the peaceful calm of a lake can stem the furious force of a torrent.

We can’t turn the tide, but we can turn the sails.

Ab uno disce omnes. In French: From one point, get to know all the others.

Why don’t we take the time to do it right the first time when we always find time to do it again?

Which is the crazier of the two: the crazier himself or whoever follows him?

The best is the enemy of the good.

Cutting a small branch of a shrub at once is very easy, but cutting two at once is much harder.

Don’t throw the arrow that turns against you!

If you have many riches, give of your good; if you have little, give of your heart.

If you’re right, get your foot in the stirrup.

Hunt two hares at a time and you won’t catch any.

The very or the too is the enemy of the "just what it takes".

The true blind are not those who have sick eyes, but those who cannot see, or do not want to see.