Fear
is, I believe, a most effective tool in destroying the soul of an individual —
and the soul of a people.
Anwar el-Sadat (1918-1981) Egyptian soldier and statesman
Kids’ views are often just as
valid as the teachers’. The best teachers are the ones that know that.
Morley Saefer
If
William L. Safire
But
the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are
laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at
Carl Sagan (1934-1996)
American scientist and writer
To make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the
universe.
Carl Sagan (1934-1996)
American scientist and writer
My parents were not
scientists. They knew almost nothing about science. But in introducing me
simultaneously to skepticism and to wonder, they taught me the two uneasily
cohabiting modes of thought that are central to the scientific method.
Carl Sagan (1934-1996)
American scientist and writer The
Demon-Haunted World
When
you make the finding yourself -- even if you're the last person on Earth to see
the light -- you'll never forget it.
Carl Sagan (1934-1996)
American scientist and writer
Liberals
feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything
they've stolen.
Mort Sahl (b. 1927)
Canadian-American humorist
If
you want to build a ship, don't drum up the workers to gather wood, don't divide
the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless
sea.
Antoine de
Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944)
French aviator and writer
It is such a secret place, the land of tears.
Antoine de
Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944)
French aviator and writer
I have no right to say or do anything
that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him,
but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime.
Antoine de
Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944)
French aviator and writer
On
ne voit bien
qu’avec le coeur... L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux... (It is only with the heart that one can see
clearly. What is essential is invisible to the eyes.)
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944) French
aviator and writer
What garlic is to salad,
insanity is to art.
Augustus Saint-Gaudens Reminiscences
Most
people are worried about their own bellies and other people's souls, while we
should all be worried about other people's bellies and our own souls.
Rabbi
If
you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians,
nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.
Robert Cecil,
Lord Salisbury (1830-1903) British
politician
Few
men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
Sallust (c. 86-35 BC) Roman historian and politician [Gaius
Sellustius Crispus] History
Poor science. We look to it to extend our lifespan, explain our origins, chart the
stars, shrink the globe, and make us sexy until our dying day. But do we revere
it? Adore it?
Stephanie Salter
The
Jim Samuels (contemp.) American stand-up comic
Matters
of religion should never be matters of controversy. We neither argue with a
lover about his taste, nor condemn him, if we are just, for knowing so human a
passion.
George
Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet
and philosopher
To
knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep
delight of the blood.
George
Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet
and philosopher
My
atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the Universe and denies
only gods fashioned by men in their own image to be servants of their own human
interests.
George
Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet
and philosopher On My Friendly Critics
For
37 years I've practiced 14 hours a day, and now they call me a genius.
Pablo de Sarasate (1844-1908)
Spanish violinist and composer
Try
as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you
laugh, laugh like hell, and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be
alive. You will be dead soon enough.
William Saroyan (1908-1981)
American writer
If
you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.
Jean-Paul
Sartre (1905-1980) French philosopher and
writer
Like
all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth.
Jean-Paul
Sartre (1905-1980) French philosopher and
writer
We
cannot withdraw our cards from the game. Were we as silent and mute as stones,
our very passivity would be an act.
Jean-Paul
Sartre (1905-1980) French philosopher and
writer
Most
people are willing to pay more to be amused than to be educated.
Robert C.
Savage (contemp.)
A
man who is a master of patience is master of everything else.
George Savile, Marquis of
I cannot open the
windows from the outside without breaking them; but from the inside, you can
lift them with ease.
B. Sbragia
A
merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished.
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805) German poet, playwright, critic
The man who fears nothing is as powerful as he who is feared
by everybody.
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805) German poet, playwright, critic
You don’t raise
heroes, you raise sons. And if you treat them like sons, they’ll turn out to be
heroes, even if its just in your own eyes.
Walter M. Schirra,
Sr.
Sometimes you’re
ahead, sometimes you’re behind ... the race is long and, in the end, it’s only
with yourself.
Mary Schmich
The notes I handle no better
than many pianists, But the pauses between the notes -
ah, that is where the art resides!
Arthur Schnabel
Martyrdom
has always been a proof of the intensity, never of the correctness, of a
belief.
Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931)
Austrian physician, playwright, novelist
Büch der Spruche und Bedenken
We
forfeit three-fourths of ourselves to be like other people.
Arthur
Schopenhauer (1788-1860) German
philosopher
MR. KEATING: We don’t read and write poetry
because it is cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the
human race. And the human race is filled with passion. Medicine, law and
business are noble pursuits. They are necessary to sustain life. But poetry,
beauty, romance and love; these are what we stay alive for. You are here. Life
exists, and identity. The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.
What will your verse be?
Tom Schulman (contemp.) American screenwriter,
director Dead Poet's Society (1989)
MR. KEATING: Now, I’d like you to step
forward over here. They’re not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like
you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They
believe they’re destined for great things, just like many of you,
their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late
to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you
see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real
close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen,
you hear it? --- Carpe --- hear it? --- Carpe, carpe diem, seize
the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.
Tom Schulman (contemp.) American screenwriter,
director Dead Poet's Society (1989)
My life has no purpose, no
direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I’m happy. I can’t figure it out. What
am I doing right?
Charles Schulz
There’s nothing like unrequited love to take all the taste out of a peanut
butter sandwich.
Charles
Schulz
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and
more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in
the opposite direction.
E F Schumacher
You
can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Of course, you could do even
better with a dead squirrel.
Fred Schwartz
I
believe forgiving them is God's function. Our job is simply to arrange the
meeting.
Norman Schwartzkopf (b. 1934)
American military leader On forgiving the 9/11 terrorists
There are two
means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.
Albert Schweitzer
For over a
thousand years, Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of a
triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters and musicians
and strange animals from the conquered territories, together with carts laden
with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal
chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children, robed in white, stood with him in the chariot or
rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden
crown and whispering in his ear a warning that all glory is fleeting.
George C. Scott in
“Patton”
The
willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which
resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and
frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than
those of a loftier character.
Sir Walter
Scott (1771-1832) Scottish writer,
historian, biographer
They
couldn't hit an elephant at this dist --
John Sedgwick (1813-1864) American army officer Last words to troops during a Civil War
battle
There's
very little advice in men's magazines, because men don't think there's a lot
they don't know. Women do. Women want to learn. Men think, "I know what I'm
doing, just show me somebody naked."
Jerry
Seinfeld (b. 1955) American comedian
Where
lipstick is concerned, the important thing is not color, but to accept God's
final word on where your lips end.
Jerry
Seinfeld (b. 1955) American comedian
Throughout
history it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the
indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of
justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.
Haile Selassie
And when he came
to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and
gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their
terrible claws till Max said “BE STILL!” and tamed them with the magic trick of
staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once and they were
frightened and called him the most wild thing of all and made him king of all
wild things. “And now,” cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start!”
Maurice Sendak,
Where the Wild Things Are
It
is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and
probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits
singing about toilet paper.
Rod Serling (1924-1975)
American writer
I once cried because I had no shoes
until I met a man that had no class.
George Sessum
Sometimes you just have to throw your
hands up in the air and say, 'He was dead when I got here'.
George Sessum
And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice
cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, “How could it be so? It came
without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or
bags.” And he puzzled and puzzled ‘till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. “What if
Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store? What if Christmas, perhaps,
means a little bit more?”
I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a
necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong
end of a telescope and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.
Dr. Seuss
If you never did, you should.
These things are fun, and fun is good.
Dr. Seuss
Insisting
on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real
world.
Mary Shafer (contemp.) American aeronautics engineer
Truth
is the most powerful thing in the world, since even fiction itself must be
governed by it, and can only please by its resemblance.
Anthony
Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713) English politician and philosopher
One
of the tragedies of modern times is that people have come to believe that
something said by someone in the past, perhaps for illustrative or provocation
purposes, actually represents that person's beliefs at the time.
Idries Shah (1924-1996) Indian- British writer, Sufi teacher
This
above all: to thine own self be
true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to
any man.
William
Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and
poet Hamlet Act I, Scene III
There are more
things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
William
Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and
poet Hamlet
Tomorrow, and
tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last
syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to
dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is
a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
William
Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and
poet Macbeth
“If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d
here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream”
William
Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and
poet A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream
We
are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet The
Tempest, IV.I
Death during
adolescence feels unfair. We’re young. We’re invincible. Death is supposed to
come with old age. When death breaks into our lives and steals our innocence,
its finality leaves us unnaturally older. There are too many elderly young
people.
Why
are they always blaming everything on the rappers? Don't blame the youth. Blame
the wicked culture. Every Sunday night on TV, Angela Lansbury
taught these kids violence on _Murder, She Wrote_ ... Blame the reruns of _Have
Gun, Will Travel_ and _Gunsmoke_.
Rev. Al Sharpton (b. 1954)
American clergyman and activist
on media coverage of Gangsta Rappers
There's
more to life than a tiny tush, and you don't die from
embarrassment.
Carole Shaw (contemp.) American singer, publisher,
activist When
asked the most important things she'd learned in life
If
you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.
George
Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British
playwright and critic
Human
beings are the only animals of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid.
George
Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British
playwright and critic
Why should we
take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn’t!
George
Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British
playwright and critic
The
power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don’t
have it.
George
Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British
playwright and critic
Reading made Don Quixote a
gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.
George
Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British
playwright and critic
Custom
will reconcile people to any atrocity.
George
Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British
playwright and critic
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the
unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
George
Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British
playwright and critic
Maxims for Revolutionists
Assassination
is the extreme form of censorship.
George
Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British
playwright and critic
George
Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British
playwright and critic
Silence
is the most perfect expression of scorn.
George
Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British
playwright and critic
Life
does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be
serious when people laugh.
George
Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright
and critic
Patriotism
is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because
you were born in it.
George
Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British
playwright and critic
The
liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he
cannot believe anyone else.
George
Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British
playwright and critic
The
only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor; he took my measurement anew every
time he saw me, while all the rest went on with their old measurements and
expected them to fit me.
George
Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British
playwright and critic
We
should be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our
existence. -- on pain of liquidation.
George
Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright
and critic
When
a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.
George
Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British
playwright and critic
Lack
of money is the root of all evil.
George
Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British
playwright and critic Man and Superman (1903)
The
worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be
indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.
George
Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British
playwright and critic The Devil's Disciple
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two
vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the
desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a
shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip,
and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its
sculptor well those passions read
Which yet
survived, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that
mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the
pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works,
ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing
beside remains. Round
the decay
Of that colossal
wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and
level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe
Shelley
Soul meets soul
on lover’s lips.
Percy Bysshe
Shelley
It's
a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor
was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.
Alan Shepherd (1923-1998) American astronaut
A
rain came along last night and gently wet
Jeff Shepherd (contemp.) Jeff's
Weekly Quotations, #39 (1994)
In raising my
children, I have lost my mind but found my soul.
When someone attaches unkindness to criticism, she's angry. Angry people
need to criticize as an outlet for their anger. That's why you must reject
unkind criticism. Unkind criticism is never part of a meaningful critique of
you. Its purpose is not to teach or to help, its purpose is to punish.
Barbara Sher
American Author
Life isn't supposed to
be an all or nothing battle between misery and bliss. Life isn't supposed to be
a battle at all. And when it comes to happiness, well, sometimes life is just okay, sometimes it's comfortable, sometimes wonderful,
sometimes boring, sometimes unpleasant. When your day's not perfect, it's not a
failure or a terrible loss. It's just another day.
Barbara Sher
American Author
In order for [a]
monkey to type the thirteen letters opening Hamlet’s soliloquy [-- To be or not
to be --] by chance, it would take 26 to the power of 13 trials for success.
This is sixteen times as great as the total number of seconds that have elapsed
in the lifetime of our solar system.
Michael Shermer, Why People Believe Weird Things…, 1997
“I retain a few scruples.”
“Really?”
“Well, mostly to amuse myself, I’ll admit.”
Will Shetterly, Why
Cats Have No Lord
We forfeit three-forths of ourselves to be like other people.
Arthur Shopenhauer
Trouble
is a part of your life, and if you don't share it, you don't give the person
who loves you enough chance to love you enough.
I am not intending to imply insult or judgement
here but I am curious to know in order to respond to your posts in an
appropriate manner, so please forgive what appears to be, but is not in fact
intended as, an insulting question: Are you stupid?
Nature abhors a hero. For one thing, he violates the law of
conservation of energy. For another, how can it be the survival of the fittest
when the fittest keeps putting himself in situations
where he is most likely to be creamed?
Solomon Short
It
is threads, hundreds of tiny threads, which sew people together through the
years. That's what makes a marriage last -- more than passion or sex.
Simone Signoret (1921-1985)
German-French actress
I'm
not happy. I'm cheerful. There's a difference. A happy woman has no cares at
all. A cheerful woman has cares but has learned how to deal with them.
Beverly Sills (b. 1929) American opera singer
Said the old man, “I do that too.”
The little boy
whispered, “I wet my pants.”
“I do that too,”
laughed the old man.”
Said
the little boy, “I often cry.”
The old man
nodded, “So do I.”
“But worst of
all,” said the boy, “it seems
Grown-ups don’t
pay attention to me.”
And he felt the
warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
“I know what you
mean,” said the old man.
Shel Silverstein
The
great atrocities of our civilization have rarely been the acts of generals or
presidents or kings. They have been the doings of petty bureaucrats acting
within the strict confines of the law.
Alain Simon
Sometimes even
music can’t substitute for tears.
Paul Simon
All lies and
jest; still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.
Simon & Garfunkel, “The Boxer”
People talking
without speaking, People hearing without listening, People writing songs that
voices never share, and no one dare disturb the Sound of Silence.
Simon & Garfunkel, “The Sounds of Silence”
The Europeans were able to
conquer
Howard Simpson
They still
believe in God, the family, angels, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation,
and other obsolete stuff.
Isaac Singer, on why he
began writing for children
It is admirable
for a man to take his son fishing, but there is a special place in heaven for
the father who takes his daughter shopping.
John Sinor
Love is but
the discovery of ourselves in others, and delight in the recognition.
Alexander
Smith
“I did not want this. Not this life -- not this pain. There is a limit to what
humanity can endure.”
“You’d think there must be.”
David C
Smith, Master of Evil
I like aphorisms, they give all the appearance of wisdom without
any of that tedious thinking.
Derek Smith
It had long since
come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let
things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.
Elinor
Smith
To see what students learn in school, look at how they leave school. If
they leave thinking that reading and writing are difficult and pointless, that
mathematics is confusing, that history is irrelevant, and that art is a bore,
then that is what they have been taught. People learn what is demonstrated to
them, and this reality will not change to suit the convenience of politicians
and educations administrators.
Frank Smith Insult
to Intelligence, 1986, p.ix
We underrate our brains and our intelligence. Education has become such a
complicated and overregulated activity that learning is regarded as something
difficult that the brain would rather not do... But reluctance to learning
cannot be attributed to the brain. Learning is one of the brain's primary
functions, its constant concern, and we become restless and frustrated if there
is no learning to be done. We are all capable of high and unsuspected learning
accomplishments without effort.
Frank Smith Insult
to Intelligence, 1986, p.18
SERENDIPITY: I have issues with anyone who treats faith as a burden instead of
a blessing. You people don't celebrate your faith; you mourn it.
Kevin Smith (b. 1970) American writer, film director, actor Dogma
(1999)
People who object
to weapons aren’t abolishing violence, they’re begging for rule by brute force,
when the biggest, strongest animals among them were always automatically
“right.” Guns ended that, and social democracy is a hollow farce without an
armed populace to make it work.
L. Neil Smith, The Probability Broach
If
you grow up too much you lose what makes you human.
Leah Smith
To
deny we need and want power is to deny that we hope to be effective.
Liz Smith (b. 1923) American entertainment journalist
There
are few sorrows, however poignant, in which a good income is of no avail.
All Reformers, however strict their social conscience, live
in houses just as big as they can pay for.
One cardinal rule
of marriage should never be forgotten: “Give little, give seldom, and above
all, give grudgingly.” Otherwise, what could have been a proper marriage could
become an orgy of sexual lust.
Ruth Smythers , Marriage advice for women, 1894
By
all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one,
you'll become a philosopher.
Socrates (c.470-399 BC) Greek philosopher
If
the whole world depends on today's youth, I can't see the world lasting another
100 years.
Socrates (c.470-399 BC) Greek philosopher
If
only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere
insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them
from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing
good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is
willing to destroy a part of his own heart?
Alexander Solzhenitzen (b. 1918)
Russian novelist, émigré The Gulag Archipelago
You only have
power over people as long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when
you’ve robbed a man of everything he’s no longer in your power --he’s free
again.
Alexander Solzhenitzen (b. 1918) Russian
novelist, émigré
Ever
negotiate with lawyers at a huge company? If they saw you drowning 100 feet
from the shore, they'd through you a 51-foot rope and say they went more than
halfway.
Paul Somerson (contemp.) American technology writer PC
Computing (1996)
I have learned of
the power of words, and I know that as long as I live I shall choose no other
weapon.
S.P. Somtow
Those calamities
which we inflict upon ourselves are those which cause the greatest pain.
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex
If you are never scared, embarassed, or hurt, it means you never take chances.
Julia Soul
Live
as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life.
Robert Southey
I am of nothing
special; of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts, and I’ve
led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon
be forgotten, but I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul,
and to me, this has always been enough.
Nicholas Sparks
Altruism is a fine motive, but if you want results, greed
works much better.
Henry Spencer
Trust
yourself. You know more than you think you do.
Benjamin
Spock (1903-1998) American pediatrician,
writer, activist
The Common
Sense Book of Baby and Child Care,
"Preparing for the Baby" (1946)
If you speak
three languages, you are trilingual. If you speak two languages, you are
bilingual. If you speak one language, you are American.
Sonny Spoon
Under
any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some ordinance under
which you can be booked.
Robert D. Sprecht (contemp.) RAND Corp. analyst
Those who say it is better to die free than to live as a
slave must think long and truly before they say it.
Christopher Stassheff
Morality
is only moral when it is voluntary.
There’s a
responsibility in being a person. It’s more than just taking up space where air
would be.
John Steinbeck, East
of
Whether
we like it or not, the natural and the human environment are inseparable. It
would be a great mistake to try to completely erase human traces from any part
of the landscape. We need to protect the natural world, but we also need to
protect reminders of the human past so that we can learn from them.
Bonnie Stepenoff (b. 1949)
American writer "Landscapes
Remember"
The
key to being a good manager is to keep the people who hate me away from those
who are still undecided.
Casey Stergal
Universities,
even modern universities, are not in the business of maintaining security over
information. On the contrary, universities, as institutions, predate the
'information economy' by many centuries and are not-for-profit cultural
entities, whose reason for existence (purportedly) is to discover truth, codify
it through techniques of scholarship, and then teach it. Universities are meant
to pass the torch of civilization, not just download data into student skulls,
and the values of the academic community are strongly at odds with those of all
would-be information empires. Teachers at all levels, from kindergarten up,
have proven to be shameless and persistent software and data pirates.
Universities do not merely 'leak information' but vigorously broadcast free
thought.
Bruce Sterling, The Hacker
Crackdown
Silent gratitude isn't very much use to anyone.
G. B. Stern (1890-1973) British Writer [Gladys Bronwyn Stern]
When I was very
young, I was disgracefully intolerant but when I passed the thirty mark I prided myself on having learned the beautiful lesson
that all things were good, and equally good. That, however, was really
laziness. Now, thank goodness, I’ve sorted out what matters and what doesn’t.
And I’m beginning to be intolerant again.
G. B. Stern (1890-1973) British
Writer [Gladys Bronwyn Stern]
It
is the
David Sternlight
sci.crypt
A
free society is a place where it's safe to be unpopular.
Adlai
There
is nothing more horrifying than stupidity in action.
Adlai
The
world has no room for cowards. We must all be ready somehow to toil, to suffer,
to die. And yours is not the less noble because no drum beats before you when
you go out into your daily battlefields, and no crowds shout about your coming
when you return from your daily victory or defeat.
Robert Louis
Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist,
novelist, poet
To
know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you
ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.
Robert Louis
Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist,
novelist, poet
The
cruelest lies are often told in silence.
Robert Louis
Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist,
novelist, poet "Virginibus Puerisque" (1881)
Pornography tells lies about
women. But pornography tells the truth about men.
John
Stoltenberg
A little flood, a simple
famine, plagues of locusts everywhere,
Or
a cataclysmic earthquake, I'd accept with some despair.
But no, you send us
Congress! Good God, sir, was that fair?
Peter Stone (b. 1930) American writer 1776,
with Sherman Edwards (play 1969)
You can take no
credit for beauty at sixteen. But if you are beautiful at sixty, it will be
your own soul’s doing.
Marie Carmichael Stopes
Eternity
is a terrible thought. I mean, where's it going to end?
Tom Stoppard (b. 1937) Czech-English playwright and screenwriter Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern are Dead (1967)
G:
I think I have it. A man talking sense to himself is
no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself.
R:
Or just as mad.
G:
Or just as mad.
R:
And he does both.
G:
So there you are.
R:
Stark raving sane.
Tom Stoppard (b. 1937) Czech-English
playwright and screenwriter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
(1967)
The idea of God
is slightly more plausible than the alternative proposition that, given enough
time, some green slime could write Shakespeare’s sonnets.
Tom Stoppard (b. 1937)
Czech-English playwright and screenwriter
Our names shouted
in a certain dawn...a message... a summons... There must have been a moment, at
the beginning, where we could have said - “no.” But some how
we missed it.
Tom Stoppard (b. 1937) Czech-English
playwright and screenwriter
I’ve lost all capacity for
disbelief. I’m not sure I could even rise to a little gentle skepticism.
Tom Stoppard (b. 1937)
Czech-English playwright and screenwriter
We are slaves to
a language that makes up for in obscurity what it lacks in style.
Tom Stoppard (b. 1937)
Czech-English playwright and screenwriter
We cross our
bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for
our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once
our eyes watered.
Tom Stoppard (b. 1937)
Czech-English playwright and screenwriter
I agree with
everything you say, but I would attack to the death your right to say it.
Tom Stoppard (b. 1937)
Czech-English playwright and screenwriter
What
makes a marriage last is for a man and a woman to continue to have things to
argue about.
Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
The
problem with an alarm clock is that what seems sensible when you set it seems
absurd when it goes off.
Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer "The Rodeo Murder"
The
bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left
undone.
Harriet
Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
So
we're just in this maze for now, trying to figure out if that glint in the
distance is daylight, or a Minotaur with an Uzi.
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954)
American screenwriter, producer, writer
The
universe considers me its personal cat toy.
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954)
American screenwriter, producer, writer
VIR:
I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and
stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors
come with too high a price. I want to look up into your lifeless eyes and wave,
like this. Can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954)
American screenwriter, producer, writer
DELENN: The Universe puts us in places where we can learn. They are
never easy places. But they are right. Wherever we are is the right place, at
the right time. The pain that sometimes comes is part of the process of
constantly being born.
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954)
American screenwriter, producer, writer
LONDO: The quiet
ones change the universe. The loud ones just take the credit.
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954) American
screenwriter, producer, writer
G'KAR: By G'Quon I
can't recall the last time I was in a fight like that! No moral ambiguity, no
hopeless battle against ancient and overwhelming forces. They were the bad
guys, as you say, and we were the good guys! And they made a very satisfying
thump when they hit the floor!
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954)
American screenwriter, producer, writer
MARCUS: Touch passion when it
comes your way...It’s rare enough as it is. Don’ t
walk away when it calls you by name.
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954) American
screenwriter, producer, writer
G’KAR: The universe is run by the complex interweaving of three
elements: Energy, Matter, and Enlightened Self-Interest.
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954) American
screenwriter, producer, writer
LONDO: There comes
a time when you look into the mirror and realize that what you see is all that
you will ever be. Then you accept it, or you kill yourself. Or, you stop
looking into mirrors.
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954) American
screenwriter, producer, writer
MARCUS: You know, I used to think it was
awful that life was so unfair; then I thought, 'Wouldn't
it be much worse if life *were* fair, and all the terrible things that happened
to us come because we actually deserved them?' So now I take great comfort in
the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954)
American screenwriter, producer, writer
DELENN: Without the hope that things will
get better, that our inheritors will have a future that is richer and fuller
than our own, life is pointless, and evolution is vastly overrated.
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954) American
screenwriter, producer, writer
G’KAR: Greater than the death of flesh is
the death of hope; the death of dreams; against this peril we can never
surrender. The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transitions to be
borne in moments of revelation.
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954) American
screenwriter, producer, writer
LONDO: Do you understand? No,
of course not. You have that vacant look in your eyes that says, ‘Put my
head to your ear, and you shall hear the ocean.’
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954) American
screenwriter, producer, writer
DELENN: The heart does not recognize
boundaries on a map, or wars, or political policies. The heart does as the
heart does.
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954) American
screenwriter, producer, writer
IVANOVA:
You're having delusions of grandeur again.
MARCUS: Well, if you're going to have delusions, you may as
well go for the really satisfying ones.
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954)
American screenwriter, producer, writer
LONDO: The universe is already mad.
Everything else is redundant.
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954) American
screenwriter, producer, writer
G’KAR: No
dictator, no invader can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms
forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom.
Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand.
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954) American
screenwriter, producer, writer
GARIBALDI: It’s
easy to find something worth dying for...the hard part is finding something
worth living for...
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954) American
screenwriter, producer, writer
G’KAR: Our
thoughts form the universe, they always matter.
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954) American
screenwriter, producer, writer
ZATHRAS: Yes, Zathras is
used to being beast of burden to other people's needs. Very
sad life. Probably have very sad death. But at least there is symmetry.
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954)
American screenwriter, producer, writer
LONDO:
Ah, arrogance and stupidity all in the same package. How efficient of you.
J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954)
American screenwriter, producer, writer
You
have been told that Real Life is not like college, and you have been correctly
informed. Real Life is more like high school.
Meryl Streep (b. 1949) American actress
Commencement Address
After
finding no qualified candidates for the position of principal, the school board
is extremely pleased to announce the appointment of David Steele to the post.
Philip Streiffer American
school superintendent,
I loathe people who keep dogs. They are
cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves.
August
Strindberg
To fall in love is easy, even to remain in love is not
difficult; our human loneliness is cause enough. But it is a hard quest worth
making to find a comrade though who’s steady presence one becomes steadily the
person one desires to be.
Anna Loise
Strong
There
are only two kinds of programming languages: those people always bitch about
and those nobody uses.
Bjarne Stroustrup
A clay pot sitting in the sun will always be a clay pot. It
has to go through the white heat of the furnace to become porcelain.
Mildred W. Struven American
Christian Scientist, housewife
To
sit alone with my conscience will be judgement enough
for me.
Charles
William Stubbs (1845-1912) British cleric
(Bishop of Truro)
A great book
should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live
several lives while reading it.
William Styron
MRS.
CADBURY: Tell me what you know about yourself.
ANNE SHIRLEY: Well, it really isn't worth telling, Mrs.
Cadbury... but if you let me tell you what I *imagine* about myself you'd find
it a lot more interesting.
Kevin
Sullivan (contemp.)
Canadian screenwriter, director, producer
Anne of Green
Gables (with J. Wiesenfeld,
books by L. M. Montgomery) (1985)
To this day, no one has settled the controversy over whether Christ's body is literally present in the bread and wine of the Communion. This is unfortunate, since many people were executed for their divergent opinions on this issue. It would be nice to know which ones got burned by mistake.Frank Sulloway, Born to Rebel
Men
never cling to their dreams with such tenacity as at the moment when they are
losing faith in them, and know it, but do not dare yet to confess it to
themselves.
William
Graham Sumner (1840-1910) American
economist and sociologist
May
your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you strike, fall like a
thunderbolt.
Sun-Tzu (fl. 6th C. AD) Chinese general and philosopher [a.k.a. Sun Wu]
Par-runts
of rugmonkeys *everywhere* are worrying that their
children will want to become Force-wielding breath-masked Sithlords? Sweet
Cream-of-Jesus on TOAST POINTS, people!! So now we have to fear that every
crib-lizard that loves Anakin Skywalker will become Evil Incarnate. It's been a
lovely planet, but I think I need to go, now.
Alan D. Swan (contemp.)
A wedding
anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance, and
tenacity. The order varies for any given year.
Paul Sweeney
[But] maybe what
is important doesn’t change. I learned this from Bob Haggart,
a good friend in my hometown of
Joel L. Swerdlow (contemp) Making Sense of the Millennium
We
have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one
another.
Jonathan
Swift (1667-1745) English writer and
churchman Thoughts on Various Subjects
When
a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign: that the
dunces are all in confederacy against him.
Jonathan
Swift (1667-1745) English writer and
churchman Thoughts on Various Subjects
Happiness
is an imaginary condition formerly often attributed by the living to the dead,
now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.
Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
Hungarian-American psychiatrist, educator The Second Sin, "Happiness"
People
often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is
not something one finds, it is something one creates.
Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
Hungarian-American psychiatrist, educator The Second sin, "Personal Conduct" (1973)