Quotations

Some of my favorite quotations:

Scientists

“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” –Galileo Galilei

“I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.” — Isaac Newton

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the the universe.” — Albert Einstein

“It’s harder to crack a prejudice than an atom.” — Albert Einstein

“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” —Richard Feynman

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” — Max Planck

“Science progresses one funeral at a time.” — Max Planck

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” — Stephen Hawking

Philosophers

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” — Plato

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” — Aristotle

“Ours is a world in which justice is accidental, and innocence no protection.” — Euripedes, 400 BC.

Fictional characters

“It is a capital mistake to theorize in advance of the facts,” [“The Adventure of the Second Stain”]  — Sherlock Holmes

“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact,” [“The Boscombe Valley Mystery”] — Sherlock Holmes

“Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing, it may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different.” — Sherlock Holmes

“You will not apply my precept,” he said, shaking his head. “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” — Sherlock Holmes

“A wise man seeks proof and disregards what the common rabble say.” — Tamino, in the Magic Flute

“I am not to be intimidated into anything so wholly unreasonable.” — Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

“Curiouser and curiouser!” Cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English). ― via Lewis Carroll

“She explained what its effect on her had been, and how gradually all her former prejudices had been removed.” — Elizabeth Bennet, in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”.

Bravery

“The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride” — Volodymyr Zelenskyy 

“I’d rather die standing than live on my knees” — Charlie Hebdo

“How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause. Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?” — Sophie Scholl

Judges

“It is dangerous to take into consideration elements that are not objectively appreciable, with there being an infinite number of reactions for individual human beings even in the most shocking of tragedies” — Claudio Hellmann  ( On the acquittal of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito )

“THE COURT FINDS that the proof is not evident or presumption great that the Defendant committed the crimes charged in the Indictment.” — Judge Roza Mroz, September 5th, 2013, granting bail to Debra Milke

Other

“Keep your friends close, but enemies closer.” — Michael Corleone

“Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.” — Clarence Darrow

“Punishment for its own sake, without room for hope, is a form of torture, not of punishment.” — Pope Francis

“You can judge a society by how well it treats its prisoners”. — Fyodor Dostoevsky

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” — Edmund Burke

“There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.” –Charles de Montesquieu

“Throughout the web of the English criminal law one golden thread is always to be seen – that it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner’s guilt…” — Viscount Sankey, of Moreton in the County of Gloucester.

“It is not considered ignominious, nor disgraceful for a great earl to take a poor and mean woman to wife; neither, on the other hand, is it worthy of blame, or too difficult a thing for a countess to promote to honor a gallant youth.” — Elizabeth de Clare‘s mum

“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.” — George Bernard Shaw

“Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is never try” — Homer Simpson

“The system works. Just ask Claus von Bülow” — Bart Simpson

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” — Dr. Seuss

“It were better that Ten Suspected Witches should escape, than that one Innocent Person should be Condemned.” — Increase Mather

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.” — Charles Mackay Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.” — Mark Twain

“Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;’twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name. Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.” — William Shakespeare

“Perfect is the Enemy of good” — Voltaire
or
“Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late, the best never comes.” — Watson-Watt
via Wikipedia

“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” –Abraham Lincoln

“Condemnation before investigation is certain to leave one in a state of everlasting ignorance.” – Chaucer

“I will not say that your mulberry trees are dead; but I am afraid they’re not alive.” — Jane Austen, in a letter

The 10 commandments of Logic ( source )

11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

Corinthians 13