Life itself is an unsolved mystery", said the clergyman gravely.
Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.
Since we are not yet fully comfortable with the idea that people from the next village are as human as ourselves, it is presumptuous in the extreme to suppose we could ever look at sociable, tool-making creatures who are from other evolutionary paths and see not beasts, but brothers, not rivals, but fellow pilgrims journeying to the shrine of intelligence. . . The difference. . . is not in the creature judged, but in the creature judging.
There are all kinds of devices invented for the protection and preservation of countries: defensive barriers, forts, trenches, and the like. . . But prudent minds have as a natural gift one safeguard which is the common possession of all, and this applies especially to the dealings of democracies. What is this safeguard? Skepticism. This you must preserve. This you must retain. If you can keep this, you need fear no harm.
All speech is vain and empty unless it be accompanied by action.
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.
Success has a great tendency to conceal and throw a veil over the evil deeds of men.
God may not play dice with the universe, but something strange is going on with the prime numbers.
Whether I'm writing scripts or prose, the goal is identical. To give pleasure. Now whether I succeed or not is up for debate, and, mostly, I fail. But I try. I like to make things. It's a way to stay busy during one's ephemeral and confusing life.
They said my friends were just an unruly mob, and I should get a hair cut and get a new job.
I am justified. For I chose wisdom and the knowledge of good and evil ; and now there is no evil; and wisdom and good are one. It is enough.