We, the lineal representatives of the successful enactors of one scene of slaughter after another, must, whatever more pacific virtues we may also possess, still carry about with us, ready at any moment to burst into flame, the smoldering and sinister traits of character by means of which they lived through so many massacres, harming others, but themselves unharmed.
William JamesRelated topics
burst carry character flame moment pacific ready scene slaughter whatever means othersRelated quotes
There is something about the literary life that repels me, all this desperate building of castles on cobwebs, the long-drawn acrimonious struggle to make something important which we all know will be gone forever in a few years, the miasma of failure which is to me almost as offensive as the cheap gaudiness of popular success.
Raymond Chandler
While standing on top of Everest, I looked across the valley, towards the other great peak, Makalu, and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed... it showed me that, even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn't the end of everything for me, by any means. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges.
Edmund Hillary
Now, since the time of Newton there had been a debate about whether light was a wave---that is, a traveling disturbance in some background medium---or a particle, which travels regardless of the presence of a background medium. The observation of Maxwell that electromagnetic waves must exist and that their speed was identical to that of light ended the debate: light was an electromagnetic wave.
Lawrence M. Krauss
Sir, money, money, the most charming of all things money, which will say more in one moment than the most elegant lover can in years. Perhaps you will say a man is not young I answer he is rich. He is not genteel, handsome, witty, brave, good-humored, but he is rich, rich, rich, rich, rich that one word contradicts everything you can say against him.
Henry Fielding
Because most people are not sufficiently employed in themselves, they run about loose, hungering for employment, and satisfy themselves in various supererogatory occupations. The easiest of these occupations, which have all to do with making things already made, is the making of people: it is called the art of friendship.
Laura Riding