"It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese."

- Carl Sagan


"Ubi dubium ibi libertas." 
(Where there is doubt, there is freedom)

- Latin Proverb


"Many a man hath verily believed he hath seen a spirit externally
before him, when it hath been only an internal image dancing
in his own brain."

- Thomas Ady


"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

- Albert Einstein


"It is not the function of our government to keep
the citizen from falling into error; it is the function
of the citizen to keep the government from falling
into error."

- Robert H. Jackson, U. S. Supreme Court Justice


"The important thing is not to stop questioning."

- Albert Einstein


"Its first and most immediate purpose rested on the
belief that a union of government and religion tends
to destroy government and degrade religion."

- Justice Black, on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment


"But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

- Carl Sagan


"The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in
the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability.  Our business in every generation
is to reclaim a little more land."

- T. H. Huxley


"The doors of Heaven and Hell are adjacent and identical."

- Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ


"We mount from this dull Earth, and viewing it from on high,
consider whether Nature has laid out all her cost and finery upon
this small speck of Dirt.  So, like Travellers into other distant countries,
we shall be better able to judge of what's done at home, know how to
make a true estimate of, and set its own value upon every thing.  We
shall be less apt to admire what this World calls great, shall nobly
despise those Trifles the generality of Men set their Affections on,
when we know that there are a multitude of such Earths inhabited
and adorn'd as well as our own."

- Christiann Huygens


"I would rather understand one cause than be King of Persia."

- Democritus


"We have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."

- Tombstone Epitaph of two amateur astronomers


"My goal is simple. It is complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all."

- Stephen Hawking


"I have...a terrible need...shall I say the word?...of religion.
Then I go out at night and paint the stars."

- Vincent van Gogh


"All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value."

- Carl Sagan 


"The world is governed more by appearance than realities so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it."

- Webster


"The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, preserved their neutrality."

- Dante


"Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense."

- Carl Sagan


"Not only does God play dice with the Universe he sometimes casts them where they can't be seen."

- Stephen Hawking


"Sleep... Oh! how I loathe those little slices of death...."

- Longfellow


"He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death."

- H. H. Munro


"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."

- Albert Einstein


"...Another writer again agreed with all my generalities, but said that as an inveterate skeptic I have closed my mind to the truth. Most notably I have ignored the evidence for an Earth that is six thousand years old. Well, I haven't ignored it; I considered the purported evidence and *then* rejected it. There is a difference, and this is a difference, we might say, between prejudice and postjudice. Prejudice is making a judgment before you have looked at the facts. Postjudice is making a judgment afterwards. Prejudice is terrible, in the sense that you commit injustices and you make serious mistakes. Postjudice is not terrible. You can't be perfect of course; you may make mistakes also. But it is permissible to make a judgment after you have examined the evidence. In some circles it is even encouraged."

- Carl Sagan


"No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."

- John Donne


"A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."

- Joseph Stalin


"Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking distance."

- Unknown


"I never think of the future. It comes soon enough."

- Albert Einstein


"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes."

- Winston Churchill


"In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite."

- Paul Dirac


"The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time."

- Abraham Lincoln


"Never argue with a fool. Someone watching may not be able to tell the difference."

- Unknown


"A man never stands as tall as when he kneels to help a child."

- Knights of Pythagoras


"Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance."

- Sam Brown


"I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it."

- Voltaire


"By doubting we come at truth."

- Cicero


"Whenever I'm caught between two evils, I take the one I've never tried."

- Mae West


"Then man was born:...though all other animals are prone, and fix their gaze upon
the earth, he gave to Man an uplifted face and bade him stand erect and turn
his eyes to heaven."

- Ovid


"To what purpose should I trouble myself in searching out
the secrets of the stars, having death or slavery continually
before my eyes?"

- Anaximenes, to Pythagoras


"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

- Puck (Robin Goodfellow)