6.3.

96 The chessboard is the world; the pieces are the phenomena of the universe; the rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature. The player on the other side is always hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just and patient. But we also know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. -Thomas Henry Huxley Nature has the morality of a mother who allows her children to play on the highway. -Michael Mills From so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have...evolved. -Darwin No human being was ever so free as a fish. - John Ruskin It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and its a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the sin of onan, and girls to the waning of their color VOLTAIRE Capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of human life. Nothing pains some people more than having to think. "Marvelous!" - B. F. Skinner There is the strangest lightness about the heart when one's nothingness in a particular line is accepted in good faith. How pleasant is the day when wegive up striving to be musical, young - William James

The prolonged slavery of women is the darkest page in human history. Elizabeth Stanton (1815-1902) "What I say, I don't feel, | Leonard Bernstein's "Mass" What I feel, I don't show. | Part IV: Confession What I show isn't real; | Trope: "I Don't Know" What is real, Lord, I don't know." "No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft" -- Herbert George Wells (1920) To change one's life: * Start immediately. * Do it flamboyantly. * No exceptions. "Don't be troubled if the temptation to give advice is irresistible; the ability to ignore it is universal." Reader's Digest Q: What did the Zen Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor? A: Make me one with everything. The man who can make hard things easy is the educator.

Some people see the glass as half-full. Others see it as half-empty. I see it as too big. - George Carlin summer night from cloud to cloud the moon is running Rankou (1726-1799)

What you see with your eyes shut is what counts. Constructive Living Quotes: You must take responsibility for what you do no matter how you feel. Your past or your family or your society or your economic situation or your race are not reasons or excuses for your behavior. Confidence and feeling good about yourself are much less important than you have been led to believe. In any case, they result from doing well, they don't come first. Nobody else can make you feel genuinely good about yourself. The optimal mind isn't constantly peaceful and anxiety-free; it is flexible, adapting to changing circumstances. You don't need to fight against your fears. They don't need to determine what you do. Constructive Living Quotes You don't need to fight your fears or discover hidden ones. Fear of flying is no reason to avoid air travel. For all your dreams you are what you do. Feelings fade over time unless restimulated by complaining or other circumstances. You can't build a life on feeling good all the time. Confidence follows success; it need not come before. You must take responsibility for what you do no matter what you feel. You can change your past by changing what you do now. No one really knows why humans do what they do. The optimal mind isn't always peaceful or blissful; it is flexible. Feelings don't need to be fixed. The myth of the self-made person is bankrupt. When we lose ourselves in constructive activity, our neurotic suffering is gone.

Those who want success most have the greatest fear of failure. There is nothing wrong with dreaming, unless we only dream. Effort is already success. Neurotic suffering grows from self-centeredness, misplaced attention. Life always implies desires that exceed realistic limits. Forgiving your parents is trivial; seeking their forgiveness is more valuable to you. Don't hope to eliminate neurotic suffering by talk or medication. Reality doesn't respond directly to thought or intent, only to action.

Learn How To Distinguish between what is controllable and what is uncontrollable in your life. Develop more self-discipline in daily life. Set goals and stay focused on your priorities. Acknowledge and accept those aspects of life that are beyond your direct control. Recognize the specific ways in which your life is supported by people and things. Gather information from feelings without being governed by them. Live life more realistically. Do what needs doing. Focus on living well regardless of how you are feeling at the moment. Review you past from a fresh perspective. Handle life crises sensibly.

David K. Reynolds, Ph.D. For a philosopher there is more | The grotesque in everyday events grass growing down in the valleys | conceals from you the real suffering

of silliness than up on the | caused by the passions. barren heights of cleverness. | --Stendahl, _The Red and the Black_

"Much like the law of gravity, the laws of learning are always in effect. Thus, the question is not whether to use the laws of learning, but rather how to use them effectively." - Scott Spreat and Susan Rogers Spreat "Learning Principles" There is nothing wrong with dreaming, unless we only dream. -David Reynolds I no more believe it," said Martin, "than I believe all the other delerious ravings that are published from time to time." "But what was this world created for?" said Candide. "To drive us mad," replied Martin. --Voltaire, "Candide" The optimist believes that this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears the optimist is correct. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. -Walden Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion. cartoonist Scott Adams, _The Dilbert Principle_ (1996), p. 76 "On it everyone you love...every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.... Every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization...every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam." Carl Sagan on earth in PALE BLUE DOT: A VISION OF THE HUMAN FUTURE IN SPACE.

Whoever wants to be a Christian should first tear out the eye of his reason. The Zen Master Basui wrote the following letter to one of his disciples who was about to die: "The essence of your mind is not born, so it will never die. It is not an existence, which is perishable. It is not an emptiness, which is mere void. It has neither colour nor form. It enjoys no pleasures and suffers no pains. I know you are very ill. Like a good Zen student, you are facing that sickness squarely. You may not know exactly who is suffering, but question yourself: What is the essence of this mind? Think only of this. You will need no more. Covet nothing. Your end which is endless is as a snowflake dissolving in the pure air". Man has a great power of speech, which is to a large measure vain and false. The animals have little, but that little is useful and true, and a small and sure thing is better than a great lie. dixit Leonardo da Vinci If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of a track that has been there the whole while, waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. When in danger, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout! Reality is a collective hunch. As a Philadelphia poet once said "My reality check bounced!" The deadliest bullshit is odorless and transparent. A Buddhist parable from the Book of Tea: Two monks were observing some fish in a stream. The first monk said "Look how happy the fish are." The second monk replied, "You are not a fish; you do not know if the fish are happy or not." The first monk answered, "You are not me; you do not know if I know if the fish are happy or not." I am much fonder of my critics than I am of my fans. Speaking of homosexuality, Steve Allen has a humorous story he tells, as an example of "Dumbth," his word for stupid things people do and think (he

has a book filled with them by this title). Apparently he did a "man-on-the-street" interview in which he asked the following question: "Would you vote for a heterosexual presidental candidate?" Apparently over half those questioned said that if they were honest they just didn't think they could vote for a heterosexual president. The dumb down of America continues! Michael Shermer Skeptic magazine I have several times heard Alistair Cooke speak of a pre-WWI (I would guess) US election in which one candidate destroyed another by gravely informing an election meeting that he felt obliged to make public the fact that before marriage his rival had practised CELIBACY. Worse, prior to consuming any food he MASTICATED. Mike Waller This reminds me of the story of the polititian who said, "My opponent is a confirmed heterosexual. He was once caught commiting nepotism with his nephew, and was even observed scrutinizing a sheep." Donald McBurney Here is a test to find out if your mission on Earth is finished. If you are still alive, it isn't. Like all religions, the Holy Religion of the Invisible Pink Unicorn is based upon both Logic and Faith. We have Faith that She is Pink; and we Logically know that She is Invisible, because we can't see Her. Now how different are modern-day Christians who have *faith* that God is Good, and know *logically* that God is Unknowable because no Christian knows anything about Him? The church never doubts - never inquires. To doubt is heresy to inquire is to admit that you do not know - the church does neither. [R.G. Ingersoll] A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. NIETZSCHE

To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today. [Isaac Asimov] Reason should be destroyed in all Christians. [Martin Luther] Beware when you take on the Church of God. Others have tried and have bitten the dust. [Bishop Desmond Tutu. (Speech, April 1987)] One of the earliest Christian heresies, which was quickly knocked on the head (sic) by the church hierarchy, was called Gnosticism, whose adherents claimed to "know" the truth about God by direct revelation. [Alison Cotes, Theologian, (In "The Courier Mail", 1996)] Consider the ignorance of the average fundamentalist. Then realize that by definition fully half of them must be even dumber than that. [source unknown] Ramakrishna says: A man who voluntarily goes into a river and bathes therein gets the benefit of the bath; so does likewise he who has been pushed into the river by another, or who while sleeping soundly has water thrown upon him by another. MIRACLE! NOW! You can see the Vision of Christ whenever you want, he'll be there! Amaze your family, friends and church groups. See and feel His Presence. Jesus miraculously appears for 30 seconds and can re-appear indefinitely. A startling life-size image! (Money back guarantee) This is not a gimmick..this is an authentic vision of Christ...$9.95 includes shipping and handling. Send to: J.C. Lives 400 Forest Road West Haven, CT 06516 (Allow 2 weeks for delivery) "Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened." Winston Churchill "Men have few roles they can

play, but women have more. That is why they are copying us" Donatelle Versace "Fanaticism and ignorance are forever busy and need feeding. And soon, with banners flying and with drums beating we'll be marching backward. Backward! Through the glorious ages of that 16th century when bigots burned those who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind." - Henry Hammond as Clarence Darrow in `Inherit The Wind' "You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." -Jack LondonC> Warning: REALITY.SYS may be corrupt. Reboot universe(y/n)? Thought for the day: Advertising (n): the science of subduing the human intelligence for long enough to get money from it. -- Stephen Leacock. "If you ain't the lead dog, the view never changes" "Wherever you go - there you are." Buckaroo Banzai "What people ought to do is get outside their windows and look in for a change." - Alfred Hitchcock "There are no good girls, only bad girls that haven't been found out" - Mae West +--------++ When all else fails ... HUG YOUR TEDDY BEAR ++----------+ Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts. ******************************************author unk*********** " A woman seldom writes her mind but in her postscript." - Richard Steele 1672-1729 "The hell with the Prime Directive! Give the Borg Windows '95." Diane Wilson *Mental health is when your symptoms don't bother you any more."

"Je suis ici par la volontee du peuple, et je

ne sortirai que par la force des bayonettes" (Mirabeau - 1789) The above literally means: I am here by the will of the people and I will only leave by the force of the bayonets. It was said by Mirabeau in 1789 just prior to the french revolution during a debate in the French (still royal) Chamber of Deputies. Thus the pagan will be sanctified, the tragic become laughable; lovers will stoop to sentiment, and demons dwindle down to clockwork toys --Clive Barker, Weaveworld *** Shakespearean-flavored insults you might like to use *** Thou reeky dismal-dreaming death-token. Thou craven rump-fed malt-worm. Others, Your perfume smells of trinkets and the excited buzz of a sparking arc light. The ocean's foam matches the froth of hair streaming from your lips ...and the random sig quote of the day is... Few women admit their age. Few men act theirs. "Testosterone - it's the devil's underpants..." Hope & Gloria There are two kinds of people in this world--those that divide people into two groups of people, and those that don't. "It doesn't matter what you do in the bedroom as long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses." -Beatrice Stella Tanner (1865-1940), British actress "You, too, could eat a whole man in 15 minutes if you were a minion of Satan." --Taken from a post to alt.x-files Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago. Bernard Berenson. My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-- It gives a lovely light! --- Edna St. Vincent Millay --------------------

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"Someone, I tell you, will remember us, we are oppressed by fears of oblivion." Sappho, circa 320 B.C. "All say 'How hard it is that we have to die' - a strange complaint from the mouths of people who have yet to live." - Mark Twain "I wear the chains I forged in life. I made them link by link." Jacob Marley's Ghost I have my books & my poetry to protect me. I am shielded in my armor, hiding in my room. I touch no one and no one touches me. I am a rock. I am an island, and a rock feels no pain and an island never cries. ------------Simon & Garfunkel---------"If we are all not welcome at the family table, then something is wrong with the family and somebody needs to replace the table." --Marlon Riggs

The Road Not Taken Two roads diverged in a yellow wood And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Some where ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and II took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Robert Frost

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A fine old horse trainer has said, "Make the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy. Then let the horse decide." If you want people to behave the way you want them to, you make what you don't want difficult for them and the right thing easy for them. Sadly, this works so well that it can be used for both good and evil. Avoid making irrevocable decisions while tired or hungry. "I used to think the brain was the most wonderful organ in the entire body. Then I realized who was telling me this..." - Emo Phillips "It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast." Konrad Lorenz (1963) "Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves." Carl Jung Deduction is all about putting the pieces of the puzzle together. Induction is all about finding the pieces. "My young son asked me what happens after we die. I told him we get buried under a bunch of dirt and worms eat our bodies. I guess I should have told him the truth--that most of us go to Hell and burn eternally--but I didn't want to upset him." --Jack Handy Meditate. Live purely. Be quiet. Do your work, with mastery. --Buddha You cant reinforce a vegetarian with a pork chop.

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The rules are easy. Its finding the right reinforcer thats difficult. When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies. Meditation is Not What You Think Cognitive psychology is frequently presented as a revolt against behaviorism, but it is not a revolt; it is a retreat (Skinner, 1984). "All suffering prepares the soul for vision." - Martin Buber "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable on persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends upon the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw "If you can see yourself in possession of your goal, it's half yours." -- Tom Hopkins. "Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts." -- Samuel Grafton "Much effort, much prosperity." -- Euripides "This is not a place of honor. No great deed is commemorated here. Nothing that was valued lies here." -proposed marker for Nuclear Waste Burial Site. "It is impossible to conceive anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which can be taken as good without qualification, except a good will." - Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals Religion is for people who are afraid to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have _been_ there. (Origin Unknown) "Those who know and know not that they know are....idiots Here are some English proverbs with Arabic origins:

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Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise. When you are at Rome do as the Romans do. What can't be cured must be endured. What the eye does not see the heart does not grieve. When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window. There is no rose without a thorn. There is nothing new under the sun. There is many a slip between the cup and the lip. Love me, love my dog. Life is not all beer and skittles. He who makes no mistakes makes nothing. Mohammad He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool - shun him. He who knows not and knows that he knows not is a child - teach him. He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep - wake him. He who knows and knows that he knows is wise - follow him. If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -Albert Einstein If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger? T.H. Huxley On Elementary Instruction in Physiology I used to think the brain was the most wonderful organ in the entire body. Then I realized who was telling me this...

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"when the student is ready the lesson appears" "It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it." I am always willing to learn, however I do not always like to be taught. Only the dead fish swim with the stream. "First, there was nothing. And God created the Light, and it was good. For now there was still nothing ... but you could see it." The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. -Flannery O'Connor It cannot be that any nature, found At odds with its environment, should thrive; No seed does well in uncongenial ground. If men on earth would bear in mind, and strive To build on the foundation laid by nature, They'd have fine folk, with virtues all alive. Belief in the absence of compelling evidence is called faith. Belief after acquiring compelling evidence is called knowledge. Regard no practice as immutable. Change and be ready to change again. Accept no eternal verity. Experiment. Naturally, we are all interested in facts. If when they are obtained they make the present theory untenable, the behaviorist will give it up cheerfully. No one should be allowed to have a baby until they have been required to train a chicken. - Anon. "Don't Shoot the Dog" by Karen Pryor There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life; music and cats. Albert Schweitzer

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Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time, and it annoys the pig. Leo Bustad Freedom of speech is better than sex. -Madonna - 1990 Do not stand at my grave and weep I am not here, I do not sleep I am a thousand winds that blow I am the diamond glints on snow I am the sun on ripened grain I am the gentle autumn rain When you awake in the morning's hush I am the swift uplifting rush of Quiet birds in circled flight Am the stars that shine in the night Do not stand by my grave and cry I am not here I did not die - Abdee The Neptune Society of Northern California You must be the change you wish to see in the world. BUDDHA A self is a repertoire of behavior appropriate to a given set of contingencies. To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable. Himself, 1947. The sanest and best of us are of one clay with lunatics and prison inmates, and death finally runs the robustest of us down. Watching a peaceful death of a human being reminds us of a falling star; one of a million lights in a vast sky that flares up for a brief moment only to disappear into the endless night forever. It's a blessing to die for a cause, because you can so easily die for nothing.

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When we abandon the thought of immortality we at least have cast out fear. We gain a certain dignity and self-respect. We regard our fellow travelers as companions in the pleasures and tribulations of life....We gain kinship with the world. Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted. Directly stated, the evolution of the entire universe--stars, elements, life, man--is a process of drawing something out of nothing, out of the utter void of nonbeing. The creative element in the mind of man--that latency which can conceive gods, carve statues, move the heart with the symbols of great poetry, or devise the formulas of modern physics--emerge in as mysterious a fashion as those elementary particles which leap into momentary existence in great cyclotrons, only to vanish again like infinitesimal ghosts. May I always be the kind of person my dog thinks I am. UNKNOWN it takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.

Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time, and it annoys the pig. LEO Bustad How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. Sometimes the most difficult life has to do with nothing. Kierkegaard Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so. Reality is whatever refuses to go away when I stop believing in it. Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.

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-John Dewey The facts stay the same but the truth changes. The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Nothing really worth knowing can be understood by the human brain. A woman wins by giving herself and other women permission-to eat; to be sexual; to age; to wear overalls, a paste tiara a Balenciaga gown, a second-hand opera cloak, or combat boots; to cover up or to go practically naked; to do whatever we choose in following or ignoring our own aesthetic. I used to think the brain was the most wonderful organ in the entire body... then I realized who was telling me this. If the human brain were simple enough to understand, we'd be too simple to understand it. In the domains of affective, social, and political communication, a human tendency is to use the lexical function to deceive. Reality is whatever refuses to go away when I stop believing in it. No tame animal has lost less of its native dignity or maintained more of its ancient reserve than the cat. The great scourge of all intellectuals is the tendency to think that within their own area of interest lies the salvation of mankind. If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger? On Elementary Instruction in Physiology Be not too hasty to trust or admire the teachers of virtue. They discourse like angels, but they live like men.

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There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. To the extent that philosophical positions both confuse us and close doors to further inquiry, they are likely to be wrong Wilson Tell me how you are searching, and I will tell you what you are searching for. -Wittgenstein In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life. It goes on. This World will never know Peace until the Last Politician has been strangled with the guts of the Last Priest. When a dog runs at you, whistle for him. Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion- several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired. If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. The pessimist is one who is always right and always disappointed. An optimist is one who believes the future is uncertain. EDWARD Teller It's kind of fun to do the impossible. Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking. We emerge from this world in a Big Bang, and our passing is a collapse into a black hole, a personal singularity.

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If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?

Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which is everything in this world. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. (1879-1955) The world has persisted many a long year, having once been set going in the appropriate motions. From these everything else follows. LUCRETIUS Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everybody gets busy on the proof. Do you believe then that sciences would ever have arisen and become great if there had not beforehand been magicians, alchemists, astrologers, and wizards who thirsted and hungered after secret and forbidden powers? Failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying. What lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us. And when we bring what is within us out into the world, miracles happen. The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers by base minds. There is only one thing for it then - to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags

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it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you. If a man stands in the middle of the forest speaking and there is no woman around to hear him ... is he still wrong? If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the state of his mind; but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first, and pity him afterwards. We become what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is NOT an act but a habit! ARISTOTLE There is a Hindu legend that says man was once divine, and jealous gods wanted to hide his divinity from him. "We will hide it high in a mountain" said one. "No" said another, "Man likes to climb mountains, and he will find it there" "Then we should hide it deep in the sea". "No, man is a great explorer and he will find it there". "I know", said a third" let us hide his divinity deep in his heart. There he will never find it". And that is what they did. The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself. George Bernard Shaw is said to have remarked after observing the objects cast off by visitors at Lourdes, " ... all those canes, braces and crutches, and not a single glass eye, wooden leg or toupe." "For us, if it should turn out that God exists, that would have to be a fact of nature like any other. To the four basic forces in the universe--gravity, electromagnetism, weak and strong nuclear forces--we would add a fifth, the divine force. Or more likely, we would see the other forces as forms of the divine force. But it would still be all physics, albeit divine physics. If the supernatural existed, it too would have to be natural." John Searle --Mind, Language and Society In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable: and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.

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Karl Popper --The Logic of Scientific Discovery Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily. William of Occam --Quodlibeta Septem "While I was a German prisoner of war I promised myself that if I survived, I would spend half my life having fun and the other half studying people and trying to stop war." (p. 385). Ogden Lindsley, The Harvard Pigeon Lab, JEAB, May 2002. With respect to the theological view of the question. This is always painful to me. I am bewildered. I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice. Charles Darwin --Letters Wandering in a vast forest at night, I have only a faint light to guide me. A stranger appears and says to me: 'My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.' The stranger is a theologian. Denis Diderot --Addition aux pensees philosophiques Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. - Albert Einstein 'Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger. David Hume --A Treatise on Human Nature

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How absurd to anguish over our passing into freedom from all anguish. Just as our birth was the beginning of all things for us, so our death will be the death of them all. That is why it is equally mad to weep because we shall not be alive a hundred years from now and to weep because we were not alive a hundred years ago. Montaigne --To Philosophize is to Learn How to Die 'The University is the visible representation of the immortality of our race ... the most holy thing that the human race possesses' (Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Rectoral Address, Berlin, 1811). I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature. Albert Einstein --The World As I See It By a 'silly' theory I mean one which may be held at the time when one is talking or writing professionally, but which only an inmate of a lunatic asylum would think of carrying into daily life....It must not be supposed that the men who maintain these theories and beliefs are 'silly' people. Only very acute and learned men could have thought of anything so odd or defended anything so preposterous against the continual protests of common sense. C. D. Broad --Mind and its Place in Nature Should a traveler, returning from a far country, bring us an account of men, wholly different from any with whom we were ever acquainted; men, who were entirely divested of avarice, ambition, or revenge; who knew no pleasure but friendship, generosity, and public spirit; we should immediately, from these circumstances, detect the falsehood, and prove him a liar, with the same certainty as if he had stuffed his narration with stories of centaurs and dragons, miracles and prodigies.

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David Hume --An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding An engineer, an experimental physicist, a theoretical physicist, and a philosopher were hiking through the hills of Scotland. Cresting the top of one hill, they see, on top of the next, a black sheep. The engineer says: "What do you know, the sheep in Scotland are black." "Well, *some* of the sheep in Scotland are black," replies the experimental physicist. The theoretical physicist considers this for a moment and says "Well, at least one of the sheep in Scotland is black." "Well," the philosopher responds, "on one side, anyway." Deathbed remarks: "No spirits, wraiths, hobgoblins, spooks, noumena, superstitions, transcendentals, mystics, invisible hands, supreme creator, angels, demons..." - J.R. Kantor Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion. Democritus --Quoted in Diogenes Laertius's Lives of the Eminent Philosophers What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy An experiment is putting a question to nature. Francis Bacon If reality is merely illusion then I paid too much for that carpet. Woody Allen If you would be a real seeker after truth, you must at least once in your life doubt, as far as possible, all things. Rene Descartes --Discourse on Method

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Phaedo's parting remark about Socrates: " we may truly say that of all the men of his time whom we have known, he was the wisest and justest and best." Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth. Alan Watts I'm not afraid to die; I just don't want to be there when it happens. Woody Allen Death is as sure for that which is born, as birth is for that which is dead. Therefore grieve not for what is inevitable. Bhagavad Gita Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity. Carl Jung If you want to get the pecans before someone else does, you're going to have to shake a few limbs. Herbs grandpa Investing is like sailing; one cannot control the wind, but one absolutely must adjust to it... Experience is not what happens to a man, it is what a man does with what happens to him. Aldous Huxley I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection. Charles Darwin

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...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 The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology. Acceptance of the supernatural conveyed a great advantage throughout prehistory, when the brain was evolving. Thus it is in sharp contrast to biology, which was developed as a product of the modern age and is not underwritten by genetic algorithms. The uncomfortable truth is that the two beliefs are not factually compatible. As a result those who hunger for both intellectual and religious truth will never acquire both in full measure. Edward O. Wilson --Consilience

Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and distaste. The gain in self confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labor is immense. Thomas A. Bennett Some things are really necessaries of life in some circles, which in others are luxuries merely and in others still are entirely unknown. Henry David Thoreau --Walden Insomnia can become a form of contemplation. You just lie there, inert, helpless, alone, in the dark, and let yourself be crushed by the inscrutable tyranny of time. Thomas Merton --The Sign of Jonas One of the most constant characteristics of beliefs is their intolerance. The stronger the belief, the greater its intolerance. Men dominated by a certitude cannot tolerate those who do not accept it. Gustave Le Bon --Opinions And Beliefs

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If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. - Thomas Szasz For the purposes of life and conduct, and society, a little good sense is surely better than all this genius, and a little good humour than this extreme sensibility. David Hume --Letters Humans know what happens to a body following death, so they created a soul, an escape vehicle. - Rebecca Auge In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence... and loathing seizes him. Friedrich Nietzsche --The Birth of Tragedy Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. George Bernard Shaw To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. Cardinal Bellarmine --Attributed (said during the trial of Galileo) Come, Protagoras, uncover your thought for me on this: how do you stand on knowledge? Do you think of it as the majority of men do, or otherwise? The Many think that knowledge has neither strength nor authority nor power of command, that though knowledge may from time to time be present in a man, it does not govern him. Something else governs: sometimes anger, sometimes pleasure, sometimes pain, on occasion love, often fear--as though they conceived of knowledge as a mere slave to be dragged about by everything else. Plato --Protagoras

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell. Bertrand Russell --On the Value of Skepticism They that deny a God destroy man's nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and, if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature. Francis Bacon --Of Atheism I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others Marcus Aurelius --Meditations History aside, the almost universal opinion that one's own religious convictions are the reasoned outcome of a dispassionate evaluation of all the major alternatives is almost demonstrably false for humanity in general. If that really were the genesis of most people's convictions, then one would expect the major faiths to be distributed more or less randomly or evenly over the globe. But in fact they show a very strong tendency to cluster...which illustrates what we all suspected anyway: that social forces are the primary determinants of religious belief for people in general. To decide scientific questions by appeal to religious orthodoxy would therefore be to put social forces in place of empirical evidence. Paul Churchland --Matter and Consciousness Wanting to reform the world without discovering one's true self is like trying to cover the world with leather to avoid the pain of walking on stones and thorns. It is much simpler to wear shoes. --Ramana Maharshi Men are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry. Thus, whoever is stiff and

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inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life. The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail. --Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, translated by Stephen Mitchell The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us. -Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson)

The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there."

Robert M. Pirsig

Life is so short that it must be lived very slowly. --Buddhist saying Self-control is strength; right thought is mastery; calmness is power; say unto your heart, "Peace, be still." --James Allen, As a Man Thinketh Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free: Stay centered by accepting what you are doing. This is the ultimate. --Chuang-Tzu, The Writings of Chuang-Tzu The inferior archer, when he misses the mark, first looks for blame in his bow. The superior archer first looks for blame in himself. --Traditional saying of Kyudo (Japanese archery) It is the weak who are cruel: gentleness can only be expected from the strong. --Leo Rosten, quoted by Leo Buscaglia The journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step. --Various Buddhist and Taoist sources Man will become better when you show him what he is like.

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--Chekhov The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest men of past centuries. Rene Descartes --Discourse on Method I wish to propose for the reader's favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true. Bertrand Russell --On the Value of Scepticism Like the earliest philosophers who rejected mythology as a way of explaining how the world got here, we agree that it is impossible to get something out of nothing. We no longer accept the idea that anything, an object, a process, an idea, can spring full-grown from the head of Zeus, fully functional and without antecedents. Marc Breedlove Neuroscientist Let anyone try, I will not say to arrest, but to notice or attend to, the present moment of time. One of the most baffling experiences occurs. Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming. William James --The Principles of Psychology If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. Francis Bacon --Advancement of Learning They firmly believe in witches; though they will not believe nor attend to the most simple proposition of Euclid. David Hume --Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

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Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few. David Hume --Essays Nature, red in tooth and claw Alfred Lord Tennyson Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much...the wheel, New York, wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely the dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons. Douglas Adams --The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Imagine science without emotion. Imagine science without Galileo, Darwin, Freud, Kinsey -Rebecca Auge Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. Albert Einstein --Reader's Digest, Oct 1977 Biology does not dictate our behavior but it keeps it on a short leash. -E.O. Wilson When the chess game is over, the pawns, rooks, kings and queens all go back into the same box. -Italian proverb Where death is, I am not; where I am, death is not. -Lucretius Interviewer: I find the idea of dying, of not existing for the next 5 billion years and beyond, chilling. It takes my breath away. Can you offer any comfort?

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Irvin Yalom: Well, did the last 5 billion years bother you? I mean, it seems to me that what happens after we die is not really the problem. It is a kind of peace. The challenge for us is how we live between now and then, whether we have the courage to stop denying it and use our anxieties to live more authentic, meaning-filled and purposeful lives. A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand. -Bertrand Russell Science would be ruined if it were to withdraw entirely into narrowly defined specialties. The rare scholars who are wanderers-by-choice are essential to the intellectual welfare of the settled disciplines. -Benoit Mandelbrot Expect everything from yourself. -Buddha Live so that people will want your autograph, and not your fingerprints. - John Corcoran, martial artist and writer

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. Oscar Wilde (1856-1900, British Author, Wit) We cling to our own point of view, as though everything depended on it. Yet our opinions have no permanence; like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away. Chuang Tzu (c 369 BC -286 BC, Chinese Philosopher) It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages. Adam Smith --The Wealth of Nations

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It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied. John Stuart Mill --Utilitarianism I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure -- that is all that agnosticism means. Clarence Darrow, Scopes trial, 1925 Pray, n:. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy. Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) Now now, my good man: this is no time for making enemies. Voltaire (1694-1778) on his deathbed in response to a priest asking that he renounce Satan.

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. Napolean Which is it: is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's? Nietzsche Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Susan Ertz At first I wanted to be a missionary, then I met one. Dr. T. Barry Brazelton Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Carl Sagan

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It is easier to suppose that the universe has existed for all eternity than to conceive a being beyond its limits capable of creating it. Percy Bysshe Shelley We may define "faith" as the firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of "faith." We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence. The substitution of emotion for evidence is apt to lead to strife, since different groups substitute different emotions. Bertrand Russell The doctrine that the earth is neither the center of the universe nor immovable, but moves even with a daily rotation, is absurd, and both philosophically and theologically false, and at the least an error of faith. Catholic Church's decision against Galileo Where prayer, amulets and incantations work it is only a manifestation of the patient's belief. Hippocrates The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. Joseph Conrad If religion cannot restrain evil, it cannot claim effective power for good. Morris Cohen What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer. Bertrand Russell It is usually when men are at their most religious that they behave with the least sense and the greatest cruelty.

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Ilka Chase If the Bible and my brain are both the work of the same Infinite God, whose fault is it that the book and my brain do not agree? Robert G. Ingersoll The true fanatic is a theocrat, someone who sees himself as acting on behalf of some superpersonal force: the Race, the Party, History, the proletariat, the Poor, and so on. These absolve him from evil, hence he may safely do anything in their service. Lloyd Billingsley, "Religion's Rebel Son: Fanaticism in Our Time" Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind. Albert Einstein I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism. Albert Einstein The trouble with born again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around. Herb Caen RELIGIOUS ACCUSATION: Atheism is a religion! ATHEIST REPLY: Like baldness is a hair colour? Anon All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. Thomas Paine At present there is not a single credible established religion in the world.

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George Bernard Shaw Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile. Kurt Vonnegut There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably, some part of him is aware that they are myths, and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dares not face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed. Bertrand Russell Man is certainly stark mad: he cannot make a worm, yet he will make gods by the dozen. Michel de Montaigne The theory that you should always treat the religious convictions of other people with respect finds no support in the Gospels. Arnold Lunn Why has a religious turn of mind always a tendancy to narrow and harden the heart? Robert Burns The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad. Nietzsche If you talk to God, you're praying; if God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. Thomas Szasz Fundamentalism isn't about religion. It's about power.

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Salman Rushdie History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it. Lazarus Long (Robert A. Heinlein, "Time Enough for Love") Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless. B. F. Skinner Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones. Bertrand Russell The savage bows down to idols of wood and stone: the civilized man to idols of flesh and blood. George Bernard Shaw

The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike. Delo McKown Faith is a euphemism for prejudice and religion is a euphemism for superstition. Paul Keller For all its crudities behaviourism, conceived as a methodology rather than as a psychological system, taught psychology with brutal emphasis that 'The dog is whining' and 'The dog is sad' are statements of altogether different empirical standing, and heaven help psychology if it ever again overlooks the distinction. --Sir Peter Medawar, 1964 Book Review of The Act of Creation by Arthur Koestler. British immunologist and Nobel laureate, 1915-1987.

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We are told that 'evolution is the unfolding of an idea which has been in the mind of God.' It appears that during these ages when animals were torturing each other with ferocious horns and agonizing stings, omnipotence was quietly waiting for the ultimate emergence of man, with his still more widely diffused cruelty. Why the Creator should have preferred to reach his goal by a process, instead of going straight to it, these modern theologians do not tell us. -Bertrand Russell Philosophy, as we use the word, is a fight against the fascination which forms of expression exert upon us. Ludwig Wittgenstein --The Blue Book In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. Richard Dawkins --'God's Utility Function', Scientific American When men cease to believe in God they dont believe in nothing, they believe in anything. - G.K. Chesterton God grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference. -Anon

If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around. -Will Rogers

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Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions which move with him like flies on a summer day. - Bertrand Russell It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. -Aristotle Out ride the sons of Terra, Far drives the thundering jet, Up leaps a race of Earthmen, Out, far, and onward yet -We pray for one last landing On the globe that gave us birth; Let us rest our eyes on the friendly skies And the cool, green hills of Earth. The Green Hills of Earth -- Robert A. Heinlein The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it. - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning. -Calvin & Hobbes comic No matter how seemingly hard-wired a trait, the outside finds its way in, and the inside responds. -David S. Moore Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't. -Anon Man who looks for too many reasons ... pee in pants. -Anon

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Plato having defined man to be a two-legged, animal without feathers, Diogenes plucked a cock and brought it into the Academy, and said, 'This is Plato's man.' On which account this addition was made to the definition: 'With broad flat nails.' Diogenes Laertius --Lives of the Eminent Philosophers To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he may have the less. Socrates --Quoted in Plato's Protagoras Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here we should dance. -anon Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed, Thracians red-haired and with blue eyes; so also they conceive the spirits of the gods to be like themselves. Xenopohanes --Attributed Man is only mud that sat up. - Kurt Vonnegut There is no immortality except for the memories left in the minds of men. -Napoleon Bonaparte

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