Famous Quotes & Sayings

Ben Okri

We disliked the rigours of existence, the unfulfilled longings, the enshrined injustices of the world, the labyrinths of love, the ignorance of parents, the fact of dying, and the amazing indifference of the Living in the midst of the simple beauties of the universe. We feared the heartlessness of human beings, all of whom are born blind, few of whom ever learn to see.

Benito Mussolini

Silence is the only answer you should give to the fools. Where ignorance speaks, intelligence should not give advices.

Jane Goodall

So long as we continued to attach more importance to our own narrow group membership than to the 'global village' we would propagate prejudice and ignorance. There was absolutely no harm in being part of a small group - indeed, with our hunter-gatherer band mentality it gave comfort, provided us with an inner circle of friends who could be utterly trusted, who were absolutely reliable. It helped give us peace of mind. The danger came only from drawing that sharp line, digging that ditch, laying that minefield, between our own group and any other group that thought differently.

Calvin Coolidge

Those who want their rights respected under the Constitution and the law ought to set the example themselves of observing the Constitution and the law. While there may be those of high intelligence who violate the law at times, the barbarian and the defective always violate it. Those who disregard the rules of society are not exhibiting a superior intelligence, are not promoting freedom and independence, are not following the path of civilization, but are displaying the traits of ignorance, of servitude, of savagery, and treading the way that leads back to the jungle.

Alain Badiou

These latter institutions [the civil service, trade unions, media of all kinds], notably of course television, but more subtly the written press, are quite spectacular powers of unreason and ignorance.

Charles Darwin

Nevertheless so profound is our ignorance, and so high our presumption, that we marvel when we hear of the extinction of an organic being; and as we do not see the cause, we invoke cataclysms to desolate the world, or invent laws on the duration of the forms of life!

Vandana Shiva

The people who see the population explosion in the Malthusian way - as a geometric progression - forget that population growth is not a biological issue. People are not increasing in numbers out of stupidity and ignorance. Population growth is an ecological phenomenon linked very intimately to other issues, such as the usurpation of the resources which allow people to live.

Jared Diamond

The past was still a Golden Age, of ignorance, while the present is an Iron Age of willful bliss.

Bret Easton Ellis

She sits before me, sullen but hopeful, characterless, about to dissolve into tears. I squeeze her hand back, moved, no, touched by her ignorance of evil. She has one more test to pass. Do you own a briefcase?” I ask her, swallowing.

William Wordsworth

Oh, be wiser thou!Instructed that true knowledge leads to love.

Jonathan Dimbleby

That test should not be about ratings. What should weigh is the knowledge that a public broadcaster delivers programmes that matter.

Arthur Adamov

The only thing to know is how to use your neurosis.

Bertrand Russell

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

Charles Kingsley

[At the end of the story, its main character, Tom] is now a great man of science, and can plan railroads, and steam-engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and so forth; and knows everything about everything, except why a hen's egg don't turn into a crocodile, and two or three other little things that no one will know till the coming of the Cocqcigrues.

Anton Chekhov

Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.

Desiderius Erasmus

You must acquire the best knowledge first, and without delay; it is the height of madness to learn what you will later have to unlearn.

Blaise Pascal

Since [man] is infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from him in an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing the nothing from which he was made, and the infinite in which he is swallowed up.

Charles Bukowski

Knowledge is knowing as little as possible.

Brandon Boyd

Put down your hollow tips and kiss your lovers lips and learn that fate is what you make of it

Confucius

The wheel of fortune turns round incessantly, and who can say to himself, ''I shall today be uppermost.''

Ben Okri

The road will never swallow you. The river of destiny will always overcome evil. May you understand your fate. Suffering will never destroy you, but will make you stronger. Success will never confuse you of scatter your spirit, but will make you fly higher into the good sunlight. Your life will always surprise you.

Benito Mussolini

Statesman only talk of fate when they have blundered

Benito Mussolini

The fate of nations is intimately bound up with their powers of reproduction. All nations and all empires first felt decadence gnawing at them when their birth rate fell off.

Benjamin Disraeli

A person's fate is their own temper.

Brian Jacques

Fate is fickle, and the company of unwilling friends short lived.

Jane Austen

I am rather impatient to know the fate of my best gown.

Jane Austen

Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate. She was born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her conduct, her most favourite maxims.