Finding Solace in Favourite Quotes: Escaping Despair with Words of Wisdom

[Astronuc]

Mencken's Creed

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.
I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.
I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty...
I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.
I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech...
I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.
I believe in the reality of progress.
I - But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.

http://www.io.com/gibbonsb/mencken.html

September 12 is the birthday of the journalist and editor H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken, who was born in Baltimore, Maryland (1880). He graduated as the valedictorian from his high school at the age of 15, but even though he was burning to write, he did exactly what his father expected. He took a job at the cigar factory. He started out rolling the cigars alongside the other blue-collar men, and he actually enjoyed that manual labor. But when he was promoted to the front office, he was hopelessly bored. He finally mustered up his courage and told his father that he wanted to pursue a career in journalism. His father told him to bring up the subject again in a year.

Mencken had been working at his father's factory for three years when, on New Years Eve in 1898, his father had a convulsion and collapsed. His mother told Mencken to get a doctor, 11 blocks down the street, and Mencken later said, "I remember well how, as I was trotting to [the doctor's] house on that first night, I kept saying to myself that if my father died I'd be free at last."

His father died two weeks later. The day after his father's funeral, Mencken shaved his face, combed his hair, put on his best suit, and went down to the Baltimore Morning Herald, asking for a job. Mencken came back every single day for the next four weeks. He finally wore the editor down, and he got to write two articles, each fewer than 50 words long.

He went on to become one of the most influential and prolific journalists in America, writing about all the shams and con artists in the world. He attacked chiropractors and the Ku Klux Klan, politicians and other journalists. Most of all, he attacked Puritan morality. He called Puritanism, "The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."

At the height of his career, he edited and wrote for the American Mercury magazine and the Baltimore Sun newspaper, wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column for the Chicago Tribune, and published two or three books every year. His masterpiece was one of the few books he wrote about something he loved, a book called The American Langauge (1919), a history and collection of American vernacular speech. It included a translation of the Declaration of Independence into American English that began, "When things get so balled up that the people of a country got to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they out to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are not trying to put nothing over on nobody."

Writer's Almanac, National Public Radio, September 12, 2006
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2006/09/11/index.html#tuesday

Declaration of Independence in Amerian (by H. L. Mencken)
http://www.io.com/gibbonsb/mencken/declaration.html

 

[Astronuc]

"Evol si a nowsbomile gnicar rassoc het nardut dan hent dunsedly ti spilf oerv, gnipnin oyu nerundeath. Ta gnith, het cie sweasel emoc. Efil ni Ehll" :uhh:

 

[Astronuc]

A really useful interrogative phrase -

Cò an caora sin còmhla riut a chunnaic mi an-raoir?

Who was that sheep I saw you with last night? :rofl:

 

[Castilla]

"If you are happy but you want to be as happy as other persons, you will lose the happiness you already had."

Something like that: Seneca, roman literate, dead in Nero's times.

 

[lunarmansion]

Old age fulfills the dreams of youth. One sees this in Swift: in his youth he built an insane asylum; in his old age he himself entered it-Kierkegaard

 

[lunarmansion]

Sometimes walking around NYC can turn up nice things. I like to go and study at the beautiful research library when the college library is closed. It is one of the most pleasant and cleanest places in the City. I just discovered that there is a street in front of the library with lines of some famous poets etched in the pavement. Here is a nice one I found the other day by Dylan Thomas on the way there. Only the second part is on the pavement though.

In my craft or sullen art

Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Not for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

 

[Astronuc]

"Men occasionally stumble over truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." -- Winston Churchill :rofl:

 

[Corkie2003]

Why stand up if you can sit down? Why sit down if . . . aaah f**k it, I can't be arsed.

 

[fourier jr]

Two conceptions of invention: Claparede, in his introductory lecture before the above-mentioned meeting at the Centre de Synthese, observes that there are two kinds of invention: one consists, a goal being given, in finding the means to reach it, so that the mind goes from the goal to the means, from the question to the solution; the other consists, on the contrary, in discovering a fact, then imagining what it could be useful for, so that, this time, mind goes from the means to the goal; the answer appears to us before the question.
Now, paradoxical as it seems, that second kind of invention is the more general one and becomes more & more so as science advances. Practical application is found by not looking for it, and one can say that the whole progress of civilization rests on that principle.
Jacques Hadamard

Almost everyone knows that mathematics serves the very practical purpose of dictating engineering design. Fewer people seem to be aware that mathematics carries the main burden of scientific reasoning and is the core of the major theories of physical science. It is even less widely known that mathematics has determined the direction and content of much philosophic thought, has destroyed and rebuilt religious doctrines, has supplied substance to economic and political theories, has fashioned major painting, musical, architectural, and literary styles, has fathered our logic, and has furnished the best answers we have to fundamental questions we have about the nature of man and his universe. As the embodiment of the most powerful advocate of the rational spirit, mathematics has invaded domains ruled by authority, custom, and habit, and supplanted them as the arbiter of thought and action. Finally, as an incomparably fine human achievement mathematics offers satisfactions and aesthetic values at least equal to those offered by any other branch of our culture.
Morris Kline

 

[fourier jr]

lol i just read these. they're from 18th-century physicist & aphorist georg lichtenberg, who might be best known (in physics anyway) for discovering the principle behind photocopying:

"The book which most deserved to be banned would be a catalog of banned books."

"Astronomy is perhaps the science whose discoveries owe least to chance, in which human understanding appears in its whole magnitude, and through which man can best learn how small he is."

"Man loves company — even if it is only that of a small burning candle."

"When a book and a head collide and a hollow sound is heard, must it always have come from the book?"

 

[devious_]

Happy is the man who avoids dissension, but how fine is the man who is afflicted and shows endurance.

 

[fourier jr]

Happy is the man who avoids dissension, but how fine is the man who is afflicted and shows endurance.

how about these:
Intrepidity is unusual strength of soul which raises it above the troubles, disorders, and emotions that might be stirred up in it by the sight of great danger. This is the fortitude by which heroes keep their inner peace and preserve clear use of their reason in the most terrible and overwhelming crises.
La Rochefoucauld

Few things are impossible in themselves; it is not so much the means we lack as the perseverance we need to make them succeed.
La Rochefoucauld

No man can ever answer for his courage if he has never been in peril.
La Rochefoucauld

We are only too inclined to believe that if we possesses a little talent work must come easily to us. You must exert yourself, man, if you want to do something great.
Georg Lichtenberg (who was apparently a terrible procrastinator)

The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.
Georg Lichtenberg

Nothing cheers me up so often as when I have succeeded in understanding something difficult, and yet I try so little to learn to understand difficult things. I should try more often.
Georg Lichtenberg

Knowledge & courage. These are the elements of greatness. Because they are immortal they bestow immortality. Each is as much as he knows, and the wise can do anything. A person without knowledge is in a world without light. Wisdom and strength are the eyes and the hands. Knowledge without courage is sterile.
Baltasar Gracian

Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult and difficult tasks as if they were easy. In the one case so that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other so that it may not be dismayed. For a thing to remain undone nothing more is needed than to think it done. On the other hand, patient industry overcomes impossibilities. Great undertakings are not to be brooded over, lest their difficulty when seen causes despair.
Baltasar Gracian

Many have proved themselves able when they had to deal with a difficulty, just as fear of drowning makes a person into a swimmer. In this way, many have discovered their own courage, knowledge, or tact, which but for the opportunity would have been forever buried beneath their lack of initiative. Dangerous situations are the occasions to create a name for oneself, and if a noble mind sees honour at stake, he will do the work of thousands. Queen Isabella the Catholic knew well this rule of life (as well as all the others) and to a shrewd favour of this kind the Great Captain (Cordoba) won his fame, and many others earned an undying name. By this great art she made great men.
Baltasar Gracian

Because a thing is difficult for you to do, do not think that it is impossible for any man; but whatever is possible for any man to do and right for his nature, think that you can achieve it too.
Marcus Aurelius

The persistent man never stops to consider whether he is succeeding or not. The only question with him is how to push ahead, to get a little farther along, a little nearer his goal. Whether it lead over mountains, rivers, or molrasses, he must reach it. Every other consideration is sacrificed to this one dominant purpose. The success of a dull or average youth and the failure of a brilliant one is a constant surprise in American history. But if the different cases are closely analyzed we shall find that the explanation lies in the staying power of the seemingly dull boy, the ability to stand firm as a rock under all circumstances, to allow nothing to divert him from his purpose.
Orison Marden

The power to hold on is charteristic of all men who have accomplished anything great; they may lack in some other particular, have many weaknesses or eccentricities, but the quality of persistence is never absent from a successful man. No matter what opposition he meets or what discouragement overtakes him, drudgery cannot disgust him, obstacles cannot discourage him, labour cannot weary him; misfortune, sorrow and reverses cannot harm him. It is not so much brilliancy of intellect, or fertility of resource, as persistency of effort, constancy of purpose, that makes a great man. Those who succeed in life are the men and women who keep everlastingly at it, who do not believe themselves geniuses, but who know that if they ever accomplish anything they must do it by determined and persistent industry.
Orison Marden

 

[lunarmansion]

Our thinking should have a vigorous fragrance like a wheatfield on a summer's night-Nietzsche

Worte sind Taten.(Words are deeds)
The human being is the best picture of the human soul.
Wittgenstein

 

[Astronuc]

Something an engineer must always keep in mind.

No matter how elegant the design, or how sophisticated the model or method, your end result is always and approximation.

- James McInvale, Nuclear Engineer, Supervisor of Reactor Engineering/Core Design

 

[lunarmansion]

Plato on wisdom(seventh letter)

"One statement at any rate I can make in regard to all who have written or who may write with a claim to knowledge of the subjects to which I devote myself-no matter how they pretend to have acquired it, whether from my instruction or from others or by their own discovery. Such writers can in my opinion have no real acquaintance with the subject. I certainly have composed no work in regard to it, nor shall I ever do so in the future, for there is no way of putting it in words like other studies. Acquaintance with it must come rather after a long period of attendance on instruction in the subject itself and of close companionship, when, suddenly, like a blaze kindled by a leaping spark, it is generated in the soul and at once becomes self sustaining."

I will never forget him, not as long as I'm still among the living and my springing knees will lift and drive me on. Though the dead forget their dead in the House of Death, I will remember, even there, my dear companion...(Iliad(Achilles upon the death of Patroclus)

Man is altogether desire (kama), as is his desire so is his insight (kratu); as is his insight so is his deed (karma), as is his deed so is his destiny.
(The Brahmanas)

Two things fill the heart with ever renewed and increasing awe and reverence, the more often and steadily we meditate upon them: the starry firmament above and the moral law within.( Immanuel Kant)

Two interesting points of views:

Of making books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of flesh-Ecclesiastes

Even though he speaks falsely, yet speaks he truth who thus knows why truth is satya (truth) (Aitareya Aranyaka)

 

[fourier jr]

When these thoughts had led me from the particular study of arithmetic and geometry to a general study of mathematics, I inquired first of all precisely what everyone means by this word, and why not only those two sciences of which we have already spoken, but also music, optics, mechanics, and several others are called parts of mathematics. For it is not enough in this case to consider the etymology of the word; since, as the term mathesis signifies simply science, the other sciences would have no less right than geometry itself to be called mathematics. Moreover, we see no one who, if he has so much as set foot in a school, fails to distinguish easily among those subject matters that are presented to him what belongs to mathematics and what belongs to other disciplines. And if one reflects on this matter more attentively, one finally observes that all and only those subjects in which order and measurement are investigated are referred to mathematics, no matter whether such measure is sought in numbers, in figures, in stars, in sounds, or in some other subject. One concludes, therefore, that there must be some general science explaining all that can be investigated concerning order and measure, without application to a particular material; and that this science is called not by a strange name, but by a name already ancient and received by usage, universal mathematics, because it includes all that material by virtue of which other sciences are called parts of mathematics. How much it excels in usefulness and facility the sciences that depend on it is clear from that fact that it extends to all the objects which they treat and to many others; and that all the difficulties it involves are found also which arise from their particular objects, and which it for its part does not possess. But now, since everyone knows its name, and knows what it deals with, even without applying it, how does it happen that most people try to learn the other sciences that depend on it, while no one takes the trouble to study it in itself? I should certainly be amazed at this if I did not know that it is considered by everyone to be very simple, and if I had not observed long ago that the human mind, leaving aside what it thinks easy of attainment, hurries on to new and loftier things.
Rene Descartes

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
Epictetus

 

[twisting_edge]

We think we understand the regular reflection of light and x-rays - and we should understand the reflection of electrons as well if electrons were only waves instead of particles...It is rather as if one were to see a rabbit climbing a tree, and were to say, "Well, that is rather a strange thing for a rabbit to be doing, but after all there is really nothing to get excited about. Cats climb trees - so that if the rabbit were only a cat, we would understand its behavior perfectly."

- Clinton J. Davisson, Franklin Institute Journal (1928)

People all the time forget just how weird that is.

 

[Astronuc]

Clinton J. Davisson received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1937 with George Paget Thomson for the discovery of electron diffraction.

It is enjoyable to read the thoughts of the pioneers in physics.

 

[whitay]

"I just enjoy ****ing with people's heads. For the first half of our gigs, there's normally some guy convinced I'm a girl, and a pretty cute one at that. As the gig continues, it begins to dawn on him that I'm a bloke, and suddenly he has to ask himself some serious questions. Ha ha!" by Brian Molko

He is really not so ugly after all, provided, of course, that one shuts one's eyes, and does not look at him. by Oscar Wilde

I have to come clean; I've broken a lot of laws, and the ones I haven't I've certainly thought about. I have sinned in thought, word, and deed. God forgive me. Actually God forgave me, but why would you? I'm here getting a doctorate, getting respectable, getting in the good graces of the powers that be, I hope it sends you students a powerful message: Crime does pay. by Bono

 

[lunarmansion]

Para pensar cual tu, solo es precise
no tener nada mas que inteligencia.
To think like you, all I need merely is to possesses intelligence- Unamuno

 

[lunarmansion]

How unreasonable people are! They never use the freedoms they have but demand those they do not have; they have freedom of thought- they demand freedom of speech.

My observation of life makes no sense at all. I suppose that an evil spirit has put a pair of glasses on my nose, one lens of which magnifies on an immense scale and the other reduces on the same scale.

Most people rush after pleasure so fast that they rush right past it. They are like that dwarf who guarded a kidnapped princess in his castle. One day he took a noon nap. When he woke up an hour later, she was gone. Hastily he pulls on his seven-league boots; with one step he is far past her.

In a theater, it happened that a fire started offstage. The clown came out to tell the audience. They thought it was a joke and applauded. He told them once again, and they became still more hilarious. This is the way, I suppose, that the world will be destroyed-amid the universal hilarity of wits and wags who think it is all a joke.

I prefer to talk with children, for one may still dare to hope that they may become rational beings;but those who have become that-good Lord!

( Soren Kierkegaard (Either/Or))

 

[EL]

My signature

 

[fourier jr]

lol @ kierkegaard :tongue: those are some good ones

To choose one sock from each of infinitely many pairs of socks requires the Axiom of choice, but for shoes the Axiom is not needed.
Bertrand Russell

Man is a rational animal - so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favor of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents.
Bertrand Russell

We always picture Plato and Aristotle wearing long academic gowns, but they were ordinary decent people like anyone else, who enjoyed a laugh with their friends. And when they amused themselves by composing their Laws and Politics they did it for fun. It was the least philosophical and least serious part of their lives: the most philosophical part was living simply and without fuss. If they wrote about politics it was as if to lay down rules for a madhouse. And if they treated it as really important it was because they knew that the madmen they were talking to believed themselves to be kings and emperors. They humoured these beliefs in order to calm down their madness with as little harm as possible.
Blaise Pascal

Mathematics is the key to our understanding of the physical world; it has given man the conviction that he can continue to fathom the secrets of nature; and it has given him power over nature. We now understand, for example, the motions of the planets and of electrons in atoms, the structure of matter, and the behaviour of electricity, light, radio waves, and sound. And we can use this knowledge on man's behalf. Some uses of this knowledge is familiar to all of us: the telephone, the phonograph, radio, and television are achievements of mathematics. Mathematics, especially through statistics and probability, is becoming increasingly valuable in the social sciences and biological and medical research. The search for truth in philosophy or the social sciences cannot be discussed without involving the role that mathematics has played in that quest. Painting and music have been influenced by mathematics. Much of our literature is permeated with themes treating the implications of mathematical achievements in science and technology. Indeed, it is impossible to understand some writers and poets unless one is familiar with mathematical influences to which they are reacting. Religious doctrines and beliefs have been dramatically altered in the light of what mathematics has revealed about our universe. In fact, the entire intellectual atmosphere, the Zeitgeist, has been determined by mathematical achievements.
Morris Kline

But Herr P can certainly drink, someone said to me recently: first two bottles of wine, then 12 glasses of punch. What is his objective? If I understand him aright, it seems to me I could do all Herr P is doing, and do it much quicker, if I shot a pistol at my head.
Georg Lichtenberg

 

[Astronuc]

I saw on a T-shirt.

"Three Wise Men?

Yeah, right!

Be serious" :rofl:

 

[lunarmansion]

The whole world steps aside for he who knows where to go.

Anonymous

This is similar:

Whatever the greatest man does,
Thus do the rest,
Whatever standard he sets,
The world follows that.
-Gita

A few more from that beautiful song:

Better one's own duty though deficient,
Than the duty of another well performed.
**********
The self alone can be a friend of oneself,
And the self alone can be an enemy of oneself.

******
The man who abandons all desires
Acts free from longing.
Indifferent to possessions, free from egotism,
He attains peace.

******

Content with whatever comes to him,
Transcending the qualities (i.e., pleasure pain etc.),
free from envy,
Constant in mind whether in success or failure
Even though he acts, he is not bound.

*******
This one I liked but have never seen a life example:

The wise see the same,
In a Brahmin endowed with wisdom and cultivation,
In a cow, in an elephant,
And even in a dog or in an outcaste.

****

 

[lunarmansion]

There is a building in New York City dedicated to Dag Hammerskjold. I did some research into the man, and have found he was quite remarkable in his way. The United Nations has not seen a Secretary General like that for a long time. Some of his thoughts are recorded in his book Markings.
A few quotes by him:


Never measure the height of a mountain, until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.

The aura of victory that surrounds a man of good-will, the sweetness of soul which emanates from him-a flavor of cranberries and cloudberries, a touch of frost and fiery skies.

The alienation of great pride from everything which constitutes human order.
A fable: once upon a time, there was a crown so heavy that it could only be worn by one who remained completely oblivious to his glitter.

On the field where Ormuzd has challenged Ahriman to battle, he who chases away the dogs is wasting his time.

What makes loneliness an anguish is not that I have no one to share my burden, but this: I have only my burden to bear.

Life only demands from you the strength you possess. Only one feat is possible, not to run away.

Praise those of your critics for whom nothing is up to standard.

The scientist only records what he has been able to establish as indisputable fact. In the same way, only what is unique in a person's experience is worth writing down as a guide and warning to others. In the same way, too, an explorer leaves it to others to pass their time taking notes on the quaint customs of the natives, or making devastating remarks about the foibles of their traveling companions.
True-and which do you do?

 

[lunarmansion]

There are a lot of Math quotes on the internet. Here is a few I found.

A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what the thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction. Tolstoy

I have heard myself accused of being an opponent, an enemy of mathematics, which no one can value more highly that I, for it accomplishes the very thing whose achievement has been denied me.-Goethe

The pursuit of mathematics is a divine madness of the human spirit-Whitehead

Today, it is not only that our kings do not know mathematics, but our philosophers do not know mathematics-Oppenheimer

I must study politics and war that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy-John Adams

May your life be like Mathematics
joys added
Sorrows subtracted
Friends multiplied
Love undivided-Unknown

How happy are the lot of the mathematicians. He is judged solely by his peers, and the standard is so high that no colleague or rival can ever win a reputation he does not deserve.-W. H. Auden

 

[lunarmansion]

I came across some passages from Thoreau I copied as a teenager. I still like them:

"...A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book. Haste makes waste no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars. What are threescore years and ten hurriedly lived to moments to divine leisure, in which your life is coincident with the life of the universe? We live too fast and too coarsely, just as we eat too fast, and do not know the true savor of our food. We consult our will and understanding and the expectations of men, not our genius. I can impose upon myself tasks which will crush me for life and prevent all expansion, and this I am but too inclined to do. Our moment of life costs many hours, not of business, but of preparation and invitation...That aim in life is the highest which requires the highest and finest discipline. How much, what infinite leisure it requires, as of a life-time, to appreciate a single phenomenon. You must camp down beside it as for life, having reached your land of promise, and give yourself wholly to it..."
Thoreau

 

[Astronuc]

******
The man who abandons all desires,
Acts free from longing.
Indifferent to possessions, free from egotism,
He attains peace.
******

Something to which I aspire.

 

[Astronuc]

A discovery is an accident meeting a prepared mind -

Albert von Szent-Györgyi (Nobel laureate)
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1937/szent-gyorgyi-bio.html

 

[fourier jr]

A discovery is an accident meeting a prepared mind -

Albert von Szent-Györgyi (Nobel laureate)
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1937/szent-gyorgyi-bio.html

Let us take Sir Isaac Newton. All discoveries are due to chance, whether towards the end or the beginning of the process, for otherwise reasonable people could sit down and make discoveries as one sits down and writes a letter. The imagination spots a similarity and reason tests it and finds it true: that is discovery. That is how Sir Isaac Newton was. I have not the slightest reason to doubt that there existed before him and after him, in England and without, and that there exist now minds superior to his in ability, just as I have no reason to doubt that the peasant who gazes in admiration at the preacher would preach better if he had studied and acquired the knack. Opportunity and occasion are the discoverer and ambition the improver, confidence in one's own strength is strength, in marriage and the world of learning.
Georg Lichtenberg

 

[verty]

"There is no light without shadow, and it is essential to know the night." - Albert Camus

"For sheep don't throw up the grass to show the shepherds how much they have eaten; but, inwardly digesting their food, they outwardly produce wool and milk. Thus, therefore, do you likewise not show theorems to the unlearned, but the actions produced by them after they have been digested." - Epictetus

"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter." - Ayn Rand

"Be pleasant." - Me

 

[lunarmansion]

Immanuel Kant, the great philosopher, also made some contributions to science and mathematics, among which is the nebular hypothesis regarding the formation of our solar system. This hypothesis, as everyone knows, has attained the status of a scientific theory. Kant tired to epitomize the results of the science of his day, an undertaking hardly possible today with the vast specialization in the sciences. Rereading some bits of him, I found an interesting comment on the sciences and philosophy:

"Science has a real and true value only as an instrument of practical wisdom. As such an instrument, it is indeed indispensable..."
The task of philosophy, according to him, is to furnish a second eye to the scientifically instructed youth,
"...Which shall cause him also see the object from the standpoint of other men. On this depends the humanity of science..."
Perhaps interesting in light of the fact that progress in the sciences, which is neutral, does not often go in hand with the way it is implemented.

 

[lunarmansion]

Let us take Sir Isaac Newton. All discoveries are due to chance, whether towards the end or the beginning of the process, for otherwise reasonable people could sit down and make discoveries as one sits down and writes a letter. The imagination spots a similarity and reason tests it and finds it true: that is discovery. That is how Sir Isaac Newton was. I have not the slightest reason to doubt that there existed before him and after him, in England and without, and that there exist now minds superior to his in ability, just as I have no reason to doubt that the peasant who gazes in admiration at the preacher would preach better if he had studied and acquired the knack. Opportunity and occasion are the discoverer and ambition the improver, confidence in one's own strength is strength, in marriage and the world of learning.
Georg Lichtenberg

The best thoughts on genius are those of geniuses themselves. Here is a few I found:

Genius is what makes us forget the master's talent.

Genius is what makes us forget skill.

Where genius wears thin skill may show through.
***
One might say "Genius is talent exercised with courage."

Not funk but funk conquered is what is worthy of admiration and makes life worth having been lived. Courage not cleverness; not even inspiration- this is the grain of mustard that grows into a great tree. To the extent there is courage there is a link with life and death. But you don't win courage by recognizing the want of it in someone else.
***
There is no more light in a genius than in any other honest man-but he has a particular kind of lens to concentrate this light into a burning point.

-Ludwig Wittgenstein

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Eternity is a very long time; especially near the end - Bernard Haisch