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Better too obsessive than not obsessive enough. Life deserves intensity, even if misplaced.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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Everything you need to know about life is somewhere in The Illiad.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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Reality is never a stranger. If you don't go looking for it, it will come looking for you.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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What seems odd from the outside usually seems inevitable from the inside.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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Different is better for someone.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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Literature is the art of lying in order to tell the truth.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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Meaning is the outside brought in.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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If you say, life is only for a moment, I respond, it is for a moment, rejecting 'only'. The moment matters.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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Mathematicians keep making the same mistake. Irrational numbers, negative numbers, imaginary numbers, undecidability: what is initially seen as an ugly contradiction is in fact an invitation to deepen our understanding of mathematics, and to see its beauty more fully. Undecidability is the discovery of truth oscillators.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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We know there is a divine realm because mathematics exists. And to those who would say mathematics is a human construction, I respond, you probably haven't done much math. Mathematics is consistently smarter than mathematicians, and its soul is deeper as well.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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If I can't take it with me, I'm not going.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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Interest gets interesting when the principal shows up.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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Love is like falling asleep: it only happens when you let go of yourself. And if it is worthwhile, it is generally true that love precedes the one loved.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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I don't care what people think unless they do.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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The basis of farce is undue seriousness.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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One of the few good things about getting older is that there are so many things not worth caring about that I don't care about anymore. A certain part of wisdom is indifference.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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The belief that one knows a lot is usually a sign of ignorance.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is a statement about the Fourier transform, not about nature. The first falls where the second is not applicable.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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Forgetting is more sophisticated than remembering. Humans are the animals that mastered abstraction. Abstraction is forgetting what does not matter.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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I am well-traveled in my mind. Life is lived between the ears, the rest is stage setting.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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Although lost to history, one may imagine that the origin of the phrase 'to face the music' is that Scottish military formations placed their musicians in the rear. So soldiers had the choice of going forward into battle, or turning back and listening to the bagpipes. This accounts for their bravery.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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Most art is not as good as the artist. But great art is much better than the artist. Because great art is the expression of truth, for which the artist is only a messenger.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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Civilization is the process of creating new necessities.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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Good math is discovered. Bad math is invented.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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Engineers are like offensive linemen. When you hear their names called, it is generally bad news.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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Engineering is the art of systematically making things boring. When a bridge falls down, that's interesting. When it doesn't fall down, that's engineering.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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Regarding yoga, pretzels should be eaten, not imitated.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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I would say that I sing like a tone-deaf crow, were I not afraid that some crow would sue me for libel.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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When thinking is only worrying, don't think.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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Some people like to announce that they are twits. Ignore them. No one's opinion can bother you unless you respect it.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jerrold Prothero
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