Love of bustle is not industry.
Category: Collected Quotations
The king had two sons — one an optimist, the other a pessimist. The king gave the pessimist everything he desired, and he gave the optimist a room full of horse manure.
The pessimist was despondent because he no longer had anything to look forward to. The optimist was as happy as he could be. ‘With all this manure,’ he said, ‘there must be a pony in here somewhere.’
A study at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, proved that when total strangers hold eye contact for an extended period of time, they start to feel affection for one another even if they haven’t spoken.
— Jennifer Benjamin, “Ways to say ‘I Love You’ Without a Word
Wise people, even though all laws were abolished, would still lead the same life.
If you don’t like someone, the way he holds his spoon will make you furious; if you do like him, he can turn his plate over into your lap and you won’t mind.
The Martian troops, moreover, had no control over where there ships were to land. Their ships were controlled by fully automatic pilot-navigators, and these electronic devices were set by technicians on Mars so as to make the ships land at particular points on Earth, regardless of who awful the military situation might be down there.
The only controls available to those on board were two push-buttons on the center post of the cabin — one labeled on and one labeled off. The on button simply started the flight from Mars. The off button was connected to nothing. It was installed at the insistence of Martian mental-health experts, who said that human beings were always happier with machinery they thought they could turn off.
— The Sirens of Titan
I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.
Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy.
Many a time I have wanted to stop talking and find out what I really believed.
We are getting into semantics again. If we use words, there is a grave danger they will be misinterpreted.