Saturday, November 20, 2004

Quotations #012

"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them." -- Alfred North Whitehead

"A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets." Arthur C. Clarke

"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." -- Bertrand Russell

"Both superpowers are dangerous enough (each in its own totally different way) but probably not as dangerous as each is depicted by its adversaries, according to a law I worked out and which, I hope, might one day bear my name. I developed it years ago when living, working, and meditating in a weak, underdeveloped, disorganized, totalitarian country, my own, and, at the same time, reading about it -- its far-seeing dictator, terrifying armaments, and awesome disciplined power -- in the foreign press. My law states that nations, organizations, institutions, bodies, or single human beings are never as powerful, intelligent, far-seeing, efficient, and dangerous as they seem to their enemies." -- Luigi Barzini, The Europeans, p. 219.

"History is a constant race between invention and catastrophe. Education helps but it is never enough. You also must run." -- Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune.

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