Britannica Encyclopedia Quotes & Sayings

The writing of solid, instructive stuff fortified by facts and figures is easy enough. There is no trouble in writing a scientific treatise on the folk-lore of Central China, or a statistical enquiry into the declining population of Prince Edward Island. But to write something out of one's own mind, worth reading for its own sake, is an arduous contrivance only to be achieved in fortunate moments, few and far in between. Personally, I would sooner have written Alice in Wonderland than the whole Encyclopedia Britannica. — Stephen Leacock

Only a hundred years ago the idea that an order might arise without a personal Author appeared so nonsensical to you that it inspired seemingly absurd jokes, like the one about the pack of monkeys hammering away at typewriters until the Encyclopedia Britannica emerged. I recommend that you devote some of your free time to compiling an anthology of just such jokes, which amused your forebears as pure nonsense but now turn out to be parables of Nature. — Stanislaw Lem

It is invisible hands that torment and bend us the worst — Friedrich Nietzsche

Can life be defined? Well, how would you go about it? Well, of course, you'd go to Encyclopedia Britannica and open at L. No, of course you don't do that; you put it somewhere in Google. And then you might get something. — Chris Adami

There is enough information capacity in a single human cell to store the Encyclopedia Britannica, all 30 volumes of it, three or four times over. — Richard Dawkins

Tool," William said, ... "As in a device to perform or facilitate mechanical or manual labor?"
"That's right Encyclopedia Britannica. Or in layman's terms: screwdriver, hammer - "
"How about a wrench," William interrupted,"
"You've got a quick learner on your hands, Bryn," Paul said ... "Sure, wrench works just fine as well," ... "Whatever blows your skirt up buddy." ...
"Well a wrench would come in handy right now," William mused. "Because you definitely have a couple screws loose. — Nicole Williams

It is one thing to speak of embracing the new, the fresh, the strange. It is another to feel that one is an insect, crawling across a page of the Encyclopedia Britannica, knowing only that something vast is passing by beneath, all without your sensing more than a yawning vacancy. — Gregory Benford

A remark of my brother's apropos of the troubles and pains our mother endured: "Old age is nature's self-criticism. — Emil M. Cioran

Today a reader, tomorrow a leader. — Margaret Fuller

You know what I need?" I asked. "A chocolate fountain?" Ethan suggested. "A complete paper set of the Encyclopedia Britannica? A lifetime supply of grilled meat?" "I like all those ideas, but I was thinking a magical spray I can use on Mallory to wash the crazy off her." "Like Lysol for evil?" Paige asked. — Chloe Neill

The Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th edition, devotes 20,000 words to the person of Jesus Christ and never once hints that He didn't exist. — John Ankerberg

When the sun shines in the morning," he croaked, "its first ray falls on the door. — Gertrude Landa

I could see the solace she discovered. Here she could sing and dance and shout for glory among people who didn't care which pew she sat in, whose people she belonged to, and whether she was baking a roast for the church homecoming. They were people who yearned for one thing, and one thing only: a pure relationship with that part of the Trinity so often neglected in organized worship. The Holy Spirit. Slouching — Sibella Giorello

Let's do something cheerful
all your designs are about captivity, it depresses me.
Geryon watched the top of Herakles' head
and felt his limits returning. Nothing to say. He looked at this fact
in mild surprise. Once in childhood
his ice cream had been eaten by a dog. Just an empty con
in a small dramatic red fist.
Herakles stood up. No? Let's go then. On the way home they tried "Joy To The World"
but were too tired. It seemed a long drive. — Anne Carson

When I was about ten my favourite article in the huge and mouldering Encyclopedia Britannica we owned (the ninth edition) was the one on Lycanthropy. (Yes, I had a favourite 1890s Britannica article when I was ten. I am now aware this is not entirely usual.) — Neil Gaiman

A corporation has no rights except those given it by law. It can exercise no power except that conferred upon it by the people through legislation, and the people should be as free to withhold as to give, public interest and not private advantage being the end in view. — William Jennings Bryan