Madyn Quotes & Sayings

If you've a notion of what man's heart is, wouldn't you say that maybe the whole effort of man on earth to build a civilization is simply man's frantic and frightened attempt to hide himself from himself? That there is a part of man that man wants to reject? That man wants to keep from knowing what he is? That he wants to protect himself from seeing that he is something awful? And that this 'awful' part of himself might not be as awful as he thinks, but he finds it too strange and he does not know what to do with it? We talk about what to do with the atom bomb ... But man's heart, his spirit is the deadliest thing in creation. Are not all cultures and civilizations just screens which men have used to divide themselves, to put between that part of themselves which they are afraid of and that part of themselves which they wish, in their deep timidity, to try to preserve? Are not all of man's efforts at order an attempt to still man's fear of himself? — Richard Wright

Unless you are a professional, however, you may not react very differently to a sample of 150 and to a sample of 3,000. That is the meaning of the statement that people are not adequately sensitive to sample size. — Daniel Kahneman

In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics. — Earl Warren

It is impossible to think of a man of any actual force and originality, universally recognized as having those qualities, who spent his whole life appraising and describing the work of other men. — H.L. Mencken

I didn't give up anything. I gained a life I didn't even know existed. — C.M. Foss

Listen to them again: 'I love you.' Subject, verb, object: the unadorned, impregnable sentence. The subject is a short word, implying the self-effacement of the lover. The verb is longer but unambiguous, a demonstrative moment as the tongue flicks anxiously away from the palate to release the vowel. The object, like the subject, has no consonants, and is attained by pushing the lips forward as if for a kiss. 'I love you.' How serious, how weighted, how freighted it sounds. — Julian Barnes

WHAT AM I? I howled at him as he retreated. A voice, deathly familiar, prickled at the back of my mind, instilling a sense of calm that came from deep inside, an answer to a question that was asked and answered somewhere in the depths of me. Soul eater, it said in a raspy, whispering voice. Succubus. — Robert J. Crane

We lead in exporting jobs. — Dan Quayle

The capacity for erroneous belief is very great, especially where it coincides with convenience. — John Kenneth Galbraith

We haven't had to defend anything to anybody. — Ethan Coen

Books and beer are the best and worst defense. — Sherman Alexie

The best way to solve a problem is not to think of it as a problem but just as a difficulty or a challenge. Technically, the obstacle is the same, but you'll be able to approach it with a positive attitude that sharpens the mind and beats a path towards more solutions in the future. — A.G. Roemmers

She was fifteen years old, going on thirty-five, Doc, and she told me she was eighteen, she was very willing, I practically had to take to sewing my pants shut. Between you and me, uh, she might have been fifteen, but when you get that little red beaver right up there in front of you, I don't think it's crazy at all and I don't think you do either. No man alive could resist that, and that's why I got into jail to begin with. And now they're telling me I'm crazy over here because I don't sit there like a goddamn vegetable. Don't make a bit of sense to me. If that's what being crazy is, then I'm senseless, out of it, gone-down-the-road, wacko. But no more, no less, that's it. — Ken Kesey

Most of the AI goes into figuring which are the important pages you want. And to some extent what your query means, and what you're likely to be after based on your previous behavior and other information it collects about you. — Stuart J. Russell