Paikan Baras Quotes & Sayings

We can't take pleasure in a work of art, not in good conscience, without accepting the implicit intention of the artist to please us. — Michael Chabon

Any strategy that attempts to reinforce faith by undermining science is also doomed to failure. Showing that some scientific theory is wrong will not prove that the religious alternative is correct by default. When the sun was shown not to be the center of the universe, as Copernicus had proposed, the Earth was not moved back to that singular position in the cosmos. If Darwinian evolution is proved wrong, biologists will not develop a new theory based on the hypothesis that each species was created separately by God 6,000years ago. — Victor J. Stenger

On, I don't think I'm a genius!' cried Josie, growing calm and sober as she listened to the melodious voice and looked into the expressive face that filled her with confidence, so strong, sincere and kindly was it. 'I only want to find out if I have talent enough to go on, and after years of study be able to act well in any of the good plays people never tire of seeing. I don't expected to be a Mrs. Siddons or a Miss Cameron, much as I long to be; but it does seem as if I had something in me which can't come out in any way but this. When I act I'm perfectly happy. I seem to live, to be in my own world, and each new part is a new friend. I love Shakespeare, and am never tired of his splendid people. Of course I don't understand it all; but it's like being alone at night with the mountains and the stars, solemn and grand, and I try to imagine how it will look when the sun comes up, and all is glorious and clear to me. I can't see, but I feel the beauty, and long to express it. — Louisa May Alcott

And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy. But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer
by demonstration
would take care of that, too. For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.
The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.
And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"
And there was light
— Isaac Asimov

I see it happen in uniracial congregations all the time. But people - when they're in mixed company, we speak differently. — Michael Emerson

Midway in our life's journey, I went astray
from the straight road and woke to find myself
alone in a dark wood. — Dante Alighieri

Individualism is rather like innocence; there must be something unconscious about it. — Louis Kronenberger

I think that all human systems require continuous renewal. They rigidify. They get stuff in the joints. They forget what they cared about. The forces against it are nostalgia and the enormous appeal of having things the way they always have been, appeals to a supposedly happy past. But we've got to move on. — John W. Gardner

But of course, without the top you can't have any sides. It's the top that defines the sides. — Robert M. Pirsig

For Blake, the news was as a storm that tore him apart. How dare an enemy soldier hurt his father, how could an enemy soldier kill his father. This just could not have happened. He would have to do something about it. He would have to avenge his father's death. Yes, he would go to the war and kill that soldier. — J. Arthur Moore

Good prose almost always requires both showing and telling, scenes and summary, the two basic components of creative prose. — Laurie Alberts

I know none of Time's cardinal pillar on which it says forever just because eternity is not Time anymore. — Sorin Cerin

I think I have a degree of confidence, but I also have terrible insecurity, like anybody does. — Ben Whishaw