Periumbilical Quotes & Sayings

I did learn something interesting [while at the Atlanta airport]. You have to be a member of the TSA in order to legally perform a cavity search. My apologies to the staff of Cinnabon, but you guys should really keep that extra frosting where the customers can find it. — Stephen Colbert

People keep referring to me as a standup, and that just doesn't sit well with me because a lot of my friends are standups and they're brilliant at writing jokes, and I'm not. — Nick Offerman

They suffered from the terrible delusion that something could be done. They seemed prepared to make the world the way they wanted it or die in the attempt, and the trouble with dying in the attempt was that you died in the attempt. — Terry Pratchett

When I was admitted to the University of Leiden, I expected to be presented with a single narrative of events and their significance and one explanation for why everything had happened as it did. Instead, the professors began every course with a central question; spent a lot of time on definitions and their importance; then presented key thinkers and their critics over time. My job as a student was to grasp the central question; to learn about the thinkers, their theories of power, political elites, mass psychology and sociology, and public policy; the methods by which they got to their conclusions; their critics and their methods of criticism. The point of all these exercises was to learn to improve on old ways of doing things through critical thinking. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Work is a prayer, and I start off every morning dedicating it to our Creator. — Joe Murray

Your words have come true with a vengeance that I shd [should] be forestalled ... I never saw a more striking coincidence. If Wallace had my M.S. sketch written out in 1842 he could not have made a better short abstract! Even his terms now stand as Heads of my Chapters. — Charles Darwin

It was bad enough to have toppled from the Olympic heights to make my living competing with animals. But the competition wasn't even fair. No man could beat a race horse, not even for 100 yards. — Jesse Owens

Beyond the cultural differences that must be bridged in any international effort, combined with factors of national politics, priorities, and values, we continue to grapple with the essential paradox of public health that began our discussion: when the system is working effectively, it is a silent venture and there are relatively few outbreaks of disease. These very successes lead most of us down a complacent path of false confidence, apathy, and assumptions that the endless dance is over. To complicate matters further, microbes themselves are hardly monolithic or permanently settled beings. For every attempt we make to destroy or weaken them, they respond with an equal and opposite force. The goal of both sides is to assume leadership of the evolutionary waltz ever in progress. — Howard Markel

War is not to be waged in the name of God. — Pope Francis

As one door closes, another one shuts. — Howard Wilkinson