Shelah Quotes & Sayings

There is an old maxim that says that two empires that are too large will collapse. The analog in set theory is that two different theories that are too powerful must necessarily contradict each other. — Saharon Shelah

In Hollywood, primitive magical thinking exists side by side with the most advanced technology. — Hortense Powdermaker

College was for people who didn't know they were smart. — Stephen King

The class's favorite
book was Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading. In this novel, Nabokov differentiates
Cincinnatus C., his imaginative and lonely hero, from those around him through his
originality in a society where uniformity is not only the norm but also the law. — Azar Nafisi

This was a sometimes attractive and sometimes frustrating wrinkle of the dialectic, she'd found: everything turned out to be the superstructure of some other thing. — Garth Risk Hallberg

Orthodoxy is the diehard of the world of thought. It learns not, neither can it forget. — Aldous Huxley

I never realized what a great privilege it is to be able to use the voice for Christ until I was deprived of it. — Adoniram Judson

In the early nineteenth century, with Enlightenment optimism soured by years of war and revolution, critics were skeptical of America's naive faith that it had reinvented politics. — Simon Schama

Cardinal Arithmetics is much older than Number Theory. People used to exchange things way before there were numbers. Expressing numbers like 762 is already a sign of a very advanced civilization. — Saharon Shelah

The primary social goal of both systems of political economy is for middle-aged men to attract good-looking younger women. Democratic capitalists believe that good-looking younger women are attracted mainly by money. Social democratic capitalists believe that they are attracted mainly by power. — Gary North

Number theorists say that number theory is too complicated, so let's pretend that there is only one prime number, and then let's combine all these results. Surprisingly, sometimes it works. — Saharon Shelah

I am my own worst enemy. My friends and family will say, 'You've got everything going for you right now', and I say, 'Oh yes, but!' Which is not a good way to be. — Tamsin Egerton