β
Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.
β
β
Oscar Wilde (Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories)
β
It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle
β
Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer
β
Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.
β
β
Arthur C. Clarke
β
When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #9))
β
I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.
β
β
Arthur C. Clarke
β
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.
β
β
William Arthur Ward
β
You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
β
β
Mark Twain (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court)
β
This must be Thursday,' said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer. 'I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
β
β
Douglas Adams (The Hitchhikerβs Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1))
β
Compassion is the basis of morality.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer
β
We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.
β
β
Arthur O'Shaughnessy (Poems of Arthur O'Shaughnessy)
β
It is not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, but the fight in the dog that wins.
β
β
Arthur G. Lewis (Stub Ends of Thought and Verse (Classic Reprint))
β
The heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves until one day there are none. No hopes. Nothing remains.
β
β
Arthur Golden (Memoirs of a Geisha)
β
You know," said Arthur, "it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young."
"Why, what did she tell you?"
"I don't know, I didn't listen.
β
β
Douglas Adams (The Hitchhikerβs Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1))
β
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Boscombe Valley Mystery - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story)
β
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
β
β
Arthur C. Clarke
β
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer (Essays and Aphorisms)
β
It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #4))
β
You see, but you do not observe.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (A Scandal in Bohemia (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, #1))
β
At the temple there is a poem called "Loss" carved into the stone. It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read loss, only feel it.
β
β
Arthur Golden (Memoirs of a Geisha)
β
Genius is the recovery of childhood at will.
β
β
Arthur Rimbaud
β
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
β
β
Arthur C. Clarke (Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible)
β
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
β
β
William Arthur Ward
β
So this is it," said Arthur, "We are going to die."
"Yes," said Ford, "except... no! Wait a minute!" He suddenly lunged across the chamber at something behind Arthur's line of vision. "What's this switch?" he cried.
"What? Where?" cried Arthur, twisting round.
"No, I was only fooling," said Ford, "we are going to die after all.
β
β
Douglas Adams (The Hitchhikerβs Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1))
β
The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Hound of the Baskervilles (Sherlock Holmes, #5))
β
Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena)
β
Everything we are is at every moment alive in us.
β
β
Arthur Miller
β
Just remember, kid, you can quicker get back a million dollars that was stole than a word that you gave away.
β
β
Arthur Miller (A View from the Bridge: A Play in Two Acts)
β
How inappropriate to call this planet "Earth," when it is clearly "Ocean.
β
β
Arthur C. Clarke
β
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes)
β
Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.
β
β
Arthur Miller
β
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Valley of Fear (Sherlock Holmes, #7))
β
Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer (Studies in Pessimism: The Essays)
β
I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.
β
β
Arthur Rimbaud (A Season in Hell and The Drunken Boat)
β
You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Complete Sherlock Holmes)
β
This is why dreams can be such dangerous things: they smolder on like a fire does, and sometimes they consume us completely.
β
β
Arthur Golden (Memoirs of a Geisha)
β
It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer
β
Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (His Last Bow (Sherlock Holmes, #8))
β
The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer (Religion: A Dialogue and Other Essays)
β
It is wise to direct your anger towards problems -- not people; to focus your energies on answers -- not excuses.
β
β
William Arthur Ward
β
The love of books is among the choicest gifts of the gods.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle
β
Happiness consists in frequent repetition of pleasure
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer
β
Watson. Come at once if convenient. If inconvenient, come all the same.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (Adventure of the Creeping Man)
β
Tis the nightβthe night
Of the grave's delight,
And the warlocks are at their play;
Ye think that without,
The wild winds shout,
But no, it is theyβit is they!
β
β
Arthur Cleveland Coxe (Halloween: A Romaunt)
β
My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people do not know.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, #7))
β
What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1))
β
One should use common words to say uncommon things
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer
β
The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer (The Basis of Morality (Dover Philosophical Classics))
β
A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #9))
β
He was like a song I'd heard once in fragments but had been singing in my mind ever since.
β
β
Arthur Golden (Memoirs of a Geisha)
β
Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer (The Basis of Morality (Dover Philosophical Classics))
β
Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.
Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer (Essays and Aphorisms)
β
There is truth in stories,β said Arthur. βThere is truth in one of your paintings, boy or in a sunset or a couplet from Homer. Fiction is truth, even if it is not a fact. If you believe only in facts and forget stories, your brain will live, but your heart will die.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2))
β
Excellent!" I cried. "Elementary," said he.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Complete Sherlock Holmes)
β
My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Sign of Four (Sherlock Holmes, #2))
β
Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.
β
β
Arthur Miller (The Ride Down Mt. Morgan)
β
They tell us that Suicide is the greatest piece of Cowardice... That Suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in this world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer
β
Arthur: If I asked you where the hell we were, would I regret it?
Ford: We're safe.
Arthur: Oh good.
Ford: We're in a small galley cabin in one of the spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet.
Arthur: Ah, this is obviously some strange use of the word safe that I wasn't previously aware of.
β
β
Douglas Adams (The Hitchhikerβs Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1))
β
I dont think any of us can speak frankly about pain until we are no longer enduring it.
β
β
Arthur Golden (Memoirs of a Geisha)
β
It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle
β
Life is a constant process of dying.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer
β
I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone)
β
Ford!" he said, "there's an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they've worked out.
β
β
Douglas Adams (The Hitchhikerβs Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1))
β
I believe I am in Hell, therefore I am.
β
β
Arthur Rimbaud
β
Betrayal is the only truth that sticks.
β
β
Arthur Miller
β
Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer (Essays and Aphorisms)
β
We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.
β
β
Arthur O'Shaughnessy (Poems of Arthur O'Shaughnessy)
β
But the plans were on displayβ¦β
βOn display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.β
βThatβs the display department.β
βWith a flashlight.β
βAh, well, the lights had probably gone.β
βSo had the stairs.β
βBut look, you found the notice, didnβt you?β
βYes,β said Arthur, βyes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying βBeware of the Leopard.
β
β
Douglas Adams (The Hitchhikerβs Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1))
β
I don't know when we'll see each other again or what the world will be like when we do. We may both have seen many horrible things. But I will think of you every time I need to be reminded that there is beauty and goodness in the world.
β
β
Arthur Golden (Memoirs of a Geisha)
β
Until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven.
β
β
Arthur Miller (The Crucible)
β
Adversity is like a strong wind. I don't mean just that it holds us back from places we might otherwise go. It also tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that afterward we see ourselves as we really are, and not merely as we might like to be.
β
β
Arthur Golden (Memoirs of a Geisha)
β
It would be better if there were nothing. Since there is more pain than pleasure on earth, every satisfaction is only transitory, creating new desires and new distresses, and the agony of the devoured animal is always far greater than the pleasure of the devourer
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer
β
To a great mind, nothing is little,' remarked Holmes, sententiously.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1))
β
The game is afoot.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (Adventure of the Abbey Grange - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story)
β
... that when you're buying books, you're optimistically thinking you're buying the time to read them.
(Paraphrase of Schopenhauer)
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer
β
We lead our lives like water flowing down a hill, going more or less in one direction until we splash into something that forces us to find a new course.
β
β
Arthur Golden (Memoirs of a Geisha)
β
Sometimes," he sighed, "I think the things I remember are more real than the things I see.
β
β
Arthur Golden (Memoirs of a Geisha)
β
Come on, Rory! It isn't rocket science, it's just quantum physics!
-The Doctor (Matt Smith)
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer (Essays and Aphorisms)
β
A sense of humour is the only divine quality of man
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer
β
A high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer (The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims)
β
We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer
β
Magic's just science that we don't understand yet.
β
β
Arthur C. Clarke
β
Women are naturally secretive, and they like to do their own secreting.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes)
β
Grief is a most peculiar thing; weβre so helpless in the face of it. Itβs like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what has become of it.
β
β
Arthur Golden (Memoirs of a Geisha)
β
If you aren't the woman I think you are, then this isn't the world I thought it was.
β
β
Arthur Golden (Memoirs of a Geisha)
β
I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Adventure of the Lion's Mane)
β
One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary connection. But the basis of morality is really very simple and doesn't require religion at all.
β
β
Arthur C. Clarke
β
Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (A Case of Identity - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes #3))
β
My favourite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence.
[Sources and Acknowledgements: Chapter 19]
β
β
Arthur C. Clarke (3001: The Final Odyssey)
β
How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Sign of Four (Sherlock Holmes, #2))
β
When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. In learning to write, the pupil goes over with his pen what the teacher has outlined in pencil: so in reading; the greater part of the work of thought is already done for us. This is why it relieves us to take up a book after being occupied with our own thoughts. And in reading, the mind is, in fact, only the playground of anotherβs thoughts. So it comes about that if anyone spends almost the whole day in reading, and by way of relaxation devotes the intervals to some thoughtless pastime, he gradually loses the capacity for thinking; just as the man who always rides, at last forgets how to walk. This is the case with many learned persons: they have read themselves stupid.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer (Essays and Aphorisms)
β
Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!
β
β
Arthur Miller (The Crucible)
β
We will gradually become indifferent to what goes on in the minds of other people when we acquire a knowledge of the superficial nature of their thoughts, the narrowness of their views and of the number of their errors. Whoever attaches a lot of value to the opinions of others pays them too much honor.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer (The Philosophy of Schopenhauer)
β
If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer (Studies in Pessimism: The Essays)
β
It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude. To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility, is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire. For politeness is like a counter--an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer (The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims)
β
Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes)
β
I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1))
β
What disturbs and depresses young people is the hunt for happiness on the firm assumption that it must be met with in life. From this arises constantly deluded hope and so also dissatisfaction. Deceptive images of a vague happiness hover before us in our dreams, and we search in vain for their original. Much would have been gained if, through timely advice and instruction, young people could have had eradicated from their minds the erroneous notion that the world has a great deal to offer them.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer
β
It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
"What?"
"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happenned to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."
"But that's terrible," said Arthur.
"Listen, bud," said Ford, "if I had one Altairian dollar for every time I heard one bit of the Universe look at another bit of the Universe and say 'That's terrible' I wouldn't be sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin.
β
β
Douglas Adams (So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #4))