Just to while away the time…

A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes.
-Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college – that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, "You mean they forget?"
-Howard Ikemoto

The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
-John W. Gardner

No stream rises higher than its source.
-Frank Lloyd Wright

I’m sure many people will ask, ‘how could anyone do such a horrible thing?’  My only answer is, it isn’t easy,and was done only after much thought.
-John List, in a letter explaining why he killed his wife and children
                       
That we can do such as this, and still remain moral men, is what makes us great.
-Heinrich Himmler, to his troops after a mass execution of Jews in Poland

When heterosexuals come to terms with their sexuality, they call it adolescence.  When gay people do the same, they call it "coming out."
-The Columbus Dispatch, "Coming out"

Most of us survive our first loves.  But imagine what it must be like when your first love is not only a test of your commitment to your partner, but also of your parents’ to you?
-Desiree Cooper "Mother’s love is not a worry for gay teen", The Detroit Free Press

America is Satanic. America is so Satanic that even hamburgers should be considered evil, because they come from America.
-Sun Myung Moon

For best results: wash in cold water separately,
hang dry and iron with warm iron. For not so good
results: drag behind car through puddles, blow-dry
on roofrack.
-Laundry instructions on a shirt made by HEET (Korea)

It’s not like I never want to bite people…I just know it’s wrong.
-Satchel Pooch (Mrs. Pastor)

I smoke because it keeps me from killing people.
-Sarah Deere (Eschaton blog reader)

Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops.
-H.L. Mencken, Minority Report

What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school… It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don’t understand it. You see my physics students don’t understand it… That is because I don’t understand it. Nobody does.
-Richard Feynman

Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
-Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Herrera v. Collins

A lifetime isn’t long enough for the beauty of this world and the responsibilities of your life. Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away. Be good natured and untidy in your exuberance. In the glare of your mind, be modest, and beholden to what is tactile and thrilling.
-Mary Oliver

Some people are settling, some people are settling down and some people refuse to settle for anything less than butterflies.
-Carrie – Sex And The City