Explore the wonderful quotes under this tag
Imagination, not intelligence, made us human.
Sep 30, 2025
I could be wrong. Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about.
One day a tortoise will learn how to fly.
Gods don't like people not doing much work. People who aren't busy all the time might start to think.
There’s no point in believing in things that exist.
I used to think that I was stupid, and then I met philosophers.
Many feel they are called to the priesthood, but what they really hear is an inner voice saying, 'It's indoor work with no heavy lifting, do you want to be a ploughman like your father?'
We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork.
Better to have small faith in a great God than to have great faith in a small god.
Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.
Humans! They lived in a world where the grass continued to be green and the sun rose every day and flowers regularly turned into fruit, and what impressed them? Weeping statues. And wine made out of water! A mere quantum-mechanistic tunnel effect, that'd happen anyway if you were prepared to wait zillions of years. As if the turning of sunlight into wine, by means of vines and grapes and time and enzymes, wasn't a thousand times more impressive and happened all the time.
Sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led.
When you can flatten entire cities at a whim, a tendency towards quiet reflection and seeing-things-from-the-other-fellow's-point- of-view is seldom necessary.
The figures looked more or less human. And they were engaged in religion. You could tell by the knives (it's not murder if you do it for a god).
Probably the last man who knew how it worked had been tortured to death years before. Or as soon as it was installed. Killing the creator was a traditional method of patent-protection.
No. Men should die for lies. But the truth is too precious to die for.
What's a philosopher?' said Brutha. Someone who's bright enough to find a job with no heavy lifting,' said a voice in his head.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
You can't inspire people with facts. They need a cause. They need a symbol.
Inside every sane person there’s a madman struggling to get out.
There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.
The people who really run organizations are usually found several levels down, where it is still possible to get things done.
The trouble with being a god is that you've got no one to pray to.
Not a man to mince words. People, yes. But not words.
I like the idea of democracy. You have to have someone everyone distrusts.
You can't find a hermit to teach you herming, because of course that rather spoils the whole thing.
Words are the litmus paper of the minds. If you find yourself in the power of someone who will use the word "commence" in cold blood, go somewhere else very quickly. But if they say "Enter", don't stop to pack.
Most gods find it hard to walk and think at the same time.
Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.
I imagine that fish have no word for water.
The trouble was that he was talking in philosophy but they were listening in gibberish.
Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off.
Sometimes glass glitters more than diamonds because it has more to prove.
What have I always believed? That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, at the end, more or less, turn out all right.
It is a popular fact that nine-tenths of the brain is not used and, like most popular facts, it is wrong. Not even the most stupid Creator would go to the trouble of making the human head carry around several pounds of unnecessary gray goo if its only real purpose was, for example, to serve as a delicacy for certain remote tribesmen in unexplored valleys.
Pets are always a great help in times of stress. And in times of starvation too, o'course.
And it came to pass that in time the Great God Om spake unto Brutha, the Chosen One: "Psst!
Give anyone a lever long enough and they can change the world. It's unreliable levers that are the problem.
Bishops move diagonally. That's why they often turn up where the kings don't expect them to be.
I don't think you should spend your life praying for things, but I do believe you should thank God for what He's given you... but I think the scripture teaches us that we can pray for our dreams, pray for the big things... he's not a small God; this God is incredible.
The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it's as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues.
Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.
Guilt was the grease in which the wheels of the authority turned.
Take it from me, whenever you see a bunch of buggers puttering around talking about truth and beauty and the best way of attacking Ethics, you can bet your sandals it's all because dozens of other poor buggers are doing all the real work around the place.
He says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at.
Oh, a very useful philosophical animal, your average tortoise. Outrunning metaphorical arrows, beating hares in races... very handy.
If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.
Your True Nature Is Love. There's Nothing You Can Do About It.
Ignore reality, there's nothing you can do about it.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.