Our aim as scientists is objective truth; more truth, more interesting truth, more intelligible truth. We cannot reasonably aim at certainty. Once we realize that human knowledge is fallible, we realize also that we can never be completely certain that we have not made a mistake.

There are women who inspire you with the desire to conquer them and to take your pleasure of them; but this one fills you only with the desire to die slowly beneath her gaze.

Charles Baudelaire

What will be the judgment a century hence concerning the lorded works of our favorite composers today? Inasmuch as nearly everything is subject to the changes of time, and - more's the pity- the fashions of time, only that which is good and true will endure like a rock and no wanton hand will ever venture to defile it. Then, let every man do that which is right, strive with all his might towards the goal which can never be obtained, develop to the last breath the gifts with which the gracious Creator has endowed him, and never cease to learn. For life is short, art eternal.

Ludwig van Beethoven

On George Bernard Shaw An excellent man: he has no enemies, and none of his friends like him.

Oscar Wilde

I don't understand why Europeans and South Americans can take more sophistication. Why is it that Americans need to hear their happiness major and their tragedy minor, and as jazzy as they can handle is a seventh chord? Are they not experiencing complex emotions?

Joni Mitchell

No Child Left Behind's fourth-grade gains aren't learning gains, they're testing gains. That's why they don't last. The law is a distraction from things that really count.

Jonathan Kozol

The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

George Orwell

We shall build on.On through the cynic

Studdert Kennedy

The basic difference between being assertive and being aggressive is how our words and behavior affect the rights and well being of others.

Sharon Anthony Bower

You only find yourself when you disobey. Disobedience is the beginning of responsibility, I think.

Guillermo del Toro

In everyday things the law of sacrifice takes the form of positive duty.

James Anthony Froude

The cult of the individual is killing us. I think Twitter signals the death of western civilisation, but people have been saying that since Demosthenes.

Kate Atkinson

I just always have to cry out a breakup, and then I can make peace with it pretty quickly.

Brittany Murphy