My Favourite Quotes on various topics ...

My classes are as multicultural as I can possibly imagine.  The only thing missing are beings from outer space - then again …..

F.van Doorn  September 2007

The past tempts us, the present confuses us, and the future frightens us. And our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast terrible in-between.

Centauri Emperor - Babylon 5 - J. Michael Straczynski

"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."

Marcus to Franklin in Babylon 5: "A Late Delivery from Avalon" - J. Michael Straczynski

Realistic optimism is often mistaken for pessimism. 

May 26, 2008 F.van Doorn

Economists are most economical about ideas. They make the ones they learned in graduate school last a lifetime.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

As a child he accompanied his father to political rallies. At one such gathering, the elder Galbraith climbed atop a pile of manure to address the crowd. "He apologized with ill-concealed sincerity for speaking from the Tory platform," Dr. Galbraith later remembered.

Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!

Golda Meir

If you want to find out what you don't know, teach what you do know to someone else.

F. van Doorn

Personally, I'm in favor of democracy, which means that the central institutions of society have to be under popular control. Now, under capitalism, we can't have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control.

Noam Chomsky

Sports plays a societal role in engendering jingoist and chauvinist attitudes. They're designed to organize a community to be committed to their gladiators.

Noam Chomsky

A ‘No” uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a “Yes” uttered merely to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.

Mahatma Gandhi

Education.  The development of memory at the expense of the imagination.

Owen Johnson

The chief object of education is not to learn things, but to unlearn things.

G.K. Chesterton

One who has committed a mistake and doesn’t correct it is committing another mistake.

Confucius

Desire only that the truth prevail.  Be willing to change your mind instantly should the facts of a matter prove you mistaken.

J. Donald Walters

Students study only for a few years, but teachers, in order to justify being in the profession have to be engaged in studies always … So teachers are to be reckoned as the only genuine students.  To the question, “Who is the real student,” the answer is, “The teacher.”

Sathya Sai Baba

Corporation. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.

Ambrose Bierce

I will feel equality has arrived when we can elect to office women who are as incompetent as some of the men who are already there.

Maureen Reagan

When the missionairies came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land.  They said,”Let us pray.” We closed our eyes.  When we opened them again we had the Bible and they had the land.

Bishop Desmond Tutu

If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a german and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world.  Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German, and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.

Albert Einstein

“Well, it was the best I could do, seated as I was between Jesus Christ and Napoleon Bonaparte.”

David Lloyd George on the result of the Peace Conference, 1919, involving himself, Woodrow Wilson and Georges Clemenceau.

Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny, they have only shifted it to another shoulder.

George Bernard Shaw

Moral indignation is in most cases 2 percent moral, 48 percent indignation and 50 percent envy.

Vittorio de Sica

A sense of humour always withers in the presence of the messianic delusion, like justice and truth in front of patriotic passion.

H.L. Mencken

I was never ruined but twice: once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I won one.

 Voltaire

On Miracles - The most serious doubt that has been thrown on the authenticity of the biblical miracles is the fact that most of the witnesses in regard to them were fishermen.

 Arthur Binstead