"Brain Rumblings from Clever People"

Quotes and observations from others can be a wonderful means of illuminating an idea or situation.  Here are some keen insights  from the brain rumblings of others.  New additions weekly.  Enjoy!

June 1, 2013
"As knowledge increases, wonder deepens"
   Charles Morgan

March 18, 2013
"It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong."
   Voltaire

January 3, 2013
"You can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality"
   Ayn Rand

December 28, 2012
   If we want everything to stay as it is, everything will have to change.
   Giuseppe Tomasi in The Leopard (1958)

November 10, 2012
   A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
   Winston Churchill

July 1, 2012
     To hold a pen is to be at war.
      Voltaire

June 22, 2012
    Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.
     Eric Hoffer 
 
May 9, 2012
    "That is anti-scientific and naive.  We have to base ourselves on evidence."
    Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway & Head of WHO on voices opposing climate action

March 4, 2012
   I used to look down on the world for being corrupt, but now I adore it for the utter magnificence of  that corruption.
   Richard J. Needham

January 23, 2012
"When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public
property."

   Thomas Jefferson

January 16, 2011
Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other.
   Oscar Ameringer 

January 10, 2012
All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.
   Mark Twain

December 22, 2011 
"Growth is inevitable and desirable, but destruction of community character is not. The question is not whether your part of the world is going to change. The question is how."
  Edward T. McMahon

November 21, 2011
 "It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the publick to be the most anxious for its welfare."
   Edmund Burke

November 9, 2011
"I can calculate the motions of erratic stars, but not the madness of the multitude" 
    Sir Isaac Newton

October 23, 2011
It's in the things not mentioned that the untruth lies.
   John Steinbeck

October 7, 2011
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. 
  Mohandas Gandhi (attributed) 
 
October 2, 2011
Political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible...All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.
  George Orwell

September 12, 2011
The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.
  Theodore Rubin

August 7, 2011
"Decision making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion."
  Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks

July 20, 2011
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary."
  Reinhold Niebuhr
 
July 12, 2011
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects.  A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
  Oscar Wilde

June 25, 2011
Do not argue  with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience. 
  Anonymous

June 20,2011
It is characteristic of all deep human problems that they are not to be approached without some humor and some bewilderment.
  Freeman Dyson 

June 14, 2011
"Walira mvula, walira matope"  (the one who asks for rain, also asks for mud)
   traditional wisdom of the Chewa people, Malawi

June 5, 2011
The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.
   Baltasar Gracian


May 21, 2011
All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take.
  Mohandas Gandhi

May 10, 2011
Victor Hugo was right when he said that no army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.  but if you are narrow-minded enough, both the time and the idea can pass you by.
  Ben Bova, writer/futurist

May 3, 2011
We don't know what we want, but we know we don't want what we don't know.
  -sign found on office cubicle wall of every urban planner in North America

April 21, 2011
The only remedy to bad reasoning is good reasoning.
   Dr. Amartya Sen, Nobel laureate (1998)
   at UBC Special Honorary Degree Conferral, Thursday April 21, 2011


April 18, 2011
In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.
  Eric Hoffer

April 11, 2011
I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.
  John D. Rockefeller

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