If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood of fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.

PLEASE AUTHENTICATE MY EXISTENCE

If you put shame in a Petri dish, it needs three things to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence and judgment.

Beware of geeks bearing formulas.

plans are worthless but planning is everything

Sweet Zombie Jesus!

What I cannot create, I do not understand.

You can tell the half-bright from the barking because the barking don't know how little they know, while the half-bright know enough to think that they know a lot, but don't know enough to know what part of what they know is actually worth knowing.

[S]kate where the puck's going, not where it's been.

Yes, but I have something he will never have … enough.

My name is Jones... Enema Bag Jones.

To the dumb question ‘Why me?’ the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: ‘why not?’

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

The most terrifying fact of the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death — however mutable man may be able to make them — our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment.

However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

Trying to talk somebody out of the stuff that they enjoy in life is like trying to talk them out of their faith or their sexuality. It’s a pointless exercise that can never be anything but acrimonious and will only highlight unnecessary amounts of difference about things that ultimately don’t really matter. Buy the steak you like, worship the god you love, neck with the people that you treasure and don’t worry about the numbers.

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.

It’s been a long time since there was a true generation gap, perhaps 50 years—you have to go back to the early years of rock and roll, when old people still talked about ‘jungle rhythms.’ Everything associated with that music and its greasy, shaggy culture felt baffling and divisive, from the crude slang to the dirty thoughts it was rumored to trigger in little girls. That musical divide has all but disappeared. But in the past ten years, a new set of values has sneaked in to take its place, erecting another barrier between young and old. And as it did in the fifties, the older generation has responded with a disgusted, dismissive squawk.

Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

If you have any fact which you think is really sinister, is really obviously a fact that can only point to some sinister underpinning, forget it man. Because you can never, on your own, think up all the non-sinister, perfectly valid explanations of that fact.

If you're the smartest one in the room, you're in the wrong room.

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.

The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation.

For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.

Two is one and one is none.

Writing is thinking on paper, or talking to someone on paper. If you can think clearly, or if you can talk to someone about the things you know and care about, you can write — with confidence and enjoyment.