Chapter 10 - You are reading Chapter 10 right now!
| Preface | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 |
| Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9| Chapter 10 |

Chapter 10

Friedrich Nietzsche

Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. [1]

William Wordsworth

Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher. [2]

Samuel Beckett

What do I know of man's destiny? I could tell you more about radishes. [3]

Jean-Paul Satre

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you. [4]

Umberto Eco

The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else. [5]

John Ruskin

The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it. [6]

Gabriel García Márquez

He who awaits much can expect little. [7]

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half. [8]

Bill Maher

I think flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder. [9]

Marcel Proust

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. [10]

Christopher Hitchens

Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it. [11]

John Dewey

The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action. [12]

Flannery O'Connor

There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher. [13]

Geoffrey Chaucer

People can die of mere imagination. [14]

J.M. Barrie

Always be a little kinder than necessary. [15]

Alfred Tennyson

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. [16]

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little. [17]

Adolf Hitler

If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed. [18]

Leo Tolstoy

If you want to be happy, be. [19]

Oscar Wilde

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. [20]

Henry James

Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language. [21]

Adam Smith

Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another. [22]

Joe Rogan

Because I have a girlfriend, I try and take the straight and narrow path, which is good because it prevents VD. [23]

Thomas Sowell

It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance. [24]

Charles Darwin

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. [25]

Richard Dawkins

Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time. [26]

Henry David Thoreau

Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify. [27]

Emil Cioran

It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late. [28]

Ernest Hemingway

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. [29]

Winston Churchill

If you're going through hell, keep going. [30]

Albert Einstein

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. [31]

E.O. Wilson

Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal. [32]

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live. [33]

John Locke

All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions. [34]

Eudora Welty

A good snapshot stops a moment from running away. [35]

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. [36]

Richard Feynman

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool. [37]

James Joyce

Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. [38]

Albert Camus

Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend. [39]

William Shakespeare

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. [40]

Victor Hugo

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. [41]

George W. Bush

I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace. [42]

Gore Vidal

A narcissist is someone better looking than you are. [43]

John Steinbeck

If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones. [44]

Virginia Woolf

You cannot find peace by avoiding life. [45]

James Madison

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. [46]

Thomas Paine

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. [47]

Henri Poincare

To doubt everything, or, to believe everything, are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection. [48]

Jane Austen

I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal. [49]

William F. Buckley Jr.

The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry. [50]

Stephen Hawking

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change. [51]

Walt Whitman

And your very flesh shall be a great poem. [52]

Arthur Conan Doyle

I count religion but a childish toy, And hold there is no sin but ignorance. Birds of the air will tell of murders past. I am asham'd to hear such fooleries! [53]

John Milton

Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie. [54]

Immanuel Kant

Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness. [55]

Jonathan Swift

May you live all the days of your life. [56]

Aristotle

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. [57]

Mark Twain

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. [58]

Franz Kafka

A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us. [59]

Carl Sagan

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. [60]

Voltaire

I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it. [61]

Denis Diderot

Only passions, great passions can elevate the soul to great things. [62]

Noam Chomsky

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. [63]

Benjamin Franklin

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. [64]

Arthur Schopenhauer

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. [65]

Frederick the Great

A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in. [66]

Gustave Flaubert

Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work. [67]

Bertrand Russell

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. [68]

Edgar Allan Poe

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. [69]

David Hume

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them. [70]

John Berger

Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. [71]

James Anthony Froude

You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one. [72]

André Malraux

And when man faces destiny, destiny ends and man comes into his own. [73]

André Gide

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. [74]

Douglas Adams

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. [75]

George Eliot

Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love. [76]

Toni Morrison

She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. [77]

George Orwell

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever. [78]

William Faulkner
- 62 ↩
I believe that man will not merely endure; he will prevail. [79]

Elizabeth I of England
- 145 ↩
To be a king and wear a crown is a thing more glorious to them that see it than it is pleasant to them that bear it. [80]

Jack Kerouac

Write in recollection and amazement for yourself. [81]

Baruch Spinoza

All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare. [82]

John Stuart Mill

A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury. [83]

Ludwig Wittgenstein

The human body is the best picture of the human soul. [84]

Isaac Newton

I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people. [85]

Charles Dickens

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts. [86]

José Saramago

I think we are blind. Blind people who can see, but do not see. [87]

William James

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. [88]

Dante Alighieri

In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost. [89]

George Bernard Shaw

There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it. [90]

In Order of Appearance

Each chapter features the same authors in the same order! Different quotes.


  1. Friedrich Nietzsche - 12 ↩︎

  2. William Wordsworth - 63 ↩︎

  3. Samuel Beckett - 28 ↩︎

  4. Jean-Paul Satre - 202 ↩︎

  5. Umberto Eco - 390 ↩︎

  6. John Ruskin - 212 ↩︎

  7. Gabriel García Márquez - 24 ↩︎

  8. Fyodor Dostoyevsky - 13 ↩︎

  9. Bill Maher - 11 ↩︎

  10. Marcel Proust - 54 ↩︎

  11. Christopher Hitchens - 1 ↩︎

  12. John Dewey - 47 ↩︎

  13. Flannery O'Connor - 154 ↩︎

  14. Geoffrey Chaucer - 162 ↩︎

  15. J.M. Barrie - 186 ↩︎

  16. Alfred Tennyson - 73 ↩︎

  17. Jean-Jacques Rousseau - 205 ↩︎

  18. Adolf Hitler - 65 ↩︎

  19. Leo Tolstoy - 25 ↩︎

  20. Oscar Wilde - 56 ↩︎

  21. Henry James - 181 ↩︎

  22. Adam Smith - 19 ↩︎

  23. Joe Rogan - 46 ↩︎

  24. Thomas Sowell - 383 ↩︎

  25. Charles Darwin - 114 ↩︎

  26. Richard Dawkins - 2 ↩︎

  27. Henry David Thoreau - 180 ↩︎

  28. Emil Cioran - 146 ↩︎

  29. Ernest Hemingway - 22 ↩︎

  30. Winston Churchill - 400 ↩︎

  31. Albert Einstein - 69 ↩︎

  32. E.O. Wilson - 142 ↩︎

  33. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - 15 ↩︎

  34. John Locke - 49 ↩︎

  35. Eudora Welty - 150 ↩︎

  36. F. Scott Fitzgerald - 152 ↩︎

  37. Richard Feynman - 58 ↩︎

  38. James Joyce - 14 ↩︎

  39. Albert Camus - 9 ↩︎

  40. William Shakespeare - 8 ↩︎

  41. Victor Hugo - 60 ↩︎

  42. George W. Bush - 167 ↩︎

  43. Gore Vidal - 170 ↩︎

  44. John Steinbeck - 215 ↩︎

  45. Virginia Woolf - 393 ↩︎

  46. James Madison - 193 ↩︎

  47. Thomas Paine - 382 ↩︎

  48. Henri Poincare - 179 ↩︎

  49. Jane Austen - 44 ↩︎

  50. William F. Buckley Jr. - 397 ↩︎

  51. Stephen Hawking - 59 ↩︎

  52. Walt Whitman - 394 ↩︎

  53. Arthur Conan Doyle - 88 ↩︎

  54. John Milton - 50 ↩︎

  55. Immanuel Kant - 42 ↩︎

  56. Jonathan Swift - 52 ↩︎

  57. Aristotle - 31 ↩︎

  58. Mark Twain - 26 ↩︎

  59. Franz Kafka - 23 ↩︎

  60. Carl Sagan - 20 ↩︎

  61. Voltaire - 61 ↩︎

  62. Denis Diderot - 36 ↩︎

  63. Noam Chomsky - 4 ↩︎

  64. Benjamin Franklin - 99 ↩︎

  65. Arthur Schopenhauer - 91 ↩︎

  66. Frederick the Great - 158 ↩︎

  67. Gustave Flaubert - 175 ↩︎

  68. Bertrand Russell - 10 ↩︎

  69. Edgar Allan Poe - 21 ↩︎

  70. David Hume - 35 ↩︎

  71. John Berger - 206 ↩︎

  72. James Anthony Froude - 190 ↩︎

  73. André Malraux - 76 ↩︎

  74. André Gide - 75 ↩︎

  75. Douglas Adams - 37 ↩︎

  76. George Eliot - 164 ↩︎

  77. Toni Morrison - 387 ↩︎

  78. George Orwell - 40 ↩︎

  79. William Faulkner - 62 ↩︎

  80. Elizabeth I of England - 145 ↩︎

  81. Jack Kerouac - 187 ↩︎

  82. Baruch Spinoza - 98 ↩︎

  83. John Stuart Mill - 51 ↩︎

  84. Ludwig Wittgenstein - 53 ↩︎

  85. Isaac Newton - 43 ↩︎

  86. Charles Dickens - 6 ↩︎

  87. José Saramago - 219 ↩︎

  88. William James - 398 ↩︎

  89. Dante Alighieri - 127 ↩︎

  90. George Bernard Shaw - 163 ↩︎