What you read here are words that have struck me as noteworthy or meaningfully absurd. I add things sporadically -- the most recent entry was 1/22/2019.

Some of these words may be considered by some to be strange and/or offensive. For instance, consider the following;

• I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. -- Dr. Seuss

• It's the suppression of the word that gives it its power. -- Lenny Bruce

Before you continue reading, please note: I don't think that any of the quotes here are profound, just simple observations that caught my attention. But words, quotes, and phrases are not the sorts of thing that you should put together haphazardly and hope they add up to "truth". Smart people don't justify their arguments with catchy quotes.

For instance, check this link. The author analyzes several common bumper stickers which may sound profound but which almost any objective observer would agree are insignificant or intellectually void on their face. I agree, item by item, with the author of that page.

If you find any of my observations thus far incoherent or offensive, then please direct your browser elsewhere. I recommend The Book for starters.

Alright, so you're still reading. I hope you enjoy. In most cases, I don't know when/where I found these thoughts, but if you have a reference or something to add, please send me an email at mike.daven[at]msmc.edu.

Dogs are great, and I think they are worthy of their very own page. Some other folks have some great math quotations here and here.

Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out - it's the grain of sand in your shoe. -- Robert Service

Ideas won't keep; something must be done about them. -- Alfred North Whitehead

We have an obligation to use the language. To push ourselves: to find out what words mean and how to deploy them, to communicate clearly, to say what we mean. -- Neil Gaiman

Sometimes when you're in a dark place you think you've been buried, but you've actually been planted. -- Christine Caine

Let go of certainty. The opposite isn't uncertainty. It's openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. -- Tony Schwartz

How often in life we complete a task that was beyond the capability of the person we were when we started it. -- Robert Brault

Be the best version of yourself in anything you do. You don't have to live anyone else's story. -- Steph Curry

Christianity provides for believers belonging, purpose, meaning and hope. Crucially though, Christianity is not a shared identity that should allow you to retreat into tribalism. These positive benefits should instead be used to serve, not attack, those outside the group. -- Elizabeth Oldfield

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't. -- Blaise Pascal

Read further and you'll see I am a big fan of William F. Buckley. Here's a favorite I have been reminded of recently: "Though liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view." (from Up From Liberalism, 1959)

Ed Koch passed away on February 1, 2013. Koch was known to be loudly honest, and he was an unofficial spokesman for the New York state of mind. At a commencement address, Koch told the graduates "The fireworks begin today. Each diploma is a lighted match, each one of you is a fuse."

You search for God, and seek to find Him here. Or you seek to find Him there. Why need you to look in the corners of the room when He entirely fills the room? -- Ormond McGill

To leap across an abyss, one is better served by faith than doubt. -- William James

"He didn't bring us this far to leave us here" -- from a hymn (?) remembered by Sister Marguerite in Sunday School, 7/4/9

Failure is not final, it is feedback. (from a daily devotional on 6/4/9; for more details, read Romans 5:3)

A satisfying prayer life elevates and purifies every act of body and mind and integrates the entire personality into a single spiritual unit. In the long pull we pray only as well as we live. -- A. W. Tozer

Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light. -- Helen Keller

Anyone can count the seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of apples in a seed. -- Robert H. Schuller

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God. -- C.S. Lewis

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking. -- Voltaire

God loves each of us as if there were only one of us. -- St. Augustine

1 Corinthians 15:54-58 -- "...Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." (Posted Thursday, September 11, 2008)

During the current presidential campaign, the teachings and beliefs of the Assembly of God church have become a topic of discussion. I grew up attending Assembly of God churches and I am a committed member of an Assembly of God church in Newburgh, NY. I don't always agree with the ideas often affiliated with AG believers but I often do. To read about the tenets of faith held by my church, please click here. (Posted Monday, September 8, 2008)

George Carlin died on June 22, 2008, and the next day I was disappointed to see that his name did not appear on this page. So here I will correct that oversight. Carlin was not a genius, and I disagreed with Carlin on most of the big issues. But word for word, and in between the words, Carlin was an artist and a master.

A mathematician is somebody who sees an opportunity for doing mathematics where others might not, just as a business person is someone who sees an opportunity for doing business where others might not -- Ian Stewart

"Stupid useless class taught by Dr. Creepo that we never did anything in" -- a student of mine (she probably wouldn't want to be named here) gave this pointed description of a class she was taking (not my class!)

Hope means believing in spite of the evidence, and then watching the evidence change. -- Jim Wallis
(This reminds me of a favorite scripture: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" Hebrews 11:1, King James Version

Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step. -- Martin Luther King Jr.
(This reminds me of another of my favorite quotes, below)

Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. -- E. L. Doctorow
(I think there are many areas of mathematics that we can describe using the same idea. For instance, I often use Doctorow's quote in class when talking about rootfinding algorithms in Numerical Analysis.)

In my opinion, the people who deserve the most respect are the ones who live quiet, unheralded lives (4-13-2007) and inclined, impatient lives.

William F. Buckley Jr. passed away on 2-27-2008, after more than 40 inclined, impatient years of standing athwart history, yelling "Stop!"

Perhaps the best mission statement: "In the name of Jesus" (recommended by Pastor Ronald Conti, Newburgh Assembly of God, 9-16-2007)

This is no time to hang on. It's time to start climbing. -- Pastor Ron Conti, Newburgh Assembly of God, 8-12-2007 (In his sermon, Pastor Conti referenced 2 Corinthians 12:9, one of EMD's favorites.)

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. -- Henri Bergson

God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called. -- Anonymous

I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth what I paid? -- Richard Bach

On April 13, 2007, these words took on a new meaning for me:

The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape parades for us, no monuments created in our honor. But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give. Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have a potential to turn a life around. It's overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt. -- Leo Buscaglia (There are prophets among us, and I pray to God that when they speak that I have the ears to hear His word.)

It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way. -- Rollo May

The best time to plant a shade tree to shade your yard is twenty years ago. The second best time is now. -- Anonymous

Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else. -- Donald Knuth

A Realist is an idealist who has gone through the fire and been purified. A skeptic is an idealist who has gone through the fire and been burned. -- Warren W. Wiersbe

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. -- George Orwell (Animal Farm)

Testing can show the presence of errors, but not their absence. -- Edsger Dijkstra, computer scientist (1930-2002)

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. -- John Stuart Mill

polymath: a person of encyclopedic learning.

Two separate thoughts: (1) Talking isn't teaching; (2) Listening isn't learning.
[I'm not sure who made these remarks; I first heard them from a brilliant teacher, Roseanne Hofmann of Montgomery County Community College (PA).]

Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. -- Winston Churchill

From Doron Zeilberger's Opinion 37 ("Guess What? Programming is Even More Fun Than Proving, and, More Importantly It Gives As Much, If Not More, Insight and Understanding.")

while we are alive do
trivialize and routinize all known math:
Discover new non-trivial parts of math:
od:

I think Zeilberger is a genius. You can read more of his opinions here.

If I ruled the world
I would devote an island
solely to midgets. -- a haiku by Julia Cuozzo (one of my students & teachers!)

A fish rots from the head. -- Unknown

Fortune favors the prepared mind. -- Virgil

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that is your own self. -- Aldous Huxley

Let a joy keep you. Reach out your hands and take it when it runs by. -- Carl Sandburg

In China, if you are one in a million, there are 1300 other people just like you. -- A saying used at Microsoft's research center in Beijing (from Thomas L. Friedman, "It's a Flat World, After All", April 3, 2005, New York Times)

Quotes from "Two reactions to The Mathematical Education of Teachers":
* The education of teachers should not be limited to preparation for teaching. -- Amy Cohen
* You learn by doing. You get an education by beating your head against the ideas. -- Steven G. Krantz
You can find both "reactions" here.

If you torture data sufficiently, it will confess to almost anything. -- Fred Menger

I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would affront your intelligence. -- William F. Buckley

"So I put 2 and 2 together and decided you're pissing me off." -- Carl, Aqua Teen Hunger Force

If I feel unhappy, I do mathematics to become happy. If I am happy, I do mathematics to keep happy. -- Alfred Renyi

Life is not measured by the breaths you take but by the moments that take your breath away. -- Unknown

Where computers race for faster calculations, mathematics races for more clever algorithms. An idea that cuts in half the number of steps is as good as a chip that doubles the speed. -- Gilbert Strang, MIT (as cited by Arturo Sangalli in his excellent book "The importance of being fuzzy")

The key to happiness is self-delusion. Don't think of yourself as an organic pain collector racing toward oblivion. -- Dogbert, as quoted in the Dilbert comic strip (2-15-2001)

Black holes are where God divided by zero. -- Steven Wright

There are only a few things that really belong to me: who I am, who I was, and who I want to be. -- from the song "Kid and Heroes", by the Bouncing Souls (album = Anchors Aweigh) -- punk kids from Jersey, recognize!

To overcome difficulties is to experience the full delight of existence. -- Arthur Schopenhauer

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field. -- Niels Bohr

What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams. -- Nikos Kazantzakis

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. -- Hanlon's Razor

The best nourishment for any soul is to create your own risks. -- Jim Lehrer

Results "are no good unless they answer (or can be made to seem to answer, or can be twisted and wrenched and piled into odd shapes until they hint at being somehow perhaps on the verge or answering) a question that someone might conceivably want asked." -- David Quammen (I heard this in a talk given by Terry McKee of Wright State University)

A word is ... the skin of a living thought. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed. -- Bertrand Russell

A mind stretched by a new idea never goes back to its original dimension. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Think deeply of simple things. -- Arnold Ross

Outside of a dog, a book is Man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx

It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward. -- Lewis Carroll

No man's life, person, or property is safe while the legislator is in session. -- Surrey (?)

Algebra is the intense study of the last 3 letters of the alphabet -- Anonymous

Sanity is a madness put to good use. -- George Santayana

You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created. -- Albert Einstein

One of the greatest joys known to man is to take a flight into ignorance in search of knowledge. -- Robert Lynd

God, to me, it seems, is a verb, not a noun, proper or improper. -- R. Buckminster Fuller

blatherskite ("BLATH-uhr-skyt", n.) -- 1. A person who babbles about inane matters. 2. Nonsense; foolish talk. [From Old Norse blathra (to chatter) + Scots dialect skate (a contemptible person).]

In my friend, I find a second self. -- Isabel Norton

They may be naive and misguided, but by Jove, they're glorious! -- Gomez Adams

Those who understand only what can be explained understand very little. -- Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled. -- Barnett Cocks

The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think. -- Edwin Schlossberg

In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time. -- Leonardo da Vinci

Chance favors the prepared mind. -- Louis Pasteur

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe love nothing so much as to change... The Universe is change. -- Marcus Aurelius

People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea , at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering. -- Saint Augustine

A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems. -- Paul Erdos

Velelind's law of experimentation:
1. If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only once.
2. If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data points.

To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those things that lie beyond. -- Hypatia

That is the great mystery of human evolution: how to account for calculus and Mozart. -- Edward O. Wilson

The infinite we shall do right away. The finite may take a little longer. -- Stanislaw Ulam

The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophesies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell. -- Saint Augustine

Mathematics, like theology and all free creations of the Mind, obeys the inexorable laws of the imaginary... -- Gian-Carlo Rota

Stand firm in your refusal to remain conscious during algebra. In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra. -- Fran Lebowitz

The Goldbach conjecture is false for at most 0% of all even integers; this at most 0% does not include, of course, the possibility that there are infinitely many exceptions -- Landau

God ever arithmetizes. -- Carl Jacobi

God always geometrizes -- Plato as quoted by Plutarch

One must be able to say at all times -- instead of points, lines, and planes -- tables, chairs, and beer mugs. -- David Hilbert

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house -- Robert A. Heinlein

"A problem worthy of attack" -- I'm a mathematician and this makes me think of an interesting research problem, but the phrase makes sense in lots of other contexts.

Proves its worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein

The ultimate goal of mathematics is to eliminate all need for intelligent thought. -- Graham, Knuth, & Oren Patashnik

The Infinite is only a manner of speaking. -- Gauss

The computers are not replacing mathematicians; they are breeding them. -- Martin Gardner

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -- Albert Einstein

What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world. -- Albert Einstein

The different branches of Arithmetic: Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision. -- Lewis Carroll

Obvious is the most dangerous word in mathematics. -- Eric Temple Bell

God is odd. He loves the odd. -- Muslim Saying

Too often we give our children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. -- Roger Lewin

The creative person is willing to live with ambiguity. He doesn't need problems solved immediately and can afford to wait for the right ideas. -- Abe Tannenbaum

There are some things one can only achieve by a deliberate leap in the opposite direction. -- Franz Kafka

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher. -- Ambrose Bierce

The mind commands the body and the body obeys. The mind commands itself and finds resistance. -- St. Augustine

Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe. -- Galileo Galilei

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts. -- Blaise Pascal

Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz

Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out, it's the grain of sand in your shoe. -- Robert Service

The future depends entirely on what each of us does every day. -- Gloria Steinem

Follow your bliss. -- Joseph Campbell

God looks after fools, drunkards, and the United States. -- (Bismarck?)

True faith is belief in the reality of absolute values. -- Dean William Ralph Inge

Life is a long lesson in humility. -- James M. Barrie

God is like a mirror. The mirror never changes, but everybody who looks at it sees something different. -- Harold Kushner

In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds. -- Robert Green Ingersoll

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. -- Thomas Alva Edison

The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life. -- Leo Tolstoy

Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact. -- William James

We'd like to personally thank Beelzebub for making this happen. -- Coco the Electronic Monkey Wizard

I am infinite. I am the infant finite. -- from "Disasterpiece", Slipknot [It's a (sic)ness...]

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. -- George Orwell

Hope unbelieved is always considered nonsense. But hope believed is history in the process of being changed. -- Jim Wallis

The beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression more readily taken. -- Plato (The Republic) [A reminder for teachers?!]

The capacity to be puzzled is ... the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science. -- Eric Fromm

How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress. -- Niels Bohr

Markets exist for the transfer of risk at a price. -- Anonymous

Captain, it is I, Ensign Pulver, and I just threw your stinking palm tree overboard. Now, what's all this crud about no movie tonight? -- a classic line by the late great Jack Lemmon, at the end of "Mister Roberts"

Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans: it's lovely to be silly at the right moment. -- Horace

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens... -- Jimi Hendrix

In seeking wisdom, the first step is silence, the second listening, the third remembering, the fourth practicing, the fifth teaching others. -- Ibn Gabirol

Joey Ramone passed away on April 16, 2001 (If the Ramones didn't influence you, then where have you been?)

A few words from "Time has come today":

Time has come today, young hearts can go their way, can't put it off another day.

I don't care what others say, they say we don't listen anyway, Time has come today, hey...

[Punk's not dead, Joey, neither are you.]

Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. -- Einstein

I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. -- Galileo

"Every time I see him, I get sick to my stomach and want to throw up."

[Barry Goldwater, refering to Bill Moyers]

I haven't saved any of his quotes, but Howell Heflin (the former senator from Alabama) often said alot of words without saying anything meaningful. I remember him as the paradigm of political "hot air". I just thought you should know that. If you have examples of Howell's genius buried in blather, please send them my way.

verbigeration ("vuhr-bij-uh-RAY-shun", n.) -- Obsessive repetition of meaningless words and phrases.

Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary. -- Sir Cecil Beaton

Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow. -- William Pollard

Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when He does not wish to sign his work. -- Anatole France

Government = Leviathan [a short, brutish, nasty, & poor outline of the major work by Thomas Hobbes]

Time is what prevents everything from happening at once. -- John Archibald Wheeler

They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse. -- Emily Dickinson

Adults are obsolete children. -- Dr. Seuss

"11:15, restate my assumptions:
1. Mathematics is the language of nature.
2. Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers.
3. If you graph these numbers, patterns emerge.
Therefore: There are patterns everywhere in nature." -- Max Cohen ("Pi")

I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth it? -- Richard Bach

Kids understand... "To keep milk from turning sour, keep it in the cow" ; "When planets run around in circles, we say they are orbiting -- when people do it, we say they are crazy"; "Thunder is a rich source of loudness"

Sa dah tay. -- Pootie Tang

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold. -- Aristotle

The term "faculty" in medieval philosophy (when universities were founded) meant "where a power resides" -- as in "the soul is the faculty of thought and will". -- Kate Lindemann, from a note to the MSMC faculty listserv

Freedom lies in being bold. -- Robert Frost

What if this weren't a hypothetical question? -- Anonymous

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise. -- Samuel Johnson

Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. -- Dijkstra

A problem well stated is a problem half solved. -- Charles Kettering

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. -- Rene Descartes

The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth. -- Niels Bohr

People think of the inventor as a screwball, but no one ever asks the inventor what he thinks of other people. -- Charles Kettering

To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind. -- Theophile Gautier

I do not 'get' ideas; ideas get me. -- Robertson Davies

I really don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive, you've got to flap your arms and legs, you've got to jump around a lot, you've got to make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death. And therefore, as I see it, if you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy, or at least your thoughts should be noisy and colorful and lively. -- Mel Brooks

[A birthday wish from Herb Wilf to Dominique Foata, at the Foata Fest 2000]
Forget about the past -- because you can't change it.
Forget about the future -- because you can't predict it.
And forget about the present -- because I didn't get you one.

[Something] does not rise to the dignity of error. -- C.S. Lewis

This passed to us by Larry Gray @ Reconnect 2000 --
Engineers are ants; they move about carrying large pieces of math, unaware of what they carry, able to piece things together as needed. Physicists are grasshoppers; flitting about, ignoring the foundations, hording together as a plague, stripping fields bare and moving on. Mathematicians are spiders; weaving intricate webs, ignoring all around them, occasionally descending on a theorem caught in the web. [LG notes that spiders aren't really insects, but I think most scientists are a little buggy!]

The great despise men of genius who have nothing but genius; men of genius despise the great who have nothing but greatness. -- Jean de la Bruyere

Talent is the ability to say things well, but genius is the ability to, well, say things. -- Steve Martin

Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first is unpleasant and ill-paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid. -- Bertrand Russell

The idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all. -- Elbert Hubbard

(as described by Liev Schrieber, on Dennis Miller Live)

Question: (asked the Dalai Lama) Can you go 10 minutes without having a negative thought about someone else? Answer: That's a fucking stupid question!

"X" couldn't be more phony if he were a professional X impersonator. -- Dennis Miller

No matter who is at the helm of America, God is the captain. -- Anonymous, via Carroll O'Connor

Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards. -- Fred Hoyle

I think... I think it's in my basement. Let me go upstairs and check. -- M.C. Escher

acalculia: Inability or loss of the ability to perform arithmetic operations.

I don't know who my grandfather was; I'm much more concerned to know what his grandson will be. -- Abraham Lincoln

Kindness is loving people more than they deserve. -- Joseph Joubert

A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind. -- Albert Szent-Gyorgi

Write the bad things that are done to you in the sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble. -- Arabian wisdom

My teaching philosophy is inspired by simulated annealing -- [just a thought I had]

There must be a level of disequilibrium for learning to occur. -- Sarah Morse (one of my students & teachers!)

If you feel that you have both feet planted on level ground, then the university has failed you. -- Robert Goheen (former president, Princeton University)

Too much consistency is as bad for the mind as for the body. -- Aldous Huxley

My idea of education is to unsettle the minds of the young and inflame their intellects. -- Robert Maynard Hutchins

Pray, (v.) -- to ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy. -- Ambrose Bierce [The Devil's Dictionary]

A failure is a man who has blundered but is not able to cash in on the experience. -- Elbert Hubbard

If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. -- George Orwell

Visionary people are visionary partly because of the very great many things they don't see. -- Berkeley Rice

Science is built with facts as a house is with stones, but a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house. -- Jules Henry Poincare

This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. -- Winston Churchill

When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it. -- A.A. Milne [The House at Pooh Corner]

The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance. -- Benjamin Franklin

The future should be something we deserve, not something which is merely reached at the rate of 60 minutes per hour. -- Anonymous

Each of us has a spark of life inside us, and our highest endeavor ought to be to set off that spark in one another. -- Kenny Ausubel

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run. -- Babe Ruth

Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more. -- Nikola Tesla

Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly. -- Plutarch

To teach is to learn twice. -- Joseph Joubert

A book must be an axe for the frozen sea inside of us. -- Franz Kafka

Clarke's Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -- Arthur C. Clarke

If we would have new knowledge, we must get us a whole world of new questions. -- Susanne K. Langer

In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. -- Bertrand Russell

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone. -- Pablo Picasso

The calculator cannot explain, which is what we'd like our students to do, so ASK THEM! Avoid mindless button/pencil-pushing -- (not anonymous, I've just forgotten?!)

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do. -- Goethe

The mind has exactly the same power as the hands; not merely to grasp the world, but to change it. -- Colin Wilson

Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. -- Helen Keller

A good conscience is a continual Christmas. -- Benjamin Franklin

I think on one level we do seek out the foreigner, so that s/he might show us to us as we really are. But what is this "really are"? There is only misunderstanding -- by necessity. -- an observation by "Scratchy" on the Hegel list (compare with Sartre?!)

Mind like stone, body like meatloaf. -- Eric Cartman

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars. -- Og Mandino

Beware the fury of a patient man. -- John Dryden

Ah, but a man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for? -- Robert Browning

Integrity has no need of rules. -- Albert Camus

The truth must dazzle gradually, or every man be blind. -- Emily Dickinson

The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. -- William James

The secret of education is respecting the pupil. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

frabjous ("FRAB-juhs", adjective) -- Wonderful, elegant, superb, or delicious

[Coined by Lewis Carroll in "Through the Looking Glass" (1871)]

Through the greatness of the universe, which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good. -- Bertrand Russell

The one real object of education is to have a man in the condition of continually asking questions. -- Bishop Mandell Creighton

Love doesn't make the world go 'round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile. -- Franklin P. Jones

The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives. -- Robert Maynard Hutchins

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly. -- Langston Hughes

Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle. -- Mahatma Gandhi

The head thinks, the hands labor, but it's the heart that laughs. -- Liz Curtis Higgs

bandersnatch ("ban-duhr-snach", noun) -- An imaginary wild animal of fierce disposition; a person of uncouth or unconventional habits, attitudes, etc., especially one considered a menace, nuisance, or the like. [Coined by Lewis Carroll in "Through the Looking Glass" (1871)]

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Set aside that which still has an unwelcome hold on your heart. The world isn't standing still as you slowly collect yourself. Someone out there is happy to have you just the way you are. [Gemini, 1.25.00]

The curious are always in some danger. If you are curious you might never come home. -- Jeanette Winterson

Enthusiasm is the divine particle in our composition: with it we are great, generous, and true; without it, we are little, false, and mean. -- L. E. Landon (Ethel Churchill)

For every epsilon, there is a delta. -- Herb Wilf

A man's legs must be long enough to reach the ground. -- Abraham Lincoln

We come to think of an idealist as one who seeks to realize what is not in fact realizable. But... -- L. Susan Stebbing (Ideals and Illusions)

Facts can obscure the truth. -- Maya Angelou

Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art. -- Charles McCabe

Love your enemies because they bring out the best in you. -- Nietzsche

The belly is the reason why man does not mistake himself for a god. -- Nietzsche

Man is not the sum of what he has already, but rather the sum of what he does not yet have, of what he could have. -- Sartre ("Temporalite" Situations)

Real difficulties can be overcome, it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable. -- Theodore N. Vail

To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty of nature. If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in. -- Richard Feynman

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. -- Aristotle

There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew. -- Marshall McLuhan