“The difference between America and England is that Americans think 100 years is a long time, while the English think 100 miles is a long way.” –Earle Hitchner
Quotations
Relative
During an eclipse in 1919, Sir Arthur Eddington confirmed Albert Einstein’s prediction of the gravitational bending of light rays, upholding the general theory of relativity. That Christmas, Einstein wrote to his friend Heinrich Zangger in Zurich:
“With fame I become more and more stupid, which, of course, is a very common phenomenon. There is far too great a disproportion between what one is and what others think one is, or at least what they say they think one is. But one has to take it all with good humor.”
(From Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann, eds., Albert Einstein, the Human Side: New Glimpses From His Archives, 1979.)
Unquote
“To convince any man against his will is hard, but to please him against his will is justly pronounced by Dryden to be above the reach of human abilities.” — Samuel Johnson
“Thou canst not joke an Enemy into a Friend; but thou may’st a Friend into an Enemy.” — Ben Franklin
Unquote
“One can pay back the loan of gold, but one lies forever in debt to those who are kind.” — Marcus Aurelius
Unquote
“As a general rule the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.” — Benjamin Disraeli
Outlook
“Climate is your personality; weather is your mood.” — J. Marshall Shepherd, past president, American Meteorological Society, quoted in Andrew Revkin and Lisa Mechaley, Weather: An Illustrated History, 2018
Meditation
Written by Albert Einstein at the invitation of a German magazine, 1921:
What Artistic and Scientific Experience Have in Common
Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking, and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science. If what is seen and experienced is portrayed in the language of logic, we are engaged in science. If it is communicated through forms whose connections are not accessible to the conscious mind but are recognized intuitively as meaningful, then we are engaged in art. Common to both is the loving devotion to that which transcends personal concerns and volition.
(From Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann, eds., Albert Einstein, the Human Side: New Glimpses From His Archives, 1979.)
Certainty
“Suppose a contradiction were to be found in the axioms of set theory. Do you seriously believe that that bridge would fall down?” — Frank Ramsey, to Wittgenstein
“Does anyone believe that the difference between the Lebesgue and Riemann integrals can have physical significance, and that whether, say, an airplane would or would not fly could depend on this difference? If such were claimed, I should not care to fly in that plane.” — Richard W. Hamming
Unquote
“The plague of man is boasting of his knowledge.” — Montaigne
“A Bully Is Always a Coward”
English proverbs:
- Give neither counsel nor salt till you are asked for it.
- A hedge between keeps friendship green.
- A fault confessed is half redressed.
- A hungry man is an angry man.
- Please your eye and plague your heart.
- If you run after two hares you will catch neither.
- A good lawyer makes a bad neighbor.
- Speak fair and think what you will.
- It is not the suffering but the cause which makes a martyr.
- A fool will laugh when he is drowning.
- A foe is better than a dissembling friend.
- A disease known is half cured.
- Let your purse be your master.
- Short counsel is good counsel.
And “Whosoever draws his sword against the prince must throw the scabbard away.”