Nothing like I’d ever seen.… I knew that we didn’t have any vehicles of that kind, and I was 99 and nine tenths percent sure that the Russians didn’t have any of that type either.… At that point in time there was no doubt in my mind that this vehicle was made at some other place than here on Earth.
NASA astronaut Gordon Cooper, on one of his several encounters with UFOs in the 1950s.
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.
Herbert Gerjuoy, as quoted by Alvin Toffler in Future Shock (1970), Ch. 18, p. 414. Quotation from this psychologist is often misattributed to Toffler.
Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war.
Richard Milhous Nixon, 37th President of the United States, in his book Real Peace (1983).
You can’t build a house without nails and wood. If you don’t want a house built, hide the nails and wood. If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war.
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953).
‘DO NOT GOVERN TOO MUCH,’ is a maxim which should be placed in large letters over the speaker’s chair in all legislative bodies. The old proverb, ‘too much of a good thing is good for nothing,’ is most especially applicable to the present time, when it would appear, from the course of our legislation, that common sense, common experience, and the instinct of self-preservation, are utterly insufficient for the ordinary purposes of life; that the people of the United States are not only incapable of self-government, but of taking cognizance of their individual affairs; that industry requires protection, enterprize bounties, and that no man can possibly find his way in broad day light without being tied to the apron-string of a legislative dry-nurse. The present system of our legislation seems founded on the total incapacity of mankind to take care of themselves or to exist without legislative enactment.
William Leggett, in an editorial in the Evening Post, March 11, 1835 — republished in A Collection of the Political Writings of William Leggett (1840) and titled “The Legislation of Congress”).
In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how many can get through to you.
Mortimer Adler, The Wordsworth Book of Humorous Quotations (1998), p.2.