Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.
Richard Feynman, address “What is Science?,” presented at the fifteenth annual meeting of the National Science Teachers Association, in New York City (1966), published in The Physics Teacher, volume 7, issue 6 (1969), p. 313-320.
Equality, in a social sense, may be divided into that of condition, and that of rights. Equality of condition is incompatible with civilization, and is found only to exist in those communities that are but slightly removed from the savage state. In practice, it can only mean a common misery.
James Fenimore Cooper, The American Democrat: Or, Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America (1838).
Equality of rights is a peculiar feature of democracies. These rights are properly divided into civil and political, though even these definitions are not to be taken as absolute, or as literally exact.
We boil at different degrees.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Society and Solitude (1870).
It is probable a true history of human events would show that a far larger proportion of our acts are the results of sudden impulses and accident, than of that reason of which we so much boast.
James Fenimore Cooper, The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea (1823), preface.
What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have yet to be discovered.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Fortune of the Republic (1878).
Ingratitude’s a weed in every clime,
Sir Samuel Garth, Epistle to the Earl of Godolphin, L.27.
It thrives too fast at first, but fades in time.
“A cucumber is bitter.” Throw it away. “There are briars in the road.” Turn aside from them. This is enough. Do not add, “And why were such things made in the world?”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (c. 180 A.D.).
And what is reason? Be she thus defined:
Edward Young, The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality (1742–45), VII. L. 1,526.
Reason is upright stature in the soul.
While Reason drew the plan, the Heart inform’d
James Thomson (1700–1748), Liberty ( (1734) Pt. IV, L. 262.
The moral page and Fancy lent it grace.
The philosophy of my heart is libertarian. I don’t like the idea of the exploitation of man by man. I believe that one day human civilization will overcome this somehow. But that is not to say that I favour the state as the owner of everything, no, no, no. I can’t conceive of that. I lean a lot towards self-management, with all of the risks it entails for any important institution.
José Mujica (Uruguay’s president, 2010–2015), from “A conversation with President José Mujica, M.R. and H.C. Montevideo,” The Economist (August 2014).