Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

Truman Capote

It is not that I'm so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer.

Albert Einstein

He who knows all the answers has not been asked all the questions.

Confucius

First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII — and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we've realized it's a brochure.

Douglas Adams

All thinking men are atheists.

Ernest Hemingway, “A Farewell to Arms”

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

Rumi

He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.

J.R.R. Tolkien, “Lord of the Rings”

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

Henry David Thoreau

You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.

Colette

All sciences are vain and full of errors that are not born of Experience, the mother of all Knowledge.

Leonardo da Vinci, “Leonardo's Notebooks”

No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.

Ernest Hemingway, “A Farewell to Arms”

Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Education is no substitute for intelligence.

Frank Herbert

Getting divorced just because you don't love a man is almost as silly as getting married just because you do.

Zsa Zsa Gabor

Its important to be comfortable with uncertainty.

Xiaolu Guo

To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.

Nicolaus Copernicus

Science is interesting, and if you don't agree you can fuck off.

Richard Dawkins, quoting a former editor of New Scientist Magazine, who is as yet unidentified (possibly Jeremy Webb)

Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

Douglas Adams, “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”

The Bible has noble poetry in it… and some good morals and a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a thousand lies.

Mark Twain

“Rabbit's clever,” said Pooh thoughtfully.
“Yes,” said Piglet, “Rabbit's clever.”
“And he has Brain.”
“Yes,” said Piglet, “Rabbit has Brain.”
There was a long silence.
“I suppose,” said Pooh, “that that's why he never understands anything.”

A.A. Milne, “Winnie-the-Pooh”

Benchley: “My good man, would you please get me a taxi?”
Uniformed man: “I'm not a doorman. I happen to be a rear admiral in the United States Navy.”
Benchley: “All right then: get me a battleship”

Robert Benchley

Progress is often made by making mistakes as fast as you possibly can, though you try to avoid making the same mistake twice.

Prof. Robert Hazen

The knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on earth - the atoms that make up the human body, are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures. These stars- the high mass ones among them- went unstable in their later years- they collapsed and then exploded- scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy- guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself. These ingredients become part of gas clouds that condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems- stars with orbiting planets. And those planets now have the ingredients for life itself. So that when I look up at the night sky, and I know that yes we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up- many people feel small, cause they are small and the universe is big. But I feel big because my atoms came from those stars.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Reporter: “Can it be that you, of all people, believe a horseshoe will bring you good luck?”
Bohr: “Of course not, but I understand it brings you luck whether you believe it or not.”

Niels Bohr

We owe a huge debt to Galileo for emancipating us all from the stupid belief in an Earth-centered or man-centered (let alone God-centered) system. He quite literally taught us our place and allowed us to go on to make extraordinary advances in knowledge.

Christopher Hitchens