"Jeremy Beaumont-Jones has been lucky enough to be born rich. He wasn't in the mad oligarch class but once you're past a certain point, the sheer weight of your money sucks in wealth like a financial singularity." - Ben Aaronovitch, The Hanging Tree.

J.B.S. Haldane said:

Capitalism, though it may not always give the scientific worker a living wage, will always protect him, as being one of the geese which produce golden eggs for its table.

I think J.B.S. Haldane overestimated the ability of the powers that be to recognize the value of the scientists. Or why is Stephen Harper systematically ( Read more... )

“The job of the writer isn't to answer questions. The job of the writer is to ask the questions for which there are no answers.” - J.M. Porup

Nature is by and large to be found out of doors, a location where, it cannot be argued, there are never enough comfortable chairs. - Fran Lebowitz

Do you know what astonished me most in the world? The inability of force to create anything. In the long run, the sword is always beaten by the spirit. - Napoleon Bonaparte, 1769 - 1821

“In this world, where we find ourselves, we need compassion more than anything, I think, or we are all alone.” ― Guy Gavriel Kay, Tigana

From Ming the Mechanic: A Samurai's Creed by Flemming Funch: The creed of a samurai, written around 1300 by an unnamed author. Via Chris Corrigan.

I have no parents; I make the heaven and earth my mother and father ( Read more... )

It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish. - J.R.R. Tolkien.

You know the Greeks didn't write obituaries. They only asked one question after a man died: "Did he have passion?" - Diane DeGiorgio.

“Ignorance is not just a blank space on a person’s mental map. It has contours and coherence, and for all I know rules of operation as well. So as a corollary to [the advice of] writing about what we know, maybe we should add getting familiar with our ignorance, and the possibilities therein for writing a good story.” - Thomas Pynchon