The origin of civilization is man’s determination to do nothing for himself which he can get done for him.
What a kid I got, I told him about the birds and the bees and he told me about the butcher and my wife. ― Rodney Dangerfield
In lecturing on the origin and growth of religion, my chief object has been to show that a belief in God, in the immortality of the soul, and in a future retribution, can be gained, and not only can be, but has been gained, by the right exercise of human reason alone, without the assistance of what has been called a special revelation. In doing this, I thought I was simply following in the footsteps of the greatest theologians of our time, and that I was serving the cause of true religion by showing, by ample historical evidence, gathered from the Sacred Books of the East, how, what St. Paul, what the Fathers of the Church, what mediæval theologians, and what some of the most learned of modern divines had asserted again and again, was most strikingly confirmed by the records of all non-Christian religions which have lately become accessible to us. I could not have believed it possible that, in undertaking this work, I should have exposed myself to attacks from theologians who profess and call themselves Christians, and who yet maintain that worst of all heresies, that during all the centuries that have elapsed and in all the countries of the world, God has left Himself without a witness, and has revealed Himself to one race only, the Jews of Palestine.
Fantasy is of royal blood; the senses, of noble descent; and reason, of civic= (
My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She's ninety- seven now, and we don't know where the hell she is. ― Ellen DeGeneres
'T is believ'd that this harp which I wake now for thee Was a siren of old who sung under the sea.
All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it. — H. L. Mencken
If the lessons of history teach us anything it is that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us. — Anon
Is the God present, felt in my own heart, a thing which Herr von Voltaire will dispute out of me or dispute into me? To the "worship of sorrow"= (Christianity) =ascribe what origin and genesis thou pleasest, has not that worship originated and been generated; is it not here? Feel it in thy heart and then say whether it is of God!
Science is that discourse of the mind which derives its origin from ultimate principles beyond which nothing in nature can be found which forms a part of that science: as in the continued quantity, that is to say, the science of geometry, which, starting from the surfaces of bodies, has its origin in the line, which is the end of the superficies; and we are not satisfied by this, because we know that the line terminates in the point, and the point is that which is the least of things. Therefore the point is the first principle of geometry, and nothing else can exist either {143} in nature or in the human mind from which the point can issue. Because if you say that the contact between a surface and the extreme point of an iron instrument is the creation of the point, it is not true; but let us say that this point of contact is a superficies which surrounds its centre, and in the centre the point dwells. And such a point is not a part of the substance of the superficies, neither it nor all the points of the universe can, even if combined,--it being granted that they could be combined,--compose any part of a superficies. And granted, as you imagined, a whole composed of a thousand points, if we divide any part of this quantity of a thousand, we can very well say that this part shall equal its whole; and this we can prove by zero, or naught, that is, the tenth figure of arithmetic, which is represented by a cipher as being nothing, and placed after unity it will signify 10, and if two ciphers are placed after unity it will signify 100, and thus the number will go on increasing by ten to infinity whenever a cipher is added, and the cipher in itself is worth nothing more than naught, and all the naughts in the universe are equal to one naught alone, in regard to their substance and value.
Sympathy is the first condition of criticism; reason and justice presuppose, at their origin, emotion.
Governments have their origin in the moral identity of men.
Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid. ― Hedy Lamarr
The following story is related by Arabian authors of Ma'an Ibn-Zaidah, who, from a humble origin, rose to be Governor of Irak. The story is probably not altogether historical, but it shows the high ideal of Arab moralists as regards forbearance and gentleness.
That unity which has not its origin in the multitude is tyranny.
If we granted that all religions, except Christianity and Mosaism, derived their origin from those faculties of the mind only which, according to Paley, are sufficient by themselves for calling into life the fundamental tenets of natural religion, the classification of Christianity and Judaism on one side as _revealed_, and of the other religions as _natural_, would still be defective, for the simple reason that no religion, though founded on revelation, can ever be entirely separated from natural religion. The tenets of natural religion, though they never constituted by themselves a real historical religion, supply the only ground on which even revealed religions can stand, the only soil where they can strike root, and from which they can receive nourishment and life.
Instrumental science, that is to say, mechanics, is the most noble and most useful of sciences, inasmuch as by means of it all living bodies which have movement act; and this movement has {175} its origin in the centre of gravity which is placed in the middle, dividing unequal weights, and it has dearth and wealth of muscles and lever also and counter-lever.
Carmen perpetuum primaque origine mundi ad tempora nostra=--A song for all ages, and from the first origin of the world to our own times.
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man. ― Lana Turner
The principal arguments of the sceptics--to omit those of less importance--are that we have no certainty of the truth of these principles apart from faith and revelation, save so far as we naturally perceive them in ourselves. Now this natural perception is no convincing evidence of their truth, since, having no certainty apart from faith, whether man was created by a good God, by an evil demon, or by chance, it may be doubted whether these principles within us are true or false or uncertain according to our origin.
The check upon this free play of self-assertion, or natural liberty, which is the necessary condition for the origin of human society, is the product of organic necessities of a different land from those upon which the constitution of the hive depends. One of these is the mutual affection of parent and offspring, intensified by the long infancy of the human species. But the most important is the tendency, so strongly developed in man, to reproduce in himself actions and feelings similar to, or correlated with, those of other men. Man is the most consummate of all mimics in the animal world; none but himself can draw or model; none comes near him in the scope, variety, and exactness of vocal imitation; none is such a master of gesture; while he seems to be impelled thus to imitate for the pure pleasure of it. And there is no such another emotional chameleon. By a purely reflex operation of the mind, we take the hue of passion of those who are about us, or, it may be, the complementary colour. It is not by any conscious "putting one's self in the place" of a joyful or a suffering person that the state of mind we call sympathy usually arises; indeed, it is often contrary to one's sense of right, and in spite of one's will, that "fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind," or the reverse. However complete may be the indifference to public opinion, in a cool, intellectual view, of the traditional sage, it has not yet been my fortune to meet with any actual sage who took its hostile manifestations with entire equanimity. Indeed, I doubt if the philosopher lives, or ever has lived, who could know himself to be heartily despised by a street boy without some irritation. And, though one cannot justify Haman for wishing to hang Mordecai on such a very high gibbet, yet, really, the consciousness of the Vizier of Ahasuerus, as he went in and out of the gate, that this obscure Jew had no respect for him, must have been very annoying.
Don't be so humble - you are not that great. ― Golda Meir
Force arises from dearth or abundance; it is the child of physical motion and the grandchild of spiritual motion, and the mother and origin of gravity. Gravity is confined to the elements of {149} water and earth, and this force is infinite, because infinite worlds could be moved by it if instruments could be made by which the force could be generated. Force, with physical motion, and gravity, with resistance, are the four accidental powers by which all mortal things live and die. Force has its origin in spiritual motion, and this motion, flowing through the limbs of sentient animals, enlarges their muscles, and thus enlarged the muscles are shrunk in length and contract the tendons with which they are connected, and this is the cause of the strength in human limbs. The quality and quantity of the strength of a man can generate a further force, which will increase in proportion to the duration of the motions produced by them.
Thus, what I may term the artistic fashion of dealing with anatomy is not only perfectly legitimate, but has been of great utility. The harm of it does not begin until tine attempt is made to get more out of this visual projection of thought than it contains; until the origin of the notion of "type" is forgotten and the speculative philosopher deludes himself with the supposition that the generalization suggested by fact is an "Idea" of the Pure Reason, with which fact must, somehow or other, be made to agree.
The reasons leading to the origin of the problem aren't always simple, but the solution always is.
What is family? They were the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they were the ones who showed up, who stayed in there, regardless. It wasn't just about blood relations or shared chromosomes, but something wider, bigger. We had many families over time. Our family of origin, the family we created, and the groups you moved through while all of this was happening: friends, lovers, sometimes even strangers. None of them perfect, and we couldn't expect them to be. You can't make any one person your world. The trick was to take what each could give you and build your world from it.
I do not know the American gentleman, God forgive me for putting two such words together. ― Charles Dickens
Politicians and diapers have one thing in common. They should both be changed regularly, and for the same reason. ― José Maria de Eça de Queiroz
A sure cure for seasickness is to sit under a tree. ― Spike Milligan
When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity. ― Albert Einstein
One man’s folly is another man’s wife.
Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot. ― Groucho Marx
Instead of approaching the religions of the world with the preconceived idea that they are either corruptions of the Jewish religion, or descended, in common with the Jewish religion, from some perfect primeval revelation, the students of the science of religion have seen that it is their duty first to collect all the evidence of the early history of religious thought that is still accessible in the sacred books of the world, or in the mythology, customs, or even in the languages of various races. Afterwards they have undertaken a genealogical classification of all the materials that have hitherto been collected, and they have then only approached the question of the origin of religion in a new spirit, by trying to find out how the roots of the various religions, the radical concepts which form their foundation, and before all, the concept of the infinite, could have been developed, taking for granted nothing but sensuous perception on one side, and the world by which we are surrounded on the other.
Knowledge which is the issue of experience is termed mechanical; that which is born and ends {144} in the mind is termed scientific; that which issues from science and ends in manual work is termed semi-mechanical. But I consider vain and full of error that science which is not the offspring of experience, mother of all certitude, and which does not result in established experience, that is to say, whose origin, middle and end do not pass through any of the five senses. And if we doubt of everything we perceive by the senses, should we not doubt much more of what is contrary to the senses, such as the existence of God and of the soul, and similar matters constantly under dispute and contention?
My computer beat me at checkers, but I sure beat it at kickboxing. ― Emo Philips
Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before. ― Mae West
Queen Elizabeth I regarded herself as a paragon of cleanliness. She declared that she bathed once every three months, whether she needed it or not.
A broken clock is always right twice a day.
Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong. ― Unknown
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. ― Mark Twain
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
History is made up of the bad actions of extraordinary men. All the most noted destroyers and deceivers of our species, all the founders of arbitrary governments and false religions, have been extraordinary men, and nine-tenths of the calamities which have befallen the human race had no other origin than the union of high intelligence with low desires.
Man is appealed to to be guided in his acts, not merely by love, which is always personal, or at the best tribal, but by the perception of his oneness with each human being. In the practice of mutual aid, which we can retrace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions; and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man, mutual support not mutual struggle — has had the leading part.
The secret to staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age. ― Lucille Ball
Terr? filius=--A son of the earth; a man of obscure or low origin.
The origin of this tradition comes from the Book of Esdras.
Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories. — John Wilmot
If Man be separated by no greater structural barrier from the brutes than they are from one another--then it seems to follow that if any process of physical causation can be discovered by which the genera and families of ordinary animals have been produced, that process of causation is amply sufficient to account for the origin of Man.
A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. ― George Bernard Shaw
A group of frogs is called an army.
Whatever lies beyond the limits of experience, and claims another origin than that of induction and deduction from established data, is illegitimate.--_G. H. Lewes._
If ever America undergoes great revolutions, they will be brought about by the presence of the black race on the soil of the United States — that is to say, they will owe their origin not to the equality but to the inequality of conditions. [ Democracy in America , p. 461.]
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go. ― Oscar Wilde
Every human being, of whatever origin, of whatever station, deserves respect. We must each respect others even as we respect ourselves.
We soon got the idea that ‘Italian’ meant something inferior, and a barrier was erected between children of Italian origin and their parents. This was the accepted process of Americanization,” Covello reflected in his memoir The Heart Is the Teacher. “We were becoming Americans by learning how to be ashamed of our parents.
Though Christians in the West typically associate the name Allah with Islam, it was, in fact, Christian in origin. Arab Muslims borrowed the name from Arab Christians who had been praying to Allah for centuries before Muhammad was born.
Ut plerique solent, naso suspendis adunco / Ignotos=--As is the way with most people, you turn up your nose at men of obscure origin.
It is strange that they have wished to understand the origin of all that is, and thence to attain to the knowledge of the whole, with a presumption as infinite as their object. For there is no doubt that such a design cannot be formed without presumption or without a capacity as infinite as nature.
There are four points in a good character from which all other good traits take their origin--prudence, courage, continence, and justice.
A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours. ― Milton Berle
Standing in the presence of the Unknown, all have the same right to think, and all are equally interested in the great questions of origin and destiny. All I claim, all I plead for, is liberty of thought and expression. That is all. I do not pretend to tell what is absolutely true, but what I think is true. I do not pretend to tell all the truth. I do not claim that I have floated level with the heights of thought, or that I have descended to the very depths of things. I simply claim that what ideas I have, I have a right to express; and that any man who denies that right to me is an intellectual thief and robber. That is all.
And so grace itself is but the figure of glory, for it is not the ultimate end. It was symbolised by the law, and itself symbolises grace, but it is the figure of it, and the origin or cause.
But the infinitely little is far less evident. Philosophers have much more frequently asserted they have attained it, yet in that very point they have all stumbled. This has given occasion to such common titles as _The Origin of Creation_, _The Principles of Philosophy_, and the like, as presumptuous in fact though not in appearance as that dazzling one, _De omni scibili_.
Many have puzzled themselves about the origin of evil. I am content to observe that there is evil, and that there is a way to escape from it, and with this I begin and end.
Of the affliction caused by persons who think that what they have picked up from popular exposition qualifies them for discussing the great problems of science, it may be said, as the Radical toast said of the power of the Crown in bygone days, that it "has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished." The oddities of "English as she is spoke" might be abundantly paralleled by those of "Science as she is misunderstood" in the sermon, the novel, and the leading article; and a collection of the grotesque travesties of scientific conceptions, in the shape of essays on such trifles as "the Nature of Life" and the "Origin of All Things," which reach me, from time to time, might well be bound up with them.
I couldn’t repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder. ― Steven Wright
Against this the sceptics set in one word the uncertainty of our origin, which includes that of our nature. Which the dogmatists have been trying to answer ever since the world began.
We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence.
In the seventeenth century, as I have said, the latter was the dominant view, sanctioned alike by antiquity and by authority; and it is interesting to observe that Redi did not escape the customary tax upon a discoverer of having to defend himself against the charge of impugning the authority of the Scriptures; for his adversaries declared that the generation of bees from the carcase of a dead lion is affirmed, in the Book of Judges, to have been the origin of the famous riddle with which Samson perplexed the Philistines:--
I can tell if two people are in love by how they hold each other’s hands, and how thick their sanitation gloves are. ― Jarod Kintz
I haven't spoken to my wife in years. I didn't want to interrupt her. ― Rodney Dangerfield
When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty. — Norm Crosby
Merit is never so conspicuous as when coupled with an obscure origin, just as the moon never appears so lustrous as when it emerges from a cloud.
To the "Worship of sorrow"= (Goethe's definition of Christianity) =ascribe what origin and genesis thou pleasest, has not that worship originated and been generated? Is it not here? Feel it in thy heart, and then say whether it is of God!
Man, made of the dust of the world, does not forget his origin; and all that is yet inanimate will one day speak and reason.
What have they discovered about her origin, duration and departure?
In America the principle of the sovereignty of the people is neither barren nor concealed, as it is with some other nations; it is recognized by the customs and proclaimed by the laws; it spreads freely, and arrives without impediment at its most remote consequences. If there is a country in the world where the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people can be fairly appreciated, where it can be studied in its application to the affairs of society, and where its dangers and its advantages may be judged, that country is assuredly America.… In some countries a power exists which, though it is in a degree foreign to the social body, directs it, and forces it to pursue a certain track. In others the ruling force is divided, being partly within and partly without the ranks of the people. But nothing of the kind is to be seen in the United States; there society governs itself for itself. All power centers in its bosom, and scarcely an individual is to be met with who would venture to conceive or, still less, to express the idea of seeking it elsewhere. The nation participates in the making of its laws by the choice of its legislators, and in the execution of them by the choice of the agents of the executive government; it may almost be said to govern itself, so feeble and so restricted is the share left to the administration, so little do the authorities forget their popular origin and the power from which they emanate. The people reign in the American political world as the Deity does in the universe. They are the cause and the aim of all things; everything comes from them, and everything is absorbed in them. [ Democracy in America , Volume I, New York: Alfred A. Knoph, 1994, pp. 55-58.]
It's not true that I had nothing on. I had the radio on. ― Marilyn Monroe
Every religion is false which as to its faith does not adore one God as origin of all things, and as to its morals does not love one sole God as the object of all things.
A stockbroker urged me to buy a stock that would triple its value every year. I told him, "At my age, I don't even buy green bananas." ― Claude Pepper
23% of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their butts.
Do not worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older it will avoid you. ― Joey Adams
I found there was only one way to look thin: hang out with fat people. ― Rodney Dangerfield
Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been drinking. ― Dave Barry
Every gift of noble origin Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath.
I was asked to name all the presidents. I thought they already had names. -- Demitri Martin
15 percent of Americans secretly bite their toes.
A word has power in and of itself. It comes from nothing into sound and meaning; it gives origin to all things.