Every life is organized around a small number of events that either propel us or bring us to a grinding halt. We spend the years between these episodes benefiting or suffering from their consequences until the arrival of the next forceful moment. A man's worth is established by the number of these defining circumstances he is able to create for himself. He need not always be successful, for there can be great honor in defeat. But he ought to be the main actor in the decisive scenes in his existence, whether they be epic or tragic.
Now I have to remember you for longer than I have known you.
A proof should be an epiphany from the Gods, not a coded message from the Pentagon.
Tanto la quería, que tardé en aprender a olvidarla diecinueve días y quinientas noches.
You'll put your hand on the page of the book to stop me. 'You have to read it the right way!'
'I'm reading just what it says here,' I'll say, all innocence.
'No you're not. That's not how the story goes.'
'Well if you already know how the story goes, why do you need me to read it to you?'
''Cause I wanna hear it!'
De retour à Paris ils connurent des instants joyeux, analogues aux publicités de parfum (dévaler ensemble les escaliers de Montmartre, ou s’immobiliser, enlacés, sur le pont des Arts, subitement illuminés par les projecteurs des bateaux-mouches qui effectuent leur demi-tour). Ils connurent aussi ces demi-disputes du dimanche après-midi, ces moments de silence où le corps se recourbe entre les draps, ces plages de silence et d’ennui où la vie se défait.
The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.
The Fathers of the field had been pretty confusing: John von Neumann speculated about computers and the human brain in analogies sufficiently wild to be worthy of a medieval thinker and Alain M. Turing thought about criteria to settle the question of whether Machines Can Think, a question of which we now know that it is about as relevant as the question of whether Submarines Can Swim.
Dans la langue de Kant, même « bon jour ! », dûment prononcé, peut ressembler à une thèse métaphysique.
Si Velázquez copia una fotografía, lo mejor que puede, le sale un Velázquez. Si un tonto copia exactamente una fotografía, le sale una tontería. O si Dalí copia fielmente una fotografía, le sale un Dalí. O sea que no hay que preocuparse. La personalidad es absolutamente imposible de evitar.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
Evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy a palace and Christ a cross, but that same Christ will rise up and split history into A.D. and B.C., so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by his name. Yes, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
Il est grand temps de rallumer les étoiles.