It is the common failing of totalitarian regimes that they cannot really understand the nature of our democracy. They mistake dissent for disloyalty. They mistake restlessness for a rejection of policy. They mistake a few committees for a country. They misjudge individual speeches for public policy. (Answering North Vietnamese charge that US could not endure)(Lyndon B. Johnson)
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.(George Bernard Shaw)
A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree or draw a child by studying the outlines of its form merely . . . but by watching for a time his motions and plays, the painter enters into his nature and can then draw him at every attitude . . .(Ralph Waldo Emerson)
All conservatives are such from personal defects. They have been effeminated by position or nature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act on the defensive.(Ralph Waldo Emerson)
An inexhaustible good nature is one of the most precious gifts of heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather.(Washington Irving)
God could cause us considerable embarrassment by revealing all the secrets of nature to us we should not know what to do for sheer apathy and boredom.(Johann von Goethe)
Nature understands no jesting. She is always true, always serious, always severe. She is always right, and the errors are always those of man.(Johann von Goethe)
Accuse not nature, she hath done her partDo thou but thine, and be not diffidentOf wisdom, she deserts thee not, if thouDismiss not her, when most thou needest her nigh,By attributing overmuch to thingsLess excellent, as thou thyself perceivest.(John Milton)
Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.(Thomas Huxley)
The chess board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But we also know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance.(Thomas Huxley)
