Quotes

Image ID: 100707

Mark Twain at sixty, on his way 

around the world, from Mark Twain, 

Following the Equator, Hartford, 1897 (1897)

The secret of success is making your vocation your vacation. ~ Mark Twain

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

- Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi

George Rotsky George knew a lot about Charlie!

Mark Rogers  "Bullies, Liars and Cowards" and I would add Losers

In a letter to his wife Gweneth, Richard Feynman from the Grand Hotel, in Warsaw Poland writes

 "I am not getting anything out of the meeting.  I am learning nothing.  Because there are no experiments this field is not an active one, so few of the best men are doing work in it.  The result is that there are hosts of dopes here (126) and it is not good for my blood pressure: such inane things are said and seriously discussed that I get into arguments outside the formal sessions (say, at lunch) whenever anyone asks me a question or starts to tell me about his "work."  The "work" is always: (1) completely un-understandable, (2) vague and indefinite, (3) something correct that is oblivious and self-evident, but worked out by a long and difficult analysis, and presented as an important discovery, or (4) a claim based on the stupidity of the author that some obvious and correct fact, accepted and checked for years, is, in fact, false (these are the worst: no argument will convince the idiot), (5) an attempt to do something probably impossible, but certainly of no utility, which, it is finally revealed at the end, fails ..., or (6) just plain wrong."

 "What Do You Care What Other People Think?",  Richard P. Feynman.

"Actually, this too-common story reminds me of a joke I heard from Paul Krugman:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

PlutocracyFiles, Friends Don't Let Friends Read the Economist, The Daily KOS, Sun Aug 21, 2011.