Henry Miller, playwright

Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood. -Henry Miller, writer (1891-1980)

Is Miller saying that there isn't any such thing as disorder? If so, that is real confusion! It is true that my confusion may sometimes be because I don't understand something that is inherently understandable, but sometimes the confusion may result from a situation that is so disordered that it is simply incomprehensible.

George Bernard Shaw

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it. -George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)

This is a cynic's definition, but not true. Patriotism is a species of loyalty, which doesn't require blindness to the object's faults.

Aldous Huxley

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." --Aldous Huxley

The concept "fact" is surprisingly elusive. Reality is what it is, and our thought about it conforms more or less well to it. I suppose that is what is meant by a "fact," that is, what our mind judges this bit if reality to be. But intellectual honesty requires us to recognize that some time in the future we may learn more about this bit of reality and realize that we were wrong, and what we called a fact was in fact a mistake.

Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer

For all our conceits about being the center of the universe, we live in a routine planet of a humdrum star stuck away in an obscure corner ... on an unexceptional galaxy which is one of about 100 billion galaxies. ... That is the fundamental fact of the universe we inhabit, and it is very good for us to understand that. -Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)

Another way of looking at this fundamental fact: Our planet orbits around an ordinary star, on the fringe of an ordinary galaxy which is one of about a hundred billion galaxies, but in all our searching it is the only planet we have found in all this vastness that can sustain life as we know it. This is quite a distinction!

E.L. Doctorow, writer (b. 1931)

Writing is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as the headlights, but you make the whole trip that way. -E.L. Doctorow, writer (b. 1931)

Life itself is very much the same. One's time horizon is very near. Without faith this would be very scary.

E.E. Cummings

The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful. -E.E. Cummings, poet (1894-1962)

True, but only part of the time, for which I am grateful.

John Kenneth Galbraith, economist

In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong. -John Kenneth Galbraith, economist (1908-2006)

I think that a truly humble person can follow this advice safely, but the arrogant should be very careful.