Quotes, songs, and bits

What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? - Shakespeare - Hamlet

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again. Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts, In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts, While from the bounded level of our mind, Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind, But more advanced, behold with strange surprise New, distant scenes of endless science rise! So pleased at first, the towering Alps we try, Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky; The eternal snows appear already past, And the first clouds and mountains seem the last; But those attained, we tremble to survey The growing labours of the lengthened way, The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes, Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise! - Alexander Pope - An Essay on Criticism

I have, alas, studied philosophy, Jurisprudence and medicine, too, And, worst of all, theology With keen endeavor, through and through- And here I am, for all my lore The wretched fool I was before. Called Master of Arts, and Doctor to boot, For ten years almost I confute and up and down, wherever it goes, I drag my students by the nose- And see that for all our science and art We can know nothing. It burns my heart. Of course, I am smarter than all the shysters, The doctors, and teachers, and scribes, and Christers; No scruple nor doubt could make me ill, I am not afraid of the Devil or hell- But therefore I also lack all delight, Do not fancy that I know anything right, Do not fancy that I could teach or assert What would better mankind or what might convert. Goethe- Faust (introduction)

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes, in The Sign of Four, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

"Why sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." - The Red Queen, in Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll

EN ARCH HN O LOGOS - John 1:1

Cogito ergo sum - Descartes

Religion is the smile on a dog - Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians

These fragments I have shored against my ruins... - T.S. Elliot

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat. "I don't much care where--" said Alice. "Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat. - Lewis Carol - Alice in Wonderland

I will choose a path that's clear. I will choose free will. - RUSH - "Free Will"

If I could tell the world just one thing It would be that we're all OK And not to worry 'cause worry is wasteful And useless in times like these I won't be made useless I won't be idle with despair I will gather myself around my faith For light does the darkness most fear My hands are small, I know But they're not yours, they are my own But they're not yours, they are my own And I am never broken Poverty stole your golden shoes It didn't steal your laughter And heartache came to visit me But I knew it wasn't ever after We'll fight, not out of spite For someone must stand up for what's right 'Cause where there's a man who has no voice There ours shall go singing My hands are small I know But they're not yours, they are my own But they're not yours, they are my own I am never broken In the end only kindness matters In the end only kindness matters - Jewel - "Hands"