Men get very fond of the things they defend, especially when they find themselves defending something stupid.


Theodore Sturgeon in his wonderful short story, The Widget, The Wadget, and Boff 

He who goes into a crowd must now go one way and then another, keep his elbows close, retire or advance, and quit the straight way, according to what he encounters; and must live not so much according to his own method as to that of others; not according to what he proposes to himself, but according to what is proposed to him, according to the time, according to the men, according to the occasions. Plato says, that whoever escapes from the world's handling with clean breeches, escapes by miracle.

Montaigne

There are intelligible principles inherent in the matter of every phenomenon; because matter is essentially the sum of all the seemings that it has for any and all persons. 

Protagoras (the Sophist)

All things must be either limiting, or unlimited, or both limiting and unlimited.  Since things cannot consist either of the limiting alone or of the unlimited alone ... we must obviously conclude that the universe and its contents are fitted together and harmonized by a combination of the limiting and the unlimited.

For if everything that is were unlimited, there would not be anything of such a character that it could be recognized.

Philolaus  (a Pythagorean)

To be is possible and not-to-be is impossible.... Thought and being are the same.

Parmenides, (per Philip Wheelwright, The PreSocratics)

Exponential growth inside a finite system leads to collapse.

Richard Powers, The Overstory

While sitting at the fireside in the winter, at ease on soft couches, well fed, sipping tasty wine and nibbling tidbits, it is then that a host may duly inquire of his guest:  Who are you among men, and whence do you come?

Xenophanes, (per Philip Wheelwright, The PreSocratics)

Narrative is a lie... it sustains its power from a quite illogical juxtaposition of events, and perceived chain of causality- it is simply seditious, and cannot be trusted!

Chris Deliso, in the yet unpublished Third Emperor of California

Human beings and fundamental particles share one absolute commonality: they exist in their interactions.  In between times, their positions and trajectories are indecipherable even to themselves.

Nick Harkaway, Gnomon

I have a soul free and entirely its own, and accustomed to guide itself after its own fashion; having hitherto never had either master or governor imposed upon me: I have walked as far as I would, and at the pace that best pleased myself; this is it that has rendered me unfit for the service of others, and has made me of no use to any one but myself.

Michel de Montaigne

I leave the choice of my arguments to fortune, and take that she first presents to me; they are all alike to me, I never design to go through any of them; for I never see all of anything…. Of a hundred members and faces that everything has, I take one, one while to look it over only, another while to ripple up the skin, and sometimes to pinch it to the bones: I give a stab, not so wide but as deep as I can, and am for the most part tempted to take it in hand by some new light I discover in it.

Michel de Montaigne

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

Niels Bohr