Quotes on Ifs

[N]o scientist likes to be criticized. ... But you don't reply to critics: "Wait a minute, wait a minute; this is a really good idea. I'm very fond of it. It's done you no harm. Please don't attack it." That's not the way it goes. The hard but just rule is that if the ideas don't work, you must throw them away. Don't waste any neurons on what doesn't work. Devote those neurons to new ideas that better explain the data. Valid criticism is doing you a favor.

Even if only a few individuals try to create mental peace and happiness within themselves, and act responsibly and kind-heartedly towards others, they will have a positive influence in their community.

If you're sitting around waiting on somebody to save you, to fix you, to even help you, you are wasting your time because only you have the power to take responsibility to move your life forward.

If we did not bring to the examinations of our instincts a knowledge of their comparative dignity we could never learn it from them.

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. When I'm inspired, I get excited because I can't wait to see what I'll come up with next. Find out who you are and do it on purpose.

If you are left with only one piece of homespun,wear it with dignity

If they want to win right now, I'm all for it. That's all I said the whole time. If you want to wait five years, let me know. My legs aren't as young as they used to be.

If our feelings control our actions, it is because we have abdicated our responsibility and empowered them to do so.

My mother taught me three things, respect, knowledge-search for knowledge, it's an eternal journey. That's like my hair-cut, the line, 360 degrees, find knowledge always. And she taught me to not be quiet, if there's something on my mind speak it. But also to listen.

Beauty is about perception, not about make-up. I think the beginning of all beauty is knowing and liking oneself. You can't put on make-up, or dress yourself, or do you hair with any sort of fun or joy if you're doing it from a position of correction.

The brain is not a blind, reactive machine, but a complex, sensitive biocomputer that we can program. And if we don't take the responsibility for programming it, then it will be programmed unwittingly by accident or by the social environnement.

Live in such a way, that if someone speaks badly of you no one would belive it. Playing dress-up begins at age five and never truly ends.

The shadows that now lie dark upon our path will soon be dispelled and we shall walk with the light all about us if we but be true to ourselves.

Always be available to your kids. Because if you say, 'Give me five minutes, give me ten minutes,' it'll be 15, it'll be 20. And then when you get there, the shine will have worn off whatever it is they wanted to share with you.

I have long since decided if you wait for the perfect time to write, you'll never write. There is no time that isn't flawed somehow.

If you like your healthcare plan, you'll be able to keep your healthcare plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.

If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he'll eat you last.

I hate the idea that, when it comes to books and learning, hard is often seen as the opposite of fun. It's strange to me that we should be so quick to give up on a book or a math problem when we are so willing to grapple, for centuries if necessary, with a single level of Angry Birds.

That distrust which intrudes so often on your mind is a mode of melancholy, which, if it be the business of a wise man to be happy, it is foolish to indulge; and if it be a duty to preserve our faculties entire for their proper use, it is criminal. Suspicion is very often an useless pain.

The quality of rhetoric emanating from the psychedelic community must improve radically. If it does not, we will forfeit the reclamation of our birthright and all opportunity for exploring the psychedelic dimension will be closed off.

Our nation was built and civilized by men and women who used guns in self-defense and in pursuit of peace. One wonders indeed, if the rising crime rate, isn't due as much as anything to the criminal's instinctive knowledge that the average victim no longer has means of self-protection.