Quotes on Ifs

He could beat anything, he thought, because no thing could hurt him if he did not care.

Brother, if you would enter that Province, you must go forward on your knees.

The scientific theorist is not to be envied. For Nature, or more precisely experiment, is an exorable and not very friendly judge of his work. It never says "yes" to a theory. In the most favorable cases it says "Maybe," and in the great majority of cases simply "No." If an experiment agrees with a theory it means for the latter "Maybe," and if it does not agree it means "No." Probably every theory will some day experience its "No" - most theories, soon after conception.

Why does everyone take for granted that we don't learn to grow arms, but rather, are designed to grow arms? Similarly, we should conclude that in the case of the development of moral systems; there's a biological endowment which in effect requires us to develop a system of moral judgment and a theory of justice, if you like, that in fact has detailed applicability over an enormous range.

If I were reading a book and happened to strike a wonderful passage I would close the book then and there and go for a walk. I hated the thought of coming to the end of a good book. I would tease it along, delay the inevitable as long as possible, But always, when I hit a great passage, I would stop reading immediately. Out I would go, rain, hail, snow or ice, and chew the cud.

If you do a job where someone tells you exactly what to do, they will find someone cheaper than you to do it. And yet our schools are churning out kids who are stuck looking for jobs where the boss tells them exactly what to do.

If he must be alone, he would make solitude his armor.

We're all just songs in the end. If we are lucky.

If Ali says a mosquito can pull a plow, don't ask how. Hitch him up.

Everyone says you have to be a specialist, and if you conduct Wagner you cannot conduct Mozart - this is nonsense.

If each of us were to confess his most secret desire, the one that inspires all his plans, all his actions, he would say: "I want to be praised."

When you go, if you go, And I should want to die, there's nothing I'd be saved by more than the time you fell asleep in my arms in a trust so gentle I let the darkening room drink up the evening, till rest, or the new rain lightly roused you awake. I asked if you heard the rain in your dream and half dreaming still you only said, I love you.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it.

The Prophet is bound to report the truth occasionally," said Dumbledore, "if only accidentally.

The wing of the Falcon brings to the king, the wing if the crow brings him to the cemetery.

And if you can find any way out of our culture, then that's a trap too. Just wanting to get out of the trap reinforces the trap.

As one old gentleman put it, " Son, I don't care if you're stark nekkid and wear a bone in your nose. If you kin fiddle, you're all right with me. It's the music we make that counts.

I think this country would be much better off if we did not have capital punishment.... We cannot ignore the fact that in recent years a disturbing number of inmates on death row have been exonerated.

If church prelates, past or present, had even an inkling of physiology they'd realize that what they term this inner ugliness creates and nourishes the hearing ear, the seeing eye, the active mind, and energetic body of man and woman, in the same way that dirt and dung at the roots give the plant its delicate leaves and the full-blown rose.

If it makes you happy _x000D_ It can't be that bad _x000D_ If it makes you happy _x000D_ Then why the hell are you so sad

I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that. I think wanting that is very morbid, but I want it when I get like this. That’s why I’m trying not to think. I just want it all to stop spinning.