Quotes by British Authors - Page 17

You have to accept all sides of yourself – there’s no point fighting them – just learn how to handle them, and return to the positive, balanced being you know you can be, once the winds have blown through.
Jay Woodman
Visiting any shop for the first time is exciting. There's always that buzz as you push open the door; that hope; that belief - that this is going to be the shop of all shops, which will bring you everything you ever wanted, at magically low prices.
Sophie Kinsella
A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it or offer your own version in return.
Salman Rushdie
Aren't you two ever going to read Hogwarts, A History?""What's the point?" said Ron. "You know it by heart, we can just ask you.
J.K. Rowling
After three years of English at Cambridge, being force-fed literary theory, I was almost convinced that literature was all coded messages about Marxism and the death of the self. I crawled out of the post-structuralist desert thirsty for heroines I could cry and laugh with. I was jaded. I craved trash.
Samantha Ellis
I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially to the extent to which it has been applied, will be one of the greatest jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity it has.
Malcolm Muggeridge
Nothing is more conservative than a bacterium.
Nick Lane
Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion during which the matter passes from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity, and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation.
Herbert Spencer
The embryological record is almost always abbreviated in accordance with the tendency of nature (to be explained on the principle of survival of the fittest) to attain her needs by the easiest means.
Francis Maitland Balfour
Darwin himself said as much: 'If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case.' Darwin could find no such case, and nor has anybody since Darwin's time, despite strenuous, indeed desperate, efforts. Many candidates for this holy grail of creationism have been proposed. None has stood up to analysis.
Richard Dawkins
We are only fully human when we act as if the life beyond us matters.
Caspar Henderson
I was aware of Darwin's views fourteen years before I adopted them and I have done so solely and entirely from an independent study of the plants themselves.[Letter to W.H. Harvey]
Joseph Dalton Hooker
God is not an alternative to science as an explanation, he is not to be understood merely as a God of the gaps, he is the ground of all explanation: it is his existence which gives rise to the very possibility of explanation, scientific or otherwise. It is important to stress this because influential authors such as Richard Dawkins will insist on conceiving of God as an explanatory alternative to science – an idea that is nowhere to be found in theological reflection of any depth. Dawkins is therefore tilting at a windmill - dismissing a concept of God that no serious thinker believes in anyway. Such activity is not necessarily to be regarded as a mark of intellectual sophistication.
John C. Lennox
Evolution... is the most powerful and the most comprehensive idea that has ever arisen on Earth.
Julian Huxley
Yes, sir, but the Librarian likes bananas, sir.""Very nourishin' fruit, Mr Stibbons.""Yes, sir. Although, funnily enough it's not actually a fruit, sir.""Really?""Yes, sir. Botanically, it's a type of fish, sir. According to my theory it's cladistically associated with the Krullian pipefish, sir, which of course is also yellow and goes around in bunches or shoals.""And lives in trees?""Well, not usually, sir. The banana is obviously exploiting a new niche.""Good heavens, really? It's a funny thing, but I've never much liked bananas and I've always been a bit suspicious of fish, too. That'd explain it.
Terry Pratchett
like all other living creatures, I am the descendant of survivors, so the fear in my head is the voice of my ancestors whispering their accumulated wisdom.
David George Haskell
There is a significant problem associated with burning large quantities of fossil fuels into the atmosphere. This pollution will change the electromagnetic transmission of the atmosphere and lead to an unnatural electromagnetic environment at the ground level where we all live. Once the electromagnetic environment has been significantly changed by these emissions, then we will be in a new era of evolution. It appears that we have already entered that era some time ago.
Steven Magee
The arms race between [predators] and [prey] is asymmetric, in which success on either side is felt as failure by the other side, but the nature of the success and failure on the two sides is very different. The two sides are 'trying' to do very different things. [Predators] are trying to eat [prey]. [Prey] are not trying to eat [predators], they are trying to avoid being eaten by [predators].From an evolutionary point of view asymmetric arms races are more [likely] to generate highly complex weapons systems.
Richard Dawkins
All of creation expands and evolves.
Jay Woodman
It is hard for us to imagine now, but our earliest human ancestors who ventured out onto the grasslands of East Africa some six million years ago were remarkably weak and vulnerable creatures. They stood less than five feet tall. They walked upright and could run on their two legs, but nowhere near as fast as the swift predators on four legs that pursued them. They were skinny—their arms could not provide much defense. They had no claws or fangs or poison to resort to if under attack. To gather fruits, nuts, and insects, or to scavenge dead meat, they had to move out into the open savanna where they became easy prey to leopards or packs of hyenas. So weak and small in number, they might have easily become extinct.And yet within the space of a few million years (remarkably short on the time scale of evolution), these rather physically unimpressive ancestors of ours transformed themselves into the most formidable hunters on the planet. What could possibly account for such a miraculous turnaround?
Robert Greene
In the irresistible logic of guilt, one evil leads to another, one sin is developed out of another. There is nothing abrupt, nothing casual in the process. The road to sin is smooth, because an army of transgressions has passed over it. When such a development takes place, the community is filled with consternation. Men meet each other and say, "Have you heard what has happened? Mr. A. has turned out a defaulter. Mr. B. has been robbing his bank. How could he have done it?" Alas! he did it long ago, when he took the first step, when he diverged a very little way from the path of right. After that, every other step was easy, natural, and logical.
James Clarke
[It] is hardly possible to maintain seriously that the evil done by science is not altogether outweighed by the good. For example, if ten million lives were lost in every war, the net effect of science would still have been to increase the average length of life.
G H Hardy
Most of didn’t know how truly good or truly bad we were, and most of us would never be sufficiently tested to find out.
Rachel Cusk
War, Nobby. Huh! What is it good for?" he said. "Dunno, Sarge. Freeing slaves, maybe?""Absol—well, okay." "Defending yourself against a totalitarian aggressor?""All right, I'll grant you that, but—""Saving civilization from a horde of—" "It doesn't do any good in the long run is what I'm saying, Nobby, if you'd listen for five seconds together," said Fred Colon sharply. "Yeah, but in the long run, what does, Sarge?
Terry Pratchett
Charlie dear, it is I who have to be proud of you. And I am very, very proud of you. You have called me pretty; and as long as I am pretty in your eyes, I am happy. You, dear old Charlie, are not handsome, but you are good, which is far more noble.
George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
But it's the simple and the good that are meant to suffer in this world—ain't it, though!
Sarah Waters
The case of the general talk of "progress" is, indeed, an extreme one. As enunciated today, "progress" is simply a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative. We meet every ideal of religion, patriotism, beauty, or brute pleasure with the alternative ideal of progress—that is to say, we meet every proposal of getting something that we know about, with an alternative proposal of getting a great deal more of nobody knows what.
G.K. Chesterton
Good riddance to the blatantly corrupt Democratic Party!
Steven Magee
Half the ingratitude and complacency in the world down to how slowly and imperceptibly most good and bad things unfold.
Alain de Botton
She was tall and dark-skinned and looked like a Nigerian sculpture. She moved like a lioness, her every step bristling with suppressed violence.
Bonnie Greer
A woman who walks with God honors Him in the way she manages her home.
Elizabeth George
I knew such a woman once,She gave me everything.Her love like a soft riot singing,She knew how to shine.
Scott Hastie
A woman always has half an onion left over, no matter what the size of the onion, the dish or the woman
Terry Pratchett
She's not sensual. She doesn't want affairs. It's just cold-blooded experiment on her part and the fun of stirring people up and setting them against each other. She dabbled in that too. She's the sort of woman who's never had a row with anyone in her life--but rows always happen where she is! She makes them happen. She's kind of female Iago. She must have drama. But she doesn't want to be involved herself. She's always outside pulling strings--looking on--enjoying it!
Agatha Christie
Man who treat Woman without respect and see Woman ONLY as a public toilett forget where they spend their first 9 months of their Life!
Lily Amis
I believe in living healthily and sustainably, and looking to nature for renewal and inspiration.
Jay Woodman
The asylum, and later the national health service, warehoused thousands of patients made mad by the intrusions of a sexual predator. But these institutions had been dominated by the discredited Freudian fantasy that sexual abuse doesn’t happen - that it is our illicit desires that drive us crazy. A century ago, Freud recoiled from his own theory of the sexual seduction of children and projected the problem back into the patient. He claimed in his Aetiology of Hysteria that clients, typically women, were describing their fantasies, not facts, not ‘real events’. P3
Beatrix Campbell
A peculiarity of the nature of your mind is that, in contrast to your physical constitution (dosha) that is fixed from birth, it can be altered through discrimination and choice.
Sebastian Pole
When the only exorcise you get is running for a bus, get more buses!
Benny Bellamacina
Antistatic devices (ASD) are commonly used in many industries and may present a health hazard to those who work with these.
Steven Magee
I have been through the OSHA system twice and I can confirm that I did not have the right to a safe workplace or whistle-blower protection on either occasion.
Steven Magee
When people query whether Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS) is real or not, my answer is always: Sweden has recognized the condition for a decade and has approximately 300,000 EHS people.
Steven Magee
Granville did not come to enquire after me, as I had known he would not. I had always considered him made awkward by painful emotion, but now I considered that perhaps hew as only unfeeling.
Anna Freeman
Based on the medical evidence that clearly states that being above 10,000 feet is hazardous to the health of sea level adapted humans, it is clear that all of the manned facilities on top of the 13,796 feet Mauna Kea summit in Hawaii should be removed and the summit restored back to its native environment.
Steven Magee
The long term health effects from utility company smart meters present a far greater risk to the general population than terrorism in the USA.
Steven Magee
Smart radiation researchers use radiation resistance health techniques in order to offset the known biological harm of their toxic radiation exposures.
Steven Magee
Thanks to President Obama, I am able to get medical treatment in the USA for the long term effects of very high altitude sickness and unnatural electromagnetic radiation exposures.
Steven Magee
Jail has become the biggest mental health hospital.
Steven Magee
Girls should be taught at school that giving birth to an unnaturally over-sized western baby that no longer fits down the birth canal may lead to a multitude of long term health problems.
Steven Magee
Collision avoidance systems are the next big radio frequency (RF) toxin to hit the USA general population as they become standard safety equipment in most new cars.
Steven Magee
When I worked at the W. M. Keck Observatory on the 13,796 feet very high altitude summit of Mauna Kea, we would routinely be engulfed in cold clouds of helium and nitrogen gas as we discharged it into the video camera systems daily. The management team never warned us that we were in a hazardous oxygen deprived environment during this activity that was known for its ability to adversely affect physical and mental health, and possibly bring on death by asphyxiation.
Steven Magee
When the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) found out that Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) were going to visit the site to assist in bringing it into legal compliance, they freaked out! They insisted that the visit had to be canceled and the result was that I eventually became so sick from the toxic workplace environment that I had no option but to leave.
Steven Magee
Very high altitude observatories are a known worker health hazard.
Steven Magee
When I worked in high altitude astronomy, the worst sickness that I experienced was not at the 13,796 feet very high altitude summit of Mauna Kea Observatory (MKO) in Hawaii, it was at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) in Arizona at the much lower altitude of 6,875 feet. Due to my very high altitude experiences, I knew that this strange sickness was not primarily caused by altitude sickness and was most likely Sick Building Syndrome (SBS). After reporting various behavioral problems in all of the staff to the management team, my contract was not renewed, I was unable to legally protect the health and safety of the workers that I was responsible for, troubleshooting of this environmental problem stopped and I left in a sickened state for my next position before I could find the root cause.
Steven Magee
Avoid working in windowless environments for good health.
Steven Magee
He thought, Yeah. Yeah, non-smokers live seven years longer. Which seven will be subtracted by the god called Time? It won't be that convulsive, heart-bursting spell between twenty-eight and thirty-five. No. It'll be that really cool bit between eighty-six and ninety-three.
Martin Amis
It is the uninformed that willfully put a cellphone next to their brains.
Steven Magee
It is only a matter of time before utility smart meter health damage lawsuits start winning in large numbers, and when they do they will have no option but to shut down the known biologically toxic smart meter radio frequency (RF) industry.
Steven Magee
A researcher that has a brain that functions differently from their peers is at an advantage, as they can see things that the others cannot.
Steven Magee
One of my astronomy managers used to tell me that liquid nitrogen was harmless and was just liquid air. He would pour it onto his bare hands to demonstrate how safe he thought it was. I was later to realize that incompetence was a feature of high altitude astronomy.
Steven Magee