"We should read history as little critically..." - Quote by Henry David Thoreau

“A man receives only what he is ready to receive, whether physically or intellectually or morally, as animals conceive at certain seasons their kind only. We hear and apprehend only what we already half know.”

“It is not easy to make our lives respectable by any course of activity. We must repeatedly withdraw into our shells of thought, like the tortoise, somewhat helplessly; yet there is more than philosophy in that.”

“There is considerable danger that a man will be crazy between dinner and supper; but it will not directly answer any good purposethat I know of, and it is just as easy to be sane.”

“The point is that for our ancestors, the universe was a picture; for modern physics it is a story.”

“America is subsidizing what is left of the prestige and strength of the once mighty Britain. The sun has set forever on that monocled, pith-helmeted resident colonialist, sipping tea with his delicate lady in the non-white colonies being systematically robbed of every valuable resource. Britain's superfluous royalty and nobility now exist by charging tourists to inspect the once baronial castles, and by selling memoirs, perfumes, autographs, titles, and even themselves.”

“Don't make a fuss about a world war. At most, people die... Half the population wiped out - this happened quite a few times in Chinese history... It's best if half the population is left, next best one-third.”

“I see nothing but Becoming. Be not deceived! It is the fault of your limited outlook and not the fault of the essence of things if you believe that you see firm land anywhere in the ocean of Becoming and Passing. You need names for things, just as if they had a rigid permanence, but the very river in which you bathe a second time is no longer the same one which you entered before”

“Whoever is sitting with friends is in the midst of a flower garden, though he may be in the fire. Whoever sits with an enemy is in the fire, even though he is in the midst of a garden.”

“Everybody you fight is not your enemy and everybody who helps you is not your friend.”