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Quote by Jonathan Stroud

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Jonathan Stroud
Jonathan Stroud

Jonathan Stroud, born on October 27, 1970, is a renowned British children's literature author. His works are known for their rich imagination and profound thematic depth, particularly his popular 'Bartimaeus' series and 'The Amulet' series. more

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“In the discoveries of science the harmony of the spheres is also now the harmony of life. And as the eerie illumination of science penetrates evermore deeply into the order of nature, the cosmos appears increasingly to be a vast system finely tuned to generate life and organisms of biology very similar, perhaps identical, to ourselves. All the evidence available in the biological sciences supports the core proposition of traditional natural theology - that the cosmos is a specially designed whole with life and mankind as a fundamental goal and purpose, a whole in which all facets of reality, from the size of galaxies to the thermal capacity of water, have their meaning and explanation in this central fact. Four centuries after the scientific revolution apparently destroyed irretrievably man's special place in the universe, banished Aristotle, and rendered teleological speculation obsolete, the relentless stream of discovery has turned dramatically in favor of teleology and design, and the doctrine of the microcosm is reborn. As I hope the evidence presented in this book has shown, science, which has been for centuries the great ally of atheism and skepticism, has become at last, in the final days of the second millennium, what Newton and many of its early advocates had so fervently wished - the "defender of the anthropocentric faith.”

“But soon the poltergeist ran out of ideas in connection with Aunt Maud and became, as it were, more eclectic. All the banal motions that objects are limited to in such cases, were gone through in this one. Saucepans crashed in the kitchen; a snowball was found (perhaps, prematurely) in the icebox; once or twice Sybil saw a plate sail by like a discus and land safely on the sofa; lamps kept lighting up in various parts of the house; chairs waddled away to assemble in the impassable pantry; mysterious bits of string were found on the floor; invisible revelers staggered down the staircase in the middle of the night; and one winter morning Shade, upon rising and taking a look at the weather, saw that the little table from his study upon which he kept Bible-like Webster open at M was standing in a state of shock outdoors, on the snow (subliminally this may have participated in the making of lines 5-12). I imagine, that during the period the Shades, or at least John Shade, experienced a sensation of odd instability as if parts of the everyday, smoothly running world had got unscrewed, and you became aware that one of your tires was rolling beside you, or that your steering wheel had come off.”

“The challenges in today's world are real and threatening. But they cannot withstand the assault of sustained flexible and out-of-the-box thinking. The mind is limitless in its ability to adapt where necessary and create where inevitable. The onus is on the owner of the mind to make the needed shift in attitude, backed by a concerted action. It is time to eschew fear and complacency and, in the words of Steve Jobs, 'stay hungry and stay foolish'.”

“Am fost trezit de o lumânare care murea, înecându-se în propria ceară și sfârâia, dându-și ultima flacără. Am văzut cum se înălța viața ei și fumul desena o amintire. În curând, avea să fie dată uitării și înlocuită cu o altă lumânare perfectă: albă și rece. Ea ar fi putut trăi veșnic dacă ar fi rămas înghețată, dar nu mai lumina, nu mai încălzea. Nu mai dădea speranță.”