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T Quotes

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All T Quotes

“The champions of militant Islam are, of course, misogynists, woman-haters; they are also misologists - haters of reason. Their armed doctrine is little more than a chaotic penal code underscored by impotent dreams of genocide. And, like all religions, it is a massive agglutination of stock response, of cliches, of inherited and unexamined formulations.”

“The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau.”

“The champions of the digital adopt an absurd line of argument (absurd in the sense of Freud's story of the kettle): 1. It is a revolution, an absolute advance. 2. At any rate, we have no choice, the process is irreversible. But it must be one or the other: if it is inevitable, there's no point representing it as an ideal dimension. And if it's destined to win out, there's no point claiming it is best. Any form of irony or offhandedness about one's own ideas is wounding to one's interlocutor.”

“The chance is high that the truth lies in the fashionable direction. But, on the off-chance that it is in another direction - a direction obvious from an unfashionable view of field theory - who will find it? Only someone who has sacrificed himself by teaching himself quantum electrodynamics from a peculiar and unusual point of view; one that he may have to invent for himself.”

“The chance that you will become a master in something after the first attempt is neither here nor there. You don't get master's degree by attending school on the first day! Time will tell, so you got to persist!”

“The chance to tell personal, language-specific, culturally specific stories is really flourishing on TV and I think it's just the nature of movies and international demands that you need to get a much bigger audience. TV is more like independent film was. The forms of adult drama and certain kinds of sophisticated comedy, there's no room for them in the tentpole movie universe.”

“The chances of any individual animal leaving behind fossilised remains are infinitesimal. First, its dead body has to lie in a place where sediment accumulates. That is most commonly in a lake or sea. Bones lying on the surface of the land are much more likely to be destroyed than preserved. Next, the sediment has to cover the bones before they disappear, preferably even before they are disarticulated. After that, the mud-and the bones within it- has to be compressed and turned into stone by the great, infinitely slow, movements that distort and crumple the earth's crust. That has to happen without the total obliteration of any sign of the bones. And finally, those bones have to be located in the tiny proportion of rocks which happen to be sufficiently close to the surface for them to be discovered by a prospecting palaeontologist. Thus not only have the vast majority of individual animals disappeared without a trace but great numbers of species and families have doubtless existed of which we have no knowledge whatsoever.”

“The chances of human beings being the only intelligent form of life in the universe are so minuscule that it's really kind of crazy to actually - no scientist could ever argue that we would be alone. It's much more likely that there are hundreds of thousands of other intelligences and other life forms out there in the universe just based on a strictly mathematical formula. And what that means is that artificial intelligence has probably already occurred in the universe.”

“The chances of satisfying my renewed appetite for literary exchanges increased once I began to visit the library more frequently and make my way from the hotel to City Lights Bookstore at 261 Columbus Avenue. For all I was learning about the role its founder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, had played in helping to nurture, promote, and sustain the talented souls who made the Beat Movement possible, City Lights became a kind of sacred space for me.”