Quotessence
Home / Topics / Tortoises Quotes

Tortoises Quotes

Browse 66 quotes about Tortoises.

Related topics

HaresRaceMenWorld

Tortoises Quotes

“Even today, with no spaces left on the shelves and walls, my octo-genarian mother builds stock off fanciful garden decor: a patch of copper whirligigs among the crepe myrtles, concrete tortoises creeping around the succulents, a ceramic Mediterranean pot that could house a small family.”

MothersDecorGardensTortoisesCalifornia Back Yard
Book:Making Peace With Paradise: an autobiography of a California girl
Create image

“But as the work proceeded I was continually reminded of the fable about the elephant and the tortoise. Having constructed an elephant upon which the mathematical world could rest, I found the elephant tottering, and proceeded to construct a tortoise to keep the elephant from falling. But the tortoise was not more secure than the elephant, and after some twenty years of very arduous toil, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing more that I could do in the way of making mathematical knowledge indubitable.”

WorldWayYearsFallFoundLogicTwentiesConclusionSecureCertaintyMathematicalUncertaintyReasoningElephantsToilConstructsFablesOntologyTortoisesGreat Math
Book:Autobiography
Create image

“We debase the richness of both nature and our own minds if we view the great pageant of our intellectual history as a compendium of new information leading from primal superstition to final exactitude. We know that the sun is hub of our little corner of the universe, and that ties of genealogy connect all living things on our planet, because these theories assemble and explain so much otherwise disparate and unrelated information not because Galileo trained his telescope on the moons of Jupiter or because Darwin took a ride on a Galápagos tortoise.”

IfsKnowsMindLittlesUniverseViewsSunInformationPlanetsTheoryMoonIntellectualFinalsCornersTiesSuperstitionsOur PlanetLiving ThingsRichnessPrimalTelescopesJupiterPageantGenealogyGalsNew InformationHubTortoisesExactitude
Author:Stephen Jay Gould
Create image

“Old people who live too long come to resemble turtles. As though time turned in a curve, and down they go to the reptiles again. Not the little wet naked frog they were born. But the tortoise. Cold eyes, sagging circles of skin, the nose becomes beak. The shell of sleep.”

PeopleLittlesLongEyeAgeBornSleepColdSkinsCirclesNakedOld AgeNosesWetShellsCurvesOld PeopleFrogsTurtlesReptilesTortoisesBeaksSaggingCold Eyes
Book:The Inland Island
Create image

“The second [argument about motion] is the so-called Achilles, and it amounts to this, that in a race the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead. Statement of the Achilles and the Tortoise paradox in the relation of the discrete to the continuous.; perhaps the earliest example of the reductio ad absurdum method of proof.”

FirstsScienceRaceExampleAmountArgumentRelationMathematicsMethodProofStatementsParadoxAdsRunnersPursuedAchillesTortoisesDiscrete
Author:Zeno of Elea
Create image

“All virtuous women, like tortoises, carry their house on their heads, and their chappel in their heart, and their danger in their eye, and their souls in their hands, and God in all their actions.”

HeartSoulHandsEyeActionHouseWomenDangerVirtuousTortoisesVirtuous Woman
Book:The Great Exemplar of Sanctity and Holy Life Described in the History of the Life and Death of the Ever Blessed Jesus Christ: The Saviour of the World
Create image

“The master was an old Turtle--we used to call him Tortoise--' Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn't one?' Alice asked. We called him Tortoise because he taught us,' said the Mock Turtle angrily; 'really you are very dull!' You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple question,' added the Gryphon; and then they both sat silent and looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth.”

IfsSaidEarthUsedFeltSimplePoorTaughtReadyMastersOughtAskingSilentSatDullAshamedMockTaught UsTurtlesAlice Adventures In WonderlandTortoises
Book:Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Create image

“We have been led to imagine all sorts of things infinitely more marvelous than the imagining of poets and dreamers of the past. It shows that the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man. For instance, how much more remarkable it is for us all to be stuck-half of us upside down-by a mysterious attraction, to a spinning ball that has been swinging in space for billions of years, than to be carried on the back of an elephant supported on a tortoise swimming in a bottomless sea.”

MenYearsHas BeensShowsPastImaginationSpaceHalfGreaterImagineSeaPoetBallsAttractionBillionsStuckInstanceMysteriousRemarkableSwimmingDreamerMarvelousElephantsSpinningUpside DownTortoises
Book:The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman
Create image

“So Zeno is most famous for his tortoise paradox. Let us imagine that you are in a race with a tortoise. The tortoise has a ten-yard head start. In the time it takes you to run that ten yards, the tortoise has moved one yard. And then in the time it takes you to make up that distance, the tortoise goes a bit farther, and so on forever. You are faster than the tortoise but you can never catch him; you can only decrease his lead.”

RunningBitsRaceForeverImagineTenMovedDistanceFasterParadoxImagine ThatYardsDecreaseTortoisesHead Start
Author:John Green
Create image

“Giving the tortoise a little wave, I kind of felt stupid afterward for doing so. It just stuck its head back in its green and brown shell. "That's a very interesting pet." "And those are very interesting shorts." His gaze dropped. "What are they?" Leaning forward his eyes narrowed and I stiffened. "Pizza slices?" Heat swamped my cheeks. "They're ice cream cones." "Huh. I like them." Straightening, his gaze drifted up me slowly, leaving an unfamiliar wake of heat behind. "A lot.”

GivingKindLittlesEyeFeltInterestingBehindsStupidGreenLeavingWaveStuckIceHeatHis EyesPetBrownCheeksShellsCreamIce CreamVery InterestingPizzaUnfamiliarShortsConesTortoisesIce Cream Cones
Author:J. Lynn
Create image

“Winds flap the sail, tortoise and snake are silent, a great plan looms. A bridge will fly over this moat dug by heaven and be a road from north to south. We will make a stone wall against the upper river to the west and hold back steamy clouds and rain of Wu peaks. Over tall chasms will be a calm lake, and if the goddess of these mountains is not dead she will marvel at the changed world.”

IfsWorldHeavenSilencePlansChangedWindWallMountainRainRiversStonesSilentWestSouthCalmCloudsBridgesLakesTallGoddessSailSnakesChasmsTortoisesMoatsStone Walls
Book:The Poems of Mao Zedong
Create image