10 quotations from The Mind Boggles

10 quotations from The Mind Boggles

It’s been a while since I’ve mentioned one of my books

The Mind Boggles: A Unique Book of Quotations (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

which, when it came out in 2012, was (very briefly) the bestselling book of quotations in any format on Amazon.

I don’t think it’s sold much since. 🙂

That’s okay…I love quotations, and these are all ones I personally collected.

I thought I’d share a few, somewhat randomly selected, with you today.

I also want to do one more thing…I’ll tell you after the quotations. 😉

“I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”
–Alice
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (aka Alice in Wonderland)
written by Lewis Carroll
category:literature
decade: 1860s

“His singular failing was his inability to distinguish between a practical possibility and an outlandish fantasy.”
–Meranda Austvro
Tiger, Burning
written by Alastair Reynolds
category:literature
decade: 2000s

“Supermen are superthinkers; anything else is a side issue. I’ll allow for the possibility of super-somethings which might exterminate or dominate mankind other than by outsmarting him in his own racket–thought. But I deny that it is possible for a man to conceive in discrete terms what such a super-something would be or how this something would win out. New Man will beat out homo sap at homo sap’s own specialty–rational thought, the ability to recognize data, store them, integrate them, and arrive at a correct decision. That’s how man got to be champion; the creature who can do it better is the coming champion. Sure there are other survival factors, good health, good sense organs, fast reflexes, but they aren’t even comparable, as the long, rough history of mankind has proved over and over–Marat in his bath, Roosevelt in his wheelchair, Caesar with his epilepsy and his bad stomach, Nelson with one eye and one arm, blind Milton; when the chips are down it’s brain that wins, not the body’s tools.”
–Gregory “Kettle Belly” Baldwin
Gulf
written by Robert A. Heinlein
category:literature
decade: 1940s

“Wendy knew that she must grew up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.”
–Sir James Barrie
writing in Peter and Wendy (aka Peter Pan)
category:literature
decade: 1910s

“Violence is universally evil unless the evil it ousts is more violent; that’s rule of them but it’s practical and nearly always right.”
–Bert
Cycle of Nemesis
written by Kenneth Bulmer
category:literature
decade: 1960s

“I’m as human as the next man, and I have just as many emotions. I know how those people out there feel, because I hear the same little lost simian screaming in my own heart. But what do we have intelligence for if we can’t use it to control or guide our emotions?”
–Dr. Sam Bertolli
Plague from Space
written by Harry Harrison
category:literature
decade: 1960s

“Mister, you’re just talkin’ words.”
–Joe Caswell (played by Albert Salmi)
Execution
episode of The Twilight Zone
screenplay by
Rod Serling story by George Clayton Johnson
category:TV
decade: 1960s

“He was only one of those young men who cannot support the burden of consciousness unless they are doing something, and whose conceptions of doing something are limited to a game of some kind.”
–G.K. Chesterton
writing in The Man Who Knew Too Much
category:literature
decade: 1920s

“Reality’s for machines. We’re just coming to realize that now. Humans were never happy there. They just had to live there because we had no alternatives.”
–Catherine Cleeve
The Aperture Moment
written by Brian W. Aldiss
category:literature
decade: 1970s

“… it’s easy to bond over hating something together. The internet is total proof of that.”
–Codex (Cyd Sherman), played by Felicia Day
The Guild
screenplay by Felicia Day
category:TV
decade: 2000s

Okay, here’s the last thing. I’ll gift a Kindle version of this to the 9th person who comments on this post saying they want me to do one. Note: you have to be in a country that can get a Kindle store gift from Amazon.com in the USA.

Update: I’ve changed my mind…I’ll gift the Kindle book to the first ten comments who request one, not just to the ninth person. 🙂

Hope you enjoyed this small selection from the book!

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

*When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

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