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.
June 29, 2015 at 3:35 am |
Would love to have it! Sounds like a fun book!
June 29, 2015 at 1:17 pm |
Thanks for writing, Jennifer!
You are comment #1!
If you are a Kindle Unlimited member, you can read it for free. 🙂
Update: I changed my mind…I’m going to give one to you, and to the next nine people who request one!
You should get an e-mail soon with the gift.
June 29, 2015 at 1:02 pm |
Yes, I would find this book a great prize if you send it my way, and I look forward to more mind boggling reading.
June 29, 2015 at 1:24 pm |
Thanks for writing, Karen!
You are comment #2! You should get an e-mail shortly about your gift.
I love boggling minds…although I particularly enjoy unboggling them. 😉
June 29, 2015 at 2:17 pm |
Thanks for the offer! I would enjoy reading it. I thought I had read just about all of Heinlein, but I don’t recognize that quote.
June 29, 2015 at 7:44 pm |
Never mind. It seems I already own it. Someone else can gladly have my spot.
June 30, 2015 at 3:07 am |
Thanks for writing, Peter!
It was collected in Assignment in Eternity…you may just not be recognizing it by its own name.
I see later on that you have the book, and it’s gracious of you to give up your spot.
Would you like any of my other books on this page instead?
http://amzn.to/1efFdnd
June 30, 2015 at 12:44 pm
I appreciate the offer, but I apparently have all your books except the one about the 1st Gen Kindle Fire and the Text to Speech controversy. Thank you for an excellent blog. I read it every day.
June 29, 2015 at 3:07 pm |
Thanks Bufo for the chance to have a new Kindle. Enjoy your post every day since 2008.
June 30, 2015 at 3:08 am |
Thanks for writing, Malcolm!
Thanks for being a long time reader! It’s really appreciated.
Just to be clear, I’m not giving away a Kindle, but a Kindle version of my The Mind Boggles book. Would you like the book?
June 29, 2015 at 5:37 pm |
Wow, thanks so much, Bufo! I will enjoy this so much!
June 29, 2015 at 6:11 pm |
Love the Chesterton and Carroll quotes! would ove a copy of the book, thanks 🙂
June 30, 2015 at 3:13 am |
Thanks for writing, Jack!
Carroll is the best! I did do a parody, more than half a decade ago:
https://ilmk.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/alice-in-kindleland/
Chesterton is a fascinating read for me…I can certainly see the inspiration for all those quirky TV detective shows of the 1970s in Father Brown…
I’ll send you the book. Not quite sure what number to call you, since a couple of requests weren’t straight forward. 🙂
June 29, 2015 at 11:35 pm |
Would love you to do one (a copy of this book)
June 29, 2015 at 11:37 pm |
And I already have a copy of this book.
June 30, 2015 at 3:17 am |
Thanks for writing, Brad!
Would you like one of my other books on this page?
http://amzn.to/1SZDTo3
June 30, 2015 at 2:29 am |
I already have a copy of this one, but I’m thinking, maybe it’s time for volume 2?
June 30, 2015 at 2:51 am |
Thanks for writing, Lady!
🙂 It took me literally decades to write that one. 🙂 I just plan to update it from time to time.
Would you like one of my other books on this page?
http://amzn.to/1SZDTo3
June 30, 2015 at 5:47 am
Thanks, but I already have them all!
June 30, 2015 at 1:46 pm
Thanks for writing, Lady!
No, thank you! 🙂 I have several books in the works, but I’m not sure when I’ll ever get any of them done. I really do want to get the best of the first five years of this blog out fairly soon…but it probably really makes sense to do something on the Echo this year.
June 30, 2015 at 4:13 am |
Cool book! I love reading quotes from various sources. It’s like going back over my kindle bookmarks and trying to figure out why I thought there were important enough to highlight.
June 30, 2015 at 1:44 pm |
Thanks for writing, Laurie!
Great! Would you like me to gift it to you?
July 1, 2015 at 10:16 pm
That would be wonderful if you could! Thank you!
July 2, 2015 at 1:53 am
Thanks for writing, Laurie!
On the way! 🙂
June 30, 2015 at 1:10 pm |
This book sounds really fun! My daughter loves quotations so she would enjoy this.
June 30, 2015 at 1:47 pm |
Thanks for writing, Kathleen!
Excellent! I’ll gift one to you…I assume she has access to books on your account…
June 30, 2015 at 7:35 pm |
One of my favorite passages of Heinlein is a from “Friday.” Hartley Baldwin has tasked Friday with defining the signs of a sick or dying society. She reports back to him with obvious symptoms such as individuals identifying more with small groups than the whole, loss of faith in police and courts, inflation. Baldwin tells her that is all true, but his conclusion is:
“a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than a riot.…This symptom is especially serious in that an individual displaying it never considers it as a display of ill health, but as proof of his/her strength.”
After telling her it’s too late to save their society, he very prophetically says they need to prepare for the coming Dark Ages.
“Electronic records are too fragile; we must again have books, of stable inks and resistant paper.”
From “Friday,” by Robert Heinlein, paperback edition page 242. [Still waiting for the Kindle edition!]
To bring this to your more recent topic about price, the cost of the paperback when I bought it was $3.95. The publication date for that edition is 1983.
July 1, 2015 at 2:39 am |
Thanks for writing, Lady!
While Friday predates the popular use of the internet, I think if you told most people that paragraph was written about online comments, they would believe it…
Looking at the book, the list price for the Mass Market Paperback today is $7.99…the price has doubled in about thirty years.
If there was a Kindle edition, I would guess it might be a couple of dollars lower, but it might be about the same.
Starship Troopers is $5.46 in Kindle.
Stranger in a Strange Land is $7.99.
Orphans of the Sky is $4.25.
June 30, 2015 at 9:45 pm |
Thank you for the free book!