William of Conches famous quotes

Because they know not the forces of nature, and in order that they may have comrades in their ignorance, they suffer not that others should search out anything, and would have us believe like rustics and ask no reason... But we ask in all things a reason must be sought.
-- William of Conches

#Believe #Ignorance #Order

[They say] "We do not know how this is, but we know that God can do it." You poor fools! God can make a cow out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so.
-- William of Conches

#Tree #Done #Cows

Rejoicing not in the many but in the probity of the few, we toil for truth alone.
-- William of Conches

#Society #Toil #Rejoice

No corporeal substance can be so subtle and swift as this.
-- William of Conches

#Light #Substance #Subtle

The gods have fled, I know. My sense is the gods have always been essentially absent. I do not believe human beings have played games or sports from the beginning merely to summon or to please or to appease the gods. If anthropologists and historians believe that, it is because they believe whatever they have been able to recover about what humankind told the gods humankind was doing. I believe we have played games, and watched games, to imitate the gods, to become godlike in our worship of eachother and, through those moments of transmutation, to know for an instant what the gods know.

You can have whatever you want if you believe in yourself and keep your feet firmly planted in the ground.

I believe it was the great ogre philosopher Gary who observed that complexity is, generally speaking, an illusion of conscious desire. All things exist in as simple a form as necessity dictates. When a thing is labeled 'complex,' that's just a roundabout way of saying you're not observant enough to understand it.

Of all liars the most arrogant are biographers: those who would have us believe, having surveyed a few boxes full of letters, diaries, bank statements and photographs, that they can play at the recording angel and tell the whole truth about another human life.

I was a common man, and I will always remain a common man. No amount of stardom will ever consume my soul. Money comes, money goes. Fame comes, fame goes. I believe every human being is a celebrity in their own right.

Ignorance is bliss. I wish I still had some.

I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance.

If the world were to end tomorrow and we could choose to save only one thing as the explanation and memorial to who we were, then we couldn't do better than the Natural History Museum, although it wouldn't contain a single human. The systematic Linnean order, the vast inquisitiveness and range of collated knowledge and beauty would tell all that is the best of us.

That was interesting." "He deliberately countermanded one of my orders." "He was furtive." "Sneaky, even." "We'll make a Rebellion-style pilot of him yet." Tycho & Wedge (about Jag)

There's a certain level of pageantry with 'Idol,' and in order to work the show, you kind of have to feed into it.