“Thinkers aren't limited by what they know, because they can always increase what they know. Rather they're limited by what puzzles them, because there's no way to become curious about something that doesn't puzzle you.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“Children don't need learning. They need access to what they want to learn outside the home.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“How easy it is first to leap to a false conclusion about someone and then to view everything he does in light of that conclusion.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“Thinkers aren't limited by what they know, because they can always increase what they know. Rather they're limited by what puzzles them, because there's no way to become curious about something that doesn't puzzle you. If a thing falls outside the range of people's curiosity, then they simply cannot
make inquiries about it. It constitutes a blind spot — a spot of blindness that you can't even know is there until someone draws your attention to it.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“Simple things are almost always the hardest to explain, Julie. Showing someone how to tie a shoelace is easy. Explaining it is almost impossible.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“What's normal is for things to work. What's not normal is for things to fail.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“The community of life that we see here at any given time isn't just a random collection. It's a collection of successes. It's the remainder that is left over when the failures have disappeared.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“The rules that govern competition between species are (and must be) very different from the rules that govern competition within species.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“You wouldn't know from experience that small children are the most powerful learning engines in the known universe.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“We made it back to the airport without getting mugged, stoned, shot at, pounced on, bombed, shelled, garroted, gassed, pitched into, caught in a cross fire, sniped at, blockaded, napalmed, or trip-wired. No one even hit us with a water balloon.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“No invention ever comes into being fully developed in a single step, from nothing.
Ten thousand inventions had to be in place before Edison could invent the electric light-bulb.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“A system based on exchanging products inevitably channels wealth to a few, and no governmental change will ever be able to correct that. It isn’t a defect of the system, it’s intrinsic to the”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
Daniel Quinn
Born place: in Omaha, Nebraska, The United States
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“Every argument for God and every attribute ascribed to Him rests on a false metaphysical premise. None can survive for a moment on a correct metaphysics....
Existence exists, and only existence exists. Existence is a primary: it is uncreated, indestructible, eternal. So if you are to postulate something beyond existence—some supernatural realm—you must do it by openly denying reason, dispensing with definitions, proofs, arguments, and saying flatly, “To Hell with argument, I have faith.” That, of course, is a willful rejection of reason.
Objectivism advocates reason as man’s sole means of knowledge, and therefore, for the reasons I have already given, it is atheist. It denies any supernatural dimension presented as a contradiction of nature, of existence. This applies not only to God, but also to every variant of the supernatural ever advocated or to be advocated. In other words, we accept reality, and that’s all.”
― Leonard Peikoff, quote from Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand
“Hospitals and jails and whores: these are the universities of life. I’ve got several degrees. Call me Mr.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from South of No North
“Whatever man feels deeply or images clearly, is impressed upon the subconscious mind, and carried out in minutest detail.”
― quote from The Game Of Life How To Play It
“But something is going to happen, that's for sure. It depends on how bold we choose to be. We could get out, maybe, or we could die, or we could be badly injured going over a waterfall and end up on a gravel beach only to be found by a young boy who would carve messages in their toes and shove us back out to sea. There are lots of possibilities, and I am happy with all of them."
"Do you like mornings?" Tom asked, leaning on his elbow.
"Not usually," Reg said. "I'm typically rather sullen over my breakfast, and I'm sure the crawdads notice. But what is truly strange is that I never liked mornings when I could have them with real sunrises and real dew on roses and real paperboys wrecking real bicycles on the sidewalk outside my window. How I ever could have remained asleep and voluntarily missed a sunrise, I can't explain. If you're right and we get out, I don't think I'll miss another one.”
― N.D. Wilson, quote from Leepike Ridge
“They thought man was a creature of rapacious self-interest, and yet they wanted him to be free- free, in essence, to contend, to engage in an umpired strife, to use property to get property.”
― Richard Hofstadter, quote from The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It
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Color: A Natural His...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
