He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. Friedrich Nietzsche German philosopher (1844 - 1900) What a glorious garden of wonders the lights of Broadway would be to anyone lucky enough to be unable to read. G.K. Chesterton The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move. Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe English humorist & science fiction novelist (1952 - 2001) [F]or academic men to be happy, the universe would have to take shape. All of philosophy has no other goal: it is a matter of giving a frock coat to what is, a mathematical frock coat. On the other hand, affirming that the universe resembles nothing and is only formless amounts to saying that the universe is something like a spider or spit. Battaille Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect. Ralph Waldo Emerson US essayist & poet (1803 - 1882) Although the whole of this life were said to be nothing but a dream and the physical world nothing but a phantasm, I should call this dream or phatasm real enough, if, using reason well, we were never deceived by it. Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz Nature gets credit which should in truth be reserved for ourselves: the rose for its scent, the nightingale for its song; and the sun for its radiance. The poets are entirely mistaken. They should address their lyrics to themselves and should turn them into odes of self congratulation on the excellence of the human mind. Alfred North Whitehead English mathematician & philosopher (1861 - 1947) My own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we *can* suppose. J.B.S. Haldane, "On Being the Right Size" in the (1928) book "Possible Worlds" What happens depends on our way of observing it or on the fact that we observe it. Werner Heisenberg We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning. Werner Heisenberg |