#lex

Was not Hypatia the greatest philosopher of Alexandria, and a true martyr to the old values of learning? She was torn to pieces by a mob of incensed Christians not because she was a woman, but because her learning was so profound, her skills at dialectic so extensive that she reduced all who queried her to embarrassed silence. They could not argue with her, so they murdered her. ↗

— Iain Pears

#dialectics #education #greatness #hypatia-of-alexandria #knowledge

In 1963, when I assigned the name "quark" to the fundamental constituents of the nucleon, I had the sound first, without the spelling, which could have been "kwork." Then, in one of my occasional perusals of Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce, I came across the word "quark" in the phrase "Three quarks for Muster Mark." Since "quark" (meaning, for one thing, the cry of a gull) was clearly intended to rhyme with "Mark," as well as "bark" and other such words, I had to find an excuse to pronounce it as "kwork." But the book represents the dreams of a publican named Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker. Words in the text are typically drawn from several sources at once, like the "portmanteau words" in Through the Looking Glass. From time to time, phrases occur in the book that are partially determined by calls for drinks at the bar. I argued, therefore, that perhaps one of the multiple sources of the cry "Three quarks for Muster Mark" might be "Three quarts for Mister Mark," in which case the pronunciation "kwork" would not be totally unjustified. In any case, the number three fitted perfectly the way quarks occur in nature. ↗

— Murray Gell-Mann

#science #dreams

Life inspires me. Life is unfair, unkind and unforeseeable. It knocks you down when you least expect it. ↗

— Lisa De Jong

#dane-wright #inspirational

He had not even done the fledgling courtesy of shredding open a major artery, anointing himself in the viscous gore, and desecrating her body. The order was as flexible as her corpse remained. ↗

— Thomm Quackenbush

#flexible #gore #dreams

Abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and to begin to think multidimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are inherent in each experience -- to appreciate the fact that life is complex. ↗

— M. Scott Peck

#inspirational #experience

The Earl of Woolsey was indeed completely nude. He did not seem particularly perturbed by this fact, but Miss Tarabotti felt the sudden need to close her eyes tight and think about asparagus or something equally mundane. Coiled about him as she was, her chin wedged over one of his massive shoulders, she was being forced to look down, directly at a nicely round, but embarrassing bare, moon. And not the kind that caused werewolves to change either. Although it did seem to be changing aspects of her own anatomy that she would rather not think about. It was all a very heady - or bottomy? -experience. ↗

— Gail Carriger

#lord-maccon #nude #change

I learned a long time ago that most of my family and friends had plastic hearts. Plastic hearts are made so they cannot be broken. Cracked maybe, but never broken. ↗

— Lisa De Jong

#dane-wright #plastic-hearts #family

I don’t need a big house to raise a family, I only need you.” Alex smiled, kissing her on the forehead. “Well, why didn’t you tell me that to start with? We could have saved a lot of money,” he teased. ↗

— Loni Flowers

#clair #family

There are things that can be fixed with an apology and things that can't. ↗

— Otani Lovely Complex

#complex #forgiveness #lovely #forgiveness

It's one thing to affirm that God is free to do as God wills in this world. The real crunch comes in allowing God the freedom and trust to act in one's own life. John Indermark ↗

— Lynelle Clark

#mitch-alexander #survival-story #freedom