From within the minds of giants

I’ve always had a thing for great quotes. I find all the synthesized knowledge they contain to be thought provoking and inspiring, useful both in my work and life.

I won’t waste your energy with a long introduction, so here you go, a wisdom-filled collection of quotes that in my opinion contain more knowledge than almost any modern day book.

The past only exists insofar as it is present in the records of today. And what those records are is determined by what questions we ask. There is no other history than that. – Wheeler

The reality of things consists in their persistent forcing themselves upon our recognition. If a thing has no such persistence, it is a mere dream. Reality, then, is persistence, is regularity. - Peirce

Kant… accepted the notion of things-in-themselves existing independently of any knowledge… As his starting point [he took it] that any specific knowledge we claim to have of such and such an external object is obtained through our senses, [and] hence is at best only indirect and questionable… What we know directly and with certainty is therefore only the set of our ideas. [For example,] the very notion of causality [is] a priori mode of human understanding, in other words, an idea. - d’Espagnat

You have to understand, my dears, that the shortest distance between truth and a human being is a story. – Anthony de Mello

 All thought must, directly or indirectly, by way of certain characters, relate ultimately to intuitions, and therefore, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us. – Immanuel Kant

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief. – Immanuel Kant

I would rather believe in God, die, and find out there isn’t one; than to not believe in God, die, and find out there is one. – Anonymus

Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought. – Henri Louis Bergson

Life has the name of life, but in reality it is death. – Heraclitus, Eustathius ad Iliad

Alice came to a fork in the road. “Which road do I take?” she asked.
“Where do you want to go?” responded the Cheshire cat.
“I don’t know,” Alice answered.
“Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.” – Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought. - Matsuo Basho