Meandering in the galaxy . . .

Today is the birthday of Laurence van Cott Niven (born April 30, 1938), science fiction author. He is best-known as Larry Niven author of the novel Ringworld (1970), which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards.

"Anything you don't understand is dangerous until you do understand it." - Larry Niven

"Everything starts as somebody's daydream." - Larry Niven

"The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!" - Larry Niven

"Treat your life like something to be sculpted." - Larry Niven

"I do suspect that privacy was a passing fad." - Larry Niven

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Meander with me . . .

Today is the birthday of Jules Henri Poincaré (April 29, 1854 – July 17, 1912), mathematician, theoretical physicist and a philosopher of science.

"If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living." - Henri Poincaré

"The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful." - Henri Poincaré

"To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection." - Henri Poincaré

"A scientist worthy of the name, above all a mathematician, experiences in his work the same impression as an artist; his pleasure is as great and of the same nature." - Henri Poincaré

"Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house." - Henri Poincaré

"Time and Space... It is not nature which imposes them upon us, it is we who impose them upon nature because we find them convenient." - Henri Poincaré

"It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover. To know how to criticize is good, to know how to create is better." - Henri Poincaré

"It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover." - Henri Poincaré

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Magically meandering . . .

Today is the birthday of Terence David John Pratchett (born 28 April 1948), fantasy, science fiction, and children's author.

He is best known as Terry Pratchett, creator of the popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels.

"Imagination, not intelligence, made us human." - Terry Pratchett

"Everything makes sense a bit at a time. But when you try to think of it all at once, it comes out wrong." - Terry Pratchett

"The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp." - Terry Pratchett

"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it." - Terry Pratchett

"Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving." - Terry Pratchett

"Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one." - Terry Pratchett

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Meandering . . .

Today is the birthday of Herbert Spencer (April 27, 1820 – December 8, 1903), philosopher and social theorist. He is best known for coining the phrase "survival of the fittest".

"Time: That which man is always trying to kill, but which ends in killing him." - Herbert Spencer

"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools." - Herbert Spencer

"No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy." - Herbert Spencer

"The wise man must remember that while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future." - Herbert Spencer

"When a man's knowledge is not in order, the more of it he has the greater will be his confusion." - Herbert Spencer

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Meandering in thought . . .

Today is the birthday of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus (April 26, 121 – March 17,180), Roman emperor from 161 to his death in 180. He was the last of the Five Good Emperors and is also, considered one of the most important Stoic philosophers. He best known as Marcus Aurelius and for his work Meditations.

"The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it." - Marcus Aurelius

"And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last." - Marcus Aurelius

"I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others." - Marcus Aurelius

"Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul . . ." - Marcus Aurelius

"Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so." - Marcus Aurelius

"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." - Marcus Aurelius

"He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe." - Marcus Aurelius

Trivia bit: The date of his birth has been variously stated as the 6th, 21st and 26th of April.

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Today is the birthday of Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (April 26, 1889 – April 29, 1951), philosopher. Ludwig Wittgenstein is considered one of the most important figures in analytic philosophy and is oft referred to as the greatest philosopher of the 20th century.

"The difficulty in philosophy is to say no more than we know." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in the way in which our visual field has no limits." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"Philosophy is like trying to open a safe with a combination lock: each little adjustment of the dials seems to achieve nothing, only when everything is in place does the door open." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"The mystical is not how the world is, but that it is." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"Tell them I've had a wonderful life." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

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Just meandering . . .

Today is the birthday of Egbert Roscoe Murrow (April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965), journalist. He is best known as Edward R. Murrow, a pioneer of television news broadcasting.

"Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices — just recognize them." - Edward R. Murrow

"The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and in the end the communicator will be confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to say it." - Edward R. Murrow

"No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices." - Edward R. Murrow

"We hardly need to be reminded that we are living in an age of confusion — a lot of us have traded in our beliefs for bitterness and cynicism or for a heavy package of despair, or even a quivering portion of hysteria. Opinions can be picked up cheap in the market place while such commodities as courage and fortitude and faith are in alarmingly short supply." - Edward R. Murrow

"Most truths are so naked that people feel sorry for them and cover them up, at least a little bit." - Edward R. Murrow

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Meandering about . . .

Today is the birthday of Anthony Trollope (April 24, 1815 – December 6, 1882), author.

"No man thinks there is much ado about nothing when the ado is about himself." - Anthony Trollope

"Men who can succeed in deceiving no one else will succeed at last in deceiving themselves." - Anthony Trollope

"Considering how much we are all given to discuss the characters of others, and discuss them often not in the strictest spirit of charity, it is singular how little we are inclined to think that others can speak ill-naturedly of us, and how angry and hurt we are when proof reaches us that they have done so." - Anthony Trollope

"Never think that you're not good enough. A man should never think that. People will take you very much at your own reckoning." - Anthony Trollope

"I think the greatest rogues are they who talk most of their honesty." - Anthony Trollope

"Life is so unlike theory." - Anthony Trollope

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