Top 823 Quotes & Sayings by Swiss Authors - Page 13

Mathematicians have tried in vain to this day to discover some order in the sequence of prime numbers, and we have reason to believe that it is a mystery into which the human mind will never penetrate.

In the past I have never thought about loneliness when working, and I don't think about it now. Yet there must be a reason for the fact that so many people talk about it.

The child often sees only what he already knows. He projects the whole of his verbal thought into things. He sees mountains as built by men, rivers as dug out with spades, the sun and moon as following us on our walks.

Our democratic societies are in danger. In allowing ourselves to be infiltrated by fear, to be blinded by the passion of identity, we are entertaining the most serious illusions about our freedom.

Malaysia is a country unlike any other: Full of promise and fragility. Its history, cultural and religious diversity make it a rich, compelling and surprising land.

We owe our success to them, and also to the fact that, as the saying goes, two 'Eds' are better than one.

Within speech, words are subject to a kind of relation that is independent of the first and based on their linkage: these are syntagmatic relations, of which I have spoken.

Free imagination is the inestimable prerogative of youth and it must be cherished and guarded as a treasure.

Even in modern art, artists have used methods based on calculation, inasmuch as these elements, alongside those of a more personal and emotional nature, give balance and harmony to any work of art.

I witnessed the building of the Space Shuttle Columbia, the first orbiter to be launched into space.

I find that one must accept the people in such a way as they are.

Medicine rests upon four pillars - philosophy, astronomy, alchemy, and ethics.

I started at the bottom and worked my way up. I think that shows hard work pays off. A good thing takes a while.

Soon, I knew that I would become a chemist, rather than a composer.

This inhuman world has to become more humane. But how?

To those who ask what the infinitely small quantity in mathematics is, we answer that it is actually zero. Hence there are not so many mysteries hidden in this concept as they are usually believed to be.

It is, finally, a word is untimely in three different senses, and bearing it as one's treasure will not win one anyone's favours; one rather risks finding oneself outside everyone's camp... Beauty is the word that shall be our first.

I never talked about architecture with my father, which I regret.

Religion and political expediency go beautifully hand in hand.

Humanity is made up of an infinity of different individuals. Each of us travels for motives exclusively his own.

If you win, you're heroes. But if you don't, then you're losers. That might sound harsh, but that's the way it is.

South Africa never leaves one indifferent. Its history, its population, its landscapes and cultures - all speak to the visitor, to the student, to the friend of Africa.

Fragility, violence, and conflict are complex. Fragility is influenced by a wide set of factors, many of which are deeply entrenched, such as high social and income inequality. The lines between criminal, inter-communal, and politically motivated violence are often blurred.

Very often, human beings are living like on autopilot, reacting automatically with what happens. What interests me about the life of an explorer is you are in the unknown; you are out of your habits.

You have to be a professional in every single thing you do.

The ultimate pleasure of architecture lies in the most forbidden parts of the architectural act, where limits are perverted and prohibitions are transgressed.

Ordinary citizens are obliged and, if need be, compelled by force to meet their commitments. But let higher obligations of an international order be involved, and governments repudiate them, more often than not with a disdainful shrug of the shoulders.

Space and light and order. Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep.

The bottom line may be that my inventing buildings is, indeed, a very private kind of activity. But it's done to be shared. It is comforting and consoling. From the reactions I get I can see I'm not doing something strange.

My favourite film is 'Le Diner de Cons,' a French movie.

Today I should not be identified with any kind of regressive therapy.

In every work of art the subject is primordial, whether the artist knows it or not. The measure of the formal qualities is only a sign of the measure of the artist's obsession with his subject; the form is always in proportion to the obsession.

Climbing Everest is so big now, with so much money involved, and the Sherpas are not stupid. They see this, and they want to take over the business and kick out the westerners. This is a big fight.

The Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio comes from afar. Our land has a millennial history of emigrations: master masons, architects, builders, decorators, plasterers, artists from the world of building.

Self-reliance is not always possible; we have to acknowledge that there are situations of dramatic crisis which will force us to substitute non-existing public delivery systems.

Linguistics will have to recognise laws operating universally in language, and in a strictly rational manner, separating general phenomena from those restricted to one branch of languages or another.

A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas.

I have had only two men in four years while he appears every week on the newspapers with another woman.

I have no problem with G14. How can I oppose something that as far as I am concerned, does not exist?

It is inevitable that many ideas of the young mind will later have to give way to the hard realities of life.

When you say a friend has a sense of humor do you mean that he makes you laugh, or that he can make you laugh?

We no longer dare to believe in beauty and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to dispose of it.

I always try to find the positives in losing a match, but it's not always easy.

I am convinced that a good building must be capable of absorbing the traces of human life and taking on a specific richness... I think of the patina of age on materials, of innumerable small scratches on surfaces, of varnish that has grown dull and brittle, and of edges polished by use.

I have a good idea every two years. Give me a topic, I will give you the idea!

I don't like talking about climbing that much. You don't have to discuss; just do it.

As an artist, you're always somewhat obscure. We're not talking Hollywood.

Type is your brand.

Everything has yet to be invented. I never say 'green' - I say 'greener.' It's greener simply because this is a continuum of change, improvement and discovery.

I don't believe in providence and fate, as a technologist I am used to reckoning with the formulae of probability.

In the practical world of computing, it is rather uncommon that a program, once it performs correctly and satisfactorily, remains unchanged forever.

I remember going to a monastery library when I was very young and being surrounded by ancient books. I fell in love.

It would be nice to do one real Hollywood movie.

I like to smile a lot before going in the car. I make jokes, even on the grid, and then I can still manage to focus when it counts.

It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

I have flawless skin.

All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams.

Today's investors want to see a positive impact on society and the environment as well as solid financial returns.

I was my mother's favorite, and she'd help me with everything.