A Quote by John Mortimer

The point at which beliefs meet may be more significant, more useful to contemplate, than their sources.

John Mortimer

Quote Topics

Beliefs Contemplate May Meet More Point Significant Sources Than Useful Which

Quote Author

John Mortimer
English - Writer
April 21, 1923 - January 16, 2009

"When we contemplate the duration of the universe, we see it limited to the present moment, which is nothing more but the point which separates two infinities of time. The past and the future are as meaningless as if they did not exist. Is anyone more misguided than the man who barters an eternal future for a moment which passes quicker than the blink of an eye?."

Ibn Hazm

Motives are better than actions. Men drift into crime. Of evil they do more than they contemplate, and of good they contemplate more than they do.

Christian Nestell Bovee

More than all, and above all, [George] Washington was master of himself. If there be one quality more than another in his character which may exercise a useful control over the men of the present hour, it is the total disregard of self when in the most elevated positions for influence and example.

Charles Francis Adams, Sr.

Nothing is more important than to see the sources of invention which are, in my opinion more interesting than the inventions themselves.

Gottfried Leibniz

So-called 'complex carbs' may actually represent a more significant threat to health than simple sugar in that they may not only raise blood sugar, but keep it elevated for a more prolonged period of time.

David Perlmutter

I suppose there's something to be said for the sheer reinforcement of our beliefs, but really I think poetry is more useful as disenchantment than enchantment.

Robert Hass

We can only know one thing about God - that he is what we are not. Our wretchedness alone is an image of this. The more we contemplate it, the more we contemplate him.

Simone Weil

We worry about appearing awkward in a presentation. But up to a point, most people seem to feel more comfortable with less-than-perfect speaking abilities. It makes the speaker more human - and more vulnerable, meaning he is less likely to attack our decisions or beliefs.

John P. Kotter

Ecology's implications for capitalism are too momentous for the capitalist to contemplate. The plutocrats are more wedded to their wealth than to the Earth upon which they live, more concerned with the fate of their fortunes than with the fate of humanity. The present ecological crisis has been created by the few at the expense of the many.

Michael Parenti

If you can do one thing you thought was utterly impossible, it causes you to rethink your beliefs. Life is both subtler and more complex than some of us like to believe. So if you haven't done so already, review your beliefs and decide which ones you might change now and what you would change those beliefs to.

Tony Robbins

Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way, and never again.

Hermann Hesse

This curious world we inhabit is more wonderful than convenient; more beautiful than it is useful; it is more to be admired and enjoyed than used.

Henry David Thoreau

We may end up with a world based more on equity than debt, or more on market debt instruments than bank intermediation; but how and why we get there is a mystery. Absent significant regulatory or tax changes, and a sharp transition could be disruptive.

Alan M. Taylor

What science can there be more noble, more excellent, more useful for men, more admirably high and demonstrative, than this of mathematics?

Benjamin Franklin

There is, indeed a more mitigated scepticism or academical philosophy, which may be both durable and useful, and which may, in part, be the result of this Pyrrhonism, or excessive scepticism, when its undistinguished doubts are corrected by common sense and reflection.