A Quote by Jonathan Schell

The machinery of destruction is complete, poised on a hair trigger, waiting for the 'button' to be 'pushed' by some misguided or deranged human being or for some faulty computer chip to send out the instruction to fire. That so much should be balanced on so fine a point--that the fruit of four and a half billion years can be undone in a careless moment--is a fact against which belief rebels.

Jonathan Schell

Quote Topics

Against Balanced Being Belief Billion Button Careless Chip Complete Computer Deranged Destruction Fact Fine Fire Four Fruit Hair Half Human Human Being Instruction Machinery Misguided Moment Much Out Point Poised Pushed Rebels Send Should Some Trigger Undone Waiting Which Years

Quote Author

Jonathan Schell
American - Author
August 21, 1943 - March 25, 2014

Out of a human population on earth of four and a half billion, perhaps twenty people can write a book in a year. Some people lift cars, too. Some people enter week-long sled-dog races, go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, fly planes through the Arc de Triomphe. Some people feel no pain in childbirth. Some people eat cars. There is no call to take human extremes as norms.

Annie Dillard

When I was a child, the Earth was said to be two billion years old. Now scientists say it's four and a half billion. So that makes me two and a half billion.

Paul Erdos

If God wanted to create life and create humans, it would be slightly odd that he should choose the extraordinarily roundabout way of waiting for 10 billion years before life got started and then waiting for another 4 billion years until you got human beings capable of worshipping and sinning and all the other things religious people are interested in.

Richard Dawkins

Of the four billion life forms which have existed on this planet, three billion, nine hundred and sixty million are now extinct. We don't know why. Some by wanton extinction, some through natural catastrophe, some destroyed by meteorites and asteroids. In the light of these mass extinctions it really does seem unreasonable to suppose that Homo sapiens should be exempt. Our species will have been one of the shortest-lived of all, a mere blink, you may say, in the eye of time.

P. D. James

There are 6 billion people in the world and every single one is a diamond in some stage of being polished. Life is either going to polish you up or grind you down. And the difference between the two lies in how much hope you have, how much faith you have in the fact that you do carry something special on the inside that's waiting to get out. Many give up, not knowing they were only 10 minutes from triumph.

Perry Marshall

You're dealing with a character who is, at some points, quite insane. And I hope that any wicked, dark sense of humor Eric exhibits comes out of the fact that he'd been pushed to the point where it seems quite sensible to say some of the ridiculous things he says.

Brandon Lee

U.N. officials said today they desperately need $7 billion to help people cope with disasters, but they're having a hard time getting people to send rescue money. Here's what the UN should do: Invest in bad mortgages, run a bank into the ground, give yourself a bonus, get some spa treatments and, in no time, the government will send you $750 billion.

Jay Leno

I do take a computer to do some processing live and I might use a couple of plug-in synthesisers, 'cause obviously you can take quite a lot of power in terms of sound generation on a computer that I can trigger from a couple of keyboards. And it means I don't have to take some of my vintage stuff and have it trashed by various airlines which has happened in the past. But I still take some vintage stuff with me, I'll take that risk because I like using all that stuff.

Thighpaulsandra

If we want to unlock the secret behind the origin of our sun and its planets, it would be helpful to find some remnants from the birth itself, an event that took place about four-and-a-half-billion years ago.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

That there should be some fire even after this life is not incredible, and it can be inquired into and either be discovered or left hidden whether some of the faithful may be saved, some more slowly and some more quickly in the greater or lesser degree in which they loved the good things that perish, through a certain purgatorial fire.

Saint Augustine

Condemning all women in order to help some misguided men get over their foolish behaviour is tantamount to denouncing fire, which is a vital and beneficial element, just because some people are burnt by it, or to cursing water just because some people are drowned in it.

Christine de Pizan

The essence of being human is that, in the brief moment we exist on this spinning planet, we can love some persons and some things, in spite of the fact that time and death will ultimately claim us all.

Rollo May

Contrary to common belief, it is not true that if you cut a worm-fisherman in half, each half will grow into a complete fisherman. For which we should all be eternally grateful.

Ed Zern

The licensing business is about licensing the full portfolio of Qualcomm's patents. Some of them involve the chip. Some of them don't involve the chip. In fact, the vast majority of them don't involve the chip.

Steve Mollenkopf

I balanced the budget for four straight years, paid off $405 billion in debt - pretty conservative. The first entitlement reform of your lifetime - in fact, the only major entitlement reform now is welfare.