Terry Pratchett on clever jabs

Science is not about building a body of known ‘facts’. It is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes us feel good.

I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it.

Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.

I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.

Winston Churchill1874–1965

Thus far, the reputed idiot Bush has graduated from Yale and Harvard, made a stack of cash in the oil industry, become the first consecutive-term governor of Texas, defeated a dual-term VP for the presidency, and led his party to [November 5th’s] extraordinary triumphs. Let his opponents keep calling him stupid; if they do, within five years Bush will be King of England, the Pope, and world Formula One motor racing champion.

Tim Blairborn 1965

• Politics

I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.

Mark Twain1835–1910