1112 – “A new idea comes suddenly and in a rather intuitive way. But intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience.”

-Albert Einstein

1100 – Galileo on God and Science

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. He would not require us to deny sense and reason in physical matters which are set before our eyes and minds by direct experience or necessary demonstrations.”

-Galileo Galilei

1073 – “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”

-anonymous [See Source Notes for attributions]

984 – “Refusal to believe until proof is given is a rational position; denial of all outside of our own limited experience is absurd.”

-Annie Besant

955 – “It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.”

-Albus Dumbledore in J K Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

921 – “She always had that about her, that look of otherness, of eyes that see things much too far, and of thought that wander off the edge of the world.”

-Joanne Harris

870 – A Poem by Charles Bukowski

lifedance

“the area dividing the brain and the soul
is affected in many ways by
experience—
some lose all mind and become soul:
insane.
some lose all soul and become mind:
intellectual.
some lose both and become:
accepted.”

–Charles Bukowski

866 – “[Racialism] is a struggle of the African people, inspired by their own suffering and their own experience. It is a struggle for the right to live. During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

–Nelson Mandela

680 – “Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.”

–anonymous

663 – Will Durant on Living History

“It is a mistake to think that the past is dead. Nothing that has ever happened is quite without influence at this moment. The present is merely the past rolled up and concentrated in this second of time. You, too, are your past; often your face is your autobiography; you are what you are because of what you have been; because of your heredity stretching back into forgotten generations; because of every element of environment that has affected you, every man or woman that has met you, every book that you have read, every experience that you have had; all these are accumulated in your memory, your body, your character, your soul. So with a city, a country, and a race; it is its past, and cannot be understood without it.”

–Henry Steele Commager