WIST Quotations

Watterson, Bill -- Calvin and Hobbes (1991-03-03)

Dave — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 20:45:32 +0000

CALVIN: Isn’t it strange that evolution would give us a sense of humor? When you think about it, it’s weird that we have a physiological response to absurdity. We laugh at nonsense. We like it. We think it’s funny. Don’t you think it’s odd that we appreciate absurdity? Why would we develop that way? How does it benefit us?

HOBBES: I suppose if we couldn’t laugh at things that don’t make sense, we couldn’t react to a lot of life.

CALVIN: (after a pause) I can’t tell if that’s funny or really scary.

Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Calvin and Hobbes (1991-03-03)
(Source)

See Dr. Seuss (1983), Ricky Gervais (2013).

Straczynski, J. Michael "Joe" -- Babylon 5, 3×22 “Z’Ha’Dum” (28 Oct 1996)

Dave — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 14:43:59 +0000

MORDEN: Think about it, Captain. Look at the long history of human struggle. Six thousand years of recorded wars, bloodshed, atrocities beyond description. But look at what came out of all that. We’ve gone to the stars. Split the atom. Written sonnets. We would never have evolved this far if we hadn’t been at each other’s throats, evolving our way up inch by inch.

J. Michael (Joe) Straczynski (b. 1954) American screenwriter, producer, author [a/k/a "JMS"]
Babylon 5, 3×22 “Z’Ha’Dum” (28 Oct 1996)

Stross, Charles -- The Annihilation Score, ch. 16 (2015)

Dave — Wed, 02 Aug 2017 00:27:59 +0000

Most of the activities of any bureaucracy are devoted not to the organization’s ostensible goals, but to ensuring that the organization survives: because if they aren’t, the bureaucracy has a life expectancy measured in days before some idiot decision maker decides that if it’s no use to them they can make political hay by destroying it. It’s no consolation that some time later someone will realize that an organization was needed to carry out the original organization’s task, so a replacement is created: you still lost your job and the task went undone. The only sure way forward is to build an agency that looks to its own survival before it looks to its mission statement. Just another example of evolution in action.

Charles "Charlie" Stross (b. 1964) British writer
The Annihilation Score, ch. 16 (2015)
(Source)

King, Stephen -- Cell, “Gaiten Academy,” ch. 16 (2006)

Dave — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 03:10:29 +0000

What Darwin was too polite to say, my friends, is that we came to rule the Earth not because we were the smartest, or even the meanest, but because we have always been the craziest, most murderous motherfuckers in the jungle.

Stephen King (b. 1947) American author
Cell, “Gaiten Academy,” ch. 16 (2006)

Sarnoff, David -- (Attributed)

Dave — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 16:14:53 +0000

Competition brings out the best in products and the worst in people.

David Sarnoff (1881-1971) Belarusian-American businessman and broadcasting executive
(Attributed)

Kettering, Charles F. -- (Attributed)

Dave — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 11:55:14 +0000

Every great improvement has come after repeated failures. Virtually nothing comes out right the first time. Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.

Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
(Attributed)
(Source)

Fuller, Thomas (1654) -- Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs (compiler), # 2666 (1732)

Dave — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 14:26:24 +0000

If Afflictions refine some, they consume others.

Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs (compiler), # 2666 (1732)
(Source)

Ingersoll, Robert Green -- Essay (1881-08) “The Christian Religion,” “Is All of the Bible Inspired?” ch. 2, North American Review, Vol. 133, No. 297

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments — there are consequences.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Essay (1881-08) “The Christian Religion,” “Is All of the Bible Inspired?” ch. 2, North American Review, Vol. 133, No. 297
(Source)

Collected in Allen Thorndike Rice (ed.), The Christian Religion, ch. 1 (1882).

See Longfellow (1857).

Huxley, T. H. -- “The Coming of Age of The Origin of Species,” lecture, Royal Institution (19 Mar 1880)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

History warns us, however, that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions; and, as matters now stand, it is hardly rash to anticipate that, in another twenty years, the new generation, educated under the influences of the present day, will be in danger of accepting the main doctrines of the ‘Origin of Species’ with as little reflection, and it may be with as little justification, as so many of our contemporaries, twenty years ago, rejected them. Against any such a consummation let us all devoutly pray; for the scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.

T. H. Huxley (1825-1895) English biologist [Thomas Henry Huxley]
“The Coming of Age of The Origin of Species,” lecture, Royal Institution (19 Mar 1880)
(Source)

First printed in Nature: A Weekly Illustrated Journal of Science (6 May 1880).