Alan Lightman Quotes

65 quotes in 1225 categories

• I oppose any belief that contradicts experimental evidence as determined by the methods of science. All beliefs not in such contradiction may be considered as…
• I think e-mail is representative of our fast food mentality in the United States, where everything has gotten faster and faster, and we're required to…
• I've taken a philosophical position on e-mail. Although I think it's a wonderful communication technology, and it has a lot of good uses, it is…
• If I were not a writer, I would spend more time doing the things that I am already doing, which include doing research in physics,…
• Music is, of course, a universal emotional experience, cutting across cultures and languages. I studied piano for ten years as a child and consider that…
• Novels aren't pedagogical instruments, or instructions in law or physics or any other discipline. A novel has to be an emotional experience, a trip of…
• We live in a highly polarized society. We need to try to understand each other in respectful ways. To that end, I believe that we…
• With a background in science I am extremely interested in the meeting ground of science, theology, and philosophy, especially the ethical questions at the border…
• The urge to discover, to invent, to know the unknown, seems so deeply human that we cannot imagine our history without it.
• I consider myself a spiritual atheist. I certainly believe there are forces bigger than ourselves, and that we should be searching, individually, for meaning in…
• Some say it is best not to go near the center of time. Life is a vessel of sadness, but is noble to live life…
• Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly.
• Each time is true, but the truths are not the same.
• Time is the clarity for seeing right and wrong.
• What sense is there in continuing when one has seen the future?
• A world with one month is a world of equality.
• The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or joy.
• The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present.
• Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.
• If a person holds no ambitions in this world, he suffers unknowingly. If a person holds ambitions, he suffers knowingly, but very slowly.

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