Favourite Quotes

This will seem an eclectic mix of quotes, and it is. It isn't supposed to be greater than the sum of its parts, its just a load of quotes I thought were good at the time. It should also be remembered that quotes are often poor examples of good logic. Rather they are succinct and beautiful expressions of said logic.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." Aristotle

Although it can be seen as pompous to quote Aristotle or other Greek philosophers, you would miss out on some great wisdom. This quote nicely sums up the level of open-mindedness we need, an ability to listen to ideas and critically appraise them without accepting them.

"Don't let your morals get in the way of doing what's right." Isaac Asimov (as Salvor Hardin)
"If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul." Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov uses the wise Salvor Hardin as his mouthpiece to succinctly express the danger of blindly sticking to dogma. The second quote also partially expresses the same sentiment, along with Asimov's personal belief.
"[the puddle remarks] This is an interesting world I find myself in—an interesting hole I find myself in—fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!" Douglas Adam
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams produces a pithy rebuttal to the Anthropic principal and sums up Occam's Razor.

"The fact if your own existence is the most astonishing fact you will ever have to confront. Don't you dare ever get used to it. Don't you dare ever say that life is boring, monotonous or joyless. One obvious way to express this is the improbability of your own personal existence." Richard Dawkins

A reminder for us that our biology and evolution is indeed beautiful and should not be dismissed as mundane. (On a related note I would recommend reading Mundane Magic)

"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower." Karl Marx
Often the phrase in italics is plucked out of this this quote, but without context it ignores much of what Karl Marx what attempting to say. Whether or not you agree with Marx on this is another question.

"They whip out their sharpies and take away and add apostrophes from public signs and shake their heads at prepositions which end sentences and mutter at split infinitives and miss spellings but do they bubble and froth and slobber and cream with joy at language. Do they ever let the tripping of the tips of the tops of their tongues against the tops of the teeth transport them to giddy euphoric bliss. Do they ever yoke impossible words together for the sound-sex of it. Do they use language to seduce, charm, excite please, affirm and tickle those they talk to? Do they? I doubt it." Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry criticising the tendency for grammar nazis to insist on language purity while missing out on the flexible and beautiful, but messy, qualities of language.
"I see these rappers that say things like 'no homo' and such;It always seems maybe the lady doth protest too much..." Scroobius Pip

"If your faith can move mountains, then it should be able to withstand critism " Ruben2287 (reddit)