Quotes, thoughts, and philosophy — a treasury of extraordinary ideas.

A collection for those who don’t just read words, but seek to truly understand them.

yoice.net is a growing treasury of quotes, ideas, and reflections — for people who want to explore, question, and be inspired.

Inspirational quote by Don Pettit about the future of human space exploration including the Moon, Mars, and beyondCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"I'd go to the moon in a Nanosecond, but the Problem is that we no longer have that technology to do that anymore, we used to have it, but we destroyed it and it's a painful process to build it back again, but going to Mars should be one of the next series of steps that humans do. The first step should be going back to the Moon for a number of technical reasons and exploration reasons. And then after that Mars, maybe high orbit in Venus atmosphere maybe going to Europa. There's all kinds of targets to go to, places of interest in our solar system. The only limit to human future is in our own imagination." Don Pettit
Inspirational quote by Steve Jobs about crazy ones, misfits and rebels who change the worldCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do." Steve Jobs
Quote by Professor Dr. Dr. Wolfgang Berger about the misconceptions in academic economicsCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"I acquired all my academic titles by believing in a false doctrine. A studied economist understands less about macroeconomics than a cow does about flying, because he first has to dig himself out of a swamp of preconceived opinions and errors in thinking in order to even reach the surface, or to get back to where he was before he let himself be committed to the stupification asylum." Professor Dr. Dr. Wolfgang Berger
Adolphe Ferrière quote about the critique of traditional schoolingCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"And they created the school as the devil commanded. The child loves nature, so he was locked in four walls. He can not sit without moving, so he was forced into immobility. He likes to work with his hands, and he began to teach theories and ideas. He likes to talk - he was told to remain silent. He seeks to understand - he was commanded to learn by heart. He would like to explore and search for knowledge himself, but he was given them in ready form. And then the children learned what they would never have learned in other conditions. They learned to lie and pretend." Adolphe Ferrière
Quote by Noam Chomsky about schooling, conformity, and freedom of thoughtCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Most schooling is training for stupidity and conformity, and that's institutional, but occasionally you get a spark, somebody'll challenge your mind, make you think and so on, and that has a tremendous effect you just reach all sorts of people. Of course if you do it you may very have problems, you have to tread the narrow line. There are plenty of people who don't want students to think, they're afraid of the crisis of democracy. If people start thinking you get all these problems that I quoted before. They won't have enough humility to submit to a civil rule or they'll start trying to press their demands in the political arena and have ideas of their own, instead of beleiving what they're told. And privelage and power typically doesn't want that and so they react and the high school teacher that tries to get students to think may find oppression, firing and so on." Noam Chomsky
Epiktet quote about learning, reflection, and becoming a more thoughtful person through booksCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Don't just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents." Epiktet
Quote on particle physics by Alexander Unzicker about the misuse of language and money in fundamental physics researchCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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The sensational news that a fundamental particle has been discovered is somewhere between a misuse of language and a lie. What was found did not solve a single problem in physics, and yet was immediately celebrated as the discovery of the century. Whether this was deliberate misdirection, shameless puffery or foolish parroting remains to be seen. [...] The idea of tens of thousands of physicists conducting an unmanageable experiment on a nonsensical theoretical model, seems to prohibit itself. It is too painful to even consider. But this is soberly true. Particle physics is money thrown away.” Alexander Unzicker
Quote by Dr Ernst Chain about the complexity of the origin of lifeCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"I have said for years that speculations about the origin of life lead to no useful purpose as even the simplest living system is far too complex to be understood in terms of the extremely primitive chemistry scientists have used in their attempts to explain the unexplainable that happened billions of years ago." Dr. Ernst Chain
Quote by Dr. George Wald about the origin of life and evolutionCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"When it comes to the origin of life, we have only two possibilities as to how life arose. One is spontaneous generation arising to evolution; the other is a supernatural creative act of God. There is no third possibility...Spontaneous generation was scientifically disproved one hundred years ago by Louis Pasteur, Lazzaro Spallanzani, Francesco Redi and others. That leads us scientifically to only one possible conclusion -- that life arose as a supernatural creative act of God...I will not accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible, spontaneous generation arising to evolution." Dr. George Wald
Quote by Rupert Sheldrake about scientism becoming a dogmatic belief systemCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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""scientism is where people turn science into a kind of religion. It becomes a kind of dogmatic belief system. The irony is that a lot of people think that religion is dogmatic and science is free-thinking, but actually, in my experience, some of the most dogmatic people I know are people who've made science into a kind of religion. We still have flat earthers, we have people that don't believe in vaccinations, and what do we do about it?"" Rupert Sheldrake
Inspirational quote by Max Planck about the connection between matter, spirit, and GodCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Gentlemen, as a physicist who has dedicated his entire life to the sober pursuit of science, to the exploration of matter, I am certainly free from the suspicion of being taken for an idle dreamer. And so, after my investigations into the atom, I declare this: There is no such thing as matter in itself. All matter comes into being and persists only through a force—a force that sets the particles of the atom into vibration and binds them together as the minutest solar system of the cosmos. Yet, since neither an intelligent nor an eternal force exists within the vast expanse of the universe—for humanity has failed to devise the long-sought perpetuum mobile—we must posit behind this force a conscious, intelligent spirit. This spirit is the primal source of all matter. It is not the visible, transient matter that constitutes the real, the true, the actual—for without the spirit, matter would not exist at all—but rather the invisible, immortal spirit that is the ultimate truth! Yet, since spirit alone cannot exist either, and every spirit belongs to a being, we are compelled to assume the existence of spiritual beings. And since these beings cannot arise from themselves but must be created, I do not shy away from naming this mysterious creator as all civilized peoples of the earth have called Him in earlier millennia: God! Thus, the physicist, tasked with the study of matter, steps from the realm of the material into the realm of the spirit. And with that, our work concludes, and we must entrust our inquiry to the hands of philosophy." Max Planck
Quote about scientific paradigms blocking progress by Sir Fred HoyleCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Science today is locked into paradigms. Every avenue is blocked by beliefs that are wrong, and if you try to get anything published by a journal today, you will run against a paradigm and the editors will turn it down." Sir Fred Hoyle
Albert Einstein quote about science, coordinate systems, and perspectiveCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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""The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either CS [coordinate system] could be used with equal justification. The two sentences, “the Sun is at rest and the Earth moves,” or “the Sun moves and the Earth is at rest,” would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different CS."" Albert Einstein
Neil deGrasse Tyson quote about science and the universeCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"So, what you learn when you study science in general, but astrophysics especially, is that you no longer invoke your senses to judge what makes sense, or you no longer invoke your personal philosophies to judge what should be true. The universe is what it is, and it really doesn't care about your senses." Neil deGrasse Tyson
Inspirational quote by Neil Alden Armstrong about undiscovered ideas and human destiny in spaceCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"We leave you much that is undone. There are great ideas undiscovered, breakthroughs available to those who can remove one of truth's protective layers. There are places to go beyond belief. Those challenges are yours -- in many fields, not the least of which is space, because there lies human destiny" Neil Alden Armstrong
Quote about the hunt for stellar parallax and the shift from Ptolemaic to Copernican systems by Alan HirshfeldCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"In Newton’s day, the Ptolemaic system and the Keplerian version of the Copernican system were taught side by side in the universities of the world. But the pendulum of belief had swung irreversibly to the Copernican side. In the minds of most scientists, the heliocentric universe had become fact…Yet there remained a crucial missing element in what was otherwise a complete and compelling picture of the universe: Not one shred of indisputable observational proof existed that the Earth moved through space.Here then was the holy grail of many an astronomer. To prove that the Earth in fact revolved in a wide orbit around the Sun, the parallax of just one star – any star – had to be detected. The hunt for stellar parallax was on." Alan Hirshfeld
Quote by Albert Einstein about coordinate systems and perspectives in scienceCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either CS [coordinate system] could be used with equal justification. The two sentences, “the Sun is at rest and the Earth moves,” or “the Sun moves and the Earth is at rest,” would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different CS." Albert Einstein
Quote by Lawrence Krauss discussing the cosmic microwave background and the unexpected correlation with the Earth's ecliptic plane.Copyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"“But when you look at CMB map (Cosmic Microwave Background), you also see that the structure that is observed, is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That's crazy. We're looking out at the whole universe. There's no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the earth around the sun - the plane of the earth around the sun - the ecliptic. That would say we are truly the center of the universe. The new results are either telling us that all of science is wrong and we're the center of the universe, or maybe the data is (s)imply incorrect, or maybe it's telling us there's something weird about the microwave background results and that maybe, maybe there's something wrong with our theories on the larger scales.”" Lawrence Krauss
Censorship is the younger of two shameful sisters; the older is called the Inquisition quote by Johann Nepomuk NestroyCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Censorship is the younger of two shameful sisters; the older is called the Inquisition. Censorship is the living confession of the powerful that they can only rule over dumbed-down slaves, but not free peoples." Johann Nepomuk Nestroy
Inspirational freedom quote by Franz Grillparzer about the spirit making a person free or a slaveCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"We hear statements such as “This is a free country” or “This is a dictatorship where there is no freedom.” However, these are vague assertions in which the meaning of freedom is not real. One person may feel very free in a totalitarian regime, while another living in a democracy may feel the chains of slavery on their shoulders, weighing down every step they take. The chains of slavery only bind our hands: it is the spirit that makes a person free or a slave." Franz Grillparzer
Quote by George Washington about freedom, arms, and self-defenseCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"A free people must not only be armed and disciplined. They should also be sufficiently equipped with weapons and ammunition to defend their independence at any time against anyone who attempts to abuse them. This includes, in particular, their own government." George Washington
Ayn Rand quote about government ultimate inversion and citizen freedomCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force." Ayn Rand
Quote by Alexis De Tocqueville on democracy and socialism about equality and freedomCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common except a single word: equality. The difference is considerable: while democracy seeks equality in freedom, socialism seeks equality in restriction and subjugation." Alexis De Tocqueville
Quote by Aldous Huxley about pharmacological methods creating painless dictatorship and loving servitudeCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"There will be in the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it." Aldous Huxley
Quote by Dr. med. Heinrich Will about health, hygiene, and disease ratesCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"It must give every serious-minded person pause to reflect that, despite the best healthcare facilities, diseases continue to spread. We have high standards of hygiene that control factors such as diet, water, clothing, everyday items, industry, construction, waste, and climatic influences to prevent harm to health. Its most outstanding achievement is the eradication of epidemics; its most visible failure is the steady rise in disease rates, especially for heart disease and cancer." Dr. med. Heinrich Will
Quote by Juvenal about a healthy mind in a sound body and virtueCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Your prayer must be for a healthy mind in a sound body. Ask for a brave soul that has no fear of death, deems length of life the least of nature's gifts and is able to bear any kind of sufferings, knows neither wrath nor desire and believes the woes and hard labors of Hercules better than the loves and feasts and downy cushions of Sardanapalus. Reveal what you are able to give yourself; the only path to a life of tranquility lies through virtue." Juvenal
Danny Minot quote about power determining science and thoughtCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Whoever has the power in society determines what can be studied, determines what can be observed, determines what can be thought. Scientists fall in line with the dominant power structure. They have to because the power structure pays the bills." Danny Minot
Ronald Reagan quote about government being the problem and self-governanceCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe, that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price." Ronald Reagan
Quote about the Jesuits' political power by Margaret Anna CusackCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"The Jesuits are the only religious order in the Church of Rome…which has lain under the ban of the [‘White’] Pope, or which has been expelled from any country because of its interference in politics. Hence we may expect to find that to obtain political power forms a main feature in the plans of the Society [of Jesus – i.e., the Jesuit Order]." Margaret Anna Cusack
Quote by J.E.C. Shepherd about Jesuit Order expulsions for political intrigue between 1555 and 1931Copyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Between 1555 and 1931 the Society of Jesus [i.e., the Jesuit Order] was expelled from at least 83 countries, city states and cities, for engaging in political intrigue and subversion plots against the welfare of the State, according to the records of a Jesuit priest of repute [Thomas J. Campbell]. …Practically every instance of expulsion was for political intrigue, political infiltration, political subversion, and inciting to political insurrection." J.E.C. Shepherd
Quote by Hermann Göring on leadership and warCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Well, of course, the people don't want war. (...) But ultimately, it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always easy to get the people to go along with it, whether it is a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, a parliament, or a communist dictatorship." Hermann Göring
Quote by Harold Wallace Rosenthal about manipulation of the national monetary systemCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Our power has been created through the manipulation of the national monetary system.. The Federal Reserve system fitted our plan nicely since it is owned by us, but the name implies that it is a government institution. From the very outset, our purpose was to confiscate all the gold and silver, replacing them with worthless non- redeemable papen notes... We Jews have put issue upon issue to the American people. Then we promote both sides of the issue as confusion reigns. With their eyes fixed on the issues, they fail to see who is behind every scene. We Jews toy with the American public as a cat toys with a mouse..." Harold Wallace Rosenthal
Quote by Cardinal John Murphy Farley about conflict between international capital and ruling dynastiesCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"The war that is being prepared will be a battle between international capital and the ruling dynasties. Capital wishes to have no one over it, knows no God or Lord, and wishes to have all states ruled as a great banking business. Their profit shall become the sole guide of the rulers ... Business ... one and only." Kardinal John Murphy Farley
Image featuring a quote by Charles Bukowski about the frustrations of daily work lifeCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?" Charles Bukowski
Quote by Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun about the challenges of a moon mission in 1953Copyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"It is commonly believed that man will fly directly from the earth to the moon, but to do this, we would require a vehicle of such gigantic proportions that it would prove an economic impossibility. It would have to develop sufficient speed to penetrate the atmosphere and overcome the earth’s gravity and, having traveled all the way to the moon, it must still have enough fuel to land safely and make the return trip to earth. Furthermore, in order to give the expedition a margin of safety, we would not use one ship alone, but a minimum of three … each rocket ship would be taller than New York’s Empire State Building [almost ¼ mile high] and weigh about ten times the tonnage of the Queen Mary, or some 800,000 tons." Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun