Encyclopedia Quotes - Page 3

• Elvis is my religion. But for him, I'd be selling encyclopedias right now.

  Bruce Springsteen

  Selling, Right Now

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• I like to think of The Falls as my own personal encyclopedia Greenaway-ensis.

  Peter Greenaway

  Fall, Thinking, My Own

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• You can have no idea, if you have not tried, how difficult it is to find out anything whatever from an encyclopedia, unless you know all about it already.

  Gwen Raverat

  Knowledge, Ideas, Difficult

  Gwen Raverat (2003). “Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood”, p.112, Clear Press Ltd

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• Mumbling priests swinging stick cans on their chains and even witch doctors conjuring up curses with a well-buried elephant tooth have a better sense of their places in the world. They know this universe is brimming with magic, with life and riddles and ironies. They know that the world might eat them, and no encyclopedia could stop it.

  N.D. Wilson

  Doctors, Elephants, Magic

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• I've learned an encyclopedia version of life from Oprah Winfrey.

  Suze Orman

  I've Learned, Versions

  Source: www.npr.org

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• Therefore we value the poet. All the argument and all the wisdom is not in the encyclopedia, or the treatise on metaphysics, or the Body of Divinity, but in the sonnet or the play.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Play, Poetry, Body

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.193, Harvard University Press

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• On those remote pages [of 'a certain Chinese encyclopedia'] it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f ) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush, (l) others, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) those that resemble flies from a distance.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Dog, Distance, Flower

  "The Analytical Language of JohnWilkins" (1942) (translation by Ruth L. C. Simms)

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• I barely trust established sources of information. I have a hard time finding [Wikipedia], an encyclopedia that anyone can alter, to be a safe way to learn about anything except how many idiots think their opinions are a suitable substitute for facts.

  R. K. Milholland

  Hard Times, Thinking, Wikipedia

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• That Elvis, man, he is all there is. There ain't no more. Everything starts and ends with him. He wrote the book. But for him, I'd be selling encyclopedias right now. There have been a lotta tough guys. There have been pretenders. And there have been contenders. But there is only one king.

  Bruce Springsteen

  Kings, Book, Men

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• The information that was contained in a cathedral was based upon a common culture - a common Christian culture - and the elements were chosen for a common symbolic meaning. Someone who knew everything that was represented in a cathedral had a sort of encyclopedia - you can indeed call it that - but it was a selective encyclopedia, like encyclopedias back when they were books and the people writing them were supposed to be specialists in their field. I think today the problem is that people don't know how to choose between different kinds of information.

  Eugene Green

  Christian, Book, Writing

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• The writing of solid, instructive stuff fortified by facts and figures is easy enough. There is no trouble in writing a scientific treatise on the folk-lore of Central China, or a statistical enquiry into the declining population of Prince Edward Island. But to write something out of one's own mind, worth reading for its own sake, is an arduous contrivance only to be achieved in fortunate moments, few and far in between. Personally, I would sooner have written Alice in Wonderland than the whole Encyclopedia Britannica.

  Stephen Leacock

  Reading, Writing, Islands

  Stephen Leacock (2014). “Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town”, p.7, The Floating Press

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• In a sense, words are encyclopedias of ignorance because they freeze perceptions at one moment in history and then insist we continue to use these frozen perceptions when we should be doing better.

  Edward de Bono

  Writing, Ignorance, History

  Edward De Bono (1992). “Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas”, Harpercollins

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• So, there I was, tied to an altar made from outdated encyclopedias, about to get sacrificed to the dark powers by a cult of evil Librarians.

  Brandon Sanderson

  Dark, Evil, Librarian

  Brandon Sanderson (2016). “Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians”, p.147, Macmillan

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• Kids, she says. When they’re little, they believe everything you tell them about the world. As a mother, you’re the world almanac and the encyclopedia and the dictionary and the Bible, all rolled up together. But after they hit some magic age, it’s just the opposite. After that, you’re either a liar or a fool or a villain.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Mother, Liars, Believe

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• Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified.

  Vannevar Bush

  Running, Mesh, Form

  Vannevar Bush (1946). “Endless horizons”

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• The cultivated person's first duty is to be always prepared to rewrite the encyclopedia.

  Umberto Eco

  Knowledge, Intelligent, People

  Umberto Eco (2013). “Serendipities: Language and Lunacy”, p.20, Columbia University Press

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• Who knew Lenny was an encyclopedia for useless information?

  Simone Elkeles

  Useless, Information, Useless Information

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• Language is the biggest barrier to human progress because language is an encyclopedia of ignorance. Old perceptions are frozen into language and force us to look at the world in an old fashioned way.

  Edward de Bono

  Communication, Ignorance, Perception

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• People ask me all the time what or who my influences are. To be honest, it would take a decent set of encyclopedias to get them all down. I am here today to let the world know my greatest influence, my secret ingredient, really. What inspires me? That's simple: COFFEE.

  Corey Taylor

  Coffee, Memorable, Simple

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• Engineering is not merely knowing and being knowledgeable, like a walking encyclopedia; engineering is not merely analysis; engineering is not merely the possession of the capacity to get elegant solutions to non-existent engineering problems; engineering is practicing the art of the organizing forces of technological change ... Engineers operate at the interface between science and society.

  Gordon S. Brown

  Art, Knowledge, Science

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• Who will ever kiss this encyclopedia of a head?

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Kissing

  Elizabeth Gilbert (2013). “The Signature of All Things”, p.180, A&C Black

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• He found a set of encyclopedias—like Wikipedia, but paper and very bulky.

  Michael Grant

  Wikipedia, Paper, Found

  Michael Grant (2014). “Gone Series Complete Collection: Gone, Hunger, Lies, Plague, Fear, Light”, p.94, Harper Collins

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• If I could, I'd write a huge encyclopedia just about the words luck and coincidence

  Paulo Coelho

  Writing, Alchemist, Luck

  Paulo Coelho (1998). “The Alchemist - 10th Anniversary Edition”, HarperSanFrancisco

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• The Encyclopedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man. The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as "Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun to Be With. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing devision of the Sirius Cybernetic Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.

  Douglas Adams

  Wall, Fun, Men

  Douglas Adams (2010). “The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”, p.95, Del Rey

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• The hardest thing was learning to write. I was 13, and the only writing I had done was for Social Studies. It consisted of copying passages right out of the encyclopedia

  Tracy Kidder

  Writing, Copying, Done

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