Zachary Scott

“There is a traditional optimistic story that runs as follows. Our hero is a prisoner who has been sentenced to death by a tyrannical king, but gains a reprieve by promising to teach the king’s favourite horse to talk within a year. That night, a fellow prisoner asks what possessed him to make such a bargain. He replies, ‘A lot can happen in a year. The horse might die. The king might die. I might die. Or the horse might talk!”
― David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

“(Actually, there are two kinds of people in this world: those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better. However, Leigh-Cheri and Bernard were occupied with the nuances of an intricate dance, so let’s be generous and cut them some slack.)”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker

“There soon were storm signals. Nikitchenko and Trainin, in line with the Soviet conception of law as the servant of the political leadership, had a very limited idea of the trial’s purpose. In the Russians’ view, the Nazi organizations had already been condemned as criminal by the Big Three at Yalta, and it was “unthinkable” that the international tribunal—an organ of much less authority—could come to any other conclusion.”
― Telford Taylor, The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir

“Consciousness is the dance of symbols inside the cranium. Or, to make it even more pithy, consciousness is thinking. As Descartes said, Cogito ergo sum.”
― Douglas R. Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop