Einstein Quotes

Startled by the seemingly random nature of Quantum physics Einstein once exclaimed,
“I cannot believe that God plays dice with the cosmos.”
Observer, 1954

-To which an unnamed fellow scientist replied “Einstein, don’t tell God what he can and cannot do.”
-Eventually Stephen William Hawking followed up with, “God not only plays dice, he also sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen.”

“He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.”

“I want to know God's thoughts. The rest is just details.”

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”

“Perfection of means and confusion of ends seem to characterize our age.”

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.”

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

The Less Real World

“Prayer is no ordinary conversation. It is conversation wit the invisible world whose existence we can partially reason to, and then only quite dimly, but whose reality and grandeur we can fully know only by faith. Why call this world invisible? Because it is not seen with the eyes of the body, but it is known with the eyes of the mind. It is not only not visible to the eyes of the body, but also not audible with bodily ears, or tangible with bodily hands or palatable with bodily lips or perceptible with any of the bodily senses. And sadly, how tragically, some people suppose that because it is not sensibly perceptible therefore it is not real. It is a world of faith that really exists and as St. Paul tells us is actually more real than the mountains, rivers and seas and more important than even the most important people we could ever meet on earth.”
-Father John A. Hardon, S.J., “Theology of Prayer”

(Sounds an awful lot like Plato’s idea that the “real” world is less real than the “ideal” or spiritual world.)

Being Yourself

Sanity

I love this!

Confessions of a Shy Girl

I was thinking today, if I could acquire one personality trait that I do not already have, what would I want? I would most whole heartedly want the ability to talk to people. I am no good at chatting or just casual conversation. It sort of goes along with being shy, but it also comes from just not knowing what to say to people. Some people attribute awkward conversation skills as a sign of stupidity. They assume “Well, that person just doesn’t have the brains to make good conversation.” That is not true. I do not say that out of pride because I happen to know my IQ score and it’s nowhere near the “stupid” range. I’ve always wondered about the nature of my lack of a gift for gab. Am I too shy? Am I simply afraid of what people will think of me? Sometimes I just cannot think of anything I want to say. If there is nothing worth saying, why talk? Then again I wonder if I have a hard time talking to people because they tend to be extremely shallow. I don’t care about what reality TV show someone watched last night. I don’t care about which celebrity is doing what. I don’t care about your new designer shirt or the cute shoes you bought. I don’t care about which superstar’s CD you just got. I don’t care. Should I? Boring shallow people drive me up the wall. Maybe that’s part of it. I don’t like talking to people because I’m tired of all the same old shallow, pointless small talk. I crave conversation with depth. I’m tired of meaninglessness. Perhaps I am too serious. I am loath to endure the light conversation necessary to find out if a person has any depth underneath. How I wish I just had the gift of engaging people in easy conversation. UG!

Pondering...

Dying…

I have come to an acceptance of the fact that we are all dying. Some of us are just proceeding faster than others. Dying is not a bad or evil thing; it just makes us aware of life as it is lived each moment, for no moment is guaranteed to follow another. I’m dying. We are all dying. It’s figuring out the best way to live out the interim that is tricky.

Lord, let me live so as to make you proud of me.