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The great ideas in science, like the Cro-Magnon paintings and the plays of Shakespeare, are part of our cultural heritage.

Alan Lightman

And if the present has little effect on the future, present actions need not be weighed for their consequence.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Consequence Effect Future Little Presence Present Weight
We don’t have the time, literally, to think during the day. To listen to ourselves think. To think about where we are going, who we are, what’s important.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

During Important Listen Ourselves Thing Time
“The Diagnosis” is by far my most ambitious book. I such great hopes for it… there was so much I wanted to do with the book. I was extremely insecure about it for several years.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Ambitious Book Diagnosis Far Great Hope Most
The time-deaf are unable to speak what they know. For speech needs a sequence of words, spoken in time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Deal Know Speak Time Unable
The urge to discover, to invent, to know the unknown, seems so deeply human that we cannot imagine our history without it.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Dep Discover History Human Imagine Invent Know Seem Unknown Urge
All beliefs not in such contradiction may be considered as faith. Whether faith in a particular belief is beneficial or not is another matter.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Belief Beneficial Consider Contradiction Faith Matter
Franz Kafka is an idea person. His books begin and end in ideas. Ideas have always been important to me in my writing.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Always Been Begin Book End I Idea People Person Portrait Write
That’s the fine balance of a fiction writer…to be able to give your characters enough freedom to surprise you and yet still maintain some kind of artistic control.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Artistic Balance Character Control Fiction Fine Freedom Maintain Surprise Writer
Our species has advanced from Stone Age to Industrial Revolution to Digital Emptiness. We’ve become weightless, in the bad sense of the word.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Advance Imagination Revolution Sense Species World
The mother and father osprey stay together. It’s a monogamous relationship. And every summer they raise a new brood of children.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Brood Children Father Monogamous Mother Osprey Summer Through Watch
The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Alone Everyone Tragedy World
Each person knows that somewhere is recorded the moment she was born, the moment she took her first step, the moment of her first passion, the moment she said goodbye to her parents.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Born Movement Parent Passion Person Record Somewhere
It’s a flow of chemicals and electrical currents, and it developed over millions of years in the process of evolution to aid in the procreation of the species.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Develop Evolution Million Procreation Species Write
One cannot walk down an avenue, converse with a friend, enter a building, browse beneath the sandstone arches of an old arcade without meeting an instrument of time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Arcade Instrument Arch Avenue Beneath Browse Build Converse Down Enter Friend Sandstone Time
Scientists will forever have to live with the fact that their product is, in the end, impersonal.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

End Fact Have Impersonal Live Product Scientist
Body time flows at its own variable rate, oblivious to the most precise hydrogen master clocks in the laboratory. In fact, the human body contains its own exquisite time-pieces, all with their separate rhythms.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Body Contain Exquisite Fact Flow Hydrogen Laboratory Oblivious Variable

The great ideas in science, like the Cro-Magnon paintings and the plays of Shakespeare, are part of our cultural heritage.

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The great ideas in science, like the Cro-Magnon paintings and the plays of Shakespeare, are part of our cultural heritage.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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