I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round read more

I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round as the moon, to stare up.
I want to be looking at them when they come
Picking among the dumb minerals, the roots.
I see them already-the pale, star-distance faces.
Now they are nothing, they are not even babies.
I imagine them without fathers or mothers, like the first gods.
They will wonder if I was important.

Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction. -- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.

Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction. -- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.

The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon. read more

The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon. -- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.

Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a read more

Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools. -- 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work.

Cheer up, children, I am all right.

Cheer up, children, I am all right.

I shall look forward to a pleasant time.

I shall look forward to a pleasant time.

Dear World, I am leaving you because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving read more

Dear World, I am leaving you because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool - good luck.

If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said read more

If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this. -- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M Post-It Notepads.