Disagreement
1. “… the most useful position is the one that prompt people to test an idea and perhaps think for themselves by disagreeing.” (Rebecca Solnit, Sontag and Tsunami)
2. “Why should not a complaint be listened to with cheerfulness; why must one wear a doleful face instead of a smile?” (Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi – The Glass Bead Game)
Diving
3. “Even among experienced divers, there are different ways to signal the same thing.” (Eric Douglas, Going Down with the Ship)
4. “Experienced divers learn roughly how far they travel underwater for every fin-kick cycle, or for every 10 cycles.” (Eric Douglas, Going Down with the Ship)
Divinity
5. “It is the Mother who gives the gifts; and it is she who takes away the gifts.” (R K Narayan, Under the Banyan Tree)
6. “The sacrifices and the invocation of the gods were excellent – but was that all? Did the sacrifices give a happy fortune? And what about the gods? Was it really Prajapati who had created the world? Was it not Atman, He, the only one, the singular one? Were the gods not creations, created like me and you, subject to time, mortal? Was it therefore good, was it right, was it meaningful and the highest occupation to make offerings to gods?” (Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha)
Doctors
7. “Doctors do not always know everything.” (Harold Robbins, The Piranhas)
Dogs
8. “I’d suspected for a long time that dogs are cleverer than human beings.” (Nikolai Gogol, Diary of a Madman)
9. “A dog, a woman, an’ a walnut tree,
Th’ more yeh beat ‘em, th’ better they be!”
(Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage)
10. “Dogs are extraordinarily shrewd, and notice everything, every step you take.” (Nikolai Gogol, Diary of a Madman)
