Tom Stoppard Quotes

Not everything that exists today is reasonable; but this does not mean that everything that does not exist is sensible.

There are forces working in the world as never before in the history of mankind for standardization, for the regimentation of us all, or what I like to call making muffins of us, muffins all like every other muffin in the muffin tin. This is the limited universe, the drying dissipating universe that we can help our children to avoid by providing them with ‘explosive material capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly'.

If I were in the unenviable position of having to study my work my points of departure would be the "Naught is more real ..." and the "Ubi nihil vales ..." both already in Murphy and neither very rational.

Every sane person has to find every day some manner of accommodating the impossible, some way of covering up for the failures of the rational world. This might actually be a reasonable definition of sanity.

In this acausal world, scientists are helpless. Their predictions become postdictions- Their equations become justifications, their logic, illogic. Scientists turn reckless and mutter like gamblers who cannot stop betting. Scientists are buffoons, not because they are rational but because the cosmos is irrational. Or perhaps it is not because the cosmos is irrational but because they are rational. Who can say which, in an acausal world?

Wherever the choice has had to be made between the man of reason and the madman, the world has unhesitatingly followed the madman.

You'll never change the world if you're worried about being liked.

Christianity is the complete negation of common sense and sound reason.

Stoicism is the wisdom of madness and cynicism the madness of wisdom.

The trouble with this world is that everybody has to compromise and conform.

I love uniforms because they allow you to hide. No one knows what you are thinking, so it's a very appropriate and correct way to be yourself.

I do not make jokes about Sarah Palin simply because I could not live in this world if I believed she was a real person.

We were creating a world where the smartest way to survive is to be bland.

Perfect nonsense goes on in the world. Sometimes there is no plausibility at all

I certainly have had experiences of a sense of wonder at the world and a feeling that even though it could all be explained rationally, it still feels that there is more to it.

It has always seemed to me that my existence consisted purely and exclusively of nothing but the most outrageous nonsense.

The very existence of the bicycle is an offense to reason and wisdom.

The constant pressure to bring about conformity is a dangerous thing.

Fashion is merely a saying: I belong to your world. I'm wearing the same uniform as your army, so don't shoot.

There is only one force stronger than selfishness, and that is stupidity.

Consistency is the horror of the world.

The world exists, as I understand it, to teach the science of liberty.

Reasoning is the pastime of my whole household, and all this reasoning has driven out Reason.

What is life but a series of inspired follies.

Just being alive is such a gift, but nobody ever told you to be thankful to existence. On the contrary, everyone was grumpy, complaining. Naturally, if everything surrounding your life from the very beginning goes on pointing out to you that you are not what you should be, goes on giving you great ideals that you have to follow and you have to become, your isness is never praised. What is praised is your future - if you can become someone respectable, powerful, rich, intellectual, in some way famous, not just a nobody.