Famous quotes containing the words private, fixed and/or investment:
“A private should preserve a respectful attitude toward his superiors, and should seldom or never proceed so far as to offer suggestions to his general in the field. If the battle is not being conducted to suit him, it is better for him to resign. By the etiquette of war, it is permitted to none below the rank of newspaper correspondent to dictate to the general in the field.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“It is the fixed that horrifies us, the fixed that assails us with the tremendous force of mindlessness. The fixed is a Mason jar, and we can’t beat it open. ...The fixed is a world without fire--dead flint, dead tinder, and nowhere a spark. It is motion without direction, force without power, the aimless procession of caterpillars round the rim of a vase, and I hate it because at any moment I myself might step to that charmed and glistening thread.”
—Annie Dillard (b. 1945)
“There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)