Timothy David "Tim" Minchin (b. October 7, 1975) is a British-born Australian comedian, actor and musician. (Click here for full Wikipedia article)
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A genius is a mentally ill person with an audience.
Art degrees are awesome and they help you find meaning where there is none. And let me assure you, there is none.
Be hard on your opinions. A famous bon mot asserts opinions are like assholes in that everyone has one. There is great wisdom in this but I would add that opinions differ significantly from assholes in that yours should be constantly and thoroughly examined.
Burning a book is like burning a bra. After the adrenaline of the symbolic moment is over, all you're left with is a pile of ashes and unsupported boobs.
Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine.
Don't seek happiness. Happiness is like an orgasm. If you think about it too much it goes away.
I advocate passionate dedication to the pursuit of short-term goals. Be micro-ambitious. Put your head down and work with pride on whatever is in front of you.
It's the fine balance of caffeine and alcohol that bookends my days.
Love without evidence is stalking.
Science adjusts its views based on what's observed, faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved.
Science is not a body of knowledge nor a belief system; it's just a term which describes humankind's incremental acquisition of understanding through observation.
Searching for meaning is like searching for a rhymes scheme in a cookbook. You won't find it and it will bugger up your soufflé.
Throughout history, every mystery ever solved has turned out to be not magic.
We didn't evolve to be constantly content. Contented homo erectus got eaten before passing on their genes.
We must think critically and not just about the ideas of others. Be hard on your beliefs. Take them out on the veranda and hit them with a cricket bat. Be intellectually rigorous.
You can't be Kant and you don't want to be.
Isn't this enough? Just this world? Just this beautiful, complex wonderfully unfathomable world? How does it so fail to hold our attention that we have to diminish it with the invention of cheap, man-made myths and monsters?
Understanding that you can't truly take credit for your successes, nor truly blame others for their failures will humble you and make you more compassionate.
Please don't make the mistake of thinking the arts and sciences are at odds with one another. That is a recent, stupid, and damaging idea. You don't have to be unscientific to make beautiful art, to write beautiful things.
I don't go in for ancient wisdom. I don't believe just because ideas are tenacious it means they're worthy.
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