Cached on Yom Kippur 2011 from IMDb --

Memorable quotes for
The Oxford Murders (2008)


Arthur Seldom: There is no way of finding a single absolute truth, an irrefutable argument to help answer the questions of mankind. Philosophy therefore is dead. Because whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent.

Arthur Seldom: Since man is incapable of reconciling mind and matter, he tends to confer some sort of entity on ideas because he cannot bear the notion that the purely abstract only exists in our brain. The beauty and harmony of a snowflake, the butterfly that flutters its wings and causes a hurricane on the other side of the world. We've been hearing about that damn butterfly for decades but who has been able to predict a single hurricane? Nobody! Tell me something. Where is the beauty and harmony in cancer? What makes a cell suddenly decide to turn itself into a killer metastasis and destroy the rest of the cells in a healthy body? Does anybody know? No! Because we'd rather think of snowflakes and butterflies. Or Pain? War? So why? Because we need to think that life has meaning. That everything is governed by logic and not by mere chance. If I write 2, then 4, then 6, we feel good because we know that next comes 8. We can foresee it. We are not in the hands of destiny. Unfortunately however, this has nothing to do with truth. Don't you agree? This is only fear. Sad. 

Arthur Seldom: ... the butterfly that flutters its wings and causes a hurricane on the other side of the world... are you the butterfly, Martin?