Cities of the Red Night (1981)
Context: There is simply no room left for 'freedom from the tyranny of government' since city dwellers depend on it for food, power, water, transportation, protection, and welfare. Your right to live where you want, with companions of your choosing, under laws to which you agree, died in the eighteenth century with Captain Mission. Only a miracle or a disaster could restore it.
George Monbiot (1963) English writer and political activist
"Grand promises of Paris climate deal undermined by squalid retrenchments" https://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2015/dec/12/paris-climate-deal-governments-fossil-fuels, The Guardian, 12 December 2015.
“Society is not a disease, it is a disaster. What a stupid miracle that one can live in it.”
Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay
A Short History of Decay (1949)
“You are a miracle, and everything you touch could be a miracle.”
Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist
Episode of the National Public Radio program Speaking of Faith : "Brother Thay: A Radio Pilgrimage with Thich Nhat Hanh" (2003)
John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter
Quoted as a 1968 statement of Lennon's in Sunday Tasmanian (29 September 1996), and in The Rough Guide to the Beatles (2003) by Chris Ingham, p. 271, this actually derives from a statement which Lennon perhaps had been quoting:
Were art to redeem man, it could do so only by saving him from the seriousness of life and restoring him to an unexpected boyishness.
José Ortega y Gasset, in "Art a Thing of No Consequence" in The Dehumanization of Art (1925)
Misattributed
José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist
"Art a Thing of No Consequence"
The Dehumanization of Art and Ideas about the Novel (1925)
Context: Were art to redeem man, it could do so only by saving him from the seriousness of life and restoring him to an unexpected boyishness. The symbol of art is seen again in the magic flute of the Great God Pan which makes the young goats frisk at the edge of the grove.
All modern art begins to appear comprehensible and in a way great when it is interpreted as an attempt to instill youthfulness into an ancient world.
Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist
" Trust me, being sacked isn't all bad http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/12/02/do0202.xml", Daily Telegraph, 2 December 2004, p. 26. <br class="br">On being sacked from the Tory front bench. <br class="br">2000s, 2004
Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007) 1st President of Russia and Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR
Speaking to the press following a "postively productive" meeting http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=50688 with Bill Clinton (24 October 1995) <br class="br">Alternative translation: those anticipating a failure of the meeting "have failed" ("вы провалились"). <br class="br">1990s
