“When people have tried everything and have discovered that nothing works, they will tend to revert to what they know best—which will often be the tribe, the totem, or the taboo.”

— Christopher Hitchens

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Christopher Hitchens 305

British American author and journalist 1949–2011

Sherwood Smith (1951) American fantasy and science fiction writer

“Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. With the best leaders when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say, "We have done this ourselves.”

Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…

Only the final bold section is connected to Laozi (see Ch. 17 of Tao Te Ching above). The origin of the added first section is unclear.
Misattributed

“What I find interesting is working in a society with certain taboos — and fashion photography is about that kind of society. To have taboos, then to get around them — that is interesting.”

Helmut Newton (1920–2004) German-Australian photographer

American Photo (January/February 2000), p. 90

“We have moved from an age in which government leaders sought to do what was best for the people to one in which the political leadership is convinced it knows what is best for the people, whether they like it or not.”

Ralph Peters (1952) American military officer, writer, pundit

Source: 2000s, Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World (2002), p. 133

“I have tried to suggest that injustice is not necessary economics; that the economics can work, and has often worked, when the constituency for it is animated. The politics of equality - that is a little harder.”

Robert Kuttner (1943) American journalist

Epilogue: Politics, p. 278 (Last text lines...)
The Economic Illusion (1984)

“It may be, then, that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work and that when we no longer know which way to go we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Standing by Words: Essays (2011), Poetry and Marriage: The Use of Old Forms (1982)

“Whenever you face something new, you revert to your own tribal ways. People ask me how I can live among cannibals, or tribes that practise female circumcision, and not tell them what's right or wrong. I know that's not the way to understanding. I try not to judge.”

Bruce Parry (1969) British documentarian

As quoted in "Bruce Parry: 'My job doesn't allow me a private life" by Cassandra Jardine in The Telegraph (19 September 1007)

“People often think they would have made the noblest choice, but when they find themselves actually in such a situation, they discover matters aren’t quite so simple.”

Ann Leckie book Ancillary Justice

Source: Ancillary Justice (2013), Chapter 10 (p. 145)

“To hope, Hope in what, Hope, just hope, one reaches a point where there is nothing but hope, and that is when we discover that hope is everything.”

José Saramago book The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis

Source: The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (1993), p. 108

“I make sure that they photograph everything they do. And they have to have a portfolio to graduate. You know, there’s no formula for success out there, but what works is: learn how [to photograph], photograph everything you do and you put those photographs in front of people that can help hire you. That works.”

Tom Savini (1946) American actor, stuntman, director and makeup artist

“When people have tried everything and have discovered that nothing works, they will tend to revert to what they know best—which will often be the tribe, the totem, or the taboo.”

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Christopher Hitchens 305

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