Source: Daddy-Long-Legs
Source: Ethan Frome and Other Short Fiction
“Go at it boldly, and you'll find unexpected forces closing round you and coming to your aid.”
Source: The Conquest of Fear (1921), Chapter I : Fear And The Life-Principle, § XI, p. 29; sometimes paraphrased: "Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid."
“You can’t apologize your way into people’s hearts … You have to go full force.”
"Friendly, and Just a Bit Creepy: St. Vincent Defies Categories" in The New York Times (7 May 2009) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/arts/music/07vince.html?_r=1&ref=arts&pagewanted=all
Context: I think anyone who is creative or self-aware in any way, there’s like a humility to it, or I should say a humiliation to it. But there’s also a self-delusion — the provisional ego, as my uncle would call it. The self-delusion is the thing that makes you go, oh you know what, all the music that I’ve ever loved in the world, I want to be a part of that — hey, listen to what I have to say, it’s really important, it’s going to matter.”
You can’t apologize your way into people’s hearts... You have to go full force.
“The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.”
As quoted in The New Speaker's Treasury of Wit and Wisdom (1958) edited by Herbert Victor Prochnow
As quoted at page 212 in The Pocket Book of Quips and Quotes http://books.google.de/books?id=jcIWpJdFBkEC&pg=PA212&dq=The+world+is+full+of+willing+people,+some+willing+to+work,+the+rest+willing+to+let+them.&hl=de&sa=X&ei=R9LOUe3UL8mctAbO0oDQCg&ved=0CGwQ6AEwCDgK#v=onepage&q=The%20world%20is%20full%20of%20willing%20people%2C%20some%20willing%20to%20work%2C%20the%20rest%20willing%20to%20let%20them.&f=false (1996) by Rajendra Pillai, Copyright 1996 The Saint Paul Society Bombay, 2nd Print 1999
1950s
“The bridge was built by someone who was willing to come into my world and take me into this one.”
Autistic Writer Finds Voice, Delivers a Message of Hope
Christopher Hitchens vs. William Dembski, 18/11/2010 ( closing remarks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwgYYxfpPC0)
2010s, 2010
Context: When Socrates was sentenced to death, for his philosophical investigations and his blasphemy for challenging the Gods of the city and he accepted his death. He did say "well, if we're lucky perhaps I'll be able to hold a conversation with other great thinkers and philosophers and doubters too", in other words that the discussion about what is good, what is beautiful, what is noble and what is pure and what is true can always go on. Why is that important, why would I like to do that? Because that is the only conversation worth having. And whether it goes on or not after I die, I don't know, but I do know that it is the conversation I want to have while I am still alive. Which means that for me, the offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that can't give way, is an offer of something not worth having. I want to live my life taking the risk all the time that I don't know anything like enough yet. That I haven't understood enough, that I can't know enough, that I'm always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom. I wouldn't have it any other way. And I urge you to look at those of you that tell you (at your age) that that you are dead until you believe as they do. (What a terrible thing to be telling to children.) And that you can only live by accepting an absolute authority. Don't think of that as a gift, think of it as a poison chalice. Push it aside no matter how tempting it is. Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way.
From interview with Rajeev Masand
