Quotes about people
page 45

“When you feel sad just think about deaf, blind, homeless people or people in Somali, orphans and thank God and keep smiling. Never give up. ”

Adam Levine (1979) singer, songwriter, actor, and record producer from the United States

God, Sadness, Smile, Feeling

“All those reports that I sleep in my closet. I don't know how people get that. People are so obsessed with what you do at home.”

Jared Leto (1971) American actor and musician

Home, Sleep

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Feeling, Deep, Success, Inspirational

“Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs. ”

Дэн Кеннеди (1982) American soccer player

“I refuse to be held responsible for bringing back a wave of pasty-faced people into the world. ”

Brian Molko (1972) musician

World

“If you take a risk, two things will happen. People will laugh at you, or you'll be way ahead of everyone else. ”

Steven Tyler (1948) American singer, songwriter, keyboardist

Way

“Years ago, there was a rumor going around that I was dead because I was working in Ireland. Once I got back, people who seemed very upset would come up to me and say, «We thought you were dead!»”

Jared Leto (1971) American actor and musician

Dead

“All your life, you’ll meet people that only want to break you down. Forget them, stand strong with the people who build you up.”

Марк Фишбах (Markiplier) (1989)

Life, Strong, Forgetting

“I am not a racist… In the past I permitted myself to be used… to make sweeping indictments of all white people, the entire white race and these generalizations have caused injuries to some whites who perhaps did not deserve to be hurt. Because of the spiritual enlightenment which I was blessed to receive as a result of my recent pilgrimage to the Holy city of Mecca, I no longer subscribe to sweeping indictments of any one race. I am now striving to live the life of a true…Muslim. I must repeat that I am not a racist nor do I subscribe to the tenants of racism. I can state in all sincerity that I wish nothing but freedom, justice and equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all people.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Life, Happiness, Justice, Freedom

“When people hurt you over and over, think of them like a sand paper. They may scratch and hurt you a bit but in the end, you end up polished and they end up useless ”

Chris Colfer (1990) actor, singer, book author

Thinking, Hurt

“Some people drink from the fountain of knowledge, others just gargle. ”

Robert Anthony (1982) professional wrestler

Drink, Knowledge

“Be nice to people, because nobody likes an asshole. ”

Darren Criss (1987) American actor and singer

“The occupation and destruction of peoples is paved with a political strategy, developed by a culture of society, and embodied by doctrines, systems and economic theories.”

Yasser Elshantaf (1983) Palestinian Entrepreneur

“To make a decision you need to be in a perfect environment: you have to be motivated and surrounded by the right people.”

Niki Lauda (1949–2019) Austrian former Formula 1 racing driver

Making love, Motivation, Decision, Perfection

“Positive energy brings good feelings, and dark energy often means harm. But the destruction in dark energy is also a subtle aspect of construction, like how even forest fires have their benefits. Sometimes enemies are our best teachers, people can learn from their mistakes, destruction sometimes means rebirth.”

Keanu Reeves (1964) Canadian actor, director, producer and musician

Feeling, Learning, Teachers

“I always thought I wanted to play professionally, and I always knew that to do that I'd have to make a lot of sacrifices. I made sacrifices by leaving Argentina, leaving my family to start a new life. I changed my friends, my people. Everything. But everything I did, I did for football, to achieve my dream.”

Lionel Messi (1987) Argentine association football player

Life, Making love, Family, Dreams

“All people are brought up by cultures and every culture says 'You live in the greatest country in the world' 'I'm American and proud of it', 'I'm Canadian. I'm proud of it' That separates people. Now, if you were brought up in Ireland, you'd say, 'The Irish people are fine, there's a fine Irish lad sitting there'. Well, even your dialect, your facial expressions, you pick up from your country or the area you come from. If you still don't understand that, if you were brought up in Australia, you'd say, 'How are ya, Mate? Yeah Yeah Yeah'. That's normal in Australia. If a Filipino baby was brought up in Australia, that's the way it speaks.”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

World, Way, Understanding, Baby

“Living through the 1929 Great Depression helped shape my social conscience. During this time, I realized the earth was still the same place, manufacturing plants were still intact, and resources were still there, but people didn’t have money to buy the products. I felt the rules of the game we play by were outmoded and damaging. This began a life-long quest resulting in the conclusions and designs presented in The Venus Project.”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

Life, Money, Game, Time

“Politics was good a hundred years ago. Today, politicians have no ability to solve any problems because they are not students of behavior. They are not students of agriculture, oceanography, they know nothing about the factors that operate the world. So, they say things that people like to hear. And that gets them elected. Now scientists on the other hand are not concerned with public approval. What they do, even if everybody on earth believe the earth was flat, they would say: 'You're wrong, this is the evidence we have to support the fact that the earth is round' but they don't say: 'it's a little round and a little flat' - that's politicians.”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

World, Behavior, Support, Problem

“You cannot approach people who think differently with reason and logic if they don't know what that means. First, you have to appeal to their values to start with. If you attack them, you lose them.”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

Thinking

“You can either have one guy lifting a billion pounds by himself, and it takes many years of planning and preparation - or you can have a billion people, each lifting one pound, and it takes a mere moment. This is the power of unity.”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

Guy

“We talk about civilization as though it's a static state. There are no civilized people yet, it's a process that's constantly going on… As long as you have war, police, prisons, crime, you are in the early stages of civilization.”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

War

“People are forever finding something wrong with you.”

Brigitte Bardot (1934) French model, actor, singer and animal rights activist

“I don’t understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now.”

Sophia Loren (1934) Italian actress

Making love, Understanding, Past, Help

“The people that tell you what you enjoy is wrong, or come in your life and tell you what you're wearing is wrong are miserable because they focus on the things that they don't like.”

Andrew Biersack (1990) American singer-songwriter

Life

“I know that isn't always easy and that there is self-harm in the world. Sometimes it's hard for people to rise above things.”

Andrew Biersack (1990) American singer-songwriter

World, Self-confidence

“Things people know about amuse them. They like to laugh over them and make jokes. When a speakeasy is raided, there are a few hysterical people, but the general mass are light hearted. On the other hand, do you know any of your friends who'd go into fits of merriment if they feared being taken for a ride?”

Al Capone (1899–1947) American gangster

Fear, Making love, Light, Heart

“Ninety percent of the people of Cook County drink and gamble and my offense has been to furnish them with those amusements. Whatever else they may say, my booze has been good and my games have been on the square. Public service has been my motto.”

Al Capone (1899–1947) American gangster

Game, Drink, Cooking

“All I ever did was sell beer and whiskey to our best people. All I ever did was supply a demand that was pretty popular. Why, the very guys that make my trade good are the ones that yell the loudest about me. Some of the leading judges use the stuff.”

Al Capone (1899–1947) American gangster

Making love, Guy, Beer

“I remember getting ready to do 'American Idiot' thinking that people were either going to call us brilliant or crazy for doing it and I think maybe we got a little bit of both in the reaction. With any album, you put in the best you can and you dig further than ever before and then you put it out never really knowing what will happen…”

Billie Joe Armstrong (1972) American singer and guitarist

Thinking

“Call me crazy, but I love to see people happy and their dreams coming true.”

Ralph Smart

Love, Happiness, Making love, Dreams

“Surround yourself with people that make you believe in your power.”

Ralph Smart

Making love

“Strong people don't put others down, they lift them up.”

Ralph Smart

Strong

“Positive people also have negative thoughts. They just don’t let those thoughts grow and control them.”

Ralph Smart

“Many people, especially in the US, see countries like Sweden or Norway or Finland as role models – we have such a clean energy sector, and so on. That may be true, but we are not role models. Sweden is one of the top 10 countries in the world when it comes to the highest ecological footprints, according to the WWF – if you count the consumer index, then we are among the worst per capita.In Sweden, the most common argument that we shouldn’t act is that we are such a small country with only 10 million inhabitants – we should focus more on helping other countries. That is so incredibly frustrating, because why should we argue about who or what needs to change first? Why not take the leading role?”

Greta Thunberg (2003) Swedish climate change activist

Quoted in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez met Greta Thunberg: 'Hope is contagious', The Guardian, Emma Brockes https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/29/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-met-greta-thunberg-hope-contagious-climate|When (29 June 2019) 2019

World, Change, Help, Country

“That happens all the time. That’s basically all I hear. The most common criticism I get is that I’m being manipulated and you shouldn’t use children in political ways, because that is abuse, and I can’t think for myself and so on. And I think that is so annoying! I’m also allowed to have a say – why shouldn’t I be able to form my own opinion and try to change people’s minds?But I’m sure you hear that a lot, too; that you’re too young and too inexperienced. When I see all the hate you receive for that, I honestly can’t believe how you manage to stay so strong.”

Greta Thunberg (2003) Swedish climate change activist

Hate, Children, Way, Thinking

“We have been told that the EU intends to improve its emission reduction targets. In the new target, the EU is proposing to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 45 percent below 1990’s level by 2030. Some people say that is good or that is ambitious. But this new target is still not enough to keep global warming below 1.5 °C. This target is not sufficient to protect the future for children growing up today. If the EU is to make its fair contribution to staying within the carbon budget for the 2 °C limit, then it means a minimum of 80 percent reduction by 2030 and that includes aviation and shipping. So it is around twice as ambitious as the current proposal.”

Greta Thunberg book No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference

Speech by Greta Thunberg, climate activist https://www.eesc.europa.eu/en/avdb/video/speech-greta-thunberg-climate-activist to the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in Brussels (21 February 2019) Cited in No One is Too Small to Make a Difference, Penguin Books, 2019, pages 37 and 38-39 (ISBN 9780141991740). 2019, European Economic and Social Committee (February 2019)

Children, Making love, Relation ships, Future

“People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”

Greta Thunberg (2003) Swedish climate change activist

If world leaders choose to fail us, my generation will never forgive them https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/23/world-leaders-generation-climate-breakdown-greta-thunberg (23 September 2019), from speech delivered at the UN Climate Action Summit. 2019

Money, Fairytale

“We have to understand the emergency of the situation. Our leadership has failed us. Young people must hold older generations accountable for the mess they have created. We need to get angry, and transform that anger into action.”

Greta Thunberg (2003) Swedish climate change activist

Twitter post https://twitter.com/Ocasio2018/status/1076890299773976582 (23 December 2018) 2018

Understanding, Anger

“We are about to sacrifice our civilization for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue to make enormous amounts of money. […] But it is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few. […] You say that you love your children above everything else. And yet you are stealing their future.”

Greta Thunberg (2003) Swedish climate change activist

2018, "You are stealing our future" (December 2018)

Love, Money, Children, Making love

“Avoid constantly trying to adapt to situations, people, and other circumstances that have no value to your future. The phenomenon of always attempting to please and alter behavior is more likely to be unsuccessful then to enhance your life. Adapt by continuing to learn and improve your knowledge.

1980”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

Life, Behavior, Knowledge, Learning

“Deep into the night, people I’ve known descend around me and deliver whispering reminders of moments abandoned.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1983

Night

“Don’t permit your existence to be the sole reason people in need approach.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2006

“Only under an illusion and psychotic beliefs do the people forfeit their freedoms and liberties.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2018

Freedom

“People who criticize you have usually never achieved anywhere near what you have. Most of them would be too scared to even try. Keep going.”

Ricky Gervais (1961) English comedian, actor, director, producer, musician, writer, and former radio presenter

“It is the misfortune of active men that their activity is almost always a bit irrational. For example, one must not inquire of the money-gathering banker what the purpose for his restless activity is: it is irrational. Active people roll like a stone, conforming to the stupidity of mechanics.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

Human, All Too Human (1878)

Men, Money, Stupidity

“Gods always behave like the people who make them.”

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) American folklorist, novelist, short story writer

Tell My Horse (1938), Ch. 15, p. 219

God, Making love

“People sometimes forget about their national tasks; but such peoples perish, they turn into land, into fertilizer, on which other, stronger nations grow and grow stronger.”

Pyotr Stolypin (1862–1911) Russian politician

May 5, 1908; The State Duma; P. A. Stolypin's speech about Finland. Source: https://ru.citaty.net/tsitaty/484174-piotr-arkadevich-stolypin-narody-zabyvaiut-inogda-o-svoikh-natsionalnykh-zadacha/ Source: https://histrf.ru/lichnosti/biografii/p/stolypin-pietr-arkad-ievich Source: http://www.myshared.ru/slide/138476/ Source: https://politus.ru/v-rossii/937-citaty-pastolypina.html Source: https://books.google.ru/books?id=3iSeDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT216&lpg=PT216&dq=%D0%9D%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%8B+%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%B1%D1%8B%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%8E%D1%82+%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%B4%D0%B0+%D0%BE+%D1%81%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B8%D1%85+%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D1%8B%D1%85+%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B0%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%85;+%D0%BD%D0%BE+%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B5+%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%8B+%D0%B3%D0%B8%D0%B1%D0%BD%D1%83%D1%82,+%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B8+%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%89%D0%B0%D1%8E%D1%82%D1%81%D1%8F+%D0%B2+%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B5%D0%BC,+%D0%B2+%D1%83%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%B1%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5,+%D0%BD%D0%B0+%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BC+%D0%B2%D1%8B%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%8E%D1%82+%D0%B8+%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BF%D0%BD%D1%83%D1%82+%D0%B4%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B3%D0%B8%D0%B5,+%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B5+%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B5+%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%8B&source=bl&ots=bf14PULA74&sig=ACfU3U3rVMX-mwa8NstIIW64SFRW_P3xFA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiiv8fSmuLmAhWk1aYKHa5lCU8Q6AEwBnoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=%D0%9D%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%8B%20%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%B1%D1%8B%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%8E%D1%82%20%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%B4%D0%B0%20%D0%BE%20%D1%81%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B8%D1%85%20%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D1%8B%D1%85%20%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B0%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%85%3B%20%D0%BD%D0%BE%20%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B5%20%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%8B%20%D0%B3%D0%B8%D0%B1%D0%BD%D1%83%D1%82%2C%20%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B8%20%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%89%D0%B0%D1%8E%D1%82%D1%81%D1%8F%20%D0%B2%20%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B5%D0%BC%2C%20%D0%B2%20%D1%83%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%B1%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5%2C%20%D0%BD%D0%B0%20%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BC%20%D0%B2%D1%8B%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%8E%D1%82%20%D0%B8%20%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BF%D0%BD%D1%83%D1%82%20%D0%B4%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B3%D0%B8%D0%B5%2C%20%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B5%20%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B5%20%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%8B&f=false

Forgetting

“India and Pakistan, where people starve in the streets, waste billions on military spending because of the Kashmir dispute. Now some of India’s extreme Hindu nationalists warn they want to reabsorb Pakistan, Bangladesh, and even Sri Lanka into Mother India. Previous Indian leaders have been cautious. But not PM Modi. He is showing signs of power intoxication.”

Eric Margolis (journalist) (1942) American journalist

Hair-Trigger Nuclear Alert Over Kashmir, https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/08/11/hair-trigger-nuclear-alert-over-kashmir (11 August 2019)

“Communication is a sign of dysfunction. It means people aren’t working together in a close, organic way. We should be trying to figure out ways for teams to communicate less with each other, not more.”

Jeff Bezos (1964) American entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, Inc.

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

Way, Communication

“In a war, to win a victory or suffer a defeat are common things. The essential is that we must win final victory. We must help all officers and men and the people to bear that firmly in mind so that they will not be self-complacent when winning and disappointed when losing, but instead will always make utmost efforts to overcome difficulties and hardships and advance towards final victory.”

Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) Vietnamese communist leader and first president of Vietnam

Instructions Given at the Conference (Fall 1950)
1950's

Men, War, Making love, Disappointment

“I wanted to document, somehow, the strength of those people that I had known . . . when the migrant worker was living without any kind of protection.”

Tomás Rivera (1935–1984) American academic

On his novel . . . y no se lo tragó la tierra (as quoted in “Tomás Rivera: December 22, 1935–May 16, 1984” https://www.humanitiestexas.org/programs/tx-originals/list/tomas-rivera)

“Fear? I believe that fear and lack of fear form a contradiction. The point is to take up our ideology, and unleash the courage within us. It is our ideology that makes us brave, that gives us courage. In my opinion, no one is born brave. It is society, the class struggle, that makes people and communists courageous--the class struggle, the proletariat, the Party, and our ideology.”

Abimael Guzmán (1934–2021) Peruvian communist

Interview with Chairman Gonzalo

Fear, Making love, Courage

“I quitted the Bastille, about half-past eleven in the evening. The night was dark, the quarter in which I resided but little frequented. What was my surprise, then, to hear myself acclaimed by eight or ten thousand persons. My door was forced open; the courtyard, the staircase, the rooms were crowded with people. I was carried straight to the arms of my wife.”

Alessandro Cagliostro (1743–1795) Italian occultist

Cagliostro: the Splendour And Misery of a Master of Magic by W.R.H. Trowbridge, (William Rutherford Hayes), (August 1910) https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Trowbridge%2c%20W%2e%20R%2e%20H%2e%20%28William%20Rutherford%20Hayes%29%2c%201866%2d1938

Past, Personality, Night

“TO AMERICANS. THAT some desperate wretches should be willing to steal and enslave men byut that many civilized, nay, christianized people should approve, and be concerned in the savage practice, is surprising; and still persist, though it has been so often proved contrary to the light of nature, to every principle of Justice and Humanity, and even good policy, by a succession of eminent men, and several late publications.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1770s, African Slavery in America (March 1775)

Men, Justice, Nature, Light

“The KGB, in Kalugin’s view, was more successful than the CIA, partly because of its skill in exploiting the corruption which became endemic under Indira Gandhi’s regime. As Inder Malhotra noted, though corruption was not new in India: People expected Indira Gandhi’s party, committed to bringing socialism to the country, to be more honest and cleaner than the old undivided Congress. But this turned out to be a vain hope. On the contrary, compared with the amassing of wealth by some of her close associates, the misdeeds of the discarded Syndicate leaders, once looked upon as godfathers of corrupt Congressmen, began to appear trivial.”

Indíra Gándhí (1917–1984) Indian politician and Prime Minister

The Mitrokhin Archive

Hope, Appearance, Success, Country

“We wish in our country that morality may be substituted for egotism, probity for false honour, principles for usages, duties for good manners, the empire of reason for the tyranny of fashion, a contempt of vice for a contempt of misfortune, pride for insolence, magnanimity for vanity, the love of glory for the love of money, good people for good company, merit for intrigue, genius for wit, truth for tinsel show, the attractions of happiness for the ennui of sensuality, the grandeur of man for the littleness of the great, a people magnanimous, powerful, happy, for a people amiable, frivolous and miserable; in a word, all the virtues and miracles of a Republic instead of all the vices and absurdities of a Monarchy.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Principles to Form the Basis of the Administration of the Republic (February 1794)

Love, Money, Happiness, Truth

“We want, in a word, to fulfil nature’s wishes, to further the destinies of humanity, to keep the promises of philosophy, to absolve providence of the long reign of crime and tyranny. So that France, once illustrious among enslaved countries, eclipsing the glory of all the free peoples that have existed, may become the model for all nations, the terror of oppressors, the consolation of the oppressed, the ornament of the universe; and that in sealing our work with our blood, we may at least glimpse the shining dawn of universal felicity. That is our ambition, that is our goal.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

"On the Principles of Political Morality that Should Guide the National Convention in the Domestic Administration of the Republic" (5 February 1794)

Nature, Universe, Country

“I never do fairy tale people, I do people just as they are.”

Jack Kirby (1917–1994) American comic book artist, writer and editor

“1993: Jack Kirby: The Hardest Working Man in Comics by Steve Pastis” https://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/effect/category/interview/, Happening Magazine, (1993) by Steve Pastin; as quoted by Rand Hoppe, The Kirby Effect The Journal of the Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center, (28 April 2018). 1993

“Do not leave Japa and Sadhana even for a day. Adjust and adapt. Bear insult and injury. Learn to forget trifles. Tactfully move with people. Train everyone in Bhajan and Kirtan. Create spiritual vibrations wherever you go. Then you will find peace, joy, happiness and prosperity. There will be joy in all faces. This is the way for harmony. When you are agitated and irritated, take to Japa or leave the place for some time. Love all and serve all.”

Swami Sivananda (1887–1963) Indian philosopher

When You Are Agitated
Autobiography of Swami Sivananda

Love, Happiness, Making love, Peace

“They balance each other out. Chris and I are like Jay and Beyonce; two paranoid ironists and two calm grounded people.”

Chris Martin (1977) musician, co-founder of Coldplay

http://belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/news/chris-martin-admits-his-friendship-with-jayz-is-hilarious-28686561.html source
Gwyneth Paltrow to Q Magazine on the friendship they share with Jay Z & Beyoncé, 2011.

“I love the stuff and material of writing: words. The games you can play with them. The rhythm and lyricism in a good passage of writing. The power of a simple sentence. I also love the paradoxical bind of writing as both freedom and constraint. You start creating characters and scenes out of thin air. But if you do it well enough, that freedom constricts, because your characters are no longer inside you. They become their own people, agents on the page who need to act and think and feel in ways true to who they are…”

Randa Abdel-Fattah (1979) contemporary Australian writer of novels for young adults

On writing as a kind of spiritual act in “Both Freedom and Constraint: An Interview with Randa Abdel-Fattah” https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/both-freedom-and-constraint-an-interview-with in Words Without Borders (May 2015)

Love, Making love, Way, Feeling

“I think it’s an organic process. I don’t plot. I don’t plan. I start writing and characters and geography emerges. I find that in telling stories, the best laid plans go poof when your characters do what they want to do because you don’t control them—they become real and live their own lives. I certainly am influenced by the people I meet and the places I go to when I create my characters but it’s an intuitive thing, I just know who this person is or that person is and I know their name and I just know. And what I don’t know, he or she tells me.”

Amulya Malladi (1974) Indian writer

On formulating characters in “An Interview with Amulya Malladi” http://jaggerylit.com/an-interview-with-amulya-malladi/ in Jaggery

Thinking, Personality

“My fellow Americans, I am confident we will succeed in this mission because we are on the right side of history. We were founded upon a belief in human dignity — that no matter who you are, or where you come from, or what you look like, or what religion you practice, you are equal in the eyes of God and equal in the eyes of the law. Even in this political season, even as we properly debate what steps I and future Presidents must take to keep our country safe, let’s make sure we never forget what makes us exceptional. Let’s not forget that freedom is more powerful than fear; that we have always met challenges — whether war or depression, natural disasters or terrorist attacks — by coming together around our common ideals as one nation, as one people. So long as we stay true to that tradition, I have no doubt America will prevail.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

We Will Not Be Terrorized (December 2015), Address to the Nation by the President on San Bernardino (December 2015)

God, War, Fear, Making love

“This weekend, our hearts are with the people of San Bernardino — another American community shattered by unspeakable violence. We salute the first responders — the police, the SWAT teams, the EMTs — who responded so quickly, with such courage, and saved lives. We pray for the injured as they fight to recover from their wounds.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

We Will Not Be Terrorized (December 2015)

Communication, Courage, Heart, Fight

“A great many people really care very little for their own compatriots, but they hate anything foreign.”

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk The Spirit of Russia

The Spirit of Russia
I
1919
Thomas
Garrigue Masaryk
Paul
Eden
Paul
Cedar
277–278

Hate

“All that the sovereign people, legislators, and reformers see in public office is, to speak plainly, their own benefit.”

Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist

Source: What is Property? (1840), Ch. I

“Life has improved, and now as never before the doors to a happy and cultured life for all the peoples of our Union stand wide open. We are already enjoying the first fruits of our victory and we see that an unparalleled rise in the standard of living and culture of all the peoples of the Soviet Union awaits us. And in spite of all this, we have not yet seen the last of people who in their blind hatred of the new world are planning the seizure and dismemberment of the Soviet Union. Well, what shall we say to them? It is true that we appeared in the world without the permission of these gentlemen, and undoubtedly against their wishes.... This means that the time has come when the old world must make way for the new.”

Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986) Soviet politician and diplomat

Speech (10 January 1930) as quoted in The Communist International (1936) Vol. 13

Life, Happiness, World, Making love

“Because in the end, the threat to our democracy doesn’t just come from Donald Trump or the current batch of Republicans in Congress or the Koch Brothers and their lobbyists, or too much compromise from Democrats, or Russian hacking. The biggest threat to our democracy is indifference. The biggest threat to our democracy is cynicism – a cynicism that’s led too many people to turn away from politics and stay home on election day. To all the young people who are here today, there are now more eligible voters in your generation than in any other, which means your generation now has more power than anybody to change things. If you want it, you can make sure America gets out of its current funk. If you actually care about it, you have the power to make sure we seize a brighter future. But to exercise that clout, to exercise that power, you have to show up.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2018, Speech at the University of Illinoise Speech (2018)

Making love, Exercises, Democracy, Home

“One election will not fix everything that needs to be fixed, but it will be a start. And you have to start it. What’s going to fix our democracy is you. People ask me, what are you going to do for the election? No, the question is: what are you going to do? You’re the antidote. Your participation and your spirit and your determination, not just in this election but in every subsequent election, and in the days between elections.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2018, Speech at the University of Illinoise Speech (2018)

Democracy, Question

“And we won’t win people over by calling them names, or dismissing entire chunks of the country as racist, or sexist, or homophobic. When I say bring people together, I mean all of our people. You know, this whole notion that has sprung up recently about Democrats need to choose between trying to appeal to the white working class voters, or voters of color, and women and LGBT Americans, that’s nonsense. I don’t buy that. I got votes from every demographic. We won by reaching out to everybody and competing everywhere and by fighting for every vote. And that’s what we’ve got to do in this election and every election after that.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2018, Speech at the University of Illinoise Speech (2018)

Women, Color, Fight, Country

“It should not be Democratic or Republican, it should not be a partisan issue to say that we do not pressure the attorney general or the FBI to use the criminal justice system as a cudgel to punish our political opponents. Or to explicitly call on the attorney general to protect members of our own party from prosecution because an election happens to be coming up. I’m not making that up. That’s not hypothetical. It shouldn’t be Democratic or Republican to say that we don’t threaten the freedom of the press because they say things or publish stories we don’t like. I complained plenty about Fox News but you never heard me threaten to shut them down, or call them enemies of the people. It shouldn’t be Democratic or Republican to say we don’t target certain groups of people based on what they look like or how they pray. We are Americans. We’re supposed to stand up to bullies. Not follow them. We’re supposed to stand up to discrimination. And we’re sure as heck supposed to stand up, clearly and unequivocally, to Nazi sympathizers. How hard can that be? Saying that Nazis are bad. I’ll be honest, sometimes I get into arguments with progressive friends about what the current political movement requires. There are well-meaning folks passionate about social justice, who think things have gotten so bad, the lines have been so starkly drawn, that we have to fight fire with fire, we have to do the same things to the Republicans that they do to us, adopt their tactics, say whatever works, make up stuff about the other side. I don’t agree with that.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2018, Speech at the University of Illinoise Speech (2018)

Bad luck, Making love, Justice, Thinking

“Appealing to tribe, appealing to fear, pitting one group against another, telling people that order and security will be restored if it weren’t for those who don’t look like us or don’t sound like us or don’t pray like we do, that’s an old playbook. It’s as old as time. And in a healthy democracy it doesn’t work. Our antibodies kick in, and people of goodwill from across the political spectrum callout the bigots and the fearmongers, and work to compromise and get things done and promote the better angels of our nature.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2018, Speech at the University of Illinoise Speech (2018)

Fear, Angels, Democracy, Nature

“This weekend, as we celebrate Memorial Day, families across America will gather in backyards and front porches, fire up the barbeque, kick back with friends, and spend time with people they care about. That is as it should be. But I also hope that as you do so, you’ll take some time to reflect on what Memorial Day is all about; on why we set this day aside as a time of national remembrance.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2010, Weekly Address (May 29, 2010)

Family, Hope, Memory, Time

“There are any number of reasons America emerged from its humble beginnings as a cluster of colonies to become the most prosperous, most powerful nation on earth. There is the hard work, the resilience, and the character of our people. There is the ingenuity and enterprising spirit of our entrepreneurs and innovators. There are the ideals of opportunity, equality, and freedom that have not only inspired our people to perfect our own union, but inspired others to perfect theirs as well. But from the very start, there was also something more. A steadfast commitment to serve, to fight, and if necessary, to die, to preserve America and advance the ideals we cherish. It’s a commitment witnessed at each defining moment along the journey of this country. It’s what led a rag-tag militia to face British soldiers at Lexington and Concord. It’s what led young men, in a country divided half slave and half free, to take up arms to save our union. It’s what led patriots in each generation to sacrifice their own lives to secure the life of our nation, from the trenches of World War I to the battles of World War II, from Inchon and Khe Sanh, from Mosul to Marja.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2010, Weekly Address (May 29, 2010)

Life, Men, War, World

“What would you say of that man who was made king by the error of the people, if he had so far forgotten his natural condition as to imagine that this kingdom was due to him, that he deserved it, and that it belonged to him of right? You would marvel at his stupidity and folly.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

But is there less in the people of rank who live in so strange a forgetfulness of their natural condition?
Discourses on the Condition of the Great

Stupidity, Error, Imagination, Nature

“People die from typewriters falling on their heads.”

Jonathan Davis (1971) Heavy metal singer, frontman for Korn

talking about taking chances because you can die at any moment.

“People are eating meat. As long as people eat meat, there will be war. And if a man eats meat, he will be sure to have illicit sex also.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Prabhupada: Your Ever Well-Wisher, Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, p. 77. (2003)

War, Sex

“If, by the virtue of charity or the circumstance of desperation, you ever chance to spend a little time around a Substance-recovery halfway facility like Enfield MA’s state-funded Ennet House, you will acquire many exotic new facts…That certain persons simply will not like you no matter what you do. That sleeping can be a form of emotional escape and can with sustained effort be abused. That purposeful sleep-deprivation can also be an abusable escape. That you do not have to like a person in order to learn from him/her/it. That loneliness is not a function of solitude. That logical validity is not a guarantee of truth. That it takes effort to pay attention to any one stimulus for more than a few seconds. That boring activities become, perversely, much less boring if you concentrate intently on them. That if enough people in a silent room are drinking coffee it is possible to make out the sound of steam coming off the coffee. That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt. That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness. That it is possible to fall asleep during an anxiety attack. That concentrating intently on anything is very hard work. That 99% of compulsive thinkers’ thinking is about themselves; that 99% of this self-directed thinking consists of imagining and then getting ready for things that are going to happen to them; and then, weirdly, that if they stop to think about it, that 100% of the things they spend 99% of their time and energy imagining and trying to prepare for all the contingencies and consequences of are never good. In short that 99% of the head’s thinking activity consists of trying to scare the everliving shit out of itself. That it is possible to make rather tasty poached eggs in a microwave oven. That some people’s moms never taught them to cover up or turn away when they sneeze. That the people to be the most frightened of are the people who are the most frightened. That it takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak. That no single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable. That other people can often see things about you that you yourself cannot see, even if those people are stupid. That having a lot of money does not immunize people from suffering or fear. That trying to dance sober is a whole different kettle of fish. That different people have radically different ideas of basic personal hygiene. That, perversely, it is often more fun to want something than to have it. That if you do something nice for somebody in secret, anonymously, without letting the person you did it for know it was you or anybody else know what it was you did or in any way or form trying to get credit for it, it’s almost its own form of intoxicating buzz. That anonymous generosity, too, can be abused. That it is permissible to want. That everybody is identical in their unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else. That this isn’t necessarily perverse. That there might not be angels, but there are people who might as well be angels.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest (1996)

Money, Truth, Secret, Stupidity

“A constitution is the property of a nation, and not of those who exercise the government. All the constitutions of America are declared to be established on the authority of the people. In France, the word nation is used istead of the people; but in both cases, a constitution is a thing antecedent to the government, and always distinct therefrom.”

Thomas Paine book Rights of Man

Part Two, Chapter III
1790s, Rights of Man, Part 2 (1792)

Exercises

“The people of America had been bred up in the same prejudices against France, which at that time characterized the people of England; but experience and an acquaintance with the French Nation have most effectually shown to the American the falsehood of those prejudices; and I do not believe that a more cordial and confidential intercourse exists between any two countries than between America and France.”

Thomas Paine book Rights of Man

Preface
1790s, Rights of Man, Part I (1791)

Time, Country

“It was the cause of America that made me an author. The force with which it struck my mind and the dangerous condition the country appeared to me in, by courting an impossible and an unnatural reconciliation with those who were determined to reduce her, instead of striking out into the only line that could cement and save her, A Declaration Of Independence, made it impossible for me, feeling as I did, to be silent: and if, in the course of more than seven years, I have rendered her any service, I have likewise added something to the reputation of literature, by freely and disinterestedly employing it in the great cause of mankind, and showing that there may be genius without prostitution. Independence always appeared to me practicable and probable, provided the sentiment of the country could be formed and held to the object: and there is no instance in the world, where a people so extended, and wedded to former habits of thinking, and under such a variety of circumstances, were so instantly and effectually pervaded, by a turn in politics, as in the case of independence; and who supported their opinion, undiminished, through such a succession of good and ill fortune, till they crowned it with success. But as the scenes of war are closed, and every man preparing for home and happier times, I therefore take my leave of the subject. I have most sincerely followed it from beginning to end, and through all its turns and windings: and whatever country I may hereafter be in, I shall always feel an honest pride at the part I have taken and acted, and a gratitude to nature and providence for putting it in my power to be of some use to mankind.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

The Crisis No. XIII
1770s, The American Crisis (1776–1783)

War, World, Feeling, Home

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=807&chapter=88152&layout=html&Itemid=27 (6 January 1816) ME 14:384 1810s

Reading

“The racism in England was not so institutionalized. Well, it was institutionalized, but then it was so efficiently realized that it didn’t need institutions, if you understand what I mean. In England, it was much easier not to be affected by it to that extent because my parents were students and people were somewhat respectful.”

Tsitsi Dangarembga (1959) Zimbabwean author and filmmaker

On her experiences with racism in England in “An Interview with Tsitsi Dangarembga: An excerpt” https://brickmag.com/an-interview-with-tsitsi-dangarembga/ in Brick Magazine (December 2012)

Understanding, Parent

“Most people don’t think I’m rational. They’re too busy featuring their hurt. They find it irrational not to feature your hurt. That’s how fucked up they are.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Oui interview (1979)

Business, Thinking, Hurt

“The cool-person syndrome is peculiarly American. Part of that has to do with the way the educational business is run in the U. S. It’s not based on how much you can teach your child: it’s based on how much money the suppliers of basic materials can make off your child. Somewhere along the line most people pick up the desire to be a cool person, which is just another way to make them buy things. Once you’ve decided that you need to be a cool person, it makes you a possible victim of anyone whose products are the equivalent of bottled smoke. Somebody tells you to buy this particularly useless item and you’ll be a cool person. No matter how stupid it seems, you have to buy it. Pet Rocks. Pringle’s potato chips. whatever it is — the newest, the latest. Since the cool-person thing is something you learn in school, and since the school business is pretty suspicious and definitely tied up with the government, it makes you wonder whether or not the desire to be cool is part of a government plot to make you buy stupid things.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Oui interview (1979)

Money, Stupidity, Education, Making love

“I can’t talk to you about music because you don’t know anything about music. I can talk to you about politics or sociology and all that peripheral stuff, but I can’t talk to you about music. There’s not enough information in common that I could say to you so you’d be able to understand. Besides, the people who read OUI don’t give a fuck about music anyway.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Oui interview (1979)

Music, Understanding, Reading

“The overthrow of communism gave a green light to the unbridled exploitative impulses of Western corporate interests. No longer needing to convince workers that they live better than their counterparts in Russia, and no longer constrained by a competing system, the corporate class is rolling back the many gains that working people in the West have won over the years. Now that the free market, in its meanest form, is emerging triumphant in the East, so will it prevail in the West.”

Michael Parenti (1933) American academic

Source: Blackshirts and Reds (1997), p. 58

Communication, Light

“We are socialists because we see the social question as a matter of necessity and justice for the very existence of a state for our people, not a question of cheap pity or insulting sentimentality. The worker has a claim to a living standard that corresponds to what he produces. We have no intention of begging for that right… Since the political powers of the day are neither willing nor able to create such a situation, socialism must be fought for. It is a fighting slogan both inwardly and outwardly. It is aimed domestically at the bourgeois parties and Marxism at the same time, because both are sworn enemies of the coming workers’ state. It is directed abroad at all powers that threaten our national existence and thereby the possibility of the coming socialist national state.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

“Those Damn Nazis: Why Are We Socialists?” https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/haken32.htm written by Joseph Goebbels and Mjölnir, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken, Nazi propaganda pamphlet (Munich: Verlag Frz. Eher, 1932) 1930s

Justice, Question, Time, Fight

“My decision to join the Communist party emanated from my belief that the only true path of liberation for black people is the one that leads toward a complete and total overthrow of the capitalist class in this country and all its manifold institutional appendages which insure its ability to exploit the masses and enslave black people.”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author

Source: "I am a Revolutionary Black Woman" (1970), p. 483

Decision, Country

“Yet of old the matter seemed even to be a law, and a certain law-giver among them bade the domestic slaves neither to use ointments when dry (i. e. except in bathing) nor to keep youths, giving the free this place of honor, or rather of shamefulness. Yet they, however, did not think the thing shameful, but as being a grand privilege, and one too great for slaves, the Athenian people, the wisest of people, and Solon who is so great among them, permitted it to the free alone. And sundry other books of the philosophers may one see full of this disease. But we do not therefore say that the thing was made lawful, but that they who received this law were pitiable, and objects for many tears. For these are treated in the same way as women that play the whore. Or rather their plight is more miserable. For in the case of the one the intercourse, even if lawless, is yet according to nature: but this is contrary both to law and nature. For even if there were no hell, and no punishment had been threatened, this were worse than any punishment. Yet if you say they found pleasure in it, you tell me what adds to the vengeance. For suppose I were to see a person running naked, with his body all besmeared with mire, and yet not covering himself, but exulting in it, I should not rejoice with him, but should rather bewail that he did not even perceive that he was doing shamefully.”

John Chrysostom (349–407) important Early Church Father

Women, Pleasure, Books, Youth

“I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other. I have read the speeches and writings of Ravana, Chanakiya, Dadabhai Naoroji, Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries like England, France, America and Russia. Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done.”

Nathuram Godse (1910–1949) Assassin of Mahatma Gandhi

Nathuram Godse: Why I Assassinated Gandhi (1993)

Books, History, Study, Reading

“This idea of purity and that you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke — you should get over that quickly. … The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids, and share certain things with you. … I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media — there is this sense sometimes of the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people, and that’s enough. If I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself. Did you see how woke I was, I called you out. Then I’m going to get on my TV and watch my show … That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Comments at an Obama Foundation event, Chicago (29 October 2019), as quoted in "Obama Calls Out Online Call-Out Culture: 'That’s Not Activism"", Rolling Stone (30 October 2019) https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/obama-calls-out-call-out-culture-not-activism-905600/ 2019

Love, World, Making love, Way

“I know that Americans of goodwill continue to hold a wide range of views on this issue. Opposition in some cases has been based on sincere and deeply held beliefs. All of us who welcome today’s news should be mindful of that fact; recognize different viewpoints; revere our deep commitment to religious freedom. But today should also give us hope that on the many issues with which we grapple, often painfully, real change is possible. Shifts in hearts and minds is possible. And those who have come so far on their journey to equality have a responsibility to reach back and help others join them. Because for all our differences, we are one people, stronger together than we could ever be alone. That’s always been our story. We are big and vast and diverse; a nation of people with different backgrounds and beliefs, different experiences and stories, but bound by our shared ideal that no matter who you are or what you look like, how you started off, or how and who you love, America is a place where you can write your own destiny.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Supreme Court Decision on Marriage Equality (June 2015)

Love, Making love, Hope, Freedom

“So progress is not inevitable. History does not always march forward. History can travel sideways and sometimes backwards. Building trust after years of conflict takes time. Being able to look past the scars of violence takes courage. Securing the gains of freedom and democracy requires good faith and strength of will, and tolerance and respect for diversity, and it requires vigilance from all citizens. The American people know well that rights and freedoms are not given; they have to be won through struggle and through discipline, and persistence and faith. And it’s often young people who have led these struggles; who have compelled us to slowly but surely perfect our own union in America over time.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall Speech (November 2014)

Faith, Travel, Democracy, History

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy.
2008, A More Perfect Union (March 2008)

Perfection

“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens,) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove, that Foreign Influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Attributed to George Washington, John Frederick Schroeder, D. D., Maxims of Washington; Political, Social, Moral, and Religious. Third Edition, p. 90, (1854).
Posthumous attributions

Jealousy, History

“The scheme, my dear Marqs., which you propose as a precedent to encourage the emancipation of the black people of this Country from that state of Bondage in wch. they are held, is a striking evidence of the benevolence of your Heart. I shall be happy to join you in so laudable a work; but will defer going into a detail of the business, till I have the pleasure of seeing you.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

" TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS." in a letter to Thomas Mifflin (17 JUNE 1783); published in The Writings of George Washington (1938), edited by John C. Fitzpatrick, Vol. 26, p. 294
1780s

Happiness, Pleasure, Business, Heart

“It is chiefly, I regret to say, through journalism that such people find expression. I regret it because there is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. By carefully chronicling the current events of contemporary life, it shows us of what very little importance such events really are. By invariably discussing the unnecessary, it makes us understand what things are requisite for culture, and what are not.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

The Critic as Artist (1891), Part II

Life, Making love, Communication, Understanding

“Puritans cannot destroy a beautiful thing, yet, by means of their extraordinary prurience, they can almost taint beauty for a moment. It is chiefly, I regret to say, through journalism that such people find expression. I regret it because there is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

The Critic as Artist (1891), Part I

Beauty, Communication

Quotes about people page 45

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Quotes about people
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