Quotes about people
page 93

“Fame is what gets people to go watch your film. I'm just glad to be in a film i believe in. And if it take's fame to get people there, then it's my job. But i'd rather be a ghost writer than have my name down.”

River Phoenix (1970–1993) American actor, musician, and activist

Details Magazine, (1991)

“There are people who actually like programming. I don't understand why they like programming.”

Rasmus Lerdorf (1968) Danish programmer and creator of PHP

Itconversations.com http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail3298.html

Understanding

“You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. When you get it right, it is obvious that it is right—at least if you have any experience—because usually what happens is that more comes out than goes in. …The inexperienced, the crackpots, and people like that, make guesses that are simple, but you can immediately see that they are wrong, so that does not count. Others, the inexperienced students, make guesses that are very complicated, and it sort of looks as if it is all right, but I know it is not true because the truth always turns out to be simpler than you thought.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

as quoted by K.C. Cole, Sympathetic Vibrations: Reflections on Physics as a Way of Life (1985)

Truth, Beauty

“Terrorism must be outlawed by all civilized nations — not explained or rationalized, but fought and eradicated. Nothing can, nothing will justify the murder of innocent people and helpless children.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Hope, Despair, and Memory (1986)

Children

“The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.”

Patrick Henry (1736–1799) attorney, planter, politician and Founding Father of the United States

Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention (Monday, 9 June 1788), as contained in The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: Volume 3, ed. Jonathan Elliot, published by the editor (1836), p. 170
1780s

“The things I learned from the army - and I think it was a lesson for life - was how to work in unison with other people. How to take responsibility. Things like that I learned in the army.”

Oded Fehr (1970) Israeli-American actor

Interview with Oded Fehr http://www.somethingjewish.co.uk/articles/69_interview_with_oded_.htm (2001)

Life, Thinking, Learning

“Commonplace people have an answer for everything and nothing ever surprises them. They try to look as though they knew what you were about to say better than you did yourself, and when it is their turn to speak, they repeat with great assurance something that they have heard other people say, as though it were their own invention.”

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) French painter

25 February 1852 (p. 152)
1831 - 1863, Delacroix' 'Journal' (1847 – 1863)

“The difference between a leadership and a command company can be very great indeed, because in a hierarchical situation, people who have concerns about reactions against themselves would simply not put forward negative information.”

Marvin Bower (1903–2003) American business theorist

Source: The Will to Manage (1966), p. 34

“I just finished with nine months of treatment for cancer. First they poison you, then they mutilate you, then they burn you. I've had more fun. And when it's over, you’re so glad that you're grateful to absolutely everyone. And I am. The trouble is, I'm not a better person. I was in great hopes that confronting my own mortality would make me deeper, more thoughtful. Many lovely people sent books on how to find a more spiritual meaning in life. My response was, "Oh, hell, I can’t go on a spiritual journey—I'm constipated."”

Molly Ivins (1944–2007) American journalist

October 2000 syndicated column

Love, Life, Books, Hope

“Leadership is the activity of influencing people to cooperate toward some goal which they come to find desirable.”

Ordway Tead (1891–1973) American academic

Source: The art of leadership (1935), p. 20; As cited in: Joseph Clarence Rost (1993) Leadership for the Twenty-first Century. p. 48.

“The power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Source: Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter X-XIV, Chapter XI.

“A very bold political measure of Lycurgus is his redistribution of the land. For there was a dreadful inequality in this regard, the city was heavily burdened with indigent and helpless people, and wealth was wholly concentrated in the hands of a few. Determined, therefore, to banish insolence and envy and crime and luxury, and those yet more deep-seated and afflictive diseases of the state, poverty and wealth, he persuaded his fellow-citizens to make one parcel of all their territory and divide it up anew, and to live with one another on a basis of entire uniformity and equality in the means of subsistence, seeking preëminence through virtue alone, assured that there was no other difference or inequality between man and man than that which was established by blame for base actions and praise for good ones.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Lycurgus, sec. 8. The bolded phrase is often quoted in a paraphrase by Ugo Foscolo: "Wealth and poverty are the oldest and most deadly ailments of all republics" (Le ricchezze e la povertà sono le più antiche e mortali infermità delle repubbliche), Monitore Italiano, 5 February 1798.
Parallel Lives

Disease, Affliction, Envy, Wealth

“People go into science out of curiosity, not to win awards. But scientists are human and have ambitions. Even the best scientists are often insecure and feel the need for recognition.”

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (1952) Nobel prize winning American and British structural biologist

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

Feeling, Science

“Often he would trail off with fans who came backstage after a show and go off with them to a party or something. He judged people as they were and if they invited him and he was in the right mood to go, he went. We used to call him 'Bon the Likeable.”

Bon Scott (1946–1980) Rock musician

Angus Young, from Sounds, March 1980.
About

Mood

“We celebrate who we are although we come from different communities. We are one nation, one people. We have differences and these cause problems and tension at times but we are not on the brink of inter ethnic strife.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Opening address, Fiji Week celebrations, 7 October 2005.

Communication, Problem, Time

“One of the exciting things about today is [that] people are not, for the most part (…) even in their spiritual domain, they're not satisfied necessarily with just an internal revelatory spiritual experience anymore. Most people that I meet are hooked up in such a way that it only is really deeply meaningful to them unless it actually starts to transform how they move and experience… their contribution to life.”

Adyashanti (1962) Spiritual teacher

Wake Up San Francisco event (2015) Source: Alanis Morissette - Wake Up San Francisco with Adyashanti & Tami Simon - YouTube (starts at 11:43) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr_ClddVgJs

Life, Way, Parting

“I'd hear, "Because they paid the man, there's no money for the woman." How many times do you think I heard this? Over and over. Then I became a sex symbol. Now, how the hell did that happen? I don't exactly know the moment when it happened, but all of a sudden I'm a bombshell. The way I discovered this was I did Desperado. I had a very hard time with the love scene. I cried throughout the love scene. That's why you never see long pieces of the love scene — it's little pieces cut together. I'm crying most of the time so they have to take little pieces. It took eight hours instead of an hour. I nearly got fired. … Because I didn't want to be naked in front of a camera. The whole time, I'm thinking of my father and my brother… And then when the movie comes out, I read the first review. What do they say about me. "Salma Hayek is a bombshell." I had heard that when a movie does badly here, they say it bombs. So I'm crying. Thinking they're saying, "That terrible actress! It's a bomb! Salma Hayek is the worst part of the movie!" I called my friend and said, "The critics are destroying me!" She says, "No, they're saying you're very sexy." And then I look at all the reviews, and everybody said I was very sexy. So I'm very confused. I said, "I wonder if that's good or bad." I hear, "Yes, that's good." Then I do Fools Rush In, and I'm a pregnant woman. And they say I'm sexy again! I go, "But I'm pregnant!"”

Salma Hayek (1966) Mexican-American actress and producer

I'm not even naked in this movie, and they still say I'm sexy. And then it became very depressing — I thought, I guess I'm reduced to that now. That's all I am in the perception of these people.
O interview (2003)

Love, Money, Fools, Sex

“People who enter the United States without our permission are illegal aliens and illegal aliens should not be treated the same as people who enter the United States legally.”

Chuck Schumer (1950) U.S. Senator from the State of New York

Speech on immigration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdL2k8jbnAs (24 June 2009), quoted in "Schumer talks tough on immigration reform issue" https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/schumer-talks-tough-on-immigration-reform-issue-1.1868825 by Tom Brune, Newsday.com (18 April 2010)

“We believe in a democratic society by governments freely and periodically elected by the people… We believe, in the virtue of hard work and that those who work harder in society should be given greater rewards… We believe that the world does not owe us a living and that we have to earn our keep." Adapted from speech by S Rajaratnam, Minister for Foreign Affairs, at a dinner in honour of His Excellency Mr. Hans Dietrich Genscher, Minister for Foreign Affairs.”

Sinnathamby Rajaratnam (1915–2006) Early life

20 April 1977.

World

“The term organization, and the principles that govern it, are inherent in every form of concerted human effort, even where there are no more than two people involved. For example take two men who combine their efforts to lift and move a stone that is too heavy to be moved by one. In the fact of this combination of effort we have the reality of human organization for a given purpose. Likewise in the procedure necessary to this end we find the fundamental principles of organization. To begin with, the two lifters must lift in unison. Without this combination of effort the result would be futile. Here we have co-ordination, the first principle of organization. Likewise one of these two must give the signal "heave ho!" or its equivalent, to the other, thus illustrating the principle of leadership or command. Again the other may have a suggestion to make to the leader in the matter of procedure, which involves the vital staff principle of advice or counsel. And so on. Thus in every form of concerted effort principles of organization are as essential and inevitable as organization itself.”

James D. Mooney (1884–1957) American businessman

Source: "The principles of organization", 1937, p. 90

Men, Reality, Effort

“We, her people of Gibraltar, are perhaps the only ones in her reign who have chosen to remain British on two occasions… We’ve chosen her twice… So we can proudly say that she is our Queen by invitation and not imposition.”

Fabian Picardo (1972) Gibraltarian politician and barrister

About Queen Elizabeth II in a speech to crowds in Casemates Square on Gibraltar National Day 2013.
[12 September 2015, Gibraltar: Elizabeth “our Queen by invitation and not by imposition; twice voted”, http://en.mercopress.com/2015/09/12/gibraltar-elizabeth-our-queen-by-invitation-and-not-by-imposition-twice-voted, MercoPress, 20 October 2015]
2015

“What is the true End of Monarchy? Not to deprive People of their natural Liberty; but to correct their Actions, in order to attain the supreme Good.
The Form of Government, therefore, which best attains this End, and at the same Time sets less Bounds than others to natural Liberty, is that which coincides with the Views and Purposes of rational Creatures, and answers the End, upon which we ought to fix a steadfast Eye in the Regulations of civil Polity.”

Catherine the Great (1729–1796) Empress of Russia

Proposals for a New Law Code (1768)

Nature, Time

“A worldwide movement is emerging that puts an end to the politically correct doctrines of the elites. The voice of freedom cannot be imprisoned. I tell you, the battle of the elite against the people will be won by the people.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Final Statement of Geert Wilders at his Trial https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9404/wilders-trial-closing-statement (23 November 2016) 2010s

Freedom

“Working your whole life wondering where the day went, the subway stays packed like a multicultural slaveship. It's rushhour 2.30 to 8 non-stoppin and people coming home after corporate sharecropping.”

Immortal Technique (1978) American rapper and activist

Harlem Streets
Albums, Revolutionary Vol. 2 (2003)

Life, Home

“What is actually happening now is that monoploy capitalism needs the state to disempower ordinary people's institutions and lives. What we are actually developing in modern Europe is a post-democratic society. We are creating an oligarchical elite structure where moneyed elites, the elites of industry cohabit with political elites and they move into each other's regimes and spaces. So we have now produced what I would call a market state, and the market state really just exists for the benefit of those in the top. And there is clear economic and social evidence for this, it is very clear that only those at the very top of society in the developed world have really benefited from the last thirty years.”

Phillip Blond (1966) British philosopher

Money, World

“The brave and faithful people of Iran too have many questions and grievances, including: the coup d’etat of 1953 and the subsequent toppling of the legal government of the day, opposition to the Islamic revolution, transformation of an Embassy into a headquarters supporting the activities of those opposing the Islamic Republic (many thousands of pages of documents corroborate this claim), support for Saddam in the war waged against Iran, the shooting down of the Iranian passenger plane, freezing the assets of the Iranian nation, increasing threats, anger and displeasure vis-à-vis the scientific and nuclear progress of the Iranian nation (just when all Iranians are jubilant and celebrating their country’s progress), and many other grievances that I will not refer to in this letter.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Paragraph 23
2006, Letter to George W. Bush, 2006

War, Faith, Question, Support

“I had written a beautiful piece for today. It was a rant about how much I despise Halloween. It was witty, well-written and a shining example of a writer at the top of his form. Then I tried to save it, and my computer crashed. So I guess you won't get to read it. Out of all the people in the world, I am the only one who had the opportunity to read my brilliant Halloween article, and now the text is already fading from my cruel, cruel short-term memory, the paragraphs lost in a whirling sea of data, never to be seen again.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

31 October 2002
Fully Ramblomatic

World, Beauty, Memory, Reading

“We desperately need to recognise that we are the guests, not the masters, of nature and adopt a new paradigm for development, based on the costs and benefits to all people, and bound by the limits of nature herself rather than the limits of technology and consumerism.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

As quoted in Planet Savers : 301 Extraordinary Environmentalists (2008) by Kevin Desmond, p. 248
1990s

Nature

“Uniform ideas originating among entire peoples unknown to each other must have a common ground of truth.”

Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) philosopher, rhetorician, historian and jurist from Italy

The New Science 144 (1744)

Truth, Idea

“By the time people could speak about mandatory population control in a rational way, it was too late.”

Lisa Mason book Summer of Love

Source: Summer of Love (1994), Chapter 19 “Hello Goodbye” (p. 406)

Way, Time

“If that impression does not remain on this intrepid and powerful people, into whose veins all nations pour their mingling blood, it will be our immense calamity. Public action, without it, will lose the dignity of consecration. Eloquence, without it, will miss what is loftiest, will give place to a careless and pulseless disquisition, or fall to the flatness of political slang. Life, without it, will lose its sacred and mystic charm. Society, without it, will fail of inspirations, and be drowned in an animalism whose rising tides will keep pace with its wealth.”

Richard Salter Storrs (1821–1900) American Congregational clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 23.

Life, Animals, Wealth

“If we don't speak up, our voices won't be heard in the international community. Even if the decision cannot be changed (Taichung's East Asian Youth Games host city revocation), we need to get more people to understand the truth.”

Lin Chia-lung (1964) Taiwanese politician

Lin Chia-lung (2018) cited in " Taiwan must speak out against China's suppression: Taichung mayor http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aall/201807300034.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 30 July 2018

Truth, Youth, Game, Communication

“The more information a guy has, the more likely he is to say, "Hey, King Charlie, you really blew that call." That's why democracy happened. The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

1990s, Schafer interview (1995)

Guy, Democracy, Knowledge

“I started off believing all men were equal. I now know that's the most unlikely thing ever to have been, because millions of years have passed over evolution, people have scattered across the face of this earth, been isolated from each other, developed independently, had different intermixtures between races, peoples, climates, soils… I didn't start off with that knowledge. But by observation, reading, watching, arguing, asking, that is the conclusion I've come to.”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

Lee Kuan Yew, The Man & His Ideas, 1997
1990s

Men, Knowledge, Reading

“What this book is about is a kind of analysis that is characteristic of a large part of the social sciences, especially the more theoretical part. That kind of analysis explores the relation between the behavior of individuals who compromise some social aggregate, and the characteristics of the aggregate.These situations, in which people's behavior or people's choices depend on the behavior or choices of other people, are the ones that usually don't permit any simple summation or extrapolation of the aggregates. To make that connection we usually have to look at the system of interaction between individuals and their environment, that is, between individuals and other individuals or between individuals and the collectivity.”

Thomas C. Schelling (1921–2016) American economist

Micromotives and Microbehavior (1978).

Books, Behavior, Science, Parting

“I recalled to him [Morarji Desia] our long association in the freedom movement and after and how I always treated him as an elder brother. I pointed out, however, that in the national interest a distinction had to be maintained between personal relationship and public responsibilities in the discharge of our duties. I referred to the growing disenchantment and disillusionment of our people”

Neelam Sanjiva Reddy (1913–1996) sixth President of India

On his differences with the Prime Minister Morarji Desai, in: p. 237
Commissions and Omissions by Indian Prime Ministers, Volume 1

Freedom, Personality

“What started off as a party trick for the former builder has turned into an industry with requests from all over the world from people who want their likeness immortalised by one man's (not so big) penis.”

Pricasso (1949) Australian painter

[Jani Meyer, Pricasso's creative party trick, Sunday Tribune, South Africa, 10 February 2008, 3, Independent Online]
About

World

“I have heard people say that reason leads to agnosticism, but I don't think that is necessarily the case. It was the other way around for me - it led to faith. -Appalachian Melody.”

Mark Heard (1951–1992) American musician and record producer

Liner Notes

Faith, Way, Thinking

“People get real comfortable with their features. Nobody gets comfortable with their hair. Hair trauma. It's the universal thing.”

Jamie Lee Curtis (1958) actress, author

Quoted in Funny Ladies: The Best Humor from America's Funniest Women by Bill Adler p. 36

Universe

“What most people don’t realize is that something unprecedented has entered the world. Bang—science—and suddenly a proposition is true because it’s true, Julie, not because its adherents have the biggest churches or the grandest inquisitors or the most weeks on The New York Times bestseller list.”

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 5 (p. 88)

World, Science, Time

“So far, twenty-two people have received the Nobel award in economics. Not one of them has been female—so, to judge only from the past, the most important thing to do if you want to be a Nobel laureate is to be male. I hasten to add that the absence of females is not, I believe, attributable to male chauvinist bias on the part of the Swedish Nobel Committee. I believe that the economics profession as a whole would have been nearly unanimous that, during the period in question, only one female candidate met the relevant standards—the English economist Joan Robinson, who has since died. The failure of the Nobel Committee to award her a prize may well have reflected bias but not sex bias. The economists here will understand what I am talking about. … A second requirement is to be a U. S. citizen. Twelve of the twenty-two recipients of the Nobel Prize were from the United States, four from the United Kingdom, two from Sweden, and one each from four other countries. … Of the twelve Americans who have won the Nobel Prize in economics, nine either studied or taught at the University of Chicago. So the next lesson is to go to the University of Chicago.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

"Milton Friedman" in William Breit and Roger W. Spencer (ed.) Lives of the laureates

Sex, Failure, Understanding, Question

“There appears to be an innate human tendency to underestimate the capacity of those who do not belong to "our" group. Those who do not share our background cannot have our ability. Foreigners, people who are in a different economic status, and the young seem invariably to be regarded as intellectually backward.”

Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899–1977) philosopher and university president

Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

Appearance

“Freedom cannot be expected to tolerate that which would destroy it. Fundamentalist and extremist Islam is incompatible with freedom and Western liberal democracy. The real issue for those wishing to remain free is not an argument about headdress but the threat posed to our freedoms and way of life by a minority of people and how the state chooses to deal with it - if indeed it has the courage to do so at all.”

Gerard Batten (1954) British politician

Islamic fundamentalism is incompatible with freedom and Western liberal democracy https://web.archive.org/web/20070927174923/http://www.tfa.net/pdfs/60610.pdf (2006) 2006

Life, Way, Democracy, Courage

“On hearing: "It’s an extremely important faculty which helps to balance the nervous system. Besides, people do not hear or see the same thing. There are specialists, especially in France, that measure hearing and determine the frequencies that the ear cannot hear or can only hear at greater intensity. This can cause psychological problems".”

Vangelis (1943) Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock, and orchestral music

1979

Problem, Help

“If the values are that you oppress people, you disappear people, you imprison people or even kill people for expressing their opinions, for expressing freedom of speech, that is not the kind of revolution of values that I ever want to see anywhere.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Democratic Presidential Debate in Miami (March 9, 2016)

Freedom

“If conservatives really believed in individual liberty, as they endlessly claim — and if they used both halves of their brains — then they'd be libertarians. Instead, they sabotage themselves, and their cause, by constantly generating one spurious reason after another to deprive other people of their freedom.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Revenge of the Cookie Monster".

Freedom

“Well, then, some of you will say, and rightly, "Well, what did you use the fund for, Senator? Why did you have to have it?" Let me tell you in just a word how a Senate office operates. First of all, a Senator gets $15,000 a year in salary. He gets enough money to pay for one trip a year, a round trip, that is, for himself, and his family between his home and Washington, DC. And then he gets an allowance to handle the people that work in his office to handle his mail. And the allowance for my State of California, is enough to hire 13 people. And let me say, incidentally, that that allowance is not paid to the Senator. It is paid directly to the individuals that the Senator puts on his payroll. But all of these people and all of these allowances are for strictly official business; business, for example, when a constituent writes in and wants you to go down to the Veteran's Administration and get some information about his GI policy — items of that type, for example. But there are other expenses that are not covered by the Government. And I think I can best discuss those expenses by asking you some questions.Do you think that when I or any other senator makes a political speech, has it printed, should charge the printing of that speech and the mailing of that speech to the taxpayers? Do you think, for example, when I or any other Senator makes a trip to his home State to make a purely political speech that the cost of that trip should be charged to the taxpayers? Do you think when a Senator makes political broadcasts or political television broadcasts, radio or television, that the expense of those broadcasts should be charged to the taxpayers? Well I know what your answer is. It's the same answer that audiences give me whenever I discuss this particular problem: The answer is no. The taxpayers shouldn't be required to finance items which are not official business but which are primarily political business.”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

1950s, Checkers speech (1952)

Money, Family, Home, Business

“I judge people based on their capability, honesty, and merit.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

"Trump towers" https://books.google.com/books?id=smMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA23&dq=%22Trump%20towers%22, interview with Paul Alexander, The Advocate (15 February 2000), p. 23 2000s

“For me, I have seen worlds and people begin and end, actually and metaphorically, and it will always be the same. It’s always fire and water.
No matter what your scientific background, emotionally you’re an alchemist. You live in a world of liquids, solids, gases and heat-transfer effects that accompany their changes of state. These are the things you perceive, the things you feel. Whatever you know about their true natures is rafted on top of that. So, when it comes to the day-to-day sensations of living, from mixing a cup of coffee to flying a kite, you treat with the four ideal elements of the old philosophers: earth, air, fire, water.
Let’s face it, air isn’t very glamorous, no matter how you look at it. I mean, I’d hate to be without it, but it’s invisible and so long as it behaves itself it can be taken for granted and pretty much ignored. Earth? The trouble with earth is that it endures. Solid objects tend to persist with a monotonous regularity.
Not so fire and water, however. They’re formless, colorful, and they’re always doing something. While suggesting you repent, prophets very seldom predict the wrath of the gods in terms of landslides and hurricanes. No. Floods and fires are what you get for the rottenness of your ways. Primitive man was really on his way when he learned to kindle the one and had enough of the other nearby to put it out. It is coincidence that we’ve filled hells with fires and oceans with monsters? I don’t think so. Both principles are mobile, which is generally a sign of life. Both are mysterious and possess the power to hurt or kill. It is no wonder that intelligent creatures the universe over have reacted to them in a similar fashion. It is the alchemical response.”

Roger Zelazny Isle of the Dead

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 6 (pp. 137-138)

Life, God, Hate, World

“Let me start by sharing some of my own hard truths. First, all of us in law enforcement must be honest enough to acknowledge that much of our history is not pretty. At many points in American history, law enforcement enforced the status quo, a status quo that was often brutally unfair to disfavored groups. It was unfair to the Healy siblings and to countless others like them. It was unfair to too many people.”

James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

Truth, Law, History, Siblings

“Angels are people who pop into our lives at a need time and then disappear without a track, having helped us through a critical point.”

Julia Butterfly Hill book The Legacy of Luna

Source: The Legacy of Luna (2000), Ch. 7

Angels, Time, Help

“You have to find out for yourself. Take the leap. Go as far as you can. Try staying out of touch. Become a stranger in a strange land. Acquire humility. Learn the language. Listen to what people are saying.”

Paul Theroux (1941) American travel writer and novelist

Fresh Air Fiend (2000)

Learning

“The repercussions of the coup on nascent democracies in the Arab world will be destructive. People may soon lose faith in the democratic process, paving the way for the revival of extremist groups…The coup serves to strengthen the radicals, interrupting the course of peaceful change.”

Tawakkol Karman (1979) Yemeni journalist, politician, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

2010s, Egypt's coup has crushed all the freedoms won in the revolution (2013)

World, Peace, Faith, Way

“In times like these, he said, it must be hard for the churches to go on telling people that their Heavenly Father cared about the death of even a single sparrow. He'd hate to be a priest, Herr Schindler said, in an era like this, when life did not have the value of a packet of cigarettes. Stern agreed but suggested, in the spirit of the discussion, that the Biblical reference Herr Schindler had made could be summed up by a Talmudic verse which said that he who saves the life of one man, saves the entire world.”

Thomas Keneally book Schindler's Ark

The references are to Matthew 10:29 (or Luke 12:6) and Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:8 (37a).
Source: Schindler's Ark (1982), Ch. 2.

Life, Death, Hate, World

“When people look for the road in the clouds
The cloud road disappears
The mountains are tall and steep
The streams are wide and still
Green mountains ahead and behind
White clouds to east and west
If you want to find the cloud road
Seek it within”

Han-shan Chinese monk and poet

Cold Mountain Transcendental Poetry

Mountain

“The British Empire spread Anglo-Saxon culture around the globe–Protestant morals, individualism, the rule of law. Most British colonies rejected those values. Only the ones populated by actual British people–America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand–managed to hold on to them and, as a result, prospered.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2015, Adios, America: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole (2015)

Law

“Our life is a constant journey, from birth to death. The landscape changes, the people change, our needs change, but the train keeps moving. Life is the train, not the station. And what you’re doing now isn’t traveling, it’s just changing countries, which is completely different”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Aleph (2011)

Life, Death, Travel, Birth

“My foreign policy will always put the interests of the American people and American security above all else… That will be the foundation of every single decision that I will make. America First will be the major and overriding theme of my administration.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, April, Foreign Policy Speech (27 April 2016)

Decision

“You might say that a creative person is a person who simply has a desire to have something, to add something to the world that's not there yet, and goes about arranging fort that to happen.... when you desire a work of art and make it, you've added to the stock of art in the world. Artists are one of the people who can do that: add to the stock of things.”

Carl Andre (1935) American artist

Source: Artists talks 1969 – 1977, p. 15

World, Art, Personality

““I’ll drive. You navigate.” He grinned. “I judge people by how well they read maps.””

Jane Yolen book Briar Rose

Source: Briar Rose (1992), Chapter 12 (p. 65)

Reading

“Villari took no notice of them because the idea of a coincidence between art and reality was alien to him. Unlike people who read novels, he never saw himself as a character in a work of art.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

"The Waiting" translated by James E. Irby (1959)

Art, Idea, Reality, Reading

“People always say "Don't you support the troops?" But the troops are an entity that just follows orders. It's not about individuals or people. So when I say "I don't support the troops", I'm saying I don't support the bankers and politicians who are making them do what they do.”

Patrice O'Neal (1969–2011) American stand-up comedian, radio personality, and actor

May 10, 2011
The Opie and Anthony Radio show

Support

“I don't suppose any first-class work in science is done now outside of the war work … Of course … science has fallen into discredit. It has brought no solution to our human problems, and has added greatly to our engines of destruction in this war. Not that science is to blame for this misuse, but people judge by results, and by that standard science has a heavy account to liquidate. Science so far has had far too much to do with the things of sense and of matter, and the things of the spirit have been by-passed.”

Jan Smuts (1870–1950) military leader, politician and statesman from South Africa

As quoted by W. K. Hancock in SMUTS 2: The Fields of Force 1919-1950, p. 395

War, Problem, Sense, Science

“I love the BBC, it's a gorgeous organisation and it's just 'cos it's got vaguely socialist state-run tendencies that people like bloody old Rupert Murdoch coat it off in the Sun, and it's gotta stop!”

Russell Brand (1975) British comedian, actor, and author

Radio 2 Show (2007–2008)

Love, Sun

“I do not think there is any single thing more important for our people, and for those who form public opinion, than to keep our people immune, so far as they can be so kept, from the virus of either Communism or Fascism. Our constitution has been evolved… There are some people who speak wildly and loosely about sudden and fundamental changes. Look out for them, and remember that our party, full of ideas of progress to-day as any other party that exists, has always stood, in Disraeli's words, "for the maintenance of the Constitution."… any attempt at sudden constitutional changes of a fundamental nature would not be maintaining the Constitution… the whole virtue of our people… has been the way in which we have adapted ourselves, and adapted the instruments that we use to give effect to our wishes; and we have adapted ourselves without bloodshed and without hatred among ourselves. Far, far the most important thing that we have to do is to keep this country at least… secure from those strange crises that to-day are rushing round the world.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Bewdley Unionist Association in Worcester (10 April 1937), quoted in Service of Our Lives (1937), pp. 102-104.
1937

World, Way, Communication, Idea

“Libertarians see the individual as the basic unit of social analysis. Only individuals make choices and are responsible for their actions. Libertarian thought emphasizes the dignity of each individual, which entails both rights and responsibility. The progressive extension of dignity to more people — to women, to people of different religions and different races — is one of the great libertarian triumphs of the Western world.”

David Boaz (1953) libertarian, author and editor

"Key Concepts of Libertarianism" (1 January 1999) http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5758

Women, World, Religion

“And I'm a Hailsham student – which is enough by itself sometimes to get people's backs up.”

Kazuo Ishiguro book Never Let Me Go

Source: Never Let Me Go (2005), Chapter 1, p. 3

“Whenever he [Charlemagne] decided to help somebody's morals, people would bury their small change and hide in the swamps and forests.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part III: Strange Bedfellows, Charlemagne

Change, Help

“Anyway, Everyman is then shown to have been crucified so don't think that it's an accident that this crucifixion, they found out that this applied. Somebody somewhere on this planet, back about 600 BC, found some pieces of R6, and I don't know how they found it, either by watching madmen or something, but since that time they have used it and it became what is known as Christianity. The man on the Cross. There was no Christ. But the man on the cross is shown as Everyman. So of course each person seeing a crucified man, has an immediate feeling of sympathy for this man. Therefore you get many PCs who says they are Christ. Now, there's two reasons for that, one is the Roman Empire was prone to crucify people, so a person can have been crucified, but in R6 he is shown as crucified.”

L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology

"Assists" lecture, #10 in the confidential Class VIII series of lectures (3 October 1968).

Feeling, Thinking, Time, Christ

“We have to recover those islands, we have to recover them for the people on them are British and British stock and they still owe allegiance to the Crown and want to be British. We have to do what is necessary to recover those islands…When you stop a dictator there are always risks but there are great risks in not stopping a dictator. My generation learned that a long time ago.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

TV Interview for ITN (5 April 1982) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104913 regarding the Falkland Islands First term as Prime Minister

Learning, Time

“In order to be able to go on living it is possible that the bankrupt peoples will have to enter on a new path of self-denial, by curbing their covetousness and putting a check on the indefinite expansion of their wants, and by having smaller families.”

Nikolai Berdyaev (1874–1948) Russian philosopher

Source: The End of Our Time (1919), p. 94

Family

“In one experience I remember vividly, there was a rich range of shades. It must have been late 1941 or early 1942. Jews were required to wear the Star of David and to obey a 6 p. m. curfew. I had gone to play with a Christian friend and had stayed too late. I turned my brown sweater inside out to walk the few blocks home. As I was walking down an empty street, I saw a German soldier approaching. He was wearing the black uniform that I had been told to fear more than others - the one worn by specially recruited SS soldiers. As I came closer to him, trying to walk fast, I noticed that he was looking at me intently. Then he beckoned me over, picked me up, and hugged me. I was terrified that he would notice the star inside my sweater. He was speaking to me with great emotion, in German. When he put me down, he opened his wallet, showed me a picture of a boy, and gave me some money. I went home more certain than ever that my mother was right: people were endlessly complicated and interesting.”

Daniel Kahneman (1934) Israeli-American psychologist

Nobel Prize Autobiographical Information http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/2002/kahneman-bio.html (2002).

Money, Fear, Home, Star

“The Scots were thus truly a chosen people, highly favoured of the Lord!”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

St Andrew's Day (November 30, 2007)

“The editorial, very poorly written for a college full of smart students, shows how far this “hate speech” cancer has spread. Let me provide for you Coyne’s Glossary for the words at issue:
:“free speech”: Speech that you like because it comports with your ideology

:“hate speech”: Speech you don’t like because it challenges your ideology

:“Nazi”: Anyone uttering “hate speech” (see above)

:“White supremacist”: See “Nazi”

:“emotional labor”: Having to argue your case rationally—something to be avoided at all costs when you can simply call people names”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

see “Nazi” " Latest college shenanigans by the Regressive Left: censorship at Pomona and UCLA; Wellesley student paper publishes “we need free speech but...” editorial https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/04/21/latest-news-about-college-shenanigans-by-the-regressive-left-censorship-at-pomona-and-ucla-wellesley-student-paper-writes-we-need-free-speech-but-article/" April 21, 2017

Hate

“When I'm feeling proud of myself, I should remember to ask myself why I think I am of any value at all. I have done nothing that a hundred thousand other people couldn't do, and most of them would probably do it better, and they probably wouldn't feel so self-important about it. I should always be ashamed of myself.”

John S. Hall (1960) Poet, author, singer, lawyer

November 8
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Feeling, Thinking

“Our complex society relies on proxy violence to the extent that many average people in the private sector can wander through life without really having to understand or think deeply about violence, because we are removed from it. We can afford to perceive it at a distant, abstract problem solved through high-minded strategy and social programming. When violence comes a knocking, we simply make a call, and the police come to "stop" the violence.”

Jack Donovan (1974) American activist, editor and writer

Violence is golden
A Sky Without Eagles (2014)

Life, Understanding, Problem, Thinking

“Teaching people to draw is teaching people to look.”

David Hockney (1937) British artist

Interview with Jasper Gerard, "Taking the fight to the dreary people," The Sunday Times (London) (2 October 2005)
2000s

Drawing

“The diverse natures of men, combined with the necessity to satisfy in some manner the sentiment which desires them to be equal, has had the result that in the democracies they have endeavored to provide the appearance of power in the people and the reality of power in an elite.”

Vilfredo Pareto book Manual of Political Economy

page 97.
Manual of Political Economy

Men, Democracy, Nature, Reality

“When Thatcher ran for prime minister she said — remember this, this is the Iron Lady — she said, "The British national health care system is safe in my hands." She wasn't going to take on health care, because she knew once you have people getting free health care from the government, you can't take it away from them. And the reason is because most people don't get sick, and so free health care is just that, free health care, until you get sick. Then, if you get sick and you don't get health care, you die and you don't vote. It's actually a pretty clever system. Take care of the people who can vote and people who can’t vote, get rid of them as quickly as possible by not giving them care so they can’t vote against you. That's how it works.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

Young Americans for Freedom event, Reagan Ranch, , quoted in

Health

“Once again we see Islam self-detonate (if you'll pardon the expression) and show once again why it's about as welcome on this planet as an asteroid. Once again we see thousands of Islamic nutcases take time out from beating up their wives to show their sensitive side. How? By smashing up the towns they live in, egged on by clerical ignoramuses whose motives are even lower than the literacy level of their followers. And once again we in the civilised world are being urged to censor ourselves out of respect for a religion that violates the human rights of half the people on the planet and that doubles as a political ideology indistinguishable from Nazism. It would be funny if it wasn't so obscene.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"A Word To Rioting Muslims" (20 September 2012) http://youtube.com/watch?v=GCXHPKhRCVg 2012

World, Religion, Motivation, Time

“No, you don't want the American people to hear what the facts are, Helen, and I'm going to tell them the facts.”

Scott McClellan (1968) Former White House press secretary

Source: Press briefing http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051108.html, November 8, 2005

“When the Indians complain that the English have enslaved them it is as if drunkards complained that the spirit-dealers who have settled among them have enslaved them. You tell them that they might give up drinking, but they reply that they are so accustomed to it that they cannot abstain, and that they must have alcohol to keep up their energy. Is it not the same thing with the millions of people who submit to thousands or even to hundreds, of others — of their own or other nations? If the people of India are enslaved by violence it is only because they themselves live and have lived by violence, and do not recognize the eternal law of love inherent in humanity.”

Leo Tolstoy A Letter to a Hindu

Source: A Letter to a Hindu (1908), V

Love, Alcohol, Law, Drink

“…when a society is reaching its end, in the last couple of centuries you have… a misplacement of satisfactions. You find your emotional satisfaction in making a lot of money… or in proving to the poor, half-naked people in Southeast Asia that you can kill them in large numbers.”

Carroll Quigley (1910–1977) American historian

Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals" (1976)

Money

“Good marriages seem to function something like a buddy system-- the people in them swim in their own waters but keep a protective eye on each other, and should the whistle blow, turn up quickly to hold each other's hand. It's more important today than ever before to know what your priorities are because life links us with more people than our hearts can hold, so men who know what they will go to the wall for, as well as for whom, are the ones whom it is nicest to be married to, presuming you're the one they have at the top of their list.”

Merle Shain (1935–1989) Canadian writer

Some Men are More Perfect Than Others (1973)

Life, Men, Marriage, Water

“These decrees of yours are no different from spiders' webs. They'll restrain anyone weak and insignificant who gets caught in them, but they'll be torn to shreds by people with power and wealth.”

Anacharsis Scythian philosopher

Discussing Solon's laws with him, as quoted by Plutarch, in Solon ch. 5; translation by Robin Waterfield from Plutarch Greek Lives (1998) p. 50.
Variants:
Written laws are like spiders’ webs; they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor, but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.
Laws are spider-webs, which catch the little flies, but cannot hold the big ones.
as quoted in Beeton's Book of Jokes and Jests, or Good Things Said and Sung, Second Edition, Printed by Frederick Warne & Co., London, 1866.

Wealth

“Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, (1963)

Freedom

“I try to bring out the subversive side of people.”

V. Vale (1942) American writer

Interview with V. Vale https://vimeo.com/37583048 by Henry Rollins at LA Zine Fest (2013)

“We can laugh at comedies like this for two reasons: Because we feel superior to the characters, or because we pity or like them. I do not much like laughing down at people, which is why the comedies of Adam Sandler make me squirmy (most people, I know, laugh because they like him). In the case of Napoleon Dynamite, I certainly don't like him, but then the movie makes no attempt to make him likable. Truth is, it doesn't even try to be a comedy. It tells his story and we are supposed to laugh because we find humor the movie pretends it doesn't know about.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/napoleon-dynamite-2004 of Napoleon Dynamite (18 June 2004) Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

Truth, Feeling

“To be pleasant, gentle, calm and self-possessed: this is the basis of good taste and charm in a woman. No matter how amorous or passionate you may be, as long as you are straightforward and refrain from causing others embarrassment, no one will mind. But women who are too vain and act pretentiously, to the extent that they make others feel uncomfortable, will themselves become the object of attention; and once that happens, people will find fault with whatever they say or do: whether it be how they enter a room, how they sit down, how they stand up or how they take their leave. Those who end up contradicting themselves and those who disparage their companions are also carefully watched and listened to all the more. As long as you are free from such faults, people will surely refrain from listening to tittle-tattle and will want to show you sympathy, if only for the sake of politeness. I am of the opinion that when you intentionally cause hurt to another, or indeed if you do ill through mere thoughtless behavior, you fully deserve to be censured in public. Some people are so good-natured that they can still care for those who despise them, but I myself find it very difficult. Did the Buddha himself in all his compassion ever preach that one should simply ignore those who slander the Three Treasures? How in this sullied world of ours can those who are hard done by be expected to reciprocate in kind?”

Murasaki Shikibu book The Diary of Lady Murasaki

trans. Richard Bowring
The Diary of Lady Murasaki

Women, World, Behavior, Feeling

“I am an actively heterosexual woman who celebrates however people want to express their sexuality.”

Gillian Anderson (1968) American-British film, television and theatre actress, activist and writer

On having liberal approach about sex — Evening Standard "Gillian Anderson: Self destruction is my default mode" http://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/celebrity-news/gillian-anderson-self-destruction-is-my-default-mode-9897489.html/ (December 2, 2014) 2010s

“The people of Crete unfortunately make more history than they can consume locally.”

Saki The Chronicles of Clovis

"The Jesting of Arlington Stringham"
The Chronicles of Clovis (1911)

History

“Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly -- yet, our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. We will meet that threat now, with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of fire fighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2003, Invasion of Iraq (March 2003)

Peace

“But such their power who rule with tyrant sway,
Whom most they loath the people most obey.”

John Hoole (1727–1803) British translator

Book XXXVII, line 774
Translations, Orlando Furioso of Ludovico Ariosto (1773)

“Let me add, that only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

letter to the Abbés Chalut and Arnaud (17 April 1787).
Epistles

Freedom

“Thanks to all these results, people in Portugal are starting know and become more interested in our sport. Tennis is more and more popular in Portugal and we don't talk about only football anymore. I am glad to help in that process.”

João Sousa (1989) Portuguese tennis player

On tennis' rising popularity in Portugal, during the same interview. Source: Intervista esclusiva a Joao Sousa: “Sono d’accordo con Simon, i top player guadagnano troppo” [Exclusive interview to Joao Sousa - 'I agree with Simon, the top players earn too much' http://www.ubitennis.com/blog/2015/11/02/intervista-esclusiva-a-joao-sousa-sono-daccordo-con-simon-i-top-player-guadagnano-troppo/,, Ubitennis.com, Italian, 4 November 2015]

Sport, Help, Football