Quotes about secrets (2118 quotes, page 17)

“A neurosis is a secret that you don't know you're keeping.”

Kenneth Tynan (1927–1980) English theatre critic and writer

As quoted in The Life of Kenneth Tynan (1987) by Kathleen Tynan, p. 188

“Such was the man who was sent on an embassy to Ajmir, in order that the Rai (Pithaura) of that country might see the right way without the intervention of the sword, and that he might incline from the track of opposition into the path of propriety, leaving his airy follies for the institutes of the knowledge of Allah, and acknowledging the expediency of uttering the words of martyrdom and repeating the precepts of the law, and might abstain from infidelity and darkness, which entails the loss of this world and that to come, and might place in his ear the ring of slavery to the sublime Court (may Allah exalt it!) which is the centre of justice and mercy, and the pivot of the Sultans of the worldand by these means and modes might cleanse the fords of good life from the sins of impurity'…'The army of Islam was completely victorious, and 'an hundred thousand grovelling Hindus swiftly departed to the fire of hell'… After this great victory, the army of Islam marched forward to Ajmir, where it arrived at a fortunate moment and under an auspicious bird, and obtained so much booty and wealth, that you might have said that the secret depositories of the seas and hills had been revealed….'While the Sultan remained at Ajmir, he destroyed the pillars and foundations of the idol temples, and built in their stead mosques and colleges, and the precepts of Islam, and the customs of the law were divulged and established”

Muhammad of Ghor (1160–1206) Ghurid Sultan

About the conquest of Ajmer (Rajasthan) Hasan Nizami: Taju’l-Ma’sir, in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 213-216. Also quoted (in part) in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.

Life , World , Justice , Law

“Rachikovsky: What if there appeared a document proving that modernization was a part of a Jewish plot?
Gorymikine: It would be absolute evidence of a threat the tsar could not ignore.
Rachikovsky: Exactly!
Gorymikine: Exactly Rachikovsky! It will make Witte’s advice suspect!
Rachikovsky: Yes, it will damage Witte’s influence and it will answer his majesty’s worry about who is behind the unrest! He distrusts’’’ Jews…it’ll be easy…
Gorymikine: But where is there such a document? I know of none!
Rachikovsky: No problem! We will make one in our secret service, the Okhrana back in France. We have been planting our own propaganda in The French press for years.
Gorymikine: It will take a very cunning forger to write it convincingly!
Rachikovsky: We will have no problem!
Don’t worry Gorymikine…I’ll be back in Moscow very soon with the ”weapon.”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp.29-30

Problem , Appearance , Parting

“It is Rome's secret charm to reconcile
Imagination with our long last sleep.
We are resign'd ourselves, and suffer less
For those we love. The people of the South
Paint closing life in hues less terrible
Than do the gloomy nations of the North :
The sun, like glory, even warms the grave.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Chant of Corinne at the Capitol
Translations, From the French

Love , Life , People , Imagination

“And I do know about body image. About worrying about it. I made my living being 20 or 30 pounds heavier than the average model. And that's where I got famous. Victoria's Secret said I sold more bras and panties than anybody else, and I was traipsing down that runway with 30 pounds more booty than the other girls. So it had a lot to do with my success, my weight, but it's also always been an issue for me, so I can relate.”

Tyra Banks (1973) American model, author and television personality

Euan Ferguson (April 15, 2007) "Interview: Tyra Banks - The supermodel turned spokeswoman" http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2007/apr/15/fashion.features5, The Guardian, Guardian News and Media Limited.

Girl , Success

“We are now approaching a social revolution, in which the old economic foundations of monogamy will disappear just as surely as those of its complement, prostitution. Monogamy arose through the concentration of considerable wealth in one hand — a man's hand — and from the endeavor to bequeath this wealth to the children of this man to the exclusion of all others. This necessitated monogamy on the woman's, but not on the man's part. Hence this monogamy of women in no way hindered open or secret polygamy of men. Now, the impending social revolution will reduce this whole care of inheritance to a minimum by changing at least the overwhelming part of permanent and inheritable wealth—the means of production—into social property. Since monogamy was caused by economic conditions, will it disappear when these causes are abolished?
One might reply, not without reason: not only will it not disappear, but it will rather be perfectly realized. For with the transformation of the means of production into collective property, wagelabor will also disappear, and with it the proletariat and the necessity for a certain, statistically ascertainable number of women to surrender for money. Prostitution disappears and monogamy, instead of going out of existence, at last becomes a reality—for men also.
At all events, the situation will be very much changed for men. But also that of women, and of all women, will be considerably altered. With the transformation of the means of production into collective property the monogamous family ceases to be the economic unit of society. The private household changes to a social industry. The care and education of children become? a public matter. Society cares equally well for all children, legal or illegal. This removes the care about the "consequences" which now forms the essential social factor—moral and economic—hindering a girl to surrender unconditionally to the beloved man. Will not this be sufficient cause for a gradual rise of a more unconventional intercourse of the sexes and a more lenient public opinion regarding virgin honor and female shame? And finally, did we not see that in the modern world monogamy and prostitution, though antitheses, are inseparable and poles of the same social condition? Can prostitution disappear without engulfing at the same time monogamy?”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1804) as translated by Ernest Untermann (1902); Full English text of The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/index.htm - Full original-language German text of The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State http://www.mlwerke.de/me/me21/me21_025.htm

Women , Men , Money , Children

“I initially agreed with these methods and chose to volunteer to help defend my country. It was not until I was in Iraq and reading secret military reports on a daily basis that I started to question the morality of what we were doing. It was at this time I realized that (in) our efforts to meet the risk posed to us by the enemy, we have forgotten our humanity. We consciously elected to devalue human life both in Iraq and Afghanistan. When we engaged those that we perceived were the enemy, we sometimes killed innocent civilians. Whenever we killed innocent civilians, instead of accepting responsibility for our conduct, we elected to hide behind the veil of national security and classified information in order to avoid any public accountability.”

Chelsea Manning (1987) United States Army soldier and whistleblower

Letter to Barack Obama (2013)

Life , Question , Effort , Time

“As man loses touch with his 'inner being', his instinctive depths, he finds himself trapped in the world of consciousness, that is to say, in the world of other people. Any poet knows this truth; when other people sicken him, he turns to hidden resources of power inside himself, and he knows then that other people don't matter a damn. He knows the 'secret life' inside him is the reality; other people are mere shadows in comparison. but the 'shadows' themselves cling to one another. 'Man is a political animal', said Aristotle, telling one of the greatest lies in human history. Man has more in common with the hills, or with the stars, than with other men.”

Colin Wilson book The Mind Parasites

Source: The Mind Parasites (1967), p. 170

Life , Men , People , Truth

“At midnight they can come into your room and take you away. They can put a black hood on you, take you to a secret place and interrogate you, trying to stop what you’re doing. They threaten people, your family, saying: 'Your children won’t find jobs.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, China’s Censorship Can Never Defeat the Internet, 2012

Children , People , Family

“A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers.”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part One, Chapter V

Thinking , Reading

“Becoming a rock does not ensure safety. …The blasting of windblown sands, the pummeling of waves, the corrosive secretions of mosses and lichens, and even the steady rhythm of a stream can, in time, reduce a seemingly indestructible boulder to a grain of sand.”

Jeffrey H. Schwartz (1948) American anthropologist

What the Bones Tell Us (1997)

Time

“He felt an inner secret joy!
A spirit of unfettered will
Through light and darkness moving still
Within the All to find its own,
To be immortal and alone.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

By Still Waters (1906)

Light , Joy

“"Those who fought know a secret about themselves, and it is not very nice." … They have experienced secretly and privately their natural human impulse toward sadism and brutality. As I say in this new book of mine, not merely did I learn to kill with a noose of piano wire put around somebody's neck from behind, but I learned to enjoy the prospect of killing that way. It's those things that you learn about yourself that you never forget. You learn that you have much wider dimensions than you had imagined before you had to fight a war. That's salutary. It's well to know exactly who you are so you can conduct the rest of your life properly.”

Paul Fussell (1924–2012) Recipient of the Purple Heart medal

Humanities interview (1996)

Life , War , Books , Way

“The way that Adolf Hitler chose to follow to rescue the German people was an inner and outer one. Inwards he overcame the Jewish power by destroying Marxism and the secret lodges. Thereby he removed the hindrances which prevented building a German people's community. Outwards he broke the slave chains of Versailles by rebuilding the People's Army, bringing home those of the German people that had been ripped out, defeating Jewry's vassals and laying the foundation for a Europe that is liberated from Jewish financial power.”

Julius Streicher (1885–1946) German politician

Der Weg, den Adolf Hitler zur Rettung des deutschen Volkes zu gehen sich entschlossen hatte, führte nach innen und nach außen. Nach innen überwand er die Machtpositionen des Juden durch Ausrottung des Marxismus und durch die Vernichtung der Geheimbünde. Damit wurden die Hemmnisse weggeräumt, die der Schaffung einer deutschen Volksgemeinschaft entgegenstanden. Nach außen zerbrach er die Sklavenketten von Versailles durch Wiederherstellung des Volksheeres, Heimholung der aus dem Reichsverband gerissenen Volksteile, Niederzwingung der Großvasallen des Weltjuden und Grundsteinlegung eines von der jüdischen Geldmacht befreiten Europas.
Stürmer, August 22, 1940

People , Way , Home , Communication

“People know what's going on with other people. So, we are wise if we live our lives as if there are no secrets. If we have nothing to hide, then there's nothing for people to discover, and we're clean. Living as if there is no such thing as a secret will keep you from all kinds of pain and suffering, and it will open the door for you to receive God's love more fully. Live as if there is nothing to hide and you will maintain innocence.”

Ted Haggard (1956) American minister

[Haggard, Ted, Letters from Home, Regal Books, March 2003, p. 18, ISBN 0830730583]

Love , God , Pain , People

“There is now resentment in my love. The thought is troubling my mind that she has a narrow heart, and that in this lies the secret of her unyieldingness. To-day, when I come to think it over more calmly, I go back to the conviction that she has some feeling for me, composed of gratitude, pity, and memories of the past; but it has no active power, cannot rise above prejudice, — even to the avowal of its existence. It does not respect itself, hides, is ashamed of itself, and in comparison with mine is as the mustard-seed to those Alps which surround us. From Aniela one may expect that she will restrict it rather than let it grow. It is of no use to hope or watch for anything from her; that conviction makes me very wretched.”

Henryk Sienkiewicz book Without Dogma

2 August
Without Dogma (1891)

Love , Hope , Feeling , Thinking

“The general practice is for the secret to be confided only to an equally trustworthy friend, the same conditions being imposed on him. And so from trustworthy friend to trustworthy friend the secret goes moving on round that immense chain, until finally it reaches the ears of just the very person or persons whom the first talker had expressly intended it never should reach.”

Alessandro Manzoni book The Betrothed

Ma la pratica generale ha volato che ella obblighi soltanto a non confidare il segreto che ad un amico egualmente fidato, e imponendogli la condizione medesima. Cosi d'amico fidato in amico fidato, il segreto gira e gira per quella immensa catena, tanto che giunge all' orecchio di colui o di coloro a cui il primo che ha parlato intendeva appunto di non lasciarlo giunger mai.
Source: The Betrothed (1827; 1842), Ch. 11, p. 155

Confidence , Personality

“This second time round, she’d discovered that to be happy was not so much a self-sufficient, spontaneous emotion, such as you might feel in relation to a dream or a secret, but a way of reacting to the rest of the world; that to be happy this time, she must curb the natural human instinct to look up at the sky, with its all-encompassing definition, and gaze towards the immediate ground and horizon, with its lack of shape, or abode, or clear ending.”

Amit Chaudhuri (1962) contemporary Indian-English novelist

Real Time (2002)

World , Dreams , Way , Feeling

“The secret of success lies in investing into education, as the wealthy countries do. This means not in technology and machines first. That would come later, with educated and qualified individuals. Considering that we are lagging behind reforms, the only way to make up for such gap is to have a non-linear development by making leaps, all of which would be have an education as a base. Education, training, knowledge, are the major driving forces of progress.”

Zoran Đinđić (1952–2003) Serbian politician

From Zoran Djindjic's speech at press conference From vision to defined program, 15.01.2002.

Education , Way , Knowledge , Success

“I am an unrepentant book lover, and so soaked am I in the love of books that I feel – poor twentieth-century shopkeeper that I am – I feel that Pliny is a man I know, for all the eighteen centuries and more that lie between us. Pliny used to say (you will see it in a translation I have on my shelves) that no book was so bad that some good might be got out of it, and that is my feeling. I – and Pliny – born and bred so differently, feel the same about books and it gives me a flattering sense of rightness – sitting here in this shop among books that Pliny could not have imagined – books written in a language which was not then evolved – the thought makes me feel thrilled. There is no other word for it, but I dare not tell it to anyone. It is an astonishing secret to me that I must enjoy alone.”

William Darling (politician) (1885–1962) Scottish politician

Source: The Bankrupt Bookseller (1947), p. 30

Love , Lie , Books , Feeling

“My lover and I, we meet in complete
privacy, in the southern valley forest.
Then I hear some parrot in the market
jabbering our secrets.”

Tsangyang Gyatso, 6th Dalai Lama (1683–1706) sixth Dalai Lama of Tibet

Source: Attributed, Poems of Sadness: The Erotic Verse of the Sixth Dalai Lama Tsangyang Gyatso tr. Paul Williams 2004, p.61

Lovers

“Shocked disbelief greets suggestions that many women may take pleasure in rape fantasies, established long ago by Nancy Friday in her pioneering 1973 study, My Secret Garden, and dramatized today by the staggering mass-market popularity of Harlequin Romances, where heroines are overwhelmed by passionate, impetuous men.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality", p. 37

Women , Men , Pleasure , Study

“We find only what we seek: nature has many secrets to give us, but she will not surrender them until we sit down patiently before her and obey her laws. Only by such submission do we receive.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 5, p. 85

Law , Nature

“[Describing the bazar held in Delhi near the Red Fort, Francois Bernier (seventeenth century) says that] “Hither, likewise, the astrologers resort, both Mahometan and Gentile. These wise doctors remain seated in the sun, on a dusty piece of carpet, handling some old mathematical instruments, and having open before them a large book which represents the sign of the Zodiac. In this way they attract the attention of the passenger… by whom they are considered as so many infallible oracles. They tell a poor person his fortune for a payssa… Silly women, wrapping themselves in a white cloth from head to foot, flock to the astrologers, whisper to them all the transaction of their lives, and disclose every secret with no more reserve than is practised by a penitent in the presence of her confessor. The ignorant and infatuated people really believe that the stars have an influence (on their lives) which the astrologers can control.””

François Bernier (1620–1688) French physician and traveller

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 1
Travels in the Mogul Empire (1656-1668)

Women , People , Books , Way

“You may call me doctor. You won't, of course. You'll call me damned Jew, a Christ murderer, a secret worshipper of pigs and a kidnapper of Christian children. How absurd! Who would want to kidnap children, Christian or otherwise? Vile things. The only mercy of children is that they grow up, as my son has but then, tragically, they beget more children. We do not learn lifes lessons.”

Bernard Cornwell The Grail Quest

Doctor Mordecai
The Grail Quest, The Archer's Tale/Harlequin (2000)

Life , Children , Learning , Christ

“The First [Friend] is the alter ego, the man who first reveals to you that you are not alone in the world by turning out (beyond hope) to share all your most secret delights. There is nothing to be overcome in making him your friend; he and you join like raindrops on a window. But the Second Friend is the man who disagrees with you about everything… Of course he shares your interests; otherwise he would not become your friend at all. But he has approached them all at a different angle. he has read all the right books but has got the wrong thing out of every one… How can he be so nearly right, and yet, invariably, just not right? He is as fascinating (and infuriating) as a woman.”

Clive Staples Lewis book Surprised by Joy

Surprised by Joy (1955)

Books , World , Hope , Reading

“We are introduced to Iraq, "a sovereign nation"…In this peaceable kingdom, according to Moore's flabbergasting choice of film shots, children are flying little kites, shoppers are smiling in the sunshine, and the gentle rhythms of life are undisturbed. Then—wham! From the night sky come the terror weapons of American imperialism. Watching the clips Moore uses, and recalling them well, I can recognize various Saddam palaces and military and police centers getting the treatment. But these sites are not identified as such. In fact, I don't think Al Jazeera would, on a bad day, have transmitted anything so utterly propagandistic. You would also be led to think that the term "civilian casualty" had not even been in the Iraqi vocabulary until March 2003…the "insurgent" side is presented in this film as justifiably outraged, whereas the 30-year record of Baathist war crimes and repression and aggression is not mentioned once.That this—his pro-American moment—was the worst Moore could possibly say of Saddam's depravity is further suggested by some astonishing falsifications. Moore asserts that Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American. I never quite know whether Moore is as ignorant as he looks, or even if that would be humanly possible…Baghdad was the safe house for the man whose "operation" murdered Leon Klinghoffer…In 1991, a large number of Western hostages were taken by the hideous Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and held in terrible conditions for a long time. After that same invasion was repelled—Saddam having killed quite a few Americans and Egyptians and Syrians and Brits in the meantime and having threatened to kill many more—the Iraqi secret police were caught trying to murder former President Bush during his visit to Kuwait. Never mind whether his son should take that personally…Iraqi forces fired, every day, for 10 years, on the aircraft that patrolled the no-fly zones and staved off further genocide in the north and south of the country…And it was after, and not before, the 9/11 attacks that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi moved from Afghanistan to Baghdad and began to plan his now very open and lethal design for a holy and ethnic civil war.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2004-06-21
Unfairenheit 9/11
Slate
1091-2339
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2004/06/unfairenheit_911.html: On Michael Moore
2000s, 2004

Life , War , Children , Smile

“The Congo Free State is unique in its kind. It has nothing to hide and no secrets and is not beholden to anyone except its founder.”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

Clive Foss, The Tyrants: 2500 Years of Absolute Power and Corruption, London: Quercus Publishing, 2006, ISBN 1905204965

“I tell you the first and last time. Together with a nuclear suitcase the president has a folder, which is top secret and devoted entirely to the report by the Russian secret service which handles the control of extraterrestrials in our country. After the term, the two folders and a small nuclear suitcase are transferred to the new president. How many of them are among us I cannot say because panic might begin.”

Dmitry Medvedev (1965) Russian Prime Minister and former president

collective-evolution.com http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/09/13/russian-prime-minister-confirms-the-existence-of-intelligent-extraterrestrial-life/

Time , Country

“My master Attalus used to say: "Evil herself drinks the largest portion of her own poison." The poison which serpents carry for the destruction of others, and secrete without harm to themselves, is not like this poison; for this sort is ruinous to the possessor.”
Quemadmodum Attalus noster dicere solebat, 'malitia ipsa maximam partem veneni sui bibit'. Illud venenum quod serpentes in alienam perniciem proferunt, sine sua continent, non est huic simile: hoc habentibus pessimum est.

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Quemadmodum Attalus noster dicere solebat, 'malitia ipsa maximam partem veneni sui bibit'.
Illud venenum quod serpentes in alienam perniciem proferunt, sine sua continent, non est huic simile: hoc habentibus pessimum est.
Source: Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXXI: On benefits, Line 22

Drink , Evil

“And the world's like a science
And I'm like a secret
And I saw you lingering still, still
I saw you lingering still”

Zooey Deschanel (1980) American actress, musician, and singer-songwriter

"Lingering Still".
Volume Two (2010)

World , Science

“One of the big secrets of finding time is not to watch television.”

Bob Keeshan (1927–2004) United States Marine

Reply to a question on "how he found time to star in his own show and still engage in lecturing, volunteerism, the study of French, reading, and also spend time with his family and his hobbies of photography, fishing and sailing", as quoted in "Bob Keeshan, Creator and Star of TV's 'Captain Kangaroo,' Is Dead at 76" in The New York Times (24 January 2004)

Time

“The Spice Girls are easier to tell apart than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but that is small consolation: What can you say about five women whose principal distinguishing characteristic is that they have different names? They occupy Spice World as if they were watching it: They're so detached they can't even successfully lip-synch their own songs. During a rehearsal scene, their director tells them, with such truth that we may be hearing a secret message from the screenwriter, "That was absolutely perfect — without being actually any good." Spice World is obviously intended as a ripoff of A Hard Day's Night which gave The Beatles to the movies… the huge difference, of course, is that the Beatles were talented — while, let's face it, the Spice Girls could be duplicated by any five women under the age of 30 standing in line at Dunkin' Donuts.”

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

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/spice-world-1998 of Spice World (23 January 1998)
Reviews, Half-star reviews

Women , Truth , Age , World

“"Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" on A Saucerful of Secrets (Pink Floyd, 1968)”

Roger Waters (1943) English songwriter, bassist, and lyricist of Pink Floyd

Sun , Heart

“A chorus of elfin voices blowing about me
Weaves to a babel of sound. Each cries a secret.
I run among them, reach out vain hands, and drown.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)

“The group process contains the secret of collective life, it is the key to democracy, it is the master lesson for every individual to learn, it is our chief hope or the political, the social, the international life of the future.”

Mary Parker Follett The New State

Source: The New State, 1918, p. 23

Life , Hope , Democracy , Learning

“It was almost as if there were no peace unless one could fight well, kill well (if always with honor), love well and love many. … It was as if the message in the labyrinth of the genes would insist that violence was locked with creativity, and adventure was the secret of love.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

Superman Comes to the Supermarket (1960)

Love , Peace , Fight

“Delight is the secret. Learn of pure delight and thou shalt learn of God.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Thoughts and Glimpses (1916-17)

God , Learning

““So what is this Final Secret? Any Ideas?” Spider asked, trying to sound reasonable.
“We don’t know. We just don’t know. All we know is what the Vores have communicated to us so far.”
“Right,” Spider said, nodding, hating every moment of this nonsense. “And when you say ‘we’ and ‘us’, what you really mean is ‘you’, yes?”
“They communicate through a living channel, yes, and that is, of course, me.””

K. A. Bedford book Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait

Source: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 18 (p. 219)

Hate , Communication , Idea

“He who maligns an absent friend's fair fame,
Who says no word for him when others blame,
Who courts a reckless laugh by random hits,
Just for the sake of ranking among wits,
Who feigns what he ne'er saw, a secret blabs,
Beware him, Roman! that man steals or stabs!”

John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar

Book I, satire iv, p. 18
Translations, The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace (1869), Satires

“And had he not long read
Her heart's hush’d secret in the soft dark eye
Lighted at his approach, and on the cheek
Colouring all crimson at his lightest look?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Love’s Last Lesson
The Golden Violet (1827)

Light , Reading , Heart

“The world has spilled Love's secret —
when could music ever hold its tongue?
Every atom babbles the mystery”

Fakhruddin 'Iraqi (1213–1289) Persian philosopher

Fakhruddin Iraqi: Divine Flashes (1982)

Love , World , Music

““Then shall it come to pass the saying that is written,” a voice said. “Death is swallowed up. In victory.” Perhaps only Fred heard it. “Because,” the voice said, “as soon as the writing appears backward, then you know which is illusion and which is not. The confusion ends, and death, the last enemy, Substance Death, is swallowed not into the body but up—in victory. Behold, I tell you the sacred secret now: we shall not all sleep in death.””

Philip K. Dick book A Scanner Darkly

Source: A Scanner Darkly (1977), Chapter 13 (p. 214)

Death , Sleep , Appearance , Victory

“I am a firm believer in living as if there were no such thing as a secret. If we hide our sins and live in darkness, we will never get the healing we so desperately need; in fact, if it is hidden so well that we don't even recognize it, we may never even find forgiveness.”

Ted Haggard (1956) American minister

[Haggard, Ted, Simple Prayers for a Powerful Life, Regal Books, September 2002, p. 110, ISBN 0830730559]

Forgiveness

“There are secret humiliations to which no man would submit, as such, but from which love, when it is real, can take away the sting and the poison.”

Francis Marion Crawford (1854–1909) Novelist, short story writer, essayist (1854-1909)

A Cigarette-Maker's Romance (1894)

Love

“Secrecy was paramount. Britain's imperial general staff knew there would be outrage if it became known that the government was intending to use its secret stockpile of chemical weapons. But Winston Churchill, then secretary of state for war, brushed aside their concerns. As a long-term advocate of chemical warfare, he was determined to use them against the Russian Bolsheviks.”

Giles Milton (1966) British writer and historian

Winston Churchill's shocking use of chemical weapons https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/sep/01/winston-churchill-shocking-use-chemical-weapons (1 September 2013), .

War

“Christ is known only by them that receive Him into their love, their faith, their deep want; known only as He is enshrined within, felt as a Divine force, breathed in the inspirations of the secret life.”

Horace Bushnell (1802–1876) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 90.

Love , Life , Faith , Christ

“To be misunderstood even by those whom one loves is the cross and bitterness of life. It is the secret of that sad and melancholy smile on the lips of great men which so few understand; it is the cruelest trial reserved for self-devotion; it is what must have oftenest wrung the heart of the Son of man; and if God could suffer, it would be the wound we should be forever inflicting upon Him. He also — He above all — is the great misunderstood, the least comprehended.”

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) Swiss philosopher and poet

27 May 1849
Journal Intime (1882), Journal entries

Love , Life , Men , God

“Secret to finding, quickly, the corner pieces, then the outside edges, to the jigsaw puzzle of life: GTD”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

13 December 2009 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/6614086802
Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

Life

“And so the teaching (Torah) was likened to water: like water comes down from a high place to a low place, so the teaching descended from its honorable place, as it is His will and wisdom, and the light of Him that be blessed and thought cannot grasp it at all. From there it went in the secret stairway via the worlds, until it was dressed in material things and matters of this world, which are all the ordinants (mitzvot) and their ways, in combinations of material letters in ink on the book, twenty four books in the Tanakh, so thought will be able to comprehend it, and even speech and act, below the level of thought.”

Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745–1812) Orthodox Rabbi, and the founder and first Rebbe of Chabad

V'lakhen nimshela hatora l'mayim: ma mayim yordim mi'makom gavoha l'makom namukh, kakh ha'tora yarda mi'mkom kvoda, sh'hi retzono v'khomato yitbarakh, v'orayta v'kodsha brikh hu kula had v'leyt mahshava tfista biah klal. W'misham nas'a v'yarda b'seter ha'madregot m'madrega l'madrega b'hishtalshelut ha'olamot, ad sh'nitlabsha b'davrim gashmiyim v'inyaney ha'olam haze, sh'hen rov mitzvot hatora k'khulam v'hilkhotehen, w'btzerufei otiot gashmiot b'dio 'al hasefer, 'esrim v'arba'a s'farim sh'batora nevi'im w'khtuvim, kdei sh'tehe kol mahshava tfisa bahen, v'afilu bhinot dibur w'ma'ase sh'lemata m'madregat mahshava tfisa bahen w'mitlabeshet bahen.
Sefer HaTanya (Book of the learner) Part I, Chapter IV

Wisdom , Books , World , Way

“The secret of a long life is to never trust a doctor.”

Luise Rainer (1910–2014) German-born Austrian and American film actress

Spartacus Schoolnet biography http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USArainer.htm

Life

“Truth is the secret of eloquence and of virtue, the basis of moral authority; it is the highest summit of art and of life.”

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) Swiss philosopher and poet

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Journal

Life , Truth , Art

“When it comes to the Middle East, Trump again has the advantage of being an unknown quantity. Although he has talked a lot of nonsense about foreign policy, he has also insisted on a valid point: the current US policy simply doesn’t work. That, in turn, might persuade him to look for something different, creating at least an opportunity for repairing some of the damage done by Obama’s wayward policies to peace and stability in the Middle East. Clinton, in contrast, already has a record. She backed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt before Obama decided to ditch them. She was co-pilot in Obama’s disastrous policy in Libya. On the perennial Arab-Israeli conflict, she did the hoola dance choreographed by Obama, going round and round and getting nowhere. Clinton was also in the driving seat when the US launched secret talks in Oman with Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a textbook example of diplomatic chicanery that led to the great swindle known as “the Iran Nuclear deal.””

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Opinion: Clinton or Trump – Better or Less Bad? http://english.aawsat.com/2016/11/article55361471/opinion-clinton-trump-better-less-bad, Ashraq Al-Awsat (November 4, 2016)

Peace , Dance

“Things change," says Mr Shimada. "Is world's sad secret.”

John Updike book Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

World , Sadness , Change

“The secret of a joyful life is to live dangerously. A joyful life is an active life - it is not a dull static state of so-called happiness. Full of the burning fire of enthusiasm, anarchic, revolutionary, energetic, daemonic, Dionysian, filled to overflowing with the terrific urge to create - such is the life of the man who risks safety and happiness for the sake of growth and happiness.”

Richard Dawkins book A Devil's Chaplain

quoting F. W. Sanderson, "The Joy of Living Dangerously: Sanderson of Oundle"
A Devil's Chaplain (2003)

Life , Happiness

“Lookin' so innocent,
I might believe you if I didn't know.
Could'a loved you all my life,
If you hadn't left me waiting in the cold.
And you got your share of secrets,
And I'm tired of being last to know.
And now you're asking me to listen
'Cause it's worked each time before.”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

You're Not Sorry.
Song lyrics, Fearless (2008)

Love , Life , Time , Waiting

“"You look like a girl with a secret," Matt said. "I think it must be the smile."
She moved closer to him, which was very close, and lowered her voice. "Can you keep a secret?"
Matt smiled with one side of his mouth to show that he knew what was coming. She said it anyway. "So can I."”

Larry Niven (1938) American writer

Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Ch. 2 : The Sons Of Earth

Smile , Girl , Thinking

“The great secret, known to internists and learned early in marriage by internist’s wives, but still hidden from the general public, is that most things get better by themselves. Most things, in fact, are better by morning. Obviously, it is a great time-saver and money-saver for the physician’s family that anxiety about disease is not handled as though it were the disease itself; there is perhaps greater willingness to accept anxiety as a natural, often transient, phenomenon. And certainly there is much less ambition to deploy the full technology of medicine as a corrective for the human condition.”

Lewis Thomas (1913–1993) American physician, poet and educator

Source: Aspects of Biomedical Science Policy (1972), p. 3

Money , Marriage , Disease , Family

“His second secret was Adam Parrish.”

Maggie Stiefvater (1981) American writer

Ronan, on his crush.
The Raven Cycle Series, The Dream Thieves (2013)

“Dictators must have enemies. They must have internal enemies to justify their secret police and external enemies to justify their military forces.”

Richard Perle (1941) American government official

2005 February 17 - In a debate with DNC Chairman Howard Dean at Pacific University

“I do not believe that the President was in any way directly involved in the leaking of her identity, but that was a very disillusioning moment for me when I found out when it initially hit the press, and I was in North Carolina, if I remember correctly, and a reporter shouted out to the President, "Is it true that you authorized the secret leaking of this classified information?" We walked onto Air Force One, and the Presidents asks, "What was the reporter asking?", and I said, "He asserted that you were the one who authorized Scooty Libby leaking this information," and he said, "Yeah, I did."”

Scott McClellan (1968) Former White House press secretary

Bush press secretary Scott McClellan, on illegal leaking of counter-terrorist CIA agent identity; May 29, 2008; Countdown http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3719710/

Way

“The greatest secret of winners is that failure inspires winning.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

Failure

“(describing Celine Dion's family of 14 siblings) You know there is just issues and boundries and secrets. The name of my book.”

Kathy Griffin (1960) American actress and comedian

Hot Cup Of Talk (1998)

Books , Family , Siblings

“If therefore my work is negative, irreligious, atheistic, let it be remembered that atheism — at least in the sense of this work — is the secret of religion itself; that religion itself, not indeed on the surface, but fundamentally, not in intention or according to its own supposition, but in its heart, in its essence, believes in nothing else than the truth and divinity of human nature.”

Ludwig Feuerbach book The Essence of Christianity

Preface
The Essence of Christianity (1841)

Truth , Religion , Nature , Sense

“In the same way that in freedom of information around the world, the onus is always… the balance is always on disclosure and the state has to argue why it keeps things secret. But the problem always is in enforcement and who enforces it. And it becomes particularly problematic in the intelligence agencies. Because there you've got this argument of national security and what is happening is that national security is becoming the new word of God, where you can't challenge it. You can't challenge the facts behind why we go to war or why have we put people in prison or why have we occupied a country. And that's where I do kind of think that we need to push the line further.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Attributed, Chatham House Talk (September 28, 2011)

God , War , People , World

“A kiss is a contact, a union, an exchange. It is unknown to certain races and tribes, while others know it and consider it with disgust. They all suffer a loss. A kiss can be a cold formula, or a token of familial relationship or a prelude to the act of love. It can also be a revelation in an unspoken, secret language of feelings that have never been expressed in words.”

Harry Harrison (1925–2012) American science fiction author

Source: Plague from Space (1965), Chapter 9 (pp. 81-82)

Love , Family , Feeling , Kiss

“There is nothing so despicable as a secret society that is based upon religious prejudice and that will attempt to defeat a man because of his religious beliefs. Such a society is like a cockroach — it thrives in the dark. So do those who combine for such an end.”

William Howard Taft (1857–1930) American politician, 27th President of the United States (in office from 1909 to 1913)

Speech to the Young Men's Hebrew Association in New York (20 December 1914).

“Secrets of the cosmos will begin to unravel. I, for one, can't wait.”

Lisa Randall (1962) American theoretical physicist and an expert on particle physics and cosmology

Source: Warped Passages: Unraveling the Universe's Hidden Dimensions (2005), Ch. 25.

Waiting

“They were gunning the motorcycles. There were these little backfires. There was one noise like that. I thought it was a backfire. Then next I saw Connally grabbing his arms and saying "no, no, no, no, no," with his fist beating. Then Jack turned and I turned. All I remember was a blue-gray building up ahead. Then Jack turned back so neatly, his last expression was so neat… you know that wonderful expression he had when they'd ask him a question about one of the ten million pieces they have in a rocket, just before he'd answer. He looked puzzled, then he slumped forward. He was holding out his hand … I could see a piece of his skull coming off. It was flesh-colored, not white — he was holding out his hand … I can see this perfectly clean piece detaching itself from his head. Then he slumped in my lap, his blood and his brains were in my lap … Then Clint Hill [the Secret Service man], he loved us, he made my life so easy, he was the first man in the car … We all lay down in the car … And I kept saying, Jack, Jack, Jack, and someone was yelling "he's dead, he's dead."”

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) public figure, First Lady to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy

All the ride to the hospital I kept bending over him, saying "Jack, Jack, can you hear me, I love you, Jack."
The "Camelot" interview (29 November 1963)

Love , Life , Cars , Color

“"The year is 2098", he said, "with 69 billion inhabitants legally registered and approximately another 26 billion in hiding. The average annual temperature has fallen four degrees. In fifteen or twenty years there will be glaciers here. We have no way of averting or halting their advance - we can only keep them secret."
"I always thought there would be ice in hell," I said. "And so you paint the gates with pretty pictures?"”

Stanisław Lem book The Futurological Congress

The Futurological Congress (1971)

Way , Hell , Painting

“When Nicholas II was crowned tsar of Russia in 1894, the country was seething with unrest. Brought up by private tutors, he had little training in the affairs of state. He was dull, reactionary, and an ineffective ruler who was easily influenced.
Although revolution was slowly brewing, Russia on the surface remained a prisoner of its feudal past. In order to maintain the appearance of stability, Nicholas II engaged ina policy of suppreission and later on supported pogroms against Jews.
Such anti-Semitic views were not new. Even before the assassination in 1881 of Alexander II (Nicholas II’s grandfather) the Romanov family had been convinced of p-lots against the tsar.
During his own reign, Nicholas II was easily swayed by strong opinions. He veered from one plan to another depending on the advice of the most articulate in his council. His most trusted adviser was Sergei Yulievich Witte, a clever but sometimes unpopular councilor who was known to have liberal modernistic views regarded as controversial by conservatives, who dominated the court.
Witte had two very resentful enemies…Gorymikine and Rachkobsky, who were associated with the secret police.”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp. 21-23

Family , Support , Strong , Appearance

“Might a bomb no bigger than an orange be found to possess a secret power to destroy a whole block of buildings — nay to concentrate the force of a thousand tons of cordite and blast a township at a stroke?.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Pall Mall Gazette (1924) on HG Wells' suggestion of an atomic bomb, in "BBC Article" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33365776
Early career years (1898–1929)

“There was one artist who wrote as beautifully as he painted. That was Hokusai - He speaks for all artists, whether they are painters or not. [He wrote]: "I have been in love with painting ever since I became conscious of it at the age of six. I drew some pictures I thought fairly good when I was fifty, but really nothing I did before the age of seventy was of any value at all. At seventy three I have at last caught every aspect of nature-birds, fish, animals, insects, trees, grasses, all. When I am eighty I shall have developed still further. And I will really master the secrets of art at ninety. When I reach a hundred my work will be truly sublime, and my final goal will be attained around the age of one hundred and ten, when every line and dot I draw will be imbued with life."”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Reflections (1981)

Love , Life , Age , Art

“Yeah, congratulations. Way to go, Punk, way to go. Congratulations on your big win. You need to enjoy them while you can. You see, you can smirk if you want to, but I see straight through you. When I look at you, I see a fraud. And I'm not talking about the fact that you call yourself the best in the world, I'm talking about you as a person. Because I did a little research this week, Punk, and I found something, a little deep, dirty, dark secret about you. You've been straight edge ever since you came to the WWE, but you've never explained the reasons why. I wanna tell all of these wannabes why you're straight edge. I wanna tell them that you're straight edge because your father is an alcoholic.
Yeah, that's right. Your father was an alcoholic who let you down every step of the way when you were growing up, and it terrifies you. You don't want to end up like him. But it's inevitable that you will, because alcohol is in your blood, it's in your genes, it's part of who you are, and that tortures you. I know you've built this facade, this wall that you're a sarcastic antihero with not a care in the world, but I think I've found something that you care about. I've found something that gives you nightmares, something that terrifies you.
And isn't it ironic that the very alcohol that you crave is the same thing that ruined your childhood? Oh, the nightmares you must have about your father; I almost feel bad for you, Punk. Is that the reason why you have all those tattoos? Was the pain of wanting to drink so bad that you needed the pain of a tattoo needle to take it out of your mind? Was that your only solace?
It doesn't matter if it is, Punk, because you are going to drink eventually, and I'm the one who is going to make you drink. At WrestleMania XXVIII, I'm going to take away your title, I'm gonna take away your claims of being the best in the world, I'm gonna take away your bravado, and I'm gonna leave you a broken man. You're gonna hit bottom, Punk, and when you do, you're going to embrace your destiny, and you're gonna take a drink. And it's gonna taste so good that you're gonna wanna take another one, and another one, and another one. After April 1st, I'm gonna be recognized for who I am—the undisputed best in the world and the new WWE Champion. And you're gonna be recognized for who you are, who your father was—a pathetic damn drunk!”

Chris Jericho (1970) American professional wrestler, musician, television host, podcast host and author

March 12, 2012 - WWE Raw

Pain , Alcohol , World , Way

“I realise that 2008 will be an important test for Russia, and not an easy one. At the same time, the Constitution of the Russian Federation states that the President, the head of state, is elected for four years through direct secret ballot and cannot stay in office for more than two consecutive terms.
I am not indifferent of course to the question of who will take in their hands the destiny of the country I have devoted my life to serving. But if each successive head of state were to change the Constitution to suit them, we would soon find ourselves without a state at all. I think that Russia's different political forces are sufficiently mature to realise their responsibility to the people of the Russian Federation. In any case, the person who receives the votes of the majority of Russian citizens will become the President of the country.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Answering the question of Dutch TV station "Nederland 1" and Dutch newspaper "NRC Handelsblad", "Can you imagine a situation in which you would decide to remain in office for a third term?", Putin said: http://web.archive.org/web/20061013003243/http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2005/10/31/1955_type82914type82916_96455.shtml
2006- 2010

Life , People , Question , Thinking

““We are penetrating the mysteries of the cosmos, and the secrets of life at its smaller levels.”
And it is wrong. You must grasp the purity of the whole, not tear from the Goddess the secrets of her heart.”
“Spinoza says that the more we understand individual objects, the more we understand God. I think that is a very profound statement. Why does your goddess fear what my God does not?
“The mechanistic path has led mankind to terror and suffering.”
“No, ignorance and hatred and intolerance have led mankind to terror and suffering. And not all of our discoveries lead to death.””

Melinda M. Snodgrass (1951) American writer

Source: Queen's Gambit Declined (1989), Chapter 18 (p. 237)

Life , Death , God , Fear

“Let me come back again to the waking state. I have no choice but to consider it a phenomenon of interference. Not only does the mind display, in this state, a strange tendency to lose its bearings (as evidenced by the slips and mistakes the secrets of which are just beginning to be revealed to us), but, what is more, it does not appear that, when the mind is functioning normally, it really responds to anything but the suggestions which come to it from the depths of that dark night to which I commend it.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

Le Manifeste du Surréalisme, Andre Breton (Manifesto of Surrealism; 1924)

Appearance , Night

“when skies are hanged and oceans drowned, the single secret will still be man”

E.E. Cummings book 1 × 1

Source: 1 x 1 (1944), XX

“Golovinski: What is the meaning of this? Why am I arrested?
Secret police chief: Mathieu Golovinski, you are accused of provocation and being an informer!
Golovinski:I am loyal to the tsar…. who dares accuse me? Who?
Secret police chief: We have reliable sources.
You are sentenced to exilein the country of your choice!
Golovinski: I will go to France.”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

I am fluent in the French language.
Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp. 51-52

Country

“When I was born, God existed. But I never knew Him. I just never knew Him until Guru Maharaj Ji came into my life, till Guru Maharaj Ji came in my way, and showed me and revealed me that secret. And the day he did that, there it was, I knew God.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

And It Is Divine, (January 1973) Volume 1, issue 3 - Referring to the day his father and teacher gave him the techniques of Knowledge
1970s

Life , God , Way

“I have always been structured. What has changed is the proportions. Now it is eight hours of paperwork and one of painting. I go to the studio every day, but I don't paint every day. I love playing with my architectural models. I love making plans. I could spend my life arranging things. Weeks go by, and I don't paint until finally I can't stand it any longer. I get fed up. I almost don't want to talk about it, because I don't want to become self-conscious about it, but perhaps I create these little crises as a kind of a secret strategy to push myself. It is a danger to wait around for an idea to occur to you. You have to find the idea.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

after 2000, Gerhard Richter: An Artist Beyond Isms' (2002)

Love , Life , Idea , Change

“And here is the deep, dark, dirty secret of Islam: It is a religion that promotes pedophilia - sex with children. This so-called prophet Muhammad raped a 9-year-old girl - had sex with her… Around the world today, you have Muslim men having sex with 4-year-old girls, taking them as their brides, because they believe the prophet Muhammad did… I believe, as Christians and conservatives, it's time to take off the gloves and stand up and tell the truth about this evil, evil religion.”

Robert Jeffress (1955) Pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas

"Ask The Pastor", First Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas, , quoted in * 2010-09-05
Dallas pastor's broad-brush criticism of Islam goes way too far
Steve
Blow
The Dallas Morning News
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/columnists/steve-blow/20100904-Dallas-pastor-s-broad-brush-criticism-8678.ece

Men , Children , Truth , World

“This is one of the most highly secret matters there are, perhaps the most secret. Anybody who speaks about it is shot dead immediately. Two talkative people died yesterday.”

Odilo Globocnik (1904–1945) SS officer

To Kurt Gerstein, 17 August 1942. Quoted in "Genocide, Critical Issues of the Holocaust" - Page 455 - by Alex Grobman, Daniel Landes, Sybil Milton - History - 1983.

People , Dead

“A secret ceases to be a secret if it is once confided—it is like a dollar bill, once broken, it is never a dollar again.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Affurisms. From Josh Billings: His Sayings (1865)

Confidence

“The thing most feared in secret always happens.
I write: oh Thou, have mercy. And then?
All it takes is a little courage.
The more the pain grows clear and definite, the more the instinct for life asserts itself and the thought of suicide recedes.
It seemed easy when I thought of it. Weak women have done it. It takes humility, not pride.
All this is sickening.
Not words. An act. I won't write any more.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

, end. Nine days later he committed suicide, leaving this message: «I forgive everyone and to everyone I ask forgiveness. Well enough? Don't gossip too much».
This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Life , Women , Pain , Fear

“Claus Graf von Stauffenberg’s famous last words Es lebe das geheime Deutschland have turned out to be not quite so romantically foolish as they sounded at the time. If there never was a secret Germany, the July plotters at least provided a sacred moment, and the Germans of today are right to cherish it.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

Ibid.
Essays and reviews, As Of This Writing (2003)

Time

“It is inconceivable that a secret arm of the government has to comply with all the overt orders of the government.”

James Jesus Angleton (1917–1987) chief of the CIA's counterintelligence (CI) staff from 1954 to 1975

Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, Anchor Books, 2008, page 390

“I was very fond of strange stories when I was a child. In my village-school days, I used to buy stealthily the popular novels and historical recitals. Fearing that my father and my teacher might punish me for this and rob me of these treasures, I carefully hid them in secret places where I could enjoy them unmolested. As I grew older, my love for strange stories became even stronger, and I learned of things stranger than what I had read in my childhood. When I was in my thirties my memory was full of these stories accumulated through years of eager seeking. […] I have sometimes laughingly said to myself that it is not I who have found these ghosts and monsters, but they, the monstrosities themselves, which have found me!”

Wú Chéng'ēn (1500–1582) Chinese writer

Preface to a collection of short stories about monsters, now lost, as quoted in Arthur Waley's introduction to the American edition of Monkey (New York: Grove Press, 1943)

Love , Fear , School , Learning

“Getting involved in Earthlings was pretty intense because there were still a lot of things I didn’t know. To raise compassion and awareness is so necessary. The documentary is not just about animals, it’s about how we treat each other as well. How we have empathy for the weak and we don’t abuse it. It exposes the truth. It is a very difficult film to get into mainstream because there are so many corporations that will hurt if their secrets revealed.”

Persia White (1972) American actress and singer

"Persia White Interviews With Marta Walsh", interview with Talking Makeup (27 October 2009) http://talkingmakeup.com/beauty/featured/persia-white-interviews-with-marta-walsh/.

Truth , Animals , Hurt

“This Prime Minister must be drummed from office and we will use each and every opportunity to make that a reality…But this Prime Minister deserves to be impeached - and we, with others, will present the case that he should be required to answer…I believe that this Prime Minister now operates outside the currency of debate, beyond the pale of decency…I don't just challenge the policies of Tony Blair, I challenge his morality…This is not a question of this Prime Minister - any prime minister - making a judgement call and just being wrong. It is not a matter, as Blair would have us believe, of someone acting in good faith and making an honest mistake. This is a man who buried the intelligence that was inconvenient, manipulated the information to suit his purpose, and entered into a secret pact with the American President to go to war come what may.”

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

Speech at the SNP annual conference (24 September 2004), quoted in The Independent, ' Salmond back with threat to impeach PM http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/salmond-back-with-threat-to-impeach-pm-6160873.html' (25 September 2004).

War , Faith , Intelligence , Question