Quotes about thinking
page 23

“All is accomplished, all has terminated there. It is there, in that circle narrow as a well that the descent into the raging heart of hell was halted, the descent into slow tortures, into unrelenting fatigue, into the flashing tempest. We came here because they told us to come here. We have done what they told us to do. I think of the simplicity of our reply on the Day of Judgment.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XV - An Apparition

Hell, Rage, Heart

“Basically I'm a very serious person, but I think the form it takes with me is comedy. I see the amusing side of all potentially pompous situations.”

Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) English actor, writer, and dramatist

BBC obituary (2004)

Personality

“Either by God you mean something definite or you don't mean something definite. If by God you mean a personality who is concerned about human beings, who did all this out of love for human beings, who watches us and who intervenes, then I would have to say in the first place how do you know, what makes you think so? And in the second place, is that really an explanation? If that's true, what explains that? Why is there such a God? It isn't the end of the chain of whys, it just is another step, and you have to take the step beyond that.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

Steven Weinberg, PBS interview, 1998 http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/transcript/wein-frame.html

Love, God, Personality

“Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope, that my Country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.”

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

1790s, Farewell Address (1796)

Life, Hope, Error, Evil

“It is a damn poor mind indeed which can't think of at least two ways to spell any word.”

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States

Sometimes reported as having been a retort to statements of his political rival, John Quincy Adams, who had boycotted Harvard University's awarding of a Doctorate of Laws degree to Jackson in 1833, declaring "I would not be present to witness her [Harvard's] disgrace in conferring her highest literary honors on a barbarian who could not write a sentence of grammar and could hardly spell his own name." Quoted in News Reporting and Writing 4th edition (1987) by M. Mencher. Unsourced variant: Never trust a man who has only one way to spell a word. Likely misattributed http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/06/25/spelling/

Way

“I'm about caring, I'm about people, and I'm about entertaining people. I'm a family man. A husband. A father. I've been a lot of other things over the years, which we don't really want to talk about. I'm always working on trying to better myself, you know? I think that that is an ongoing thing with me. I think I'll do that for the rest of my life. I'm always thinking of what I can do today to better my life.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

Launch.com October 30, 1998

Life, People, Family

“In our society today, when we teach the righteous way of life based upon the Theory of judo which embodies the principles of continuous improvement of society, then this righteous life provides a basis of definite proof of this principle and unifies the peoples' way of thinking. Various religious and learned points of view are then made abundantly clear.”

Kanō Jigorō (1860–1938) Japanese educator and judoka

Kodokan Magazine (1974)

Life, People, Way, Learning

“For me, Bindu is a point where I concentrate, my energy, my mind. It has become like Bhagvat Gita, Swadharm and all that. You have to fix your energy on one thing and not ten things. If you go to ten directions, it's distraction of energy. I think one woman is enough”

S. H. Raza (1922–2016) Indian artist

Indian contemporary artists have not reached my standard: SH Raza

“From all we have said, it will now be evident, one would think, to the most prejudiced reader that modern English Law, following obsequiously a deluded or apathetic stage of public opinion, has solved the problem of the division of rights and duties between the sexes, by conceding to woman all rights, and imposing on man all duties.”

Ernest Belfort Bax (1854–1926) British barrister and journalist

11: A Sex Noblesse http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Legal_Subjection_of_Men#A_Sex_Noblesse The Legal Subjection of Men (1908)

Law, Sex, Problem

“And, finally, our nations are strongest when we empower our young people –- because ultimately, you're the one who has to break down these old stereotypes and these old barriers, these old ways of thinking. Prejudices and stereotypes and assumptions -- those are what happens to old minds like mine. I'm getting gray hair now. I was more youthful when I first started this office. And that’s why young people are so important in these efforts.”

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

2015, Address to the People of India (January 2015)

People, Youth, Way, Effort

“The Author of the piece, is entitled to much credit for the goodness of his Pen: and I could wish he had as much credit for the rectitude of his Heart — for, as Men see thro’ different Optics, and are induced by the reflecting faculties of the Mind, to use different means to attain the same end; the Author of the Address, should have had more charity, than to mark for Suspicion, the Man who should recommend Moderation and longer forbearance — or, in other words, who should not think as he thinks, and act as he advises. But he had another plan in view, in which candor and liberality of Sentiment, regard to justice, and love of Country, have no part; and he was right, to insinuate the darkest suspicion, to effect the blackest designs.
That the Address is drawn with great art, and is designed to answer the most insidious purposes. That it is calculated to impress the Mind, with an idea of premeditated injustice in the Sovereign power of the United States, and rouse all those resentments which must unavoidably flow from such a belief. That the secret Mover of this Scheme (whoever he may be) intended to take advantage of the passions, while they were warmed by the recollection of past distresses, without giving time for cool, deliberative thinking, & that composure of Mind which is so necessary to give dignity & stability to measures, is rendered too obvious, by the mode of conducting the business, to need other proof than a reference to the proceeding.”

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

1780s, The Newburgh Address (1783)

Love, Men, Secret, Justice

“I think these things [firearms] were invented by Satan himself, for they can’t be defended against with (ordinary) weapons and fists. All human strength vanishes when confronted with firearms. A man is dead before he sees what’s coming.”

Martin Luther book Table Talk

3552
Table Talk (1569)

Dead

“Atticus said that Jem was trying hard to forget something, but what he was really doing was storing it away for a while, until enough time passed. Then he would be able to think about it and sort things out. When he was able to think about it, Jem would be himself again.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Time, Forgetting

“I do not believe that science per se is an adequate source of happiness, nor do I think that my own scientific outlook has contributed very greatly to my own happiness, which I attribute to defecating twice a day with unfailing regularity.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Letter to W. W. Norton (publisher), 27 January, 1931
1930s

Happiness, Science

“If the Republicans, who think slavery is wrong, get possession of the general government, we may not root out the evil at once, but may at least prevent its extension. If I find a venomous snake lying on the open praire, I seize the first stick and kill him at once. But if that snake is in bed with my children, I must be more cautious. I shall, in striking the snake, also strike the children, or arouse the reptile to bite the children. Slavery is the venomous snake in bed with the children. But if the question is whether to kill it on the prairie or put it in bed with other children, I think we'd kill it!”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)
Context: If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any man would say I might seize the nearest stick and kill it; but if I found that snake in bed with my children, that would be another question. I might hurt the children more than the snake, and it might bite them. Much more if I found it in bed with my neighbor's children, and I had bound myself by a solemn compact not to meddle with his children under any circumstances, it would become me to let that particular mode of getting rid of the gentleman alone. But if there was a bed newly made up, to which the children were to be taken, and it was proposed to take a batch of young snakes and put them there with them, I take it no man would say there was any question how I ought to decide!
Context: If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any man would say I might seize the nearest stick and kill it; but if I found that snake in bed with my children, that would be another question. I might hurt the children more than the snake, and it might bite them. Much more if I found it in bed with my neighbor's children, and I had bound myself by a solemn compact not to meddle with his children under any circumstances, it would become me to let that particular mode of getting rid of the gentleman alone. But if there was a bed newly made up, to which the children were to be taken, and it was proposed to take a batch of young snakes and put them there with them, I take it no man would say there was any question how I ought to decide! That is just the case! The new Territories are the newly made bed to which our children are to go, and it lies with the nation to say whether they shall have snakes mixed up with them or not. It does not seem as if there could be much hesitation what our policy should be!

Children, Lying, Question, Evil

“I am no poet, but if you think for yourselves, as I proceed, the facts will form a poem in your minds.”

Michael Faraday (1791–1867) English scientist

Lecture notes of 1858, quoted in The Life and Letters of Faraday (1870) by Bence Jones, Vol. 2, p. 403

“But my understanding is there are many villages you go to where there’s really no schools, as a practical matter, and many of the schools still teach just how to memorize certain things rather than how to think critically about problems. And every country at this point, if it wants to succeed, needs to put in place free, compulsory education for its young people -- because they just can’t succeed unless they have some basic skills. They have to be able to read. They have to be able to do mathematics. They have to have some familiarity with computers. They have to be able to understand basic principles of science. If you don’t have those basic tools, then it’s very hard to find a decent job in today’s economy.”

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

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

People, Education, School, Mathematics

“I think the author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech at banquet given by the city of Glasgow to Disraeli on his inauguration as Lord Rector of Glasgow University (19 November 1870), cited in Wit and Wisdom of Benjamin Disraeli, Collected from his Writings and Speeches (1881), p. 16.

Children, Books

“If you think you are emancipated, you might consider the idea of tasting your own menstrual blood - if it makes you sick, you've got a long way to go, baby.”

Germaine Greer book The Female Eunuch

The Wicked Womb (p. 57)
The Female Eunuch (1970)

Way, Idea, Baby

“Bukharin's a swine and surely worse than a swine because he thinks it below his dignity to write a couple of lines.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Bol'shevistskoe rukovodstvo. Perepiska 1912-1927, [Bolshevik Leadership, Correspondence 1912-1927], p. 90
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Swine

“"What's common across all human experience across all time? That's what Jung essentially meant by an archetype. We tend to think that what we see with our senses is real. And of course that's true, but what we see with our senses is what's real that works in the time frame that we exist in. So we see things that we can touch and pick up - we see tools, essentially, that are useful for our moment to moment activities. We don't see the structures of eternity, and we especially don't see the abstract structures of eternity. We have to imagine those with our imagination. Well that's partly what those stories are doing. They're saying that there are forms of stability that transcend our capacity to observe, which is hardly surprising. We know that if we are scientists, because we are always abstracting out things that we can't immediately observe. But there are moral, or metaphysical, or phenomenological realities that have the same nature. You can't see them in your life by observing them with your senses, but you can imagine them with your imagination, and sometimes the things that you imagine with your imagination are more real than the things that you see. Numbers are like that, for example. There are endless things like that. Same with fiction. A good work of fiction is more real than the stories from which it was derived. Otherwise it has no staying power. It's distilled reality. And some would say "it never happened," but it depends on what you mean by "happened." If it's a pattern that repeats in many many places, with variation, you can abstract out the central pattern. So the pattern never purely existed in any specific form, but the fact that you pulled a pattern out from all those exemplars means that you've extracted something real. I think the reason that the story of Adam and Eve has been immune to being forgotten is because it says things about the nature of the human condition that are always true."”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

Life, Imagination, Nature, Reality

“I can think of no more stirring symbol of man’s humanity to man than a fire engine.”

Kurt Vonnegut book The Sirens of Titan

Source: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 10 “An Age of Miracles” (p. 242)

“Leave off wishing to deserve any thanks from anyone, or thinking that anyone can ever become grateful.”
Desine de quoquam quicquam bene velle mereri, Aut aliquem fieri posse putare pium.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

LXXIII, lines 1–2
Carmina

“Many if not most of his decisions are thrust upon the president, out of the blue, by events beyond his control: oil spills, financial panics, pandemics, earthquakes, fires, coups, invasions, underwear bombers, movie-theater shooters, and on and on and on. They don’t order themselves neatly for his consideration but come in waves, jumbled on top of each other. “Nothing comes to my desk that is perfectly solvable,” Obama said at one point. “Otherwise, someone else would have solved it. So you wind up dealing with probabilities. Any given decision you make you’ll wind up with a 30 to 40 percent chance that it isn’t going to work. You have to own that and feel comfortable with the way you made the decision. You can’t be paralyzed by the fact that it might not work out.” On top of all of this, after you have made your decision, you need to feign total certainty about it. People being led do not want to think probabilistically.”

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

Michael Lewis, "Obama's Way" https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2012/10/michael-lewis-profile-barack-obama, Vanity Fair, (October 2012). 2012

People, Way, Feeling, Decision

“As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"Proof of God" 1940s, Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic? http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russell8.htm (1947)

God

“Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Les hommes seront toujours fous; et ceux qui croient les guérir sont les plus fous de la bande.
Letter to Louise Dorothea of Meiningen, duchess of Saxe-Gotha Madame (30 January 1762)
Citas

Men, Madness

“Nick Gillespie: So, um, how do you self-describe politically?
Krist Novoselic: I'm a, what, an anarcho-capitalist socialist…I don't know…I'm kinda a moderate, I think I'm moderate.
Nick Gillespie: So you're an anarcho-capitalist socialist moderate.
Krist Novoselic: I mean I'm a gun-owning pacifist, so there you go. I'm an anarcho-socialist—you know what I mean?
Nick Gillespie: Anarcho-socialist—
Krist Novoselic: —capitalist—
Nick Gillespie: —capitalist, gun-toting…
Krist Novoselic: Yeah, it's just like I, y'know, I just tryin'a, tryin'a make it work in this world and…basically I'm just a small-D democrat.”

Krist Novoselic (1965) Croatian-American rock musician

11:30–12:03 "Nirvana's Krist Novoselic on Punk, Politics, & Why He Dumped the Dems" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4TPRH2uK9w

World

“Sometimes I think it is a great mistake to have matter that can think and feel. It complains so. By the same token, though, I suppose that boulders and mountains and moons could be accused of being a little too phlegmatic.”

Kurt Vonnegut book The Sirens of Titan

Source: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 2 “Cheers in the Wirehouse” (p. 45; epigram)

Feeling, Mountain

“We talk about a secular state in India. It is perhaps not very easy even to find a good word in Hindi for "secular". Some people think it means something opposed to religion. That obviously is not correct. What it means is that it is state which honours all faiths equally and gives them equal opportunities; that, as a state, it does not allow itself to be attached to one faith or religion, which then becomes the state religion.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Statement of 1961, as quoted in Locked Minds, Modern Myths (1997) by T. N. Madan

People, Faith, Religion

“I was raised to be very independent. I was raised to believe I could do anything I wanted with my life. My father said I was lucky to be born a woman because "women can do anything they want" with their lives. Of course, I didn't realize until later that my father was giving me a slightly unrealistic view, but I think that [it] gave me a lot of confidence.”

Michelle Phillips (1944) Singer, actress

On her upbringing, The Arsenio Hall Show (1991)

Life, Women, Confidence

“Vague expression permits the hearer to imagine whatever suits him and what he already thinks in any case. Rigorous formulation demands unequivocal comprehension, conceptual effort, to which people are deliberately disencouraged, and imposes on them in advance of any content a suspension of all received opinions, and thus an isolation, that they violently resist. Only what they do not need first to understand, they consider understandable; only the word coined by commerce, and really alienated, touches them as familiar.”

Theodor W. Adorno book Minima Moralia

Der vage Ausdruck erlaubt dem, der ihn vernimmt, das ungefähr sich vorzustellen, was ihm genehm ist und was er ohnehin meint. Der strenge erzwingt Eindeutigkeit der Auffassung, die Anstrengung des Begriffs, deren die Menschen bewußt entwöhnt werden, und mutet ihnen vor allem Inhalt Suspension der gängigen Urteile, damit ein sich Absondern zu, dem sie heftig widerstreben. Nur, was sie nicht erst zu verstehen brauchen, gilt ihnen für verständlich; nur das in Wahrheit Entfremdete, das vom Kommerz geprägte Wort berührt sie als vertraut.
E. Jephcott, trans. (1974), § 64
Minima Moralia (1951)

People, Imagination, Understanding, Effort

“I used to think of that line in Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl', about the 'sad cup of coffee'... I have had cold coffee and hot coffee and lousy coffee, But I've never had a sad cup of coffee.”

Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) American artist

Source: 1980's, Off the Wall: Robert Rauschenberg and the Art world of Our Time, 1980, p. 89

Sadness, Coffee

“But when the example of the leader is not at hand and the herd must think for itself, it does so by means of clichés, pat words or images which stand for a whole group of ideas or experiences. Not many years ago, it was only necessary to tag a political candidate with the word interests to stampede millions of people into voting against him, because anything associated with "the interests" seemed necessary corrupt. Recently the word Bolshevik has performed a similar service for persons who wished to frighten the public away from a line of action.
By playing upon a old cliché, or manipulating a new one, the propagandist can sometimes swing a whole mass group emotions.”

Edward Bernays book Propaganda

Page 74
Propaganda (1928)

People, Idea, Personality

“And they don't really know even what they're talkin' about
And I can't image what empty heads can achieve
Leave me alone, don't want your promises no more
'Cos rock & roll is my religion and my law
Won't ever change, may think it's strange
You can't kill rock & roll, it's here to stay”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

You Can't Kill Rock and Roll, written by Ozzy Osbourne, Randy Rhoads and Bob Daisley.
Song lyrics, Diary of a Madman (1981)

Religion, Law, Change

“Boast not my fall (he cried), insulting foe!
Thou by some other shalt be laid as low;
Nor think to die dejects my lofty mind;
All that I dread is leaving you behind!
Rather than so, ah let me still survive,
And burn in Cupid's flames — but burn alive.”

Alexander Pope The Rape of the Lock

Canto V, line 97.
The Rape of the Lock (1712, revised 1714 and 1717)

“The problem facing our people here in America is bigger than all other personal or organizational differences. Therefore as leaders, we must stop worrying about the threat we seem to think we pose to each other's personal prestige; and concentrate our united efforts towards solving the unending hurt that is being done daily to our people here in America.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Source: Malcolm X Speaks (1965), p. 21

People, Problem, Effort, Hurt

“When I think of the people who have been there, and the people I grew up admiring - the likes of Muhammad Ali, Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Leonard… it's just incredible that I'm in the same sort of club.”

Barry McGuigan (1961) Irish-British boxer

After being inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4160837.stm

People

“It would be better, I think, for the man who really seeks the truth not to ask what the poets say; rather, he should first learn the method of finding the scientific premises that I discussed in the second book; then he should train and exercise himself in this method; and when his training is sufficiently advanced, then, as he approaches each particular problem, he should enquire into the premise needed for proving it, which premise he should take from simple sense-perception, which from experience, whether drawn from life or from the arts, which from the truths clearly apprehended by the mind, in order to draw out from them the desired conclusion.”

Galén (129–216) Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher

Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato,: PHP III 8.35.1-11 translation: De Lacy, Phillip (1978- 1984) Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato, Berlin. p. 233; cited in: Christopher Jon Elliott. "Galen, Rome and the Second Sophistic." p. 147-8.

Life, Truth, Books, Art

“The more reified the world becomes, the thicker the veil cast upon nature, the more the thinking weaving that veil in its turn claims ideologically to be nature, primordial experience.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

Source: Wozu noch Philosophie? [Why still philosophy?] (1963), p. 7

World, Nature

“I remember thinking that walking on the beach as a free man is pretty desirable.”

Pierre Trudeau (1919–2000) 15th Prime Minister of Canada

Part 3, 1974 - 1979 Victory And Defeat, p. 258
Memoirs (1993)

“Blow, blow your trumpets till they crack,
Ye little men of little souls!
And bid them huddle at your back -
Gold-sucking leeches, shoals on shoals!Fill all the air with hungry wails -
"Reward us, ere we think or write!
Without your Gold mere Knowledge fails
To sate the swinish appetite!"”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Fame's Penny-Trumpet st. 1 & 2
Rhyme? and Reason? (1883)

Men, Soul, Knowledge

“No one need think that the world can be ruled without blood. The civil sword shall and must be red and bloody.”

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States

Martin Luther, Von Kaufhandlung und Wucher, 1524, (Vol. XV, p. 302, of the Weimar edition of Luther's works).
Misattributed

World

“Today, I don't think that there is a fear of Islam as such but of ISIS and its war of conquest, which is partly drawn from Islam. It is true that the idea of conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam. However, it is also possible to interpret the objective in Matthew's Gospel, where Jesus sends his disciples to all nations, in terms of the same idea of conquest.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

INTERVIEW Pope Francis http://www.la-croix.com/Religion/Pape/INTERVIEW-Pope-Francis-2016-05-17-1200760633 by Guillaume Goubert and Sébastien Maillard for La Croix (17 May 2016); translation by Stefan Gigacz. 2010s, 2016

War, Fear, Soul, Idea

“I thought about this question. I answered it as best I could [at the press conference]. I felt I didn't tell [the reporter] what I really wanted to say. He thought I was Christian. And I am by birth; my parents were and my early teachings were Christian. But as I look upon the world, I feel all men know the truth. If a man was a Christian, he could know the truth and he could not. The truth itself does not have any name on it. And each man has to find it for himself, I think.”

John Coltrane (1926–1967) American jazz saxophonist

Liner notes for Live in Japan. Impulse. GRD-4-102, 1991.

Men, Truth, World, Feeling

“The present age has witnessed an extraordinary increase of a thinking public, by the facilities afforded to the diffusion of reading; the former happy resignation to ignorance begins to make way for a state of half-enlightenment, and few persons are willing to remain in the condition in which their birth has placed then.”

Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright

Prefatory Remarks
The Philosophical Letters

Happiness, Age, Way, Birth

“This I think is sufficiently evident, that children generally hate to be idle. All the care then is, that their busy humour should be constantly employ'd in something of use to them; which, if you will attain, you must make what you would have them do a recreation to them, and not a business.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 129
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Hate, Children, Business

“You listeners, the ones who found me first are, I believe, the future of great art thinkers. Because anyone that's found me now I really think is grabbing on to the ideas that I have, more than anything. It's about the music but it's also about the story. So thank you guys for loving and reading the story and being as into it and as passionate as I am.”

Lady Gaga (1986) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Interview with DJ Ron Slomowicz at About.com http://dancemusic.about.com/od/artistshomepages/a/LadyGagaInt_2.htm

Love, Art, Music, Guy

“The worst of his life is not that he thinks that it is living, but that he is satisfied with it, and the most awful thing of life is that he thinks that is how it should be. He can't understand anyone who thinks differently from him, and when he can't understand anything he says: I'm sorry, but I'm only a humble joiner. It's all he can do to accept that fact that I am studying the history of literature and Scandinavian languages: he accepts it not because I will thereby become mentally enriched, but because he thinks that it will enable me to live an easier life that he. Easier but not different.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 200

Life, History, Literature, Understanding

“Your own nature will triumph. We are all born with our natures… And I think back over my life and I realize that my own nature -the core me- essentially hasn't changed over all these years. When I wake up in the morning, for those first few moments before I remember where I am or when I am, I still feel the same way I did when I woke up at the age of five.”

Douglas Coupland book Life After God

Life After God (1994)

Life, Age, Way, Feeling

“For me, the roles are the secondary part of the whole process to me strangely. It's about who you're being directed by and who the other actors are. Whenever I read a script, I think, 'wow, that's a great story,' and invariably I want to play one of the other characters, and the process of working out how to play the character you're offered is to work out why you aren't playing the other characters in a way. Maybe that's why I play roles of various different sizes. The challenge is not necessarily always the lead role, but in this case [Blue Jasmine] it was all those things combined.”

Cate Blanchett (1969) Australian actress

2014 SBIFF - Cate Blanchett Discusses Selecting Roles, Woody Allen and Casting, Santa Barbara International Film Festival, 2 February 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9m9sMSGC5M,

Way, Reading, Parting

“The next thing I know, I'm on the set of the movie Magic Mike. The movie is directed by a director named Steven Soderbergh, who's an amazing, amazing director, he's done a lot of great films. And, of course, Channing Tatum's in the movie. In addition, there's an actor by the name of Matthew McConaughey, who's attached to the movie. [Several audience members cheer] I'm a huge fan of Matthew McConaughey, okay? When I found out that I was gonna work with him, I was so excited, you know? People ask me, "Really, you get star-struck?" Hell yeah! I'm a comedian, not an actor. So, I show up, and, immediately, they send me to the makeup trailer that's outside. So, I go into the makeup trailer, I sit down, they start working on my hair, they start putting makeup on me, and in comes Matthew McConaughey, and he sits down on the chair right next to me. And I start freaking out, "Oh, my God, that's Matthew McConaughey!" [Stutters excitedly] And, now, I decide to introduce myself before I did or said something stupid, right? So, I look over to him, and I say, "Excuse me, Mr. McConaughey? How are you doing? My name's Gabriel Iglesias, I'm going to be playing the role of Tobias, the club DJ, and I just wanted to say Hello, and that it's an honor to work with you." And, in my head, I'm thinking, "I hope he's the same guy. I hope he's the same person in the movies, I hope his voice is the same, I hope his accent's the same." And he turns to me, and he says, [Imitating Matthew McConaughey] "All riiight." [Audience cheers] "How you doin' there, big man? You doin' good?" "I'm doing good." "All riiight."”

Gabriel Iglesias (1976) American actor

And, I'm spazzing out. [Gives excited gibberish]
Aloha, Fluffy (2013)

God, People, Stupidity, Hope

“383. The horse thinkes one thing, and he that sadles him another.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Horse

“I must try to set aside half an hour in some part of my day, and consecrate it to diary writing. Give it a name and a place, and then perhaps, such is the human mind, I shall come to think it a duty, and disregard other duties for it.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Wednesday 8 April 1925
A Moment's Liberty (1990)

Parting

“Sex and murder are the same. Well, you say the same after both don't you? "Damn I got to get the hell out of here!"”

Dave Attell (1965) comedian

"What was I thinking!"
Comedy Central Presents: Dave Attell

Sex, Hell

“No critic writing about a film could say more than the film itself, although they do their best to make us think the opposite.”

Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker

"Film Critics"
I'm a Born Liar (2003)

“Some sensations are sleeps that take up all the extent of the mind like a fog, don't let us think, don't let us act, don't let us be clearly.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 98
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Há sensações que são sonos, que ocupam como uma névoa toda a extensão do espírito, que não deixam pensar, que não deixam agir, que não deixam claramente ser.

Sleep

“I do not pretend to start with precise questions. I do not think you can start with anything precise. You have to achieve such precision as you can, as you go along.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1910s, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism (1918)

Question

“With the destructive power of today's weapons, keeping the peace is not just a goal; it's a sacred obligation. But maintaining peace requires more than sincerity and idealism—more than optimism and good will. As you know well, peace is a product of hard, strenuous labor by those dedicated to its preservation. It requires realism, not wishful thinking.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

"Toasts of the President and United Nations Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar at a Luncheon in New York City " (17 June 1982); online at The American Presidency Project by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=42646 1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Peace, Optimism, Sincerity

“My sweet, I do not mean to upset you in writing this, but I want to tell you that within us, as within the nature of every person's soul there is an emptiness and we constantly seek to find that and those in order to escape from being alone. This always has been so, and always the weight of loneliness is with us, and for this reason we think of this thing or that so as not to be left alone.”

Arshile Gorky (1904–1948) Armenian-American painter

Source: 1930 - 1941, from 'Arshile Gorky, – Goats on the roof' (2009), p. 132: in a letter to his sister Vartush Mooradian, after Mai 1938

Soul, Nature, Personality, Loneliness

“In the beginning of the year 1665 I found the method of approximating Series and the Rule for reducing any dignity of any Binomial into such a series. The same year in May I found the method of tangents of Gregory and Slusius, and in November had the direct method of Fluxions, and the next year in January had the Theory of Colours, and in May following I had entrance into the inverse method of Fluxions. And the same year I began to think of gravity extending to the orb of the Moon, and having found out how to estimate the force with which [a] globe revolving within a sphere presses the surface of the sphere, from Kepler's Rule of the periodical times of the Planets being in a sesquialterate proportion of their distances from the centers of their orbs I deduced that the forces which keep the Planets in their Orbs must [be] reciprocally as the squares of their distances from the centers about which they revolve: and thereby compared the force requisite to keep the Moon in her orb with the force of gravity at the surface of the earth, and found them answer pretty nearly. All this was in the two plague years of 1665 and 1666, for in those days I was in the prime of my age for invention, and minded Mathematicks and Philosophy more than at any time since. What Mr Hugens has published since about centrifugal forces I suppose he had before me. At length in the winter between the years 1676 and 1677 I found the Proposition that by a centrifugal force reciprocally as the square of the distance a Planet must revolve in an Ellipsis about the center of the force placed in the lower umbilicus of the Ellipsis and with a radius drawn to that center describe areas proportional to the times. And in the winter between the years 1683 and 1684 this Proposition with the Demonstration was entered in the Register book of the R. Society. And this is the first instance upon record of any Proposition in the higher Geometry found out by the method in dispute. In the year 1689 Mr Leibnitz, endeavouring to rival me, published a Demonstration of the same Proposition upon another supposition, but his Demonstration proved erroneous for want of skill in the method.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

(ca. 1716) A Catalogue of the Portsmouth Collection of Books and Papers Written by Or Belonging to Sir Isaac Newton https://books.google.com/books?id=3wcjAAAAMAAJ&pg=PR18 (1888) Preface Also partially quoted in Sir Sidney Lee (ed.), The Dictionary of National Biography Vol.40 http://books.google.com/books?id=NycJAAAAIAAJ (1894)

Books, Age, Winter, Time

“A pessimist is a man who thinks all women are bad. An optimist is a man who hopes they are.”

Chauncey Depew (1834–1928) American politician

As quoted in FPA Book of Quotations : A New Collection of Famous Sayings (1952) by Franklin Pierce Adams

Women, Hope

“But if you think that life can be prolonged by the breath of mortal fame, yet when the slow time robs you of this too, then there awaits you but a second death.”
Quodsi putatis longius vitam trahi mortalis aura nominis, cum sera vobis rapiet hoc etiam dies iam vos secunda mors manet.

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480) philosopher of the early 6th century

Poem VII, lines 23-26; translation by W. V. Cooper
The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book II

Life, Death, Time

“The Satanist believes in complete gratification of his ego. Satanism, in fact, is the only religion which advocates the intensification or encouragement of the ego. Only if a person's own ego is sufficiently fulfilled, can he afford to be kind and complimentary to others, without robbing himself of his self-respect. We generally think of a braggart as a person with a large ego; in reality, his bragging results from a need to satisfy his impoverished ego.”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (1969)

Religion, Reality, Personality

“I am essentially a recluse who will have very little to do with people wherever he may be. I think that most people only make me nervous—that only by accident, and in extremely small quantities, would I ever be likely to come across people who wouldn't. It makes no difference how well they mean or how cordial they are—they simply get on my nerves unless they chance to represent a peculiarly similar combination of tastes, experiences, and heritages; as, for instance, Belknap chances to do... Therefore it may be taken as axiomatic that the people of a place matter absolutely nothing to me except as components of the general landscape and scenery. Let me have normal American faces in the streets to give the aspect of home and a white man's country, and I ask no more of featherless bipeds. My life lies not among people but among scenes—my local affections are not personal, but topographical and architectural. No one in Providence—family aside—has any especial bond of interest with me, but for that matter no one in Cambridge or anywhere else has, either. The question is that of which roofs and chimneys and doorways and trees and street vistas I love the best; which hills and woods, which roads and meadows, which farmhouses and views of distant white steeples in green valleys. I am always an outsider—to all scenes and all people—but outsiders have their sentimental preferences in visual environment. I will be dogmatic only to the extent of saying that it is New England I must have—in some form or other. Providence is part of me—I am Providence—but as I review the new impressions which have impinged upon me since birth, I think the greatest single emotion—and the most permanent one as concerns consequences to my inner life and imagination—I have ever experienced was my first sight of Marblehead in the golden glamour of late afternoon under the snow on December 17, 1922. That thrill has lasted as nothing else has—a visible climax and symbol of the lifelong mysterious tie which binds my soul to ancient things and ancient places.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Lillian D. Clark (29 March 1926), quoted in Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters edited by S. T. Joshi, p. 186
Non-Fiction, Letters

Love, Life, People, Family

“All portions of this confederacy should act in harmony and with careful deliberation. The Democrats cry John Brown invasion. We are guiltless of it, but our denial does not satisfy them. Nothing will satisfy them but disinfecting the atmosphere entirely of all opposition to slavery. They have not demanded of us to yield the guards of liberty in our state constitutions, but it will naturally come to that after a while. If we give up to them, we cannot refuse even their utmost request. If slavery is right, it ought to be extended; if not, it ought to be restricted, there is no middle ground. Wrong as we think it, we can afford to let it alone where it of necessity now exists; but we cannot afford to extend it into free territory and around our own homes. Let us stand against it!”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)

Home, Nature, Cry

“You think it horrible that lust and rage
Should dance attention upon my old age;
They were not such a plague when I was young;
What else have I to spur me into song?”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

The Spur http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1693/ Last Poems (1936-1939)

Age, Rage, Dance

“Apart from logical cogency, there is to me something a little odd about the ethical valuations of those who think that an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent Deity, after preparing the ground by many millions of years of lifeless nebulae, would consider Himself adequately rewarded by the final emergence of Hitler and Stalin and the H-bomb.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Preface (1957)
1920s, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)

“That Descartes' Cartesian way of looking at animals, like they're machines… It is outdated, and quite frankly, 100% insane. Because, if we all understand that animals use their eyes to see, ears to hear, noses to smell, mouths to eat, legs to walk, feathers to fly, fins to swim, genitalia to procreate, bowels to defecate.. I'm always perplexed that most people don't believe that they can also use their brains to think, feel, be rational, be aware and be self-aware! Am I supposed to believe, that every body part of an animal functions just like it's supposed to, except the brain?”

Gary Yourofsky (1970) animal rights activist

Part of the speech to the students of the Georgia Institute of Technology, On animal intelligence (Summer 2010)

People, Way, Feeling, Understanding

“You'll be surprised how infinitely merciful they are. The prescription number is 96814. I think of it as the telephone number of God!”

Tennessee Williams Summer and Smoke

Alma, Scene Twelve
Summer and Smoke (1948)

God

“It's not just women in film, 18-year-old girls feel pressure to do preventative injecting. I see someone's face, someone's body who'd had children and I think they're the song lines of your experience, and why would you want to eradicate that? I look at people sort of entombing themselves and all you see is little pin holes of terror… and you think, just live your life, death is not going to be any easier just because your face can't move.”

Cate Blanchett (1969) Australian actress

Motherhood, Hollywood and Cate, The Age, 9 May 2005 http://www.theage.com.au/news/TV--Radio/Cate-on-Denton/2005/05/09/1115584884935.html,

Life, Death, Women, Children

“Now answer me this. Do you think that the same holds of horses? Do people in general improve them, whereas one particular person corrupts them or makes them worse? Or is it wholly the opposite: one particular person - or the very few who are horse trainers - is able to improve them, whereas the majority of people, if they have to do with horses and make use of them, make them worse? Isn't that true, Meletus, both of horses and of all other animals? Of course it is, whether you and Anytus say so or not. Indeed, our young people are surely in a very happy situation if only one person corrupts them, whereas all the rest benefit them.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

25b
Plato, Apology

Happiness, People, Animals, Horse

“I love thinking that there is magic in the world, that there are people in the world with amazing abilities that we just don’t know about.”

Chris Colfer (1990) actor, singer, book author

Personal Quotes 2009–2012 Source: http://burts-snapback.tumblr.com/post/27261453499/i-love-thinking-that-there-is-magic-in-the-world, Chicago-Sun July 15, 2012, interview with Chris Colfer; archived.

Love, People, World

“My way of thinking is often so wrong, so untenable, because I think as if I were talking to someone else.”

Peter Handke (1942) Austrian writer, playwright and film director

Source: Das Gewicht der Welt [The Weight of the World], p. 9

Way

“I love Rambo but I think it's potentially a very dangerous movie. It changes history in a frightening way.”

Steven Spielberg (1946) American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur

Rolling Stone

Love, Way, History, Change

“I believe the entire records of the world, from the date of the Declaration of Independence up to within three years ago, may be searched in vain for one single affirmation, from one single man, that the negro was not included in the Declaration of Independence; I think I may defy Judge Douglas to show that he ever said so, that Washington ever said so, that any President ever said so, that any member of Congress ever said so, or that any living man upon the whole earth ever said so, until the necessities of the present policy of the Democratic Party, in regard to slavery”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Fifth Lincoln-Douglas Debate http://www.bartleby.com/251/pages/page328.html (7 October 1858), regarding Stephen A. Douglas and the antebellum Democratic Party's claim that African Americans were exempt from Thomas Jefferson's assertion that all men were created equal. 1850s, Lincoln–Douglas debates (1858) Context: The Judge has alluded to the Declaration of Independence, and insisted that negroes are not included in that Declaration; and that it is a slander upon the framers of that instrument, to suppose that negroes were meant therein; and he asks you: Is it possible to believe that Mister Jefferson, who penned the immortal paper, could have supposed himself applying the language of that instrument to the negro race, and yet held a portion of that race in slavery? Would he not at once have freed them? I only have to remark upon this part of the Judge's speech, and that, too, very briefly, for I shall not detain myself, or you, upon that point for any great length of time, that I believe the entire records of the world, from the date of the Declaration of Independence up to within three years ago, may be searched in vain for one single affirmation, from one single man, that the negro was not included in the Declaration of Independence; I think I may defy Judge Douglas to show that he ever said so, that Washington ever said so, that any President ever said so, that any member of Congress ever said so, or that any living man upon the whole earth ever said so, until the necessities of the present policy of the Democratic Party, in regard to slavery, had to invent that affirmation. And I will remind Judge Douglas and this audience that while Mister Jefferson was the owner of slaves, as undoubtedly he was, in speaking upon this very subject he used the strong language that “he trembled for his country when he remembered that God was just;” and I will offer the highest premium in my power to Judge Douglas if he will show that he, in all his life, ever uttered a sentiment at all akin to that of Jefferson.

World, Search

“It still starts the same way - with a piano. I use technology but don't really rely upon it. I think it should be part of the process, not the entire process.”

Joe Hisaishi (1950) Japanese composer and musician

Joe Hisaishi, who wrote music for Hayao Miyazaki's films https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-entertainment/article/1780283/studio-ghibli-composer-joe-hisaishi-talks-about-how,South China Morning Post

Way, Parting

“As to the papists, 'tis certain that several of their dangerous opinions, which are absolutely destructive of all governments but the pope’s, ought not to be tolerated in propagating those opinions; and whosoever shall spread or publish any of them the magistrate is bound to suppress so far as may be sufficient to restrain it…Papists are not to enjoy the benefit of toleration, because, where they have power, they think themselves bound to deny it to others…It being impossible, either by indulgence or severity, to make papists, whilst papists, friends to your government, being enemies to it both in their principles and interest, and therefore considering them as irreconcilable enemies, of whose fidelity you can never be secured whilst they owe a blind obedience to any infallible pope, who hath the keys of their consciences tied to his girdle, and can, upon occasion, dispense with all their oaths, promises, and the obligations they have to their prince, especially being (in their sense) a heretic, and arm them to the disturbance of the government, [I] think they ought not to enjoy the benefit of toleration.”

John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician

An Essay on Toleration (1667), quoted in Mark Goldie (ed.), Locke: Political Essays (Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 151-152.

Sense

“We’re from Germany but we grew up with English and American music which was such a strong inspiration for the young band. Very early on, in the Seventies, we went to England and France, to Japan and America, we toured and then became an international band. I think our music was never German, it’s always had this Anglo-American influence – we never tried to be a German band! We are Germans, yes, but not in our music. When we grew up, there was schlager music, this pop music kind of thing.”

Klaus Meine (1948) German singer

Music, Strong

“Recently, while I was in the street, my eye was caught by a poulterer's shop; I stared unthinkingly at his piled-up wares, neatly and appetizingly laid out, when I became aware of a man at the side busily plucking a hen, while another man was just putting his hand in a cage, where he seized a live hen and tore its head off. The hideous scream of the animal, and the pitiful, weaker sounds of complaint that it made while being overpowered transfixed my soul with horror. Ever since then I have been unable to rid myself of this impression, although I had experienced it often before. It is dreadful to see how our lives—which, on the whole, remain addicted to pleasure—rest upon such a bottomless pit of the cruellest misery! This has been so self-evident to me from the very beginning, and has become even more central to my thinking as my sensibility has increased … I have observed the way in which I am drawn in the [direction of empathy for misery] with a force that inspires me with sympathy, and that everything touches me deeply only insofar as it arouses fellow-feeling in me, i. e. fellow-suffering. I see in this fellow-suffering the most salient feature of my moral being, and presumably it is this that is the well-spring of my art.”

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) German composer, conductor

Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, translated by Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1987), pp. 422-424 http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/wagner02.htm

Pleasure, Art, Way, Feeling

“Human beings have a physical need to tell themselves when at work: “Let’s have done with it now,” and it’s having constantly to go on thinking in the face of this need when philosophizing that makes this work so strenuous.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 86e

“We run, not only because we think it is doing us good, but … because it helps us to do other things better.”

Roger Bannister (1929–2018) English physician and athlete

cited by Craig A. Masback, "A Sports White Paper for Clinton," http://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/24/sports/backtalk-a-sports-white-paper-for-clinton.html?pagewanted=2&src=pm New York Times. January 24, 1993, p. S-11.

Help

“Simran and Sukirti are not similar at all. I think the amount of the sacrifices that Simran has made may exist in other girls in real life too but I do not see myself in the same mould. I am a very reserved and a practical girl. However, I can relate to undying love, extreme emotions and the bubbliness of Simran. I have always preferred my work to speak for me than my relationships; I don’t want to comment on it. As far as marriage is concerned, I cannot think of getting married till the time I have achieved my targets. My parents got married when they were both 32 so I don’t think 25 years down the line, their kids are rushing into marriage anytime soon.”

Sukirti Kandpal (1987) Indian actress

On comparison with her character and personal life http://www.tellychakkar.com/tv/tv-news/i-have-never-been-associated-the-word-struggle-life-sukirti-kandpal-042/

Love, Life, Marriage, Girl

“I thought that in your struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the negroes should cease helping the enemy, to that extent it weakened the enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think differently? I thought that whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do, in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do any thing for us, if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive — even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Letter to James C. Conkling (1863)

People, Motivation, Freedom, Appearance

“One can write, think and pray exclusively of others; dreams are all egocentric.”

Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) British writer

Diary entry (5 October 1962)

Dreams

“It would be childish to think that the Stalin bureaucracy can be removed by means of a Party or Soviet Congress. Normal, constitutional means are no longer available for the removal of the ruling clique … They can be compelled to hand over power to the Proletarian vanguard only by FORCE.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Bulletin of the Opposition, October 1933. Quote from Harpal Brar's Trotskyism or Leninism? p. 625

“I didn't like the music business and I didn't like me. There's an element of falseness about the whole thing. Even things like doing an interview. It's not as though we just met in the pub and are having a chat — it's part of a process. If you do it all day, every day for years, you end up thinking: 'Who the hell am I?' I was lucky enough to make some money, enough to let me kick back. It was a great experience and it was nice to have a couple of No.1s but the best thing about it was that the money I made allowed me to have freedom and choice in my life.”

Rick Astley (1966) British singer and songwriter

As quoted in Metro (3 September 2004)

Life, Money, Music, Hell

“Let no one think that I am dying of grief over my own dismal and ruined state. The sorrow that I feel, I can not at all express; but I can give a hint of it. From among those of the English community who were murdered at the hands of those disgraced ["black-faced"] black ones, one was my patron, and one was my well-wisher, and one my friend, and one my supporter, and one my pupil. Among the Hindustanis, some dear ones, some friends, some pupils, some beloveds. Thus every one of them was mingled with the dust. How harsh is the mourning for one dear one! He who would be a mourner for so many dear ones— how could his life not be difficult? Alas! So my friends died that now when I die, there would not even be anyone left to mourn for me.”

Ghalib (1797–1869) Urdu-Persian poet

Letter to Munshi Hargopal Tafta, 17/18 July, 1858
Quotes from Letters

Life, Feeling, Communication, Support

“Course numb is an old hat, old as my oldest memories.
See that one's my mother, and that one's my father, and that one in the hat, that's me.
It's a skill I'd hoped to abandon, when I got out on the open road,
But any more pent up emotion and I think I'm gonna explode.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Studying Stones
Song lyrics

Hope, Memory

“As the nation that developed the Internet, the world expects us to ensure that the digital revolution works as a tool for individual empowerment, not government control. Having faced down the dangers of totalitarianism and fascism and communism, the world expects us to stand up for the principle that every person has the right to think and write and form relationships freely -- because individual freedom is the wellspring of human progress.”

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

2014, Review of Signals Intelligence Speech (June 2014)

World, Communication, Freedom, Personality

“I think we're all a bunch of weirdos on a quest to belong. The songs are echolocation up in impregnable fog.”

Aesop Rock (1976) American rapper

"Dorks" from the album The Impossible Kid.

“I don't care what those schmucks think. I'm a millionaire.”

Uri Geller (1946) Israeli illusionist

CIA. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00792r000700540001-1

“I wish the very best for each and every one of you. Even if you think you are the most pitiful wretch on two feet, this is completely possible. It doesn't matter how bad we have been or how much difficulty and trouble we've created for ourselves and others in the past. The question is, how will it end? "All's well that ends well," as the saying goes, and that's as true as can be. The way things end is the way they will remain. Things won't be as they were before.”

Elias Aslaksen (1888–1976) Norwegian clergyman

Closing remark - Aslaksen's last recorded message
No difficulties (Stavanger, 18 January, 1976)

Way, Question, Past

“Is it one wid this you'd be, Yank — black smoke from the funnels smudging the sea, smudging the decks — the bloody engines pounding and throbbing and shaking — wid divil a sight of sun or a breath of clean air — choking our lungs wid coal dust — breaking our backs and hearts in the hell of the stokehole — feeding the bloody furnace — feeding our lives along wid the coal, I'm thinking — caged in by steel from a sight of the sky like bloody apes in the Zoo!”

Eugene O'Neill The Hairy Ape

Paddy: Scene 1
The Hairy Ape (1922)

Hell, Sun, Heart, Sea

“I don't care what people think about me, I care what they think about themselves.”

Lady Gaga (1986) American singer, songwriter, and actress

FUSE Lady Gaga: On The Record (Part 1) HQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiYM-OzG6yw

People

“We suppose, it would seem, that concepts grow in the individual mind like leaves on a tree, and we think to discover their nature by studying their growth; we seek to define them psychologically, in terms of the human mind. But this account makes everything subjective, and if we follow it through to the end, does away with truth. What is known as the history of concepts is really a history either of our knowledge of concepts or of the meanings of words.”

Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) mathematician, logician, philosopher

Translation J. L. Austin (Oxford, 1950) as quoted by Stephen Toulmin, Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972) Vol. 1, p. 56.
Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, 1893 and 1903

Truth, History, Nature, Knowledge