Quotes about thinking
page 69

“My attitude was always to keep open, to keep scanning. I think that's how things work in nature. Many people are close-minded, rigid, and that's not my inclination.”

Jonas Salk (1914–1995) Inventor of polio vaccine

Academy of Achievement interview (1991)

People, Nature

“I feel responsible, because so many people are leaning against me. Of course I can not take that pole away from them, they will fall over. I can see that those people need it! An ongoing struggle, an ordeal - because, if I say something I have to make it happen. In this way, painting is a religious matter. My paintings create a consciousness that offers comfort... It must appear in the light. Somebody of eighty years old who never ever would think about visiting a museum. Recognition!”

Jopie Huisman (1922–2000) Dutch painter

translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in original Dutch / citaat van Jopie Huisman, in het Nederlands: Ik voel me verantwoordelijk, omdat er zoveel mensen tegen me aan leunen. Ik kan die paal natuurlijk niet voor ze wegzagen, dan vallen ze om. Ik zie toch dat die mensen er behoefte aan hebben! Een voortdurend gevecht, een beproeving, want als ik iets zeg moet ik het waarmaken. Schilderen is op deze manier een religieuze aangelegenheid. Door mijn werken ontstaat een bewustzijn, dat troost biedt.. .Het moet voor 't licht komen. Zo'n mens van tachtig dat er nog nooit ook maar één seconde aan heeft gedacht een museum binnen te wandelen. Herkenning.
Mens & Gevoelens: Jopie Huisman', 1993

People, Way, Feeling, Light

“Well let them take you for a clown
And they're bound to bring you down.
You got to make it through the world if you can.
Think they're doing you wrong
But you got here on your own.
You got to make it through the world if you can.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

You Gotta Make It Through the World
Song lyrics, A Period of Transition (1977)

World

“"That's the way it works in movies," said Suzanne. "Something happens that has an impact on someone's life, and based on that impact, his life shifts course. Well, that's not how it happens in life. Something has an impact on you, and then your life stays the same, and you think, 'Well, what about the impact?'”

Carrie Fisher book Postcards from the Edge

You have epiphanies all the time. They just don't have any effect."
Postcards from the Edge (1987)

Life, Way, Time

“If you're in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are, just walk in say "Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant." And walk out. You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement. And that's what it is, the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar!”

Arlo Guthrie (1947) American folk singer

Arlo has repeatedly updated this part through the years to help it match modern life more. He has updated to say that if only one person does it, they say the person in question is a certain amount of years too late. He also referenced the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy during the 40th anniversary recording. He has also started adding the phrase, "And most of them would be too young to know what a movement was." once he says, "Friends they may think it's a movement."
Alice's Restaurant Massacree

People, Imagination, Singing, Time

“Jason listened to Mr. Hobart going on about violence and the uselessness of revenge and he nodded, but all the time, he was happy. He had done something. He had taken action. He had socked Bobo Kelton. Given him a bloody nose. He didn't think he'd ever hit anybody again but he had proved himself capable of doing it. And at the same moment, in Mr. Hobart's office, letting the principal's words fil the air but not his ears, he had vowed never to cry again.”

Robert Cormier book The Rag and Bone Shop

Source: The Rag and Bone Shop (2000), p. 26

Happiness, Revenge, Time, Cry

“It was a really interesting experience for me because, like I said, I had never seen a horror film. It was a very physical role. Wes was so specific and clear about what he wanted, such a good captain of a ship. He was very respectful, funny and smart. We were all so young making that movie, I think we were the near the same ages as his children at the time, and he was just so good with us, kind, supportive, and nurturing.”

Amanda Wyss (1960) American actress

INTERVIEW WITH AMANDA WYSS OF ‘A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET’ & ‘THE ID’ http://horrorgeeklife.com/2016/11/10/interview-amanda-wyss/ (November 10, 2016)

Children, Age, Support, Time

“In Somalia, we know exactly what they had to gain because they told us. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Colin Powell, described this as the best public relations operation of the Pentagon that he could imagine. His picture, which I think is plausible, is that there was a problem about raising the Pentagon budget, and they needed something that would be, look like a kind of a cakewalk, which would give a lot of prestige to the Pentagon. Somalia looked easy. Let's look back at the background. For years, the United States had supported a really brutal dictator, who had just devastated the country, and was finally kicked out. After he's kicked out, it was 1990, the country sank into total chaos and disaster, with starvation and warfare and all kind of horrible misery. The United States refused to, certainly to pay reparations, but even to look. By the middle of 1992, it was beginning to ease. The fighting was dying down, food supplies were beginning to get in, the Red Cross was getting in, roughly 80% of their supplies they said. There was a harvest on the way. It looked like it was finally sort of settling down. At that point, all of a sudden, George Bush announced that he had been watching these heartbreaking pictures on television, on Thanksgiving, and we had to do something, we had to send in humanitarian aid. The Marines landed, in a landing which was so comical, that even the media couldn't keep a straight face. Take a look at the reports of the landing of the Marines, it must've been the first week of December 1992. They had planned a night, there was nothing that was going on, but they planned a night landing, so you could show off all the fancy new night vision equipment and so on. Of course they had called the television stations, because what's the point of a PR operation for the Pentagon if there's no one to look for it. So the television stations were all there, with their bright lights and that sort of thing, and as the Marines were coming ashore they were blinded by the television light. So they had to send people out to get the cameramen to turn off the lights, so they could land with their fancy new equipment. As I say, even the media could not keep a straight face on this one, and they reported it pretty accurately. Also reported the PR aspect. Well the idea was, you could get some nice shots of Marine colonels handing out peanut butter sandwiches to starving refugees, and that'd all look great. And so it looked for a couple of weeks, until things started to get unpleasant. As things started to get unpleasant, the United States responded with what's called the Powell Doctrine. The United States has an unusual military doctrine, it's one of the reasons why the U. S. is generally disqualified from peace keeping operations that involve civilians, again, this has to do with sovereignty. U. S. military doctrine is that U. S. soldiers are not permitted to come under any threat. That's not true for other countries. So countries like, say, Canada, the Fiji Islands, Pakistan, Norway, their soldiers are coming under threat all the time. The peace keepers in southern Lebanon for example, are being attacked by Israeli soldiers all the time, and have suffered plenty of casualties, and they don't like it. But U. S. soldiers are not permitted to come under any threat, so when Somali teenagers started shaking fists at them, and more, they came back with massive fire power, and that led to a massacre. According to the U. S., I don't know the actual numbers, but according to U. S. government, about 7 to 10 thousand Somali civilians were killed before this was over. There's a close analysis of all of this by Alex de Waal, who's one of the world's leading specialists on African famine and relief, altogether academic specialist. His estimate is that the number of people saved by the intervention and the number killed by the intervention was approximately in the same ballpark. That's Somalia. That's what's given as a stellar example of the humanitarian intervention.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Responding to the question, "what did the United States have to gain by intervening in Somalia?", regarding Operation Provide Relief/Operation Restore Hope/Battle of Mogadishu.
Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999, Sovereignty and World Order, 1999

People, World, Peace, Food

“RockNet: Were you terribly uncomfortable at the recent Grammy Award Show?
Cornell: I don't know. It's just a strange subject. It's almost as if the music industry is patting itself on the back in a way. This was the seventh Grammy nomination for us and had we won one for our first nomination I would have had a really cool attitude about it because it would have meant that the people who were actually voting were paying attention to music for music's sake as opposed to some other reason.
I was happy that we were nominated because it was an independent record company and it was a low-profile record. We didn't win a Grammy until we'd sold several millions and it seems that what sells a lot is what wins, even though the record may or may not be any good, but that seems to be the requirement.
I'm not critical of the people who work in the music industry, and I appreciate the Grammy. (But) to me it's their party and it's not really mine. It's not for the musicians. It has more to do with the industry. You can tell after a Grammy period all the record labels and artists who won a bunch take out full-page ads in the trades gloating. That's fine. That's what they do, they sell records and they work really hard to develop careers. If they're into it, I'm not going to be disrespectful, but I'd hate for anyone to think that it's something that was a necessity for me or the rest of the band, or that it was a benchmark to us of legitimacy for us because it's not. It doesn't really matter that much to us. It seems like it's for someone else. I'd never get up and say that. If I was totally not into it, the best thing to do is to not show up.
Maybe ten years from now I'll reflect and say "wow, that happened and it was pretty unusual. Not every kid on the block gets to go up and pick up a Grammy Award."”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

It's just one more thing to take the focus away from what we like to do, which is to write music and make records and try not to think about anything whether it's how many records we sell or what people think of us. For us, I think the key to success for being a band and always making good records is always going to be forgetting about everything else outside our own little band. RockNet Interview: Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, May 1, 1996 https://web.archive.org/web/19961114054327/http://www.rocknet.com/may96/soundgar.html, Soundgarden Era

Hate, Happiness, People, Music

“I'm not so sure I could have done otherwise, but I wish I... I'm re-going to a French shrink now, and she's helped me a lot. I wish I'd gone sooner, because I think women are inclined more than men to be self-destructive, and I really think I had the masochistic medal there for a while, and I, you know, I want to, that I wish I had stopped. I think it's also very masochistic to sit and cry in my spilt Scotch for areas in my life that have been very creepy and that I should have cut, left sooner. So what's, that's, I feel sorry about that. But I'm getting to [me, be] perhaps more, oh, I don't know, trying to look at that in a more positive way. Maybe I got something out of that too, I don't know... Maybe. I mean... I feel also uncomfortable about staying in France, but then, if I could only make sort of a.., instead of saying negative, 'I'm too lazy to move,' a positive thing, 'I really like this house. I really like this view. I really like Paris better than New York”

Joan Mitchell (1925–1992) American painter

or not better, or equally, or differently, or something, which is quite true - instead of sitting - which I can do, I used to do - and missing the country and missing New York, or missing France.
Tape number two, side A
1975 - 1992, Oral history interview with Joan Mitchell, 1986

Life, Women, Men, Way

“It is impossible to understand the American public without taking into account the tremendous psychological effect of bringing up a generation of people in a daily environment of advertising. It is impossible to escape the advertising man; his sales talk assaults us in the morning newspaper, in the street car, with billboards along the highways, and in his shameless use of the radio. This means that from morning till night, in the midst of our work as in our recreation, we live constantly in an atmosphere of intellectual shoddiness. Every popular prejudice and vulgar conceit is played upon and pandered to in the interests of salesmanship. Everywhere material interests and herd opinion are strengthened to the loss of personal independence. The tendency is to think and speak for effect rather than out of one's inner life. There is a marked decline the ability to play with ideas, or to live the spiritual life for its own sake. Hence a decline in civilization of interest, humor and urbanity. Advertising tends to make mechanized barbarians of us all.”

Everett Dean Martin (1880–1941)

Source: The Conflict of the Individual and the Mass in the Modern World (1932), pp. 29-30

Life, People, Cars, Idea

“The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it.”

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer

The House of Mirth http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext95/hmirt10.txt (1905), bk.1, ch. 6

Money, Way

“Without getting into blushing territory, think how in almost all of creation the male and female are made for each other. From dogs and elephants, to birds and bees, to man, each is designed for reproduction. Like a nut and a bolt, they are made to fit together perfectly.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

God doesn't believe in atheists (2002)

Dogs, Bird, Bee

“I think, as a society, though, I think more and more people are starting to question this idea that the government can do anything, [that] it has some sort of magical power to solve all of the problems; in fact, I think more and more people are coming to the conclusion that government is the problem.”

Glenn Jacobs (1967) American professional wrestler and actor

13:12&#8211;13:32. "Glenn 'Kane' Jacobs Mental Smackdown of Tennessee Lt Governor" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bWJwJr-R68 (2013)

People, Idea, Question, Problem

“I think everyone has what it takes to be a good actor innately within them. It’s really about connecting to your own humanity and your own behaviors, and getting to a level of self-awareness so that you can have perspective and step outside of yourself and transform and become another person. You can’t become another person if you’re not self-aware; you wouldn’t know what’s changed. [But] the ability to play pretend is something that everyone has access to; you see little kids doing it. On the spectrum of imagination, there are people who are more imaginative than others—I guess some kids are hardcore pretenders and have imaginary friends for years and other kids play and they have fun, but it’s not quite as specific like that. I’m sure there’s a range, but I think everyone can pretend.”

Bryce Dallas Howard (1981) American actress

Bryce Dallas Howard https://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/bryce-dallas-howard (February 10, 2017)

People, Behavior, Imagination, Change

“I think it's true, as many say, I have dealt for many years with the problems that w:Op art so-called, is dealing with. For many years I have studied the logic and magic of color. And so I know what's involved when it comes to the interaction of colors, more than many who refuse to study it. But I found a way to study it, I think, that's all. And besides I refuse to be the father of a new bandwagon.”

Josef Albers (1888–1976) German-American artist and educator

Homage to the square' (1964), Oral history interview with Josef Albers' (1968)

Art, Color, Way, Problem

“Cause when I'm with him,
I am thinking of you,
Thinking of you.
What you would do if
You were the one
Who was spending the night?
Oh I wish that I
Was looking into your eyes.”

Katy Perry (1984) American singer, songwriter and actress

Thinking of You, written by Katy Perry
Song lyrics, One of the Boys (2008)

Night

“Punk: Because here is the truth about Las Vegas, here is the truth about the WWE is that it doesn't matter that if you're the best wrestler, it doesn't matter if you're the best talker, it doesn't matter if you're the best overall performer, it doesn't matter if you make the two clowns sitting to my left on commentary look like amateur hour. There is a glass ceiling and nobody is allowed to break it. That's the simple story of this place. The more popular you are, the more money you make. The more you people cheer for any given superstar, the more opportunities you're afforded. Why do you think a guy like John Cena, who has admittedly had the worst year of his career, gets title shot after title shot after title shot after title shot? Or why a lethal grappler, why a serious submission specialist like Daniel Bryan puts a smile on his face and settles himself, belittles himself with catchphrases. Or why a 400 pound monster, Brodus Clay, soils his hands by touching your filthy, ugly, little children to get in the ring so he can shuck and jive for you. Or why an invisible child, Little Jimmy, is better positioned on the flagship show Monday Night RAW than a workhorse like Tyson Kidd.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

WWE Raw

Money, Children, People, Truth

“In the Islamic world, from the beginning, Islam was the primary basis of both identity and loyalty. We think of a nation subdivided into religions. They think, rather, of a religion subdivided into nations. It is the ultimate definition, the prime definition and the one that determines, as I said, not only identity, but also basic loyalty. And this is quite independent of religious belief. In Islam, there isn't or rather, there wasn't until recently any such thing as the church, in the Christian sense of that word. The mosque is a place of worship. It's a building, a place of worship and study. And in that sense, it is the equivalent of the church. But in the sense of an institution with a hierarchy and its own laws and usages, there was no such thing in Islam until very recently. And one of the achievements of the Islamic Revolution in Iran has been to endow an Islamic country for the first time with the equivalents of a pope, a college of cardinals, a bench of bishops and, above all, an inquisition. All these were previously unknown and nonexistent in the Islamic world.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Books, Islam and the West: A Conversation with Bernard Lewis (2006)

World, Religion, Law, Sense

“Some people think they can explain rationally, by thought, what they think. But that is extremely relative… There is no ultimate Truth. The dialectic is an amusing mechanism which guides us / in a banal kind of way / to the opinions we had in the first place. Does anyone think that, by a minute refinement of logic, he has demonstrated the truth and established the correctness of these opinions? Logic imprisoned by the senses is an organic disease”

Tristan Tzara (1896–1963) Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist

1910s, Dada Manifesto', 1918

People, Truth, Disease, Way

“The devil gave me a look which made me profoundly uneasy. 'Just because I am enjoying your sympathy, don't imagine that I cannot read you like a book,' he said. 'You think you are cleverer than I; it is a very common academic delusion.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

When Satan Goes Home For Christmas
High Spirits: A Collection of Ghost Stories (1982)

Books, Imagination, Reading

“What is to be the nature of the domestic legislation of the future? (Hear, hear.) I cannot help thinking that it will be more directed to what are called social subjects than has hitherto been the case.—How to promote the greater happiness of the masses of the people (hear, hear), how to increase their enjoyment of life (cheers), that is the problem of the future; and just as there are politicians who would occupy all the world and leave nothing for the ambition of anybody else, so we have their counterpart at home in the men who, having already annexed everything that is worth having, expect everybody else to be content with the crumbs that fall from their table. If you will go back to the origin of things you will find that when our social arrangements first began to shape themselves every man was born into the world with natural rights, with a right to a share in the great inheritance of the community, with a right to a part of the land of his birth. (Cheers.) But all these rights have passed away. The common rights of ownership have disappeared. Some of them have been sold; some of them have been given away by people who had no right to dispose of them; some of them have been lost through apathy and ignorance; some have been stolen by fraud (cheers); and some have been acquired by violence. Private ownership has taken the place of these communal rights, and this system has become so interwoven with our habits and usages, it has been so sanctioned by law and protected by custom, that it might be very difficult and perhaps impossible to reverse it. But then, I ask, what ransom will property pay for the security which it enjoys? What substitute will it find for the natural rights which have ceased to be recognized?”

Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) British businessman, politician, and statesman

Speech to the Birmingham Artisans' Association at Birmingham Town Hall (5 January 1885), quoted in ‘Mr. Chamberlain At Birmingham.’, The Times (6 January 1885), p. 7.
1880s

Life, Men, Happiness, People

“I think musicians have a responsibility to try and do something that is good. It's so hard. It's very difficult to pull something out of the hat creatively. Although I say it’s their responsibility, it's really just people trying to do the best that they can.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

As quoted in "Kate Bush Speaks" by Owen Myers in Fader (23 November 2016) https://www.thefader.com/2016/11/23/kate-bush-interview-before-the-dawn

People

“Thinking that it was time to bring down the Monarch from his raptures to the level of common sense, I determined to endeavour to open up to him some glimpses of the truth, that is to say of the nature of things in Flatland.”

Edwin Abbott Abbott book Flatland

Source: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), PART II: OTHER WORLDS, Chapter 14. How I Vainly Tried to Explain the Nature of Flatland

Truth, Nature, Sense, Time

“For thousands of years people have been trying to force other people to think their way. Did they succeed? No. Will they succeed? No. Why? Because brute force is not an argument.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)

People, Way

“Why is it that technology is often the one to blame? On the contrary, social media encourages people to “think aloud” and come up with bold, new, controversial, or opposing ideas.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Facebook Nation: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2014

People, Idea

“Living with someone always means a denial of self in SOME way and I suppose I have always known it was something I couldn't accomplish. So I've always stayed on the sidelines. Getting the pleasure vicariously. It's not wholly satisfactory, but then of course no lives are, and you know what I think about indiscriminate sex and promiscuous trade. I think it's the beginning of a long, long road to despair.”

Kenneth Williams (1926–1988) English actor and comedian

Letter, quoted in The Observer, Sunday 10 October 2010. Source: Kenneth Williams: secret loves behind the life of a tormented man, The Observer, 10 October 2010 http://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/oct/10/kenneth-williams-biography-christopher-stevens,

Pleasure, Sex, Way, Despair

“The naturalness of life… the sense of community is, I think, a very important factor in an artist's life.”

Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975) English sculptor

"A Pictorial Biography" (Tate Publishing, London, 1970)
1961 - 1975

Life, Communication, Nature, Sense

“So, there was a girl.
What I’ve guessed, and what the history books imply, is that she was unlucky enough to have been sired by a cruel man. He beat both wife and daughter and abused them in other ways. Bright Itempas is called, among other things, the god of justice. Perhaps that was why He responded when she came into His temple, her heart full of unchildlike rage.
“I want him to die,” she said (or so I imagine). “Please Great Lord, make him die.”
You know the truth now about Itempas. He is a god of warmth and light, which we think of as pleasant, gentle things. I once thought of Him that way, too. But warmth uncooled burns; light undimmed can hurt even my blind eyes. I should have realized. We should all have realized. He was never what we wanted Him to be.
So when the girl begged the Bright Lord to murder her father, He said, “Kill him yourself.” And He gifted her with a knife perfectly suited to her small, weak child’s hands.
She took the knife home and used it that very night. The next day, she came back to the Bright Lord, her hands and soul stained red, happy for the first time in her short life. “I will love you forever,” she declared. And He, for a rare once, found Himself impressed by mortal will.
Or so I imagine.
The child was mad, of course. Later events proved this. But it makes sense to me that this madness, not mere religious devotion, would appeal most to the Bright Lord. Her love was unconditional, her purpose undiluted by such paltry considerations as conscience or doubt. It seems like Him, I think, to value that kind of purity of purpose—even though, like warmth and light, too much love is never a good thing.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 11 “Possession” (watercolor) (pp. 202-203)

Love, Life, God, Happiness

“It’s odd to look out there and see a bunch of Mini-Mes,” says Williams. “You’re wondering what possessed them to do such a thing... It sort of does a reverse psychology on you. You’d think you’d be like `Hey, all these people want to look like me. I feel pretty cool.’ But actually it makes you feel more self aware and I’m not really fond of that.”

Hayley Williams (1988) American singer-songwriter and musician

About the Fayley's during the tour with the band No Doubt http://everythingintime.com/tag/hayley-williams

People, Feeling

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

Day 19: Cultivating Community
The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? (2002)

Motivational, Funny, Success, Life

“I entirely agree with you, as to the ill tendency of the affected doubts of some philosophers, and fantastical conceit of others. I am even so far gone of late in this way of think, that I have quitted several of the sublime notions I had got in their schools for vulgar opinions. And I give it you on my word, since this revolt from metaphysical notions to the plain dictates of nature and common sense, I find my understanding strangely enlightened, so that I can now easily comprehend a great many thing which before were all mystery and riddle.”

George Berkeley book Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous

Said by Philonous (Berkeley) to Hylas in the opening of dialog 1 with reference to the recent surge philosophic endeavors (Locke, Newton, et al) that seemed to lead to skepticism about the existence of the world
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713)

School, Way, Understanding, Nature

“I think it is a rule that men in business should not be taught other things. Any one will be almost sure to make money who has no other idea in his head. A college education, or intense study of abstract truth, will not enable a man to drive a bargain … The best politicians are not those who are deeply grounded in mathematical or in ethical science. Rules stand in the way of expediency. Many a man has been hindered from pushing his fortune in the world by an early cultivation of his moral sense.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"On the Disadvantages of Intellectual Superiority" Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Men, Money, Truth, World

“I don't think I'm easy to talk about. I've got a very irregular head. And I'm not anything that you think I am anyway.”

Syd Barrett (1946–2006) English musician

Rolling Stone, December 1971

“I think nobody really loves America more than black Americans, because black Americans loved America even when America didn’t love us back”

Jamal Simmons (1971) American journalist

Simmons at the Canadian-American Business Council luncheon. 2008-11-13 http://eaves.ca/2008/11/14/quote-of-the-day

Love

“Well I think it [a 'Little Image' painting] does suggest hieroglyphics of some sort. It is a preoccupation of mine from way back and every once in a while it comes into my work again. For instance in my 1968 show at the Marlborough I have a painting called 'Kufic', an ancient form of Arabic writing. Every once in a while I fall back to what I call my mysterious writings. I haven no idea what this is about but it runs through periods of my work.”

Lee Krasner (1908–1984) American artist

Source: Art Talk, Conversations with 15 woman artists 1975, p. 78.

Way, Idea, Painting

“I will not demand that the Jewish Agency allocate a sum of 300,000 or 100,000 pounds sterling to help European Jewry. And I think that whoever demands such things is performing an anti-Zionist act.”

Yitzchak Gruenbaum (1879–1970) Israeli politician

During an early 1943 discussion suggesting allocation of some “Zionist money” for rescue during the Holocaust:
Tom Segev, The Seventh Million ISBN 978-0805066609.

Help

“As human beings living in this monstrously ugly world, let us ask ourselves, can this society, based on competition, brutality and fear, come to an end? Not as an intellectual conception, not as a hope, but as an actual fact, so that the mind is made fresh, new and innocent and can bring about a different world altogether? It can only happen, I think, if each one of us recognises the central fact that we, as individuals, as human beings, in whatever part of the world we happen to live or whatever culture we happen to belong to, are totally responsible for the whole state of the world.
We are each one of us responsible for every war because of the aggressiveness of our own lives, because of our nationalism, our selfishness, our gods, our prejudices, our ideals, all of which divide us.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

1960s, (1969)

God, War, World, Fear

“I've always been a religious person, and I try to think that every disappointment might just be a blessing in disguise. … I pray every day. In the mornings and, before I go to bed. I think it's important to pray not just when things are going bad.”

Jermain Defoe (1982) English association football player

"Prayer helped Defoe bounce back", interview with Football Focus (22 December 2006) http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/football_focus/6200993.stm.

Disappointment, Personality

“The notion of a formal structure of command must be abandoned. It is more useful to think of the mature corporation as a series of concentric circles.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The New Industrial State

Source: The New Industrial State (1967), Chapter XIII, Section 1, p. 149

“The booby father craves a booby son,
And by Heaven’s blessing thinks himself undone.”

Edward Young (1683–1765) English poet

Satire II, l. 165.
Love of Fame (1725-1728)

“[wrote_the_exam]What keeps me awake at night: wondering whether human species is just too stupid to figure out the Universe. I just wonder. I lose sleep over that. Because we define ourselves as intelligent— because we made up the test to say that. And we sit alone at the top of the intelligence chart because we invented the exam, and all the other species of life on Earth are not. So who's to say that the first species (us) to be intelligent (us) has just enough intelligence to actually decode everything that's decodable in the Cosmos? […] Think of the next closest thing to us, the bonobo chimp— 98½% identical DNA, yet you cannot teach them trigonometry, they have no concept of it. So if that's only 1½% difference in our DNA— and so imagine 1½% beyond us, rather than below us, in intelligence. […] Their toddlers would be talking about things that would completely confound us.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Nerdist podcast, Episode #489 http://www.nerdist.com/2014/03/nerdist-podcast-neil-degrasse-tyson-returns-again/ (2014-04) 2010s

Life, Stupidity, Imagination, Intelligence

“Gordon Tullock, on the other hand, might be characterized as the somewhat cynical pragmatist, who set out to understand the world, not to change it. This side of Tullock is visible in his early paper on simple majority rule, and is perhaps most apparent in his work on rent seeking. These differences should not be pushed too far, however. Buchanan (1980) also contributed to the rent-seeking literature, and often has described public choice as “politics without romance.” One of the most dispiriting contributions to the public choice literature has to be Kenneth Arrow’s (1951) famous impossibility theorem. In a too little appreciated article, Tullock (1967b) demonstrated with the help of a somewhat torturous geometrical analysis, that the cycling that underlies the impossibility theorem is likely to be constrained to a rather small subset of Pareto-optimal outcomes, and thus Arrow’s theorem was “irrelevant,” a rather happy result, and one which anticipated work appearing more than a decade later on the uncovered set. In Chap. 10 of Toward a Mathematics of Politics, Tullock (1967a) engages in a bit of wishful thinking about constitutional design by describing how one could achieve an ideal form of proportional representation in a legislative body. He also was an early enthusiast of the potential for using a demand-revelation process to reveal individual preferences for public goods”

Dennis Mueller (1940) American economist

Tideman and Tullock 1976
James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, and The Calculus (2012)

Happiness, World, Literature, Mathematics

“Human rights did not begin with the French Revolution… [they] really stem from a mixture of Judaism and Christianity… [we English] had 1688, our quiet revolution, where Parliament exerted its will over the King… it was not the sort of Revolution that France's was…'Liberty, equality, fraternity' – they forgot obligations and duties I think. And then of course the fraternity went missing for a long time.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

On the French Revolution; quoted in '"Les droits de l'homme n'ont pas commencé en France," nous déclare Mme Thatcher', Le Monde (13 July 1989)
Third term as Prime Minister

Time

“I love my fellow-creatures, I do all the good I can,
Yet everybody says I'm such a disagreeable man
And I can't think why!”

W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) English librettist of the Gilbert & Sullivan duo

The disagreeable Man (from Princess Ida).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Love

“Shelter me from the powder
And the finger
Cover me with the thought
That pulled the trigger
Think of me
As one you'd never figured
Would fade away so young
With so much left undone.”

Neil Young (1945) Canadian singer-songwriter

Powderfinger
Song lyrics, Rust Never Sleeps (1978)

“I think women dwell quite a bit on the duress under which they work, on how hard it is just to do it at all. We are traditionally rather proud of ourselves for having slipped creative work in there between the domestic chores and obligations. I'm not sure we deserve such big A-pluses for all that.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

Interview in Newsweek (30 March 1981)

Women

“Game theory is a theory of strategic interaction. That is to say, it is a theory of rational behavior in social situations in which each player has to choose his moves on the basis of what he thinks the other players’ countermoves are likely to be.”

John Harsanyi (1920–2000) hungarian economist

Source: "Games with Incomplete Information," 1997, p. 136

Behavior, Game

“I’m not particularly fond of watching myself act. I think because my roots are in the stage that the joy for me is the act of doing it. The joy for me is not sitting down and watching me do it. I’m so critical of myself. I’d sit and watch myself in a scene, maybe one in which I’m just in the background, and think, “What are you doing back there, Rene? Why are you doing that? Why didn’t you just stand still? Shut up. What’s the matter with you?””

René Auberjonois

Catching Up with DS9’s Rene Auberjonois http://www.startrek.com/article/catching-up-with-ds9undefineds-rene-auberjonois-part-1 (June 7, 2011)

Joy

“Don't you think the soldiers look like they came straight from high school yearbooks, too young to be over in Iraq, fighting for no reason?”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, WAR

School, Fight

“This is a moment, quite honestly, that I think we reclaim the civil rights movement. It has been so distorted and so turned upside down because we must repair honor and integrity first, I tell you right now. We are on the right side of history. We are on the side of individual freedoms and liberties, and damn it, we will reclaim the civil rights moment. We will take that movement, because we were the people that did it in the first place.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2010-05-26
Beck says his 8-28 rally will "reclaim the civil rights movement. … We were the people that did it in the first place"
2010-05-26
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201005260024
Walsh
Joan
Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin's unholy alliance
2010-08-28
Salon
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/politics/2010/08/28/beck_and_palin_religious_heroes/index.html
reacting to Bertha Lewis of ACORN singing "We Shall Overcome" at an anti Arizona SB 1070 rally
2010s, 2010

People, History, Freedom

“I'm not a great believer in writing courses, though it must be said I've never been in one. It probably depends on what kind of writer you are. I'm very un-analytical about what I do. I don't plan much for the first draft. I try to let characters come out by themselves, rather than designing them. But other writers work differently, and for them the teaching process - which at least forces you to consider what you're doing, and why - may be very helpful. At the very least a creative writing course mandates someone to spend a period of their life just writing, which can be hard to do otherwise. But beware of thinking too much about what you do.”

Michael Marshall Smith (1965) British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer

Associated Content Interview (October 23, 2006)

Life, Help, Dependency

“I can't make people change, and I can't change myself. I can't change the political climate, or fix the myriad problems of the world, or make anyone else happy. When I think about these things, I feel impotent and sad. When I don't think about them, I am running away from the truth. Either way I lose.”

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

December 17
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Happiness, People, Truth, World

“The foolish reject what they see and not what they think; the wise reject what they think and not what they see.”

Huangbo Xiyun Chinese Zen Buddhist

As quoted in Visions from Earth (2004) by James R. Miller, p. 17

“Wherever we look the dreadful disintegration of the bridges of life, the capillaries and the bodies they have created, is evident, which has been caused by the mechanical and mindless work of man, who has torn away the soul from the Earth's blood - water. The more the engineer endeavors to channel water, of whose spirit and nature he is today still ignorant, by the shortest and straightest route to the sea, the more the flow of water weighs into the bends, the longer its path and the worse the water will become. The spreading of the most terrible disease of all, of cancer, is the necessary consequence of such unnatural regulatory works. These mistaken activities - our work - must legitimately lead to increasingly widespread unemployment, because our present methods of working, which have a purely mechanical basis, are already destroying not only all of wise Nature's formative processes, but first and foremost the growth of the vegetation itself, which is being destroyed even as it grows. The drying up of mountain springs, the change in the whole pattern of motion of the groundwater, and the disturbance in the blood circulation of the organism - Earth - is the direct result of modern forestry practices. The pulse-beat of the Earth was factually arrested by the modern timber production industry. Every economic death of a people is always preceded by the death of its forests. The forest is the habitat of water and as such the habitat of life processes too, whose quality declines as the organic development of the forest is disturbed. Ultimately, due to a law which functions with awesome constancy, it will slowly but surely come around to our turn. Our accustomed way of thinking in many ways, and perhaps even without exception, is opposed to the true workings of Nature. Our work is the embodiment of our will. The spiritual manifestation of this work is its effect. When such work is carried out correctly, it brings happiness, but when carried out incorrectly, it assuredly brings misery.”

Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) austrian philosopher and inventor

Viktor Schauberger: Our Senseless Toil (1934)

Life, Death, Happiness, People

“I get that I’m a little bit of an anomaly in terms of a lawyer in that a lot of lawyers don’t do the things I do, aren’t interested in the things I’m interested in. What drew me to it initially was this idea of dissent online and moving protests forward to a new generation, a new way of thinking, a new philosophy, a way to redress our grievances to the government that was unique and novel, and to have them actually listen to us about the things that are important to us. Chief among them of course was the preservation of our privacies as we move forward into the digital age, into the complete ubiquity of digital technology pervading our lives.”

Jay Leiderman (1971) lawyer

As stated in The Sabu Effect: An Interview with Jay Leiderman BY RAINCOASTER on AUGUST 22, 2014 http://thecryptosphere.com/2014/08/22/the-sabu-effect-an-interview-with-jay-leiderman/

Age, Way, Idea

“Other people, and it doesn't matter if they are Scandinavians or Celts,
Think that anything is better than theirs just because it belongs to somebody else.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

Versus (1949), Possessions are Nine Points of Conversation
Variant: Some people, and it doesn't matter whether they are paupers or millionaires,
Think that anything they have is the best in the world just because it is theirs.

People

“I'd like to say that people people can change anything they want to; and that means everything in the world. Show me any country and there'll be people in it. And it's the people that make the country. People have got to stop pretending they're not on the world. People are running about following their little tracks. I am one of them. But we've all gotta stop just stop following our own little mouse trail. People can do anything; this is something that I'm beginning to learn. People are out there doing bad things to each other; it's because they've been dehumanized. It's time to take that humanity back into the centre of the ring and follow that for a time. Greed… it ain't going anywhere! They should have that on a big billboard across Times Square. Think on that. Without people you're nothing.”

Joe Strummer (1952–2002) British musician, singer, actor and songwriter

Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten (2007).

People, World, Learning, Change

“Some teachers of mankind — as Plato… the first Christians, the orthodox Muslims, and the Buddhists — have gone so far as to repudiate art. …[They consider it] so highly dangerous in its power to infect people against their wills, that mankind will lose far less by banishing all art than by tolerating each and every art. …such people were wrong in repudiating all art, for they denied that which cannot be denied — one of the indispensable means of communication, without which mankind could not exist. …Now there is only fear, lest we should be deprived of any pleasures art can afford, so any type of art is patronized. And I think the last error is much grosser than the first and that its consequences are far more harmful.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

What is Art? (1897)

People, Pleasure, Fear, Art

“GG Allin: If you think I'm into this for the money you're dead wrong because I'm not doing this for the money. I'm doing it because it lives inside of me.”

GG Allin (1956–1993) American singer-songwriter

GG Allin on The Jerry Springer Show, May 5. 1993.
On The Jerry Springer Show

Money, Dead

“To fight a war, you must believe it can accomplish something. We fight this one to save John’s kingdom, or perhaps even to save all of mankind…but isn’t that what we always think? That all wars are useless—except the one we’re fighting now?”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 2, Chapter 13, “The Fallen Sun” (p. 314).

War, Fight

“How the hell did they think this was going to be something else than EPIC FAIL for the prosecution? We’re winning so hard.”

Peter Sunde (1978) Swedish activist and computer expert

February 2009 Copyright Infringement Trial http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-trial-first-day-in-court/

Hell

“There certainly seems to be a strong correlation between religion and insanity. I’ve read a few papers comparing the logical and psychological aptitude of strong believers vs those with little or no faith at all, and the trends there all seem to be in our favor, but not to the point that religion causes the disorder. I think certain mental disorders can prompt religious beliefs, but that’s a different claim. I think religion provides a haven to conceal quite a lot of cognitive and psychiatric disorders as well as some social dysfunctions. But that doesn’t mean religion is a mental illness, regardless how accurate analogies of the God virus might be. I think there are circumstances when religion can be treated as a psychological condition, especially when it is the result of detrimental conditioning, but I wouldn’t confuse that with a psychiatric malady, which (I think) would have to be physiological/chemical.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"How crazy is religion?" http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2014/05/07/how-crazy-is-religion/, Patheos (May 7, 2014) Patheos

God, Faith, Religion, Strong

“It [will-making] is the latest opportunity we have of exercising the natural perversity of the disposition … This last act of our lives seldom belies the former tenor of them for stupidity, caprice, and unmeaning spite. All that we seem to think of is to manage matters so (in settling accounts with those who are so unmannerly as to survive us) as to do as little good, and to plague and disappoint as many people, as possible.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"On Will-Making" Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

People, Stupidity, Disappointment, Exercises

“Trump is unexpectedly increasing my enthusiasm for Hillary. What he is saying is not based on facts: it's based on immaturity, bad judgment and ignorance, and I think it's going to be hard for people in uniform who are thoughtful about this, to vote for him.”

Merrill McPeak (1936) United States Air Force general

As quoted in "What Does the Military Think of Donald Trump?" https://www.yahoo.com/news/does-military-think-donald-trump-204408128.html (15 June 2016), Time 2016

People

“The American people already know that Bill Clinton is a bad boy, a naughty boy. I'm going to speak out for the citizens of my state who in the majority think that Bill Clinton is probably even a nasty, bad, naughty boy.”

Larry Craig (1945) American politician

about President Clinton, Meet the Press, January 24, 1999 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_Vs5570pKw

People, Boy

“It’s relevant that people whose polling places are schools are more likely to vote for sales taxes that will fund education. Or that judges become more likely to deny parole the longer they go without a break. Or that people serve themselves more food when using a large plate. Such effects, even when they’re small, can make a practical difference, especially when they influence votes and justice and health. But their existence doesn’t undermine the idea of a rational and deliberative self. To think otherwise would be like concluding that because salt adds flavor to food, nothing else does.”

Paul Bloom (1963) Canadian/American psychologist

“The War on Reason,” The Atlantic, March 2014, pp. 64–70

People, Health, Education, School

“We are frankly amused to think that many a novice may perhaps pay for his too literal comprehension of the remarks of one cubist, and his faith in the existence of an Absolute Truth, by painfully juxtaposing the six faces of a cube or the two ears of a model seen in profile.”

Albert Gleizes (1881–1953) French painter

1910s, Du Cubisme (1912)

Truth, Faith

“I have lost my sense of a universe. They say this is the richest era of human existence; but I think a man can be richer in knowing every atom of a single golden island in a blue sea than by spending his days striding among all the worlds.”

Robert Silverberg book The Man in the Maze

Source: The Man in the Maze (1969), Chapter 1, section 2 (pp. 13-14)

World, Sense, Universe, Sea

“The English are very stupid,” said Poirot. “They think that they can deceive anyone but that no one can deceive them.”

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer

Hercule Poirot’s Early Cases (1974)

Stupidity

“Doris Lessing: We simply have no idea of Chicago … We never think of you as being on a lake, or of the city being beautiful. We think about the gangsters. You do still have gangsters, don't you?
Terkel: Yes, but these days they're mostly in business, or politics.”

Studs Terkel (1912–2008) American author, historian and broadcaster

Conversation with Lessing in 1969, quoted in "Doris Lessing comes to town" (15 October 1969) by Roger Ebert http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19691015/PEOPLE/71016002/1023

Beauty, Idea, Business

“The protreptic text, the so-called protreptikós, is an invitation to produce one's own knowledge. So one might easily think, at first glance, that protreptic was nothing more than rhetoric, and it is probably correct to speak of a particular sort of rhetoric. For protreptic texts use every possible rhetorical means with the explicit goal of engaging with a discipline in one's own way. And that is exactly the point of significant difference from rhetorical structures exclusively concerned to bring an audience to a particular point of view: in the protreptikós, language serves to talk an audience into persuading itself. … The protreptikós does not argue for a particular persuasion, but directs attention to the ways one can achieve certainty for oneself.”

Lambert Wiesing (1963) German archaeologist, humanities scholar and art historian

The Philosophy of Perception: Phenomenology and Image Theory, N. Roth, trans. (2014), p. 60 http://books.google.com/books?id=lJQIBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA60

Way, Knowledge

“I think we must honestly face a fact if one gets behind in a race, he must eternally remain behind or run faster than the man in front. You've got to give him the equipment to catch up. Now the fact is that the Negro has had 244 years of slavery in America and working without wages and then he's had a hundred years of segregation and mistreatment in generally. Now, he's faced with a very serious problem and that is that he is required to be as productive as people who have not had these conditions and the only thing that a society can do for individuals who have been deprived of something is to give them a little special treatment. Now you don't put anybody out of a job, but you just make it possible for the individuals who are behind to catch up.”

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

"Social Justice and the Emerging New Age" address at the Herman W. Read Fieldhouse, Western Michigan University (18 December 1963)
1960s

People, Problem

“Dear Richard, I just received your letter; I will send the money order f 10 [10 guilders] immediately for the swimming of Saar [their daughter, 10 years old]. She seems to be going well ahead, I think, at least if she can jump off the springboard by herself. Her letter was nice and cheerful. Yes I would have liked her to come here [in Heeze] but I am just afraid that I may not be able to work regularly or that she will get rather bored.”

Suze Robertson (1855–1922) Dutch painter

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Suze Robertson's brief:) Lieve Richard [ nl:Richard Bisschop ], Zo even ontving ik je brief; ik zal de postwissel zenden f 10 [10 gulden] meteen voor het zwemmen van Saar [hun dochter, 10 jaar oud]. Ze schijnt me nogal goed vooruit te gaan, tenminste als ze alleen van de plank af springt. Aardig was haar briefje en opgewekt. Ja wel graag had ik dat ze hier [Heeze] kwam maar ik ben alleen bang dat ik misschien niet geregeld zal kunnen werken òf dat zij zich nogal zal vervelen.
In a letter of Suze Robertson from Heeze, Summer 1904, to her husband Richard Bisschop in The Hague; as cited in Suze Robertson 1855-1922 – Schilderes van het harde en zware leven, exhibition catalog, ed. Peter Thoben; Museum Kemperland, Eindhoven, 2008, p. 10
1900 - 1922

Money, Daughters

“In this I saw matter of mirth and matter of moaning: matter of mirth: for our Lord, our Maker, is so near to us, and in us, and we in Him, by sureness of keeping through His great goodness; matter of moaning: for our ghostly eye is so blind and we be so borne down by weight of our mortal flesh and darkness of sin, that we may not see our Lord God clearly in His fair Blissful Cheer. No; and because of this dimness scarsely we can believe and trust His great love and our sureness of keeping. And therefore it is that I say we may never stint of moaning nor of weeping. This "weeping" meaneth not all in pouring out of tears by our bodily eye, but also hath more ghostly understanding. For the kindly desire of our soul is so great and so unmeasurable, that if there were given us for our solace and for our comfort all the noble things that ever God made in heaven and in earth, and we saw not the fair Blissful Cheer of Himself, yet we should not stint of moaning nor ghostly weeping, that is to say, of painful longing, till when we see verily the fair Blissful Cheer of our Maker. And if we were in all the pain that heart can think and tongue may tell, if we might in that time see His fair Blissful Cheer, all this pain should not aggrieve us.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 72

Love, God, Pain, Soul

“I hope no one thinks we really sniff glue. I stopped when I was eight.”

Dee Dee Ramone (1951–2002) German-American songwriter and musician

on the song "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue", Rombes, Nicholas (2005). Ramones. 33⅓. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8264-1671-1

Hope

“You Westerners simply don't understand the philosophy behind my power. The Iranians think of their sovereign as a father. What you call 'my celebration' was to them the celebration of Iran's father. The monarchy is the cement of our unity. In celebrating our twenty-five hundreth anniversary, all I was doing was celebrating the anniversary of my country, of which I am the father. Now, if to you, a father is inevitably a dictator, that is your problem, not mine.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

As quoted in Gérard de Villiers (1975), The Imperial Shah: An Informal Biography, page 284
Attributed

Understanding, Problem, Country

“I don't think it's racialist. We can't use them if they're a bit stupid.”

Stansfield Turner (1923–2018) former United States Navy admiral and former Director of Central Intelligence and President of the Naval Wa…

Interview with Sacha Baron Cohen (as Ali G), on Da Ali G Show · YouTube clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7nNfM3aa2g#t=36 2000s

Stupidity

“The House of Representatives, in some respects, I think, is the most peculiar assemblage in the world, and only a man who has had long experience there can fully know its idiosyncrasies. It is true we engage in fierce combat, we are often intense partisans, sometimes we are unfair, not infrequently unjust, brutal at times, and yet I venture to say that, taken as a whole, the House is sound at heart; nowhere else will you find such a ready appreciation of merit and character, in few gatherings of equal size is there so little jealousy and envy.
The House must be considerate of the feelings of its Members; there is a certain courtesy that has to be observed; a man may be voted a bore or shunned as a pest, and yet he must be accorded the rights to which he is entitled by virtue of being a representative of the people. On the other hand, a man may be universally popular, a good fellow, amusing and yet with these engaging qualities never get far. The men who have led the House, whose names have become a splendid tradition to their successors, have gained prominence not through luck or by mere accident. They have had ability, at least in some degree; but more than that, they have had character.”

Joseph Gurney Cannon (1836–1926) American politician

Quoted in L. White Busby, Uncle Joe Cannon: The Story of a Pioneer American (1937), p. 260

Men, People, World, Jealousy

“Sanya, Knight of the Cross: There is, I think, humor here which does not translate well from English into sanity.”

Jim Butcher The Dresden Files

Source: The Dresden Files, Changes (2010), Chapter 33

“if a girl likes me a lot
and starts getting real nervous
and suddenly begins asking me funny questions
and looks sad if I give the wrong answers
and she says things like,
"Do you think it's going to rain?"
and I say, "It beats me,"
and she says, "Oh,"
and looks a little sad
at the clear blue California sky,
I think: Thank God, it's you, baby, this time
Instead of me.”

Richard Brautigan (1935–1984) American novelist, poet, and short story writer

"It's Raining In Love"
The Pill Versus the Springhill Mining Disaster

God, Sadness, Girl, Question

“The poor, by thinking unceasingly of money, reach the point of losing the spiritual advantages of non-possession, thereby sinking as low as the rich.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

Money

“I had different views in the '70s. As a human being, I've learned… I have more culture now. I was dumb as a rock when I wrote 'Okie from Muskogee'. That's being honest with you at the moment, and a lot of things that I said … I sing with a different intention now. My views on marijuana have totally changed. I think we were brainwashed and I think anybody that doesn't know that needs to get up and read and look around, get their own information. It's a cooperative government project to make us think marijuana should be outlawed.”

Merle Haggard (1937–2016) American country music song writer, singer and musician

As quoted in "Merle Haggard - Branded man", in No Depression magazine (31 October 2003) http://nodepression.com/article/merle-haggard-branded-man

Learning, Change, Singing, Reading

“I support a group called the Optimum Population Trust which campaigns to reduce birth rates because I think, if we keep on growing, we're not only going to damage nature but we're likely to see even more inequality and human suffering. m4s08-m4s43”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? (BBC Horizon, 2009)

Birth, Support, Nature, Suffering

“The show is called 'Wind'. I tried here to make work which looks like wind, and it is the most difficult thing to do; I was thinking of Leonardo da Vinci – as he was, for instance, always wanting to fly. And then, this hand of Michael Jackson is like 'ffffffff', 'I'm leaving' (makes gesture with her hand and mouth in the mirror in the hallway of the gallery, mimicking the action that Jackson is depicted making on the invitation card of her show - Simon Denny). Not in a sad way, but…. in a way a little bit sad too. And then I said 'Isa Genzken', because I always liked him so much. For instance, I would always have jackets like this one. This is my favourite kind of style, and so I said 'ffff' [blowing gesture] 'Now I'm coming'… It's like 'don't be afraid, don't be sad, you know… I'm here.”

Isa Genzken (1948) German sculptor

2001 - 2010, Out to Lunch with Isa Genzken' (2009)

Sadness, Way, Flying

“I would never even think about skating with somebody else. The whole reason I wanted to come back to skating was to be close to Tessa again, and to share those moments.”

Scott Moir (1987) Canadian figure skater

Scott Moir, quoted in "Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir Will Leave Huge Hole In Our Hearts, Canadian Figure Skating" https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/02/20/tessa-virtue-scott-moir-retirement-figure-skating-legacy_a_23366266/ (20 February 2018) Partnership with Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir about Virtue

“Yes. God makes the world using mathematics, and he has given us minds that can see it. We can discover the laws He used! It is a most beautiful thing to witness and understand! It's prayer. It's more than prayer, it's a sacrament, a kind of communion. An apprehension—an epiphany—it's seeing God, while still in this body and in this world! How blessed we are, to be able to experience God like that! Who would not devote their time to understanding more, to seeing deeper in God's manner of thinking about these things?”

Kim Stanley Robinson book Galileo's Dream

As quoted in John Clute, "Scores" http://www.strangehorizons.com/2010/20100118/clute-c.shtml, in Strange Horizons (18 January 2010) Galileo's Dream (2009)

God, World, Law, Beauty

“I get more out of life just being myself, by just being a human being. Not by being a rock star, not by being whatever. Sometimes I act like a jerk, but I think people respect me for being myself. That's the ultimate thing about the Smashing Pumpkins.”

Billy Corgan (1967) American musician, songwriter, producer, and author

Lewman, Mark. Dirt Magazine. 1992.

Life, People, Jerk, Star

“Look, I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion. And I think if you believe in historic Christianity, you have to confront the fact. And, frank— for that matter, if you believe in the historic version of Islam or the historic version of Judaism, you have to confront the reality that these secular extremists are determined to impose on you acceptance of a series of values that are antithetical, they're the opposite, of what you're taught in Sunday school.”

Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

2008-11-15
The O'Reilly Factor
Fox News
2008-11-17
Gingrich: "<nowiki>[T]</nowiki>here is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us"
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200811170014
2011-03-30
discussing protesters against a California ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage
2000s

School, Religion, Reality, Country

“When I think about the kinds of movies that make me cry, that make tears come to my eyes, I usually don't think about sad films. Sad films, I sort of just look at it. It's movies that are about selflessness, that are about sacrifice, about humans that believe in the good of the human race that sometimes move me.”

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

Roger Ebert's DVD commentary for Casablanca

Sadness, Tear, Cry

“I believe that one should not think so much about nature when painting, at least not during the conception of the picture. Make the color sketch exactly as one has felt something in nature. But my personal feeling is the main thing. Once I have established it, lucid in tone and color, I must bring in from nature the things that make my painting seem natural, so that a layman will only think that 1 have painted it from nature.”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

quote from her Diaries, 1 October, 1902; as cited in Expressionism, a German intuition, 1905-1920, Neugroschel, Joachim; Vogt, Paul; Keller, Horst; Urban, Martin; Dube, Wolf Dieter; (transl. Joachim Neugroschel); publisher: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 1980, p. 31
1900 - 1905

Color, Feeling, Nature, Painting