Source: The Dharma Bums
“All of our technology is completely unnecessary to a happy life.”
“No classification is complete and perfect for all purposes.”
Source: An approach to general systems theory (1969), p. 69.
“Our journey is not complete until all our children”
2013, Second Inaugural Address (January 2013)
Context: It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote. Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country. Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia, to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm.
“All four of them have completely abandoned one another.”
Adverbs (2006), Clearly
“Complete happiness can look so much like complete terror that its hard to tell them apart.”
Source: What Happened to Lani Garver
“All natural capacities of a creature are destined to evolve completely to their natural end.”
First Thesis
Variant translations:
All natural capacities of a creature are destined sooner or later to be developed completely and in conformity with their end.
All natural capacities of a creature are destined to develop themselves completely and to their purpose.
Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View (1784)
“The most completely wasted of all days is that in which we have not laughed.”
La plus perdue de toutes les journées est celle où l'on n'a pas ri.
Maximes et pensées (1805)
Variant translations:
The days most wasted are those during which we have not laughed.
A day without laughter is a day wasted.
While many such expressions have become widely attributed to Charlie Chaplin and a few others, research done for "A Day Without Laughter is a Day Wasted" at Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/07/16/laughter-day/ indicate that such expressions date back to that of Chamfort, published in "Historique, Politique et Litteraire, Maximes détachées extraites des manuscrits de Champfort" Mercure Français (18 July 1795), p. 351 http://books.google.com/books?id=N3tBAAAAcAAJ&q=%22pas+ri%22#v=snippet&q=%22pas%20ri%22&f=false Translations of this into English have been found as early as one in "Laughing" in Flowers of Literature (1803) by F. Prevost and F. Blagdon:
: I admire the man who exclaimed, “I have lost a day!” because he had neglected to do any good in the course of it; but another has observed that “the most lost of all days, is that in which we have not laughed;” and, I must confess, that I feel myself greatly of his opinion.
Book II, ch. 4 (trans. Constance Garnett)
The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)
