“To say that basic science is exciting may sound like a contradiction… But I would remind you that there are two intellectual excitements that are not tame at all and that we remember all our lives. One is the thrill of following out a chain of reasoning for yourself; the other is the pleasure of watching several strongly individualistic personalities argue about their deepest convictions. That is to say, the thrill of a detective story and the pleasure of watching a play by George Bernard Shaw.”

— John R. Platt

John R. Platt (1960) " The sweep and excitement of science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1929478/" in: Public Health Rep. 1960 June; 75(6). p. 495

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John R. Platt 12

American physicist 1918–1992

David Hockney (1937) British artist

Interview with Marion Finlay, "Hockney on … politics, pleasure, and smoking in public places" http://www.forestonline.org/output/Page264.asp FOREST Online (28 July 2004)
2000s

“Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure
Thrill the deepest notes of woe.”

Robert Burns (1759–1796) Scottish poet and lyricist

Sensibility How Charming, st. 4
Johnson's The Scots Musical Museum (1787-1796)

“To me, Arsenal played much better football two or three years ago. They won matches and were exciting to watch. They create excitement so how can you say Chelsea are the best in the world?”

Rafael Benítez (1960) Spanish association football player and manager

We don't need to give away flags for our fans to wave (2012)

“I wish you all the pleasurable excitement one can have without hurting others and one's own dignity.”

Norbert Elias (1897–1990) German sociologist

Closing statement on a Dutch TV interview http://www.vpro.nl/programma/beschaving/afleveringen/22058443/items/22149355/.
Lessen van Elias, Norbert Elias, portret van een socioloog, VPRO, april 23 1975/ 2005

“We two make banquets of the plainest fare
In every cup we find the thrill of pleasure…
For us life always moves with lilting measure
We two, we two, we make our world, our pleasure”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet

“I'm a bit of a deconstructionist myself. It's kind of exciting – the last intellectual thrill left. Like sawing through the branch you're sitting on.”

David Lodge (1935) writer

Part II, ch. 2, p. 118.
Small World (1984)

“Now, if Mr. Shaw and Mr. Saroyan are poles apart, no comparison between the two, one great and the other nothing, one a genius and the other a charlatan, let me repeat that if you must know which writer has influenced my writing when influences are real and for all I know enduring, then that writer has been George Bernard Shaw. I shall in my own day influence a young writer or two somewhere or other, and no one need worry about that.
Young Shaw, hello out there.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

In the The Bicycle Rider In Beverly Hills (1952) Saroyan additionally wrote of Shaw:
He was a gentle, delicate, kind, little man who had established a pose, and then lived it so steadily and effectively that the pose had become real. Like myself, his nature has been obviously a deeply troubled one in the beginning. He had been a man who had seen the futility, meaninglessness and sorrow of life but had permitted himself to thrust aside these feelings and to perform another George Bernard Shaw, which is art and proper.
Hello Out There (1941)

“You should watch when you talk to young men about responsibility. They're so thrilled about it. It just blows me away. Really?! That's what the counter-culture is? Grow up and do something useful. "Really? I can do that? Oh, I'm so excited by that idea. No one ever mentioned that before."”

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

Rights, rights, rights, rights… Jesus! It's appalling. People have had enough of that. And they better have, because it's a non-productive mode of being. Responsibility, man: that's where the meaning in life is.
Other

“I have been fascinated by it all, grateful for it all, grateful for the sheer majesty of the existence of ideas, stories, fables, and paper and ink and print and books to hold them all together for a man to take aside and examine alone. But the man I liked most and the man who seemed to remind me of myself — of what I really was and would surely become — was George Bernard Shaw.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

Hello Out There (1941)
Context: I have read books about the behavior of mobs — The Mob by Le Bon, if I remember rightly, was one — about the crime in children, and the genius in them, about the greatest bodies of things, and about the littlest of them. I have been fascinated by it all, grateful for it all, grateful for the sheer majesty of the existence of ideas, stories, fables, and paper and ink and print and books to hold them all together for a man to take aside and examine alone. But the man I liked most and the man who seemed to remind me of myself — of what I really was and would surely become — was George Bernard Shaw.

“The creative habit is like a drug. The particular obsession changes, but the excitement, the thrill of your creation lasts.”

Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist

1970 and later
Source: Eric Maisel, ‎Ann Maisel (2010) Brainstorm: Harnessing the Power of Productive Obsessions. p. 95

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John R. Platt 12

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