
I considered this. “I think I come from the everybody’s smart category. But they don’t apply their smarts to… larger picture pursuits. That includes me.”
JPod (2006)
Alan Moore on Anarchism (2009)
Context: Unless you’re talking about some incredibly rigid Victorian family, there is nobody that could be said to be the leader of the family; everybody has their own function. And it seems to me that anarchy is the state that most naturally obtains when you’re talking about ordinary human beings living their lives in a natural way. It’s only when you get these fairly alien structures of order that are represented by our major political schools of thought, that you start to get these terrible problems arising—problems regarding our status within the hierarchy, the uncertainties and insecurities that are the result of that. You get these jealousies, these power struggles, which by and large, don’t really afflict the rest of the animal kingdom. It seems to me that the idea of leaders is an unnatural one that was probably thought up by a leader at some point in antiquity; leaders have been brutally enforcing that idea ever since, to the point where most people cannot conceive of an alternative.
I considered this. “I think I come from the everybody’s smart category. But they don’t apply their smarts to… larger picture pursuits. That includes me.”
JPod (2006)
“You’re talking about Vietnam and at that time nobody had ever heard of the country.”
Trump was describing the US knowledge about Vietnam in 1968, when about one half million US troops were stationed in Vietnam, as quoted in [Trump says was 'never a fan' of Vietnam War, and that Americans hadn't heard of country in 1968, Japan Times, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/06/world/politics-diplomacy-world/trump-says-never-fan-vietnam-war-claims-americans-hadnt-heard-country-1968/#.XraZ4hMzbOQ]
2010s, 2019, June
Editorial, Hartford Courant (27 August 1897); this remark was reportedly quoted by Mark Twain and it has become often attributed to him, but the context of the statement might indicate the contrary situation
Paraphrased variant: Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.
Variant: Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.
Source: Short fiction, Picking Up the Pieces (2011), p. 191
Context: I pushed her back hard. “You don’t belong with them; you’re not special, you have no place in any unseen world; you’re like me and the rest of our family. Get used to it!” She looked at me like I’d slapped her.
“Oh, sorry,” I said, feeling equally stung by her reaction. “It’s hell being ordinary, but that’s the human condition.”
“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”
Notes on sourcing http://www.bartleby.com/73/1982.html
Twain did say:
: "There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger's admiration — and regret. The weather is always doing something there … In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours. ...
Yes, one of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it."
:* Speech at the dinner of New England Society in New York City (22 December 1876)
Misattributed
Interview in 2006, as quoted in "Gary Gygax, Game Pioneer, Dies at 69" in The New York Times (5 March 2008)