“Think. You have had your dealings with our bureaucracy. It is impossible not to, especially if one is a foreigner. Believe me, when we set our minds to it we can tangle, obstruct, and bring to a dead halt a herd of stampeding elephants.”

— Poul Anderson, book The Boat of a Million Years

Source: The Boat of a Million Years (1989), Chapter 16 “Niche” (p. 291)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Think. You have had your dealings with our bureaucracy. It is impossible not to, especially if one is a foreigner. Beli…" by Poul Anderson?

Poul Anderson140

American science fiction and fantasy writer 1926–2001

Related quotes

“We don't ask you to believe in our ability to bring change, rather, we ask you to believe in yours.”

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

“It may be, then, that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work and that when we no longer know which way to go we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Standing by Words: Essays (2011), Poetry and Marriage: The Use of Old Forms (1982)

“Yes, in our world, old thinking can be a stubborn thing. That's one of the reasons why we need term limits -- old people think old ways. […] The old ways can be stubborn. But I believe the human heart is stronger. I believe hearts can change. I believe minds can open. That’s how change happens. That’s how societies move forward. It's not always a straight line -- step by halting step -- sometimes you go forward, you move back a little bit. But I believe we are marching, we are pointing towards ideals of justice and equality.”

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

2015, Remarks to the People of Africa (July 2015)

“Mind and body were originally one. Do not think that the power you have is only the power you ordinarily use and moan that you have little strength. The power you ordinarily use is like the small visible segment of an iceberg. When we unify our mind and body and become one with the universe, we can use the great power that is naturally ours.”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

4 : Unification of mind & body
Ki Sayings (2003)

“Our country needs a truly great leader, and we need a truly great leader now. We need a leader that wrote “The Art of the Deal.” We need a leader that can bring back our jobs, can bring back our manufacturing, can bring back our military, can take care of our vets. Our vets have been abandoned. And we also need a cheerleader…. We need somebody that can take the brand of the United States and make it great again. It’s not great again.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2015, Presidential Bid Announcement (June 16, 2015)

“For you and for me the highest moment, the keenest joy, is not when our minds dominate but when we lose our minds…”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

February, 1932
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)
Source: Fire: From A Journal of Love - The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin

“And suddenly the circle came together for me. We were as a civilization making one big mistake, a mistake that was understandable because we had been raised to make it. We had been culturally indoctrinated to believe it to be not a mistake at all, but rather a normal and healthy habit. But this mistake was killing us as individuals just as it was destroying our land and our forests and our rivers. We were eating dead animals, and it wasn't working. If those animals had set out to take their revenge on us, they couldn't have done a better job.”

Howard F. Lyman (1938) American activist

Source: Mad Cowboy (1998), Ch. 4: From the Farm to the Capital, pp. 80-81

“Contact with like-minded painters, a group means a great deal to me: nothing comes in isolation. We have worked out our ideas largely by talking them through... One depends on one's surroundings. And so the exchange with other artists – and especially the collaboration with Lueg and Polke – matters a lot to me.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

Source: after 2000, Doubt and belief in painting' (2003), p. 47

“What a tangled web we weave when we practice to believe”

Robert M. Price (1954) American theologian

Robert M. Price, in The Psychology of Biblicism http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/art_biblicism.htm, a modification of the quote from Sir Walter Scott

“You have the power to heal your life, and you need to know that. We think so often that we are helpless, but we're not. We always have the power of our minds…Claim and consciously use your power.”

Louise L. Hay (1926–2017) American writer

“Think. You have had your dealings with our bureaucracy. It is impossible not to, especially if one is a foreigner. Believe me, when we set our minds to it we can tangle, obstruct, and bring to a dead halt a herd of stampeding elephants.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Poul Anderson140

Related quotes

Related topics