“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
Variant: All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone.
Source: Pensées
American Middle East Expert Daniel Pipes Clashes with Lebanese Journalist Khodhor 'Awarki on whether Israel Should Be a Jewish State, MEMRI, December 4, 2007 http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1626.htm,.
By regarding such productions as social facts the analyst is relieved of the burden of demonstrating what meanings these productions have for the artist and his audience. It is too frequently assumed that such meanings can be identified by a capable analyst, independent of the interpretations brought to such works by the artist or his audiences. In my judgement artist productions must be seen as interactional creations; the meanings of which arise out of the interactions directed to them by the artist and his audience.
[The Sociology of Rock, 1978, Frith, Simon (ed.), ISBN 0094602204]
“Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.”
No Exit (1944)
Variant: A man is what he wills himself to be.
Source: Existentialism and Human Emotions
As quoted in Women on War : Essential Voices for the Nuclear Age (1988), by Daniela Gioseffi, p. 103
Variant: A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do.
As quoted in Singing the Living Tradition (1993) by the Unitarian Universalist Association, p. 560
Context: What I want to bring out is how a pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. And each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. Going to jail for distributing leaflets advocating war tax refusal causes a ripple of thought, of conscience among us all. And of remembrance too. …. There may be ever improving standards of living in the U. S., with every worker eventually owning his own home and driving his own car; but our modern economy is based on preparation for war. … The absolutist begins a work, others take it up and try to spread it. Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.
Said in 1989 according to Anders Breivik & Europe's blind right eye https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/anders-breivik-europes-blind-right-eye/article2290619.ece by Praveen Swami published on July 25, 2011 and updated: AUGUST 16, 2016
1980s
Source: How to Live, or, A Life of Montaigne in one Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer (2010), p. 51.
