Stronger than pain quotes (page 169) | Quotes of famous people

“A new technology sometimes creates more than it destroys. Sometimes, it destroys more than it creates. But it is never one-sided.”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985)
Context: A new technology sometimes creates more than it destroys. Sometimes, it destroys more than it creates. But it is never one-sided. The invention of the printing press is an excellent example. Printing fostered the modern idea of individuality but it destroyed the medieval sense of community and social integration. Printing created prose but made poetry into an exotic and elitist form of expression. Printing made modern science possible but transformed religious sensibility into an exercise in superstition. Printing assisted in the growth of the nation-state but, in so doing, made patriotism into a sordid if not a murderous emotion. Another way of saying this is that a new technology tends to favor some groups of people and harms other groups. School teachers, for example, will, in the long run, probably be made obsolete by television, as blacksmiths were made obsolete by the automobile, as balladeers were made obsolete by the printing press. Technological change, in other words, always results in winners and losers.

“Proposition 2. If a sphere be illuminated by a sphere greater than itself, the illuminated portion of the former sphere will be greater than a hemisphere.”

Aristarchus of Samos ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician

p, 125
On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and the Moon (c. 250 BC)

“Nothing is more surprising than the surprises of history, and nothing more untrustworthy than the uncritical extrapolation of the tendencies of the recent past.”

Lancelot Law Whyte (1896–1972) Scottish industrial engineer

Essay on Atomism: From Democritus to 1960 (1961), p.8

“To achieve satisfactory investment results is easier than most people realize; to achieve superior results is harder than it looks.”

Benjamin Graham book The Intelligent Investor

Source: The Intelligent Investor (1973) (Fourth Revised Edition), Chapter 20, "Margin of Safety": The Central Concept, p. 287

“Less than fifteen cents to the province and more than twenty-five cents to Ottawa, this is far from being excessive!”

Maurice Duplessis (1890–1959) former Premier of Quebec

Bill 43, Québec Legislative Assembly, January 14, 1954

“There is no greater vocation than to serve. But there is no greater purpose than to love. Live a life that does both, and you’ll be truly happy.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

Letter of advice to British diplomat Tom Fletcher's son. https://twitter.com/TFletcher/status/1033597850729570304
2000s, 2008

“Our hope is less to last through Art than deeper searching of the heart, than broader range of uttered truth.”

Francis Turner Palgrave (1824–1897) English poet and critic

The Ancient And Modern Muses

“Nothing dies harder than a bad idea. And few ideas are worse than the ones we have about art.”

Julia Cameron book The Artist's Way

The Artist's Way (1992), p. xxv

“If a man talks shit than I owe him nothing.
And if spends my change than he had it coming.”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

I Did Something Bad, written by Taylor Swift, Max Martin, and Shellback
Song lyrics, Reputaion (2017)

“There are more things, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XIII: On Groundless Fears
Original: (la) Plura sunt, quae nos terrent quam quae premunt, et saepius opinione quam re laboramus.

“Voltaire, who was both the flatterer and the satirist of despotism, took another line. His force lay in exposing and ridiculing the superstitions which priest-craft, united with state-craft, had interwoven with governments. It was not from the purity of his principles, or his love of mankind (for satire and philanthropy are not naturally concordant), but from his strong capacity of seeing folly in its true shape, and his irresistible propensity to expose it, that he made those attacks. They were, however, as formidable as if the motive had been virtuous; and he merits the thanks rather than the esteem of mankind.”

Thomas Paine book Rights of Man

Part 1.3 Rights of Man
1790s, Rights of Man, Part I (1791)

“Always try to associate yourself with and learn as much as you can from those who know more than you do, who do better than you, who see more clearly than you.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Source: At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends

“It was no more nor less than true. You do things by doing things, not by not doing them. No more crazy upsidedownness, he resolved. Good was better than bad. Good environments are better than bad environments.”

Walker Percy book The Last Gentleman

The Last Gentleman (1966)

“You know how you’re completely different with your mom than you are with your best friend, than you are with your romantic partner, than you are with your boss? They’re just different facets of me.”

Padma Lakshmi (1970) Indian-born American author, actress, model, television host and executive producer

Source: "Padma Lakshmi’s Delicious Mission" in Vanity Fair https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/06/padma-lakshmi-top-chef-taste-the-nation (24 June 2021)

““I want so much.”
Haakon laid a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “So do we all.”
The prince straightened. “And only in death do we find contentment.”
“Lowering thought. Is there to be no happiness in life then?”
“I think not. Each moment of joy must be paid for by a moment of equal pain.”
“You Dutch merchants, always keeping the books in balance. Do you see God as an accountant?”
William smiled slightly. “If he is he’s a shockingly bad one. I’m more than due for some joy.”
Haakon caught Barbarossa’s reins near the bit and drew the two chargers to a halt. “Then find it in the moment, H. H. Find it in the moment.””

Melinda M. Snodgrass (1951) American writer

Source: Queen's Gambit Declined (1989), Chapter 7 (pp. 86-87)

“The fact that there is a spiritual power in us, that is to say, a power which testifies to the unity of our life with the life of others, which impels us to regard others as other selves — this fact conies home to us even more forcibly in sorrow than in joy. It is thrown into clearest relief on the background of pain.
In the glow of achievement we are apt to be full of a false self-importance. But in moments of weakness we realise, through contrast, the infinitely superior strength of the power whose very humble organs and ministers we are. It is then we come to understand that, isolated from it, we are nothing; at one with it, identified with it, we participate in its eternal nature, in its resistless course.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 1 : The Meaning of Life
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)

“The time comes in the life of each of us when we realize that death awaits us as it awaits others, that we will receive at the end neither preference nor exemption. It is then, in that disturbed moment, that we know life is an adventure with an ending, not a succession of bright days that go on forever. Sometimes the knowledge come with the repudiation and quick revolt that such injustice awaits us, sometimes with fear that dries the mouth and closes the eyes for an instant, sometimes with servile weariness, an acquiescence more dreadful than fear. The knowledge that my own end was near came with pain, and afterwards astonishment, with the conventional heart attack, from which, I've been told, I've made an excellent recovery.”

William March (1893–1954) United States Marine, novelist, short story writer

Entitled "Poor Pilgrim, Poor Stranger", Found in the typewriter the morning of his death.

“.. I also send the picture of the 'Trinity' [also called La Gloria].... in my wish to satisfy your C. M. [Caesarean Majesty] I have not spared myself the pains of striking out two or three times the work of many days to bring it to perfection and satisfy myself, whereby more time was wasted than I usually take to do such things.... the portrait of Signor Vargas [agent of Charles V, who was paying Titian for his works] introduced into the work [very probably in the 'La Gloria' / 'Trinity'] was done at his request. If it should not please your C. M. any painter can, with a couple of [brush] strokes, convert it into another person.”

Titian (1488–1576) Italian painter

In a letter from Venice to the Spanish emperor Charles V in Bruxelles, 10 Sept. 1554; original in the 'Appendix' of Titian: his life and times - With some account of his family... Vol. 2., J. A. Crowe & G.B. Cavalcaselle, Publisher London, John Murray, 1877, p. 231-232
Titian is announcing in his letter the completion and the delivery of the paintings 'Trinity' and 'Addolorata' and probably a third painting 'Christ appearing to the Magdalen', for Mary of Hungary
1541-1576

“The trouble about Europe is what I call the Olive Line, the line below which people grow olives. North of the Olive Line people pay their taxes and spend public money very cautiously. South of it they fail to pay their taxes at all, but spend a lot of public money.”

Denis Healey (1917–2015) British Labour Party politician and Life peer

Interview https://www.channel4.com/news/by/michael-crick/blogs/healey-case-for-leaving-europe-stronger-than-staying with Michael Crick (9 May 2013)
2010s

“By and large the literature of a democracy will never exhibit the order, regularity, skill, and art characteristic of aristocratic literature; formal qualities will be neglected or actually despised. The style will often be strange, incorrect, overburdened, and loose, and almost always strong and bold. Writers will be more anxious to work quickly than to perfect details. Short works will be commoner than long books, wit than erudition, imagination than depth. There will be a rude and untutored vigor of thought with great variety and singular fecundity. Authors will strive to astonish more than to please, and to stir passions rather than to charm taste.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Book One, Chapter XIII.
Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book One

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