Quotes

Taliesin photo

“You must not grieve so heavily.
Better are good than evil omens.”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

The Tale of Taleisin
Context: You must not grieve so heavily.
Better are good than evil omens.
though I am weak and small,
Spumed with Dylan's wave,
I shall be better for you
Than three hundred shares of salmon.

John Adams photo

“The poor people, it is true, have been much less successful than the great.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1760s, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
Context: The poor people, it is true, have been much less successful than the great. They have seldom found either leisure or opportunity to form a union and exert their strength; ignorant as they were of arts and letters, they have seldom been able to frame and support a regular opposition. This, however, has been known by the great to be the temper of mankind; and they have accordingly labored, in all ages, to wrest from the populace, as they are contemptuously called, the knowledge of their rights and wrongs, and the power to assert the former or redress the latter. I say RIGHTS, for such they have, undoubtedly, antecedent to all earthly government, — Rights, that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws — Rights, derived from the great Legislator of the universe.

“Sharpen up the edges of ideas for the students in fields other than your own.”

Edwin H. Land (1909–1991) American scientist and inventor

Generation of Greatness (1957)
Context: I think we must say this to each department: "Sharpen up the edges of ideas for the students in fields other than your own. They will not have years in which to find out what you meant, years during which they might achieve a sense of rich insight into your domain. But they are intelligent, they are earnest in their own department; they will profit all their lives from one year of brilliant teaching."

Jessica Lynch photo

“The truth of war is not always easy. The truth is always more heroic than the hype.”

Jessica Lynch (1983) Recipient of the Purple Heart medal

Her final statement has also been quoted in news reports as "The truth of war is not always easy to hear but it is always more heroic than the hype".
Congressional testimony (2007)
Context: My hero is every American who says "My country needs me" and answers that call to fight. I had the good fortune and opportunity to come home and to tell the truth; many soldiers, like Pat Tillman... did not have that opportunity. The truth of war is not always easy. The truth is always more heroic than the hype.

Simone de Beauvoir photo

“Men of today seem to feel more acutely than ever the paradox of their condition.”

Part I : Ambiguity and Freedom
The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947)
Context: Men of today seem to feel more acutely than ever the paradox of their condition. They know themselves to be the supreme end to which all action should be subordinated, but the exigencies of action force them to treat one another as instruments or obstacles, as means. The more widespread their mastery of the world, the more they find themselves crushed by uncontrollable forces.

Christopher Reeve photo

“Superman is nothing more than a popular retelling of the Christ story, or Greek mythology.”

Christopher Reeve (1952–2004) actor, director, producer, screenwriter

Caught in the Act : New York Actors Face to Face (1986) by Don Shewey and Susan Shacter, p. 18
Context: Superman is nothing more than a popular retelling of the Christ story, or Greek mythology. It's an archetype, watered down and made in vivid colors for twelve-year-old's mentality. It's pop mythology, which extends to the actor, then seeps over to a demand that that actor reflect the needs of the worshipers. The worship doesn't only go on in the temples — it goes on in the streets, and restaurants, in magazines. But, you know, I'm from New Jersey, I'm not from Olympus or Krypton, so back off 'cause I can't take the responsibility.

Henry Miller photo

“Perhaps the artist is nothing more than the personification of this universal maladjustment, this universal disequilibrium.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

Shashi Tharoor photo

“The only possible idea of India is that of a nation greater than the sum of its parts.”

Shashi Tharoor (1956) Indian politician, diplomat, author

The Hindu, "Strengthening Indianness ", Sunday, Jan 19, 2003, Available Online http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mag/2003/01/19/stories/2003011900240300.htm
2000s

Vanna Bonta photo

“Penalty is different than punishment, because it offers something with which to regain honor.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

essay "Justice vs. Punishment", Bonta recalling being reprimanded as a child, as quoted on the Waleg Celebrity News Archive. Vanna Bonta’s First Lesson in Justice http://www.waleg.com/celebrities/archives/005045.html, WALEG Celebrities, September 14, 2006. Justice vs. Punishment http://www.gurevitz.org/jim/justice.html, by Vanna Bonta

Livy photo

“It is better that a guilty man should not be brought to trial than that he should be acquitted.”

Livy (-59–17 BC) Roman historian

Book XXXIV, sec. 4
History of Rome

Yeshayahu Leibowitz photo

“The essence of Jewish faith is consistent with no embodiment other than the system of halakhic praxis.”

Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903–1994) israeli intellectual

"Judaism, Human Values and the Jewish State" (1995)

GG Allin photo

“GG Allin: Depends on if I can get there quicker than she can.”

GG Allin (1956–1993) American singer-songwriter

GG Allin on The Jerry Springer Show, May 5. 1993.
On The Jerry Springer Show

Franz Liszt photo

“Brahms' Variations are better than mine, but mine were written before his.”

Franz Liszt (1811–1886) Hungarian romantic composer and virtuoso pianist

As quoted in Arthur Friedheim and Alexander Siloti, Remembering Franz Liszt (1961) p. 138.

V.S. Naipaul photo

“Everybody is interesting for an hour, but few people can last more than two.”

V.S. Naipaul (1932–2018) Trinidadian-British writer of Indo-Nepalese ancestry

As quoted in "Wanderer of Endless Curiosity" by R. Z. Sheppard in Time magazine (10 July 1989) http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,958134,00.html

Georges Bernanos photo

“Rather than the obsession with impurity, you'd do better to fear the nostalgia for purity.”

The curé of Fenouille to Dr. Malépine, p. 213
Monsieur Ouine, 1943

Anders Behring Breivik photo

“To send a political activist to an asylum is more sadistic and evil than killing him.”

Anders Behring Breivik (1979) Norwegian mass murderer

In an open letter sent to several newspapers in Norway shortly before the announcement by the second team of court-appointed psychiatrists on their findings of him not having been psychotic when he perpetrated the attacks. Global Post (10 April 2012) http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/120410/norway-killer-anders-behring-breivik-declared-sane
Other

Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff photo
Elliott Smith photo

“The scraping subjects, ruled by fear, they told mewhiskey works better than beer.”

Elliott Smith (1969–2003) American singer-songwriter

King's Crossing.
Lyrics, From a Basement on the Hill (posthumous, 2004)