Source: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
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Bertrand Russell
(1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Part I: Man and Nature, Ch. 1: Current Perplexities, pp. 4–5
1950s, New Hopes for a Changing World (1951)
Context: Consider MacArthur and his Republican supporters. So limited is his intelligence and his imagination that he is never puzzled for one moment. All we have to do is to go back to the days of the Opium War. After we have killed a sufficient number of millions of Chinese, the survivors among them will perceive our moral superiority and hail MacArthur as a saviour. But let us not be one-sided. Stalin, I should say, is equally simple- minded and equally out of date. He, too, believes that if his armies could occupy Britain and reduce us all to the economic level of Soviet peasants and the political level of convicts, we should hail him as a great deliverer and bless the day when we were freed from the shackles of democracy. One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.
Page 107 (Act 3)
Long Day's Journey into Night (1955)
Anthony Bourdain
(1956–2018) Chef and food writer
Interview with Dave Weich http://www.powells.com/authors/bourdain.html
Joanna Newsom
(1982) American musician
Divers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divers_(Joanna_Newsom_album) (2015)
Seamus Heaney
(1939–2013) Irish poet, playwright, translator, lecturer
"Whatever You Say, Say Nothing", line 57, from North (1975).
Other Quotes
Norman Mailer
(1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate
Superman Comes to the Supermarket (1960)
Vanna Bonta
(1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)
"Only the Soul"
Degrees: Thought Capsules and Micro Tales (1989)
Sabrina Ward Harrison
(1975) Canadian writer
Quoted in [Buchwald, Laura, 2003, http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/sharrison.html, "Authors: Sabrina Ward Harrison", The Modern Library, RandomHouse.com, 2007-09-21]
Charles Caleb Colton
(1777–1832) British priest and writer
Vol. I; CCCCXXVII (7th Edition, published by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, in 1821)
Lacon
Context: To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it; the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary.
Niels Bohr
(1885–1962) Danish physicist
As quoted by Edward Teller, in Dr. Edward Teller's Magnificent Obsession by Robert Coughlan, in LIFE magazine (6 September 1954), p. 62 http://books.google.de/books?id=I1QEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA62
As quoted by Edward Teller (10 October 1972), and A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991) by Alan L. Mackay, p. 35
Variant: An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.
Thomas Edison
(1847–1931) American inventor and businessman
The Philosophy of Paine (1925)
Context: Looking back to those times we cannot, without much reading, clearly gauge the sentiment of the Colonies. Perhaps the larger number of responsible men still hoped for peace with England. They did not even venture to express the matter that way. Few men, indeed, had thought in terms of war.
Then Paine wrote 'Common Sense,' an anonymous tract which immediately stirred the fires of liberty. It flashed from hand to hand throughout the Colonies. One copy reached the New York Assembly, in session at Albany, and a night meeting was voted to answer this unknown writer with his clarion call to liberty. The Assembly met, but could find no suitable answer. Tom Paine had inscribed a document which never has been answered adversely, and never can be, so long as man esteems his priceless possession.
In 'Common Sense' Paine flared forth with a document so powerful that the Revolution became inevitable. Washington recognized the difference, and in his calm way said that matters never could be the same again.. It must be remembered that 'Common Sense' preceded the declaration and affirmed the very principles that went into the national doctrine of liberty. But that affirmation was made with more vigor, more of the fire of the patriot and was exactly suited to the hour. It is probable that we should have had the Revolution without Tom Paine. Certainly it could not be forestalled, once he had spoken.
Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.12
Context: Those who are ignorant and perverse in their thought are constantly in trouble and pain, because they cannot get as much of the superfluous things as a certain other person possesses. They as a rule expose themselves to great dangers... for the purpose of obtaining that which is superfluous and not necessary. When they thus meet with the consequences of the course which they adopt, they complain of the decrees and the judgements of God; they begin to blame the time, and wonder at the want of justice in its changes; that it has not enabled them to acquire great riches... for the purpose of driving themselves to voluptuousness beyond their capacities, as if the whole Universe existed only for the purpose of giving pleasure to these low people.