Quotes about anyone
page 29

“They were both more than twenty-seven in those enthusiastic years of nineteen hundred and thirty-five, yet neither had as much as ever kissed a girl. Not that kissing was much in favour in that district. Reading about lovers kissing, Tarry often reflected on the fact that he had never seen anyone kissing anyone, except poor old Peter Toole whom he once saw kissing a corpse in a wakehouse in the hope of getting a couple of glasses of whiskey.”

Patrick Kavanagh (1904–1967) poet

p11
Prose, Tarry Flynn (1948)

Hope, Girl, Lovers, Kiss

“[How is it consistent with what you advocated this evening in terms of a vision for peace, that you continued to allow the building of settlements in the West Bank, during your primeministership? ] Let me tell you, first of all, during my term as a Prime Minister, we have not built a single new settlement. I ordered the dismantling of many voluntary -- I don't know how to call it -- new settlements that had been set on top of hills in different parts of the West Bank, basically. But, I allowed contracts, contracts that had been signed, legally, in Israel, beforehand. To build new neighborhoods in some big cities in the West Bank, cities with 25,000 or 30,000 people. And very few new homes, in small settlements, where youngsters, who came back from the army service, asked to build their home near the home of their parents. Now, Israel is a law-abiding state, you cannot break contracts, there is Supreme Court. If the government behaves in a way that is not proper, any individual can appeal and change whatever we decide. Realizing that this is a sensitive issue from the Palestinian side, I talked to Arafat, at the beginning of my term as a Prime Minister, and I told him: Mr. Chairman, I know that you are worried about it, it creates some problems, in your own constituency. But let me tell you, we have a great opportunity here to put an end to the whole conflict, in a year and a half. When President Clinton that invested unbelievable amount of energy and political capital in trying to solve it, and he's still in power. Now, I understand your problem with settlement if there is no end, there is no time limit, and you are afraid that maybe the accumulation of new settlements will change the nature of the situation, for the worse, from your position. So I tell you, out of our own considerations, independent of you, we have decided not to set even a single new settlement. We will not allow anyone to establish his own private initiatives on the hills, for our own reasons, not because of you. But at the same time I will respect any contract that has been signed, under law, in Israel. But -- and here is a point -- bearing in mind that we can put an end to the conflict, to reach an agreement within a year and a half, why the hell it will matter? To build a new building in Israel takes more than a year and a half, so you won't see any building that is not already emerging from the ground, having it's roof before we can reach an agreement. Now if such a building happens to be in a settlement that will become, under the agreement, part of the new independent Palestine, why the hell you have to care? Take it, use it, put some refugees in it. And if it will happen to be a part of what will be agreed, as Israel, in a mutual agreement that is signed by you, why the hell do you care, if you agree? I believe that that simple answer would not solve his public -- or internal political -- problems, but it would solve the real issue if the will was there to make peace, and not just to politically maneuver and manipulate.”

Ehud Barak (1942) Israeli politician and prime minister

Speech at UC Berkeley http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/19324/edition_id/391/format/html/displaystory.html, November 22, 2002

People, Peace, Law, Way

“How can the government stop anyone from protesting? The land is not their 'father's property'. The citizens are the masters of this country and the ministers are their servants.”

Anna Hazare (1937) Indian activist

"Action against Ramdev: Anna Hazare supporters to observe countrywide hunger strike", http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_team-anna-terms-police-action-on-ramdev-barbaric-to-boycott-lokpal-meet_1551517 Daily News & Analysis (Mumbai), 5 June 2011

Country

“Be quiet! Anyone can spit in my face, and call me a criminal and a prostitute. But no one has the right to judge my remorse.”

Jean Paul Sartre The Flies

Act 1
The Flies (1943)

“Frank, you are, without doubt, a scarcity. Anyone who looks at the historical record of the juncture of art and technology finds you nearly unaccompanied when it comes to documenting this historical record between the years of the late-1960's up to the early 1990s. Basically there is you, Jack Burnham's book Beyond Modern Sculpture (1968), and Gene Youngblood's reference work Expanded Cinema (1970). Specifically, your books Origins and Development of Kinetic Art (1968), Art, Action and Participation (1975) and Art of the Electronic Age (1993) are indispensable research tools in helping us figure out how art got to where it is today - in your terms virtualized.”

Joseph Nechvatal (1951) American artist

Joseph Nechvatal. in: " Origins of Virtualism: An Interview with Frank Popper http://www.mediaarthistory.org/refresh/Programmatic%20key%20texts/pdfs/Popper.pdf," in: Media Art History, 2004.

Books, Age, Art, Help

“Bosboom has just as anyone else fussed around things [paintings] from time to time to get his money. Only very few people can escape this... It is almost impossible that an artist who doesn't have the gift to work for the market as well, will always have to make good things. Because, when he has no money he has to earn it. And he will have to strain himself. For something he appreciates the least of all. He can never neglect this... The examples you can see everywhere. If you may write something about him [Bosboom] again, I hope you will take this into account too.”

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) Dutch painter and photographer

translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek version in original Dutch (citaat van zijn brief aan nl:Jan Veth, in het Nederlands:) Bosboom heeft net zoo goed als een ander wel eens dingen afgepeuterd om aan geld te komen. daar ontsnappen maar heel weinig menschen aan.. .Het is bijna onmogelijk dat een artist die niet de gaaf heeft om tegelijk voor de verkoop te werken altijd heeft goede dingen te maken. omdat hij als hij geen geld heeft het moet verdienen. En hij zich zal moeten inspannen. Voor iets waar hij minst voor voelt. Dat nooit nalaten kan.. .De voorbeelden zijn voor 't grijpen. Als je soms iets over hem mocht schrijven hoop ik dat je dit ook in aanmerking zult nemen. quote of Breitner in a letter to Jan Veth, Amsterdam, Fall 1891; original text in RKD-Archive, The Hague https://rkd.nl/explore/excerpts/80 Jan Veth wrote an memorial on Johannes Bosboom, shortly after Bosboom's death 1890 - 1900

Money, People, Hope, Time

“No one is "the next" anyone, especially if that person is still here, doing their thing, as she [Mariah] clearly is. The comparisons people have made to me are so flattering, but I think it's insensitive to the people I'm compared to.”

Leona Lewis (1985) British singer-songwriter

Rolling Stone magazine, May 2008
On being proclaimed the new Mariah

People, Thinking, Personality

“(He remarked) that anyone who truly wished to develop tolerance toward other human beings should start by casting aside any and all religious affiliation. When challenged by one of the other guests, he had asked innocently whether anyone could name a single person put to death or driven from his home by an atheist over theological matters.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Deepsix (2001), Chapter 4 (pp. 72-73)

Death, Home, Personality

“The only reason why we are always thinking of our own ego is that we have to live with it more continuously than with anyone else's.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Thinking

“The time was, when I was a boy, when people hardly dreamed that the day would come when there would be large numbers of Members in this House who could not afford to perform their duties here unless they had an allowance; but I think, looking at the whole Continent of Europe, that, the more the basis of our liberty and our Constitution is broadened, the better for our country. Would anyone who remembers the old days here go back to them and give up what we have gained? This Chamber, the most famous Chamber in democratic government in the world, is now open to all, and, once you admit that everybody has a right to be elected to this House if he can, you cannot logically create or leave a financial bar.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1937/apr/12/ministers-of-the-crown-bill in the House of Commons (12 April 1937) announcing an increase in MP's salaries. 1937

People, World, Dreams, Boy

“Anyone would think paintings were made like speculations on the stock market, out of the frictions of ambitious young people… …it sharpens the mind, but clouds your judgement.”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

Quote from The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 34
quotes, undated

People, Thinking, Painting

“If I am elected President, I will work with anyone who sincerely wants to get this country moving again. I will listen to any idea that is offered in good faith and intended to help solve our problems, not make them worse. I will seek the counsel of members of Congress from both parties in forming government policy before I ask them to support it. I will ask Democrats to serve in my administration. My administration will set a new standard for transparency and accountability. I will hold weekly press conferences. I will regularly brief the American people on the progress our policies have made and the setbacks we have encountered. When we make errors, I will confess them readily, and explain what we intend to do to correct them. I will ask Congress to grant me the privilege of coming before both houses to take questions, and address criticism, much the same as the Prime Minister of Great Britain appears regularly before the House of Commons.”

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

[Text of McCain's Speech on First-Term Goals, http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/05/15/text_of_mccains_vision_of_2013.html, washingtonpost.com, 2008-05-15, 2008-06-01]
2000s, 2008

People, Faith, Error, Idea

“This book you've read is just a story. I made it up. It is not designed to change anyone's beliefs or worldview, unless after reading it you've decided to be kinder to your fellow humans (which is okay), or you decide you really would like to teach yoga to an elephant, in which case, please get videotape.”

Christopher Moore book Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Afterword : Teaching Yoga to an Elephant
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal (2002)

Books, Change, Reading

“If this is neglected, any effort at development will fail, because factions will emerge with their own form of protest that would drive underground anyone seeking help. This will endanger whatever development has taken place.”

Epeli Ganilau (1951) Fijian politician

Address to the Pan Pacific HIV/AIDS Conference, Auckland, New Zealand, October 2005

Effort, Help

“My name is Kvothe, pronounced nearly the same as “Quothe.” Names are important as they tell you a great deal about a person. I’ve had more names than anyone has a right to.
The Adem call me Maedre. Which, depending on how it’s spoken, can mean “The Flame,” “The Thunder,” or “The Broken Tree.””

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 7, “Of Beginnings and the Names of Things” (p. 57)

Tree, Dependency, Personality

“Criticism didn't really stop us and it shouldn't ever stop anyone, because critics are only the people who can't get a record deal themselves.”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 96

People

“The Outsider cannot accept life as it is, who cannot consider his own existence or anyone else's necessary. He sees 'too deep and too much.”

Colin Wilson book The Outsider

It is still a question of self-expression.
Source: The Outsider (1956), Chapter Four The Attempt to Gain Control

Life, Question

“I am happy because I want nothing from anyone. I do not care for money. Decorations, titles or distinctions mean nothing to me. I do not crave praise. The only thing that gives me pleasure, apart from my work, my violin and my sailboat, is the appreciation of my fellow workers.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1920s, Viereck interview (1929)

Money, Pleasure, Happiness

“I shall develop the thesis that anyone acting communicatively must, in performing any speech act, raise universal validity claims and suppose that they can be vindicated.”

Jürgen Habermas (1929) German sociologist and philosopher

Source: On the Pragmatics of Communication, 1998, p. 22

Communication, Universe

“In many churches Christianity has been watered down until the solution is so weak that if it were poison it would not hurt anyone, and if it were medicine it would not cure anyone!”

Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897–1963) American missionary

I Talk Back to the Devil: Essays in Spiritual Perfection (1990).

Water, Hurt

“What does NOT work best for anyone, though, is being forced to keep a Windows partition around just to play video games. The best operating system for playing games is the one that lets you keep your word processor, instant messenger, email, and music player open in the background while you play. The worst is the one that will force you to shut all that down just to screw around for a few minutes.”

Ryan C. Gordon (1978) Computer programmer

Quoted in Robin Heggelund Hansen, "Porting games to Linux" http://www.hardware.no/artikler/ryan_c_gordon_and_michael_simms/68450/1 hardware.no (2009-03-10)

Music, Game

“The boy was unquestionably a great natural talent, if not an outright genius, in the art of complaint—tirelessly inventive, and completely shameless in the matter of interpreting his dissatisfactions as someone else’s—anyone else’s—criminal failures to content him.”

Michael Shea book Nifft the Lean

Part 3, Chapter 18 (p. 215)
Nifft the Lean (1982)

Art, Boy, Failure, Nature

“I have sometimes told myself that if only there were a notice on church doors forbidding entry to anyone with an income above a certain figure, and a low one, I would be converted at once.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Letter to Georges Bernanos (1938), in Seventy Letters, as translated by Richard Rees (Wipf and Stock: 1965), p. 105

““I'm sure you didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
Madoc Roswyn laughed a soft forlorn laugh. “The sad truth is that I didn’t care—which may be worse.””

Jack Vance book Space Opera

Source: Space Opera (1965), Chapter 12 (p. 127)

Truth, Sadness, Hurt

“Violet said…"We've never known anyone who could remain so cheerful, no matter what terrible things occurred.”

Daniel Handler book The Grim Grotto

The Grim Grotto (2004)

“It should be no news to anyone that the perceptual judgements of individuals can be unreliable for a range of reasons. The challenge, in science, is to arrange the observable situation in such a way that the reliance on such judgements is minimised if not eliminated.”

Alan Chalmers book What Is This Thing Called Science?

Source: What Is This Thing Called Science? (Third Edition; 1999), Chapter 2, Observation as practical intervention, p. 21.

Way, Science

“I'd never seen anyone go truly, old-school berserkergang, but that scream…It was like hearing an echo rolling down through the centuries from an ancient world, a more savage world, now lost to the mists of time. And suddenly I had no trouble at all believing her age.”

Jim Butcher book Heorot

The Dresden Files short stories, Heorot

Age, World, School, Time

“He's a hollow man. He believes in anything. Hollow men are vulnerable to anyone who offers them something that might fill the void and make them feel less empty.”

Dean Koontz book From the Corner of His Eye

Source: From the Corner of His Eye (2000), Chapter 64; words of former policeman Thomas Vanadium

Men, Feeling

“Playing it safe is not productive for anyone, because safety requires gays and lesbians to be invisible, and the inhumanity engendered by making people invisible is anything but safe, rather, it puts us all in danger. When we are banned from the places we should be welcomed, where we should not only be allowed but encouraged to speak, where should we go then?”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, SPEAKING UP

People

“Let's define the word, what racist is - "A person who believes that their race to be superior to another's." I've never advocated that. And I challenge anyone to tell me one thing that I've said that is racist. Criticism is not racism. Accountability is not racism. And that's what I've tried to say over the years.”

Pauline Hanson (1954) Australian politician

Interview on Enough Rope (September 20, 2004) http://www.abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/transcripts/s1203646.htm

Personality

“The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life.”

Walker Percy book The Moviegoer

The Moviegoer (1961)

Life, Search

“I personally find Holocaust denial deeply offensive, and I absolutely didn’t intend to defend the intent of people who deny that. Our goal with fake news is not to prevent anyone from saying something untrue — but to stop fake news and misinformation spreading across our services. If something is spreading and is rated false by fact checkers, it would lose the vast majority of its distribution in News Feed. And of course if a post crossed line into advocating for violence or hate against a particular group, it would be removed. These issues are very challenging but I believe that often the best way to fight offensive bad speech is with good speech.”

Mark Zuckerberg (1984) American internet entrepreneur

As quoted in Mark Zuckerberg clarifies: ‘I personally find Holocaust denial deeply offensive, and I absolutely didn’t intend to defend the intent of people who deny that.’ https://www.recode.net/2018/7/18/17588116/mark-zuckerberg-clarifies-holocaust-denial-offensive (July 18, 2018) by Kara Swisher, Recode.

Hate, People, Way, Fight

“Thy letter hath been perused. Were the truth of this Revelation to be fully demonstrated with elaborate proofs, all the scrolls that exist in the heaven and on the earth would be insufficient to contain them.
However, the substance and essence of the subject is this, that there can be no doubt that from everlasting God hath been invested with the independent sovereignty of His exalted Being, and unto everlasting He will remain inaccessible in the transcendent majesty of His holy Essence. No creature hath ever recognized Him as befitteth His recognition, nor hath any created being ever praised Him as is worthy of His praise. He is exalted above every name, and is sanctified from every comparison. Through Him all things are made known, while too lofty is His reality to be known through anyone but Him. The process of His creation hath had no beginning and can have no end, otherwise it would necessitate the cessation of His celestial grace. God hath raised up Prophets and revealed Books as numerous as the creatures of the world, and will continue to do so to everlasting.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

Dalá’Il-I-Sab‘ih

God, Truth, Books, World

“Uptown girl
She's been living in her uptown world.
I bet she never had a backstreet guy
I bet her mama never told her why.
I'm gonna try for an uptown girl.
She's been living in her white bread world
As long as anyone with hot blood can
And now she's looking for a downtown man
That's what I am.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

Uptown Girl.
Song lyrics, An Innocent Man (1983)

World, Guy, Girl

“I haven't decided if he deserved to eat bread made out of sticks or live in a rancid puddle, probably because I haven't made up my mind whether anyone deserves such treatment, though I suspect that the day a person gives up on the Geneva Conventions is the day a person gives up on the human race.”

Sarah Vowell book Assassination Vacation

Source: Assassination Vacation (2005), p. 81 On Samuel Mudd

Personality

“Most of the pathetic scenes in almost everybody's life are scenes unnoted by anyone and totally disregarded by the person in question.”

John Cowper Powys book A Glastonbury Romance

A Glastonbury Romance (1932; 1955) p. 849

Life, Question, Personality

“First they ignore you, then they say you're mad, then dangerous, then there's a pause and then you can't find anyone who disagrees with you.”

Tony Benn (1925–2014) British Labour Party politician

The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations, Robert Andrews, Columbia University Press, 1993, ISBN 0231071949, 9780231071949. A similar quotation is almost invariably attributed to Gandhi, but more likely derives from a 1914 US trade union address: "And, my friends, in this story you have a history of this entire movement. First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you. And that, is what is going to happen to the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America." General Executive Board Report and Proceedings [of The] Biennial Convention, Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, 1914. Google Books http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=I-0UAAAAIAAJ&q=%22first+they+ignore+you%22+%22build+monuments%22&dq=%22first+they+ignore+you%22+%22build+monuments%22&lr=&as_brr=0&pgis=1 2000s

Madness

“Reason is like an open secret that can become known to anyone at any time; it is the quiet space into which everyone can enter through his own thought.”

Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) German psychiatrist and philosopher

As quoted in Philosophy for a Time of Crisis : An Interpretation, with Key Writings by Fifteen Great Modern Thinkers (1959) by Adrienne Koch, Ch. 18, "Karl Jaspers : A New Humanism"

Secret, Time

“No one else knew how she'd longed for extinction, how much part of her had hungered simply to quit. To end. She'd once intended, coldly and logically, to do just that… She'd sacrificed her naval career… and a corner of her mind suspected she'd actually wanted to sacrifice it — that she'd planned to use the loss of the vocation she loved so much as one more reason to end her dreary existence. It had seemed only reasonable then; now the memory was one more coal of contempt for her own weakness, her willingness to surrender to her own pain when she'd always refused to surrender to anyone else.”

David Weber (1952) author

"Honorverse", Flag in Exile (1995)

Love, Hunger, Pain, Memory

“I knew as well as anyone that the priests taught what they wanted us to know, not necessarily what was true. And sometimes even when they told the truth, they got it wrong.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 5 “Family” (charcoal study) (p. 120)

Truth

“Brothers! I have the honour and I am proud to be in your ranks, and I pledge the Almighty that I will always struggle for the sake of peace. As for the forces of the Army which we have prepared, we prepared them to face those who attacks [sic] peace. We are a peaceful and a neutral state. We attack no one, but anyone who attacks us and starts aggression, we will stop him.”

Abd al-Karim Qasim (1914–1963) Prime Minister of Iraq

Speech delivered at the second congress of the peace partisans (April 14, 1959).
Principles of the 14th July Revolution (1959)

Peace

“As far as talent goes, Marilyn Monroe was so minimally gifted as to be almost unemployable, and anyone who holds to the opinion that she was a great natural comic identifies himself immediately as a dunce…As a natural silent comedian Marilyn might possibly have qualified, with the proviso that she was not to be depended on to invent anything. But as a natural comedian in sound she had the conclusive disadvantage of not being able to speak. She was limited ineluctably to characters who rented language but could not possess it, and all her best roles fell into that category. She was good at being inarticulately abstracted for the same reason that midgets are good at being short.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

'Mailer's Marilyn
Essays and reviews, At the Pillars of Hercules (1979)

Nature, Dependency

“May the Great God, whom I worship, grant to my Country and for the benefit of Europe in general a great and glorious victory; and may no misconduct in anyone tarnish it; and may humanity after Victory be the predominant feature of the British fleet. For myself, individually, I commit my life to Him who made me, and may His blessing light upon my endeavours for serving my Country faithfully. To Him I resign myself and the just cause which is entrusted to me to defend. Amen. Amen. Amen.”

Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) Royal Navy Admiral

Dispatches and Letters of Horatio Nelson : a diary entry on the eve of the battle of Trafalgar
The Battle of Trafalgar (1805)

Life, God, Light, Victory

“Sun has never deprived anyone of its light and energy irrespective of their caste and religion. Despite this, if it is being linked to communalism then I request such people to stay in their rooms during the day without sunlight.”

Yogi Adityanath (1972) Indian politician

On religious groups claiming that Surya Namaskar would cause communal disharmony, as quoted in "People opposed to 'Surya Namaskar' should lock themselves in 'dark room': Yogi Adityanath" http://zeenews.india.com/news/india/people-opposed-to-surya-namaskar-should-lock-themselves-in-dark-room-yogi-adityanath_1610111.html, Zee News (9 June 2015).

People, Religion, Communication, Light

“I don't really care what people think of me. Whatever anyone may say, I've helped the whole art world, just as Picasso and Dalí have. I've made people aware of painting, which makes them buy more, just like they go buy more records and books once they're exposed.”

Walter Keane (1915–2000) American plagiarist

Page 48.
1965, Cited by Jane Howard

People, Books, World, Art

“…he would say that he doubted whether it was possible for anyone who had not visited India, even Members of Her Majesty's Government, to realize how incredibly strong, and, at the same time, how incredibly slender, our position in India was. It was strong far beyond ordinary human strength so long as we showed ourselves capable of ruling; but it was weaker than the weakest the moment we showed the faintest indications of relaxing our grasp.”

Lord Randolph Churchill (1849–1895) British politician

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1885/may/04/supply-vote-of-credit-report in the House of Commons (4 May 1885)

Strong, Time

“Animals are just always a passion of mine. … I would like to use my voice to promote anti-fur. … Throughout my reign, I was offered a lot of gifts, you know, either they were fur shoes or fur coats. Sometimes, sponsors of course wanted me to wear their products, but I would always put my foot down, because it's just so cruel and I don't want to be a supporter of that. I don’t want to show anyone that I support what they do to animals for the benefit of fashion. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Alyssa Campanella (1990) American model

"Miss USA Winners Bare All and Say NO to Fur" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGM9mDRd0Cs, video interview with PETA (June 13, 2013).

Shoe, Fashion, Support, Sense

“Junk short-circuits sex. The drive to non-sexual sociability comes from the same place sex comes from, so when I have an H or M shooting habit I am non-sociable. If someone wants to talk, O. K. But there is no drive to get acquainted. When I come off the junk, I often run through a period of uncontrolled sociability and talk to anyone who will listen.”

William S. Burroughs book Junkie

Junkie (1953)

Sex

“I swear by the life of Him Whom God shall make manifest! My Revelation is indeed far more bewildering than that of Muḥammad, the Apostle of God, if thou dost but pause to reflect upon the days of God. Behold, how strange that a person brought up amongst the people of Persia should be empowered by God to proclaim such irrefutable utterances as to silence every man of learning, and be enabled to spontaneously reveal verses far more rapidly than anyone could possibly set down in writing. Verily, no God is there but Him, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

XVI, 18.
The Kitáb-I-Asmá

Life, God, People, Silence

“Has anyone ever known a school to organize a field trip to a slaughterhouse? Never. Why? Where does this sense of shame come from that obliges us to keep silent in front of our children about the fate that we impose on animals? Throat-cutting, electrocution, and evisceration—are these scenes that would be obscene in the eyes of innocents? The answer is yes.”

Aymeric Caron (1971) French journalist

No steak (2013); as quoted in A Plea for the Animals by Matthieu Ricard, trans. Sherab Chödzin Kohn (Shambhala Publications, 2016), p. 44 https://books.google.it/books?id=bTLuDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA44.

Fate, Children, School, Sense

“Nearly anyone in this line of work would take a bullet for the last pregnant dodo. But should we not admire the person who, when faced with an overwhelmingly sad reality beyond and personal blame or control, strives valiantly to rescue whatever can be salvaged, rather than retreating to the nearest corner to weep or assign fault?”

Stephen Jay Gould book Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

"The Dodo in the Caucus Race", p. 234
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

Sadness, Reality, Personality

“It's the bane of existence for anyone in comedy. 'The photograph must be funny!' So the people coordinating the shoot throw rubber chickens at you, 20 at a time. Or put a feathered hat on you. Or give you a clown nose. Of course, all of this makes you depressed, so you wind up looking more like you're promoting A Long Day's Journey Into Night.”

Martin Short (1950) Canadian stand-up comedian

"Hot Seat", Time Out New York; Issue 565: July 27–August 2, 2006

People, Time, Night

“I didn't get to speak in Varanasi but their stamp of approval was the other big thing. My brothers and sisters in Vadodara, do you know you have established a new record for the first time in 60 years[? ] I haven't told anyone in the media either. My margin of victory in Vadodara is the most ever in [an Indian general election]. I thank the EC, the people, the 'impartial' NGOs[, ] and the 'impartial' media.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

2014, "Election results 2014 LIVE: Vadodara goes wild as hero Modi arrives", 2014

People, Sister, Time, Victory

“If you opt out, you don’t change anything.”
“Why should I run round helping to get power for a group of idiots who’ll end up just as dangerous as the ones already in power?”
You really don’t think anyone can make things better?”

Jane Rogers book The Testament of Jessie Lamb

“No. What’s going to happen will happen.”
Source: The Testament of Jessie Lamb (2011), Chapter 18 (p. 137)

Thinking, Change, Help

“You know, it's interesting for the president to say something that juvenile. I'm not picking on anyone. Again, as we just said, four Americans died! Is that picking on anybody when you want to place responsibility and find out what happened so that we can make sure it doesn't happen again?”

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

On the Record w/Greta van Susteren http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/on-the-record/2012/11/15/mccain-obama-were-not-picking-anybody-we-want-answers-and-buck-stops-your-desk-mr-preside, Fox News, regarding McCain's opposition to the potential nomination of ambassador Susan Rice to Secretary of State over her statements about the 2012 Benghazi attack, and President Obama saying in a press conference, "If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after someone, they should go after me. And I'm happy to have that discussion with them. But for them to go after the United Nations ambassador, who had nothing to do with Benghazi and was simply making a presentation based on intel she had received, and to besmirch her reputation, is outrageous." 2010s, 2012

“When our thoughts — which bring actions — are filled with hate against anyone, Negro or white, we are in a living hell. That is as real as hell will ever be.”

George Washington Carver (1864–1943) botanist

Quoted in Linda O. McMurray, George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol (Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 107

Hate, Hell

“I deserve to be thought a coward. I am a coward. I'm just so bloody afraid of dying — of losing —'
'Anyone in their right frame of mind should be afraid of dying. That doesn't mean you're a coward.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 2: Ginevra

“Should anyone bring against me an accusation of sensuality he would be wrong, for all the fierceness of my senses never caused me to neglect any of my duties.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

Memoirs of J. Casanova de Seingalt (1894)

Sense

“Q: …he said, I am not going to raise taxes on anyone making under $250,000. Is that pledge still active?
Robert Gibbs: We are going to let the process work its way through.”

Robert Gibbs (1971) 28th White House Press Secretary

Press Briefing, June 29, 2009 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Briefing-by-White-House-Press-Secretary-Robert-Gibbs-6-29-09/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTmkB3NUL6Y

Way

“Starting with the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, this flattering of Muslims by praising Islam culminated in Mahatma Gandhi’s sarva-dharma-samabhava - the opiate which lulled the Hindus into a deep slumber such as they had never known vis-à-vis Muslim aggression…. Anyone who questioned the pious proposition that the Quran was as good as the Vedas and the Puranas, ran the risk of being nailed down as an “enemy of communal harmony”….. That part of the “Muslim minority” which had voted for Pakistan but had chosen to stay in India, restarted the old game when India was proclaimed a secular state pledged to freedom of propagation for all religions. It revived its tried and tested trick of masquerading as a “poor and persecuted minority”. It cooked up any number of Pirpur Reports. The wail went up that the “lives, liberties and honour of the Muslims were not safe” in India, in spite of India’s “secular pretensions”. At the same time, street riots were staged on every possible pretext. The “communal situation” started becoming critical once again. …. And once again, the political leadership came out with a make-belief. The big-wigs from all political parties were collected in a “National Integration Council”. It was pointed out by the leftist professors that the major cause of “communal trouble” was the “bad habit” of living in the past on the part of “our people”. Most of the politicians knew no history and no religion for that matter. They all agreed with one voice that Indian history, particularly that of the “medieval Muslim period”, should be re-written. That, they pleaded, was the royal road to “national integration.””

Sita Ram Goel book The Calcutta Quran Petition

The Calcutta Quran Petition (1986)

People, Religion, History, Game

“I don't mean to criticize anyone in any way that I wouldn't criticize myself. I think people should have fun, and have a good time, and enjoy the luck that we have to be lazy and dwell in consumerism. But I think that it's a balance. And our job as actors is empathy. Our job is to imagine what someone else's life is like. And if you can't do that in real life, if you can't do that as a human being, then good luck as an actor…. I just think it's an important thing to engage in the world. And it's just too easy not to in our society.”

Natalie Portman (1981) Israeli-American actress

Inside the Actor's Studio interview by James Lipton, New School University, November 21, 2004 http://www.natalieportman.com/npcom.php?page_number=24&limit=100&view=

Life, People, World, Way

“[T]he new line that the Taehan minguk was not founded in August 1948, but instead came into existence when a provisional government was formed in Shanghai in 1919. I don't need to remind anyone of the internationally accepted criteria for statehood. The Blue House seems more interested in downgrading the republic that fought the North than in making a serious case for the statehood of something else. The original modest budget for the 70th anniversary of the ROK's founding has already been cut. The joint North-South commemoration of the March 1st uprising's 100th anniversary next year is likely to make the festivities this August 15 look subdued in comparison.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Confederation Again (July 2018)

Housing

“I've always been crazy and the trouble that it's put me through;
I've been busted for things that I did, and I didn't do.
I can't say I’m proud of all of the things that I’ve done,
But I can say I’ve never intentionally hurt anyone.”

Waylon Jennings (1937–2002) American country music singer, songwriter, and musician

I've Always Been Crazy, title track from I've Always Been Crazy (1978).
Song lyrics

Hurt

“During this last 3 ½ years, life will be mostly 'normal' for those who receive the mark and go along with the antichrist. “As is was in the days of Noah…” It will only be those who don't accept the mark or co-operate with “the system” who will be arrested, imprisoned and killed. Jesus told us to endure! Those who went along with Hitler and reported any Jews that were hiding or anyone hiding the Jews had a good life and was safe and happy… for a few years.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 151

Life, Happiness

“A Latino-American undergraduate who is a student of Shakespeare is not "culturally appropriating" anyone’s white-European legacy, but instead seeking transcendence of ideas and a common humanity. Asian-Americans are not “overrepresented” at premier campuses. Their high-profile presence should be praised as a model, not punished as aberrant by number-crunching bureaucrats. African-Americans who excel in physics and engineering are not “acting white” but finding the proper pathways for their natural talents. Being one-half Southeast Asian or three-quarters white is not the touchstone to one’s essence and is irrelevant to one’s character and conduct. No one is impinging on anyone’s culture when blacks dye their hair blond, or when blondes prefer to wear cornrow braids. Campuses desperately need unity czars, not diversity czars. Otherwise, we will end up as 50 separate and rival nations — just like other failed states in history whose diverse tribes and races destroyed themselves in a Hobbesian dog-eat-dog war with one another.”

Victor Davis Hanson (1953) American military historian, essayist, university professor

2010s, Diversity: History's Pathway to Chaos (2016)

War, Dogs, History, Idea

“Everyone who wishes to help bring the world out of the economic woes will line up to get a chip implanted! It's safe, simple and already available. It's been tested on animals for years. One little chip under the skin and everyone can be identified and conduct business electronically! No more theft, bad checks, waiting for checks to clear, stolen credit cards, armored cars, stolen ID, waiting lines at stores or airports, etc. Just little archways to walk through that can quickly scan who you are and automatically deduct the “cash” from your account or verify your identity! Simple! Anyone who resists this “obvious solution” will be an enemy of the state. Oh, and one more minor insignificant thing. No more privacy or independence. Big brother will be watching everything.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 140

World, Cars, Business, Waiting

“Dear Miss Manners: What is the proper way to eat potato chips?
Gentle Reader: With a knife and fork. A fruit knife and an oyster fork, to be specific. Good heavens, what is the world coming to? Miss Manners does not mind explaining the finer points of gracious living, but she feels that anyone without the sense to pick up a potato chip and stuff it in their face should probably not be running around loose on the streets.”

Judith Martin (1938) American etiquette expert

Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

World, Way, Feeling, Sense

“I don't think I'm very much like anyone else, really. I'm sure there are aspects of other actors that I share, but I don't see anybody else and go, "Damn, they stole my thing." I'm me, and I like that there are people who have an appreciation for that.”

Zooey Deschanel (1980) American actress, musician, and singer-songwriter

As quoted in " From A to Zooey http://www.fedge.net/~zdeschanel/articles/bostonglobe-2-23-03.html" in The Boston Globe (23 February 2003).

People, Thinking

“I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have the light joyousness of springtime which never lets anyone suspect the labors it has cost me..”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

As quoted by Theodore F. Wolff in The Christian Science Monitor (25 March 1985)
Posthumous quotes

Effort, Light

“My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.”

W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British playwright, novelist, short story writer

Quoted in Somerset Maugham (1980) by Ted Morgan

Life, World

“And, what is worse, the reader often shares the writer's prejudices, and is far too well pleased with his conclusions to examine either his premises or his reasoning. Stand on a barrel in the streets of Bagdad, and say in a loud voice, 'Twice two is four, and ginger is hot in the mouth, therefore Mohammed is the prophet of God', and your logic will probably escape criticism; or, if anyone should by chance criticise it, you could easily silence him by calling him a Christian dog.”

A.E. Housman (1859–1936) English classical scholar and poet

"The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism", a lecture delivered on August 4, 1921

God, Dogs, Silence, Chance

“That evening I lit many candles and sat in the library wearing fresh linen and drinking good wine while I read a treatise on astronomy by a student of Kepler’s and reflected on my increasing disagreement with Luther, who had judged reason to be the chief enemy of Faith, of the purity of his beliefs. He had considered reason a harlot, willing to turn to anyone’s needs, but this merely displayed his own suspicion of logic. I have come to believe him the madman Catholics described him as. Most mad people see logic as a threat to the dream in which they would rather live, a threat to their attempts to make the dream reality (usually through force, through threat, through manipulation and through bloodshed). It is why men of reason are so often the first to be killed or exiled by tyrants.”

Michael Moorcock book The War Hound and the World's Pain

Source: The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 1 (pp. 11-12)

Men, People, Faith, Dreams

“My brief stay at the hospital had already convinced me that the medical profession was an open door to anyone nursing a grudge against the human race.”

J. G. Ballard book Crash

Crash (1973)

“Empirical research does not, as of yet, seem to have legitimately gotten anyone 100 percent of the way to libertarianism; there remain, at the very least, some public goods and, in principle, the need for economic redistribution. Libertarian philosophy fills the gap between what free-market economists can prove about the undesirable consequences of government intervention and the absolute prohibition of all intervention. Consequentialist and nonconsequentialist arguments for libertarianism may be antithetical in principle, but they are symbiotic in practice.”

Jeffrey Friedman (political scientist) (1959) American political scientist

Source: “What’s wrong with Libertarianism”, p. 444

Way

“How can anyone think so insanely that the human life has the same value and mankind, the same morality, independent of numbers? It is lucid to me that everytime a new child is born, the value of every human in world decreases slightly. It is obvious to me that the morality of the population explosion is wholly unlike than when man was a sparse, noble species in its beginning.”

Pentti Linkola (1932) Finnish ecologist

The Doctrine Of Survival And Doctor Ethics (1992)

Life, World, Thinking

“Anyone who works is a fool. I don't work; I merely inflict myself upon the public.”

Robert Morley (1908–1992) English actor

Films and Filming vol. 8 (1961)

Fools

“[About homophobes] As long as they're homophobic behind closed doors, and don't hurt anyone, I'm fine with it.”

Eddie Izzard (1962) British stand-up comedian, actor and writer

Unrepeatable (1994)

Hurt

“The idea of comparative advantage—with its implication that trade between two nations normally raises the real incomes of both—is, like evolution via natural selection, a concept that seems simple and compelling to those who understand it. Yet anyone who becomes involved in discussions of international trade beyond the narrow circle of academic economists quickly realizes that it must be, in some sense, a very difficult concept indeed.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

"Ricardo's Difficult Idea," in G. Cook (ed.), Freedom and Trade: The Economics and Politics of International Trade, Volume 2 (1998)

Idea, Understanding, Nature, Sense

“Issues about violating people’s privacy don’t seem to be surmountable, I’m not willing to risk insulting anyone.”

Mark Zuckerberg (1984) American internet entrepreneur

Facemash Creator Survives Ad Board (November 19, 2003) http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/11/19/facemash-creator-survives-ad-board-the/

People

“The appearance of stability from 1840 to about 1900 was superficial, temporary and destructive in the long run… because communities and societies must rest upon cooperation and not upon competition. Anyone who says that society can be run on the basis of everyone's trying to maximize his own greed is talking total nonsense. And to teach it in schools, and to go on television and call it the American way of life still doesn't make it true. Competition and envy cannot become the basis of any society or any community.”

Carroll Quigley (1910–1977) American historian

Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals" (1976)

Life, School, Way, Communication

“She does not know how little anyone cares to separate wheat from chaff, when all anyone wants to do is burn a field.”

Paolo Bacigalupi book The Windup Girl

Source: The Windup Girl (2009), p. 204

“A boor cannot be sin-fearing, an ignoramus cannot be pious, a bashful one cannot learn, a short-tempered person cannot teach, nor does anyone who does much business grow wise.”

Hillel the Elder (-112–9 BC) Mishnah rabbi

2:5
Pirkei Avot

Fear, Business, Learning, Personality

“She had in all her life never stopped talking long enough to given anyone time to approach her with any proposition regarding sexual irregularity; and the general tendency to be censorious of the vices to which one has not been tempted was present in her in a specially rank form.”

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British feminist and author

Source: The Thinking Reed (1936), Chapter IX

Life, Time

““Could you punish a heretic?”
“Madam, I do not know what a heretic really is. The word is made much of, these days. It seems to describe anyone you wish dead.””

Michael Moorcock book The War Hound and the World's Pain

Source: The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 2 (p. 27)

Dead

“Aside from a couple of signature flourishes, there's nothing to mark Paycheck as the product of acclaimed action director John Woo. In fact, there's little about this movie that makes it worth anyone's time and money. With a script that waffles between being hilariously absurd and insultingly stupid, and action scenes that won't cause anyone's pulse to skip a beat, Paycheck is less appealing than a lump of coal in a Christmas stocking.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/movies/p/paycheck.html of Paycheck (2003). One-and-a-half star reviews

Money, Stupidity, Time, Christmas

“Creationists contend that they don’t believe in magic. But “speaking” anything into existence is an incantation, and the Bible is full of spells of one sort or another. Animating golems, or conjuring interdependent systems, and causing complex organisms to appear out of thin air -are each logically implausible and physically impossible according to everything we know about anything at all, yet this is exactly what religiously-motivated pseudoscientists actually promote! How do we test these ideas? How can we tell them apart from any of the thousands of fables men have concocted for the ghosts and gods of other religions? How can we tell whether any of this is even real, and not something someone just made up? Because despite anyone’s assertions of personal conviction, it is impossible to distinguish miracles from subjective impressions imagined out of nothing. In the realm of fantasy, it’s easy to demonstrate psionic talents, astral entities, and magical manifestations. Until they do that in reality too, then science has nothing but nature to work with.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"12th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TkY7HrJOhc Youtube (April 19, 2008) Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Men, God, Religion, Imagination