Quotes about anything
page 24

Bill Hicks photo
Eoin Colfer photo
Connie Willis photo
Chi­ma­man­da Ngo­zi Adi­chie photo
Sue Monk Kidd photo

“Regrets don't help anything.”

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Jeanette Winterson photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Bret Easton Ellis photo
Melissa de la Cruz photo
Winston S. Churchill photo

“For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use to be anything else.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Lord Mayor’s Banquet, Guildhall, London (9 November 1954) The Unwritten Alliance, page 195, Columbia University, NY (1966),page 195,
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Paulo Coelho photo
Maeve Binchy photo
Confucius photo
Robert Crumb photo
Bolesław Prus photo

“Folly is as great as the sea, it will compass anything.”

Pharaoh (1894–1895)

Jeremy Rifkin photo
Charlotte Brontë photo
Bruce Schneier photo

“Against the average user, anything works; there's no need for complex security software. Against the skilled attacker, on the other hand, nothing works.”

Bruce Schneier (1963) American computer scientist

The Fallacy of Trusted Client Software, Schneier, Bruce, 2001-08, Cryptogram newsletter, 2018-08-12 https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2000/08/the_fallacy_of_trust.html,
Digital Rights Management

Ruhollah Khomeini photo

“You young people yourselves are capable of performing anything. Our inventors can invent in a high level, Our innovators can innovate in a high level, only if they keep self confidence and believe that we can.”

Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician

Addressing an audience of Iranian industry workers and inventors (October 1983); quoted in "Imam's Sahife" vol. 18 p. 189,190.
Foreign policy

Kate Bush photo

“She knows that I've been doing something wrong,
But she won't say anything.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Hounds of Love (1985)

Samuel R. Delany photo
Derren Brown photo
Zainab Salbi photo

“Saddam gave us a lot of things. The development of the country … but I think what he took away from us in the meantime, was our very souls. We got into a stage where we were fearing each other, where husbands and wives didn't talk to each other, where parents were afraid to express anything in front of their kids because the teachers often asked the kids, 'what does daddy think of uncle Saddam? What does your mummy think of uncle Saddam?.”

Zainab Salbi (1969) Iraqi American author, women's rights activist

And there are horror stories of parents being executed because of the child.
About Human rights in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, as quoted in the documentary I Knew Saddam https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/general/2008/02/2008525183923377591.html (2007) by Al Jazeera English.

Glen Cook photo

“I know that I disagree with many other UML experts, but there is no magic about UML. If you can generate code from a model, then it is programming language. And UML is not a well-designed programming language.
The most important reason is that it lacks a well-defined point of view, partly by intent and partly because of the tyranny of the OMG standardization process that tries to provide everything to everybody. It doesn't have a well-defined underlying set of assumptions about memory, storage, concurrency, or almost anything else. How can you program in such a language?
The fact is that UML and other modelling language are not meant to be executable. The point of models is that they are imprecise and ambiguous. This drove many theoreticians crazy so they tried to make UML "precise", but models are imprecise for a reason: we leave out things that have a small effect so we can concentrate on the things that have big or global effects. That's how it works in physics models: you model the big effect (such as the gravitation from the sun) and then you treat the smaller effects as perturbation to the basic model (such as the effects of the planets on each other). If you tried to solve the entire set of equations directly in full detail, you couldn't do anything.”

James Rumbaugh (1947) Computer scientist, software engineer

James Rumbaugh in Federico Biancuzzi and Shane Warden eds. (2009) Masterminds of Programming. p. 339; cited in " Quote by James Rumbaugh http://www.ptidej.net/course/cse3009/winter13/resources/james" on ptidej.net. Last updated 2013-04-09 by guehene; Rumbaugh is responding to the question: "What do you think of using UML to generate implementation code?"

“The acknowledgement of complexity, however, certainly does not lead to the conclusion that anything goes.”

Paul Cilliers (1956–2011) South African philosopher

Source: Complexity and Postmodernism (1998), p. viii; as cited in: Michael Lissack (2002), The Interaction of Complexity and Management, p. 233

Jack Johnson (musician) photo
John R. Commons photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Michael Swanwick photo
Václav Havel photo

“Those that say that individuals are not capable of changing anything are only looking for excuses.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

Vaclav Havel’s human rights legacy an inspiration http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/vaclav-havel-s-human-rights-legacy-inspiration-2011-12-21 Amnesty International (21 December 2011)]

Robert Olmstead photo
David Allen photo
Francis Escudero photo

“So what I will present to you this afternoon will not be anything new or novel to you. What might be different is the approach or the priority given to some sectors or programs.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero

Aaliyah photo
Murasaki Shikibu photo
Sam Donaldson photo

“What do you mean, 'you don't need to buy it'? You don't need to do anything, except pay taxes and die.”

Sam Donaldson (1934) American journalist

As quoted in "Respek" http://www.listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=m1_FAsefZ6o (18 July 2004), Da Ali G Show.
2000s

Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Ross Perot photo
Jerome David Salinger photo
Skye Sweetnam photo
Robert Jordan photo

“You could weave silk from pig bristles before you could make a man anything but a man.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Lini
(15 September 1992)

Jerry Coyne photo
Richard III of England photo

“Monsieur, mon cousin,

I have seen the letters you have sent me by Buckingham herald, whereby I understand that you want my friendship in good form and manner, which contents me well enough; for I have no intention of breaking such truces as have previously been concluded between the late King of most noble memory, my brother, and you for as long as they still have to run. Nevertheless, the merchants of this my kingdom of England, seeing the great provocation your subjects have given them in seizing ships and merchandise and other goods, are fearful of venturing to go to Bordeaux and other places under your rule until they are assured by you that they can surely and safely carry on trade in all the places subject to your sway, according to the rights established by the aforesaid truces. Therefore, in order that my subjects and merchants may not find themselves deceived as a result of this present ambiguous situation, I pray you that by my servant this bearer, one of the grooms of my stable, you will let me know in writing your full intentions, at the same time informing me if there is anything I can do for you in order that I may do it with a good heart. And farewell to you, Monsieur mon cousin.”

Richard III of England (1452–1485) English monarch

Letter sent, as King of England, 18 August, 1483, to Louis XI of France. Reprinted in Richard the Third (1956) http://books.google.com/books?id=dNm0JgAACAAJ&dq=Paul+Murray+Kendall+Richard+the+Third&ei=TZHDR8zXKZKIiQHf2NCpCA

Fay Wray photo
François de La Rochefoucauld photo

“Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding.”

Les esprits médiocres condamnent d'ordinaire tout ce qui passe leur portée.
Maxim 375.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

Horace photo

“For why do you hasten to remove things that hurt your eyes, but if anything gnaws your mind, defer the time of curing it from year to year?”
Nam cur quae laedunt oculum festinas demere; si quid est animum, differs curandi tempus in annum?

Book I, epistle ii, lines 37–39; translation by C. Smart
Epistles (c. 20 BC and 14 BC)

Harold Macmillan photo
Arthur Schopenhauer photo
Margaret Fuller photo
Camille Paglia photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Immanuel Kant photo
Andrei Tarkovsky photo
Penny Rimbaud photo

“Jesus is dead. Moses is dead. Mohammed is dead. Buddha, deceased. Every one of these know-it-alls has turned to dust. That should be enough commentary on whether they were the final word on anything.”

Jim Goad (1961) Author, publisher

The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats (Simon & Schuster, 1997)

“You cannot run a business, or anything else, on a theory.”

Harold Geneen (1910–1997) American businessman

Managing, Chapter One (Theory G on Management), p. 13.

Charles Dudley Warner photo

“A well known American writer said once that, while everybody talked about the weather, nobody seemed to do anything about it.”

Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900) American writer

Editorial, Hartford Courant (27 August 1897); this remark was reportedly quoted by Mark Twain and it has become often attributed to him, but the context of the statement might indicate the contrary situation
Paraphrased variant: Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.
Variant: Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

Yoshida Shoin photo
A.A. Milne photo
Brian W. Aldiss photo

“Poor little warrior, science will never invent anything to assist the titanic death you want in the contra-terrene caverns of your fee-fi-fo-fumblingly fearful id!”

Brian W. Aldiss (1925–2017) British science fiction author

“Poor Little Warrior!” p. 80
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

Imelda Marcos photo

“I have never been a material girl. My father always told me never to love anything that cannot love you back.”

Imelda Marcos (1929) Former First Lady of the Philippines

As quoted in TIME magazine (November 1996) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,985518,00.html.

Amir Taheri photo

“When I asked Bhutto what he thought of Assad, he described the Syrian leader as “The Levanter.” Knowing that, like himself, I was a keen reader of thrillers, the Pakistani Prime Minister knew that I would get the message. However, it was only months later when, having read Eric Ambler’s 1972 novel The Levanter that I understood Bhutto’s one-word pen portrayal of Hafez Al-Assad. In The Levanter the hero, or anti-hero if you prefer, is a British businessman who, having lived in Syria for years, has almost “gone native” and become a man of uncertain identity. He is a bit of this and a bit of that, and a bit of everything else, in a region that is a mosaic of minorities. He doesn’t believe in anything and is loyal to no one. He could be your friend in the morning but betray you in the evening. He has only two goals in life: to survive and to make money… Today, Bashar Al-Assad is playing the role of the son of the Levanter, offering his services to any would-be buyer through interviews with whoever passes through the corner of Damascus where he is hiding. At first glance, the Levanter may appear attractive to those engaged in sordid games. In the end, however, the Levanter must betray his existing paymaster in order to begin serving a new one. Four years ago, Bashar switched to the Tehran-Moscow axis and is now trying to switch back to the Tel-Aviv-Washington one that he and his father served for decades. However, if the story has one lesson to teach, it is that the Levanter is always the source of the problem, rather than part of the solution. ISIS is there because almost half a century of repression by the Assads produced the conditions for its emergence. What is needed is a policy based on the truth of the situation in which both Assad and ISIS are parts of the same problem.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Opinion: Like Father, Like Son http://www.aawsat.net/2015/02/article55341622/opinion-like-father-like-son, Ashraq Al-Awsat (February 20, 2015).

T.S. Eliot photo
Albert Jay Nock photo
Tarkan photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Walker Percy photo
Salvador Dalí photo
Alfred Binet photo
Robert Crumb photo
Jacques Ellul photo
Northrop Frye photo

“Even the biggest book is fragmentary: to finish anything, you have to cut your losses. Nobody every writes his dream book.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

33.54
"Quotes", Notebooks

Davey Havok photo
Italo Svevo photo

“Wine is a great danger, especially because it doesn't bring truth to the surface. Anything but the truth, indeed: it reveals especially the past and forgotten history of the individual rather than his present wish; it capriciously flings into the light also all the half-baked ideas with which in a more or less recent period one has toyed and then forgotten.”

Il vino è un grande pericolo specie perché non porta a galla la verità. Tutt'altro che la verità anzi: rivela dell'individuo specialmente la storia passata e dimenticata e non la sua attuale volontà; getta capricciosamente alla luce anche tutte le ideucce con le quali in epoca più o meno recente ci si baloccò e che si è dimenticate.
Source: La coscienza di Zeno (1923), P. 194; p. 232.

Simone Weil photo
Hugo Chávez photo
Margaret Thatcher photo

“Oh, but you know, you do not achieve anything without trouble, ever.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

TV Interview for ITV (30 November 1984) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105803
Second term as Prime Minister

Lawrence M. Schoen photo

“It all seemed like madness, but was madness anything other than desperation blended with hope?”

Lawrence M. Schoen (1959) American writer and klingonist

Source: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard (2015), Chapter 29, “Choice and Sacrifice” (p. 270)

Cassandra Clare photo
Matt Taibbi photo
David Allen photo

“Here's how I define "stuff": anything you have allowed into your psychological or physical world that doesn't belong where it is, but for which you haven't yet determined the desired outcome and the next action step.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

Source: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (2001), Chapter 1

Tracey Ullman photo

“I wouldn't do anything mean spirited. If it's in the wrong spirit, or if its not honest, then I wouldn't do it. It's got to honest. Otherwise, what's the point?”

Tracey Ullman (1959) English-born actress, comedian, singer, dancer, screenwriter, producer, director, author and businesswoman

The Des Moines Register https://www.newspapers.com/image/296428181 (11 May 1990)

Adolf Eichmann photo
Mirkka Rekola photo

“Without moving anything / I want to see / the way this autumn / makes the birds move.”

Mirkka Rekola (1931–2014) Finnish writer

From Syksy muuttaa linnut (Autumn Moves the Birds, 1961. 88 Poems, WSOY, 2000, ISBN 951-0-24783-9. Translated by Anselm Hollo).

George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham photo
Robert Louis Stevenson photo

“Be happy with who you are and what you do, and you can do anything you want.”

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 101

Antoni Tàpies photo

“Obviously, the intention was not to go back to images traditionally valued as worthy or holy images and shapes, but exactly the opposite; its main purpose had to be, to realise as sacred art anything which so far had been regarded as of little value and pitiful.”

Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist

quote from 1988
1981 - 1990
Source: Tàpies, Werke auf Papier 1943 – 2003, Achim Sommer, Kunsthalle Emden, Altana 2004, p. 38

Jack White photo

“I'm always surprised when anything about the band connects. But I love the fact that it's hard for people to understand. We've said before that it's always been a great thing to get certain people to go away thinking, 'Oh dear, she can't play the drums!' 'Fine, if you think it's all a gimmick, go away!”

Jack White (1975) American musician and record producer

It weeds out people who wouldn't care anyway.
On how they are able to "sell what is really an art concept" to a mass audience
Perry, Andrew (2004). "The White Stripes uncut" http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,13887,1349947,00.html Observer Music Monthly (accessed June 19, 2007).
2007

Elon Musk photo
Toni Morrison photo