Quotes about anything
page 67

“Fact is, nothing can justify our existence. Existence of any flavor is not only unjustified, it is useless, malignantly so, and has nothing to recommend it over nonexistence. A person’s addiction to existence is understandable as a telltale of the fear of nonexistence, but one’s psychology as a being that already exists does not justify existence as a condition to be perpetuated but only explains why someone would want to perpetuate it. For the same reason, even eternal bliss in a holy hereafter is unjustified, since it is just another form of existence, another instance in which the unjustifiable is perpetuated. That anyone should have a bias for heaven over nonexistence should by rights be condemned as hedonistic by the same people who scoff at Schopenhauer for complaining about the disparity between “the effort and the reward” in human life. People may believe they can choose any number of things. But they cannot choose to undo their existence, leaving them to live and die as puppets who have had an existence forced upon them whose edicts they must follow. If you are already among the existent, anything you do will be unjustified and MALIGNANTLY USELESS.”

Thomas Ligotti (1953) American horror author

The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror (2010)

Life, People, Fear, Understanding

“By his theory of relativity Albert Einstein has provoked a revolution of thought in physical science. ...Physical space and time are found to be closely bound... with... motion of the observer; and only an amorphous combination of the two is left... It is my aim to give an account of this work without introducing anything very technical in... mathematics, physics, or philosophy. ...[T]he task is one of interpreting a clear-cut theory... although perhaps not everyone would accept the author's views of its meaning.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

Space, Time and Gravitation (1920)

Mathematics, Science, Time

“I never took any courses. I think I might have taken a very basic one at some point during film school. I think it was a required class you had to take, and I think they went over the format a little bit. Other than that, I never took any writing courses or screenwriting courses or anything like that. I just tried to read as much as possible.”

Aaron Guzikowski (1974) American screenwriter

School, Thinking, Reading

“The more I think about it, the more obvious it becomes to me that the Poles are une nation foutue [a fucked nation] who can only continue to serve a purpose until such time as Russia herself becomes caught up into the agrarian revolution. From that moment Poland will have absolutely no raison d'étre any more. The Poles' sole contribution to history has been to indulge in foolish pranks at once valiant and provocative. Nor can a single moment be cited when Poland, even if only by comparison with Russia, has successfully represented progress or done anything of historical significance.”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

Letter https://marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/1851/letters/51_05_23.htm to Karl Marx (23 May 1851)

History, Thinking, Time

“Jokiness allows a constant trivializing: as if by joking someone is suspending judgment on what is being said. She didn’t mean anything by it; lighten up. A killjoy knows from experience: when people keep making light of something, something heavy is going on”

Sara Ahmed (1969) Australian and British academic

Source: "An Affinity of Hammers" (2016), p. 29

People, Making love, Light

“I don't want any messages saying 'I'm holding my position.' We're not holding a goddamned thing. We're advancing constantly and we're not interested in holding anything except the enemy's balls.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

Source: George S. Patton's speech to the Third Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_S._Patton%27s_speech_to_the_Third_Army
Context: I don't want any messages saying 'I'm holding my position.' We're not holding a goddamned thing. We're advancing constantly and we're not interested in holding anything except the enemy's balls. We're going to hold him by his balls and we're going to kick him in the ass; twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all the time. Our plan of operation is to advance and keep on advancing. We're going to go through the enemy like shit through a tinhorn.

“You fail to understand, my friend. We do not control time. If anything, it controls us. We simply measure it.”

Michael Moorcock book The Time Dweller

The Time Dweller (p. 15)
Short fiction, The Time Dweller (1969)

Understanding, Time

“Have you ever heard of anything more stupid than 'abstraction-abstraction?'”

Joan Miró (1893–1983) Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist

and they ask me into their deserted house [probably Miro meant the group 'Abstraction-Création', founded by a. o. Jean Arp and André Breton; both coined Miro's art in 1931 as 'mobile' and 'stabile'] as if the marks I put on a canvas did not correspond to a concrete representation of my mind, did not possess a profound reality, were not a part of the real itself.
1930s
Source: 'Où allez-vous Miró?', art critic Georges Duthuit in Cahiers d'Art 261, nos. 8-10, 1936

Stupidity

“I know what I signed up for. I do not regret anything I’ve done. I never, never wish I did not play this game.”

Frank Gore (1983) American football running back

On Early Years
"My neighborhood, Coconut Grove, we always played in the streets. It was corner against corner. We all had football teams. Different neighborhoods. My first year playing Pop Warner football, my mom had to change my birth certificate because I was too young. I was 5, I think, and you were supposed to be 6. My first time playing running back in a real game, I had eight touchdowns. I always loved football. For so long, I played against the older kids in the neighborhood. They had me really competing. I’d play corner, receiver, running back. I remember one time one of the older kids looked at me when I was playing corner, like it was a threat, and said: ‘You better not get beat.’"
"When I got to Coral Gables High, it felt like I was on a different level. You play Pop Warner, and you’re good, and all the top high schools try to get you. So I felt like I was pretty good. I got over 1,000 yards my sophomore year, but my coach got fired. At that time I wasn’t really working hard. I was good, but I didn’t lift weights. This new coach, Joe Montoya, basically called me out in our first team meeting. He didn’t give a s--- what I done to that point. He said, ‘I don’t care what you did before I got here.’ He told the guys things were gonna be different, and they better work hard, or they could get out right now. I felt like he called me out. I was about to leave. But then I met with him. He said, ‘Listen to what I say, and you’ll be a D-1 player.’"
"Good lesson. I listened to him. I got stronger and stronger, and I got faster. I was the first one at practice. I had to be first in every sprint. He had me programmed. I got better. My senior year, I rushed for 1,000 yards in my first four games. I wanted to play major-college football. Joe Montoya was really important. When I go back to Miami now, I call him. We have cookouts."

Game

“When we are young, we take a certain pleasure in our infirmities. They seem so new, so rich! With age, they no longer surprise us, we know them too well. Now, without anything unexpected in them, they do not deserve to be endured.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

Pleasure, Age

“In our secret depths, wherever we do our unspoken wishing, either we want life to be tidy, clear, fully understood, contained within definite limits, or we long for it to seem larger, wilder, stranger. Faced with some odd incident, either we wish to cut it down or to build it up.
On this level, below that of philosophies and rational opinions, either we reject or ignore the unknown, the apparently inexplicable, the marvellous and miraculous, or we welcome every sign of them. At one extreme is a narrow intolerant bigotry, snarling at anything outside the accepted world-picture, and at the other is an idiotic credulity, the prey of any glib charlatan. At one end the world becomes a prison, at the other a madhouse.”

J.B. Priestley (1894–1984) English writer

Source: Man and Time (1964), Ch. 8, p. 183

Life, Secret, World

“If my son Hunter was here, first thing he would give me a kiss and say, "Dad, do you need anything?"”

Hunter Biden (1970) American lawyer, investment advisor, and second son of former Vice President Joe Biden

Always worried about me.
by Joe Biden in above September 2015 interview

Kiss

“Pre-eighteenth century economics were governed, not by consumers, who determined what should be produced by what they were willing to buy in a competitive market, but by producers who enjoyed special privileges in return for the most stringent kind of state regulations. Mr. Walter Lippmann, in his book, The Good Society, points out that in the days of Louis XIV the manufacturers of France were told exactly what to produce and exactly how to produce it. Industry and agriculture were governed by codes more complicated than anything ever invented by the NRA or Mr. Wallace.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
Source: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
p. 66

Books

“The Communists and Fascists are engaged in a sham struggle of ideas. The actual forms of government under which Fascists and Communists live are almost identical. One claims to abolish private property and attacks the other as its defender. But the property of Russia is not controlled by the people, but by the bureaucracy, operating in the name of the people, just as it is in Germany, where you get your head cut off if you try to hold your property in gold or in anything except German paper.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

People, Idea

“The attempts of some of our school authorities to prevent students from learning anything about Communism, for instance, are futile. Newspapers exist; correspondents report; people travel. It is quite impossible to act as though Russia did not exist, or were as inaccessible and mysterious as Mars.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
p. 42
Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)

People, School, Travel, Communication

“One thing we have endeavoured to observe most scrupulously, namely, never to depart from the strictest facts and, in dealing with the difficult questions that have arisen during the year, we hope that we have used the utmost moderation possible under the circumstances. Our duty is very simple and plain. We want to serve the community, and in our own humble way to serve the Empire. We believe in the righteousness of the cause, which it is our privilege to espouse. We have an abiding faith in the mercy of the Almighty God, and we have firm faith in the British Constitution. That being so, we should fail in our duty if we wrote anything with a view to hurt. Facts we would always place before our readers, whether they are palatable or not, and it is by placing them constantly before the public in their nakedness that the misunderstanding between the two communities in South Africa can be removed.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Source: Indian Opinion (1 October 1903)

God, Faith, Hope, Way

“Routine was what kept the darkness at bay, when anything did.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: The Expanse, Tiamat's Wrath (2019), Chapter 8 (p. 84)

“I’ve never really planned anything in my career, and just taken the chances as they came my way. I like to think of myself as destiny’s child! I’m sure people down south also check out the Hindi version.”

Nikki Tamboli (1996) Indian Actress

Bigg Boss 14: Nikki Tamboli wants to work with Vijay Sethupathi after reality show

People, Way, Thinking, Chance

“A prince ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else for his study, than war and its rules and discipline; for this is the sole art that belongs to him who rules, and it is of such force that it not only upholds those who are born princes, but it often enables men to rise from a private station to that rank. And, on the contrary, it is seen that when princes have thought more of ease than of arms they have lost their states. And the first cause of your losing it is to neglect this art; and what enables you to acquire a state is to be master of the art.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 14; translated by W. K. Marriot

Men, War, Art, Study

“I'm interested in truth, I like science. But truth's a menace, science is a public danger. As dangerous as it's been beneficent. … It's curious … to read what people in the time of Our Ford used to write about scientific progress. They seemed to imagine that it could go on indefinitely, regardless of everything else. Knowledge was the highest good, truth the supreme value; all the rest was secondary and subordinate. True, ideas were beginning to change even then. Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasise from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't. And, of course, whenever the masses seized political power, then it was happiness rather than truth and beauty that mattered. Still, in spite of everything, unrestricted scientific resarch was still permitted. People still went on talking about truth and beauty as though they were sovereign goods. Right up to the time of the Nine Years' War. That made them change their tune all right. What's the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you? That was when science first began to be controlled — after the Nine Years' War. People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. We've gone on controlling ever since. It hasn't been very good for truth, of course. But it's been very good for happiness. One can't have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World (1932), Mustapha Mond, in Ch. 16

Life, War, Happiness, People

“If you intrust independent executive and legislative power to the Government of Ireland, can you say it will never be hostile? On the contrary...you know that a very considerable proportion of the population of Ireland is unfortunately at this time, and has been for generations past, animated with the most bitter sentiments against England. Well, is there any impediment to prevent them in case of some European war, where you might be fighting for your existence, is there anything to prevent the Government of an independent Ireland...from placing those splendid harbours which lie opposite you at the disposal of a foreign fleet?”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Source: Speech in Bristol (22 April 1889), quoted in The Times (24 April 1889), p. 6

Hostility, War, Lie, Time

“I will never forget the 5th anniversary of the Peace Corps where I sat with the very first group of volunteers. I asked each of them why they decided to get involved. They said it was the first time anyone asked them to do anything for their country. Yeah Today, another young president has challenged another generation to give back to their country”

Ted Kennedy (1932–2009) United States Senator

2000s Source: Remarks http://www.tedkennedy.org/ownwords/event/serve_america.html at the signing of the Serve America Act

Peace, Time, Country, Forgetting

“When I started to encounter Marxism at 16, the elementary truths of the surplus value theory and more than anything else, the logical argument that he produced that labour was the source of all wealth, gave me a political and intellectual justification for what I believed in a way that nothing else did.”

Neil Kinnock (1942) British politician

Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Science Source: Interview with Sam Aaronovitch for Marxism Today (June 1983) http://banmarchive.org.uk/collections/mt/pdf/83_06_06.pdf

Truth, Way, Wealth

“See, in general, as systems designers, you’re forced with necessity to make decisions about how you’re going to do things, and in general, the way you’d like to retain flexibility is to never make up your mind about anything until you’re forced to do it. The problem is, there’s a very, very narrow line between deferring decisions and outright procrastination. So you’d like to make progress, but also at the same time, never be bound by the consequences of your decisions.”

Hal Abelson (1947) computer scientist

Source: Lecture on Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrFkf-T-6Co

Making love, Way, Problem, Decision

“There is no distinction here between the kinds of service, provided they are unselfish, strenuous, moved by the ideal to help and serve... I cannot give you one by one the numerous divisions of the Way of Service. Anything that is of value to human life is included on that way. Choose then what way you will, because of your capacities and your opportunities; it matters not as regards the treading of the first steps.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Initiation, The Perfecting of Man, 1923, p. 20

Life, Way, Help

“Sunshine does not cease to warm you because you may not know anything of the constitution of the sun. Fire does not cease to burn you, because, unknowing its fierceness, you thrust your hand into the flame. It is the security of human life and human progress that the laws of nature are ever working and carrying us on with them, whether we know of them or not. But if we know them, we gain a great advantage.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Initiation, The Perfecting of Man (1923)

Life, Law, Nature, Sun

“When was the last time anybody made a billion of anything safely and reliably? Never. Plants go offline, crap breaks, you can't find a part. There's a ton of things that can go wrong just on manufacturing”

Arthur Caplan (1950) American academic

a billion COVID-19 vaccines Source: Arthur Caplan (2020) cited in " This Is How We’ll Vaccinate the World Against COVID-19 https://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/devices/this-is-how-well-vaccinate-the-world-against-covid19" on IEEE Spectrum, 15 December 2020.

Time, Parting

“I had always said that when I could see the holes in the hands and feet of Jesus myself then I would consider believing. It was very much a standard line – I wouldn’t take anything on belief, I wanted to see the evidence. On that hillside I looked up at the crucifix and Our Lord was there with the holes in his hands and his feet and in that instant – I wouldn’t say I believed, I wouldn’t say I decided to start believing – in that instant, I knew. I knew that I had been looking all these years without seeing Christ crucified. There he was in front of me and I then knew that God and Jesus Christ were true. My life has been upside down ever since. All my original views were turned upside down. It has cost me quite a few friendships and has probably cost me a political career but I cannot un-know what I now know.”

Rob Flello (1966) British politician (born 1966)

Source: The day my atheist convictions were shattered https://catholicherald.co.uk/rob-flello-the-day-my-atheist-convictions-were-shattered/ (October 16, 2020)

Life, God, Friendship, Christ

“Soldiers of the Reich! This day, you are to take part in an offensive of such importance that the whole future of the war may depend on its outcome. More than anything else, your victory will show the whole world that resistance to the power of the German Army is hopeless.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

In a message to German soldiers at the start of the Battle of Kursk, 5 July 1943, as quoted in Kursk by Rupert Matthews
1940s

War, World, Future, Victory

“I think if anything is malicious… when somebody can look at harvesting and selling the little heart… of a baby who has been freshly killed — if someone can look at trading that body part for money — if anything is malicious, I think that’s malicious: treating people like things.”

David Daleiden (1989) American anti-abortion activist

Undercover Planned Parenthood investigator David Daleiden: ‘No one is going to be able to say anymore that they didn’t know’ https://www.liveaction.org/news/undercover-investigator-planned-parenthood-daleiden-know/ (June 7, 2020)

Money, People, Thinking, Heart

“Actresses can only play women. I'm an actor, I can play anything.”

Whoopi Goldberg (1955) American actress

Speaking on The Today Show on January 13, 1986; as quoted in Whoopi Goldberg on Stage and Screen https://www.google.com/books/edition/Whoopi_Goldberg_on_Stage_and_Screen/WTH-SHM1LrkC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22an%20actress%20can%20only%20play%20a%20woman%22 (2013) by Lisa Pertillar Brevard, p. 18.

Women

“If anything represents a threat to peace and security, it is the shameless and aggressive actions of the United States and their allies to oust a legitimately elected president of Venezuela”

Vasily Nebenzya (1962) Russian diplomat

Nicolas Maduro Quoted in US attempting to engineer coup d’etat in Venezuela: Russia, PressTV https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/01/26/586867/Nebenzya-Russia-Pompeo-Security-Council-Venezuela (26 January 2019)

Peace

“Let me shatter some illusions today. We are entertainers. We are not heroes. The heroes are our freedom fighters. We do not sacrifice anything for the cause of the nation. The freedom fighters did. Don't misunderstand me, cricket is not everything. What we try to do is to bring happiness to our nation.”

Mashrafe Mortaza (1983) Bangladeshi international cricketer and politician

https://www.clickittefaq.com/freedom-fighters-are-heroes-not-cricketers-mashrafe/

Happiness, Freedom

“I never planned ahead for anything in my life -- not for my exams, not when I had to buy clothes for an occasion -- I always do things at the last moment. So when I got the captaincy, I kept doing what I always did. I never thought about success, failure, future or past.”

Mashrafe Mortaza (1983) Bangladeshi international cricketer and politician

http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/26113613/espn-world-fame-100-2019#mashrafe-bin-mortaza

Life, Failure, Success, Past

“I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented.”

Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion

Source: The God Delusion (2006), p. 57 of the Black Swan paperback edition of 2007

God

“science is the best way to do anything”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

if you want to do terrible things with technology, a terrible weapons for example science is the best way to do it because science is the best way to do anything

Way, Science

“I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything. There are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask "Why are we here?"”

Richard Feynman book The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

I might think about it a little bit, and if I can't figure it out then I go on to something else. But I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose — which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell. Possibly. It doesn't frighten me. Source: No Ordinary Genius (1994), p. 239, from interview in "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" (1981): video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEwUwWh5Xs4&t=48m10s

Thinking

“I don’t think I've ever made up anything, everything has happened. Nothing's made up. You don't have to make anything up in this world.”

Thomas Harris (1940) American author and screenwriter

World, Making love, Thinking

“I fear to accept anything from anybody lest my heart should start cherishing love for that person. I desire only to live in His thoughts.”

Sufyan al-Thawri (716–778) Muslim Scholar and founder of Thawri Madhhab

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 29

Love, Fear, Making love, Heart

“People are sick of fake politicians who have no core and say one thing in private and another in public, or are just obviously doing anything right before an election. My sense is that voters of all ideological persuasions prefer candidates who are just real about what they believe and what they want to do, even if it’s not necessarily the precise policy platform that you agree with. You want someone who’s wearing their values on their sleeve and not B.S.’ing*.”

Jon Ossoff (1987) American politician

Ossoff used more colorful language, but this is a family newspaper.
Quoted in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Jolt: Jon Ossoff says voters want ‘someone who’s not B.S.’ing’ (5 January 2020)

People, Sense

“For it may be very plausibly urged on their behalf, that it is impossible to extinguish evil until the origin thereof has been discovered and destroyed. This great river of human Time (rivers were expressly created to feed metaphors, allegories, and navigable canals) which comes flowing down thick with filth and blood from the immemorial past surely cannot be thoroughly cleansed by any purifying process applied to it here in the present for the pollution, if not in its very source (supposing it has a source), or deriving from unimaginable remotenesses of eternity indefinitely beyond its source, at any rate interfused with it countless ages back, and is perennial as the river itself. This immense poison-tree of Life, with its leaves of illusion, blossoms of delirium, apples of destruction, surely cannot be made wholesome and sweet by anything we may do to the branchlets and twigs on which, poor insects, we find ourselves crawling, or to the leaves and fruit on which we must fain feed; for the venom is drawn up in the sap by the taproots plunged in abysmal depths of the past. This toppling and sinking house wherein we dwell cannot be firmly re-established, save by re-establishing from its lowest foundation upwards.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

"The Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery", part VIII, pp. 93–94
Essays and Phantasies (1881)

Life, Age, Tree, Evil

“The Vegetarians may confidently reckon that the new perfect man will not kill and devour other animals, nay, will not kill and devour vegetables, if it is cruel and wrong to do so. Should he after serious moral reflection conclude that vegetable life is as sacred as animal, he will doubtless be clever enough to derive plenty of wholesome food from the mineral kingdom; and should he deem it wrong to ravage even this for so vulgar a purpose as filling his belly, he will doubtless be able to nourish himself without devouring anything at all.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

"The Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery", part V, pp. 79–80
Essays and Phantasies (1881)

Life, Food, Confidence, Animals

“The game of basketball is one of the greatest teachers of life there is. It teaches you first and foremost to believe in yourself. You must develop physical and mental toughness in order to succeed because there's going to be many disappointments and setbacks along the way. You learn quickly that basketball is a team game. You must be unselfish and accept the role that helps the team the most. Basketball teaches you the importance of setting high standards and never accepting anything other than your best effort.”

Tom Crean (basketball coach) (1966) American college basketball coach

Foreword to Winning Basketball : Techniques and Drills for Playing Better Offensive Basketball (2004) by Ralph L. Pim

Life, Disappointment, Way, Game

“Look, working nine, ten years old at the farm, I was not harmed at all. When a nine-year-old, ten-year-old goes to work somewhere, it's full of people there. Now, when I'm smoking a crack pipe, nobody says anything. [...] But I want to say that I, my older brother, a sister of mine, a little younger, at that age, eight, nine, ten, twelve years, worked on the farm.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

In a live social media broadcast on 4 July 2019, defending child labor. Bolsonaro Defends Child Labor https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2019/07/bolsonaro-defends-child-labor.shtml. Folha de S.Paulo (5 July 2019). 2019

People, Age, Sister

“Humans have different emotional states that are here to serve us, if anything be redirected. Not to be tamed.”

Isaac Mashman (2000) businessman, speaker

“I think even if I did try to write something that had nothing to do with women or race, which are two pretty broad topics, I don’t know how I would do that. I don’t think there’s a way that I could write a buddy cop drama, or something really far from anything I’ve written, that didn’t have pieces of race and gender. Those are parts of the world we live in, and they are things I think about. It all comes into the voice of your writing, and you can’t write about someone else’s voice. You can only write in your own.”

Celeste Ng (1980) American novelist

On why she revisits certain themes in “AN INTERVIEW WITH CELESTE NG, THE 2018 INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE DAY AMBASSADOR” https://bookriot.com/2018/04/27/celeste-ng-interview/ in BookRiot (2018 Apr 27)

Women, World, Way, Thinking

“It’s not a coincidence that governments use art on coins and notes. They do this to help us believe in money. Without art, it’s hard for us to believe in anything.”

Damien Hirst (1965) artist

Shaw, Anny, NFT breakthrough: Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin creates 99% energy efficient blockchain—and Damien Hirst is its first artist https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/nft-breakthrough-ethereum-co-founder-joe-lubin-creates-energy-efficient-blockchain-and-damien-hirst-is-its-first-artist, The Art Newspaper, 30 March 2021

Money, Art, Help

“There’s never been an act done since the beginning, from a kid stealing candy to a dictator committing genocide, that the person doing it didn’t think he was fully justified. That’s a mental trick called rationalizing, and it’s done the human race more harm than anything else you can name.”

Leigh Brackett book The Long Tomorrow

Source: The Long Tomorrow (1955), Chapter 14

Thinking, Personality

“The carnivorous life is denounced by the tenderer and more enlightened elements of mankind, and so those under indictment begin to rake and scrape to see what they can turn up in vindication of their beloved and imperilled rapacities. They find, happily, that Nature is 'red in tooth and claw,' that man has 'canine teeth,' and that human beings are without the five stomachs of the ruminantia. Of course, man is a carnivorous animal; couldn't be anything else if he wanted to be; would probably peter out if he attempted it; and it is not necessary to try to be anything else, anyway, if he could be, for he is in harmony with the all-wise and perfectly lovely regime of bloody Nature already. Mighty slim pegs on which to suspend a life of crime, considering that their substance is purely imaginary! But sufficient for those who have made up their minds beforehand to be satisfied with whatever there is.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), Is Man a Plant-Eater?, pp. 111–112

Love, Life, Making love, Nature

“I feel like saying over and over and over, what I have said many times before, that we do not know the world of living, longing, suffering, enjoying life in the midst of which we have evolved. The inhabitants of our own fields and dooryards are strangers to us. We are so little, and proud, and selfish, we never think it worth while to stop and look into their faces and get acquainted with them. It never occurs to us what a great favour it would be to them if we would actually get over into their places occasionally and realise what tragedies are constantly being enacted in their lives as a result of our insensate natures. We treat them with no consideration or respect because we have no understanding of them; and we do not understand them because we do not care anything at all about the matter. We are too busy tossing bouquets at ourselves to have much time or thought left for anybody else. We have grown up in the belief that all those who have a different shape from what we have were intended, not for life and happiness and immortality, as we were, but for death and wretchedness and chymification, and we are too dull-minded and selfish to make any change now.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Thesis of the New Ethics, p. 37

Life, Death, Happiness, World

“In the end the court said we share your concerns, but the law is weak, we can't do anything.”

Swati Maliwal (1984) women activist who fights for women rights

Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/delhi-gang-rape-supreme-court-idUSKBN0U40K620151221, accessed May 1, 2021

Law

“If you become superhuman, if a woman starts to grow a beard or if a man starts to speak with an effeminate voice, they will not have anything to do with it.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

"Brazil's Bolsonaro warns virus vaccine can turn people into 'crocodiles'" https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20201218-brazil-s-bolsonaro-warns-virus-vaccine-can-turn-people-into-crocodiles, France24, 18 December 2020 2020

“Some people, and it doesn't matter whether they are paupers or millionaires,
Think that anything they have is the best in the world just because it is theirs.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

Versus (1949), Possessions are Nine Points of Conversation

People, World, Thinking

“My job is to save the fucking wilderness. I don't know anything else worth saving.”

Edward Abbey book The Monkey Wrench Gang

George Hayduke, page 229
The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975)

“I love art, and I love history, but it is living art and living history that I love... It is in the interest of living art and living history that I oppose so-called restoration. What history can there be in a building bedaubed with ornament, which cannot at the best be anything but a hopeless and lifeless imitation of the hope and vigour of the earlier world?”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

"The History of Pattern-Designing" lecture (1882) The Collected Works of William Morris (1910 - 1915) Vol. 22

Love, World, Making love, Hope

“When you subsidize anything, you get more of it. Paying teens even a pittance to have more children encourages them to do so. By the time they are old enough to vote, they finally realize that they will always be poor unless they can get into the work force. By then, however, it is almost too late. Unless a relative helps out, child care costs are prohibitive for someone starting in an entry level job. They find themselves forever stuck in the ‘Poverty Trap.’”

Mary Ruwart (1949) American scientist and libertarian activist

Source: Short Answers to the Tough Questions: How to Answer the Questions Libertarians Are Often Asked, (2012), p. 137

Children, Time, Help

“I don’t know how anybody would like to do anything but CGI today. Because they sit there on the computer and they can make it look so real.”

Joe Alves (1936) Film designer

‘Jaws’ At 45: Joe Alves Explains Making The Most Famous Movie Monster https://www.forbes.com/sites/markhughes/2020/06/24/jaws-at-45-joe-alves-explains-making-the-most-famous-movie-monster/?sh=1dcc247752a3 (June 24, 2020)

Making love

“If anything were calculated to render permanent and secure our friendly relations with great neighbouring Powers, it was the placing ourselves in a position of security against any sudden or unforeseen attack. There was no complete security for friendly relations between different countries, except in a state of mutual defence.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1845/jun/13/maritime-defences#column_520 in the House of Commons in favour of rearmament (13 June 1845) 1840s

Relation ships, Country

“The divine in man is our sole ground for believing that there is anything divine in the universe outside of man. Man is the revealer of the divine.
At bottom, the world is to be interpreted in terms of joy, but of a joy that includes all the pain, includes it and transforms it and transcends it.
The Light of the World is a light that is saturated with the darkness which it has overcome and transfigured.”

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

Section 1 : The Meaning of Life
Life and Destiny (1913)

Pain, World, Light, Universe

“To all the people out there, you know just live out your dreams, if you dream something, just pursue it and do it because if you can put your mind to it you can do basically anything and everything you want to. I mean look at me, I came from a country that was falling apart because of communism and escaping to America, not knowing the language and then not learning it from beginning, and overcoming that and where I am now, you know it just shows you that if you put your mind to it you can do anything you want to.”

Thuy Trang (1973–2001) Vietnamese actress (1973-2001)

Thuy Trang Interview (Encyclopedia of Martial Arts: Hollywood Stars) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwNZAqDAFng&t=54s&ab_channel=DietColaTime (1995)

People, Dreams, Communication, Learning

“So the biggest lesson for me was to write what you want. People are going to have their opinions—good and bad. The reality is you’re not going to please everyone, and if you attempt to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. If anything, you can have fun doing it.”

Jason Tanamor (1975) Filipino-American Author and Writer

Esquire Philippines Interview (2020)

Bad luck, People, Reality

“Men were made for higher things, one can’t help wanting to say, even though one knows that men weren’t made for anything, but are the product of natural selection.”

J. J. C. Smart (1920–2012) Australian philosopher and academic

An Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics, in J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism For and Against, Cambridge, 1973, p. 19

Men, Nature, Help

“Men were made for higher things, one can’t help wanting to say, even though one knows that men weren’t made for anything, but are the product of natural selection.”

J. J. C. Smart (1920–2012) Australian philosopher and academic

An Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics, in J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism For and Against, Cambridge, 1973, p. 19

Men, Nature, Help

“The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are: Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense.”

Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American inventor and businessman

Sense

“I have never been hurt by anything I didn't say.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

Hurt

“The only person who never makes mistakes is the person who never does anything.”

Denis Waitley (1933) American writer

Personality, Inspirational

“I define friendship as a bond that transcends all barriers. When you are ready to expect anything and everything from friends, good, bad or ugly... that's what I call true friendship.”

Harbhajan Singh (1980) Indian cricketer

Friendship, For Friend

“If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Time, For women

“Leaders aren't born they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that's the price well have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.”

Vince Lombardi (1913–1970) American football player, coach, and executive

“Anything you really want, you can attain, if you really go after it.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

“I love wisdom. And you can never be great at anything unless you love it. Not be in love with it, but love the thing, admire the thing. And it seems that if you love the thing, and you don't just want to possess it, it will find you.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Love, Wisdom

“The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.”

Pema Chödron (1936) American philosopher

Truth

“You cannot change anything in your life with intention alone, which can become a watered-down, occasional hope that you'll get to tomorrow. Intention without action is useless.”

Caroline Myss (1952) author from the United States

Life, Hope, Water, Change

“I was born in Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, during the Soviet-era when there wasn’t any Tatar language…and without any Muslim tradition. I was a Soviet child without my past, without my family roots, because at the time it was forbidden to explain anything.”

Chulpan Khamatova (1975) Russian actress

As quoted in "Russia’s Chulpan Khamatova on Stalinist Backlash Over ‘Zuleikha’ (EXCLUSIVE)" in Variety (10 June 2020) https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/chulpan-khamatova-communist-backlash-zuleikha-1234627594/

Family, Time, Past

“I believe if you can have an open dialogue about anything, whether it's a book or a movie or TV show, it's this door that suddenly opens your mind to new ideas.”

Kelly Marie Tran (1989) American actress

As quoted in "Star Wars Breakout Kelly Marie Tran on The Last Jedi and Kylo Ren’s Shirtless Scene" in Vulture (20 December 2017) https://www.vulture.com/2017/12/kelly-marie-tran-on-the-last-jedi-and-shirtless-kylo-ren.html

Books, Idea

“The Devil doesn't make us do anything.”

Tom Robbins Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

The Devil, for example, doesn't make us mean. Rather, when we're mean, we make the Devil. Literally. Our actions create him. Conversely, when we behave with compassion, generosity, and grace, we create God in the world."
Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates (2000)

“I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of "humility."”

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

This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.
Draft of a German reply to a letter sent to him in 1954 or 1955, p. 39
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)

Feeling, Nature, Thinking, Personality

“I just depend on a lot of prayer and meditation. I believe that without God I am nobody, but that with God, I can do anything.”

Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress

As quoted in "Dolly Parton: Gee, She’s So Nice" https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/dolly-parton-gee-shes-really-nice (7 December 1980), by Roger Ebert, Roger Ebert 1980s

God, Dependency

“For the first time, I will avoid anything that makes me suffer, because suffering is not a virtue.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), Our fate

Suffering, Time

“[Mucius] might have accomplished something more successful in that camp, but never anything more brave.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XXIV: On despising death

Success

“I cannot remember that he ever did anything that helped us.”

Charles Portal, 1st Viscount Portal of Hungerford (1893–1971) Royal Air Force air marshal (1893-1971)

Christopher Hinton, undated recollection, according to page 449 https://books.google.ca/books?id=7h7aRGdorPoC&pg=PA449 of 2008 book "Austerity Britain" by David Kynaston About

Help

“The man who has never made a mistake has no need of an eraser; just so the man who has never done anything wrong has no need of a Redeemer.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Source: The Armor of God (1943), Ch. 1, p. 4

“Everything is interesting, everything does connect, but anything don't work.”

Joe Armstrong (1950–2019) British computer scientist

The How and Why of Fitting Things Together

“Best friend is the one who with her love senses where it is necessary and rushes to support you overwhelmingly without you saying anything.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) L'amico del cuore è colui che con il suo amore intuisce dove è necessario ed accorre a sostenerti prepotentemente senza che tu dica niente.
Source: prevale.net

Love, Support, Sense

“I will not be able to do anything until the air fields are captured and supplied with fuel, oil, ammunition, bombs, spare parts, and all the necessary ground personnel.”

James Doolittle (1896–1993) United States Air Force Medal of Honor recipient

In a response to General Dwight Eisenhower on the plans for the 1942 invasion of North Africa, as quoted in 1980 interview, "Jimmy Doolittle Reminiscences About World War II" https://www.historynet.com/jimmy-doolittle-reminiscences-about-world-war-ii.htm

Parting

“It's a bad habit, I know, but I believe that you shouldn't do anything in life until you're ready. Half of life's heartaches come from decisions that were made in a hurry. One should make haste slowly.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

On her lack of punctuality, as quoted in "Tardy but Talented" https://www.newspapers.com/clip/22039844/the-courier-journal/ by James Bacon (AP), The Louisville Courier-Journal (July 17, 1960), p. 84

Life, Decision

“When we have God at the centre of our Church, we can lead our people to reach God’s Kingdom. Without God at the centre or our Church surrounding God, then not much of anything can be achieved.”

Rozario Menezes (1969) Catholic bishop

A Church having God at its centre https://www.pngsicbc.com/post/a-church-having-god-at-its-centre (July 5)

God, People

“My motto is very personal and may not fit anyone else or any other company. It is: Don't do anything that someone else can do. Don't undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible.”

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

As quoted in "The Vindication of Edwin Land" in Forbes magazine, Vol. 139 (4 May 1987) p. 83; this was later humorously altered: Don't do anything that someone else can do. Don't undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible. Edwin Ladd, Department of Astronomy, Harvard University (August, 1990), as quoted by Lincoln J. Greenhill at Harvard University http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~lincoln/

Personality

“I want to succeed in baseball, but it doesn’t mean anything if I’m not ultimately doing something greater than myself. Our lives should be about bringing faith, hope and love to those needing a brighter day in their darkest hour of need.”

Tim Tebow (1987) American football player, Heisman Trophy winner, quarterback

Sports, Faith, Dating and Adoption: Tim Tebow Talks About His Life's Purpose https://people.com/sports/tim-tebow-interview-book-this-is-the-day/ (April 8, 2018)

Love, Faith, Hope

“My main purpose is not about football or baseball, or anything like that. It’s about helping others. It’s about finding the people who need hope.”

Tim Tebow (1987) American football player, Heisman Trophy winner, quarterback

People, Hope, Help, Football

“The college must educate for a changing world ... about which we know only that it will be different from anything of which we have now had experience.”

Marion Edwards Park (1875–1960) President of Bryn Mawr College

Marion Edwards Park, 1933, [Marion Edward Park 1922-1942, http://www.brynmawr.edu/president/MarionEdwardsPark1922-1942.html, Bryn Mawr College, 25 April 2013, dead, https://web.archive.org/web/20130416021726/http://www.brynmawr.edu/president/MarionEdwardsPark1922-1942.html, 16 April 2013]

World, Education, Change