Quotes about bit
page 9

Charles Dickens photo

“If the people at large be not already convinced that a sufficient general case has been made out for Administrative Reform, I think they never can be, and they never will be…. Ages ago a savage mode of keeping accounts on notched sticks was introduced into the Court of Exchequer, and the accounts were kept, much as Robinson Crusoe kept his calendar on the desert island. In the course of considerable revolutions of time, the celebrated Cocker was born, and died; Walkinghame, of the Tutor's Assistant, and well versed in figures, was also born, and died; a multitude of accountants, book-keepers and actuaries, were born, and died. Still official routine inclined to these notched sticks, as if they were pillars of the constitution, and still the Exchequer accounts continued to be kept on certain splints of elm wood called "tallies." In the reign of George III an inquiry was made by some revolutionary spirit, whether pens, ink, and paper, slates and pencils, being in existence, this obstinate adherence to an obsolete custom ought to be continued, and whether a change ought not to be effected.
All the red tape in the country grew redder at the bare mention of this bold and original conception, and it took till 1826 to get these sticks abolished. In 1834 it was found that there was a considerable accumulation of them; and the question then arose, what was to be done with such worn-out, worm-eaten, rotten old bits of wood? I dare say there was a vast amount of minuting, memoranduming, and despatch-boxing on this mighty subject. The sticks were housed at Westminster, and it would naturally occur to any intelligent person that nothing could be easier than to allow them to be carried away for fire-wood by the miserable people who live in that neighbourhood. However, they never had been useful, and official routine required that they never should be, and so the order went forth that they were to be privately and confidentially burnt. It came to pass that they were burnt in a stove in the House of Lords. The stove, overgorged with these preposterous sticks, set fire to the panelling; the panelling set fire to the House of Lords; the House of Lords set fire to the House of Commons; the two houses were reduced to ashes; architects were called in to build others; we are now in the second million of the cost thereof, the national pig is not nearly over the stile yet; and the little old woman, Britannia, hasn't got home to-night…. The great, broad, and true cause that our public progress is far behind our private progress, and that we are not more remarkable for our private wisdom and success in matters of business than we are for our public folly and failure, I take to be as clearly established as the sun, moon, and stars.”

Charles Dickens (1812–1870) English writer and social critic and a Journalist

"Administrative Reform" (June 27, 1855) Theatre Royal, Drury Lane Speeches Literary and Social by Charles Dickens https://books.google.com/books?id=bT5WAAAAcAAJ (1870) pp. 133-134

Lee Child photo
Mircea Eliade photo
Agatha Christie photo
Mirkka Rekola photo
José Mourinho photo
Rich Mullins photo
Glenn Gould photo
Lloyd Kaufman photo

“When I was at Yale, I hung a bit with the Warhol gang. I used some of his superstar types in early movies. I can't say I had any conversations with him, but I did pass him at Max's Kansas City. But I was a big fan of his movies.”

Lloyd Kaufman (1945) American film director

Village Voice http://www.villagevoice.com/2014-01-15/film/troma-lloyd-kaufman-interview/ January 15, 2014
2014

Warren Farrell photo
David Lange photo

“Will the United States pull the rug on New Zealand? The answer is no. They might polish the lino a bit harder and hope that I execute a rather unseemly glide across it.”

David Lange (1942–2005) New Zealand politician and 32nd Prime Minister of New Zealand

Source: Gliding on the Lino: The Wit of David Lange", compiled by David Barber, 1987.

“Maybe my style is a bit more like an American style. I suppose I am more enthusiastic.”

Ian Darke (1950) British association football and boxing commentator

2010s, 2014, Voice of the Americans (2014)

P.G. Wodehouse photo
Paul Newman photo
Sania Mirza photo
Damian Pettigrew photo
John Green photo
Ambrose Bierce photo
Richard Dawkins photo

“I can think of no moral objection to eating human road kills except for the ones that you mentioned like 'what would the relatives think about it?' and 'would the person themselves have wanted it to happen?', but I do worry a bit about slippery slopes; possibly a little bit more than you do.There are barriers that we have set up in our minds and certainly the barrier between Homo sapiens and any other species is an artificial barrier in the sense that its a kind of 'accident' that the evolutionary intermediates happen to be extinct. Never the less it exists and natural barriers that are there can be useful for preventing slippery slopes and therefore I think I can see an objection to breaching such a barrier because you are then in a weaker position to stop people going further.Another example might be suppose you take the argument in favour of abortion up until the baby was one year old, if a baby was one year old and turned out to have some horrible incurable disease that meant it was going to die in agony in later life, what about infanticide? Strictly morally I can see no objection to that at all, I would be in favour of infanticide but I think i would worry about/I think I would wish at least to give consideration to the person who says 'where does it end?'”

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

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Peter Singer - The Genius of Darwin: The Uncut Interviews (2009)

Linda McCartney photo
Paula Modersohn-Becker photo

“I really see nothing of other people. I'm trying to dig my way back again into my work. One absolutely has to dedicate oneself, every bit of oneself, to the one inescapable thing. That's the only way to get somewhere and to become something.”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

In a letter to her parents, Worpswede, 10 September 1899; as quoted in Voicing our visions, – Writings by women artists; ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, p. 199
1899

Elizabeth Loftus photo

“Which would you rather have? A kid with obesity, heart problems, shortened lifespan, diabetes -- or maybe a little bit of false memory?”

Elizabeth Loftus (1944) American cognitive psychologist

Trust your memory? Maybe you shouldn't http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/18/health/lifeswork-loftus-memory-malleability/ (05/18/2013)

Murray Leinster photo
Pat Murphy photo
Ulysses S. Grant photo

“One thing has struck me as a bit queer. During my two terms of office the whole Democratic press, and the morbidly honest and 'reformatory' portion of the Republican press, thought it horrible to keep U. S. troops stationed in the Southern States, and when they were called upon to protect the lives of negroes– as much citizens under the Constitution as if their skins were white– the country was scarcely large enough to hold the sound of indignation belched forth by them for some years. Now, however, there is no hesitation about exhausting the whole power of the government to suppress a strike on the slightest intimation that danger threatens. All parties agree that this is right, and so do I. If a negro insurrection should arise in South Carolina, Mississippi, or Louisiana, or if the negroes in either of these states, where they are in a large majority, should intimidate the whites from going to the polls, or from exercising any of the rights of American citizens, there would be no division of sentiment as to the duty of the president. It does seem the rule should work both ways.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

Regarding keeping U.S. Army soldiers stationed in southern U.S. states to protect the safety and civil rights of freed slaves (26 August 1877), as quoted in The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant: November 1, 1876-September 30, 1878, by U.S. Grant, pp. 251-252.
1870s, Letter to Daniel Ammen (1877)

Courtney Love photo

“Every time that I sell myself to you
I feel a little bit cheaper than I need to
I will tear the petals off of you
Rose red, I will make you tell the truth”

Courtney Love (1964) American punk singer-songwriter, musician, actress, and artist

"Asking for It"
Song lyrics, Live Through This (1994)

Vincent Van Gogh photo

“What surprising fellows those French painters are. A Millet, Delacroix, Corot, Troyon, Daubigny, Rousseau, and a Daumier.... Something else about Delacroix - he had a discussion with a friend about the question of working absolutely from nature, and said on that occasion that one should take one's 'studies' from nature - but that the 'actual painting' had to be made 'by heart'. This friend was walking along the boulevard when they had this discussion - which was already fairly heated. When they parted the other man was still not entirely persuaded. After they parted, Delacroix let him stroll on for a bit - then (making a trumpet of his two hands) bellowed after him in the middle of the street - to the consternation of the worthy passers-by:
'By heart! By heart!”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

(Par coeur! Par coeur!)
I can't tell you how much I enjoyed reading this article and some other things about Delacroix..
In his letter to Anthon van Rappard, from Nuenen, The Netherlands, 8 and c. 15 August 1885 - original manuscript, letter 526, at Van Gogh Museum, location Amsterdam - inv. nos. b8390 V/2006, http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let526/letter.html
See for this anecdote, taken from Charles Blanc, Les artistes de mon temps, letter 496, n. 7.
1880s, 1885

Annika Sörenstam photo
John Buchan photo
Russell Brand photo
Philip Roth photo
Henry Adams photo
Basshunter photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Charles Dudley Warner photo
Gloria Estefan photo
Kate Bush photo
DJ Paul photo
Margaret Cho photo
Anton Mauve photo
Oded Fehr photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Anthony Powell photo
Jonathan Safran Foer photo
Anthony Burgess photo
Sarah Palin photo

“A little tiny bit of brutality, in the grand scheme of things really is not that big of a deal, but you guys will appreciate it because you’re from Iowa!”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

[2016-02-01, Sarah Palin Unedited: February 1, 2016, Ellie, Shechet, The Slot, http://theslot.jezebel.com/sarah-palin-unedited-february-1-2016-1756451427, 2016-02-02, https://web.archive.org/web/20160202061415/http://theslot.jezebel.com/sarah-palin-unedited-february-1-2016-1756451427]
quoting speech given on Monday, Feb. 1 at a Trump campaign rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa
2016

Ali Larter photo
Russell Brand photo
Gregory Peck photo
Tommy Franks photo

“Another hallway led to a green steel door. "This is the execution chamber," the officer said. "The day of the execution, we take the man through this door." He opened the green door, and we blinked at the bright lights inside. A big chair filled the room. I could smell leather. "All right, boys," he said. "Line up." The kids made a straight line that led out the green door, then moved ahead, one at a time, to sit in the big wooden chair. "This is the electric chair, Tommy Ray," my dad explained. "It's where murderers are executed." The boys inched forward. Some sat longer in the chair than others. Executed meant killed, that much I knew. "This is the ultimate consequence for the ultimate act of evil," my father told the troop. When all the boys had sat in the chair, it was my turn. I reached up and felt the smooth wood, the leather straps with cold metal buckles. There was a black steel cap dangling up there like a lamp without a bulb. "Up you go, Tommy Ray," Dad said, hoisting me into the chair. The boys were staring at me. But I wasn't even a little bit afraid. My father stood right beside me. I could feel his warm hand next to the cool metal buckle. As the school bus rumbled out of the prison parking lot that afternoon, I stared back at the high walls. I had learned another important lesson. A consequence was what followed what you did. If you did good things, you'd be rewarded with further good things. If you broke the law, you'd have to pay the price. I have never forgotten that lesson.”

Tommy Franks (1945) United States Army general

Source: American Soldier (2004), p. 8

Michael Franti photo
Tony Abbott photo

“I probably feel a bit threatened, as so many people do.”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

When asked how he felt about homosexuality Quoted in Herald Sun http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/tony-abbott-gay-remarks-dangerous/story-e6frf7jo-1225838436495", March 9, 2010.
2010

“Economists and technologists bring the "bits", but it requires the social scientists and humanists to bring the "wits."”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Attributed to Kenneth Boulding in Michael H. Prosser, K. S. Sitaram (1999) Civic Discourse: Intercultural, International, and Global Media. p. 11
1990s and attributed

Cesare Pavese photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Dorothy L. Sayers photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Denis Healey photo
José Mourinho photo

“Young players are a little bit like melons. Only when you open and taste the melon are you 100% sure that the melon is good.”

José Mourinho (1963) Portuguese association football player and manager

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/funny_old_game/7004282.stm
Chelsea FC

Charlie Brooker photo

“The BB house works as a kind of twat amplifier, you see. Once harnessed within, someone who in normal life would merely strike me as a bit of a git quickly swells in negative stature, eventually coming to symbolise everything I hate about our cruel and godless universe.”

Charlie Brooker (1971) journalist, broadcaster and writer from England

The Guardian, 3 June 2006 http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/columnists/story/0,,1788457,00.html
Guardian columns, Big Brother

Henry Adams photo
Anthony Burgess photo
Reggie Fils-Aimé photo
Brian W. Aldiss photo
Ismail ibn Musa Menk photo

“And the same applies to the spouse. You know you love them, but you need to say it again and again. Like we got to the food, moments ago, and you need to say: "This food is – mashallah – it's really, really great". Even if the salt is a little bit more. Because sometimes, as I was saying, she spent so much time bringing it in front of us – and we are worried about how it's smelling, number one, and number two is we say, as we taste it, "The salt is too much, no?" What are you talking about? She just looks at you and her face flops. «I've been at it for three hours here, four hours I've been busy with this for so many months…» And what does she even say? "Next time I'll try a bit harder" – that's if she's a good woman; if not, she will say: "Never gonna cook this again!" It's typical. And if you have someone who is very witty: "The next time there's salt to be put in, I'll call you to put it." So we need to praise the cooking of our wives, we need to praise their dress code, especially… For example, I can let you know something that has worked, for some people. When you find some women, you know, they don't like to dress appropriately, so the husband sometimes wants to tell them something. There're two, three ways of doing it. You can either say, "This is very bad, I don't want you to wear this." And, you know, you might have a response. But if you want a response from the heart, what you do is, you tell them: "The other dress looked much better than this." You see, so you are praising one thing, and that praise is not there when the other thing is there. So, you have told them, in a way, that «this is what I really love». And go beyond the limits in praise – that's your wife, don't worry, you can say whatever you want, mashallah, in terms of goodness. Like the food, when you eat, even if it is a little bit this way or that way, just praise it, mashallah. See what it is. Praise the effort, at least. Let me tell you what has happened once. They say the imam in the mosque had said: "You need to praise the cooking of your wife". Just like I said now. So the man went home, and he had this meal, and he was looking at it, and looking at his wife, and smiling, all happy, mashallah, excited and everything. And when he finishes, he says: "Oh! It was awesome!" And the wife says, "What? I've been cooking for you for 21 years, you never said that! Today, when the food came from the neighbor, you want to say it was awesome?"”

Ismail ibn Musa Menk (1975) Muslim cleric and Grand Mufti of Zimbabwe.

"The Fortunate Muslim Family: Divine Solution to the Fragmented Family" (20 February 2012), lecture at the University of Malaya ( YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QaeZcV_azE)
Lectures

Pete Doherty photo
Ian Anderson photo

“I don't think it's very easy to make friends with musicians. We're all a bit paranoid. It soon becomes very heavy.”

Ian Anderson (1947) Scottish musician, leader of Jethro Tull

[John, Tobler, 1992, NME Rock 'N' Roll Years, 1st, Reed International Books Ltd, London, 272, CN 5585]

John Gray photo
Norodom Sihanouk photo
Jorge Luis Borges photo

“We (the indivisible divinity that works in us) have dreamed the world. We have dreamed it resistant, mysterious, visible, ubiquitous in space and firm in time, but we have allowed slight, and eternal, bits of the irrational to form part of its architecture so as to know that it is false.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

"Avatars of the Tortoise" ["Avatares de la tortuga"]
Discussion (1932)

Elvis Costello photo

“I dug in a bit but then the smell of gasoline and burning flesh drove me away.”

Jamie Zawinski (1968) American programmer

DNA Lounge blog https://www.jwz.org/blog/2013/01/mosaic/#18

Prince photo
Larry Fessenden photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Ben Hecht photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo
Alexis Bledel photo
Josh Billings photo

“I never hav seen a bigot yet but what had a small and apparently braneless hed--bit i hain't seen all the bigots, yu know.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)

Jacques Herzog photo
Roger Manganelli photo
Roger Waters photo
Waylon Jennings photo

“Don't you think this outlaw bit has done got out of hand?
What started out to be a joke, the law don't understand.
Was it singing through my nose that got me busted by the man?
Maybe this here outlaw bit has done got out of hand.”

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

Don't You Think This Outlaw Bit's Done Got Out of Hand, from I've Always Been Crazy (1978).
Song lyrics

Kathy Griffin photo
Samuel R. Delany photo
Gloria Estefan photo
Dennis Skinner photo

“Skinner: The hon. Member for Edge Hill seems a bit upset about my saying that he was not there half the time. Will he settle for my agreeing that he was there the other half? That is an advance.”

Dennis Skinner (1932) British politician

House of Commons, Hansard, 1 April 1981, 04:30am, volume 2 col 448 http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1981/apr/01/saving-for-things-done-under-a-licence#S6CV0002P0_19810401_HOC_593
Skinner may have been alluding to a classic joke http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/04/19/half-fools/.
1980s

John Green photo
Rian Johnson photo
Lucy Lawless photo

“Up until I came here this week, and I met so many women and young girls who feel, to use their word - and I'm a bit embarrassed, but it's a good word - empowered, by watching. I realized this isn't a burden, this is an honor.”

Lucy Lawless (1968) New Zealand actress

Christy Slewinski, New York Daily News (September 29, 1996) "Lucy Lawless is a Star on the Strength of 'Xena'", The Seattle Times, p. 21.

Kazuo Ishiguro photo
Pío Pico photo

“If those gringos imagine for a moment they can take me back there and show me in a side tent at two bits a head they are very mistaken.<”

Pío Pico (1801–1894) Governor of Alta California

William David Estrada, Los Angeles Plaza: Sacred and contested space (2008)
Columbian Exposition

Roger Waters photo