Quotes about blame
page 5

“It is of the greatest importance that the administration of justice should not only be free from spot or blame, but that it should be, so far as human infirmity could allow it to become, as free from all suspicion.”

Edward Law, 1st Baron Ellenborough (1750–1818) Lord Chief Justice of England

King v. Hunt (1820), 2 Chit. Bep. 134.

Justice

“You know, people criticize me for talking about her because I had an affair with her husband, and I don’t blame them for that, I understand that. I understand that they can be mad at me. I get it. I accept my responsibility. … But she’s never accepted her responsibility at being an enabler. She’s been an enabler that has encouraged him to go out and do whatever he does with women. Woman’s rights. Ha! I personally have worked my tail off to get where I am in the entertainment business, which has not been easy since the Clinton scandal, by the way. … Hillary never put up a shingle and worked for her clients and built her clientele. She always got things on the back of her husband. … I think it’s a joke that she would run on women’s issues.”

Gennifer Flowers (1950) American actress and model

HILLARY NIGHTMARE: GENNIFER'S BACK! https://www.wnd.com/2015/10/hillary-nightmare-gennifers-back/ (October 11, 2015)

Women, People, Way, Understanding

“Basic truth about the colonies, Heaslop. Any time there's trouble, you can put it down to books. Too many of the wrong ideas getting into the heads of the wrong sorts of people. If ever the Empire comes to ruin, Heaslop, mark my words, the British publisher will be to blame.”

Shashi Tharoor book The Great Indian Novel

The Great Indian Novel

People, Truth, Books, Idea

“Good Lord, I see Thee that art very Truth; and I know in truth that we sin grievously every day and be much blameworthy; and I may neither leave the knowing of Thy truth, nor do I see Thee shew to us any manner of blame. How may this be?
For I knew by the common teaching of Holy Church and by mine own feeling, that the blame of our sin continually hangeth upon us, from the first man unto the time that we come up unto heaven: then was this my marvel that I saw our Lord God shewing to us no more blame than if we were as clean and as holy as Angels be in heaven.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 50
Context: Yet here I wondered and marvelled with all the diligence of my soul, saying thus within me: Good Lord, I see Thee that art very Truth; and I know in truth that we sin grievously every day and be much blameworthy; and I may neither leave the knowing of Thy truth, nor do I see Thee shew to us any manner of blame. How may this be?
For I knew by the common teaching of Holy Church and by mine own feeling, that the blame of our sin continually hangeth upon us, from the first man unto the time that we come up unto heaven: then was this my marvel that I saw our Lord God shewing to us no more blame than if we were as clean and as holy as Angels be in heaven. And between these two contraries my reason was greatly travailed through my blindness, and could have no rest for dread that His blessed presence should pass from my sight and I be left in unknowing how He beholdeth us in our sin. For either behoved me to see in God that sin was all done away, or else me behoved to see in God how He seeth it, whereby I might truly know how it belongeth to me to see sin, and the manner of our blame. My longing endured, Him continually beholding; — and yet I could have no patience for great straits and perplexity, thinking: If I take it thus that we be no sinners and not blameworthy, it seemeth as I should err and fail of knowing of this truth; and if it be so that we be sinners and blameworthy, — Good Lord, how may it then be that I cannot see this true thing in Thee, which art my God, my Maker, in whom I desire to see all truths?

God, Truth, Art, Angels

“Hillary Clinton refuses to say the words radical Islam, even as she pushes for a massive increase in refugees coming into our country. After Secretary Clinton's failed intervention in Libya, Islamic terrorists in Benghazi took down our consulate and killed our ambassador and three brave Americans. Then, instead of taking charge that night, Hillary Clinton decided to go home and sleep. Incredible. Clinton blames it all on a video, an excuse that was a total lie, proven to be absolutely a total lie. Our ambassador was murdered and our secretary of state misled the nation.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, April, Foreign Policy Speech (27 April 2016)

Lie, Home, Sleep, Night

“A good craftsman doesn't blame his tools.”

Keith Olbermann (1959) American sports and political commentator

Catch Phrases
Source: http://www.sportscenteraltar.com/phrases/phrases.asp Sports Center Catchphrases

“But if you on stage with the DEA, as your hype man, don't get yourself locked up and blame the white man.”

Immortal Technique (1978) American rapper and activist

Out on parole
Albums, The 3rd World (2008)

“Before one blames, one should always find out whether one cannot excuse. To discover little faults has been always the particularity of such brains that are a little or not at all above the average. The superior ones keep quiet or say something against the whole and the great minds transform without blaming.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

K 39
Variant translation: Before we blame we should first see whether we cannot excuse.
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook K (1789-1793)

“Try this for deviancy: fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' consciences; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding up the mirror."
I hid my shock by asking when purebloods might blame themselves.
Mephi replied, "History suggests, not until they are made to.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"An Orison of Sonmi~451", p. 168 (Nook Edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

History

“I don't blame Bill Maher for mocking religion. […] I can see why he took the trouble to make the movie. In one sense, it's overdue.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

[Bill Maher's Movie Mockery May Backfire, Christian Broadcasting Network, Mike Ireland, 2008-10-02, http://www.cbn.com/entertainment/screen/ANS_Religulous.aspx, 2008-12-24]

Religion, Sense

“People always blame the girl; she should have said no. A monosyllable, but conventional wisdom has always been that boys can't manage it.”

Anna Quindlen (1952) journalist, Novelist

The New York Times, sect. 4, p. 13 (April 11, 1993).

Wisdom, People, Girl, Boy

“Whoever wishes to blame or attack me is entitled to do so. I regret I didn't have enough experience to totally control the movement. On the other hand, with our constant struggle, this had to be done together with others in the communist world to stop Kampuchea becoming Vietnamese.”

Pol Pot (1925–1998) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea

September 2018
Nate Thayer interview (1997)

World

“The fame of the advantages which accrue to the inhabitants of our country has spread throughout the world. If we doubt the high estimation in which these opportunities are held by other peoples, it is only necessary to remember that they sought them in such numbers as to require our own protection by restrictive immigration. I am aware that our country and its institutions are often the subject of censure. I grieve to see them misrepresented for selfish and destructive aims. But I welcome candid criticism, which is moved by a purpose to promote the public welfare. But while we should always strive for improvement by living in more complete harmony with out ideals, we should not permit incidental failure or unwarranted blame to obscure the fact that the people of our country have secured the greatest success that was ever before experienced in human history.”

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

1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)

People, World, History, Failure

“Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the 'new, wonderful good society' which shall now be Rome, interpreted to mean 'more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

This is also from the 1965 essay by Justice Millard Caldwell http://www.aapsonline.org/brochures/cicero.htm. It is not clear if this is based in any specific dialogue. Misattributed

Money, People, Freedom, Loss

“There are times when the price of vegetables, sawi (mustard greens) and kangkung (water convolvulus) goes up and there are times it comes down. I read in the newspaper that some prices have come down. Kangkung price once went up and now it is down. When the prices come down, why are there no praises for the government? When it goes up, the government gets the blame. This is unfair because (such issues are determined by) the weather conditions.”

Najib Razak (1953) Malaysian politician

Speech given at Kemaman, Terengganu, on 14 January 2014, cf Palatino M, The Diplomat; "Malaysia's Kangkung Meme" http://thediplomat.com/2014/01/malaysias-kangkung-meme/.

Water, Time, Reading, Weather

“The social media is making conventional media obsolete. So its becoming necessary to hawk anything to keep going. I don’t blame the media. But where do you draw the line? Within the scheme of things, is it not possible to keep track of one’s responsibility and help nurture cultural legacy? How else will the coming generations know of our culture?”

Zakir Hussain (musician) (1951) Indian tabla player, musical producer, film actor and composer

Quote, I've never wanted to fit in Abbaji's shoes: Ustad Zakir Hussain

Help, Drawing

“In the preliminary pages, the list of books "by the same author" shows that during the past fifty years I have written a dozen books on medieval Indian history beginning from 1950 onwards. As usual these have been reviewed in journals in India and abroad, bestowing both praise and blame as per the custom of the reviewers. However, during the last fifteen years or so, some of my books have received special attention of a certain brand of scholars for adverse criticism. Although this gives me publicity and raises demand for my books because such reviews arouse curiosity of readers, it also provides me with an opportunity to defend myself from my detractors determined to denigrate my work. It is not customary to answer the reviewers - they have their right of judgement - but when a systematic smear campaign is launched criticising everything that I say, without a single word of appreciation for anything, a rebuttal is called for, more so when a connection and not mere coincidence is discernible between the uncharitable review of one of my books in a British journal and some other harsh reviews by a group of Aligarh historians in Indian historical journals.”

K. S. Lal book Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India

Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India (1999)

Books, History, Past

“Anyone who idolizes you is going to hate you when he discovers that you are fallible. He never forgives. He has deceived himself, and he blames you for it.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

An American Bible (1918) edited by Alice Hubbard.

Hate, Forgiveness

“The throb of fifty or a hundred million steam horse-power, doubling every ten years, and already more despotic than all the horses that ever lived, and all the riders they ever carried, drowned rhyme and reason. No one was to blame, for all were equally servants of the power, and worked merely to increase it; but the conservative Christian anarchist saw light.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Light, Horse

“When we talk about drugs, we blame the producers, not the consumers. But when we talk about weapons, we blame the consumers, no the producers. The reason consists, as I understand, in the place of power. In the case of drugs, the products are the others, not us; in the case of weapons, the consumers are the others; we limit ourselves to their production.”

Jorge Majfud (1969) Uruguayan-American writer

La Jornada, México (2 May 2007) http://www.lajornadadeoriente.com.mx/2007/05/02/puebla/s1ret14.php

Understanding

“Those who suffer from the abuse of drugs have themselves to blame for it. This does not mean that society is absolved from active concern for their plight. It does mean that their plight is subordinate to the plight of those citizens who do not experiment with drugs but whose life, liberty, and property are substantially affected by the illegalization of the drugs sought after by the minority.”

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008) American conservative author and commentator

The War On Drugs Is Lost (1995)

Life, Suffering

“I have seen it before. Little people have to hate, have to blame someone for their own inadequacies.”

Glen Cook book Shadows Linger

Source: Shadows Linger (1984), Chapter 33, “Juniper: The Encounter” (p. 370)

Hate, People

“He heard that whenever a woman was to blame for a disappointment, the best way to avoid a scene was to inculpate oneself.”

Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) English writer

Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. VII

Disappointment, Way

“Learning to play the guitar is a combination of mental and motor skill acquisition. And to develop motor skills, repetition is essensial…Whenever musicians have trouble executing a passage, they generally tend to blame themselves for not having enought talent. Actually, all that's wrong is they don't know where their fingers are supposed to go…You should learn the piece in your head before you play it. And when you do play it, play it so slow that therre's no possibility of making a mistake.”

Howard Roberts (1929–1992) American guitarist

Ralph Denyer (2002). The Guitar Handbook. p. 66.

Learning

“This goes back to the reason why alarmists abandoned the "global warming" term in favor of climate change. They can play this bait and switch, showing changes in climate (which always exist) and then blaming them on CO2. But there is no mechanism ever proposed by anyone where CO2 can change the climate directly without going through the intermediate step of warming. If climate is changing but we are not seeing warming, then the change can't be due to CO2.”

Anthony Watts (1958) American television meteorologist

Just where are those grid killing tornadoes anyway? http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/17/just-where-are-those-grid-killing-tornadoes-anyway/, wattsupwiththat.com, June 17, 2009. 2009

Change

“But it's deeper than that. We have given in to the politics of anger- the belief that riling up the base can make up for failed attempts to broaden the electorate. These are the spasms of a dying party. Anger and resentment and blaming groups of people for our problems might work politically in the short term, but it's a dangerous impulse in a pluralistic society, and we know from history that it's an impulse that, once acted upon, never ends well.”

Jeff Flake (1962) American politician

Source: Conscience of a Conservative (2017), p. 8

People, History, Problem, Anger

“Today is different, and tomorrow the same.
It's hard to take the world the way that it came.
Too many rapids keep us sweeping along.
Too many captains keep on steering us wrong.
It's hard to take the heat.
It's hard to lay blame.
To fight the fire, while we're feeding the flames.
-- Second Nature (1987)”

Neil Peart (1952–2020) Canadian-American drummer , lyricist, and author

Rush Lyrics

World, Way, Nature, Fight

“Gabriel scowled through his glasses. Why were ghosts such imbeciles? Who could be blamed for striving, at any cost, to avoid forever the decay-of-self that death was?”

Tim Powers (1952) American writer

Part 1, Chapter 4 (p. 71)
Hide Me Among the Graves (2012)

Death

“There is a correlation between crude yuppies buying Porsches in the City and the number of people sleeping on the street. The tax rip-offs that are used to buy second homes, swimming pools and extended holidays mean an increase in the number of people sleeping on the street because there is insufficient public expenditure to provide housing for them. The Tories have always supported the creed which blames poverty on the poor. We believe that the poor are the victims of the society created by the Conservatives and the Government whom they so avidly support…There would indeed be no need for anyone to be homeless if a large number of previously privately rented houses were not deliberately kept empty by property speculators as a result of Government policies. It is sheer hypocrisy for Tory Members to blame the poor unfortunate people who have to sleep in cardboard boxes when they themselves put those people on the street, splash them every night as they drive past in their Porsches and kick dirt in the faces of the poor. They are the people to blame for the situation faced by so many people in London, and it is a matter of grave concern.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1988/jun/24/policing-london in the House of Commons (24 June 1988). 1980s

People, Home, Support, Sleep

“The standard Christian conscience does not permit the believer to look upon the self and find beauty, goodness, natural kindness, strength. Self-knowledge is tainted with self-hatred. The rules of the game of the Christian conscience are such that, when I look within, I must take the blame for all evil, all hardness of the heart that I find, but give God all the credit for any evidence of love. … It is not surprising that the practice of meditation … has remained under a cloud in the West, and that we have, consequently, created a culture of extroverts.”

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Source: The Passionate Life (1983), p. 162

Love, God, Beauty, Game

“Round this town you've ceased to be / That's what you get for sleeping with the enemy
Guess who's gonna take the blame for my big mouth
Into my big mouth / You could fly a plane”

Noel Gallagher (1967) British musician

My Big Mouth
Be Here Now (1997)

Sleep, Flying

“Children being left, it's not always like books of Charles Dickens. When you lose your parents in childhood, it's a fact of life, and, you know, human beings are extraordinary powerful survivors. My mother commit suicide. I was lucky it was not in front of me. O. K.? Which is truth, and Father was confused, and we never had any relationship, serious relationship. I never knew my father, in a way. But what? It's made me different? No, I mean. I blame for every fuckups in my life my parents? No. [Pause] I got lucky. I fell in love with dance.”

Mikhail Baryshnikov (1948) Soviet-American dancer, choreographer, and actor born in Letonia, Soviet Union

As quoted in "Profile: The Soloist", reprinted in Life Stories: Profiles from The New Yorker https://books.google.com/books?id=KDhjzXAjyUMC&pg=PA66, p. 66.

Love, Life, Children, Truth

“Richard Chase declares, "No great poet has written so much bad verse as Emily Dickinson." He blames the Victorian cult of little women for the fact that "two thirds of her work" is seriously flawed: "Her coy and oddly childish poems of nature and female friendship are products of a time when one of the careers open to women was perpetual childhood." Dickinson's sentimental feminine poems remain neglected by embarrassed scholars. I would maintain, however, that her poetry is a closed system of sexual reference and that the mawkish poems are designed to dovetail with those of violence and suffering.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 637

Women, Friendship, Nature, Suffering

“Since to raise up and comfort in distress
Whom Fortune's wheel beats down in changeful run,
Was never blamed; with glory oftener paid.”

Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso

Che rilevare un che Fortuna ruote
Talora al fondo, e consolar l'afflitto,
Mai non fu biasmo, ma gloria sovente.
Canto X, stanza 14 (tr. W. S. Rose)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

Change

“You are greatly mistaken. We have this country absolutely under our control. I have no desire to shift the blame onto our underlings and I am entirely willing to accept the responsibility myself for everything that has taken place.”

İsmail Enver (1881–1922) Turkish military officer and a leader of the Young Turk revolution

In reply to US Ambassador Morgenthau who was deploring the massacres against Armenians and attributing them to irresponsible subalterns and underlings in the distant provinces. Quoted in "The burning Tigris: the Armenian genocide and America's response" - Page 374 - by Peter Balakian - History - 2003.

Country

“Our culture peculiarly honors the act of blaming, which it takes as the sign of virtue and intellect.”

Lionel Trilling book The Liberal Imagination

F. Scott Fitzgerald http://fitzgerald.narod.ru/critics-eng/trilling-fsf.html The Liberal Imagination (1950)

“Take responsibility for your own happiness, rather than claiming telepathy you don’t have (unless you are telepathic) or ascribing to others ugly thoughts you can’t verify, and aiming endless, nonspecific blame for your mediocrity at the Trilateral Commission, “the media,” SKULL, the RAND Corporation, the long-disbanded Treemasons, the MAN, the Black Helicopter Legion, or the perennial favorite of paranoiacs, “Them.””

Malcolm Azania book From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain

Source: From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (2007), Chapter 5 “Limited Series” (p. 151)

Happiness

“There were times in my life when I couldn't feel much, not sadness or pity or passion, and somehow I blamed this place for what I had become, and I blamed it for taking away the person I had once been.”

Tim O'Brien book The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried (1990), Field Trip

Life, Sadness, Feeling, Passion

“Sane judgment abhors nothing so much as a picture perpetrated with no technical knowledge, although with plenty of care and diligence. Now the sole reason why painters of this sort are not aware of their own error is that they have not learnt Geometry, without which no one can either be or become an absolute artist; but the blame for this should be laid upon their masters, who are themselves ignorant of this art.”

Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) German painter, printmaker, mathematician, and theorist

The Art of Measurement (1525).

Art, Error, Knowledge

“We suffer as a result of our own actions; it is unfair to blame anybody for it.”

Sarada Devi (1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna

[Swami Saradeshananda, The Holy Mother's Reminiscences, Vedanta Kesari, 1976-1981]

Suffering

“Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation's troubles and use as a justification of its own demands for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen.”

Ayn Rand book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)

People, Country

“The atrocities are, for me, the most horrible part of the accusation in this trial. They thought that I took it lightly or laughed about it or some such nonsense, in court. That is definitely a mistake. I am the type of person who is naturally against such things and my own psychological reaction is to laugh or smile in the face of adversity. Perhaps that explains my attitude in court. Besides, I was not to blame for these horrors. It's not just that I am a hard man because of my long experience in the army and in politics. It's true that I saw plenty in the First World War and during the air raids and at the front in this war. But I was always a person who felt the suffering of others. To paint me as an unfeeling ogre who laughs in court at the atrocities is stupid.”

Hermann Göring (1893–1946) German politician and military leader

To Leon Goldensohn (24 May 1946)
The Nuremberg Interviews (2004)

War, Stupidity, World, Smile

“I haven't got a clue about how much I weigh. I do not own any scales. And I have noticed it creates an anger in people who are not skinny. People like to blame their insecurities on other people.”

Keira Knightley (1985) British actress

Source: Interview in Allure magazine (October 2007)

People, Anger

“Any hound a porcupine nudges
Can't be blamed for harboring grudges.
I know one hound that laughed all winter
At a porcupine that sat on a splinter.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

"The Porcupine" http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-porcupine/

Winter

“Anytime there is a problem in a relationship, you should first see it as your own fault. Even if others are to blame, you will only add to the problem by considering them to be at fault.”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Lectures

Problem

“The object of this volume is not to cast fresh blame on authorities and individuals, nor is it to expose one nation more than another to accusations of deceit.”

Arthur Ponsonby (1871–1946) British Liberal and later Labour politician and pacifist

First lines of the introduction.
Falsehood in Wartime (1928), Introduction

“Isn't it sad? In our world, women also don't support other women enough — how often do we really work together to make a difference? We are sometimes so vicious toward one another. We want to be independent women, but we really don't know who we are as women. It's about us taking control, because we tend to just blame. We complain about the world, but we are still not loving toward other women.”

Salma Hayek (1966) Mexican-American actress and producer

O interview (2003)

Love, Women, World, Sadness

“Any party which takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought.”

Dwight Morrow (1873–1931) American politician

Quoted in Outlook and Independent, Vol. 156 (1930), p. 289. Ascribed to an October 1930 speech in The Encarta Book of Quotations (2000), p. 672

“You have yourself to blame.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (1990), p. 63

“And it's bad news, I don't blame you
I do the same thing, I get lonely too
And you're bad news, my friends tell me to leave you
That you're bad news…”

Jenny Lewis (1976) American actor, singer-songwriter

"Portions for Foxes"
Song lyrics, More Adventurous (2004)

“Your waistline may be spreading but you can't blame it on the expansion of the universe.”

Richard H. Price (1943) American physicist

as quoted by Zeeya Merali in Cosmic expansion is not to blame for expanding waistlines http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18825194.800-cosmic-expansion-is-not-to-blame-for-expanding-waistlines.html, New Scientist, 1 October 2005.

Universe

“"Fools rush where Angels fear to tread!" Angels and Fools have equal claim
To do what Nature bids them do, sans hope of praise, sans fear of blame!”

Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, lin…

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

Fear, Hope, Fools, Angels

“He who must be what he is, may curse his fate, but cannot change it; on the other hand, he who can transform himself has no one in the world but himself to blame for his failings, no one but himself to hold responsible for his dissatisfaction.”

Stanisław Lem book The Cyberiad

In "Tale of the Three Storytelling Machines of King Genius", §3
The Cyberiad (1967)

Fate, World, Change

“You want to talk about rape? That's— that's media rape right there. You said you would not do that! Since when does your no mean yes? Do you know the definition of no, sir? You've just raped Bill Cosby. You said you wouldn't do it. You just did it. And then you blamed it on him. My gosh, maybe we should have a lesson on rape.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2014-11-20
Radio, quoted in [2014-11-20, Glenn Beck: AP reporter ‘just raped Bill Cosby’ by asking him about alleged rapes, David Edwards, The Raw Story, http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/glenn-beck-ap-reporter-just-raped-bill-cosby-by-asking-him-about-alleged-rapes/, 2014-11-24]
Regarding clip from a interview where Bill Cosby refused to comment on the multiple rape allegations against him, and Cosby requesting that footage of AP reporter Brett Zongker asking him about it be "scuttled".
2010s, 2014

“When a pile of cups is tottering on the edge of the table and you warn that they will crash to the ground, in South Africa you are blamed when that happens.”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

As quoted in The New York Times (3 January 1985)

“I think every conscious person, every person who is awake to the functioning principles within his reality, has a moment where he stops blaming the problems in the world on group think, on humanity and authority, and starts to face himself. I hate this more than anything. This is the hardest principle within Christian spirituality for me to deal with. The problem is not out there; the problem is the needy beast of a thing that lives in my chest.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Hate, World, Problem, Thinking

“Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Usenet signatures

Faith, Failure, Study

“Opinion is steadily inclining towards making the division of labor an imperative rule of conduct, to present it as a duty. Those who shun it are not punished precise penalty fixed by law, it is true; but they are blamed. The time has passed when the perfect man was he who appeared interested in everything without attaching himself exclusively to anything, capable of tasting and understanding everything finding means to unite and condense in himself all that was most exquisite in civilization. … We want activity, instead of spreading itself over a large area, to concentrate and gain in intensity what it loses in extent. We distrust those excessively mobile talents that lend themselves equally to all uses, refusing to choose a special role and keep to it. We disapprove of those men whose unique care is to organize and develop all their faculties, but without making any definite use of them, and without sacrificing any of them, as if each man were sufficient unto himself, and constituted an independent world. It seems to us that this state of detachment and indetermination has something anti-social about it. The praiseworthy man of former times is only a dilettante to us, and we refuse to give dilettantism any moral value; we rather see perfection in the man seeking, not to be complete, but to produce; who has a restricted task, and devotes himself to it; who does his duty, accomplishes his work. “To perfect oneself,” said Secrétan, “is to learn one's role, to become capable of fulfilling one's function... The measure of our perfection is no longer found in our complacence with ourselves, in the applause of a crowd, or in the approving smile of an affected dilettantism, but in the sum of given services and in our capacity to give more.””

Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) French sociologist (1858-1917)

[Le principe de la morale, p. 189] … We no longer think that the exclusive duty of man is to realize in himself the qualities of man in general; but we believe he must have those pertaining to his function. … The categorical imperative of the moral conscience is assuming the following form: Make yourself usefully fulfill a determinate function.
Source: The Division of Labor in Society (1893), pp. 42-43.

Men, World, Law, Penalty

“In fact, the only person to rival Friedman for policy influence in the twentieth century is John Maynard Keynes, who had a strikingly different view of the role of government. Keynes was influential because he advocated more government intervention into what he perceived as poorly functioning private economies caught up in the Great Depression. In contrast to Keynes, Friedman put the main blame for the Depression on government failures, especially of monetary policy. Hence, the Depression did not make Friedman a fan of big government. He also found in the Federal Reserve’s failure to prevent deflation an argument in favor of monetary rules. As the world evolved— with low inflation becoming the major mission of central banks and free markets and secure property rights becoming the main policies to promote economic growth—Friedman surely won the intellectual battle.”

Robert Barro (1944) American classical macroeconomist

Source: Nothing Is Sacred (2002), p. 2

World, Failure, Personality

“Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such,
We scarcely can praise it, or blame it too much;
Who, born for the universe, narrow'd his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind;
Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat
To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote.
Who too deep for his hearers still went on refining,
And thought of convincing while they thought of dining:
Though equal to all things, for all things unfit;
Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit.”

Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) Irish physician and writer

Source: Retaliation (1774), Line 29.

Learning, Universe

“It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height.
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may take something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

"Take Something Like a Star" (1949)
1940s

Star, Time

“This view that the action of the Federal Reserve authorities in 1927 was responsible for the speculation and collapse which followed has never been seriously shaken. There are reasons why it is attractive. It is simple, and it exonerates both the American people and the economic system from substantial blame… Yet the explanation obviously assumes that people will always speculate if only they can get the money to finance it. Nothing could be farther from the case. There were times before and there has been long periods since when credit was plentiful and cheap -- far cheaper than in 1927-29 -- and when speculation was negligible. Nor was speculation out of control after 1927, except that it was beyond the reach of men who did not want in the least to control it. The explanation is a tribute only to a recurrent preference, in economic matters, for formidable nonsense.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Great Crash, 1929

Source: The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929), Chapter I, "Vision and Boundless Hope and Optimism" p. 10

Men, Money, People, Time

“It was relatively easy, we now realize, to categorize countries and nations. You knew who your enemies were and whom you could count on as collaborators and friends. And even more importantly, you had ready-made scapegoats to take the blame when things were going wrong.”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

Speech entitled Freedom and Tolerance (June 1995), Cape Town Press Club

Country

“Trump owes less to Willkie’s tradition than to Benito Mussolini’s, and not only because of the superficial: Trump’s chin-out toughness, sweeping right-hand gestures and talk of his “huge” successes and his “stupid” opponents all evoke the Italian dictator’s style. Monday’s breathtaking announcement that he would block all Muslims from entering the United States has many pointing out the obvious fascist overtones… Trump uses many of the fascist’s tools: a contempt for facts, spreading a pervasive sense of fear and overwhelming crisis, portraying his backers as victims, assigning blame to foreign or alien actors and suggesting only his powerful personality can transcend the crisis. He endorsed the violence done to a dissenter at one of his rallies, and he now floats the idea of making entry to the United States contingent on religion.”

Dana Milbank (1968) American journalist

Donald Trump, America’s modern Mussolini https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-isnt-todays-wendell-willkie-hes-todays-benito-mussolini/2015/12/08/77c81b0c-9ddc-11e5-a3c5-c77f2cc5a43c_story.html, The Washington Post. (8 December 2015)

Stupidity, Fear, Religion, Idea

““Can you really kill the Goddess?” Jane asked.
“You stupid gobbet of flesh! Don’t you understand yet? There is no Goddess.”
“No,” Jane cried. “You said yourself—”
“I lied,” the dragon said with a fearful complacency. “Everyone you have ever met has lied to you. Life exists, and all who live are born to suffer. The best moments are fleeting and bought with the coin of exquisite torment. All attachments end. All loved ones die. All that you value passes away. In such a vexatious existence laughter is madness and joy is folly. Shall we accept that it all happens for no reason, with no cause? That there is nobody to blame but ourselves but that accepting the responsibility is pointless for doing so cannot ease, defer, or deaden the pain? Not likely! It is so much more comforting to erect a straw figure on which to blame it all.
“Some bow down before the Goddess and others curse her every name. There is not a fart’s difference between the two approaches. They cling to the fiction of the Goddess because admitting the alternative is unbearable.””

Michael Swanwick book The Iron Dragon's Daughter

Source: The Iron Dragon's Daughter (1993), Chapter 19 (pp. 339-340)

Love, Life, Pain, Stupidity

“Who takes the blame: the leader who talks of poverty but lives in luxury, or the poor who choose a leader of that type?”

Goparaju Ramachandra Rao (1902–1975) Indian activist

I Learn

“Then it will matter little how much both liberals and conservatives rail against “stupid” and “crazy” voters. Nor will they have Donald Trump to kick around any more. In the end, they will have no one to blame but themselves.”

John Feffer (1963) American foreign policy writer

Trumpism is here to stay: America’s neo-fascist fever dream has only just begun (2016)

Stupidity

“The study's leaders claim to have bona fide research — I say "bonified" probably here — bonified research that says the average size of a penis is roughly 10% smaller than it was 50 years ago, and the researchers say air pollution is why. Air pollution, global warming has been shown to negatively impact penis size, Italian researchers. I don't buy this, I think it's feminism. If it's tied to the last 50 years — the average size of a member is 10 percent smaller than 50 years — it has to be the feminazis, the chickification and everything else. Give 'em time and they'll blame Bush. Give 'em time. But air pollution vs. feminazis? Ha!”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

The Rush Limbaugh Show
2012-09-20
Radio, quoted in [2012-09-20, Limbaugh: Penises Now '10 Percent Smaller' and Shrinking Because of 'Feminazis', David, Crooks and Liars, http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/limbaugh-penises-now-10-percent-smaller-and-]

Thinking, Study, Time

“They [French critics of the Paris Salon of 1824, where his painting 'the Hay Wain' received a gold medal] are very amusing and acute — but very shallow and feeble. Thus one — after saying: "'it is but justice to admire the truth — 'the color' — and 'general vivacity' & richness —" – yet they want the objects more formed and defined &c, and say they are like the rich preludes in musick, and the full harmonious warblings of the Aeolian lyre, which means 'nothing,' and they call them orations — and harangues — and high-flown conversations affecting a careless ease — &c &v &c - Is not some of this 'blame' the highest 'praise' – what is poetry?”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

What is Coleridge's Ancient Mariner (the very best modern poem) but something like this?
Quote from John Constable's letter to Rev. John Fisher, 1824, as quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable, (Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993), p. 205
1820s

Truth, Justice, Color, Painting

“He’s vain. His vanity’s hurt by the world’s refusal to accept his remedies and become immediately Enlightened. And what does a vain man do when insulted, Sir?”…“He lashes out, Sir,” says I. “He seeks to portion blame. He fumes, Sir. He attacks. In the case before us, such is his despotic power, he kills. He kills, Sir. He wars on other nations. Mary’s blood, Sir, but this poor sphere of ours suffers more from the single, frustrated egoist than from any natural—or supernatural—misery. Your own Church’s history, Sir, illustrates my point well enough, eh? We are too frequently in the power of mad children, who rage and stamp and break Kingdoms as they break toys. They order thousands of deaths a day as if they were spoiled brats kicking at their dolls!”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Source: The von Bek family, The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 2 (pp. 197-198; ellipsis represents a minor elision of description)

Death, War, Children, World

“As we be punished here with sorrow and penance, we shall be rewarded in heaven by the courteous love of our Lord God Almighty, who willeth that none that come there lose his travail in any degree. For He holdeth sin as sorrow and pain to His lovers, to whom He assigneth no blame, for love. The meed that we shall receive shall not be little, but it shall be high, glorious, and worshipful. And so shall shame be turned to worship and more joy.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 39

Love, God, Pain, Lovers

“I blame society for Zack Snyder's career.”

Johannes Grenzfurthner (1975) Austrian artist, writer, curator, and theatre and film director

Twitter message https://twitter.com/johannes_mono/status/760987487368048641

“My aim was to create armaments to protect the borders of my motherland. It is not my fault that the Kalashnikov became very well-known in the world; that it was used in many troubled places. I think the policies of these countries are to blame, not the designers. Man is born to protect his family, his children, his wife. But I want you to know that apart from armaments, I have written three books in which I try to educate our youth to show respect for their families, for old people, for history.”

Mikhail Kalashnikov (1919–2013) Soviet and Russian small arms designer

For Patriotism and Profit (2001)

Children, People, Books, Youth

“In Romanticism, unlike the Renaissance, Amazons retain their power. Rousseau wants it both ways. Idolizing women is natural and right, a cosmic law. On the other hand, male recessiveness is blamed on female coercion. Either way, sadomasochistic dominance and submission are inherent in Rousseausism from the start.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 232

Women, Law, Way, Nature

“You are lucky, that Modi is not here [in Chennai]. Otherwise they will blame you also. Otherwise they will blame the people of Tamil Nadu are not good, that they have, they are going to listen [to] Mr. Modi!”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

2008, Speech, 14 January 2008

People

“A prisoner mentality is anything that blames anything outside of you for the pain you have.”

Guy Finley (1949) American self-help writer, philosopher, and spiritual teacher, and former professional songwriter and musician

Secrets of Being Unstoppable

Pain

“Be careful not to blame yourself if someone rejects Christ. If you do, you might be tempted to take credit when someone accepts him.”

Craig Groeschel (1967) American priest

It – How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It (2008, Zondervan)

Christ

“VII. Let me call your attention to the recent tragedy in New Orleans, whereof the facts are obtained entirely through Pro-Slavery channels. A considerable body of resolute, able-bodied men, held in Slavery by two Rebel sugar-planters in defiance of the Confiscation Act which you have approved, left plantations thirty miles distant and made their way to the great mart of the South-West, which they knew to be the indisputed possession of the Union forces. They made their way safely and quietly through thirty miles of Rebel territory, expecting to find freedom under the protection of our flag. Whether they had or had not heard of the passage of the Confiscation Act, they reasoned logically that we could not kill them for deserting the service of their lifelong oppressors, who had through treason become our implacable enemies. They came to us for liberty and protection, for which they were willing render their best service: they met with hostility, captivity, and murder. The barking of the base curs of Slavery in this quarter deceives no one--not even themselves. They say, indeed, that the negroes had no right to appear in New Orleans armed (with their implements of daily labor in the cane-field); but no one doubts that they would gladly have laid these down if assured that they should be free. They were set upon and maimed, captured and killed, because they sought the benefit of that act of Congress which they may not specifically have heard of, but which was none the less the law of the land which they had a clear right to the benefit of--which it was somebody's duty to publish far and wide, in order that so many as possible should be impelled to desist from serving Rebels and the Rebellion and come over to the side of the Union, They sought their liberty in strict accordance with the law of the land--they were butchered or re-enslaved for so doing by the help of Union soldiers enlisted to fight against slaveholding Treason. It was somebody's fault that they were so murdered--if others shall hereafter stuffer in like manner, in default of explicit and public directions to your generals that they are to recognize and obey the Confiscation Act, the world will lay the blame on you. Whether you will choose to hear it through future History and 'at the bar of God, I will not judge. I can only hope.”

Horace Greeley (1811–1872) American politician and publisher

1860s, The Prayer of the Twenty Millions (1862)

Men, God, Hostility, World

“I begin to get a little acquainted with my own strength and weakness. Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Letter to James Hessey (October 9, 1818)
Letters (1817–1820)

Love, Beauty

“We…would nevertheless make it clear that entirely independent political structures are impossible here [in the Baltic]…They cannot lead an isolated existence between the colossi of West and East. We hope that they will seek and find this support with us. The German occupation will have to continue for a long time, lest the anarchy we have just been combating should arise again. We shall have to safeguard the position of the Germans, a position consistent with their economic and cultural achievements…Herr Scheiddemann, said that we have made ourselves new enemies in the world through our push in the East…Had we continued the negotiations, we should still be sitting with Herr Trotski in Brest Litovsk. As it is, the advance has brought us peace in a few days and I think we should recognise this and not delude ourselves, particularly as regards the East, that if by resolutions made here in the Reichstag or through our Government's acceptance of the entirely welcome initiative of His Holiness the Pope, we had agreed to a peace without indemnities and annexations, we should have had peace in the East. In view of our situation as a whole, I should regard a fresh peace offer as an evil. My chief objection is against the detachment of the Belgian question from the whole complex of the question of peace. It is precisely if Belgium is not to be annexed that Belgium is the best dead pledge we hold, notably as regards England. The restoration of Belgium before we conclude peace with England seems to me an utter political and diplomatic impossibility…There is a great difference between the first set of terms at Brest-Litovsk and the ultimatum that we have now presented, and the blame for this change rests with those who refused to come to an agreement with Germany and who, consequently, must now feel her power. We are just as free to choose between understanding and the exploitation of victory in the case of the West, and I hope that these eight or fourteen days that have elapsed between the first set of peace terms in Brest-Litovsk and the second set, may also have an educational effect in that direction.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Speech in the Reichstag (25 February 1918), quoted in W. M. Knight-Patterson, Germany. From Defeat to Conquest 1913-1933 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1945), pp. 159-160
1910s

World, Education, Peace, Hope

“It was an act of madness. We killed each other and destroyed each other's property. It was wrong and both sides were to blame. We have had a difference, a quarrel. We engaged ourselves in a reckless and unprincipled fight.”

Robert Mugabe (1924–2019) former President of Zimbabwe

Remarks at a memorial for Joshua Nkomo (2 July 2000), referring to the Gukurahundi massacres. Quoted in Mugabe: Power, Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe's Future (2009) by Martin Meredith
2000s, 2000-2004

Fight, Madness

“I have frequently had men describe the following scenario to me: "If at the beginning of a relationship, I keep the woman at a distance and don't want to get too close, she feels that I am pushing her away and that I am not making a commitment—that I am afraid to be intimate. When I finally let down my guard and try to be intimate and close, when I really make myself vulnerable and give up control, which is uncomfortable for me, then I feel really inadequate. She blames me for things that she never blamed me for when I kept my distance. When I start to get close, that's when I am accused of saying the wrong thing or trying to control her. So I am better off staying at a distance and letting her complain about a lack of intimacy."Stewart, age thirty-six, described it this way: "Maryann was liberated on the surface, but the undertow was very different. I would find out a couple of evenings after I had been with her that she was very angry and I wouldn't even know that I had done something wrong. She would be angry because she said I wasn't really involved enough. I didn't care enough about her. The irony is that the women in my life whom I've made the greatest effort to get close to are the ones who always wind up saying they are angry because I wasn't getting close. When I made no effort to get close and really kept my distance, I never got any complaints. The moment I felt I was really opening myself up to be intimate, that was when I was found to be failing. That is the double bind for me."Another such truth was experienced by Alex. He said, "If you keep the control, the distance, then the woman is kept insecure; and so long as she is insecure about the relationship, she will be less inclined to attack. If she's interested in you, but you keep her at a distance, she will be careful about attacking you. She won't criticize you because she's afraid of you. The moment you cross the barrier and actually start to get committed, you find that she begins to feel that you are inadequate as a partner. You know then and there that you are never going to be able to satisfy her."I found this to be true sexually. At the times when I personally thought I was the most sensitive and the most involved and caring as a lover, I would find out often that I was a failure. At the times when I allowed myself to be totally selfish, without apology and didn't give one thought to what the woman experienced, I never got any complaints. I was never told I was selfish as a lover. In fact, I was often told that I was wonderful."”

Herb Goldberg (1937–2019) American psychologist

Why men and women can't talk to each other: the hidden unconscious messages of gender, pp. 39–40
The Inner Male (1987)

Life, Women, Men, Truth

““Do your neighbors burn one another alive?” was how Fraa Orolo began his conversation with Artisan Flec.
“Do your shamans walk around on stilts?” Fraa Orolo asked, reading from a leaf that, judging by its brownness, was at least five centuries old. Then he looked up and added helpfully, “You might call them pastors or witch doctors.”
“When a child gets sick, do you pray? Sacrifice to a painted stick? Or blame it on an old lady?”
“Do you fancy you will see your dead dogs and cats in some sort of afterlife?””

Neal Stephenson book Anathem

Part 1, Provener; The questionnaire, in use for 1,100 years, is used once every ten years to determine if civilization outside the monastic compound is beginning to regress.
Anathem (2008)

Dogs, Cats, Reading, Painting

“Disordered nerves are the origin of much religious despair, when the individual does not suspect it; and then the body and mind have a reciprocal influence upon each other, and it is difficult to tell which influences the other most. The physician is often blamed, when the fault lies with the minister. Depression never benefits body or soul. We are saved by hope.”

Ichabod Spencer (1798–1854) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 191.

Hope, Soul, Despair

“Life-affirming people are a bit creepy and self-consciously life-affirming art is usually awful.
My books tend to have happy endings, or at least that’s one way of reading them. My characters are exuberant and funny as well as dark. Duality is the essence of my voice so it’s appropriate for me to have an evil twin to blame things on.”

Carole Morin British writer

Chin Wag At The Slaughterhouse (2013)

Life, Happiness, People, Books

“The caretaker was crucified for sleeping at his post
They're refusing to be pacified, it's him they blame the most.
The watchdog's got rabies, the foreman's got the fleas.
And everyone's concerned about Industrial Disease.
There's panic on the switchboard, tongues are tied in knots.
Some come out in sympathy, some come out in spots.
Some blame the management, some blame the employees.
And everybody knows it's the Industrial Disease.”

Mark Knopfler (1949) English guitarist

Industrial Disease
Song lyrics, Love over Gold (1982)

Disease, Sleep

“Everybody blames the Jews for killing Christ, and then the Jews try to pass it off on the Romans. I'm one of the few people that believe it was the blacks.”

Sarah Silverman (1970) American comedian and actress

The New Yorker (24 October 2005)

People, Christ

“There is a great Man living in this country — a composer. He has solved the problem how to preserve one's self and to learn. He responds to negligence by contempt. He is not forced to accept praise or blame. His name is Ives.”

Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) Austrian-American composer

Note of 1944; as quoted in the Charles Ives profile at Decca Classics http://www.deccaclassics.com/music/composers/ives.html 1940s

Problem, Learning, Country

““You didn’t do any of these things because they were necessarily good unto themselves, but because you saw them as means to shape events to serve your own ends. The entire legacy of the Matriarch is the exploitation of others like pieces in some great game.”
She laughed in his face. “You can see it that way if you like. The weak usually do, if they see it at all. But you disappoint me. Despite your study of history, you fail to understand power. It’s obvious you never will… There’s really only one choice you ever have to make in any act of creation. Will you be the instrument or the artist? If you’re only now coming to realize that you’ve been a tool all your life, there’s no one to blame for it but yourself. If you don’t like that state of affairs, then act! Impose your will upon the world and walk your own path. If you don’t, you’ll just end up being a token in someone else’s game; you’ll continue to be used as they see fit. That’s how the universe works. You don’t have to like it, but you’d do well to get used to it.”…
“No, maybe that’s the way the world looks once you’ve already decided to take your path. Or maybe it’s just you’re so jaded, or you’ve bought into your own delusions. I don’t know which, and I don’t care. Those aren’t the only choices: use of be used. There is more than being tyrant or servant. I reject both options and I reject you. You’ve been dead for centuries, Margda, it’s about time you accepted that.””

Lawrence M. Schoen (1959) American writer and klingonist

Source: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard (2015), Chapter 38, “Loose Ends” (pp. 362-363; ellipses represent elisions of descriptive sections)

Life, World, Disappointment, Way

“My loneliness was born when men praised my talkative faults and blamed my silent virtues.”

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer

Sand and Foam (1926)

Men, Loneliness

“"Leaves, some the wind scatters on the ground—So is the race of man." Leaves, also, are thy children; and leaves, too, are they who cry out so if they are worthy of credit, or bestow their praise, or on the contrary curse, or secretly blame and sneer; and leaves, in like manner, are those who shall receive and transmit a man's fame to after-times. For all such things as these "are produced in the season of spring," as the poet says; then the wind casts them down; then the forest produces other leaves in their places. But a brief existence is common to all things, and yet thou avoidest and pursuest all things as if they would be eternal.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

X, 34
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book X

Children, Spring, Time, Cry

“"Most so-called liberated people that I know are full of it," remarked a caustic, albeit articulate, businessman attending a seminar I gave on emerging male/female relationships. "The feminist leadership is a good example. They have the worst qualities of both men and women. They have all the answers and nothing you can say ever changes their mind. Then, from what I read, one turns on and attacks the other—supposedly for ideological reasons, but it's just a variation on the old-fashioned male ritual of ego-tripping—'I'm for real, you're not—I'm the greatest, you're nothing.'"It's a real cast of characters, these feminist leaders," he continued. "There's the glamor queen one who's trying to be a movie star without copping to what she's doing. It's obvious, though. She's always being seen with celebrities and she's always dating the richest, most successful guys. Then there's the other one who's like a Jewish mother—complaining and telling everybody how to change, and how to live. I'm surprised she doesn't try and tell us what to eat."I looked through their magazine recently. It's full of the same kind of ads as the other women's magazines that Ms. supposedly abhors. You know, jewelry, deodorants, perfumes—and the articles are mainly old-fashioned victim variety stuff, an updated variation on the old "poor downtrodden women" theme."The 'liberated' guys they hold up as shining examples of what men should behave like are just as phony as the feminist women pretending to be so pure. They're workaholics, and they're the worst kind of arrogant—because God is on their side and unless you imitate them, you're a misguided pig. It feels like being at a church social when you watch them—at least as hypocritical, if not more so—because at least church types don't pretend to be open to discussing their beliefs. They're out front in thinking that they have all the answers."When what's-her-name ran for vice-president and lost, what did she do—she blamed the male establishment. God save us from female leadership! They can't stop blaming—even at that level. I thought of reminding her that this country has at least ten million more women than men and the odds were totally on her side and it was women who rejected her, and saw through her act; but I know better than to argue against that stuff with facts."”

Herb Goldberg (1937–2019) American psychologist

Earth Mothers in Disguise, p. 149
The Inner Male (1987)

Women, Men, God, People

“The Muslim religion is so unreformed since it was created that nowhere in the Muslim world has there been any real advance in science, or art or literature, or technology in the last 500 years…we've leapt ahead in all material terms, but the Muslim world would say we have fallen down in all spiritual and moral terms. We have to accept our share of the blame and they have to accept theirs.”

Norman Tebbit (1931) English politician

http://www.epolitix.com/EN/Interviews/200508/88b20915-9848-4644-8f17-97ca62e4e341.htm

World, Religion, Art, Literature

“Though it would be unfair to blame all on him, there is no escaping the fact that President Barack Obama has been an exceptionally divisive figure. Failing to find formulae for working with a hostile Congress he has tried to circumvent the legislature whenever possible, adding fuel to the fire of division. He leaves behind a deeply divided government. By turning his power base into a coalition of racial, ethnic and religious minorities, Obama has pushed the majority towards radical messages they had shunned for generations. He leaves behind a divided society. Today, even the two main parties, Democrat and Republican, are split with surprising reversals of alliances within each. He leaves behind a divided establishment.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Opinion: Clinton or Trump – Better or Less Bad? http://english.aawsat.com/2016/11/article55361471/opinion-clinton-trump-better-less-bad, Ashraq Al-Awsat (November 4, 2016)

Hostility

“And so, reaching futilely for answers, they blame the trees!”

Why the lucky stiff American computer programmer

Collected PDFs (2013)

Tree

“We can bear that. for the sake of our country, are you blaming us for loving our country or what?”

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (1954) Current President of Egypt

Remarks by el-Sisi during a military conference (28 April 2013) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC93fn9s3-c. 2013

Love, Country

“I wanted to make my life short, and I was at a party in Toppers' Hose, and the coincidence was too much. It was like a message from God. OK, it was disappointing that all God had to say to me was, like, Jump off a roof, but I didn't blame him. What else was he supposed to tell me?”

Nick Hornby book A Long Way Down

A Long Way Down (2005)

Life, God, Disappointment

“I want make sure that our products are used for good. At the end of the day, other people blaming us or not is actually not the thing that matters to me. It’s not that every single thing that happens on Facebook is gonna be good. This is humanity. People use tools for good and bad, but I think that we have a clear responsibility to make sure that the good is amplified and to do everything we can to mitigate the bad.”

Mark Zuckerberg (1984) American internet entrepreneur

In an interview with Kara Swisher as quoted in Zuckerberg: The Recode interview https://www.recode.net/2018/7/18/17575156/mark-zuckerberg-interview-facebook-recode-kara-swisher (July 18, 2018), Recode.

People, Thinking

“We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. None else has the blame, none has the praise.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Fate

“I will dispense for now from discussion of the moral character of the president's Charlottesville statements. Whether he intended to or not, what he communicated caused racists to rejoice, minorities to weep, and the vast heart of America to mourn. His apologists strain to explain that he didn't mean what we heard. But what we heard is now the reality, and unless it is addressed by the president as such, with unprecedented candor and strength, there may commence an unraveling of our national fabric.The leaders of our branches of military service have spoken immediately and forcefully, repudiating the implications of the president's words. Why? In part because the morale and commitment of our forces-made up and sustained by men and women of all races--could be in the balance. Our allies around the world are stunned and our enemies celebrate; America's ability to help secure a peaceful and prosperous world is diminished. And who would want to come to the aid of a country they perceive as racist if ever the need were to arise, as it did after 9/11?In homes across the nation, children are asking their parents what this means. Jews, blacks, Hispanics, Muslims are as much a part of America as whites and Protestants. But today they wonder. Where might this lead? To bitterness and tears, or perhaps to anger and violence?The potential consequences are severe in the extreme. Accordingly, the president must take remedial action in the extreme. He should address the American people, acknowledge that he was wrong, apologize. State forcefully and unequivocally that racists are 100% to blame for the murder and violence in Charlottesville. Testify that there is no conceivable comparison or moral equivalency between the Nazis--who brutally murdered millions of Jews and who hundreds of thousands of Americans gave their lives to defeat--and the counter-protestors who were outraged to see fools parading the Nazi flag, Nazi armband and Nazi salute. And once and for all, he must definitively repudiate the support of David Duke and his ilk and call for every American to banish racists and haters from any and every association.This is a defining moment for President Trump. But much more than that, it is a moment that will define America in the hearts of our children. They are watching, our soldiers are watching, the world is watching. Mr. President, act now for the good of the country.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Facebook statement https://www.facebook.com/mittromney/posts/10154652303536121 (18 August 2017) 2017

Women, Men, Children, People

Quotes about blame page 5

Quotes about blame
page 5