Quotes about break (2383 quotes, page 23)

“Citizens, did you want a revolution without a revolution? What is this spirit of persecution that has come to revise, so to speak, the one that broke our chains? But what sure judgement can one make of the effects that can follow these great commotions? Who can mark, after the event, the exact point at which the waves of popular insurrection should break? At that price, what people could ever have shaken off the yoke of despotism? For while it is true that a great nation cannot rise in a simultaneous movement, and that tyranny can only be hit by the portion of citizens that is closest to it, how would these ever dare to attack it if, after the victory, delegates from remote parts could hold them responsible for the duration or violence of the political torment that had saved the homeland? They ought to be regarded as justified by tacit proxy for the whole of society. The French, friends of liberty, meeting in Paris last August, acted in that role, in the name of all the departments. They should either be approved or repudiated entirely. To make them criminally responsible for a few apparent or real disorders, inseparable from so great a shock, would be to punish them for their devotion.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Citoyens, vouliez-vous une révolution sans révolution?
"Answer to Louvet's Accusation" (5 November 1792) Réponse à J.- B. Louvet http://www.royet.org/nea1789-1794/archives/discours/robespierre_reponse_louvet.htm, a speech to the National Convention (5 November 1792)

Victory , People , Parting , Making love

“The home office hates vigilantes in Lycra fancy-dress outfits almost as much as they hate lawbreakers. You see, superheroes don’t follow the rules of evidence. They take procedural shortcuts, assault criminals, mess up crime scenes, and generally make it almost impossible to secure a conviction. Not to mention committing a basketload of offenses in their own right: aggravated trespass, assault, violating controlled airspace and flying without a license, breaking and entering, criminal damage...”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Annihilation Score (2015), Chapter 4, “Briefings” (p. 63)

Home , Making love , Hate , Flying

“I hate that it breaks down that way. Your side and mine. One of my teachers back in school always used to say that contagion was the one absolute proof of community. People could pretend there weren’t drug users and prostitutes and unvaccinated children all they wanted, but when the plague came through, all that mattered was who was actually breathing your air.”

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

Source: Cibola Burn (2014), Chapter 27 (p. 277)

School , Hate , Children , People

“This evolution toward noise-sound is only possible today. The ear of an eighteenth century man never could have withstood the discordant intensity of some of the chords produced by our orchestras (whose performers are three times as numerous); on the other hand our ears rejoice in it, for they are attuned to modern life, rich in all sorts of noises. But our ears far from being satisfied, keep asking for bigger acoustic sensations. However, musical sound is too restricted in the variety and the quality of its tones. Music marks time in this small circle and vainly tries to create a new variety of tones... We must break at all cost from this restrictive circle of pure sounds and conquer the infinite variety of noise-sounds.”

Luigi Russolo (1885–1947) Electronic music pioneer and Futurist painter

Source: 1910's, The Art of Noise', 1913, p. 6

Music , Life , Time

“Because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour. Those same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition, by which they formerly were inclined to virtue, to shake off and break that bond of servitude, wherein they are so tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeable with the nature of man to long after things forbidden, and to desire what is denied us.”

Francois Rabelais book Gargantua and Pantagruel

Source: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Gargantua (1534), Ch. 57 : How the Thelemites were governed, and of their manner of living; the famous dictum of the abbey of Theleme presented here, "Do what thou wilt" (Fais ce que voudras), evokes an ancient expression by St. Augustine of Hippo: "Love, and do what thou wilt." The expression of Rabelais was later used by the Hellfire Club established by Sir Francis Dashwood, and by Aleister Crowley in his The Book of the Law (1904): "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."

Nature , Men

“As a seasoned developer I have certain quirks, opinions, and common patterns that I fall back on. Having to explain to another person why I am approaching a problem in a particular way is really good for helping me break bad habits and challenge my assumptions, or for providing validation for good problem solving skills.”

Coraline Ada Ehmke technologist, activist, and transgender feminist

Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub https://where.coraline.codes/blog/my-year-at-github/ (July 5, 2017)

Personality , Bad luck , Help , Season

“Destiny so ruled that when I found myself at the helm of this state it already was clear that something was wrong in this country. We had a lot of everything - land, oil and gas, other natural resources - and there was intellect and talent in abundance. However, we were living much worse than people in the industrialized countries were living and we were increasingly lagging behind them. The reason was obvious even then. This country was suffocating in the shackles of the bureaucratic command system. Doomed to cater to ideology, and suffer and carry the onerous burden of the arms race, it found itself at the breaking point.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

1990s, Resignation Address (1991)

Suffering , Country , People , Nature

“It was noon, quite light outside; inside it is not. A few cuts of sun break through the roof and walls but once there they are too weak to shift for themselves. Darkness is stronger and swallows them like minnows.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Beloved (1987)

Light , Sun

“The king seizes the Brahmanas, pollutes their caste and even takes their lives. If a conch-shell is heard to blow in any house, its owner is made to forfeit his wealth, caste and even life. The king plunders the houses of those who wear sacred threads on the shoulder and put scared marks on the forehead, and then binds them. He breaks the temples and uproots tulsi plants… The bathing in Ganga is prohibited and hundreds of scared asvattha and jack trees have been cut down.”

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486–1534) Indian saint

Jayananda: Chaitanya-mañgala, (a biography of the great Vaishnava saint), about the Navadvipa region on the eve of the saint’s birth in 1484 AD. Quoted from Goel, S. R. (2001). The story of Islamic imperialism in India.

Life , Wealth , Tree , Housing

“VERIFY!! VERIFIY THIS ACCOUNT! THE TROLLS ARE BREAKING IN THROUGH THE WINDOWS!! I NEED THE CHECK MARK!! NOW!! NOW!! NOW!!”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/938188434195341313]
Tweets by year, 2017

“Ending the estate tax would give a tax break of up to $63 billion to the Walton family and $39 billion to the Kochs—but $0 to 99.8% of Americans. At a time of record inequality, the very last thing we should do is line the pockets of the rich.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Twitter post https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1090306548243550208 (29 January 2019)
2010s, 2019, January 2019

Family , Time

“At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, when the three richest Americans own more wealth than 160 million Americans, it is literally beyond belief that the Republican leadership wants to provide hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the top 0.2 percent…”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Bernie Sanders Has a Plan to Tax the Rich That’s About As Radical as What Teddy Roosevelt Proposed, by John Nichols, The Nation https://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-progressive-estate-tax-teddy-roosevelt/ (12 February 2019)
2010s, 2019, February 2019

Wealth , Time

“A good deal of education consists of unlearning — the breaking of bad habits, as with a tennis serve. This was emphatically true of a Vassar education: where other colleges aimed at development, bringing out what was already there like a seed waiting to sprout, Vassar remade a girl. Vassar was transformational.”

Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) American writer

Source: How I Grew (1987), Ch. 8

Girl , Education , Bad luck , Waiting

“No plan of centralization has ever been adopted which did not result in bureaucracy, tyranny, inflexibility, reaction, and decline. Of all forms of government, those administered by bureaus are about the least satisfactory to an enlightened and progressive people. Being irresponsible they become autocratic. … Unless bureaucracy is constantly resisted it breaks down representative government and overwhelms democracy. It … sets up the pretense of having authority over everybody and being responsible to nobody. …”

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

1920s, Speech at College of William and Mary (May 15, 1926)

Democracy , People

“Humanity many times has had sad experience of superpowerful police forces…As soon as (the police) slip out from under the firm thumb of a suspicious local tribune, they become arbitrary, merciless, a law unto themselves. They think no more of justice, but only of establishing themselves as a privileged and envied elite. They mistake the attitude of natural caution and uncertainty of the civilian population as admiration and respect, and presently they start to swagger back and forth, jingling their weapons in megalomaniac euphoria. People thereupon become not masters, but servants. Such a police force becomes merely an aggregate of uniformed criminals, the more baneful in that their position is unchallenged and sanctioned by law. The police mentality cannot regard a human being in terms other than as an item or object to be processed as expeditiously as possible. Public convenience or dignity means nothing; police prerogatives assume the status of divine law. Submissiveness is demanded. If a police officer kills a civilian, it is a regrettable circumstance: the officer was possibly overzealous. If a civilian kills a police officer all hell breaks loose. The police foam at the mouth. All other business comes to a standstill until the perpetrator of this most dastardly act is found out. Inevitably, when apprehended, he is beaten or otherwise tortured for his intolerable presumption. The police complain that they cannot function efficiently, that criminals escape them. Better a hundred unchecked criminals than the despotism of one unbridled police force.”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Star King (1964), Chapter 3 (pp. 32-33)

Hell , Time , Justice , Law

“Dare to dream that the dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom.”

Nigel Farage (1964) British politician and former commodity broker

Leave campaign ahead in UK's EU referendum vote https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36612368 BBC News (24 June 2016)
2016

Dreams

“I wrote my first story when I was fifteen, and sent it—to Adventure, I believe. Three years later I managed to break into Weird Tales. Three years of writing without selling a blasted line.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

I never have been able to sell to Adventure; guess my first attempt cooked me with them for ever!
From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (c. July 1933)
Letters

“My mouth shall be the mouth of those calamities that have no mouth, my voice the freedom of those who break down in the prison holes of despair.”

Aimé Césaire (1913–2008) Martiniquais politician

Source: Notebook of a Return to the Native Land (1939), p. 13

Despair , Freedom

“I’m not here to tell you my troubles with the administration or — I’m happy to be on the program, because I’ve already read 96 percent of the book, and we’re investigating, but for me to start telling you what might be available and what the problems are and what the challenges are going to be, I think, is very unprofessional in an investigation of this seriousness… It’s under investigation and consideration right now. But the importance of this discussion today is critical not only to the committees — there are four committees, and how they relate to each other will come forward very shortly — but there is also the question of the media, the Fourth Estate, the press. This is now public information that, it seems to me, shouldn’t be great breaking news over a progressive news program, but this has to be investigated by the rest of the media, unless they consider this to be irrelevant or too late, or whatever reasons are, that they’re coerced or afraid themselves, too timid… I consider the relationship of the committees on the subject matter, the responsibility of the media, and the American people being brought into this discussion as the citizens, that in a representative democracy, that’s what all of us are supposed to be working on.”

John Conyers (1929–2019) American politician from Michigan

After Ron Suskind Reveals Bush Admin Ordered Iraq-9/11 Fakery, House Judiciary Chair John Conyers Opens Congressional Probe https://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/14/after_ron_suskind_reveals_bush_admin, DemocracyNow! (14 August 2008)

Democracy , Reading , Question , People

“Taiwan is one step away from becoming like North Korea: completely locked out of things. We need to break free from this situation. If there is no threat to national security, we need to open the doors wide open.”

Han Kuo-yu (1957) Taiwanese political figure

Han Kuo-yu (2019) cited in " Taiwan a ‘step away’ from being like North Korea: Han http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2019/10/10/2003723698" on Taipei Times, 10 October 2019.
2019

“Here’s my attitude, and I’m sort of sorry to say this sometimes – but there are people who try and elevate film music - of all kinds – to being the great twentieth century classical music, and my opinion is it just isn’t. It’s very straightforward, major/minor or modal writing. The only time you get any kind of originality is usually in the timbres and the sounds and the mixture of elements. But to get through a scene it’s either happy, or sad – and it’s either going forward in action or it’s not – and it can be ironic, which means you’ve got to switch from major to minor frequently. But it’s not rocket science. It’s a lot of skills – a lot of political skills, frankly. It’s being in a room and playing off fifty opinions from studios, producers, directors, sometimes actors – and coming out the end with something that vaguely represents music. And frequently it doesn’t. The minute you try to get original or break the box – unless you’ve got either a very experimental or powerful director, it’s probably not going to happen.”

Graeme Revell (1955) New Zealand musician

Time , Box , People , Music

“What we now have to do is define the future of the world. Dawn is breaking out all over. You can see it in Africa and Europe and Latin America and Oceanea. I want to emphasize that optimistic vision.”

Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela

President Hugo Chavez's Speech at the U.N. General Assembly, Wednesday, September 20, 2006

World , Future

“Thus liberalism, democracy, and socialism appear to be, as they are in reality, not only the offspring of one and the same theory of government but also logical derivations one of the other. Logically, developed liberalism leads to democracy; the logical development of democracy issues into socialism. It is true that for many years, and with some justification, socialism was looked upon as antithetical to liberalism. But the antithesis is purely relative and breaks down as we approach the common origin and foundation of the two doctrines, for we find that the opposition is one of method, not of purpose.”

Alfredo Rocco (1875–1935) Italian politician and jurist

The end is the same for both, namely, the welfare of the individual members of society. The difference lies in the fact that liberalism would be guided to its goal by liberty, whereas socialism strives to attain it by the collective organization of production.
Source: The Political Doctrine of Fascism (1925), pp. 108-109

Democracy , Appearance , Reality

“We have long accepted the doctrine of the evolution of the forms in which dwells the Divine Life; here is the complementary and far greater idea of the evolution of that Life itself, showing that the very reason for that wondrous development of higher and higher forms is that the ever-swelling Life needs them in order to express itself. Forms are born and die, forms grow, decay and break; but the Spirit grows on eternally, ensouling those forms, and developing by means of experience gained in and through them, and as each form has served its turn and is outgrown, it is cast aside that another and better form may take its place.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: The Masters and the Path (1925), Ch. 1

Idea , Life

“To anyone who has even a faint idea of what the powers at the command of an adept really are, it will be at once obvious that for him to work upon the astral plane would be a far greater waste of energy than for our leading physicians or scientists to spend their time in breaking stones upon the road. The work of the adept lies in higher regions… where he may direct his energies to the influencing of the true individuality of man, and not the mere personality which is all that can be reached in the astral or physical world. The strength which he puts forth in that more exalted realm produces results greater, more far-reaching and more lasting than any which can be attained by the expenditure of even ten times the force down here; and the work up there is such as he alone can fully accomplish, while that on lower planes may be at any rate to some extent achieved by whose feet are yet upon the earlier steps of the great stairway which will one day lead them to the position where he stands.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: Invisible Helpers (1915), Ch. 4

World , Idea , Time , Personality

“If anyone needed further evidence that Facebook is censoring political speech, they provided that evidence themselves by deleting Elizabeth Warren’s post calling for breaking up Facebook and Amazon… If Facebook will censor my speech, then they will censor yours as well. This is why we must stand up for free speech — whether we agree with the content of that speech or not.”

Tulsi Gabbard (1981) U.S. Representative from Hawaii's 2nd congressional district

Twitter, https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1105909278446104576 (13 March 2019)
Twitter account, March 2019

“There could be no democratic and independent Socialist Party in this country unless they aligned themselves with others against the insidious attempts of Communism to break the Socialist movement.”

James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979

Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Morecambe (1 October 1952), quoted in The Times (2 October 1952), p. 2
Backbench MP

Country , Communication

“England will soon show us her true face: It is a fight for existence between us. England wants to destroy Germany, her most serious rival in the world market, and, if not today or tomorrow, will do so soon, before the German fleet has been further strengthened. I do not believe that the matter will be taken so seriously in official circles with us. As in their way, the Liberal papers try to disguise the gravity of the situation; it is really too hard on them that their paragon, England, should want to break with free trade. A bitter revenge is now in store for those who have sought to turn Germany into an industrial country pure and simple.”

Alfred von Waldersee (1832–1904) Prussian Field Marshal

Waldersee in his diary, 19 February 1904, shortly before his death.

Country , Revenge , Fight , Way

“If you do this, then you will find, as others have found before you, that the vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Voting Rights Act signing speech (1965)

Men

“We would find ourselves pulling out of the European Community straight into the arms of the wild men of the left. The whole country would be plagued with Foot and Benn disease. … The left are not really all that interested in the Common Market. What they want is for Britain to break her treaty obligations and pull out of the Community so that they could impose their own extreme socialist state in Britain.”

Edward Heath (1916–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)

Speech in Catterick, Yorkshire (29 May 1975), quoted in The Times (30 May 1975), p. 4
Post-Prime Ministerial

Communication , Country , Disease , Men

“Ahab makes a great impression on his first appearance in Moby Dick… And if either by birth or by circumstance something pathological was at work deep in his nature, this did not detract from his dramatic character. For tragic greatness always derives from a morbid break with health, you can be sure of that.”

Gudrun Ensslin (1940–1977) German terrorist

Stefan Aust, Terrorism in Germany: The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon http://www.ghi-dc.org/files/publications/bulletin/bu043/45.pdf

Making love , Health , Nature , Appearance

“And what is this bill? This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.”

Smedley D. Butler book War Is a Racket

War is a racket (1935)

Home , Heart

“He was most helpful since I was very new when we started work on the film. Initially, I was a little distant but being a romantic film topped with large doses of comedy, it was important for us to build a rapport. Salman went out of his way to break the ice & we became very cordial. In person he is very different from the image that is portrayed of him and what I learnt about him in this short span, is that he is highly misunderstood.”

Salman Khan (1965) Indian film actor

Priyanka Chopra
Actresses Talk About Salman
Source: http://www.india-forums.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=476977

Way , Personality , Distant , Help

“The dramatic uncertainty that lies ahead may be the most frightening development of all… the most likely scenarios…are more than disturbing enough. Long before we get to tidal waves or smallpox, long before we choke to death or stop thinking clearly, we will need to concentrate on the most mundane and basic facts: everyone needs to eat every day, and an awful lot of us live near the ocean… Where I live, it’s the seasons: winter doesn’t reliably mean winter anymore, and so the way we’ve always viscerally told time has begun to break down…”

Bill McKibben (1960) American environmentalist and writer

This Is How Human Extinction Could Play Out Food-system collapse, sea-level rise, disease...Is it Too Late?, Rolling Stone by Bill McKibbon https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/bill-mckibben-falter-climate-change-817310/, (9 April Other Bill McKibben Quotes, 2019)
2019

Time , Season , Thinking , Way

“Allow me, excellent Lucilius, to utter a still bolder word: if any goods could be greater than others, I should prefer those which seem harsh to those which are mild and alluring, and should pronounce them greater. For it is more of an accomplishment to break one’s way through difficulties than to keep joy within bounds.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXVI: On Various Aspects of Virtue

Way , Joy

“The egg is breaking, the chromosomes are splitting to go forward with a new pattern of life. Those of us who seem most alien... are the ones who are going forward to create the life as yet inchoate. We who are affected cannot make ourselves clear… This is the era when apocalyptic visions are to be fulfilled. We are on the brink of a new life, entering a new domain. In what language can we describe things for which there are as yet no new names? And how describe relations? We can only divine the nature of those to whom we are attracted, the forces to which we willingly yield obedience....”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Two, Premonitions of Transformation and Conspiracy

Life , Making love , Relation ships , Nature

“Whatever their station or sophistication, the conspirators are linked, made kindred by their inner discoveries and earthquakes. You can break through old limits, past inertia and fear, to levels of fulfillment that once seemed impossible … to richness of choice, freedom, human closeness. You can be more productive, confident, comfortable with insecurity. Problems can be experienced as challenges, a chance for renewal, rather than stress. Habitual defensiveness and worry can fall away. It can all be otherwise.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter One, The Conspiracy

Confidence , Chance , Freedom , Past

“It is right for Parliament to have the first say but if we need to break the impasse, our options must include campaigning for a public vote and nobody is ruling out Remain as an option.”

Keir Starmer (1962) British politician and barrister

Labour conference: Members vote to keep referendum option open https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45631792 BBC News (25 September 2018)
2018

“The Nicaraguan people have won, with their blood, the right to be here today, in this way breaking with a historic past of servility towards imperialist policy. For the first time in their entire history the Nicaraguan people can officially express their sovereign will, joining this movement of the nonaligned barely forty-one days after their triumph.”

Daniel Ortega (1945) President of Nicaragua

Nothing Will Hold Back Our Struggle for Liberation (1979)

Time , History , Past , People

“Joe Biden shouldn’t be president. You know? You know, obviously, I don’t think I’m breaking any news here. You know, if he ends up being the nominee, better him than Trump, but I think that’s a really, really low standard.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates (1975) writer, journalist, and educator

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Joe Biden Shouldn’t Be President, Democracy Now (20 June 2019)

Thinking

“But the EU should be clear: I will not overturn the result of the referendum. Nor will I break up my country.”

Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Theresa May: EU must respect UK in Brexit talks https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45603192 BBC News (21 September 2018)
2010s, On Brexit

Country

“But a prince, when he binds himself, does not bind himself alone, otherwise he would be in the same position as a private individual. Instead, he exposes great countries and great provinces to a thousand misfortunes. Therefore, it is better that he should break his contract rather than that the people should perish.”

Frederick II of Prussia (1712–1786) king of Prussia

Historie vom Jahre 1746, quoted in W. W. Coole (ed.), Thus Spake Germany (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1941), p. 82

People , Country

“Ach! If Hitler had given me an immoral order I would have refused. Think of it! To break teeth out of a dead body! Think of it! Why, if I had been only a simple soldier, I would not have obeyed. I would have said that it was against my religious conviction. That dog Pohl knew all about it.”

Oswald Pohl (1892–1951) Head of the SS Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt

Hjalmar Schacht to Leon Goldensohn, June 9, 1946.

Dogs , Thinking , Dead

“There was therefore no inevitability in the emergence of an all male priesthood. The prolonged ideological struggle of the Hebrew tribes against the worship of Canaanite deities and especially the persistence of a cult of the fertility-goddess Asherah must have hardened the emphasis on male cultic leadership and the tendency toward mysogyny, which fully emerged only in the post-exilic period. Whatever the causes, the Old Testament male priesthood represented a radical break with millennia of tradition and with the practices of neighboring peoples. This new order under the all-powerful God proclaimed to Hebrews and to all those, who took the Bible as their moral and religious guide that women cannot speak to God.”

Gerda Lerner (1920–2013) Austrian-American women's history scholar

The Creation of Patriarchy, ch. 8, pp. 178-179
The Creation of Patriarchy (1986)

God , People , Women

“An honest fellow stripped of all his illusions is the ideal man. Though he may have little wit, his society is always pleasant. As nothing matters to him, he cannot be pedantic; yet is he tolerant, remembering that he too has had the illusions which still beguile his neighbor. He is trustworthy in his dealings, because of his indifference; he avoids all quarreling and scandal in his own person, and either forgets or passes over such gossip or bickering as may be directed against himself. He is more entertaining than other people because he is in a constant state of epigram against his neighbor. He dwells in truth, and smiles at the stumbling of others who grope in falsehood. He watches from a lighted place the ludicrous antics of those who walk in a dim room at random. Laughing, he breaks the false weight and measure of men and things.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

L'honnête homme, détrompé de toutes les illusions, est l'homme par excellence. Pour peu qu'il ait d'esprit, sa société est très aimable. Il ne saurait être pédant, ne mettant d'importance à rien. Il est indulgent, parce qu'il se souvient qu'il a eu des illusions, comme ceux qui en sont encore occupés. C'est un effet de son insouciance d'être sûr dans le commerce, de ne se permettre ni redites, ni tracasseries. Si on se les permet à son égard, il les oublie ou les dédaigne. Il doit être plus gai qu'un autre, parce qu'il est constamment en état d'épigramme contre son prochain. Il est dans le vrai et rit des faux pas de ceux qui marchent à tâtons dans le faux. C'est un homme qui, d'un endroit éclairé, voit dans une chambre obscure les gestes ridicules de ceux qui s'y promènent au hasard. Il brise, en riant, les faux poids et les fausses mesures qu'on applique aux hommes et aux choses.
Maximes et Pensées, #339
Maxims and Considerations, #339

Light , Personality , Forgetting , Smile

“If it ain’t broke, don’t break it.”

Steve Perry (1947) American writer

Source: The Ramal Extraction (2012), Chapter 12

“Even the ministers of religion were not exempt from this cruel necessity. While they warned their flocks against the love of money, regard for their families compelled them to keep an outlook for the pecuniary prizes of their calling. Poor fellows, theirs was indeed a trying business, preaching to men a generosity and unselfishness which they and everybody knew would, in the existing state of the world, reduce to poverty those who should practice them, laying down laws of conduct which the law of self-preservation compelled men to break.”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Source: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25439 (1888), Ch. 26.

Money , Family , Religion , Law

“There is neither private property, beyond personal belongings, now, nor buying and selling, and therefore the occasion of nearly all the legislation formerly necessary has passed away. Formerly, society was a pyramid poised on its apex. All the gravitations of human nature were constantly tending to topple it over, and it could be maintained upright, or rather upwrong (if you will pardon the feeble witticism), by an elaborate system of constantly renewed props and buttresses and guy-ropes in the form of laws. A central Congress and forty state legislatures, turning out some twenty thousand laws a year, could not make new props fast enough to take the place of those which were constantly breaking down or becoming ineffectual through some shifting of the strain. Now society rests on its base, and is in as little need of artificial supports as the everlasting hills.”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Source: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25439 (1888), Ch. 19

Law , Support , Personality , Nature

“Tyranny does not impose itself only in the political sphere. This tyranny uses every possible leverage at the disposal of the state to institutionalize discrimination on the basis of gender, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, and ideological orientation, particularly against women. By sustaining patriarchal dominance, drafting and enforcing misogynistic laws, and even by fabricating a false culture in contradiction with the norms of the society, it deprives women of their human and civil rights and seeks to prevent them from social engagement. Therefore, when a woman like me decides to break their dictated norms, she must suffer prison and separation from her children, as an intimidating lesson for other women.”

Narges Mohammadi (1972) Iranian human rights activist

Letter Accepting 2018 Andrei Sakharov Prizefrom (2018)

Religion , Law , Children , Suffering

“Earthquakes generate elastic waves when one block of material slides against another; the break between the two blocks being called a fault.”

David Gubbins (1947) British university teacher

Explosions generate elastic waves by an impulsive change in volume in the material. Small explosive charges are used in controlled-source seismic experiments in which the waves penetrate only a few kilometres into the earth.
[Seismology and plate tectonics, 1990, http://books.google.com/books?id=tZRxPzwoChIC&pg=PA12] (p. 12)
Seismology and Plate Tectonics (1990)

“They (i. e., the Olympian gods) operate on moral principles. You have to break a promise to them, or break a rule, for them to get power over you.”

John C. Wright (1961) American novelist and technical writer

Victor commented darkly, “That explains why religions have rules no one can follow. If everyone is a sinner, by definition, everyone is under their power.”
Source: Fugitives of Chaos (2006), Chapter 9, “Wings” (p. 142)

God

“The essential complement to the path-breaking book Competitive Strategy, Michael E. Porter’s Competitive Advantage explores the underpinnings of competitive advantage in the individual firm.”

Michael E. Porter (1947) American engineer and economist

Competitive Advantage, 1985

Books

“Researchers of the peninsula will get nowhere unless they take a break from their quantifying now and then, and enter into an imaginative sympathy with Korean nationalism, the way any sensible literary scholar assumes a Christian frame of mind when reading Bunyan or Blake.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

Having done that one begins to understand why the North appeals strongly to an influential minority in the South. They don’t want to live up there anymore than a moderate Muslim wants to live under the Taliban, but they see it as the purer Korea in many ways, the real deal.
2010s, League Confederation Goes Outer-Track (September 2018)

Way , Imagination , Reading

“Visitors from Bijapur could count on his hospitality and receive roti and sabji and sometimes stay overnight with us. One frequent visitor would have none of the roti and halva. She would break an egg, swallow the contents, and top it off with a glass of milk from one of grandmother’s cows. That would be Indira Gandhi’s breakfast whenever she turned up in the mornings.”

Basappa Danappa Jatti (1912–2002) Indian politician

Simple man with a lofty office

“I had interviewed him when he was Chief Minister of UP. As a Jat, a member of caste of small farmers, he had expressed practical ideas about helping poor Indians. But a certain slyness seemed to substitute for any sense of moral principle. Indira knew just the man to go when she felt the time was ripe to break up Morarji’s Janata coalition.”

Charan Singh (1902–1987) prime minister of India

David Van Praagh in: The Greater Game: India's Race with Destiny and China http://books.google.co.in/books?id=kCI4492cHTEC&pg=PA187, McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 2003, p. 187

Sense , Idea , Time , Help

“And each day, things at school got meaner and more terrifying than the day before. They were crucifying Ramón. They were really hitting him and hitting him, because he was the only kid among us who wouldn’t break.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

School

“A highly competent Bitch often deprecates herself by refusing to recognize her own superiority…. Bitches are among the most unsung of the unsung heroes of this society. They are the pioneers, the vanguard, the spearhead. Whether they want to be or not this is the role they serve just by their very being. Many would not choose to be the groundbreakers for the mass of women for whom they have no sisterly feelings but they cannot avoid it. Those who violate the limits, extend them; or cause the system to break…. Their major psychological oppression is not a belief that they are inferior but a belief that they are not…. Like most women they were taught to hate themselves as well as all women. In different ways and for different reasons perhaps, but the effect was similar. Internalization of a derogatory self-concept always results in a good deal of bitterness and resentment. This anger is usually either turned in on the self —making one an unpleasant person or on other women — reinforcing the social cliches about them. Only with political consciousness is it directed at the source — the social system…. We must be strong, we must be militant, we must be dangerous. We must realize that Bitch is Beautiful and that we have nothing to lose. Nothing whatsoever.”

Jo Freeman (1945) writer, lawyer

The BITCH Manifesto (Fall, 1968, © 1969) http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/bitch.htm, as accessed Aug. 22, 2010 (also published as Joreen, The Bitch Manifesto, in Notes From the Second Year (N.Y.: Shulamith Firestone & Anne Koedt, 1970))

Anger , Hate , Personality , Beauty

“The host of specifically religious suggestions and images, in a story that until now has been devoid of such concern, suggests very strongly that Peake is here referring to the Christian religion as a debasing influence. Peake’s treatment of Gormenghast’s ritual shows that he dislikes any system of values imposed on the individual from outside, offering him nothing directly relevant for himself and encouraging him in whatever weakness he possesses. So, here, the Lamb can break down but not build; despite his worshipper’s praise, he does not really understand how to keep his creatures alive. Still the Lamb glories in his power. True, in changing men he has destroyed them, denying them freedom to develop for themselves; to the Lamb, however, that is incidental to his own gratification.”

Mervyn Peake (1911–1968) English writer, artist, poet and illustrator

Joseph L. Sanders, “The Passions in Their Clay” Mervyn Peake’s Titus Stories, reprinted in the omnibus edition The Gormenghast Novels published by The Overlook Press, p. 1093

Religion , Understanding , Freedom , Men

“One of the advantages of having laws is the pleasure one may take in breaking them. We here are not children, Mr. Gurgeh.”

Iain Banks Culture series

Hamin waved the pipestem round the tables of people. “Rules and laws exist only because we take pleasure in doing what they forbid, but as long as most of the people obey such proscriptions most of the time, they have done their job; blind obedience would imply we are—ha!”—Hamin chuckled and pointed at the drone with the pipe—“no more than robots!”
Source: Culture series, The Player of Games (1988), Chapter 2 (p. 279).

Pleasure , Children , Law

“If you take the idea of God in the Bible as a metaphor for any nascent, formative just-created intelligence, is that not how we all create the universe. We divide the firmament up from the waters of the abyss, and the key to how to do this is in the first line: in the beginning, there was the word. By giving sky one word, the ground into another, we break the universe down into manageable things that we can interact with through language.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

De Abaitua interview (1998)

God , Intelligence , Universe , Water

“Making models was reputed to be hugely enjoyable… But when you got the kit home and opened the box the contents turned out to be of a uniform leaden gray or olive green, consisting of perhaps sixty thousand tiny parts, some no larger than a proton, all attached in some organic, inseparable way to plastic stalks like swizzle sticks. The tubes of glue by contrast were the size of large pastry tubes. No matter how gently you depressed them they would blurp out a pint or so of a clear viscous goo whose one instinct was to attach itself to some foreign object—a human finger, the living-room drapes, the fur of a passing animal—and become an infinitely long string. Any attempt to break the string resulted in the creation of more strings. Within moments you would be attached to hundreds of sagging strands, all connected to something that had nothing to do with model airplanes or World War II. The only thing the glue wouldn’t stick to, interestingly, was a piece of plastic model; then it just became a slippery lubricant that allowed any two pieces of model to glide endlessly over each other, never drying. The upshot was that after about forty minutes of intensive but troubled endeavor you and your immediate surroundings were covered in a glistening spiderweb of glue at the heart of which was a gray fuselage with one wing on upside down and a pilot accidentally but irremediably attached by his flying cap to the cockpit ceiling. Happily by this point you were so high on the glue that you didn’t give a shit about the pilot, the model, or anything else.”

Bill Bryson The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid

Source: The Life And Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (2006), p. 81

Home , War , Box , Heart

“Tomorrow, go forth and stand before the Lord. A great and strong wind will blow over you and rend the mountains and break in pieces the rocks, but the Lord will not be in the wind. And after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord will not be in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord will not be in the fire. And after the fire a gentle, cooling breeze. That is where the Lord will be.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Report to Greco

This is how the spirit comes. After the gale, the earthquake, and fire: a gentle, cooling breeze. This is how it will come in our own day as well. We are passing through the period of earthquake, the fire is approaching, and eventually (when? after how many generations?) the gentle, cool breeze will blow.
"The Desert. Sinai.", Ch. 21, p. 278
Report to Greco (1965)

Mountain , Strong

“Without wasting an instant, must start the hair recovery task. The first operation is reduced to dismantling the siphon from the sink to see if the hair has become hooked in any of the rugosities of the drain. If it is not found, it is necessary to expose the section of pipe that goes from the siphon to the main drainage pipe. It is certain that in this part will appear many hairs and we will have to count on the help of the rest of the family to examine them one by one in search of the knot. If it does not appear, the interesting problem of breaking the pipe down to the ground floor will arise, but this means a greater effort, because for eight or ten years we will have to work in a ministry or trading house to collect enough money to buy the four departments located under the one of my elder cousin, all that with the extraordinary disadvantage of what while working during those eight or ten years, the distressing feeling that the hair is no longer in the pipes anymore can not be avoided and that only by a remote chance remains hooked on some rusty spout of the drain.”

Julio Cortázar book Historias de cronopios y de famas

Historias de Cronopios y de Famas (1962)

Money , Family , Chance , Housing

“Even in terms of breaking down the barriers of segregation, there is still much to be done. It may be true, as I just said, figuratively speaking that old man segregation is on his deathbed. But history has proven that social systems have a great last-minute breathing power, and the guardians of the status quo are always on hand with their oxygen tents to keep the old order alive. And so segregation is still with us. We still confront it in the South in its glaring and conspicuous forms. We still confront it in every other section of this country in its hidden and subtle forms. But if democracy is to live, segregation must die, for racial segregation is a cancer in the body politic. Segregation must be removed before our moral and democratic health can be realized.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

Democracy , History , Health , Country

“When choosing people to work and associate with, do not be mesmerized by their reputation or taken in by the surface image they try to project. Instead, train yourself to look deep within them and see their character. People’s character is formed in their earliest years and by their daily habits. It is what compels them to repeat certain actions in their lives and fall into negative patterns. Look closely at such patterns and remember that people never do something just once. They will inevitably repeat their behavior. Gauge the relative strength of their character by how well they handle adversity, their ability to adapt and work with other people, their patience and ability to learn. Always gravitate toward those who display signs of strength, and avoid the many toxic types out there. Know thoroughly your own character so you can break your compulsive patterns and take control of your destiny.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 4 : Determine the Strength of People’s Character
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

People , Learning , Gauge , Training

“Wisdom, if it were young, would cherish love, nursing it with devotion, deepening it with sacrifice, vitalizing with parentage, making all things subordinate to it till the end. Even though it consumes us in its service and overwhelms us with tragedy, even though it breaks us down with separations, let it be first. How can it matter what price we pay for love?”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

Source: Fallen Leaves (2014), Ch. 2 : On Youth

Love , Making love , Wisdom

“Seventy-two thousand of the flock stand prepared to break the Sabbath this coming Sunday. Break it? Nay, destroy, shatter utterly with screams of pleasure as they observe a large vulgar person, himself a confessed glutton, propel a sphere an unholy distance. Old Nick rides on Ruth's bat, else how could he smite the ball so far beyond the power of ordinary man? He is in league. Forbid the games. Cast this Ruth out into utter darkness. He creates joy annually for millions.”

Paul Gallico (1897–1976) American writer and journalist

"Stop the Series" http://www.mediafire.com/view/qp5h3rqswtjqui2/.jpeg (tongue-in-cheek, Prohibition-era tirade, regarding upcoming 1927 World Series), New York Daily News (October 5, 1927)

Pleasure , Personality , Joy , Game

“One must say Yes to life, and embrace it wherever it is found — and it is found in terrible places. … For nothing is fixed, forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

From Nothing Personal, a collaboration with the photographer Richard Avedon (1964). Baldwin's text for the volume can be found " here https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1042&context=cibs".

Faith , Light , Children , Lovers

“Government welfare is communism. Free money from the state, whether in terms of benefits, handouts, or non-universal tax-breaks, is a trap that will draw people into socialism and beyond. It’s a lot like cancer.”

Trevor Loudon New Zealand politician

"Government Welfare: A Cancer Known as Communism" https://www.theepochtimes.com/government-welfare-a-cancer-known-as-communism_2787169.html

Money , Drawing , People , Communication

“When the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it is commonly in some such speech as this: “Ah, yes, when one is young, one has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but in middle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief in practical politics, to using the machinery one has and getting on with the world as it is.””

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Thus, at least, venerable and philanthropic old men now in their honoured graves used to talk to me when I was a boy. But since then I have grown up and have discovered that these philanthropic old men were telling lies. What has really happened is exactly the opposite of what they said would happen. They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my old childlike faith in practical politics.
"The Ethics of Elfland" https://www.ccel.org/ccel/chesterton/orthodoxy.vii.html in Delphi Works of G. K. Chesterton

Business , Boy , Age , World

“I view the collapse of the Soviet Union as a disaster that entailed and still brings about negative consequences around the world. We got nothing good from this break-up.”

Alexander Lukashenko (1954) President of Belarus since 20 July 1994

As quoted in "Lukashenko views Soviet Union collapse as disaster" https://eng.belta.by/president/view/lukashenko-views-soviet-union-collapse-as-disaster-94985-2016/, BelTA, September 30, 2016.

World

“Sabotage means to push back, pull out or break off the fangs of Capitalism.”

Bill Haywood (1869–1928) Labor organizer

Rebel Voices, pp. 65

“Nothing breaks more quickly than corroded steel.”

Tanith Lee book Quest for the White Witch

Book One, Part III “The Crimson Palace”, Chapter 6 (p. 155)
Quest for the White Witch (1978)

“If I needed you, would you come to me?
Would you come to me and ease my pain?
If you needed me, I would come to you
I'd swim the seas for to ease your pain
Well, in the night forlorn, oh, the morning's born
And the morning shines with the lights of love
And you will miss sunrise if you close your eyes
And that would break my heart in twoThe lady's with me now since I showed her how
To lay her lily hand in mine
Loop and Lil agree, she's a sight to see
A treasure for the poor to find”

Townes Van Zandt (1944–1997) singer-songwriter

If I Needed You (1972)

Pain , Love , Night , Light

“If it should happen some day that a man, having in his hand the five hundred thousand officeholders who constitute the government, and the four hundred thousand soldiers composing the army, if it should happen that this man should tear up the Constitution, should violate every law, break every oath, trample upon every right, commit every crime, do you know what your irremovable magistrates, instructors in the right, and guardians of the law, would do? They would hold their tongues.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Napoleon the Little (1852), Book VIII, IV
Napoleon the Little (1852)

Tear , Law

“Science has always tried to understand nature by breaking things into their parts. Now it is overwhelmingly clear that wholes cannot he understood by analysis. This is one of those logical boomerangs, like the mathematical proof that no mathematical system can be truly coherent in itself.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Six, Liberating Knowledge: News from the Frontiers of Science

Understanding , Nature , Mathematics , Science

“If we stubbornly refuse to look at that which seems magical or incredible, we are in distinguished company. The French Academy announced at one point that it would not accept any further reports of meteorites, since it was clearly impossible for rocks to fall out of the sky. Shortly thereafter a rain of meteorites came close to breaking the windows of the Academy.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Six, Liberating Knowledge: News from the Frontiers of Science

“All farm workers, including migrants, are some of the most exploited people in the U.S. They work from dawn to dusk, often with no breaks in the heat of the day. Workers go out into fields that are often still wet with pesticides. Unable to wash, they are forced to eat with the pesticides on their hands. Many employers fail to provide them with enough water—or any at all.”

Lauren Ornelas American activist

"Who Our Food Comes From" http://www.satyamag.com/jun05/ornelas.html, Satya (June/July 2005).

Water , People

“DESOLATE are the mansions of the fair, the stations in Minia, where they rested, and those where they fixed their abodes! Wild are the hills of Goul, and deserted is the summit of Rijaam.
The canals of Rayaan are destroyed: the remains of them are laid bare and smoothed by the floods, like characters engraved on the solid rocks.
Dear ruins! Many a year has been closed, many a month, holy and unhallowed, has elapsed, since I exchanged tender vows with their fair inhabitants!
The rainy constellations of spring have made their hills green and luxuriant: the drops from the thunder-clouds have drenched them with profuse as well as with gentle showers:
Showers, from every nightly cloud, from every cloud veiling the horizon at day-break, and from every evening cloud, responsive with hoarse murmurs.
Here the wild eringo-plants raise their tops: here the antelopes bring forth their young, by the sides of the valley: and here the ostriches drop their eggs.
The large-eyed wild-cows lie suckling their young, a few days old—their young, who will soon become a herd on the plain.
The torrents have cleared the rubbish, and disclosed the traces of habitations, as the reeds of a writer restore effaced letters in a book;
Or as the black dust, sprinkled over the varied marks on a fair hand, brings to view with a brighter tint the blue stains of woad.
I stood asking news of the ruins concerning their lovely habitants; but what avail my questions to dreary rocks, who answer them only by their echo?”

Labīd (560–661) Sahabah and poet

Translated by C. J. Lyall, quoted in Arabian Poetry, p. 41-42. First Stanza, lines 1-10 https://archive.org/details/arabianpoetryfo00clougoog/page/n127/mode/2up
The Poem of Labīd (translated by C. J. Lyall in 1881)

Question , Spring , Lie , Books

“I know that my race must change. We cannot hold our own with the white men as we are. We only ask an even chance to live as other men live. We ask to be recognized as men. We ask that the same law shall work alike on all men. If an Indian breaks the law, punish him by the law. If a white man breaks the law, punish him also.”

Chief Joseph (1840–1904) Nez Percé Chieftain

Lincoln Hall Speech (1879)

Chance , Men , Law , Change

“Metamorphosis is death. Inside a pupa larval flesh breaks down utterly, as if in chemical spill. Eyes do not become other eyes nor mouthparts mouths. All parts are lost in a reconfiguring slop, as absolutely formless as a salted slug, that ex liquid nihilo self-organizes into a quite other animal. A cocoon is not a transformation pod but an execution chamber, one that doubles as a birthplace, and is parsimonious with matter.”

China Miéville book The 9th Technique

The 9th Technique (p. 104)
Short Fiction, Three Moments of an Explosion (2015)

Animals , Self-confidence , Death , Parting

“If we respond to the message of pain or disease, the demand for adaptation, we can break through to a new level of wellness.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Eight, Healing Ourselves

Pain , Disease

“And oft I thought (my fancy was-so strong)
That I, at last, a resting-place had found:
'Here: will I dwell,' said I,' my whole life long,
Roaming the illimitable waters round;
Here will I live, of all but heaven disowned.
And end my days upon the peaceful flood—
To break my dream the vessel reached its bound;
And homeless near a thousand homes I stood,
And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Guilt and Sorrow, st. 41 (1791-1794) Section XLI

Home , Peace , Food , Strong

“[P]ublic interest groups, consumer protection organizations, and... social networks have worked relentlessly to break through the battalions of lobbyists paid by corporate interests...”

Ralph Nader (1934) American consumer rights activist and corporate critic

Breaking Through Power (2016)

“[W]henever there have been periods when enough of the country organizes and resists, we see movements of people and communities breaking through power. Progress is made. Rights are won. Education and literacy increase. Oppression is diminished.”

Ralph Nader (1934) American consumer rights activist and corporate critic

Breaking Through Power (2016)

Education , Country , People , Communication

“Have I not told you that the white men are as thick as the blades of grass' I have been to the lodge of the Great Father. I know what I say! Now break up your council of war. Leave here - and I will make you a great feast.”

Eagle Woman (1820–1888) American peace activist (born 1820, near Big Bend of the Missouri River [in what is now South Dakota], U.S.…

Speaking to an angry mob of 5,000 which had surrounded the general store on the Grand River reservation, as quoted in Eagle Woman Who All Look At, 2010, South Dakota Hall of Fame – Champions of Excellence, 2019-08-15 http://sdexcellence.org/Eagle_Woman_Who_All_Look_At_2010,

War , Grass , Men , Making love

“My students have described this process of testing ideas in science as: “Hit it with a sledgehammer and see if it breaks. Whatever survives is the best we've got."”

Greg Craven American teacher and writer

Science is a very adversarial activity! Hence the old adage among physicists: Physics is a contact sport.

Chapter 2 "The Nature of Science" (p. 43)
What's the Worst That Could Happen?: A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate (2009)

Idea , Science

“Communism is all about breaking down nationalism, about uniting workers around the world, and North Korea has always been about the opposite, it’s been about racial purity and pride, so remember North Korea was isolated even inside the old east-block, even inside the Soviet block.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Interview with Park Jin Keol (March 2012)

World , Communication

“A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise... But it is necessary to know how to disguise this nature well and to be a great hypocrite and a liar.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 18; translated by ‎Peter Bondanella

Nature

“Disaster response requires discipline and adherence to a clear chain of command, not the move-fast-and-break-things approach of start-up culture.”

Michelle Goldberg (1975) American journalist

Putting Jared Kushner In Charge Is Utter Madness (April 2, 2020)

“Going to Bits. This phrase me to day and is indeed the one I have been looking for; not tragic, not mortal disintegration; only a central weakness which prevents me from concentrating or settling down I have so wanted to write and write ahead. The phrase "obligatory creation" has haunted me. I have so wanted to get out of my morning bath promptly: have decided to do so beforehand, and have then lain in it as usual and watched myself not getting out. It looks as if there is a physical as well as a moral break in the orders I send out. I have plenty of interesting thoughts but keep losing them like the post cards I have written, or like my cap. I can't clear anything up yet interrupt a 'good read' in order to clear up. I hope tomorrow to copy out a piece of someone else's prose: it is the best device known to me for taking one out of inself, Plunge into anothers minutiae.'”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

31-1-61

p. 224
Commonplace Book (1985)

Hope , Reading

“The press, television, and movies make heroes of vandals by calling them whiz kids. ... There is obviously a cultural gap. The act of breaking into a computer system has to have the same social stigma as breaking into a neighbor's house. It should not matter that the neighbor's door is unlocked.”

Ken Thompson (1943) American computer scientist, creator of the Unix operating system

"Reflections on Trusting Trust" http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/360000/358210/reflections.pdf, 1983 Turing Award Lecture, Communications of the ACM 27 (8), August 1984, pp. 761-763.

Making love , Housing

“I think I am a tough mountaineer who, when he has the top in sight, is bounced off again [by mental break-downs], but some day I will succeed.. .I must do it, there is no other way for me. It is always such a pity that Jo [his wife] is cracked up so quickly, otherwise I didn't mind very much.”

Herman Kruyder (1881–1935) Dutch painter

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018

(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Herman Kruyder uit zijn brief, in het Nederlands:) Ik vind mij een stoere bergbeklimmer die steeds als hij de top in zicht heeft er weer afgestoten wordt, maar eens lukt het.. .Toch moet ik, ik kan niet anders. 't Is zoo jammer dat Jo [zijn vrouw] altijd zo gauw instort, anders vond ik de zaak niet zo heel erg.

Quote of Kruyder in a letter to P.A. Regnault, from Limburg April 1930; as cited in Herman Kruyder 1881 – 1935: gedoemde scheppingen, ed. Mabel Hoogendonk; (ISBN 90-400-9905-7), Waanders, Zwolle 1997, p. 31

both had very frequently their break-downs and went into the mental hospital for some time
dated quotes

Way , Mountain , Thinking

“He had been a handsome man, when they married, fourteen years ago. A handsome, happy man, proud and kind, very good at his work. There had been a splendor to him, a wholeness.
That was gone. There was no more room in the world for whole people, they took up too much space. What she had done to him was only a part of the general program for cutting him and people like him down to size, for chopping and paring and breaking up, so that in the texture of life nothing large, nothing hard, nothing grand should remain.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

The House (p. 176)
Short fiction, Orsinian Tales (1976)

Happiness , People , World , Life

“The link with Manat [the Arabian Goddess] added to the acclaim for Mahmud. Not only was he the prize iconoclast in breaking Hindu idols, but in destroying Manat he had carried out what were said to be the very orders of the Prophet.”

Romila Thapar (1931) Indian historian

Romila Thapar, quoted from Ayodhya: The Case Against the Temple (2002) by K. Elst.

“I imagined in everybody I passed there was some story that they carried with them that would break your heart. So how could you have the temerity to approach that person and say, here's what's wrong with you?”

Barry Lopez (1945) American writer

On learning empathy after a cancer diagnosis in “Writer Barry Lopez Reflects On A Life Traveling Beyond The 'Horizon'” https://www.npr.org/2019/03/27/707358144/barry-lopez-shares-6-places-that-shaped-his-world-understanding-in-horizon in NPR (2019 Mar 27)

Personality , Imagination , Heart

“You are welcome in my mind
Follow me we're going deeper
To a place thats hard to find
Tell me, can you keep a secret
I know I know
Something you dont know
I know how to shake
To turn you on
Dont put on the breaks
Lemme keep it rolling
Can you keep it going?”

Antonio Fresco (1983) American DJ, music producer, and radio personality

Written by Antonio Fresco, Patricia Possollo, Lorena J'zel
Song lyrics, Rattlesnake https://genius.com/Antonio-fresco-patricia-possollo-rattlesnake-lyrics (2019)

Secret

“Not only is every single one of our cadets and graduates a source of great pride, but so too our ground-breaking work in promoting tolerance and diversity.”

Bhanu Choudhrie (1978)

"Bhanu Choudhrie developing a vital aviation niche" https://www.bmmagazine.co.uk/business/bhanu-choudhrie-developing-a-vital-aviation-niche/, Business Matters (May 2019)

“Behind of the words a silent ocean of desires
and a coiled knowledge lies in wait,
listen a restless voice in our heart endlessly urging us onward to break the limits of fear and to embrace of our longing.”

alexis karpouzos

Knowledge , Fear , Waiting , Heart

“And that’s what trust is. We don’t just trust people to obey the rules, we also trust that they know when to break them.”

Simon Sinek (1973) British/American author and motivational speaker

Source: Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't

People

Quotes about break page 23

Quotes about break
page 23