Quotes about building
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“A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library. The library is the university.”

Shelby Foote (1916–2005) Novelist, historian

Shelby Foote quoted in: North Carolina Libraries, Vol. 51-54 (1993), p. 162

“When I look at small things, I think I shall go on living: drops of rain, leather gloves shrunk by being wet… When I look at something too big, I want to die: the Diet Building, or a map of the world…”

Kóbó Abe book The Box Man

Source: The Box Man

World, Thinking

“Home wasn't a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.”

Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye

What Happened To Goodbye (2011)
Source: What Happened to Goodbye

Love, Life, People, Home

“I'd like to find whoever taught the Stump that extra work builds character and push him down the stairs," Neal told Kel at lunch.”

Tamora Pierce book First Test

Source: First Test

“Stories are compasses and architecture, we navigate by them, we build our sanctuaries and our prisons out of them, and to be without a story is to be lost in the vastness of a world that spreads in all directions like arctic tundra or sea ice.”

Rebecca Solnit book The Faraway Nearby

Source: The Faraway Nearby

World, Sea

“Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Universe

“Garages, barns and attics are always older than the buildings to which they are attached.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Source: The Favorite Game

“Never build a dungeon you wouldn't be happy to spend the night in yourself. The world would be a happier place if more people remembered that.”

Terry Pratchett book Guards! Guards!

Source: Guards! Guards!

Happiness, People, World, Night

“Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house, a world; and beyond its world a heaven. Know then, that the world exists for you: build, therefore, your own world.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

World, Housing

“Building muscle also increases testosterone, and when you've been in a boy band as long as I have, you can never get enough of that!”

Nick Carter (1980) singer from the United States

Boy

“You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage. Besides you don't build a better world by choppin' heads off and giving decent girls away to frogs.”

Terry Pratchett book Witches Abroad

Source: Witches Abroad (1991)

People, World, Girl

“You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage.”

Terry Pratchett book Witches Abroad

Source: Witches Abroad

People, World

“Character building begins in our infancy and continues until death.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Death

“The visions you glorify in your mind,
The ideals you enthrone in your heart..
This you will build your life by…
This you will become.”

James Allen (1864–1912) British philosophical writer

As A Man Thinketh (1902), Visions and Ideals
Context: In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Chance is not. Gifts, powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are the fruits of effort; they are thoughts completed, objects accomplished, visions realized.
The Vision that you glorify in your mind, the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart — this you will build your life by, this you will become.

Life, Heart

“I repeat with the most vehement conviction: truth is on the march, and nothing will stop it. Today is only the beginning, for it is only today that the positions have become clear: on one side, those who are guilty, who do not want the light to shine forth, on the other, those who seek justice and who will give their lives to attain it. I said it before and I repeat it now: when truth is buried underground, it grows and it builds up so much force that the day it explodes it blasts everything with it. We shall see whether we have been setting ourselves up for the most resounding of disasters, yet to come.”

Emile Zola J’accuse…!

J'accuse! (1898)
Context: These military tribunals have, decidedly, a most singular idea of justice.
This is the plain truth, Mr. President, and it is terrifying. It will leave an indelible stain on your presidency. I realise that you have no power over this case, that you are limited by the Constitution and your entourage. You have, nonetheless, your duty as a man, which you will recognise and fulfill. As for myself, I have not despaired in the least, of the triumph of right. I repeat with the most vehement conviction: truth is on the march, and nothing will stop it. Today is only the beginning, for it is only today that the positions have become clear: on one side, those who are guilty, who do not want the light to shine forth, on the other, those who seek justice and who will give their lives to attain it. I said it before and I repeat it now: when truth is buried underground, it grows and it builds up so much force that the day it explodes it blasts everything with it. We shall see whether we have been setting ourselves up for the most resounding of disasters, yet to come.

Truth, Justice, Light

“I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

The Lake Isle of Innisfree http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1641/, st. 1 The Rose (1893) Context: I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

“No good friends, no bad friends; only people you want, need to be with. People who build their houses in your heart.”

Stephen King book It

Source: It (1986), Ch. 16 : Eddie's Bad Break, §8
Context: Maybe, he thought, there aren't any such things as good friends or bad friends — maybe there are just friends, people who stand by you when you're hurt and who help you feel not so lonely. Maybe they're always worth being scared for, and hoping for, and living for. Maybe worth dying for, too, if that's what has to be. No good friends. No bad friends. Only people you want, need to be with; people who build their houses in your heart.

People, Heart, Housing

“You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

People, Courage

“All our lives we sweat and save,
Building for a shallow grave.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

“Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey (2000); here, Lee was reciting lines he wrote for his short lived role on the TV series Longstreet.
Context: Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.

Water

“No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.”

Ansel Adams (1902–1984) American photographer and environmentalist

Men, Confidence

“I know it's not thematically in tune with my new job and all, but I find it effective. Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day," I say. "But set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. Tao of Pratchett. I live by it.”

Jim Butcher book Cold Days

Source: Cold Days

Life

“Harry Dresden: The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault.”

Jim Butcher book Blood Rites

Source: The Dresden Files, Blood Rites (2004), Chapter 1, Opening Line

“When things are simple, fewer mistakes are made. The most expensive part of a building is the mistakes.”

Ken Follett book The Pillars of the Earth

Source: The Pillars of the Earth

Parting

“Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects that must be saved from a burning building.”

Paulo Freire book Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970)

“Strength enough to build a home,
Time enough to hold a child,
Love enough to break a heart”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Love, Home, Time, Heart

“If we turn against each other based on divisions of race or religion. I-i-i-if-if-if-if-if-if-if-if-if-if-if we fall for, you know, a bunch of okie-doke, just because, you know it-it-it. You know, it-it-it-it-it-it sounds funny or the tweets are provocative, then we're not going to build on the progress we started.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

"Obama Tries to Trash Donald Trump and Turns into a Stuttering Mess" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKXSgB7MEUU (YouTube video) — "WATCH: President Obama's Bizarre Stuttering Attack Against Donald Trump" http://www.hannity.com/articles/hanpr-election-493995/watch-president-obamas-bizarre-stuttering-attack-14774005/, Hannity.com (2 June 2016); "Watch: Obama ‘Trips Over His Tongue’ When He Goes Off Teleprompter To Bash Trump" http://www.westernjournalism.com/obama-trips-over-tongue-when-he-goes-off-teleprompter-to-bash-trump/ by Jack Davis, Western Journalism (2 June 2016). 2016

Religion

“ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents. No just God would stand for what they did yesterday, and for what they do every single day. ISIL has no ideology of any value to human beings. Their ideology is bankrupt. They may claim out of expediency that they are at war with the United States or the West, but the fact is they terrorize their neighbors and offer them nothing but an endless slavery to their empty vision, and the collapse of any definition of civilized behavior. And people like this ultimately fail. They fail, because the future is won by those who build and not destroy.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Statement by the President (20 August 2014) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/08/20/statement-president 2014

God, War, People, Faith

“And I think the question that the people of Jamaica, just like the people of the United States and everywhere else, should be asking is: If the government is spending money right now, is it on something that is going to help create long-term growth and help people succeed? If the answer is no, you shouldn’t spend that money. Spending money just for the sake of spending money is not -- that’s not the formula for success. But if the money is being spent on what we talked about -- early childhood education; if it’s being spent on infrastructure; if it’s being spent on research; if it’s being spent on building skills for workers -- those are good investments.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Town Hall meeting with Young Leaders of the Americas (April 2015)

Money, People, Education, Question

“While the impressionists make a table to give one particular moment and subordinate the life of the table to its resemblance to this moment, we synthesize every moment (time, place, form, color-tone) and thus build the table.”

Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916) Italian painter and sculptor

1914 - 1916, Pittura e scultura futuriste' Milan, 1914

Life, Color, Time

“Building worlds is not enough for the deeper urging mind; but a loving heart sates the striving spirit.”

Novalis book Blüthenstaub

Fragment No. 91
Blüthenstaub (1798)

Love, World, Heart

“There’s already an evolution taking place inside of Cuba, a generational change. Many suggested that I come here and ask the people of Cuba to tear something down -- but I’m appealing to the young people of Cuba who will lift something up, build something new.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, Remarks to the People of Cuba (March 2016)

People, Tear, Change

“Again and again the imaginary plan on which one attempts to build up that order breaks down and then we must try another. This imaginative vision and faith in the ultimate success are indispensable. The pure rationalist has no place here.”

Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist

Where Is Science Going? (1932)

Faith, Imagination, Success

“No matter who you are, no matter where you live, and no matter how many people are chasing you, what you don't read is often as important as what you do read. For instance, if you are walking in the mountains, and you don't read the sign that says "Beware of Cliff" because you were busy reading a joke book instead, you may suddenly find yourself walking on air rather than on a sturdy bed of rocks. If you are baking a pie for your friends, and you read an article entitled "How to Build a Chair" instead of a cookbook, your pie will probably end up tasting like wood and nails instead of like crust and fruity filling. And if you insist on reading this book instead of something more cheerful, you will most certainly find yourself moaning in despair instead of wriggling with delight, so if you have any sense at all you will put this book down and pick up another one. I know of a book, for instance, called The Littlest Elf, which tells the story of a teensy-weensy little man who scurries around fairyland having all sorts of adorable adventures, and you can see at once that you should probably read The Littlest Elf and wriggle over the lovely things that happened to this imaginary creature in a made-up place, instead of reading this book and moaning over the terrible things that have happened to the three Baudelaire orphans.”

Daniel Handler book The Vile Village

Lemony Snicket
The Vile Village (2001)

Love, People, Books, Mountain

“To build up a community, not upon Liberal opinions, which any man may fashion to his fancy, but upon popular principles, which assert equal rights, civil and religious; to uphold the institutions of the country because they are the embodiment of the wants and wishes of the nation, and protect us alike from individual tyranny and popular outrage; equally to resist democracy and oligarchy; and favour that principle of free aristocracy which is the only basis and security for constitutional government; to be vigilant to guard and prompt to vindicate the honour of the country, but to hold aloof from that turbulent diplomacy which only distracts the mind of a people from internal improvement; to lighten taxation; frugally but wisely to administer the public treasure; to favour popular education, because it is the best guarantee for public order; to defend local government; and to be as jealous of the rights of the working man as of the prerogatives of the Crown and the privileges of the Senate—these were once the principles which regulated Tory statesmen, and I for one have no wish that the Tory party should ever be in power unless they practise them.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1862/aug/01/the-administration-of-viscount in the House of Commons (1 August 1862).

People, Education, Democracy, Communication

“The world we want to transform has already been worked on by history and is largely hollow. We must nevertheless be inventive enough to change it and build a new world. Take care and do not forget ideas are also weapons.”

Subcomandante Marcos (1957) Mexican activist

Le Monde Diplomatique (August 2000) " Ideas Are Also Weapons http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Mexico/Ideas_weapons.html"

World, History, Idea, Change

“True Budo is done for the sake of "building peace". Train every day so as to make peace between this spirit [Budo] and all things manifested on the face of the Earth.”

Morihei Ueshiba (1883–1969) founder of aikido

Source: Budo Training in Aikido (1933), p. 26

Peace, Training

“We are joined today by inspiring entrepreneurs from more than 120 countries and many from across Africa. And all of you embody a spirit that we need to take on some of the biggest challenges that we face in the world -- the spirit of entrepreneurship, the idea that there are no limits to the human imagination; that ingenuity can overcome what is and create what needs to be. And everywhere I go, across the United States and around the world, I hear from people, but especially young people, who are ready to start something of their own -- to lift up people’s lives and shape their own destinies. And that’s entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship creates new jobs and new businesses, new ways to deliver basic services, new ways of seeing the world -- it’s the spark of prosperity. It helps citizens stand up for their rights and push back against corruption. Entrepreneurship offers a positive alternative to the ideologies of violence and division that can all too often fill the void when young people don’t see a future for themselves. Entrepreneurship means ownership and self-determination, as opposed to simply being dependent on somebody else for your livelihood and your future. Entrepreneurship brings down barriers between communities and cultures and builds bridges that help us take on common challenges together. Because one thing that entrepreneurs understand is, is that you don't have to look a certain way, or be of a certain faith, or have a certain last name in order to have a good idea.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by President Obama at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit at United Nations Compound in Nairobi, Kenya (July 25, 2015) https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/07/25/remarks-president-obama-global-entrepreneurship-summit 2015

People, World, Faith, Way

“A joke is like building a mousetrap from scratch. You have to work pretty hard to make the thing snap when it is supposed to snap.”

Kurt Vonnegut book A Man Without a Country

A Man Without a Country (2005)

“When I look at a building, how can I know there was a builder? Can't see him, hear him, touch him, taste him or smell him, so how can I know there was a builder? Well, the building is absolute proof there was a builder. I couldn't want better proof that there was a builder than to have the building as evidence. I don't need faith to believe in a builder, all I need is eyes that can see and a brain that works. Now the same deep, rich, scientific principle works with paintings and painters…. And the same principle works with God. When I look at Creation how can I know there was a creator? Well, creation is absolute proof there was a creator. I don't need faith to believe in a creator, all I need is eyes that can see and a brain that works.”

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

"The Beauty of a Broken Spirit—Atheism", The Way of the Master season 1 episode 7, 2003-05-12

God, Faith, Painting

“I beheld such a sight as I had never beheld before, and which no living person can have seen save in the delirium of fever or the inferno of opium. The building stood on a narrow point of land — or what was now a narrow point of land — fully three hundred feet above what must lately have been a seething vortex of mad waters. On either side of the house there fell a newly washed-out precipice of red earth, whilst ahead of me the hideous waves were still rolling in frightfully, eating away the land with ghastly monotony and deliberation.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Fiction, The Crawling Chaos (1921)

Water, Housing, Personality, Madness

“Next week, I will be joining President Hollande and world leaders in Paris for the global climate conference. What a powerful rebuke to the terrorists it will be when the world stands as one and shows that we will not be deterred from building a better future for our children.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by President Obama and President Hollande of France in Joint Press Conference https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/24/remarks-president-obama-and-president-hollande-france-joint-press (November 24, 2015) 2015

Children, World, Future

“These are our kids. This is what they’re thinking about. And so what we should be thinking about is our responsibility to care for them, and shield them from harm, and give them the tools they need to grow up and do everything that they’re capable of doing -- not just to pursue their own dreams, but to help build this country. This is our first task as a society, keeping our children safe. This is how we will be judged. And their voices should compel us to change.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by the President and the Vice President on Gun Violence, 2013-01-16, January 16, 2013 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/01/16/remarks-president-and-vice-president-gun-violence, 2013

Children, Dreams, Thinking, Change

“and where men build on false grounds, the more they build, the greater is the ruine:”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The Second Part, Chapter 26, p. 140
Leviathan (1651)

Men, Falseness

“People here are always asking me, "Can you play 'Lips Like Sugar' on an acoustic guitar?" And I'm like, "No!" It was an OK song, I suppose, but it didn't sound like us. We just got sucked into a new mentality on that last album, the sound of Radio America. It did great here, but by then I just thought we weren't good enough any more. It was pretty happening, the States was building and building but it didn't feel good on stage. We weren't really communicating as mates and stuff. I mean, I was used to believing that we were the best group going.”

Ian McCulloch (1959) singer, musician

Describing what American's always ask him.
Q magazine (1992)

People, Feeling, Communication

“Since many of today’s best-known manufacturers no longer produce products and advertise them, but rather buy products and “brand” them, these companies are forever on the prowl for creative new ways to build and strengthen their brand images.”

Naomi Klein (1970) Canadian author and activist

No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies 1999

Way

“We build upon the sand, and the older we become, the more unstable this foundation becomes.”

Alfred Nobel (1833–1896) Swedish chemist, innovator, and armaments manufacturer

“I can say with truth that I have never, even in times of greatest preoccupation with carnal, worldly and egotistic pursuits, seriously doubted that our existence here is related in some mysterious way to a more comprehensive and lasting existence elsewhere; that somehow or other we belong to a larger scene than our earthly life provides, and to a wider reach of time than our earthly allotment of three score years and ten…It has never been possible for me to persuade myself that the universe could have been created, and we, homo sapiens, so-called, have, generation after generation, somehow made our appearance to sojourn briefly on our tiny earth, solely in order to mount the interminable soap opera, with the same characters and situations endlessly recurring, that we call history. It would be like building a great stadium for a display of tiddly-winks, or a vast opera house for a mouth-organ recital. There must, in other words, be another reason for our existence and that of the universe than just getting through the days of our life as best we may; some other destiny than merely using up such physical, intellectual and spiritual creativity as has been vouchsafed us. This, anyway, has been the strongly held conviction of the greatest artists, saints, philosophers and, until quite recent times, scientists, through the Christian centuries, who have all assumed that the New Testament promise of eternal life is valid, and that the great drama of the Incarnation which embodies it, is indeed the master drama of our existence. To suppose that these distinguished believers were all credulous fools whose folly and credulity in holding such beliefs has now been finally exposed, would seem to me to be untenable; and anyway I'd rather be wrong with Dante and Shakespeare and Milton, with Augustine of Hippo and Francis of Assisi, with Dr. Johnson, Blake and Dostoevsky, than right with Voltaire, Rousseau, Darwin, the Huxleys, Herbert Spencer, H. G. Wells and Bernard Shaw.”

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist

Confessions of a Twentieth-Century Pilgrim (1988)

Life, Truth, Fools, Way

“Every form of catechesis would do well to attend to the “way of beauty” (via pulchritudinis). Proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in and to follow him is not only something right and true, but also something beautiful, capable of filling life with new splendour and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties. Every expression of true beauty can thus be acknowledged as a path leading to an encounter with the Lord Jesus. This has nothing to do with fostering an aesthetic relativism which would downplay the inseparable bond between truth, goodness and beauty, but rather a renewed esteem for beauty as a means of touching the human heart and enabling the truth and goodness of the Risen Christ to radiate within it. If, as Saint Augustine says, we love only that which is beautiful, the incarnate Son, as the revelation of infinite beauty, is supremely lovable and draws us to himself with bonds of love. So a formation in the via pulchritudinis ought to be part of our effort to pass on the faith. Each particular Church should encourage the use of the arts in evangelization, building on the treasures of the past but also drawing upon the wide variety of contemporary expressions so as to transmit the faith in a new “language of parables”. We must be bold enough to discover new signs and new symbols, new flesh to embody and communicate the word, and different forms of beauty which are valued in different cultural settings, including those unconventional modes of beauty which may mean little to the evangelizers, yet prove particularly attractive for others.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

Section 167
2010s, 2013, Evangelii Gaudium · The Joy of the Gospel

Love, Life, Truth, Faith

“Currently there's five machines permanently networked here. They all contain the serious core stuff. A couple of the machines are pensioned off 486s, with little other value now. Plus there's two Jaz drives in the building and the portable also carries a fair amount of stuff. Plus every Friday a man comes around and carves all the new stuff onto stone slabs and buries them in the garden… I think I'm okay.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Usenet

Thinking

“This morning at Flanders Field, I was reminded of how war between peoples sent a generation to their deaths in the trenches and gas of the First World War. And just two decades later, extreme nationalism plunged this continent into war once again -- with populations enslaved, and great cities reduced to rubble, and tens of millions slaughtered, including those lost in the Holocaust. It is in response to this tragic history that, in the aftermath of World War II, America joined with Europe to reject the darker forces of the past and build a new architecture of peace. Workers and engineers gave life to the Marshall Plan. Sentinels stood vigilant in a NATO Alliance that would become the strongest the world has ever known. And across the Atlantic, we embraced a shared vision of Europe -- a vision based on representative democracy, individual rights, and a belief that nations can meet the interests of their citizens through trade and open markets; a social safety net and respect for those of different faiths and backgrounds.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Address to European Youth (March 2014)

Life, Death, War, People

“I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel Committee. Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.
To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize — men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.
But I also know that this prize reflects the kind of world that those men and women, and all Americans, want to build — a world that gives life to the promise of our founding documents. And I know that throughout history, the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes. And that is why I will accept this award as a call to action — a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by the President on winning the Nobel Peace Prize" (9 October 2009)
2009

Life, Women, Men, People

“Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Hocus Pocus

Hocus Pocus (1990)

“And it is here under this oak where Evangeline waited for her lover, Gabriel, who never came. This oak is an immortal spot, made so by Longfellow's poem, but Evangeline is not the only one who has waited here in disappointment.
Where are the schools that you have waited for your children to have, that have never come? Where are the roads and the highways that you send your money to build, that are no nearer now than ever before? Where are the institutions to care for the sick and disabled? Evangeline wept bitter tears in her disappointment, but it lasted through only one lifetime. Your tears in this country, around this oak, have lasted for generations. Give me the chance to dry the eyes of those who still weep here!”

Huey Long (1893–1935) American politician, Governor of Louisiana, and United States Senator

Speech given during the 1928 gubernatorial election; quoted in Hugh Davis Graham, Huey Long (1970), p. 40.

Money, Children, School, Disappointment

“We have taller buildings but shorter tempers; wider freeways but narrower viewpoints; we spend more but have less; we buy more but enjoy it less; we have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, yet less time; we have more degrees but less sense; more knowledge but less judgment; more experts, yet more problems; we have more gadgets but less satisfaction; more medicine, yet less wellness; we take more vitamins but see fewer results. We drink too much; smoke too much; spend too recklessly; laugh too little; drive too fast; get too angry; stay up too late; get up too tired; read too seldom; watch TV too much and pray too seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values; we fly in faster planes to arrive there quicker, to do less and return sooner; we sign more contracts only to realize fewer profits; we talk too much; love too seldom and lie too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life; we've added years to life, not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor. We've conquered outer space, but not inner space; we've done larger things, but not better things; we've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul; we've split the atom, but not our prejudice; we write more, but learn less; plan more, but accomplish less; we make faster planes, but longer lines; we learned to rush, but not to wait; we have more weapons, but less peace; higher incomes, but lower morals; more parties, but less fun; more food, but less appeasement; more acquaintances, but fewer friends; more effort, but less success. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication; drive smaller cars that have bigger problems; build larger factories that produce less. We've become long on quantity, but short on quality.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men, but short character; steep in profits, but shallow relationships. These are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare; more leisure and less fun; higher postage, but slower mail; more kinds of food, but less nutrition. These are the days of two incomes, but more divorces; these quick trips, disposable diapers, cartridge living, throw-away morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies and pills that do everything from cheer, to prevent, quiet or kill. It is a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stock room.”

Bob Moorehead

"The Paradox of Our Age"; these statements were used in World Wide Web hoaxes which attributed them to various authors including George Carlin, a teen who had witnessed the Columbine High School massacre, the Dalai Lama and Anonymous; they are quoted in "The Paradox of Our Time" at Snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/paradox.asp Words Aptly Spoken (1995)

Love, Life, Men, Lie

“I think my best skill as an architect is the achievement of hand-to-eye coordination. I am able to transfer a sketch into a model into the building.”

Frank Gehry (1929) Canadian-American (b.1929)

Helen D. Hume (2010) The Art Teacher's Book of Lists. p. 304.

Thinking

“I arrived at length at Cairo, mother of cities and seat of Pharaoh the tyrant, mistress of broad regions and fruitful lands, boundless in multitude of buildings, peerless in beauty and splendour, the meeting-place of comer and goer, the halting-place of feeble and mighty, whose throngs surge as the waves of the sea, and can scarce be contained in her for all her size and capacity.”

Ibn Battuta (1304–1377) Moroccan explorer

Travels in Asia and Africa (Rehalã of Ibn Battûta)

Beauty, Sea

“First, anyone who seriously intends to become a philosopher must "once in his life" withdraw into himself and attempt, within himself, to overthrow and build anew all the sciences that, up to then, he has been accepting.”

Edmund Husserl book Cartesian Meditations

Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations (1931). Méditations cartésiennes

Life, Science

“I’ve always hated the danger part of climbing, and it’s great to come down again because it’s safe … But there is something about building up a comradeship — that I still believe is the greatest of all feats — and sharing in the dangers with your company of peers. It’s the intense effort, the giving of everything you’ve got. It’s really a very pleasant sensation.”

Edmund Hillary (1919–2008) New Zealand mountaineer

Statement of 1977 as quoted in "Sir Edmund Hillary, a Pioneering Conquerer of Everest, Dies at 88" in The New York Times (online edition) (10 January 2008) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/world/asia/11cnd-hillary.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all

Hate, Effort, Parting

“I want to help the up-and-coming kids. A lot of times, kids don't have much to do in the summer time. When I was a kid I didn't do nothing. I want to get body building out there and it will start with the younger generation.”

Ronnie Coleman (1964) American bodybuilder

Raymond Linex (June 12, 1998) "Strong arm of the law - Arlington policeman sets sights on Mr. Olympia title", The Dallas Morning News, p. 1B.

Time, Help, Summer

“Wherefore a monk's whole attention should thus be fixed on one point, and the rise and circle of all his thoughts be vigorously restricted to it; viz., to the recollection of God, as when a man, who is anxious to raise on high a vault of a round arch, must constantly draw a line round from its exact centre, and in accordance with the sure standard it gives discover by the laws of building all the evenness and roundness required….”

John Cassian (360–435) Christian monk and theologian

Conferences VI

God, Law, Drawing

“We’re building what’s called a private cloud for them [the C. I. A. ], … because they don’t want to be on the public cloud.”

Jeff Bezos (1964) American entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, Inc.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos looks to the future - CBS News http://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazons-jeff-bezos-looks-to-the-future/.

“When Government has a monopoly of all production and all distribution, as many Governments have, it can not permit any economic activity that competes with it. This means that it can not permit any new use of productive energy, for the new always competes with the old and destroys it. Men who build railroads destroy stage coach lines.”

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist

Source: Discovery of Freedom: Man's Struggle Against Authority (1943), p. 32

Men

“I'm sorry to disappoint science fiction fans, but if information is preserved, there is no possibility of using black holes to travel to other universes. If you jump into a black hole, your mass energy will be returned to our universe but in a mangled form which contains the information about what you were like but in a state where it can not be easily recognized. It is like burning an encyclopedia. Information is not lost, if one keeps the smoke and the ashes. But it is difficult to read. In practice, it would be too difficult to re-build a macroscopic object like an encyclopedia that fell inside a black hole from information in the radiation, but the information preserving result is important for microscopic processes involving virtual black holes.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

"Information Loss in Black Holes" http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0507171 (July 2005)

Disappointment, Travel, Universe, Science

“For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, First Inaugural Address (January 2009)

Health, Age, School, Cars

“As a genius of construction man raises himself far above the bee in the following way: whereas the bee builds with wax that he gathers from nature, man builds with the far more delicate conceptual material which he first has to manufacture from himself.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)

Way, Nature, Bee

“It is not unique to Africa -- corruption exists all over the world, including in the United States. But here in Africa, corruption drains billions of dollars from economies that can't afford to lose billions of dollars -- that's money that could be used to create jobs and build hospitals and schools. And when someone has to pay a bribe just to start a business or go to school, or get an official to do the job they’re supposed to be doing anyway -- that’s not “the African way.””

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

It undermines the dignity of the people you represent.
2015, Remarks to the People of Africa (July 2015)

Money, People, World, School

“The Bata system of management is a testimony to the understanding that capital is knowledge and not money, buildings or technology:Buildings-they are just piles of brick and concrete. Machines-they are a lot of iron and steel. Only people can give life to it all.”

Tomáš Baťa (1876–1932) Czech businessman

Bata, Tomas. Knowledge in Action: The Bata System of Management. IOS Press, 1992.

Life, Money, People, Understanding

“When we build a city we must answer the most basic question as for any type of project: who is the master whom we have to serve?”

Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis (1914–1975) Greek architect

Source: Building Entopia - 1975, Chapter 4, Definition of Entopia, p. 38

Question

“We walk the same path, but got on different shoes, live in the same building, but we got different views”

Drake (1986) Canadian rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor

"Right Above It", I Am Not A Human Being, Lil Wayne (2010)
2010s

Shoe

“Instead of supposing that a work of art must be something that all can behold—a poem, a painting, a book, a great building—consider making your own life a work of art. You have yourself to begin with, and a time of uncertain duration to work on it. You do not have to be what you are, and even though you may be quite content with who you are, it will not be hard for you to think of something much greater that you might become. It need not be something spectacular or even something that will attract notice from others. What it will be is a kind of excellence that you project for yourself, and then attain—something that you can take a look at, with honest self-appraisal, and be proud of.”

Richard Taylor (philosopher) (1919–2003) American philosopher, born 1919

Source: Restoring Pride: The Lost Virtue of Our Age (1995), p. 64

Life, Books, Art, Thinking

“Building a nation calls us to recognize that we must constantly relate to others, rejecting a mindset of hostility in order to adopt one of reciprocal subsidiarity, in a constant effort to do our best. I am confident that we can do this.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

2010s, Address to the United States Congress

Hostility, Confidence, Effort

“We are a small nation and need to cooperate across borders. As a result of the good reputation that Sweden has since long it is easy to build relationships.”

Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden (1946) King of Sweden

royalcorrespondent.com http://royalcorrespondent.com/2013/02/15/an-interview-with-his-majesty-king-carl-xvi-gustaf-of-sweden/

“Those who continue to fight for a hateful cause will find they are increasingly alone. For we will not succumb to threats, and we will demonstrate that the future belongs to those who build — not those who destroy.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Address to the United Nations (September 2014)

Hate, Future, Fight

“It is my dream that one day, great buildings like this one will exist in every corner of the world so every child can grow up with the opportunity to succeed.”

Malala Yousafzai (1997) Pakistani children's education activist

Inauguration of Library of Birmingham, Jan 2013

World, Dreams

“Let us therefore join hands, Britons, Burmans and all nations alike, to build up an abiding fruitful peace over the foundations of the hard-won victory that all of us desiring progressive direction in our own affairs and in the world at large, have at long last snatched firmly and completely from the grabbing hands of Fascist barbarians, a peace, as I have said, not of the graveyard, but creative of freedom, progress and prosperity in the world.”

Aung San (1915–1947) Burmese revolutionary leader

Address delivered at the meeting of East and West Association held on August 29, 1945, at the City Hall of Rangoon

World, Peace, Freedom, Victory

“The basic totalitarian claim: What I know is everything that needs to be known, and if only it were only manifest in the world, the world would become a utopia. I also think that that's the core idea behind the Tower of Babel. It's the idea that we can build a structure that makes the transcendent unnecessary.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

World, Idea, Thinking

“If you want to build a service which is not just serving rich people, then you need to have something that people can afford. … At Facebook, we are squarely in the camp of the companies that work hard to charge you less … I think it's important that we don't all get Stockholm syndrome and let the companies that work hard to charge you more convince you that they actually care more about you.”

Mark Zuckerberg (1984) American internet entrepreneur

Quoted: Mark Zuckerberg calls Tim Cook's comments on Facebook 'extremely glib' http://theverge.com/2018/4/2/17188660/mark-zuckerberg-tim-cook-comments-facebook-extremely-glib, The Verge, 2 April 2018

People, Thinking

“It is a question of building which is at the root of the social unrest of today: architecture or revolution.”

Le Corbusier (1887–1965) architect, designer, urbanist, and writer

Vers une architecture [Towards an Architecture] (1923)

Question

“There is a constant succession of books on the subject of comparative grammar, for the use both of students and of the general public; yet it does not seem that we are offered what we really need. Language is full of lessons for those who know how to question it. Through all the centuries humanity has deposited in Language the acquisitions of material and moral life. But it must be approached from the side on which it appeals to the mind. If we limit ourselves to the changes of vowels and consonants, the study is reduced to the proportions of a merely secondary branch of acoustics and physiology; if we think it enough to enumerate the losses undergone *by the machinery of grammar, we give the impression of a building that is falling into ruins; if we confine ourselves to vague theories on the origin of Language, we merely add an unprofitable chapter to the history of systems.”

Michel Bréal (1832–1915) French philologist

Source: Essai de semantique, 1897, p. 1; lead paragraph

Life, Books, History, Question

“As bees gather honey, so we collect what is sweetest out of all things and build Him. Even with the trivial, with the insignificant (as long as it is done out of love) we begin, with work and with the repose that comes afterward, with a silence or with a small solitary joy, with everything that we do alone, without anyone to join or help us, we start Him whom we will not live to see, just as our ancestors could not live to see us. And yet they, who passed away long ago, still exist in us, as predisposition, as burden upon our fate, as murmuring blood, and as gesture that rises up from the depths of time. Is there anything that can deprive you of the hope that in this way you will someday exist in Him, who is the farthest, the outermost limit?”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Letter Six (23 December 1903)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)

Love, Fate, Hope, Way

“Ah me, why did they build my house by the road to the market town?”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

4 The Gardener http://www.spiritualbee.com/love-poems-by-tagore/ (1915)

Housing

“If you come to France and you wear a veil, if you go to one of the administrative buildings, then that's not acceptable. If you don't want your wife to be examined by a male doctor, then you're not welcome here. France is a country that's open.”

Nicolas Sarkozy (1955) 23rd President of the French Republic

Interview with Charlie Rose, televised 31 January 2007

Country

“Man develops his way of anticipating events by construing, by scratching out his channels of thought. Thus he builds his own maze. His runways are the constructs he forms, each a two-way street, each essentially a pair of alternatives between which he can choose.”

George Kelly (psychologist) (1905–1967) American psychologist and therapist

George A. Kelly, "Man's construction of his alternatives." Assessment of human motives (1958): 33-64.

Way

“That, in my opinion, was the most diabolical aspect of those old-time brains: They would tell their owners, in effect, "Here's a crazy thing we could actually do, probably, but would never do it, of course. It's just fun to think about."
And then, as though in trances, the people would really do it — have slaves fight each other to death in the Colosseum, or burn people alive in the public square for holding opinions which were locally unpopular, or build factories whose only purpose was to kill people in industrial quantities, or to blow up whole cities, and on and on.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Galápagos

Galápagos (1985)

Death, People, Thinking, Time

“But politics demands, in the interests of each separate nation, guarantees for its independence and continued existence, special regulations to help its progress in culture, prosperity, and power, to build its society into a perfectly complete and harmoniously developed body politic, self-contained and independent.”

Friedrich List (1789–1846) German economist with dual American citizenship

Introduction, translated and reproduced in Hirst (1909), p. 291
The National System of Political Economy (1841)

Help

“To permit every lawless capitalist, every law-defying corporation, to take any action, no matter how iniquitous, in the effort to secure an improper profit and to build up privilege, would be ruinous to the Republic and would mark the abandonment of the effort to secure in the industrial world the spirit of democratic fair dealing.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Eighth State of the Union Address (8 December 1908)
1900s

World, Law, Effort

“Let's join hands and endeavour to promote development in both China and Africa, improve the well-being of our peoples and build a harmonious world of enduring peace and common prosperity.”

Hu Jintao (1942) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of China

2000s, China-Africa summit speech (2006)

People, World, Peace

“And ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has just left the building!”

Mike Lange (1948) Canadian sportscaster

"Eddie Spaghetti! The Story Behind Mike Lange-isms"

“It is gonna get worse because of the stupidity that we're hearing coming out of people who say, "We need to build bridges, not walls." Wrong! You can't build a bridge to terror. You need to build a wall between you and terror.”

Michael Savage (1942) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, and Author

The Savage Nation (1995- ), 2016

People, Stupidity

“I've learned love is like a brick, you can build a house or sink a dead body.”

Lady Gaga (1986) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Lyrics, Judas.

Love, Learning, Housing, Dead

“I will build a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one — and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces.”

Henry Ford book My Life and Work

Source: My Life and Work (1922), p. 73. Chapter IV.

Men, God, Pleasure, Family

“Order and discipline are the most important things in an army, and without them it is impossible to have any other service of the troops than of a confused heap of stones, bricks, timber, and tiles; but when everything is in its due place, as in a building, when the foundations and the covering are made of materials that will not grow rotten, and which no wet can damage, such as are stones and tiles, and when the bricks and timber are employed in their due places in the body of the edifice, they altogether make a house, which we value among our most considerable enjoyments.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Memorabilia III.1
Xenophon

Housing

“I build no system. I ask an end to privilege, the abolition of slavery, equality of rights, and the reign of law. Justice, nothing else; that is the alpha and omega of my argument: to others I leave the business of governing the world.”

Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist

Source: What is Property? (1840), Ch. I: "Method Pursued in this Work. The Idea of a Revolution"

World, Justice, Law, Business

“Small business is the gateway to opportunity for those who want a piece of the American dream. […] Well, wouldn't it be nice to hear a little more about the forgotten heroes of America-those who create most of our new jobs, like the owners of stores down the street; the faithfuls who support our churches, synagogues, schools, and communities; the brave men and women everywhere who produce our goods, feed a hungry world, and keep our families warm while they invest in the future to build a better America? That's where miracles are made, not in Washington, D. C.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Ronald Reagan: "Remarks at the National Conference of the National Federation of Independent Business ," June 22, 1983. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=41504 1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Women, Men, World, School

“Each of us who came here with wisdom must learn from this school. Heaven does not come from building beautiful churches, mosques, and temples. Man must build his church, mosque, and temple within himself. The house of God must be built within. The place of worship must be seen within. The completeness of God must be built within the self. If man can understand his story and the story of God and then build a church within himself, that is victory.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

The Wisdom of Man (1980)

Wisdom, God, School, Beauty

“The world that America seeks is not one we can build on our own. For human rights to reach those who suffer the boot of oppression, we need your voices to speak out. In particular, I appeal to those nations who emerged from tyranny and inspired the world in the second half of the last century, from South Africa to South Asia, from Eastern Europe to South America. Don't stand idly by, don't be silent when dissidents elsewhere are imprisoned and protesters are beaten. Recall your own history, because part of the price of our own freedom is standing up for the freedom of others.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

"Remarks to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City," September 23, 2010. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=88483&st=&st1= 2010

World, History, Freedom, Suffering

“Crikey, mate. You're far safer dealing with crocodiles and western diamondback rattlesnakes than the executives and the producers and all those sharks in the big MGM building.”

Steve Irwin (1962–2006) Australian environmentalist and television personality

from "Enough Rope With Andrew Denton" on ABC, 2004

“If I had a hammer, I'd build a city on stilts so my feet would stay dry when God's wine glass tilts. If I had a shovel, I'd dig a hole in the dirt and I'll be hiding when his drunken stupor lands upon earth”

Aesop Rock (1976) American rapper

"Tugboat Complex" from the album Labor Days. Archived at " The Original Hip-Hop (Rap) Lyrics Archive http://ohhla.com/anonymous/aesoprck/rm_bside/tugboat.rck.txt," Accessed May 22, 2014.

God, Wine

“I think I have more plans for my future from now and I think we must start work for a campaign now so we have set up a Malala foundation. And through Malala fund we are going to educate girls and we want to do work on the ground: building schools, teachers, training, trying to motivate parents of the children to send their children to school. We also want to recognize those girls who are fighting for their rights. In the future when I grow older, much older I want to do politics. I want to serve my country for politics. I want to help my people and I want to help in education.”

Malala Yousafzai (1997) Pakistani children's education activist

Statements in PBS interview with Margaret Warner (October 11, 2013)

Children, People, Education, School

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Quotes about building
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