Quotes about check
page 2

“… I say, that Power must never be trusted without a check.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Source: Adams-Jefferson Letters

“We are so busy constantly checking our own temperatures, we fail to notice the burning fevers of others.”

Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) Mormon leader

Business

“If I were a flowerpot, I would've checked my hair.

~Carter Kane”

Rick Riordan book The Serpent's Shadow

Source: The Serpent's Shadow

“She looked as if she were a vampire about to check the time—with a sundial.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Shadow's Claim

Time

“I understand too well the dreadful act
I'm going to commit, but my judgement
can't check my anger, and that incites
the greatest evils human beings do.”

Euripidés Medea

Source: Medea

Understanding, Evil, Anger

“You don't have to talk to someone to think about them and check up on them now and again.”

Emily Giffin (1972) American writer

Source: Love the One You're With

Thinking

“Boy, you better check that tone. (Wulf)
Yeah, yeah, ya scare me. I’m even wetting my pants while in your terrifying, gut-wrenching presence. See me shiver and quiver? Ooo, ahhh, ooo. (Chris)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Kiss of the Night

Boy

“Just remember, anger is always your enemy. You must keep your emotions in check. The moment you lose control of them, you lose the fight every time. (Takeshi)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Time, Fight, Anger

“Do you work at the grocery store? Then why are you checking me out?”

Lisi Harrison (1970) Canadian writer

Source: Best Friends for Never

“Hey, check this weirdo out." Hi was inspecting a bust on the mantel. "This face is ninety percent eyebrow. What do you want to bet he owned slaves?"

Scowling to match the carving's expression, Hi spoke in a gravelly voice.”

Kathy Reichs book Code

Source: Code

“Coyote to Mercy:

"I didn't know about you until a lot later. Then I stopped to check you out. You looked happy running with the wolves. They looked bewildered- which is as it should be when a coyote plays with wolves.”

Patricia Briggs book River Marked

Source: River Marked

Happiness

“Check your spam folder
The prophecies might be there
No? Well, I'm stumped. Bye”

Rick Riordan book The Hidden Oracle

Source: The Hidden Oracle

“Shake paws, count your claws,
You steal mine, I'll borrow yours.
Watch my whiskers, check both ears.
Robber foxes have no fears.”

Brian Jacques (1939–2011) British fiction writer known for Redwall animal fantasy novels

Fear

“Check out that one at the end. He's taken the form of a footstool. Weird… but somehow I like his style."

"That is a footstool.”

Jonathan Stroud book The Golem's Eye

Source: The Golem's Eye

“Chess is all about getting the king into check, you see. It's about killing the father. I would say that chess has more to do with the art of murder than it does with the art of war.”

Arturo Pérez-Reverte book The Flanders Panel

Source: The Flanders Panel

War, Art

“Crouched on the roof between BEx and Liz, I wasn't a girl who had just broken up with her boyfriend; I looked at my watch and check my gear instead of crying. I had a mission objective and not a broken heart.”

Ally Carter I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Source: I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Girl, Heart, Cry

“I won’t snatch, harm, or scare to death people with you or use checking up on you as an excuse to cause trouble. You’re worse than my mother, Rachel.”
“Mine, too,” Jenks muttered.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: White Witch, Black Curse

Death, People

“How do you tell if something's alive? You check for breathing.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“Johnson! Have I committed any illegal actions?'
Johnson checked his watch. 'Not within the last three minutes, sir.”

Genevieve Cogman (1972) novelist and game designer

Source: The Invisible Library

“The first time Calypso came to check on [Leo], it was to complain about the noise.
“Smoke and fire,” she said. “Clanging on metal all day long. You’re scaring away the birds!”
“Oh, no, not the birds!”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Bird, Time

“Are you suggesting that the gods have trouble acting together, young lady?" Dionysus asked.

Yes, Lord Dionysus."

Mr. D nodded. "Just checking. You're right, of course. Carry on.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

God

“Your Dark-Huntress, Danger, called for Acheron and since he’s busy, I was sent to check things out and report back to him on what’s happening. So here I am. Joy, oh joy of my life. (Alexion)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Sins of the Night

Life, Business, Joy

“i was joking with isabelle about vampires right before it happened. just trying to make her laugh, you know? what freaks out jewish vanpires? silver stars of david? chopped liver? check for eighteen dollars?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Star

“Even the trip throught the Portal had not disarranged Magnus's hair spikes. He tugged on one proudly. "Check it out", he said to Isabelle.
"Magic?"
"Hair gel. $3.99 at Ricky's.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

“I’d been raised to be practical and keep my
emotions in check, but I loved cars. That was one of the few
legacies I’d picked up from my mom. She was a mechanic,
and some of my best childhood memories were of working
in the garage with her.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Love, Cars, Moms, Memory

“True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked.”

Erich Segal (1937–2010) American writer

Love, Light, Wise, Cute

“Two tasks at the beginning of your life: to narrow your orbit more and more, and ever and again to check whether you are not in hiding somewhere outside your orbit.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Life

“There are no contradictions. If you find one, check your premises.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

“Half of these aren't even Machiavelli.
Some are Plato, Thucydides etc…. doesnt anyone check these?”

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Italian politician, Writer and Author

“He looks at you like you're someone he's never met before, much less someone he once loved with high passion. The irony is, you can hardly blame him. I mean, check yourself out. You're a pathetic mess, unrecognizable even to your own eyes.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Love, Passion

“Let us have integrity and not write checks with our tongues which our conduct cannot cash.”

Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) Mormon leader

“Yo, yo, yo, check it out," said PJ, with enough hand gestures that any deaf person watching would have thought he had ASL Tourette's syndrome”

Christopher Moore (1957) American writer of comic fantasy

Source: You Suck

Personality

“Max: "Fang! This is a huge break! Of course we should go check it out!"
Fang: "But we're grounded."
Max and Fang: (stare at each other for a second and burst out laughing)”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: School's Out—Forever

“I'm just not convinced that Jesus is going to say, "When I was hungry, you gave a check to the United Way and they fed me.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

Source: The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

Way

“To distract myself from thoughts of my father, i decided to check out the dead body.”

Kelley Armstrong The Awakening

Source: The Awakening

Dead

“They tied me back together, but they didn't use double knots. My insides are draining out of the fault lines in my skin, I can feel it, but every time I check the bandages, they're dry.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

Feeling, Time

“It is not the terrible occurrences that no one is spared, — a husband’s death, the moral ruin of a beloved child, long, torturing illness, or the shattering of a fondly nourished hope, — it is none of these that undermine the woman’s health and strength, but the little daily recurring, body and soul devouring care s. How many millions of good housewives have cooked and scrubbed their love of life away! How many have sacrificed their rosy checks and their dimples in domestic service, until they became wrinkled, withered, broken mummies. The everlasting question: ‘what shall I cook today,’ the ever recurring necessity of sweeping and dusting and scrubbing and dish-washing, is the steadily falling drop that slowly but surely wears out her body and mind. The cooking stove is the place where accounts are sadly balanced between income and expense, and where the most oppressing observations are made concerning the increased cost of living and the growing difficulty in making both ends meet. Upon the flaming altar where the pots are boiling, youth and freedom from care, beauty and light-heartedness are being sacrificed. In the old cook whose eyes are dim and whose back is bent with toil, no one would recognize the blushing bride of yore, beautiful, merry and modestly coquettish in the finery of her bridal garb.”

Dagobert von Gerhardt (1831–1910) German writer

To the ancients the hearth was sacred; beside the hearth they erected their lares and household-gods. Let us also hold the hearth sacred, where the conscientious German housewife slowly sacrifices her life, to keep the home comfortable, the table well supplied, and the family healthy."
"von Gerhardt, using the pen-name Gerhard von Amyntor in", A Commentary to the Book of Life. Quote taken from August Bebel, Woman and Socialism, Chapter X. Marriage as a Means of Support.

Love, Life, Death, God

“In the flush of the hot June prime,
O'ersleek flood-tides afire,
I hear him hurry the chime
To the bidding of checked Desire;
Till the sweated ringers tire
And the wild bob-majors die.
Could I wait for my turn in the godly choir?
(Shoal! 'Ware shoal!) Not I!”

Rudyard Kipling The Bell Buoy

The Bell Buoy.
Other works

Waiting

“Did you ever figure to be living in a time when your check is good, but the bank bounces?”

Robert Orben (1928) American magician and writer

Alison DaRosa (November 26, 1985) "Title: Alison DaRosa", Evening Tribune, Union-Tribune Publishing Co., p. B-1.
Attributed

Time

“WE MUST DESTROY ALL PASSÉIST CLOTHES, and everything about them which is tight-fitting, colourless, funereal, decadent, boring and unhygienic. As far as materials are concerned, we must abolish: wishywashy, pretty-pretty, gloomy, and neutral colours, along with patterns composed of lines, checks and spots.”

Giacomo Balla (1871–1958) Italian artist

(Manuscript, 1913); as quoted at dekorera.tumblr: Futurist manifesto of men's clothing http://dekorera.tumblr.com/post/3212646425/futurist-manifesto-of-mens-clothing-by-giacomo Futurist Manifesto of Men's clothing,' 1913/1914

Clothes

“I was gonna be your Romeo you were gonna be my Juliet.
These days you don't wait on Romeo's,
You wait on that welfare check.”

Bruce Springsteen (1949) American singer and songwriter

"Point Blank"
Song lyrics, The River (1980)

Waiting

“In order to be able to go on living it is possible that the bankrupt peoples will have to enter on a new path of self-denial, by curbing their covetousness and putting a check on the indefinite expansion of their wants, and by having smaller families.”

Nikolai Berdyaev (1874–1948) Russian philosopher

Source: The End of Our Time (1919), p. 94

People, Family

“Neil Cavuto: Yeah but, you can't, Congressman, we've got a pretty good economy going here, right? We've got productivity soaring. We've got retail sales that are strong. We've got corporate earnings that for, what, the 19th quarter, are up double digit? We've got a market chasing highs, I mean, this isn't happening in a vacuum, right?
Ron Paul: Yeah, that's nice, but when you have to borrow, you know… My personal finances would be very good if I borrowed a million dollars every month. But, someday, the bills will become due. And the bills will come due in this country, and then we'll have to pay for it. We can't afford this war, and we can't afford the entitlement system.
Neil Cavuto: Look, Congressman, did you say this 10 years ago, when the numbers were similarly strong…
Ron Paul: Go back and check.
Neil Cavuto: …and we were still borrowing a good deal then.
Ron Paul: That's right, that means the dollar bubble is much bigger than ever.
Neil Cavuto: So what's gonna happen?
Ron Paul: We've had the NASDAQ bubble collapse already. We have the housing bubble in the middle of a collapse, so the dollar bubble will collapse as well. We have to live within our means. You can't print money out of the blue, and think you can print your money into prosperity.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Your World with Neil Cavuto, FOX News, May 15, 2007 http://www.newshounds.us/2007/05/16/rep_ron_paul_tells_fox_newsrepublicans_the_truth_they_dont_like_hearing_it.php http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU2RK0TNbXk 2000s, 2006-2009

Money, War, Thinking, Strong

“It is a revolution; a revolution of the most intense character; in which belief in the justice, prudence, and wisdom of secession is blended with the keenest sense of wrong and outrage, and it can no more be checked by human effort for the time than a prairie fire by a gardener’s watering pot.”

Judah P. Benjamin (1811–1884) American politician and lawyer

On the secession movement in the South (1860). Reported in Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln (1950), p. 387.

Wisdom, Justice, Sense, Effort

“The more constrained the power of governments, the more it is diffused, checked and balanced, the less it will aggress on others and commit democide. At the extremes of Power, totalitarian communist governments slaughter their people by the tens of millions, while many democracies can barely bring themselves to execute even serial murderers.”

Rudolph Rummel (1932–2014) American academic

Source: Death by Government (1994), p. 2

People, Democracy

“When he left, he cleaned out their checking account and left Renee with nothing. The next month, Renee didn't have enough money to pay the mortgage, keep the lights on, pay for her car, and buy Christmas presents.”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

pg. 48
Pretty Mess book (2018)

Money, Cars, Light, Christmas

“Women must be trained to fight in houses, prepare explosive belts and blow themselves up alongside enemy soldiers. Anyone with a car must prepare it and know how to install explosives and turn it into a car-bomb. We must train women to place explosives in cars and blow them up in the midst of enemies, and blow up houses so that they can collapse on enemy soldiers. Traps must be prepared. You have seen how the enemy checks baggage: we must fix these suitcases in order for them to explode when they open them. Women must be taught to place mines in cupboards, bags, shoes, children's toys so that they explode on enemy soldiers.”

Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist

Speech to the women of Sabha, October 4 2003; cited in ilfoglio.it http://www.ilfoglio.it/zakor/82 Speeches Variant: The woman must be trained to fight inside the houses, to prepare an explosive belt and to blow herself up with the enemy soldiers. Anyone with a car has to prepare it and know how to fix the explosive and turn it into a car bomb. We have to train women to dispose of explosives in cars and make them explode in the midst of the enemy, to blow up the houses to make them collapse on enemy soldiers. You have to prepare traps. You have seen how the enemy controls the baggage: you have to manipulate these suitcases to make them explode when they open them. Women must be taught to undermine the cabinets, bags, shoes, children's toys, so that they burst on enemy soldiers.

Women, Children, Cars, Shoe

“Google was not a normal place at all. There was just all kinds of weird stuff going on. I would just walk around and check stuff out like the kid in Willy Wonka going around the chocolate factory.”

Biz Stone (1974) American blogger; co-founder of Twitter

“'Google was Not a Normal Place': Brin, Page, and Mayer on the Accidental Birth of the Company That Changed Everything” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/valley-of-genius-excerpt-google, in Vanity Fair (10 July 2018).

“The enthronement in office of a Socialist Government will be a serious national misfortune such as has usually befallen great States only on the morrow of defeat in war. It will delay the return of prosperity; it will check enterprise and impair credit; it will open a period of increasing political confusion and disturbance.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to a correspondent (17 January 1924) shortly before Labour formed its first government, reprinted in The Times (18 January 1924), p. 14
Early career years (1898–1929)

War

“In the first place I have an enormous regard for common sense. Any time we discover some great thing and it contradicts common sense, we better go back to the laboratory and check it.”

Harry Harlow (1905–1981) American psychologist

in interview with Carol Tavris, as cited in Love According To Harry Harlow http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/love-according-to-harry-harlow#.WE2jv33d7cs, t the Association for Psychological Science's Observer, by Deborah Blum, January 2012.

Sense, Time

“Man's urge for change and his need for stability have always balanced and checked each other, and our current vocabulary, which distinguishes between two factions, the progressives and the conservatives, indicates a state of affairs in which this balance has been thrown out of order. No civilization — the man-made artifact to house successive generations — would ever have been possible without a framework of stability, to provide the wherein for the flux of change. Foremost among the stabilizing factors, more enduring than customs, manners and traditions, are the legal systems that regulate our life in the world and our daily affairs with each other.”

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) Jewish-American political theorist

"Civil Disobedience".
Crises of the Republic (1969)

Life, World, Change, Success

“When the wicked have power to blow out the sun, that it shines no more; when they have power to bring to a conclusion the operations of the elements, suspend the whole system of nature, and make a footstool of the throne of the Almighty, they may then think to check “Mormonism” in its course, and thwart the unalterable purposes of heaven. Men may persecute the people who believe its doctrines, report and publish lies to bring tribulation upon their heads, earth and hell may unite in one grand league against it, and exert their malicious powers to the utmost, but it will stand as firm and immovable in the midst of it all as the pillars of eternity. Men may persecute the Prophet, and those who believe and uphold him, they may drive the Saints and kill them but this does not affect the truths of “Mormonism” one iota, for they will stand when the elements melt with fervent heat, and the heavens are wrapt up like a scroll and the solid earth is dissolved. “Mormonism” stands upon the eternal basis of omnipotence. Jehovah is the “Mormonism” of this people, their Priesthood and their power; and all who adhere to it will, in the appointed day, come up into the presence of the King Eternal, and receive a crown of life.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 1:88 (June 13, 1852)
1850s

Life, Men, People, Truth

“Programs today get very fat; the enhancements tend to slow the programs down because people put in special checks. When they want to add some feature, they'll just stick in these checks without thinking how they might slow the thing down.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Interview from Programmers at Work (1986)

People, Thinking

“The landlord crossed himself when they checked in, but an English ten-pound note for a week’s lodging overcame whatever superstitious misgivings the man may have had.”

Tim Powers book The Stress of Her Regard

Source: The Stress of Her Regard (1989), Chapter 17 (p. 285)

“Arms observe no bounds; nor can the wrath of the sword, once drawn, be easily checked or stayed; war delights in blood.”
arma non servant modum; nec temperari facile nec reprimi potest stricti ensis ira; bella delectat cruor.

Seneca the Younger Hercules Furens

Hercules Furens (The Madness of Hercules), lines 403-405; (Lycus).
Tragedies

War

“What happened at the prison, it is now clear, was not the result of random acts by "a few bad apples," it was the natural consequence of the Bush Administration policy that has dismantled those wise constraints and has made war on America's checks and balances.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, NYU Speech (2004)

War, Nature

“The Persian aggression against Iraq was a result of the arrogant, racialist and evil attitudes of the ruling clique in Iran. At the same time, it was a Zionist and imperialist conspiracy aimed at liquidating Iraq's revival and checking its development for decades. It tried to strip you of your shining mind and heart, in the same way as it tried to destroy the scientific, cultural and technical bases of your new revival. But you, with courage, patience and efficiency — thanks to the Revolution's achievements — have been able to meet a challenge which many peoples in the world may fail to meet, and which some countries in the Arab homeland have indeed failed to meet.”

Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) Iraqi politician and President

President Saddam Hussein's Speech on National Day (1981)

People, World, Way, Courage

“Social progress means a checking of the cosmic process at every step and the substitution for it of another, which may be called the ethical process; the end of which is not the survival of those who may happen to be the fittest, in respect of the whole of the conditions which obtain, but of those who are ethically the best.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

p, 125
Evolution and Ethics (1893)

“I don't think there was anything in my brain right then except the usual background static -- the kind you get on your radio when it's turned up all the way and tuned to no station at all. My brain had checked to the power, so to speak; the little guy wearing the Napoleon hat inside was showing aces and betting them.”

Stephen King book Rage

Rage (1977)

Way, Guy, Thinking

“Voluntary birth control methods only work on the people who choose to use ’em. A population check that doesn’t work on everybody doesn’t work at all, because it simply breeds out the ones who use it. The only population check that really works is one that affects everybody, like a limit of space or food.”

Damon Knight book A for Anything

Source: A for Anything (1959), Chapter 10 (p. 122)

People, Food, Birth

“Change gear, change gear, check mirror, murder a prostitute, change gear, change gear, murder. That's a lot of effort in a day.”

Jeremy Clarkson (1960) English broadcaster, journalist and writer

Top Gear, 2 November 2008; as quoted in "Clarkson joke sparks complaints" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7707641.stm, BBC News, 4 November 2008 Top Gear

Effort, Change

“When I meet a new person, I like to take them in, give them a damn good staring at, and check my files for references.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Personality

“(The Worldwide Church of God) cleaned my pockets out frankly. I have some money left, but not that much. I've got some assets. It's amazing they didn't get everything. Now my only income is a few royalty checks from my books. I was really very foolish, but I thought I was doing what I had to do. When I sent those checks off, I really didn't have the slightest qualms, no regrets, not the slightest. I don't really regret it that much, to tell you the truth, even now.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

1970s, BOBBY FISCHER SPEAKS OUT! (1977)

Money, God, Truth, Books

“The American people have been offered two lousy choices. One, which is corporatism, a fascist type of approach, or, socialism. We deliver a lot of services in this country through the free market, and when you do it through the free market prices go down. But in medicine, prices go up. Technology doesn't help the cost, it goes up instead of down. But if you look at almost all of our industries that are much freer, technology lowers the prices. Just think of how the price of cell phones goes down. Poor people have cell phones, and televisions, and computers. Prices all go down. But in medicine, they go up, and there's a reason for that, that's because the government is involved with it… I do [think that prices will go down without government involvement], but probably a lot more than what you're thinking about, because you have to have competition in the delivery of care. For instance, if you have a sore throat and you have to come see me, you have to wait in the waiting room, and then get checked, and then get a prescription, and it ends up costing you $100. If you had true competition, you should be able to go to a nurse, who could for 1/10 the cost very rapidly do it, and let her give you a prescription for penicillin. See, the doctors and the medical profession have monopolized the system through licensing. And that's not an accident, because they like the idea that you have to go see the physician and pay this huge price. And patients can sort this out, they're not going to go to a nurse if they need brain surgery…”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Interview by Laura Knoy on NHPR, June 5, 2007 http://info.nhpr.org/node/13016 2000s, 2006-2009

People, Idea, Thinking, Waiting

“Hey wait a minute, this isn't a Copyright claim now is it? This looks more like a personal ad! How about checking out some of the local press instead of trying to pick up people in other continents? Actually, being in different countries(even on different continents) means that we don't have the same laws here. You know, in Sweden, it's still legal to do a lot of things. Elks can have sex with eachother without being prosecuted for instance. And people are allowed to copy. It's quite natural, both of them, don't you think?”

Peter Sunde (1978) Swedish activist and computer expert

The Pirate Bay Legal Threats: Prophecy House: Email and Response http://web.archive.org/20060423074547/static.thepiratebay.org/huckabay_resp.txt

People, Law, Sex, Nature

“Mr. President, this ability – this ability to give us a reality check before we write a check charged to the people – to me is his value to this institution and the service he renders to the citizenry who sent him here.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2013, Speech: Nomination of Senator Ralph Recto as Senate Pro Tempore

People, Reality

“Wakin' up to find yourself creamin'
Check your fears and hope that you're dreamin'
A little space is all that I need
If these suckers just allow me to breathe
Snake pits and Lucifer's burns
Can't take the strength I've earned and learned
Stepped in depth of the same livin' hell
Ain't too proud to die here as well.Do Do Wap is strong in here;
Do Do Wap is strong in here, hey! hey!”

Curtis Mayfield (1942–1999) American singer, songwriter, and record producer

Do Do Wap is Strong in Here, from Short Eyes (1977).
Song lyrics

Fear, Hope, Hell, Strong

“Often I’ve stated how I hate to be wrong. That has aborted many a tempting error, but not all of them. But I hate much more to stay wrong. Early on, I’ve learned to check back on earlier proclamations. One can learn much from one’s own errors and precious little from one’s triumphs. By September of 1945, it was becoming obvious that oversaving was not going to cause a deep and lasting post-war recession. So then and there, I cut my losses on that bad earlier estimate.”

Paul A. Samuelson (1915–2009) American economist

New millennium, An Interview with Paul A. Samuelson, 2003

Hate, War, Error, Learning

“Many of us associate the Christian faith as a list of do's and dont's, to be sure. But the Christian life is to be oriented in relationship, why is there so much talk of formula? Could it be that the reason we are more interested in forumla than relationship is that we would like to deal with our need for religion without dealing with the complications of relationship? That even though we have chosen the Christian faith instead of "poppycock religion," we ultimately want the same thing as the pagan? And what is that? Easy answers, comfortable sentiments, beliefs that make us feel good. So we go through the motions. We go to our churches, we read our self-help books, we watch our religious television, and we check each item off our to-do list as if we were doing work for pay. One thing I am sure of. This is not the kind of real-life faith I'm looking for.”

Donald Miller (1971) American writer

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

Life, Books, Faith, Religion

“Those who expect from a people like the Hindus a species of composition of precisely the same character as the historical works of Greece and Rome commit the very gregarious error of overlooking the peculiarities which distinguish the natives of India from all other races, and which strongly discriminate their intellectual productions of every kind from those of the West. Their philosophy, their poetry, their architecture, are marked with traits of originality; and the same may be expected to pervade their history, which, like the arts enumerated, took a character from its intimate association with the religion of the people. It must be recollected, moreover,… that the chronicles of all the polished nations of Europe, were, at a much more recent date, as crude, as wild, and as barren, as those of the early Rajputs.” … “My own animadversions upon the defective condition of the annals of Rajwarra have more than once been checked by a very just remark: ‘When our princes were in exile, driven from hold to hold, and compelled to dwell in the clefts of the mountains, often doubtful whether they would not be forced to abandon the very meal preparing for them, was that a time to think of historical records?’ ”… “If we consider the political changes and convulsions which have happened in Hindustan since Mahmood’s invasion, and the intolerant bigotry of many of his successors, we shall be able to account for the paucity of its national works on history, without being driven to the improbable conclusion, that the Hindus were ignorant of an art which has been cultivated in other countries from almost the earliest ages. Is it to be imagined that a nation so highly civilized as the Hindus, amongst whom the exact sciences flourished in perfection, by whom the fine arts, architecture, sculpture, poetry, music, were not only cultivated, but taught and defined by the nicest and most elaborate rules, were totally unacquainted with the simple art of recording the events of their history, the character of their princes and the acts of their reigns?”

James Tod (1782–1835) 1782-1835, English officer of the British East India Company and an Oriental scholar

[The fact appears to be that] “After eight centuries of galling subjection to conquerors totally ignorant of the classical language of the Hindus; after every capital city had been repeatedly stormed and sacked by barbarous, bigoted, and exasperated foes; it is too much to expect that the literature of the country should not have sustained, in common with other interests, irretrievable losses.”
James Tod, Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, Routledge and Kegan Paul (London,l829,1957), 2 vols., I quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3

People, Age, Religion, Art

“While nearly all of us use the Internet to fact check, learn about topics and read the news, some of us contribute more than others to the knowledge pool. Adrianne Wadewitz was one such woman.”

Adrianne Wadewitz (1977–2014) academic and Wikipedian

Brandt, Shane (April 22, 2014). "Wikipedia editor dies, leaving behind appreciative students" http://thedailycougar.com/2014/04/22/wikipedia-editor-dies-leaving-behind-appreciative-students/. The Daily Cougar (Houston, Texas: thedailycougar.com; University of Houston). About

Knowledge, Learning, Reading

“You’re obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretenses of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. That’s the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world.”

Octave Mirbeau (1848–1917) French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright

Garden of Tortures

Life, People, World, Sadness

“Of course we can establish constitutional checks and balances, but those won’t mean a thing unless citizens make sure the safeguards are taken seriously. The greedy and the power-hungry will always look for ways to break the rules, or twist them to their advantage.”

David Brin book The Postman

Source: The Postman (1985), Section 3, “Cincinnatus”, Chapter 14 (p. 266)

Way

“My dear pastor, in my tent last night, after a fatiguing day's service, I remembered that I failed to send a contribution for our colored Sunday school. Enclosed you will find a check for that object, which please acknowledge at your earliest convenience and oblige yours faithfully.”

Thomas Jackson (1824–1863) Confederate general

Letter to his pastor after the First Battle of Bull Run (22 July 1861); as quoted in The Religious Development of the Negro in Virginia (1914) by Joseph Brummell Earnest, p. 84

School, Color, Night

“The start of work means the end to freedom, but also to doubt, intensity and wayward desires. The accountant’s ten thousand possibilities have been reduced to an agreeable handful. She has a business card which she hands over in meetings and which tells other people—and, more meaningfully perhaps, reminds her—that she is a Business Unit Senior manager, rather than a vaporous transient consciousness in an incidental universe. How satisfying it is to be held in check by the assumptions of colleagues, instead of being forced to contemplate, in the loneliness of the early hours, all that one might have been and now never will be. … Life is no longer mysterious, sad, haunting, touching, confusing or melancholy; it is a practical stage for clear-eyed action.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009), p. 238.

Life, People, Sadness, Business

“We have to oppose the widespread view that if the Russians are provoking us, we shouldn't react because that could be perceived as a confirmation of Poland's alleged russophobia. Let's remember that Russia is not only provoking us but also checking how far it can go. Recently it went definitely too far. We must react when we have to do with obvious nonsense, like the Russian foreign ministry's recent statement that Yalta resulted in a strong, free, and democratic Poland.”

Lech Kaczyński (1949–2010) Polish politician, president of Poland

Rzeczpospolita interview (March 2005)

Strong

“[coming away from the doctor's after a check-up] Get interested is the advice, but in truth you are interested in less and less. It's Nature's way.”

John Updike book Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

Truth, Way, Nature

“I really hope that the symbolism isn't lost on you four Superstars in the chamber right now, because it's killing me. Here's four extremely weak individuals that, every day, are locked inside a prison of addiction, like most of these people here today; and now, the four of you are locked inside the Elimination Chamber with me. And be sure, it's not me locked in here with you — it's you locked in here with me. And tomorrow morning, when you're nursing the pain and the wounds that this chamber and myself have caused you, I want you to remember that when your pod door opens and you came out and I defeated you, don't think of it as failure. Think of it as me saving you. [Standing over Rey Mysterio's pod] Think of it as me setting you free.
Punk: [To Undertaker, after elimination R-Truth] You'd better pray that your pod door opens last, 'cause when you come out, I'm gonna make you tap out, just like I did before. [To John Morrison] And I'm gonna prove to you that your decadent rock life will get you nowhere. I'm gonna prove to the world that straight-edge means I'm better than you! For those of you at home, feel free, place your hand on the screen and feel CM Punk flow through you!
Lawler: Matt, did you just put your hand on the screen?
Striker: Yes.
Lawler: Do you feel CM Punk flow through you?
Punk: Nobody can stop me!
Cole: Guys, the sermon's over in [checking the timer] three seconds.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

Elimination Chamber - February 21, 2010
Friday Night SmackDown

Life, Pain, People, Truth

“Is it possible or not, given the present conditions in our continent, to achieve it (socialist power, that is) by peaceful means? We emphatically answer that, in the great majority of cases, this is not possible. The most that could be achieved would be the formal takeover of the bourgeois superstructure of power and the transition to socialism of that government which, under the established bourgeois legal system, having achieved formal power will still have to wage a very violent struggle against all who attempt, in one way or another, to check its progress toward new social structures.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Tactics and Strategy of the Latin American Revolution (1962)

Peace, Way

“Suppose I think, after doing my accounts, that I have a large balance at the bank. And suppose you want to find out whether this belief of mine is “wishful thinking.” You can never come to any conclusion by examining my psychological condition. Your only chance of finding out is to sit down and work through the sum yourself. When you have checked my figures, then, and then only, will you know whether I have that balance or not. If you find my arithmetic correct, then no amount of vapouring about my psychological condition can be anything but a waste of time. If you find my arithmetic wrong, then it may be relevant to explain psychologically how I came to be so bad at my arithmetic, and the doctrine of the concealed wish will become relevant—but only after you have yourself done the sum and discovered me to be wrong on purely arithmetical grounds. It is the same with all thinking and all systems of thought. If you try to find out which are tainted by speculating about the wishes of the thinkers, you are merely making a fool of yourself. You must first find out on purely logical grounds which of them do, in fact, break down as arguments. Afterwards, if you like, go on and discover the psychological causes of the error.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

"Bulverism" (1941)

Fools, Error, Thinking, Chance

“Consider, for example, the mechanical precision with which many of our institutions are expected to operate. Organizational life is often routinized with the precision demanded of clockwork. People are frequently expected to arrive at work at a given time, perform a predetermined set of activities, rest at appointed hours, and then resume their tasks until work is over. In many organizations, one shift of workers replaces another in methodical fashion so that work can continue uninterrupted twenty-four hours a day every day of the year. Often, the work is very mechanical and repetitive. Anyone who has observed work in the mass-production factory or in any of the large “office factories” processing paper forms such as insurance claims, tax returns, or bank checks will have noticed the machine-like way in which such organizations operate. They are designed like machines, and their employees are in essence expected to behave as if they were parts of machines.”

Gareth Morgan book Images of Organization

Source: Images of Organization (1986), p. 20; As cited in as Vivien Martin -(2003) Leading change in health and social care. p. 157: About the organization as machine:

Life, People, Way, Fashion

“If low-wage workers do not always behave in an economically rational way, that is, as free agents within a capitalist democracy, it is because they dwell in a place that is neither free nor in any way democratic. When you enter the low-wage workplace — and many of the medium-wage workplaces as well — you check your civil liberties at the door, leave America and all it supposedly stands for behind, and learn to zip your lips for the duration of the shift. The consequences of this routine surrender go beyond the issues of wages and poverty. We can hardly pride ourselves on being the world's preeminent democracy, after all, if large numbers of citizens spend half their waking hours in what amounts, in plain terms, to a dictatorship.”

Barbara Ehrenreich (1941) American writer and journalist

Evaluation (p. 210)
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America (2001)

World, Way, Democracy, Learning

“I was told that faith is trust… I was told I would not step into an airplane unless I had faith that it would land safely. That doesn’t make sense because I know the plane exists… I know something about the safety ratings for commuting on an aircraft and I know that I can check my sources to find out they should be fairly reliable. But how could I be expected to trust things which can’t be verified and which are told to me by people which, frankly, can’t be trusted? I can’t trust the teacher, the preacher, or even the President, which when I was a boy was Richard Nixon. And maybe that was why I never recognized any authority as being unquestionable and that includes the people who wrote all the world’s religious tomes while claiming divine inspiration from a host of gods who cannot all exist at the same time.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Faith is not a virtue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDal8b6-X5o (June 20, 2012)

God, People, World, Faith

“While I was playing WoW after dinner at mother’s house once, I heard my sister watching the new show Avatar: The Last Airbender on the television. I decided to check it out. I soon found myself really enjoying it. It was a magnificent story set in a fantasy world where people can control the power of the elements. Once I watched the first episode, I was hooked on the story. Prince Zuko was my favorite character; he was a banished prince who was trying to regain his rightful place in the world. I always related to him. Avatar: The Last Airbender became my favorite T. V. show.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), Pastimes

People, World, Sister, Housing

“Spy three suspicious butterflies flitting over hedge. Check the planes. Yep, small foliots, arms flapping wildly. Wasp rises up behind them, shoots down out of sun, zaps them with Infernos, one, two, three. Burning butterflies crash-land in pond. Alert master to my triumph. She inspects charred fragments. Her scowl deepens; turns out they were her slaves, returning with valuable information.”

Jonathan Stroud (1970) British writer of fantasy fiction

The Bartimaeus Trilogy Official Website, Bart's Journal

Sun

“It were once clearly understood, that it was not disreputable for married persons to avail themselves of such precautionary means as would, without being injurious to health, or destructive of female delicacy, prevent conception, a sufficient check might at once be given to the increase of population beyond the means of subsistence; vice and misery, to a prodigious extent, might be removed from society, and the object of Mr. Malthus, Mr. Godwin, and of every philanthropic person, be promoted, by the increase of comfort, of intelligence, and of moral conduct, in the mass of the population.”

Francis Place (1771–1854) English social reformer

Source: Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of Population. 1822, p. 122

Health, Intelligence, Personality

“The staff officer must be kept in his place. But this does not mean that he must be kept down, that he must be discouraged, that his initiative and imagination must be checked. On the contrary, all these characteristics should be encouraged. The important question is, through what channel are they to be directed? They should, of course, Bow through the responsible operating executive, not around him.
This process may be described in terms of the following sequence: the staff official makes a recommendation; it is approved by the responsible executive who, in his authoritative capacity, announces to those below him in the hierarchy that the recommendation is going to be adopted. Thereafter there are many details in connection with putting it into effect that can be carried out more effectively by the staff official than by the line official and with a saving of time to the latter. So long as the subordinates in the hierarchy are aware that this delegation is authorized and that the staff officer is not acting independently, unification of managerial responsibility is not impaired and there is no loss of influence and responsibility in the part of the executive.”

Marshall E. Dimock (1903–1991) American writer

Source: "The Meshing of Line and Staff", 1945, pp. 102-104, as cited in Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 306-7

Imagination, Question, Loss, Time

“Willow: Don't worry, we're sure to spot Faith first. She's like this cleavagey slutbomb walking around going, "Ooh, check me out, I'm wicked cool, I'm five by five."
Tara: "Five by five?" Five what by five what?
Willow: See, that's the thing. No one knows.”

Amber Benson (1977) actress from the United States

Checkpoint [5.12]
Willow & Tara (2000-2002)

Faith

“The nice men in periwigs who came up with the Fourth Amendment were recklessly naive to imagine that branches of a government, each of whose power is enhanced when the power of the other branches grows, would serve to check one another.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Quacking Over Ducksters As Freedoms Go Poof" http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/quacking-over-ducksters-as-freedoms-go-poof/, WorldNetDaily.com, January 3, 2014. 2010s, 2014

Men, Imagination

“Seven thirty-nine, more than three hundred miles to the north and east, Jack Reacher climbed out of his motel room window. One minute earlier, he had been in the bathroom, brushing his teeth. One minute before that, he had opened the door of his room to check the morning temperature. He had left it open, and the closet just inside the entrance passageway was faced with mirrored glass, and there was a shaving mirror in the bathroom on a cantilevered arm, and by a freak of optical chance he caught sight of four men getting out of a car and walking toward the motel office. Pure luck, but a guy as vigilant as Jack Reacher gets lucky more times than the average.”

Lee Child book Echo Burning

Echo Burning, Ch. 1 (2001).

Men, Cars, Guy, Chance

“I believe weapons of war have no place on our streets and we may have our disagreements about gun safety regulations, but we should all be able to agree on a few essential things. If the FBI is watching you for a suspected terrorist link, you shouldn’t be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked. And you shouldn’t be able to exploit loopholes and evade criminal background checks by buying online or at a gun show. And yes, if you’re too dangerous to get on a plane, you are too dangerous to buy a gun in America.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech about the Orlando Shooting (June 13, 2016)

War, Question

“It took centuries of intellectual, philosophical development to achieve political freedom. It was a long struggle, stretching from Aristotle to John Locke to the Founding Fathers. The system they established was not based on unlimited majority rule, but on its opposite: on individual rights, which were not to be alienated by majority vote or minority plotting. The individual was not left at the mercy of his neighbors or his leaders: the Constitutional system of checks and balances was scientifically devised to protect him from both. This was the great American achievement—and if concern for the actual welfare of other nations were our present leaders' motive, this is what we should have been teaching the world.”

Ayn Rand book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)

World, Motivation, Freedom

“I was in my teens when our family faced a medical crisis. My grandfather, with whom I was very close, had a stroke and landed in the hospital. Sitting anxiously at his bedside, I watched nurses come and go, checking his vitals and looking at the monitors attached to his body. I remember sitting there wondering what could I do to make him feel better—to bring back the warm, thoughtful man I knew.”

Sanjay Gupta (1969) journalist, medical correspondent, neurosurgeon

Finding My Path in Life (2011)

Family, Feeling

“(speaking in a solemn tone to a group of young school children) Now you know that your headmistress, Miss Davis, was going to come in here and just check that you were all going to be well behaved. She can’t do that because, as many of you probably know, she can’t be here today, er, because her pants fell down earlier on. It’s not funny. If any of you see her, don’t make a fuss because it’s a bit embarrassing for her, OK? Alright? It’s not funny.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)

Children, School

“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

Edward Bulwer-Lytton book Paul Clifford

Probably the most parodied and ridiculed opening line in literature. It is the inspiration for a satirical prize, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Used by Charles M. Schultz in the Peanuts cartoons.
Paul Clifford (1830)

Night

“Those in the Ivy League, Hollywood, the media, the leftist rich, and most schools and universities who, like Obama, consider themselves superior intellectuals earmarked by some demented destiny to implement their pagan, socialist, and anti-human ideology in the United States. They first mean to destroy the Second Amendment, and then, safe to be tyrants, though cowards all, they intend remake in their own worthless image those Americans who still work hard, who believe in and are willing to fight to defend liberty, and who have learned the Founders' key lesson, namely, that the federal government must always be seen as an enemy of freedom and therefore must be kept in check and opposed to the hilt whenever necessary. Perhaps it would be best if Obama and his Ivy-League elite studied the words of a man they hail an icon of their party and with whom they share a liking for slavery, but who actually is a man they do not in the least understand.”

Michael Scheuer (1952) American counterterrorism analyst

As quoted in "Obama and his party offer America's young … death, misery, and slavery" http://non-intervention.com/1143/obama-and-his-party-offer-america%E2%80%99s-young-%E2%80%A6-death-misery-and-slavery/ (2013), by M. Scheuer, Michael Scheuer's Non-Intervention. 2010s

School, Understanding, Study, Freedom

“From the very beginning of hostilities, came into conflict the two ideas which for fifty months were to struggle for the dominion of the world - the idea of sovereign force, which accepts neither control nor check, and the idea of justice, which depends on the sword only to prevent or repress the abuse of strength…the war gradually attained the fullness of its first significance, and became, in the fullest sense of the term, a crusade of humanity for Right; and if anything can console us in part at least, for the losses we have suffered, it is assuredly the thought that our victory is also the victory of Right. This victory is complete, for the enemy only asked for the armistice to escape from an irretrievable military disaster…And in the light of those truths you intend to accomplish your mission. You will, therefore, seek nothing but justice, "justice that has no favourites," justice in territorial problems, justice in financial problems, justice in economic problems. But justice is not inert, it does not submit to injustice. What it demands first, when it has been violated, are restitution and reparation for the peoples and individuals who have been despoiled or maltreated. In formulating this lawful claim, it obeys neither hatred nor an instinctive or thoughtless desire for reprisals. It pursues a twofold object - to render to each his due, and not to encourage crime through leaving it unpunished.”

Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic

Welcoming Address http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/parispeaceconf_poincare.htm at the Paris Peace Conference (18 January 1919).

Hostility, War, People, Truth

“The human is a narrative being. We construct emotional machines, so-called “stories”, to communicate, to share the world in which we live and make it collectively experienceable. And we are pretty good at doing that. Since the primordial soup at some point mendelized into primate brains, we have either been fleeing from big cats or telling others about our escapes from the clutches of big cats. Sitting around the campfire, interpreting and breaking down the world, charging it with aura. Initially this was all very mythopoeic, and slowly it became more differentiated. But even in the post-Enlightenment age, world interpretations are not necessarily particularly rational. Good stories sell well, and the best stories are the ones that hit you in the gut, regardless of whether they would hold up to a Wikipedia check or not.”

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

via Boing Boing http://boingboing.net/2016/04/14/the-story-of-traceroute-about.html

Age, World, Communication, Cats

“In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard.”

Alan Greenspan (1926) 13th Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the United States

Gold and Economic Freedom http://www.constitution.org/mon/greenspan_gold.htm 1966 1950–60s

Secret, Way, Understanding, Wealth

“I am most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of "Women's Rights," with all its attendant horrors… Were women to "unsex" themselves by claiming equality with men, they would become the most hateful, heathen, and disgusting of beings and would surely perish without male protection.”

Victoria of the United Kingdom (1819–1901) British monarch who reigned 1837–1901

In an 1870 letter, quoted for example in All For Love: Seven Centuries of Illicit Liaison by Val Horsler (2006), p. 104 http://books.google.com/books?id=PFyvAAAAIAAJ&q=%22most+anxious+to+enlist%22#search_anchor. At the bottom of this page http://www.historyofwomen.org/suffrage.html, it is mentioned that the comment was written in a letter to Sir Theodore Martin in reaction to news "that Viscountess Amberley had become president of the Bristol and West of England Women's Suffrage Society and had addressed a ... public meeting on the subject." The author of the page, Helena Wojtczak, says here http://www.historyofwomen.org/about.html that while other sources often fail to give the context, she "researched and discovered the source of the quote".

Women, Men, Hate, Madness

Quotes about check page 2

Quotes about check
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