Quotes about comfort
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“What we used to think of as exotic can now only be found in countries that cannot afford Americanization. Meaning no home comforts, peppers, unleavened bread. It is a kind thing to take one’s bit of tourist money there, to the deserving, and not put it in the hands of the disdainful Nicois or Cannois. If you can get into a country which is politically oppressed, that too is a good thing for the natives, for you are bringing a breath of freedom. Increasingly, perhaps, one ought to be travelling for the benefit of those who cannot afford or are not permitted to travel. We all belong to one another now, and no foreign country ought to be merely a sideshow….”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

"Thoughts on Travel".
Non-Fiction, Homage to QWERT YUIOP: Selected Journalism 1978-1985 (1986)

Money, Travel, Home, Thinking

“Market capitalism is the best thing that ever happened to the common man. The rich have always had access to entertainment, often in the comfort of their palaces and mansions. The rich have never had to experience the drudgery of having to beat out carpets, iron their clothing or slave over a hot stove all day in order to have a decent dinner. They could afford to hire people. Capitalism's mass production and marketing have made radios and televisions, vacuum cleaners, wash-and-wear clothing and microwave ovens available and well within the means of the common man; thus, sparing him of the boredom and drudgery of the past. Today, the common man has the power to enjoy much (and more) of what only the rich could afford yesteryear.”

Walter E. Williams (1936) American economist, commentator, and academic

2010s, Markets, Governments, and the Common Good

People, Past, Clothes

“Some great poet or philosopher once said that " he who goes to nature for comfort must go to her empty handed ", and I think he was right.”

Flora Thompson (1876–1947) English author and poet

January Chapter The Peverel Papers - A yearbook of the countryside ed Julian Shuckburgh Century Hutchinson 1986
The Peverel Papers

Nature, Thinking

“McDonald: Now a lot of people find great comfort from religion. Not everybody is as you are – well-favored, handsome, wealthy, with a good job, happy family life. I mean, your life is good – not everybody's life is good, and religion brings them comfort.Dawkins: There are all sorts of things that would be comforting. I expect an injection of morphine would be comforting – it might be more comforting, for all I know. But to say that something is comforting is not to say that it's true.”

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

An Interview by Sheena McDonald (1995)

Life, Happiness, People, Family

“He said that while one would like to say that God will punish those who do such things and that people often speak in just this way it was his experience that God could not be spoken for and that men with wicked histories often enjoyed lives of comfort and that they died in peace and were buried with honor. He said that it was a mistake to expect too much of justice in this world. He said that the notion that evil is seldom rewarded was greatly overspoken for if there were no advantage to it then men would shun it and how could virtue then be attached to its repudiation?”

Cormac McCarthy book The Crossing

The Crossing (1994)

Men, God, People, World

“God kills thy comforts from no other design but to kill thy corruptions; wants are ordained to kill wantonness, poverty is appointed to kill pride, reproaches are permitted to destroy ambition.”

John Flavel (1627–1691) English Presbyterian clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 7.

God

“The thing was not discussable, even with a near acquaintance like Calvin because … because of the nature of the thing … because one had to behave like a normal, unworried human being. That at least was sound and clear and gave him comfort: behave like a normal human being.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Outside

Outside (1955)

Nature

“His heart was in the right place. He wanted a religion that could plausibly comfort widows and orphans without committing them to patriarchy, intolerance, fundamentalism, or weird dietary laws. He wanted a religion that wasn’t in a perpetual fistfight with modern cosmology.”

Robert Charles Wilson book Blind Lake

Source: Blind Lake (2003), Chapter 22 (p. 255)

Religion, Law, Heart

“It is to labour… and to labour only, that man owes every thing possessed of exchangeable value. Labour is the talisman that has raised him from the condition of the savage — that has changed the desert and the forest into cultivated fields… Labour tho that has covered the earth with cities and the ocean with ships — of wealth that has given us plenty, comfort, and elegance, instead of want, misery, and barbarism.”

John Ramsay McCulloch (1789–1864) Scottish economist, author and editor

Source: The principles of political economy, 1825, p. 55-56 ;

Change, Wealth

“God brought to my mind that I should sin. And for pleasance that I had in beholding of Him, I attended not readily to that shewing; and our Lord full mercifully abode, and gave me grace to attend. And this shewing I took singularly to myself; but by all the gracious comfort that followeth, as ye shall see, I was learned to take it for all mine even-Christians: all in general and nothing in special: though our Lord shewed me that I should sin, by me alone is understood all.
And therein I conceived a soft dread. And to this our Lord answered: I keep thee full surely. This word was said with more love and secureness and spiritual keeping than I can or may tell.”

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

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 37

Love, God, Learning

“Perhaps I am just a hopeless rationalist, but isn't fascination as comforting as solace? Isn't nature immeasurably more interesting for its complexities and its lack of conformity to our hopes? Isn't curiosity as wondrously and fundamentally human as compassion?”

Stephen Jay Gould book Eight Little Piggies

"Tires to Sandals", p. 324
Eight Little Piggies (1993)

Hope, Nature

“The novelist works neither to correct nor to condone, not at all to comfort, but to make what's told alive.”

Eudora Welty (1909–2001) American author

On Writing (2002)

“So fully am I impressed with the vast importance and necessity of attaining what will be the object of my motion this night, that if, during the almost forty years that I have had the honour of a seat in parliament, I had been so fortunate as to accomplish that, and that only, I should think I had done enough, and could retire from public life with comfort, and the conscious satisfaction, that I had done my duty.”

Charles James Fox (1749–1806) British Whig statesman

Speech in the House of Commons (10 June 1806) on the Abolition of the Slave Trade, quoted in J. Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume VI (1815), p. 659.
1800s

Life, Thinking, Night

“Old friends, like old shoes, are comfortable. But old shoes, unlike old friends, tend not to be supportive: it is easier to stumble and sprain an ankle while wearing a pair of old shoes than it is in new shoes, with their less yielding leather.”

Alexander McCall Smith (1948) British writer

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, chapter 8.
The 44 Scotland Street series

Shoe, Support

“Humanitarianism … occurs where a powerful group seeks to curb the activities of another group in their own better interests. They define them as a social problem and demands that action be taken to ameliorate their situation. This is complicated in the case of marihuana smoking, in so far as those individuals who make up the social problem would deny that any real problem exists at all.
I would argue that the humanitarian motive is exceedingly suspect; for it is often—though not necessarily—a rationalization behind which is concealed either a conflict of interests or moral indignation. For example Alex Comfort in The Anxiety Makers has charted the way in which the medical profession have repeatedly translated their moral indignation over certain ‘abuses’ into a clinically backed humanitarianism. For example, masturbation was once seen as causing psychosis, listlessness and impotence, and various barbaric clinical devices were evolved to prevent young people from touching their genital organs.”

Jock Young (1942–2013) British sociologist and criminologist

“The role of the police as amplifiers of deviancy,” Images of Deviance (1971), p. 31

People, Way, Motivation, Problem

“Tolerance is tolerance is tolerance. Period, you assholes. Today’s intolerant, young, liberal California/ New Yorkers are only comfortable within their own shared consensus. Friends must think alike and believe the same things now. They must vote the same and defend the same ideology like zombies. Anyone who disagrees can only be evil, stupid, and wrong.”

Vincent Gallo (1961) American film director, writer, model, actor and musician

Another Man Essay

Stupidity, Thinking, Evil

“In whatever light we view religion it appears solemn and venerable. It is a temple full of majesty, to which the worshiper may approach with comfort, in the hope of obtaining grace and finding mercy; but where they cannot enter without being inspired with awe. If we may be permitted to compare spiritual with natural things, religion resembles not those scenes of natural beauty where every object smiles. It cannot be likened to the gay landscape or the flowery field. It resembles more the august and sublime appearances of Nature — the lofty mountain, the expanded ocean, and the starry firmament; at the sight of which the mind is at once overawed and delighted; and, from the union of grandeur with beauty, derives a pleasing but a serious devotion.”

Hugh Blair (1718–1800) British philosopher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 493.

Religion, Smile, Beauty, Hope

“Clearly our first task is to use the material wealth of space to solve the urgent problems we now face on Earth: to bring the poverty-stricken segments of the world up to a decent living standard, without recourse to war or punitive action against those already in material comfort; to provide for a maturing civilization the basic energy vital to its survival.”

Gerard O'Neill (1927–1992) Physicist, author, and inventor

The High Frontier (1976)

War, World, Problem, Wealth

“And I hope you will join me — I hope you will join me in expressing thanks to one American for the strength and calm and comfort she brings to our nation in crisis, our First Lady, Laura Bush.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

Hope

“Some men who are not real men love other things about themselves, but the real man believes that his honor is dearer than his life; and a nation is merely all of us put together, and the nation's honor is dearer than the nation's comfort and the nation's peace and the nation's life itself.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Speech in Cleveland http://books.google.com/books?id=o3j10P6YFZIC&pg=PA1090&dq=%22nation's+honor+is+dearer+than+the+nation's+comfort%22 (January 1916) 1910s

Love, Life, Men, Peace

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

Michael Swanwick book The Iron Dragon's Daughter

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

Love, Life, Pain, Stupidity

“You ought to try to make significant contributions to humanity rather than just get along through life comfortably… the life of trying to achieve excellence in some area is in itself a worthy goal… A life without a struggle on your part to make yourself excellent is hardly a life worth living. …a life without such a goal… is merely existing…”

Richard Hamming (1915–1998) American mathematician and information theorist

The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn (1991)

Life, Parting

“If there is love, there is hope that one may have real families, real brotherhood, real equanimity, real peace. If the love within your mind is lost and you see other beings as enemies, then no matter how much knowledge or education or material comfort you have, only suffering and confusion will ensue”

Tenzin Gyatso book The Little Book of Buddhism

The Little Book of Buddhism (2000) ISBN 0712602402

Love, Education, Family, Peace

“I hasten to add that I had already concluded that the ‘bad apple’ theory was a comforting self-delusion. Police forces throughout Australia only started to come to grips with systemic corruption when they came to the same realisation. Cultural problems are just that; they are systemic and ingrained, not the work of a few rogues.”

David Morrison (1956) Australian army general

Address at the International Women's Day Conference (2013)

Problem

“Ironically, Henry James' biography comforts me & I long to make known to him his posthumous reputation — he wrote, in pain, gave all his life (which is more than I could think of doing — I have Ted, will have children — but few friends) & the critics insulted & mocked him, readers didn't read him.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

1958-04-22
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (2000)

Life, Pain, Children, Thinking

“The things we call aristocracies and reigning houses are the last places to look for masterful men. They began strongly, but they have been too long in possession. They have been cosseted and comforted and the devil has gone out of their blood. Don't imagine that I undervalue descent. It is not for nothing that a great man leaves posterity. But who is more likely to inherit the fire — the elder son with his flesh-pots or the younger son with his fortune to find?”

John Buchan book The Path of the King

Prologue
The Path of the King (1921)

Men, Imagination, Housing

“.. that distinguished aesthete [ Gustave Moreau, ] famous artist and art teacher in Paris, then] who paints nothing than rubbish, it is because his dreams are suggested not by the inspiration of Nature, but by what he has seen in the museums... I should like to have that good man under my wing, to point out to him the doctrine of a development of art by contact with Nature. It's so sane, so comforting, the only just conception of art.”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Quote in a conversation with Vollard, in the studio of Cézanne, in Aix, 1896; as quoted in Cezanne, by Ambroise Vollard, Dover publications Inc. New York, 1984, p. 66
Quotes of Paul Cezanne, 1880s - 1890s

Dreams, Art, Nature, Teachers

“I'm sick of Portraits and wish very much to take my viols-da-gamba and walk off to some sweet village, where I can paint landskips [landscapes] and enjoy the fag - end of life in quietness and ease. But these fine ladies [very probably his wife and daughters] and their tea-drinkings, dancings, husband-huntings, &c, &c. &c., will fob me out of the last ten years, and I fear miss getting husbands too. But we can say nothing to these things you know, Jackson, we must jog on and be content with the jingling of the bells, only, d-[damned]-it I hate a dust, the kicking up a dust, and being confined in harness to follow the track whilst others ride in the waggon, under cover, stretching their legs in the straw at ease, and gazing at green trees and blue skies without half my 'Taste'. That's d-d [damned] hard. My comfort is I have five viols-da-gamba: three 'Jayes' and two 'Barak Normans”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

Adieu. 2 Quotes from Gainsborough's letter to his friend William Jackson of Exeter, from Bath, 4 June 1768; as cited in Thomas Gainsborough, by William T, Whitley https://ia800204.us.archive.org/6/items/thomasgainsborou00whitrich/thomasgainsborou00whitrich.pdf; New York, Charles Scribner's Sons – London, Smith, Elder & Co, Sept. 1915, p. 385 (Appendix A - Letter VIII) 1755 - 1769

Life, Hate, Fear, Drink

“The capacity to accept suffering for the sake of goodness, truth and justice is an essential criterion of humanity, because if my own well-being and safety are ultimately more important than truth and justice, then the power of the stronger prevails, then violence and untruth reign supreme. Truth and justice must stand above my comfort and physical well-being, or else my life itself becomes a lie. In the end, even the “yes” to love is a source of suffering, because love always requires expropriations of my “I”, in which I allow myself to be pruned and wounded. Love simply cannot exist without this painful renunciation of myself, for otherwise it becomes pure selfishness and thereby ceases to be love.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

2007

Love, Life, Pain, Truth

“The manufacture of yarn being at length full established, the demand for it became too great for the patentees to supply, and then they sold licenses very extensively, so that at least 60,000 l. has been expended in consequence of such grants. Mr. Arkwright and his partners have expended upwards of 30,000/. in buildings and machinery in Derbyshire, and above 4,000 /. in Manchester; and they have lost not less than 5,000 l. or 6.000 l. by injuries from mobs, and from fire. The saving of labour by this machinery is several hundred thousands per annum, and yet trade is so greatly increased, that many more people are employed, and can earn a comfortable maintenance, than were employed before. The same inventions maybe applied with equal advantage to prepare and spin wool.”

Richard Arkwright (1732–1792) textile entrepreneur; developer of the cotton mill

The case, 1782

People

“The average Russian of mature age today may some day have the moral satisfaction of seeing his government exercise a power unprecedented in history over the land masses of Asia and Europe. But it is not likely that he will ever know the comforts, in the line of housing, clothing, and other conveniences of civilized living, comparable to those that have existed in the advanced countries of the West. That renunciation of comfort is his involuntary contribution to something: either to the future comfort of his own children or to the increased military power of Russia. He hopes — and we hope with him — that it will not be only the latter.”

George F. Kennan (1904–2005) American advisor, diplomat, political scientist and historian

Memoirs 1925 - 1950 (1967), Russia — Seven Years Later (September 1944)

Children, Age, Hope, Exercises

“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Nobody said when.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Source: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Chapter 15 (p. 89)

“Tell you what, I've been through hundreds of battles. I've seen it all. Which country in the west have I not been to? Everywhere! You should know Mike Wallace, in the U. S. He's way above you all! He and I talked and laughed comfortably. Your media really need to raise your level of knowledge. Got it, or not? I'm anxious for you all, it's true.”

Jiang Zemin (1926) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of China

To Hong Konger reporters (2000), as quoted in "Rare Footage of Former China Leader Jiang Zemin Freak Out (With English Subs!)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GIj2BVJS2A (2013), China Uncensored. 2000s

Way, Knowledge, Country

“On Being Old. It's not nice but take comfort that you won't stay that way for ever.”

J. P. Donleavy (1926–2017) Novelist, playwright, essayist

The Unexpurgated Code: A Complete Manual of Survival & Manners (New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence, 1975) p. 278.

Way

“It was too much for me to handle, and I stopped caring about my life and my future. I even stopped caring about what people thought of me. I hid myself away in the online World of Warcraft, a place where I felt comfortable and secure.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), Pastimes

Life, People, World, Future

“In the most basic sense, imaginization invites a way of thinking. It encourages us to become our own theorists and to feel comfortable about acting on the basis our insights. It invites us to develop a skill that I believe we all have, even though we may not realize that this is the case. By recognizing this, and thinking creatively and intelligently about ourselves and our situations, we can 'push the envelope' on our realities and reshape them positively.”

Gareth Morgan (1943) Organizational theorist

Source: Imaginization (1993), p. 16, as cited in: Colin M. Beard, ‎John Peter Wilson (2006), Experiential Learning: A Best Practice Handbook for Educators and and Trainers. p. 272

Way, Feeling, Imagination, Intelligence

“Luck is a wonderful luxury. What could better prove that some are born under a star of good fortune than the career (and the large, comfortable home) of the Great King?”

Lindsey Davis book A Body in the Bath House

A Body in the Bath House

Home, Star

“The very saddest sound in all my memory was burned into my awareness at age five on my uncle's dairy farm in Wisconsin. A cow had given birth to a beautiful male calf. The mother was allowed to nurse her calf but for a single night. On the second day after birth, my uncle took the calf from the mother and placed him in the veal pen in the barn—only ten yards away, in plain view of the mother. The mother cow could see her infant, smell him, hear him, but could not touch him, comfort him, or nurse him. The heartrending bellows that she poured forth—minute after minute, hour after hour, for five long days—were excruciating to listen to. They are the most poignant and painful auditory memories I carry in my brain. Since that age, whenever I hear anyone postulate that animals cannot really feel emotions, I need only to replay that torturous sound in my memory of that mother cow crying her bovine heart out to her infant. Mother's love knows no species barriers, and I believe that all people who are vegans in their hearts and souls know that to be true.”

Michael Klaper (1947) American physician

Quoted in Joanne Stepaniak, The Vegan Sourcebook (Lowell House, 1998), pp. 39-40.

Love, Pain, People, Age

“Yesterday’s woman was expected to have individual interests, caring for the brightness of the hearth fire and the comforts of the family group. Today she has inherited the community and the community’s welfare. Civics, religion and education have become her field of activity. She is homemaker and citizen.”

Aurelia Henry Reinhardt (1877–1948) American educator and social activist

Writing in Mills Quarterly in 1917, as quoted in Unitarian Universalist Women's Heritage Society Archives, 3 July 2018, Aurelia Isabel Henry Reinhardt (1877-1948) http://www.uuwhs.org/womenwest.php,

Education, Family, Religion, Communication

“This is the comforting and lovely Leadenhall Market, an accommodating inter-mammary cleft in the bosom of old Londinium.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

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

Love

“The generalist, is like the fox, who knows many things. Just as anthropologists learn to live in many cultures, without rifles, so do certain scientists manage to adapt comfortably to the paradigms of several disciplines. How do they do it? When questioned, these generalists always express an inner faith in the unity of science. They, too, carry a single paradigm, but it is one taken from a much higher vantage point, one from which the paradigms of the different disciplines are seen to be very much alike, though often obscured by special language.”

Gerald M. Weinberg (1933–2018) American computer scientist

Source: Introduction to General Systems Thinking, 1975, p. 34; Quote in: Franz Pichler, Roberto Moreno Diaz (1993. Computer Aided Systems Theory. p. 134

Faith, Question, Learning, Science

“So London remains my cage, the door is open, but I cannot leave. Meanwhile, the cage is comfortable enough. And now, as I finish this somewhat ungrateful piece, if I am conscious of a faintly bitter taste in my mouth, it is, I must confess, my own fault. I have just been biting the hand that feeds me, and it tastes of soot.”

Laurie Lee (1914–1997) British writer

An Obstinate Exile, p. 48.
I Can't Stay Long (1975)

“Philosophers and theologians, like the vulgar, prefer contradiction to enlightenment. They refute one another more gladly than they learn from one another, as though man lived by shunning error and not by loving truth. Accept their formulas and they sink back into their easy chairs and comfortably doze.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 171-172

Love, Truth, Error, Learning

“Imam Ali said Nawf! Those are the fortunate people who adopt piety as the principle of their lives and are fully attentive to their welfare for the Hereafter. They accept bare earth as the most comfortable bed and water as the most pleasant drink. They adopt the Holy Qur'an and prayers as their guide and protector and like Prophet Jesus Christ (Isa) they forsake the world and its vicious pleasure.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

People, Pleasure, World, Drink

“Over the last few weeks, some newsgroups have been full of tales of war and battle fleets, of billions dying in the clash of species. To all such—and those living more peaceably around them—we say look out on the universe. It does not care, and even with all our science there are some disasters that we can not avert. All evil and good is petty before Nature. Personally, we take comfort from this, that there is a universe to admire that cannot be twisted to villainy or good, but which simply is.”

Vernor Vinge A Fire Upon the Deep (1st edition)

Source: A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), Chapter 35 (pp. 483-484).

War, Nature, Universe, Science

“Come, Benjamin, put your arm around me and we shall be comfortably one, mon semblable—mon frère!”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

John Banville on the birth of his dark twin, Benjamin Black (2011)

“"Give us cash! I steal from the rich and give to the poor! I'm trying to be a myth; give us cash!" "No, I'm not gonna give you cash." "Go on, I steal from the rich. Are you rich?" "No, I'm … comfortable." "That's no good, I can't steal from the fairly well off and give to the moderately impoverished! That's not gonna swing, is it?"”

Eddie Izzard (1962) British stand-up comedian, actor and writer

On Robin Hood.
Glorious (1997)

“In this city I must visit the abodes of sorrow: but as yet no way has opened: no person offered to go along with me, which has made me determine to do nothing but what connot be avoided of a public nature. O that my little labour of love were finished, and comfortably completed to the joy of such who might hail me a welcome stranger on Zion's happy Coast, where my mansion of bliss awaits me, after all the storms of life are past.”

Dorothy Ripley (1767–1832) missionary

Letter to Abigail Eames (14 October 1805), p. 204
The Bank of Faith and Works United (1819)

Love, Life, Happiness, Way

“Nietzsche’s arrival in modern philosophy signaled an unprecedented necessity: “probity”, “intellectual conscience”, Enlightenment radicalized by a new bravery that scorns any comforts like God.”

Laurence Lampert (1941) American academic

Source: Leo Strauss and Nietzsche (1996), p. 5

God

“Evil,” the priest said, after he had settled comfortably into Barrent’s best chair, “is that force within us which inspires men to acts of strength and endurance. The worship of Evil is essentially the worship of oneself, and therefore the only true worship. The self which one worships is the ideal social being; the man content in his niche in society, yet ready to grasp any opportunity for advancement; the man who meets death with dignity, who kills without the demeaning vice of pity. Evil is cruel, since it is a true reflection of the uncaring and insensate universe. Evil is eternal and unchanging, although it comes to us in the many forms of protean life.”

Robert Sheckley book The Status Civilization

Source: The Status Civilization (1960), Chapter 6 (pp. 28-29)

Life, Death, Men, Universe

“In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security. This much is undisputed… This is a difficult vote. This is probably the hardest decision I have ever had to make. Any vote that may lead to war should be hard, but I cast it with conviction.”

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

Senate speech (10 October 2002) http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=2002_record&docid=cr10oc02-70 Senate years (2001 – January 19, 2007)

War, Intelligence, Decision

“Those of us from Chasm started calling it the Visitor because that's a relatively comfortable label. It implies the stay is temporary, that the thing will go away. We think the Visitor must be part of a race of beings who live in space, though we're guessing at that. We also postulate that they hitch rides on bits of space trash that are moving somewhere, like the huge one that came at us. Anyhow, the Visitor is getting closer by the day.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Wolf in Ch. 37 : leaving bastion (p. 353)
The Visitor (2002)

Thinking, Parting

“But why must the system go to such lengths to block our empathy? Why all the psychological acrobatics? The answer is simple: because we care about animals, and we don't want them to suffer. And because we eat them. Our values and behaviors are incongruent, and this incongruence causes us a certain degree of moral discomfort. In order to alleviate this discomfort, we have three choices: we can change our values to match our behaviors, we can change our behaviors to match our values, or we can change our perception of our behaviors so that they appear to match our values. It is around this third option that our schema of meat is shaped. As long as we neither value unnecessary animal suffering nor stop eating animals, our schema will distort our perceptions of animals and the meat we eat, so that we can feel comfortable enough to consume them.”

Melanie Joy book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows

Source: Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows (2010), p. 18

Behavior, Feeling, Suffering, Appearance

“What you do is as important as anything government does. I ask you to seek a common good beyond your comfort; to defend needed reforms against easy attacks; to serve your nation, beginning with your neighbor. I ask you to be citizens: citizens, not spectators; citizens, not subjects; responsible citizens, building communities of service and a nation of character.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2001, First inaugural address (January 2001)

Communication

“Real leaders ask hard questions and knock people out of their comfort zones and then manage the resulting distress.”

Alan Hirsch (1959) South African missionary

Source: The Faith of Leap (2011), p. 131

People, Question

“.. the longer I am here Laren, the more beautiful it becomes for me and now that I feel myself more comfortable, I can judge it better... It is touching beautiful here [ Laren ], with a delicacy of lines and lovely poetry radiates from everywhere, interior houses, roads, fields, beautiful heath and bushes, and people are of the sweetest kind to imagine... Usually after dinner we make a little walk, what I enjoy a lot. I don't know how to say it, but I would like to live here for ever.”

Anton Mauve (1838–1888) Dutch painter (1838–1888)

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Anton Mauve, uit zijn brief:) ..hoe langer ik hier nl:Laren (Noord-Holland) ben, hoe mooijer het voor mij wordt en nu ik een beetje meer op mijn gemak kom, kan ik er beter over oordelen.. .'t Is aandoenlijk mooi hier, van een fijnheid van lijnen en lieflijke poëzie straalt alles uit, binnenhuizen, wegen, akkers, prachtige heide en boschjes en de menschen is van het liefste soort dat te bedenken is.. .Wij maken doorgaans na den eten een loopje en wat ik geniet. Ik kan het niet zeggen maar ik zou hier altijd willen wonen.
Quote of Mauve in a letter, Juin 1882 to his wife Jet Carbentus; Mauve Archive of RKD, Den Haag
1880's

Love, People, Beauty, Feeling

“The main problem with many nonscientific world models is the vigor with which they insist upon their rightness. Once a world model claims to be completely right, it is no longer open to any changes. …Closed systems can be comforting, but they are limited. …It's not the best we can do. Neither is extreme "open-mindednesss" that slides into "empty headedness"—the ideal that we can never really know anything.”

Frank Wilczek (1951) physicist

Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics (1987)

World, Problem, Change

“I hope I'm judged a success. I'm well-be dead, Matt, when they finally figure it out, and I'm comfortable knowing that I gave it my all, that I love America.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Interview with Matt Lauer http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nbc-news/40073863#40074095 (2010), aired 8 November 2010. 2010s, 2010, Interview with Matt Lauer (November 2010)

Love, Hope, Success, Dead

“He [Tolstoy] turned upon those who are produced by its [the modern world's] wrongs and condemned socialists, revolutionists, trade unionists, feminists, coöperators, and all reformers and menders of the present order, including charity organizationists and almoners. The most hopeless one of all in the present day world is "the good man," who lives in comfort, helps the needy, attends service, and is utterly impervious to any real religion.”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Source: Why We Fail as Christians (1919), p. 77

World, Religion, Help

“This is the terrible fix we are in. If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our efforts are in the long run hopeless. But if it is, then we are making ourselves enemies to that goodness every day, and are not in the least likely to do any better tomorrow, and so our case is hopeless again…. God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from.”

Clive Staples Lewis book Mere Christianity

Book I, Chapter 5, "We Have Cause to Be Uneasy"
Mere Christianity (1952)

God, Effort, Universe

“The Sun has come to represent enlightenment and salvation across many cultures. I think that if we remove such comforting concepts we are required to do more soul searching but eventually our eyes become accustomed to the dark and our lives become richer.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

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

Soul, Search, Thinking, Sun

“I'm trying to move towards making objects which are honest, objects for non-consumers, for "modern rebels". Look, there are already millions of excellent chairs which are very comfortable, lamps which provide light, and so on. Is it necessary to create any more? The only question is: what will it bring to the human being who is going to use it? The urgent thing today is not to create a car or a chair which is more beautiful than another; what is urgent is for us all to fight with every means at our disposal against the fact that something is becoming extinct: love.”

Philippe Starck (1949) French architect and industrial designer

Starck, 2000

Love, Beauty, Cars, Question

“"What is good for a bootless bene?"
With these dark words begins my tale;
And their meaning is, Whence can comfort spring
When prayer is of no avail?”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Force of Prayer.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Spring

“It's easy to sleep floating around — it's very comfortable. But you have to be careful that you don't float into somebody or something!”

Sally Ride (1951–2012) American physicist and astronaut

Scholastic interview (1998)

Sleep

“For years I said if I could only find a comfortable chair I would rival Mozart.”

Morton Feldman (1926–1987) American avant-garde composer

Quoted in in "AMERICAN SUBLIME : Morton Feldman's mysterious musical landscapes", by Alex Ross. in The New Yorker (19 June 2006)

“Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.”

Julia Lang

originally an 'ad lib' in 1950 on BBC Home Service radio programme Listen with Mother. Used as the consistent opening line until end of series in 1982. BBC web-site - Accessed 25 Jan 2011 http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/great_moments/archive/january.shtml [Partridge, Eric, A Dictionary of Catch Phrases:British and American, from the sixteenth century to the present day, 26, Routledge, 1986, 041505916X] Note that Frieda Fordham (a psychologist who advised the BBC) has also been credited with it.

“I do think if I had given him two fence-rails to sleep on he would not have found fault. That was Abraham Lincoln in all things relating to his own comfort. He would never permit people to put themselves out for him under any circumstances.”

David Dixon Porter (1813–1891) United States Navy admiral

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), p. 285

People, Thinking, Sleep

“No, what worries me is that I might in a sense adapt to this environment and come to be comfortable here and not resent it anymore. And I am afraid that as the years go by that I may forget, I may begin to lose my memories of the mountains and the woods and that's what really worries me, that I might lose those memories, and lose that sense of contact with wild nature in general. But I am not afraid they are going to break my spirit.”

Theodore Kaczynski (1942) American domestic terrorist, mathematician and anarchist

Answer given when he was asked if he was afraid of losing his mind in prison. Interview with Ted Kaczynski http://web.archive.org/web/20061003044754/www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk/profiles/ted.html Interviews

Mountain, Nature, Sense, Memory

“Hush,—for the halo of calmness is spreading
Over my spirit as mild as a dove;
Hush,—for the angel of comfort is shedding
Over my body his vial of love;
Hush,—for new slumbers are over me stealing,
Thus would I court them again and again,
Hush,—for my heart is intoxicate,—reeling
In the swift waltz of my beautiful brain!”

Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810–1889) English writer and poet

Sloth, l. 25-32.
Ballads for the Times (1851)

Love, Beauty, Angels, Heart

“You're unsure and you're not ready so that must mean I want you
You're unavailable and disinterested and to you I look for comfort”

Alanis Morissette (1974) Canadian-American singer-songwriter

Bent for You
Feast on Scraps (2002)

“The task which lies ahead is adventure as well as duty, and I am anxious to get at it. I feel better in mind and body than I have for ten years and am quite certain I can meet the foe confident and unafraid…Truly, we have shared to the full life, love, and laughter. Comforted in the knowledge that your thought and prayer go with us every minute, and sure that your faith and courage will never falter, no matter the outcome, I bid you au revoir.”

Nile Kinnick (1918–1943) College football player

Letter to his parents (April 24, 1943)

Love, Life, Faith, Feeling

“I have endeavored to dissipate these religious superstitions from the minds of women, and base their faith on science and reason, where I found for myself at last that peace and comfort I could never find in the Bible and the church.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist

1896
September
The Degraded Status of Woman in the Bible
Free Thought Magazine
Chicago
14
540
http://books.google.com/books?id=TfOfAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA540&dq=%22I+have+endeavored+to+dissipate%22

Women, Peace, Faith, Science

“There are far too many people there for comfort. Birth control came late and is still being fought—if you can possibly imagine that. There are just too many of the archaic religions still around, as well as crackbrained ideas that have been long entrenched in custom. The world’s overcrowded. Men, women, children, a boiling mob wherever you look.”

Harry Harrison book Planet of the Damned

Source: Planet of the Damned (1962), Chapter 12

Women, Men, Children, People

“Our grandfathers were less well-housed, well-fed, well-clothed than we are. The strivings by which they bettered their lot are also those which deprived us of [passenger] pigeons. Perhaps we now grieve because we are not sure, in our hearts, that we have gained by the exchange. The gadgets of industry bring us more comforts than the pigeons did, but do they add as much to the glory of the spring?”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

“Wisconsin: On a Monument to the Pigeon”, p. 109.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Wisconsin: Marshland Elegy," "Wisconsin: The Sand Counties" "Wisconsin: On a Monument to the Pigeon," and "Wisconsin: Flambeau"

Spring, Heart, Housing, Clothes

“It is God’s will that we take His behests and His comfortings as largely and as mightily as we may take them, and also He willeth that we take our abiding and our troubles as lightly as we may take them, and set them at nought. For the more lightly we take them, and the less price we set on them, for love, the less pain we shall have in the feeling of them, and the more thanks and meed we shall have for them.”

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

The Fifteenth Revelation, Chapter 63

Love, God, Pain, Feeling

“Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts, and pray long prayers?”

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

1960s, (1963)

Thinking, Time

“If there were a clear prospect that such evils were part of a barbarian past, then at least we might find a small crumb of comfort. No such prospect exists: no scientific analysis can even remotely answer or account for past and present horrors of human behaviour.”

Simon Conway Morris (1951) British palaeontologist

Source: The Crucible of Creation (1998), p. 205.

Evil, Past, Parting

“Americans are therefore wrong in assuming — and this was another line of argument against my RAS lecture — that South Koreans have struggled too long and too bravely for human rights ever to knuckle down to the North. There was no significant opposition here to the prosecution of Professor Park Yu-ha for criticizing the orthodox history of the so-called comfort women, and that took place under Park Geun-hye.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Confederation Again (July 2018)

Women, History

“The vast majority of the members of all religions, I believe and would argue, don't want to kill anybody. They want to love and care for their families, find decent work that sustains life and comfort, live in peace and get along with their neighbors. It is a deviant streak in some humans, I suspect, that drives them toward self-righteous violence, and uses religion as a convenient alibi… I am trying as hard as I can to imagine the audience for this movie. Every time I make any progress, it scares me.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/september-dawn-2007 of September Dawn (24 August 2007) Reviews, Zero star reviews

Love, Life, Family, Peace

“The unsuspecting fish, who knew nothing but a life in the river, went about its routine like any other day, but in an instant was ripped out of its reality to meet with death. Like that fish, we routinely live our lives hardly aware that, at the least expected moment, the yellow-eyed hawk of fate in the form of crises, tragedy or even death, may wrench us out of our comfortable environment. We regularly hear of it in the news or see it around us but rarely take seriously that it could happen to us. Perhaps the lesson here is to guard against complacency and give a higher priority to our spiritual needs. If the fish swam deeper, the hawk would not be able to reach it. Similarly, if we go deeper into our connection to God, we will find an inner reality so deep and satisfying that it lifts the consciousness to a place where we could deal with the effects of unforeseeable fate with a stable, detached mind.”

Radhanath Swami (1950) Gaudiya Vaishnava guru

?
The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami (Tulsi Books, 2010)

Life, Death, God, Fate

“I realized I had, unbeknownst to me, signed an invisible contract which required me to enter into a strange new echelon of society. People suddenly wanted to take pictures of me on the street. Journalists were interested in the kind of socks I preferred. … It was an atmosphere from which I instantly wanted to retreat. I detested the superficial elevation and commodification of it all, juxtaposed with the grotesque self-involvement it would sometimes draw out in me. Being a faceless member of a mob, I soon realized, is far more comforting than teetering on a brittle pedestal one inch off the ground. The exclusion and subtle differentiation that comes with even the rather diluted form of celebrity that I have embarrasses me.”

Jack Gleeson (1992) Irish actor

Speech at Oxford Union (2014)

People, Drawing

“As I have often said before, we should not measure the negro from the heights which the white race has attained, but from the depths from which he has come. You will not find Burke, Grattan, Curran and O’Connell among the oppressed and famished poor of the famine-stricken districts of Ireland. Such men come of comfortable antecedents and sound parents.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1880s, The Future of the Colored Race (1886)

Men, Parent

“With all that’s been written about Temple of the Dog recently, it’s reminded me of the original meanings of those songs. Say Hello 2 Heaven, for example, was one of the songs I wrote directly for Andy Wood and the amount of times someone has requested I play that song for someone else who’s died have been numerous. That’s great that it’s become this anthem that makes somebody feel some comfort when they’ve lost someone, but recently I’ve become a little more possessive of the idea that this song was actually written for a specific guy and I haven’t forgotten that person. So I’ve been reminding myself and those in the audience where that song came from.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

Chris Cornell Interview: ‘There’s always been a desire in me to keep the attention of a room full of people with just one stupid guitar and nothing else’, The Independent, 20 May 2016 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/chris-cornell-interview-there-s-always-been-a-desire-in-me-to-keep-the-attention-of-a-room-full-of-a7039831.html, Temple of the Dog Era

Dogs, Guy, Feeling, Idea

“Here there was only yourself; a soul buried alive. Nothing to comfort you but your own life. Screaming from the pain of the blows which battered him down might have stopped, but the internal scream of self-loathing could never cease.”

Peter F. Hamilton (1960) English novelist

as the ghost Dariat lies immobile in a wispy limbo
The Night's Dawn Trilogy (1996-1999), The Naked God (1999)

Life, Pain, Soul

“One must choose between Obscurity with Efficiency, and Fame with its inevitable collateral of Bluff. There is a period, well on toward middle life, when a man can say such things to himself and feel comforted.”

William McFee (1881–1966) American writer

Harbours of Memory (1921), p. 114

Life, Feeling

“The ideal Ireland that we would have, the Ireland that we dreamed of, would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as a basis for right living, of a people who, satisfied with frugal comfort, devoted their leisure to the things of the spirit – a land whose countryside would be bright with cosy homesteads, whose fields and villages would be joyous with the sounds of industry, with the romping of sturdy children, the contest of athletic youths and the laughter of happy maidens, whose firesides would be forums for the wisdom of serene old age. The home, in short, of a people living the life that God desires that men should live. With the tidings that make such an Ireland possible, St. Patrick came to our ancestors fifteen hundred years ago promising happiness here no less than happiness hereafter. It was the pursuit of such an Ireland that later made our country worthy to be called the island of saints and scholars. It was the idea of such an Ireland - happy, vigorous, spiritual - that fired the imagination of our poets; that made successive generations of patriotic men give their lives to win religious and political liberty; and that will urge men in our own and future generations to die, if need be, so that these liberties may be preserved. One hundred years ago, the Young Irelanders, by holding up the vision of such an Ireland before the people, inspired and moved them spiritually as our people had hardly been moved since the Golden Age of Irish civilisation. Fifty years later, the founders of the Gaelic League similarly inspired and moved the people of their day. So, later, did the leaders of the Irish Volunteers. We of this time, if we have the will and active enthusiasm, have the opportunity to inspire and move our generation in like manner. We can do so by keeping this thought of a noble future for our country constantly before our eyes, ever seeking in action to bring that future into being, and ever remembering that it is for our nation as a whole that future must be sought.”

Éamon de Valera (1882–1975) 3rd President of Ireland

Radio broadcast http://www.rte.ie/archives/exhibitions/eamon-de-valera/719124-address-by-mr-de-valera/, "On Language & the Irish Nation" (17 March 1943), often called "The Ireland that we dreamed of" speech

Life, Wisdom, Men, God

“These facts and figures must serve as an eye-opener to the people of Mysore. I refer to them here not because I have any hopes of our reaching the levels of prosperity of the two Colonies, but because it will do us good to know what organization and human endeavour are capable of achieving under favourable conditions. / The nationality of our people rests on a religious and fatalistic basis, not on an economic basis, as in the West. There are still people among us who believe that the golden age was in the past, the world is on the down-grade and the old-word conditions might yet be reproduced some day. The Hindu ideal of life is that this world is a preparation for the next and not a place to stay in and make ourselves comfortable. We are devoted to past ideals, although, out of necessity or from prospect of personal gain, we have partly taken to Western methods of work and business. There is a yearning for the old ideals and a half-hearted acquiescence in the new and, on the whole, the genius of the people is for standing still. / If we are to follow in the wake of other countries in the pursuit of material prosperity, we must give up aimless activities and bring our ideals into line with the standards of the West, namely, to spread education in all grades, multiply occupations and increase production and wealth. All other activities should conform themselves to the economic idea.”

Mokshagundam Visveshvaraya (1860–1962) Indian engineer, scholar, statesman and the Diwan of Mysore

148-149
[Speeches by Sir M. Visvesvaraya, K.C.I.E, https://archive.org/details/VisvesvarayaSpeeches, 1917, Bangalore Government Press, 148]

Life, People, Age, World

“In order to build a common identity, we must find a name with which all of us are comfortable. While I personally have no problem with the term ‘Fijian’, I recognize many others in my community are not. But let us not leave it there, let us find other options.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Calling for a national dialogue on an inclusive nationality adjective for all Fiji citizens Speech to the Lautoka Rotary Club (Centenary Dinner), 12 March 2005 http://www.fiji.gov.fj/publish/printer_4326.shtml.

Communication, Problem, Personality

“The male sexual drive is supposed to fall off during moments of stress,” he thought. “It is comforting sometimes to know that I must be abnormal. Especially in a situation like this. Perpetual lust has got to be good for the human race.”

George Alec Effinger (1947–2002) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Relatives (1973)., Chapter 8 (p. 126).

“This hath ever been a comfort to me, that I chose Jesus to my Heaven, by His grace, in all this time of Passion and sorrow; and that hath been a learning to me that I should evermore do so: choose only Jesus to my Heaven in weal and woe.”

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

The Eighth Revelation, Chapter 19

Learning, Passion, Time

“To those who wish to punish others— or at least to see them punished, if the avengers are too cowardly to take matters in to their own hands— the belief in a fiery, hideous hell appears to be a great source of comfort.”

Steve Allen (1921–2000) American comedian, actor, musician and writer

Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Morality (1990)

Hell, Appearance

“[About whether critics have influenced his work:] None could have, because I don't read them. I doubt anyone does, except other critics. It seems like a sealed-off field with its own lieutenants, pretty much preoccupied with its own intrigues. I got a glimpse into the uses of a certain kind of criticism this past summer at a writers' conference – into how the avocation of assessing the failures of better men can be turned into a comfortable livelihood, providing you back it up with a Ph. D. I saw how it was possible to gain a chair of literature on no qualification other than persistence in nipping the heels of Hemingway, Faulkner, and Steinbeck. I know, of course, that there are true critics, one or two. For the rest all I can say is, “Deal around me.””

Nelson Algren (1909–1981) American novelist, short story writer

"The Art of Fiction No. 11" (1955)

Men, Literature, Failure, Reading

“People are slaves to the world, and as long as they live favorable and comfortable lives, they are loyal to religious principles. However, at hard times, the times of trials, true religious people are scarce.”

Husayn ibn Ali (626–680) The grandson of Muhammad and the son of Ali ibn Abi Talib

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.78, p. 117
General Quotes

People, World, Time

“[I have] various tricks to actually reach that solitary point of creativity. One of them is pretending I have an idea. But that trick doesn't survive very long because I don't really trust ideas – especially good ones... Rather, I put my trust in the materials that confront me, because they put me in touch with the unknown. It is then that I begin to work.... when I don't have the comfort of sureness and certainty. Sometimes Jack Daniels helps too. Another good trick is fatigue. I like to start working when it's almost too late.... when my sense of efficiency is exhausted.”

Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) American artist

Quote from 'Robert Rauschenberg: An Audience of One', John Gruen, Art News, 29, February 1977, p. 48
1970's

Idea, Sense, Help

“I looked down the long lines of waving black plumes and stern faces beneath them, and sighed to think that within one short hour most, if not all, of those magnificent veteran warriors, not a man of whom was under forty years of age, would be laid dead or dying in the dust. It could not be otherwise; they were being condemned, with that wise recklessness of human life which marks the great general, and often saves his forces and attains his ends, to certain slaughter, in order to give their cause and the remainder of the army a chance of success. They were foredoomed to die, and they knew the truth. It was to be their task to engage regiment after regiment of Twala’s army on the narrow strip of green beneath us, till they were exterminated or till the wings found a favourable opportunity for their onslaught. And yet they never hesitated, nor could I detect a sign of fear upon the face of a single warrior. There they were—going to certain death, about to quit the blessed light of day for ever, and yet able to contemplate their doom without a tremor. Even at that moment I could not help contrasting their state of mind with my own, which was far from comfortable, and breathing a sigh of envy and admiration. Never before had I seen such an absolute devotion to the idea of duty, and such a complete indifference to its bitter fruits.”

H. Rider Haggard book King Solomon's Mines

Source: King Solomon's Mines (1885), Chapter 14, "The Last Stand of the Greys"

Life, Death, Truth, Age

“I was depressed for a long time. If you’re depressed long enough, it’s almost a comfort, a state of mind that you’ve made peace with because you’ve been in it so long. It’s a very selfish world.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

Interview with Men's Health magazine, September 2006 https://www.menshealth.com/guy-wisdom/chris-cornell-death-depression-suicide-interview, On depression and suicide

World, Peace, Time, Selfishness

“If I love God, I don't in this way pantheistically love the universe, or the animals, trees and shrubs as my fellow created beings, but rather I love in God precisely the Father of Humanity. And this higher meaning, this social significance, always has its terminus in God the Father. He is not so much the creator and author, but much more the protector and comforter of the poor.”

Hermann Cohen (1842–1918) German philosopher

Wenn ich Gott liebe, so liebe ich nicht pantheistisch das Universum, nicht die Tiere, die Bäume und die Kräuter, als meine Mitgeschöpfe, sondern aber ich liebe in Gott einseitig den Vater der Menschen, und diese höhere Bedeutung und diese soziale Prägnanz hat nunmehr der religiöse Terminus von Gott alsVater: er ist nicht sowohl der Schöpfer und Urheber, sondern vielmehr der Schutz und Beistand der Armen. Source: The Concept of Religion in the System of Philosophy (1915), p. 81 http://books.google.com/books?id=rZ9RAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA81

Love, God, Way, Tree

“I am most comfortable with writing and pen and ink illustrations. My filter tends to be cut ups of what is around me blurred into my own feelings and interests of the Victorian era. I don't try to categorize myself but I do recognize my influences are a bit more macabre than usual.”

Lorin Morgan-Richards (1975) American poet, cartoonist, and children's writer

Regarding his influences and style; as quoted in "Americymru" http://americymru.blogspot.com/2010/08/interview-with-lorin-morgan-richards.html "An Interview With Lorin Morgan-Richards” (25 August 2010).

Feeling

“It is commonly said that seeing is believing, but feeling is the very truth. I shall, therefore, give the result of my experience of hypnotism in my own person. In the middle of September, 1844, I suffered from a most severe attack of rheumatism, implicating the left side of the neck and chest, and the left arm. At first the pain was moderately severe, and I took some medicine to remove it; but, instead of this, it became more and more violent, and had tormented me for three days, and was so excruciating, that it entirely deprived me of sleep for three nights successively, and on the last of the three nights I could not remain in any one posture for five minutes, from the severity of the pain. On the forenoon of the next day, whilst visiting my patients, every jolt of the carriage I could only compare to several sharp instruments being thrust through my shoulder, neck, and chest. A full inspiration was attended with stabbing pain, such as is experienced in pleurisy. When I returned home for dinner I could neither turn my head, lift my arm, nor draw a breath, without suffering extreme pain. In this condition I resolved to try the effects of hypnotism. I requested two friends, who were present, and who both understood the system, to watch the effects, and arouse me when I had passed sufficiently into the condition; and, with their assurance that they would give strict attention to their charge, I sat down and hypnotised myself, extending the extremities. At the expiration of nine minutes they aroused me, and, to my agreeable surprise, I was quite free from pain, being able to move in any way with perfect ease. I say agreeably surprised, on this account; I had seen like results with many patients; but it is one thing to hear of pain, and another to feel it. My suffering was so exquisite that I could not imagine anyone else ever suffered so intensely as myself on that occasion; and, therefore, I merely expected a mitigation, so that I was truly agreeably surprised to find myself quite free from pain. I continued quite easy all the afternoon, slept comfortably all night, and the following morning felt a little stiffness, but no pain. A week thereafter I had a slight return, which I removed by hypnotising myself once more; and I have remained quite free from rheumatism ever since, now nearly six years.”

James Braid (1795–1860) Scottish surgeon, hypnotist, and hypnotherapist

In “The First Account of Self-Hypnosis Quoted in “The Original Philosophy of Hypnotherapy (from The Discovery of Hypnosis)”.

Pain, Truth, Way, Feeling

“Each thought himself, especially since this last promotion, to be indispensably necessary to the formation of London society, and was comfortable in the conviction that he had thoroughly succeeded in life by acquiring the privilege of sitting down to dinner three times a week with peers and peeresses.”

Anthony Trollope book The Prime Minister

Source: The Prime Minister (1876), Ch. 20

Life, Time

Quotes about comfort page 9

Quotes about comfort
page 9