Quotes about comment (426 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“I am not really into making a lot of comments for myself. More than anything, I am already feeling a lot of love from many supporters. So... in that sense, I don't think I need to do anything special.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Other quotes, 2018
Original: (ja) 特に自分からコメントを常に発信したいなとは思ってないし、何よりも、自分がたくさんの方々に愛してもらってるのはすごく分かってるので…うん…あのー、何だろう？特別自分から何かをしなくてもいいかなという風に思っています。
Source: Hanyu about his absence from social media in an interview https://www.olympicchannel.com/en/video/detail/yuzuru-hanyu-happy-to-say-nothing-at-all/ at the Olympics 2018, published 27 February 2018 on the Olympic Channel. (Retrieved 18 September 2020)

Support , Thinking , Sense , Love

“I can’t comment on Soundgarden because I know them personally and I really like them a lot, but I have strong feelings towards Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains and bands like that. They’re obviously just corporate puppets that are just trying to jump on the alternative bandwagon - and we are being lumped into that category.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

As quoted in Flipside (1992-03).
Interviews (1989-1994), Print

Feeling , Strong , Personality

“A friend had commented once that Neal had a gift for making someone want to punch him just for saying hello.”

Tamora Pierce book Page

Source: Page

“I don't believe in that "no comment" business. I always have a comment.”

Martha Beall Mitchell (1918–1976) Wife of American politician

Quoted by Nigel Rees in his book Why Do We Say ...? (1987), ISBN 0-7137-1944-3.
See Wikipedia on no comment.

Business

“No need to repeat the blasphemous comments which everyone who had known Gran'pa Comstock made on that last sentence. But it is worth pointing out that the chunk of granite on which it was inscribed weighed close on five tons and was quite certainly put there with the intention, though not the conscious intention, of making sure that Gran'pa Comstock shouldn't get up from underneath it. If you want to know what a dead man's relatives really think of him, a good rough test is the weight of his tombstone.”

George Orwell book Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 3

Thinking , Dead

“Come, dear, [Gwendolen rises] we have already missed five, if not six, trains. To miss any more might expose us to comment on the platform.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

Training

“for better or worse, it is the commentator who has the last word.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pale Fire

Source: Pale Fire

“Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators.”

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

“Can you look without the voice in your head commenting, drawing conclusions, comparing, or trying to figure something out?”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

Drawing

“I understand what you're saying, and your comments are valuable, but I'm gonna ignore your advice.”

Roald Dahl (1916–1990) British novelist, short story writer, poet, fighter pilot and screenwriter

Source: Fantastic Mr. Fox

Understanding

“It's a damn good story. If you have any comments, write them on the back of a check.”

Erle Stanley Gardner (1889–1970) Lawyer, novelist, travel writer

“I was on duty when our submarine went into port in Nassau and tied up at the Prince George Wharf, and I was the officer who accepted an invitation from the governor-general of the Bahamas for our officers and crewmen to attend an official ball to honor the U. S. Navy. There was a more private comment that a number of young ladies would be present with their chaperones. All of us were pleased and excited, and Captain Andrews responded affirmatively. We received a notice the next day that, of course, the nonwhite crewmen would not be included. When I brought this message to the captain, he had the crew assemble in the mess hall and asked for their guidance in drafting a response. After multiple expletives were censored from the message, we unanimously declined to participate. The decision by the crew of the K-1 was an indication of how equal racial treatment had been accepted—and relished. I was very proud of my ship. On leave”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Source: A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety

Decision

“The new hero-type favored by Aschenbach, and recurring in his books in a multiplicity of individual variants, had already been remarked upon at an early stage by a shrewd commentator, who had described his conception as that of “an intellectual and boyish manly virtue, that of a youth who clenches his teeth in proud shame and stands calmly on as the swords and spears pass through his body … the figure of Saint Sebastian is the most perfect symbol if not of art in general, then certainly of the kind of art in question.”

Thomas Mann book Death in Venice

Source: Death in Venice (1912), Ch. 2, as translated by David Luke

Books , Youth , Art , Question

“I don’t normally comment about my own films. But my judgment of films is excellent, it is better than yours.”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with Komal Nahta

“An evolutionary approach provides powerful lenses that correct for instinct blindness. It allows one to recognize what natural competences exist, it indicates that the mind is a heterogeneous collection of these competences and, most importantly, it provides positive theories of their designs. Einstein once commented that "It is the theory which decides what we can observe". An evolutionary focus is valuable for psychologists, who are studying a biological system of fantastic complexity, because it can make the intricate outlines of the mind's design stand out in sharp relief. Theories of adaptive problems can guide the search for the cognitive programs that solve them; knowing what cognitive programs exist can, in turn, guide the search for their neural basis.”

Leda Cosmides (1957) American psychologist

Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, " Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer http://www.cep.ucsb.edu/primer.html" (1997)

Search , Nature , Problem , Study

“Whenever I travel the world, from Europe to Africa, South America to Southeast Asia, one of the things I most enjoy doing is meeting young men and women like you. It’s more fun than being in a conference room. And it’s also more important -- because you are the young leaders who will determine the future of this country and this region. So I’m going to keep my remarks short at the top, because I want to take as many questions and comments from you.”

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

2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall Speech (November 2014)

Women , Men , World , Travel

“From the imputation of confounding axioms with assumed concepts Euclid himself, however, is free. Euclid incorporated the former among his postulates while he separated the latter as common concepts—a proceeding which even on the part of his commentators was no longer understood, and likewise with modern mathematicians, unfortunately for science, has met with little imitation. As a matter of fact, the abstract methods of mathematical science know no axioms at all.”

Hermann Grassmann (1809–1877) German polymath, linguist and mathematician

As quoted in "Diverse Topics: The Origin of Thought Forms," The Monist (1892) Vol. 2 https://books.google.com/books?id=8akLAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA120 ed., Paul Carus, citing The Open Court Vol. II. No. 77. A Flaw in the Foundation of Geometry by Hermann Grassmann, translated from his Ausdehnungslehre

Mathematics , Science , Parting

“I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by 'arisch'. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. … But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. … I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.”

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works

One of two draft letters (25 July, 1938) written for Stanley Unwin to select as a response to his German publishers inquiry about his ancestry. The other letter refused to answer altogether on his ancestry; since the quoted letter persists, it seems that the other letter was sent.
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1981)

War , People , Literature , Understanding

“Archbishop Romero of El Salvador was a member of the Salvadoran aristocracy. He could not have risen to the top of the church hierarchy otherwise. But after he began voicing critical remarks about the war and concerned comments about the poor, he was assassinated.”

Michael Parenti (1933) American academic

3 CONSPIRACY: PHOBIA AND REALITY, The JFK Assassination II: p. 189
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

War

“Your comments on the Cuban crisis are, to me, utterly amazing. You say that the way the solution was arrived at was that 'the Russians discontinued their suicidal policy; and President Kennedy by his resolution and farsightedness saved the world'. This seems to me a complete reversal of the truth. Russia and America had policies leading directly to nuclear war. Khrushchev, when he saw the danger, abandoned his policy. Kennedy did not. It was Khrushchev who allowed the human race to continue, not Kennedy.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Letter to Lord Gladwyn, November 14, 1964.There is an artist imprisoned in each one of us. Let him loose to spread joy everywhere.
1960s

War , Truth , World , Way

“The revolt of the modern child against his parents is a miniature of the revolt of the modern world against the memory of 1900 years of Christian culture and the great Hebrew, Grecian and Roman cultures which preceded them. Any respect for that tradition is called "reactionary," with the result that the modern soul has developed a commentator mentality which judges yesterday by today, and today by tomorrow. Nothing is more tragic in an individual who once was wise than to lose his memory, and nothing is more tragic to a civilization than the loss of its tradition.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 1, p. 9

World , Soul , Parent , Memory

“"The kids out there want something they can relate to, something that's real; most of that whiny stuff isn't real. The cheesy pop songs just bore me to death." (commenting on how he feels about rock and pop.)”

Jonathan Davis (1971) Heavy metal singer, frontman for Korn

Death , Feeling

“I've known Reverend Wright for almost twenty years. The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met twenty years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church. They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs and if Reverend Wright thinks that's political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn't know me very well and based on his remarks yesterday, well I may not know him as well as I thought either.”

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

Statement at a press conference following Reverend Jeremiah Wright's speech at a Press Club event (29 April 2008) http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/04/29/obama-calls-it-quits-with-former-pastor-jeremiah-wright/
2008

Hate , Thinking , Personality

“There is no question but that Hitler belongs in the category of the truly mystic medicine man. As somebody commented about him at the last Nürnberg party congress, since the time of Mohammed nothing like it has been seen in this world. His body does not suggest strength. The outstanding characteristic of his physiognomy is its dreamy look. I was especially struck by that when I saw pictures taken of him in the Czechoslovakian crisis; there was in his eyes the look of a seer. This markedly mystic characteristic of Hitler's is what makes him do things which seem to us illogical, inexplicable, and unreasonable. … So you see, Hitler is a medicine man, a spiritual vessel, a demi-deity or, even better, a myth.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

During an interview with H. R. Knickerbocker, first published in Hearst's International Cosmopolitan (January 1939), in which Jung was asked to diagnose Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Joseph Stalin, later published in Is Tomorrow Hitler's? (1941), by H. R. Knickerbocker, also published in The Seduction of Unreason : The Intellectual Romance with Fascism (2004) by Richard Wolin, Ch. 2 : Prometheus Unhinged : C. G. Jung and the Temptations of Aryan Religion, p. 75

World , Question , Time

“Simran and Sukirti are not similar at all. I think the amount of the sacrifices that Simran has made may exist in other girls in real life too but I do not see myself in the same mould. I am a very reserved and a practical girl. However, I can relate to undying love, extreme emotions and the bubbliness of Simran. I have always preferred my work to speak for me than my relationships; I don’t want to comment on it. As far as marriage is concerned, I cannot think of getting married till the time I have achieved my targets. My parents got married when they were both 32 so I don’t think 25 years down the line, their kids are rushing into marriage anytime soon.”

Sukirti Kandpal (1987) Indian actress

On comparison with her character and personal life http://www.tellychakkar.com/tv/tv-news/i-have-never-been-associated-the-word-struggle-life-sukirti-kandpal-042/

Love , Life , Marriage , Girl

“Admittedly there is a risk in any course we follow other than this [surrender], but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face — that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand — the ultimatum. And what then? When Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we are retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he has heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he would rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us. You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin — just in the face of this enemy?”

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

1960s, A Time for Choosing (1964)

Life , War , People , Peace

“"Some people are desperately looking for scapegoats, they just don't want to see the truth!" (Jon commenting on the parents that blame music for the violence.)”

Jonathan Davis (1971) Heavy metal singer, frontman for Korn

People , Truth , Music , Parent

“Kant's position is extremely subtle — so subtle, indeed, that no commentator seems to agree with any other as to what it is.”

Roger Scruton (1944–2020) English philosopher

"Some More -isms" (p. 25)
Modern Philosophy (1995)

“Moreover, in Christ's second discourse, the mode in which the mention of Jonas is understood in Matthew, verse 40, is wholly unsuited to the context and to the application which even there is made of it; and if we do not take this for a later interpolation, for which no adequate inducement suggests itself, it must be considered as an erroneous comment of the reporter, which he has mixed up with Christ’s own words, of course without being conscious of it, a thing which might easily happen when his recollection had become dim and confused. In addition to the signs already adduced of Matthew’s reporter having been so circumstanced comes the fact, that he omits the little incident related in Luke, which intervenes between Christ’s two discourses, namely, the admiring ejaculation of a woman in the crowd and the reply to it.”

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) German theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar

Friedrich Schleiermacher, A Critical Essay on the Gospel of St. Luke https://archive.org/details/gospelofstluke00schluoft, 1825, pp. 185–186

Christ

“I was reading even before I could spell properly, even though I couldn't necessarily understand what I was reading. Being able to identify a word I knew was like finding a signpost on the road telling me I was on the right path, heading in the right direction. And so it was, in this rather unusual way, Diário by Diário, month by month, pretending not to hear the jokey comments made by the adults in the house, who were amused by the way I would stare at the newspaper as if at a wall, that my moment to astonish them finally came, when, one day, nervous but triumphant, I read out loud, in one go, without hesitation, several consecutive lines of print.”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

Mal sabendo ainda soletrar, já lia, sem perceber que estava lendo. Identificar na escrita do jornal uma palavra que eu conhecesse era como encontrar um marco na estrada a dizer-me que ia bem, que seguia na boa direcção. E foi assim, desta maneira algo invulgar, Diário após Diário, mês após mês, fazendo de conta que não ouvia as piadas dos adultos da casa, que se divertiam por estar eu a olhar para o jornal como se fosse um muro, que a minha hora de os deixar sem fala chegou, quando, um dia, de um fôlego, li em voz alta, sem titubear, nervoso mas triunfante, umas quantas linhas seguidas.
Source: Small Memories (2006), pp. 87–88

Way , Understanding , Reading , Housing

“Shakespeare led a life of allegory: his works are the comments on it.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Letter to George and Georgiana Keats (February 14 - May 3, 1819)
Letters (1817–1820)
Context: A man's life of any worth is a continual allegory — and very few eyes can see the mystery of life — a life like the Scriptures, figurative... Lord Byron cuts a figure, but he is not figurative. Shakespeare led a life of allegory: his works are the comments on it.

Life

“I remember President Kennedy once stated… that the United States had the nuclear missile capacity to wipe out the Soviet Union two times over, while the Soviet Union had enough atomic weapons to wipe out the United States only once… When journalists asked me to comment… I said jokingly, "Yes, I know what Kennedy claims, and he's quite right. But I'm not complaining… We're satisfied to be able to finish off the United States first time round. Once is quite enough. What good does it do to annihilate a country twice? We're not a bloodthirsty people."”

Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

As quoted in Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament (1974)

People , Time , Country

“When someone goes to the doctor and says, "I hear a voice in my head," he or she will most likely be sent to a psychiatrist. The fact is that, in a very similar way, virtually everyone hears a voice, or several voices, in their head all the time: the involuntary thought processes that you don't realize you have the power to stop. Continuous monologues or dialogues. You have probably come across "mad" people in the street incessantly talking or muttering to themselves. Well, that's not much different from what you and all other "normal" people do, except that you don't do it out loud. The voice comments, speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on. The voice isn't necessarily relevant to the situation you find yourself in at the time; it may be reviving the recent or distant past or rehearsing or imagining possible future situations. Here it often imagines things going wrong and negative outcomes; this is called worry.”

Eckhart Tolle book The Power of Now

The Power of Now (1997) p. 16

Imagination , Time , Past , Future

“Be still:
There is no longer any need of comment.
It was a lucky wind
That blew away his halo with his cares,
A lucky sea that drowned his reputation.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Sea

“Redundant comments are just places to collect lies and misinformation.”

Robert C. Martin (1952) American software consultant

Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship

“Grover didn't say anything for awhile. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Feeling

“Do you want my input or is this just an angry tirade you need to vent? (Acheron)
Both! (Kat)
Okay, you rant and I’ll add my comments at the end. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Devil May Cry

“Don't listen to the malicious comments of those friends who, never taking any risks themselves, can only see other people's failures.”

Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes

Source: Eleven Minutes

People , Failure

“Alec looked merely irritated by this comment. "The only way you could raise enough money to hire Magnus by selling lemonade is if you put meth in it.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Money , Way

“Jessamine flushed. "Ugh! Charlotte, Will's being vexing."
"And the sun has come up in the east," said Jem to no one in particular.
…
"And the sun comes up in the WEST," said Will, who had apparently heard Jem's earlier comment.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Sun

“And he would listen, making only a few comments, always sympathetic, so that when I left him I had the distinct impression he had solved everything for me.”

Anne Rice book Interview with the Vampire

Source: Interview with the Vampire

“It's a mistake, you know. You have no idea what you'll be exposed to… the obscenities and lewd comments, the lecherous gazes, the groping and pinching… and that's just my house. Imagine what it would be like here.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Devil in Winter

Imagination , Idea , Housing

“And that is just the point… how the world, moist and beautiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That's the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. "Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

World , Beauty , Question

“Art is something out of the ordinary commenting on the ordinary.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Art

“They were frightening enough, but Tessa could not help but feel that if Will were there, he would have commented that they looked like turnips, and perhaps made up a song about it.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Feeling , Help

“There are books in which the footnotes, or the comments scrawled by some reader's hand in the margin, are more interesting than the text. The world is one of those books.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

Books , World

“I think fantasy is best described as a kind of fiction that evokes wonder, mystery or magic, a sense of possibility beyond the ordinary world in which we live, and yet which reflects and comments upon that known world.”

Kate Forsyth (1966) Australian writer

World , Thinking , Sense

“What is this Chocho business?' Will muttered to himself. But his friends overheard the comment.
'It's a term of great respect,' they chorused, and he glared at them.
'Oh, shut up,' he said.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

Business

“If you make some comment even obliquely alluding to menstruation or menopause and its effect on my judgment," Murphy interrupted, "I will break your arm in eleven places.”

Jim Butcher book Changes

Source: Changes

“Safety from what? Who's after me?"
Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Dead

“Why didn’t you talk about whether women are funny or not?

I just felt that by commenting on that in any real way, it would be tacit approval of it as a legitimate debate, which it isn’t.”

Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Source: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Women , Way

“Don't have to see," the pilot grunted. "knows the way."
"Funny name for an aircraft," Grace commented. "Is it after your wife?"
"My gun."
Grace stared at him. "You named your plane after a?"
"It was a very good gun.”

Gordon Korman book Vespers Rising

Source: Vespers Rising

Way

“I do not mean to object to a thorough knowledge of the famous works we read. I object only to the interminable comments and bewildering criticisms that teach but one thing: there are as many opinions as there are men.”

Helen Keller book The Story of My Life

Source: The Story of My Life

Men , Knowledge , Reading

“Lively, intelligent, and quite immature, [Emily] usually burst out with exactly the comment that summed up the situation beautifully and therefore could never in politeness be said.”

Clare B. Dunkle book The Hollow Kingdom

Source: The Hollow Kingdom

Intelligence

“I thought she'd make some comment about the bloodthirsty gods chasing us, but when she finally found her voice, she said, "That boy kissed you!"
Leave it to Liz to have her priorities straight.”

Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

God , Boy , Kiss

“She held up her calloused, grimy fingers. Leo couldn't help thinking there was nothing hotter than a girl who didn't mind getting her hands dirty. But of course, that was just a general comment. Didn't apply to Calypso. Obviously.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Girl , Thinking , Help

“He glanced over at me, a smile twisting his lips. "Hey, no advice, Ghost Girl. Guardians should be seen and not heard."
I flipped him off for the "Ghost Girl" comment but he didn't notice because Lissa was talking to him again.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Smile , Girl

“Matters of great concern should be treated lightly.” Master Ittei commented, “Matters of small concern should be treated seriously.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Source: Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

“We speak of the matter [of this science] in the sense of its being what the science is about. This is called by some the subject of the science, but more properly it should be called its object, just as we say of a virtue that what it is about is its object, not its subject. As for the object of the science in this sense, we have indicated above that this science is about the transcendentals. And it was shown to be about the highest causes. But there are various opinions about which of these ought to be considered its proper object or subject. Therefor, we inquire about the first. Is the proper subject of metaphysics being as being, as Avicenna claims, or God and the Intelligences, as the Commentator, Averroes, assumes.”
loquimur de materia "circa quam" est scientia, quae dicitur a quibusdam subiectum scientiae, uel magis proprie obiectum, sicut et illud circa quod est uirtus dicitur obiectum uirtutis proprie, non subiectum. De isto autem obiecto huius scientiae ostensum est prius quod haec scientia est circa transcendentia; ostensum est autem quod est circa altissimas causas. Quod autem istorum debeat poni proprium eius obiectum, uariae sunt opiniones. Ideo de hoc quaeritur primo utrum proprium subiectum metaphysicae sit ens in quantum ens (sicut posuit Auicenna) uel Deus et Intelligentiae (sicut posuit Commentator Auerroes.)

Duns Scotus (1265–1308) Scottish Franciscan friar, philosopher and Catholic blessed

Quaestiones subtilissimae de metaphysicam Aristotelis, as translated in: William A. Frank, Allan Bernard Wolter (1995) Duns Scotus, metaphysician. p. 20-21

God , Intelligence , Sense , Science

“Well, I'm not a member of the permanent political establishment. And — I've learned quickly these past few days that if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone. But — now here's a little news flash. Here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion. I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country.”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

[Alex Johnson, Palin fires back at media, ‘Washington elite’, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26525268/, MSNBC, 2008-09-04, 2008-09-04]
2008, 2008 Republican National Convention

People , Learning , Past , Country

“There is a revealing sardonic comment by Leopold Godowsky on a well-known statement of Paderewski, who once boasted, "When I don't practice for one day, my fingers know it; for two days, and my friends know it; for three days and the whole world knows it." Godowsky added: "On the fourth day, the critics hear about it." In any case, poets and novelists are generally better reporters of the general state of musical opinion than music journalists, who most often have an ax to grind, or, quite reasonably and justifiably, a more limited set of prejudices to broadcast.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Frontiers of Meaning: Three Informal Lectures on Music (1994), Ch. 2 : How to Become Immortal

World , Music

“[The George E. P. Box paper Fitting empirical data (1960) is] a mature exposition of an important branch of statistics, to which the author has made great contributions. One feature of particular interest is practical discussion of genuinely nonlinear fitting problems and their solution with the help of tact and a special, publicly available, IBM-704 program. Another is insightful comments on the role of prior distributions in statistics.”

Leonard Jimmie Savage (1917–1971) American mathematician

Leonard Jimmie Savage in 1960s; cited in: JOC/EFR (2006) " George Edward Pelham Box http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Box.html" at history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk, Nov 2006.

Problem , Help , Box

“I have often observed, to my regret, that a widespread prejudice exists with regard to the educability of intelligence. The familiar proverb, "When one is stupid, it is for a long time," seems to be accepted indiscriminately by teachers with a stunted critical judgement. These teacher lose interest in students with low intelligence. Their lack of sympathy and respect is illustrated by their unrestrained comments in the presence of the children: "This child will never achieve anything… He is poorly endowed… He is not intelligent at all." I have heard such rash statements too often. They are repeated daily in primary schools, nor are secondary schools exempt from the charge.”

Alfred Binet (1857–1911) French psychologist and inventor of the first usable intelligence test

Alfred Binet (1909/1975, 105), as cited in: B.R. Hergenhahn. An Introduction to the History of Psychology 2009. p. 312-3
Modern ideas about children, 1909/1975

Children , Stupidity , Education , School

“I decided (after listening to a "talk radio" commentator who abused, vilified, and scorned every noble cause to which I had devoted my entire life) that I was both a humanist and a liberal, each of the most dangerous and vilified type. I am a humanist because I think humanity can, with constant moral guidance, create a reasonably decent society. I am terrified of restrictive religious doctrine, having learned from history that when men who adhere to any form of it are in control, common men like me are in peril. I do not believe that pure reason can solve the perpetual problems unless it is modified by poetry and art and social vision. So I am a humanist. And if you want to charge me with being the most virulent kind—a secular humanist—I accept the accusation.”

James A. Michener (1907–1997) American author

Interview, Parade magazine (24 November 1991)

Life , Men , Art , History

“The lieutenant took his time scanning their visa chips, letting them wait in the drizzle, occasionally making a comment with the idle arrogance common to such nobodies who have just come into a small bit of power.”

Dan Simmons book Hyperion

Source: Hyperion (1989), Chapter 2 (p. 105)

Time , Waiting

“Thank you for many kind comments on the USA games coverage with Taylor Twellman. Very much appreciated. But stay tuned; World Cup goes on.”

Ian Darke (1950) British association football and boxing commentator

Twitter https://twitter.com/IanDarke/status/484276578189574144 (2 July 2014).
2010s, 2014, 2014 FIFA World Cup

World , Game

“Now let me trace for a moment the sequence of events that led up to the secession crisis. Prelude to Southern Secession. I'll begin by saying that the decisive act of secession—the secession which caused all future secessions—was not what happened after Lincoln’s election. It was the secession of the seven states of the Deep South from the Democratic convention in Charleston of 1860. As far as I know, Mr. DiLorenzo doesn’t even know anything about this. He can still comment on that when he wants to.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), The Right of Secession Is Not the Right of Revolution

Decision , Future

“The Original Text. The basis for Luther's version of the Old Testament was the Massoretic text as published by Gerson Ben Mosheh at Brescia in 1494. (although he disliked him exceedingly on account of his monkery), the Latin translations of the Dominican Sanctes Pagnini of Lucca (1527), and of the Franciscan Sebastian Münster (1534), the "Glossa ordinaria" (a favorite exegetical vade-mecum of Walafried Strabo from the ninth century), and Nicolaus Lyra (d. 1340), the chief of mediaeval commentators, who, besides the Fathers, consulted also the Jewish rabbis.Lyra acquired by his Postillae perpetuae in V. et N. Test. (first published in Rome, 1472, in 5 vols. fol., again at Venice, 1540) the title Doctor planus et utilis. His influence on Luther is expressed in the well-known lines:
:"Si Lyra non lyrasset,
:Lutherus non saltasset."
The basis for the New Testament was the second edition of Erasmus, published at Basel in Switzerland in 1519.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

Which Greek and Hebrew texts of the Bible did Luther use?

“Writers, artists, and commentators on websites are detained or thrown into jail when they reflect on democracy, opening up, reform and reason. This is the reality of China.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

Higgins, Charlotte. " Ai Weiwei: ‘China in many ways is just like the middle ages http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/apr/11/ai-weiwei-china-last-interview." Guardian.co.uk., April 11, 2011.
2010-, 2011

Democracy , Reality

“[Among the Arapeh… both father and mother are held responsible for child care by the entire community…] If one comments upon a middle-aged man as good-looking, the people answer: 'Good-looking? Ye-e-e-s? But you should have seen him before he bore all those children.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1930s, Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935), p. 55; cited inWomen, History, and Theory : The Essays of Joan Kelly (1986), by Joan Kelly, p. 137

Children , People , Age , Communication

“Innis comments on how the invention of writing and the advancement of military techniques led to the founding of ancient empires: The sword and the pen worked together. Power was increased by concentration in a few hands, specialization of function was enforced, and scribes with leisure to keep and study records contributed to the advancement of knowledge and thought. The written record signed, sealed, and swiftly transmitted was essential to military power and the extension of government. Small communities were written into large states and states were consolidated into empire. The monarchies of Egypt and Persia, the Roman empire and the city states were essentially products of writing.”

Harold Innis book Empire and Communications

2007 edition, p. 30.
Empire and Communications (1950)

Communication , Knowledge , Study

“Yeah, I’d like to comment. In the first place, the idea that the federal government in 1860 should have offered to buy the slaves is a political absurdity. Any claim by Lincoln or his party of any jurisdiction over slavery in the states would have been regarded, and justly regarded, as completely unconstitutional, and advocating the overthrow of the Constitution.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), Q&A

Idea

“When I met Wittgenstein, I saw that Schlick's warnings were fully justified. But his behavior was not caused by any arrogance. In general, he was of a sympathetic temperament and very kind; but he was hypersensitive and easily irritated. Whatever he said was always interesting and stimulating and the way in which he expressed it was often fascinating. His point of view and his attitude toward people and problems, even theoretical problems, were much more similar to those of a creative artist than to those of a scientist; one might almost say, similar to those of a religious prophet or a seer. When he started to formulate his view on some specific problem, we often felt the internal struggle that occurred in him at that very moment, a struggle by which he tried to penetrate from darkness to light under an intense and painful strain, which was even visible on his most expressive face. When finally, sometimes after a prolonged arduous effort, his answers came forth, his statement stood before us like a newly created piece of art or a divine revelation. Not that he asserted his views dogmatically … But the impression he made on us was as if insight came to him as through divine inspiration, so that we could not help feeling that any sober rational comment of analysis of it would be a profanation.”

Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970) German philosopher

Rudolf Carnap, as quoted in The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap (1963) by Paul Arthur Schilpp, p. 25, and in Ludwig Wittgenstein : The Duty of Genius (1991) by Ray Monk, p. 244

Pain , People , Art , Way

“It was, I saw, a flat to get out of rather than one to stay in. It was a machine for eating and sleeping in, a suitable dwelling place for a working woman, whose main interest is in her work. I disliked this version of myself, which seemed to negate my other activities, reduced them to after-hours amusements, whereas I had always thought them pretty central. These mute, white walls had been silent witnesses to many encounters; nevertheless, they withheld comment, and their very withholding struck me as unfriendly. Unheimlich was the word which came to mind when I stood on the threshold of my bedroom.”

Anita Brookner (1928–2016) British novelist and art historian.

A Friend From England (1987)

Sleep

“The series of events leading up to the formation of the biblical community and its religion apparently began unexpectedly. Moses killed an Egyptian overseer who was beating one of the slaves. It is difficult to imagine this being a fictional invention, especially since the biblical writers never chose to comment on this noteworthy aspect of the protagonist’s dark past. When Moses later tried to intervene between two quarreling slaves, one of them responded, “Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” (Exodus 2:11-15). Is the monopoly of force — the ability to coerce other human beings — truly the ultimate basis of social authority? If it seems undesirable to ground social authority on something that essentially boils down to the superior ability to commit murder, then what is the alternative?”

George E. Mendenhall (1916–2016) American academic

Ancient Israel’s Faith and History: An Introduction the Bible in Context (2001)

Religion , Imagination , Communication , Past

“It's okay, I'm European [referring to a preceding sexually ambiguous comment].”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

citation needed
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014), Commonly repeated

“As when on some secluded branch in forest far and wide sits perched an owl, who, full of self-conceit and self-created wisdom, explains, comments, condemns, ordains and order things not understood, yet full of importance still holds forth to stocks and stones around — so sits and scribbles Mike.”

Michael Faraday (1791–1867) English scientist

Of himself and his writing abilities, as quoted in A Random Walk in Science (1973) by Robert L. Weber, p. 76

Wisdom

“The oft-heard comment that Leonardo [da Vinci]'s genius managed to transcend the culture of his time is amply justified. But his was not a science-fiction voyage into the future as much as a plunge into the past.”

Lucio Russo (1944) Italian historian and scientist

11.2, "The Renaissance", p. 336
The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why It Had to Be Reborn (2004)

Science , Time , Past , Future

“It doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with my interpretations, even the classical Quran commentators disagreed on many details. Disagreement deepens our understanding of the Quran.”

Muhammad Asad (1900–1992) Austro-Hungarian writer and academic

Documentary, A Road To Mecca

Understanding

“…A column is not merely a round stick of stone: it is part of an entire symbolic system, which one cannot intuit simply by looking at it in isolation. The basic reason for studying such things is not merely technical or archivally historical but humanistic; it is to seek out the answer to what someone like Vitruvius meant by his (to us) mysterious comment that "a building should have the proportions of a man,"”

Robert Hughes (1938–2012) Australian critic, historian, writer

Things I Didn't Know (2006)

Study , Parting

“When you feel the need to write a comment, first try to refactor the code so that any comment becomes superfluous.”

Kent Beck (1961) software engineer

Source: Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, 1999, p. 88

Feeling

“The belief that women are discriminated against in the workplace reinforces a couple's tendency to have the woman stay at home. It is the tendency for women to stay at home that makes the workplace value her less. then, shortly after she is married, it begins to make sense for her to move for her husband's career, not for her husband to move for her career. Conversely, it makes sense for them to invest in his medical, law, or engineering degree--rather than hers… ironically, then, a reality has been created from a false reality. And, ironically, women's careers are hurt via comments meant to prod a society into helping women's careers. The road to hell is paved…”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 145.

Women , Law , Home , Hell

“The "sayings" of a community, its proverbs, are its characteristic comment upon life; they imply its history, suggest its attitude toward the world and its way of accepting life. Such an idiom makes the finest language any writer can have; and he can never get it with a notebook. He himself must be able to think and feel in that speech — it is a gift from heart to heart.”

Willa Cather (1873–1947) American writer and novelist

"Miss Jewett"
Not Under Forty (1936)

Life , World , Way , Feeling

“The artist makes art not to save mankind but to save himself. Every benevolent comment by an artist is a fog to cover his tracks, the bloody trail of his assault against reality and others.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 29

Art , Reality

“[W]e prefer not to countenance the kinds of sacrifices the professional-grade athlete has made to get so good at one particular thing.... We prefer not to consider the shockingly vapid and primitive comments uttered by athletes in postcontest interviews, or to imagine what impoverishments in one's mental life would allow people actually to think in the simplistic way great athletes seem to think. Note the way "up-close and personal profiles" of professional athletes strain so hard to find evidence of rounded human life—outside interests and activities, charities, values beyond the sport. We ignore what's obvious, that most of this straining is farce. It's farce because the realities of top-level athletics today require an early and total commitment to one pursuit. An almost ascetic focus. A subsumption of almost all other features of human life to their one chosen talent and pursuit. A consent to life in a world that, like a child's world, is very serious and very small.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

Tennis Player Michael Joyce's Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Discipline, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness
Essays

Life , People , World , Way

“More than 30 years ago, … I wrote, and Foreign Affairs published, an article now being circulated in the blogosphere as evidence of an alleged anti-Israel point of view. Some commentators reach farther, suggesting that since I have been an active supporter of Barack Obama's presidential bid he, too, is anti-Israel. Both these assertions fall flat after any objective reading of the historical record.”

Merrill McPeak (1936) United States Air Force general

How to Secure Israel: Demilitarized land for peace is the key to a settlement (April 2008)

Support , Reading

“To be accused of ignoring my roots is pig ignorant. Collins's racist comment has focused my mind on the fight and I will beat him.”

Chris Eubank (1966) British former professional boxer

Chris Eubank http://observer.guardian.co.uk/osm/story/0,,1010013,00.html#article_continue

Fight

“If you think back, my comments were very open to interpretation. And you happen to be easily misled. As for the queen, who is difficult to lead anywhere… I have always been and intend to be entirely straightforward.”

Suzanne Collins The Underland Chronicles

Ripred, p. 247
The Underland Chronicles, Gregor and the Marks of Secret (2006)

Thinking

“I told Mr Downer that I was disappointed with his comments and said that we should stay out of politics. I told him his country has not experienced a coup to feel what the military went through here. He can't compare the situation there to this side.”

Frank Bainimarama (1954) Prime Minister of Fiji

2000, Reaction to calls from Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer for the Military to stay out of politics (30 September 2005)

Disappointment , Feeling , Country

“I say cowardice, because the standards which is Isaiah Berlin himself has set for anyone who undertakes such an enterprise are dauntingly high. His ability to catch the allegiances and the emotional tone of the authors he has written about, as well as his ability to meet the commentator's first duty to the subtleties of their thought, has always meant that their per sonalities and ideas alike have remained in tact and alive.”

Alan Ryan (1940) British philosopher

Introduction in The Idea of freedom: Essays in Honour of Isaiah Berlin (1979), Edited by Alan Ryan.

Idea

“I was 21 at the time, so I was young, but I had already programmed for half my life, basically. And every project before that had been completely personal and it was a revelation when people just started commenting, started giving feedback on your code. And even before they started giving code back, that was, I think, one of the big moments where I said, "I love other people!"”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

Don't get me wrong -- I'm actually not a people person.
Torvalds, Linus, 2016-02-17, <nowiki>Linus Torvalds: The mind behind Linux</nowiki>, 2016-04-08 http://www.ted.com/talks/linus_torvalds_the_mind_behind_linux/,
2010s, 2016

Love , Life , People , Thinking

“English: Only a total idiot would think that a major channel is working to inform the audience. The channel sells product, it must be packaged. CNN, for example, is a colossal ideological tool in the West. An excellent example is the situation around Yugoslavia. How effectively a very civilized part of humankind was brainwashed! The question is in approaches. If a consumer "grubs" stale bread, nobody will offer him poppy-seed buns. I'm an absolutely engaged person. By myself. I have certain political views. I'm not a journalist. I practice political propaganda. I am a commentator, and if one comments on events without having one's own position, that's an unhealthy symptom.”

Mikhail Leontyev (1958) Russian television pundit

Только полный идиот может думать, что крупный канал готов работать ради информирования зрителя. Канал продает продукт, его надо паковать. CNN, к примеру, является на Западе колоссальным идеологическим инструментом. Яркий пример тому - ситуация вокруг Югославии. Как эффектно промыли мозги очень цивилизованной части человечества! Вопрос в методах. Если потребитель "хавает" черствый хлеб, никто не будет давать ему булочки с маком. Я человек ангажированный абсолютно. Самим собой. У меня есть конкретные политические взгляды. Я не журналист. Я занимаюсь политической пропагандой. Я комментатор, и если человек комментирует события, не имея своей позиции, то это явление болезненное.
Михаил Леонтьев: 'Придется стать придурком', Chelpress.ru (Mass Media of Chelyabinsk), 2000-06-29, 2007-03-25 http://www.chelpress.ru/newspapers/vecherka/archive/29-06-2000/9/2.DOC.shtml,

Question , Thinking , Parting , Personality

“I have been strongly influenced by the Mahabharata, discourses of the Buddha, Sri Aurobindo and Plato. My masters have been Vyasa, Buddha and Sri Aurobindo, as elucidated by Ram Swarup. … Paganism was a term of contempt invented by Christianity for people in the countryside who lived close to and in harmony with Nature, and whose ways of worship were spontaneous as opposed to the contrived though-categories constructed by Christianity’s city-based manipulators of human minds. In due course, the term was extended to cover all spiritually spontaneous culture of the world – Greek, Roman, Iranian, Indian, Chinese, native American. It became a respectable term for those who revolted against Christianity in the modern West. But it has yet to recover its spiritual dimension which Christianity had eclipsed. For me, Hinduism preserves ancient Paganism in all its dimensions. In that sense, I am a Pagan. The term "Polytheism' comes from Biblical discourse, which has the term 'theism' as its starting point. I have no use for these terms. They create confusion. I dwell in a different universe of discourse which starts with 'know thyself' and ends with the discovery, 'thou art that'…
I met her [Mother Theresa] briefly in Calcutta in 1954 or 1955 when she was unknown. I had gone to see an American journalist who was a friend and had fallen ill, when she came to his house asking for money for her charity set-up. The friend went inside to get some cash, leaving his five or six year old daughter in the drawing room. Teresa told her, "He is not your real father. Your real father is in heaven." The girl said, "He is very ill." Theresa commented, "If he dies, your father does not die. For your real father who is in heaven never 'dies."”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

The girl was in tears.
Interview, The Observer. Date : February 22, 1997. http://sathyavaadi.tripod.com/truthisgod/Articles/goel.htm https://egregores.blogspot.com/2009/10/buddha-sri-aurobindo-and-plato.html https://egregores.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/hindus-and-pagans-a-return-to-the-time-of-the-gods/

Money , People , World , Art

“Political science, by which I mean nothing more abstruse or academic than consideration of a foreign country as a country in its own right, seems to have been almost completely supplanted by a preoccupation with international relations. What is thought irrelevant to that side of things (often wrongly) is considered beneath notice. This can be seen by the reflexiveness with which journalists now contact I. R. professors or nuclear specialists for comment on North Korea’s motivations, party conferences, personality cult, etc — and the perfect confidence with which that comment is supplied.This is not to say that discussion of the current crisis does justice to international relations as a discipline. Usually it is conducted in a very simplistic, moralizing, America-centric fashion, with no apparent sense of history. Much of the stuff on Twitter or in op-ed pieces is all the more embarrassing for having been written from a presumed position of great intellectual superiority to Donald Trump. For all his unsuitedness to be president, the fellow is no more ignorant of North Korea’s political nature than most of his critics are.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, And Then What? (June 2018)

Justice , Confidence , History , Motivation