Quotes about course
page 2

“The female mind is certainly a devious one, my lord."
Vetinari looked at his secretary in surprise. "Well, of course it is. It has to deal with the male one.”

Terry Pratchett book Unseen Academicals

Source: Unseen Academicals

“Are you kidding? I jumped off a building -- of course I'm hurt.”

Derek Landy Skulduggery Pleasant

Source: Skulduggery Pleasant

Hurt

“There was nothing like a Saturday - unless it was the Saturday leading up to the last week of school and into summer vacation. That of course was all the Saturdays of your life rolled into one big shiny ball.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Rising Tides

Life, School, Summer

“Although random mutations influenced the course of evolution, their influence was mainly by loss, alteration, and refinement… Never, however, did that one mutation make a wing, a fruit, a woody stem, or a claw appear. Mutations, in summary, tend to induce sickness, death, or deficiencies. No evidence in the vast literature of heredity changes shows unambiguous evidence that random mutation itself, even with geographical isolation of populations, leads to speciation.”

Lynn Margulis (1938–2011) American evolutionary biologist

Source: Acquiring Genomes: A Theory Of The Origin Of Species

Death, Literature, Appearance, Change

“Aziraphale. The Enemy, of course. But an enemy for six thousand years now, which made him a sort of friend.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

Source: " The Writing Life http://www.tikkun.org/mediagallery/download.php?mid=20090505114218282" (link is to PDF download), Tikkun magazine, Volume 3, Number 6, 1988

“Strength is paradoxical. I am not strong because I can force others to do what I wish as a result of my play with them, but because I can allow them to do what they wish in the course of my play with them.”

James P. Carse American academic

Source: Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility

Strong

“Silverfish looked down.
"Oh. Are you a dwarf?"
Cuddy gave him a blank stare.
"Are you a giant?" He said.
"Me? Of course not!"
"Ah. Then I must be a dwarf, yes.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: Men at Arms: The Play

“The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action in mind.”

Frank Herbert (1920–1986) American writer

"The Plowboy Interview: Frank Herbert", in Mother Earth News No. 69 (May/June 1981)
General sources

People

“Of course I'm an egoist. Where do you get if you aren't?”

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

“Have you any notion how many books are written about women in the course of one year? Have you any notion how many are written by men? Are you aware that you are, perhaps, the most discussed animal in the universe?”

Virginia Woolf book A Room of One's Own

Source: A Room of One's Own (1929), Ch. 2, p. 26

Women, Men, Books, Universe

“That's one form of magic, of course."
"What, just knowing things?"
"Knowing things that other people don't know.”

Terry Pratchett book Equal Rites

Source: Equal Rites

People

“Stefan spat. "Oh, aye, he fell. O' course, Master Ralon helped him fall, several times. Poor li'l tyke didn't have a chance.”

Tamora Pierce book Alanna: The First Adventure

Source: Alanna: The First Adventure

Chance, Time, Help

“Most witches don’t believe in gods. They know that the gods exist, of course. They even deal with them occasionally. But they don’t believe in them. They know them too well. It would be like believing in the postman.”

Terry Pratchett book Witches Abroad

Source: Witches Abroad

God

“don't treat me like a child."
He smiled. "Of course I do, but you seem to have this ridiculous notion that being treated like a child means to be treated with less respect than an adult.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: The Faceless Ones

Smile

“Of course it's possible to love a human being if you don't know them too well.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Love

“Of course motivation is not permanent. But then, neither is bathing; but it is something you should do on a regular basis.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

Source: Raising Positive Kids in a Negative World

Motivation

“What do you think? I'm not a starfish or a pepper tree. I'm a living, breathing human being. Of course I've been in love.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

Love, Thinking, Tree

“He had been through a good deal in the course of the Great Quest — he had seen beautiful things and horrible things — but up until now he had not known that one and the same creature can be both, that beauty can be terrifying.”

Michael Ende book The Neverending Story

Source: The Neverending Story

Beauty

“Of course I'm sane, when trees start talking to me, I don't talk back.”

Terry Pratchett book The Light Fantastic

Source: The Light Fantastic

Tree

“It was said that life was cheap in Ankh-Morpork. This was of course, completely wrong. Life was often very expensive; you could get death for free.”

Terry Pratchett book Pyramids

Source: Pyramids

Life, Death

“[N]othing is as surprising as life. Except for writing. Except for writing. Yes, of course, except for writing, the only consolation.”

Orhan Pamuk book The Black Book

Source: The Black Book

Life

“Of course, people will laugh at you, but people laugh at a great many things so there is no need to take it personally.”

Jeanette Winterson book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Source: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

People, Personality

“We can follow a steady upward course in a world of change without fear, welcoming opportunities”

Henry B. Eyring (1933) American Mormon leader

World, Fear, Change

“You may go over the world and you will find that every form of religion which has breathed upon this earth has degraded woman… I have been traveling over the old world during the last few years and have found new food for thought. What power is it that makes the Hindoo woman burn herself upon the funeral pyre of her husband? Her religion. What holds the Turkish woman in the harem? Her religion. By what power do the Mormons perpetuate their system of polygamy? By their religion/ Man, of himself, could not do this; but when he declares, 'Thus saith the Lord,' of course he can do it. So long as ministers stand up and tell us Christ is the head of the church, so is man the head of woman, how are we to break the chains which have held women down through the ages? You Christian women look at the Hindoo, the Turkish, the Mormon women, and wonder how they can be held in such bondage…

Now I ask you if our religion teaches the dignity of woman? It teaches us the abominable idea of the sixth century--Augustine's idea--that motherhood is a curse; that woman is the author of sin, and is most corrupt. Can we ever cultivate any proper sense of self-respect as long as women take such sentiments from the mouths of the priesthood?”

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

Women, Age, World, Religion

“So what does that actually mean?'
'To be honest, Ghastly, I haven't a bull's notion.'
'Elder Bespoke should be addressed by his full title,' Tipstaff said.
'Of course,' Skulduggery said. 'To be honest, Your Highness, I haven't a bull's notion.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Death Bringer

“Do you drink?"
"Of course, I just said I was a writer.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Drink

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”

Frédéric Bastiat Sophismes économiques

Lorsque la Spoliation est devenue le moyen d’existence d’une agglomération d’hommes unis entre eux par le lien social, ils se font bientôt une loi qui la sanctionne, une morale qui la glorifie.
Economic sophisms, 2nd series (1848), ch. 1 Physiology of plunder ("Sophismes économiques", 2ème série (1848), chap. 1 "Physiologie de la spoliation").
Economic Sophisms (1845–1848)

Life, Men, Way, Time

“One of my favorite album covers is On the Beach. Of course that was the name of a movie and I stole it for my record, but that doesn't matter. The idea for that cover came like a bolt from the blue. Gary and I traveled around getting all the pieces to put it together. We went to a junkyard in Santa Ana to get the tail fin and fender from a 1959 Cadillac, complete with taillights, and watched them cut it off a Cadillac for us, then we went to a patio supply place to get the umbrella and table. We picke up the bad polyester yellow jacket and white pants at a sleazy men's shop, where we watched a shoplifter getting caught red-handed and busted. Gary and I were stoned on some dynamite weed and stood there dumbfounded watching the bust unfold. This girl was screaming and kicking! Finally we grabbed a local LA paper to use as a prop. It had this amazing headline: Sen. Buckley Calls For Nixon to Resign. Next we took the palm tree I had taken around the world on the Tonight's the Night tour. We then placed all of these pieces carefully in the sand at Santa Monica beach. Then we shot it. Bob Seidemann was the photographer, the same one who took the famous Blind Faith cover shot of the naked young girl holding the airplane. We used the crazy pattern from the umbrella insides for the inside of the sleeve that held the vinyl recording. That was the creative process at work. We lived for that, Gary and I, and we still do.”

Neil Young book Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream

Source: Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream

Men, World, Faith, Travel

“He was part of my dream, of course -- but then I was part of his dream, too.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Dreams, Parting

“Briar: "So I guess I was the last to know."
Rosethorn: "Of course you are. You're a man, aren't you?”

Tamora Pierce book Street Magic

Source: Street Magic

“And the turtles, of course… all the turtles are free, as turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.”

Dr. Seuss book Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories

Source: Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories

“Of course, no man is entirely in his right mind at any time.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Time

“He'd heard that writers spent all day in their dressing gowns drinking champagne. This is, of course, absolutely true.”

Terry Pratchett book Snuff

Source: Snuff

Drink

“When is your birthday?” (…)
Wide silver-gold eyes swung to him. “You don’t know?”
“No.”
Pouting, she twirled a strand of her hair. “How can you not know?”
“Do you know mine?” he asked.
“Of course I do. It’s the day you met me.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Surrender

Birthday

“Of course I want to kill you," said Skulduggery. "I want to kill most people. But then where would I be? In a field of dead people with no one to talk to.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Kingdom of the Wicked

People, Dead

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”

Terry Pratchett book Diggers

The Nome Trilogy (1989 - 1990)
Variant: The problem with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and putting things in it.
Source: Diggers (1990)

People, Funny

“It almost seemed as if there must be some random and of course unfair thrift in the emotional housekeeping of the world, if the great happiness--however temporary, however flimsy--of one person could come out of the great unhappiness of another.”

Alice Munro book Too Much Happiness

Source: Too Much Happiness

Happiness, World, Personality

“Of course, it is very important to be sober when you take an exam. Many worthwhile careers in the street-cleansing, fruit-picking and subway-guitar-playing industries have been founded on a lack of understanding of this simple fact.”

Terry Pratchett book Moving Pictures

Source: Moving Pictures

Understanding

“I believe in reincarnation,” [Bjorn] said.
I KNOW.
“I tried to live a good life. Does that help?”
THAT’S NOT UP TO ME. Death coughed. OF COURSE… SINCE YOU BELIEVE IN REINCARNATION… YOU’LL BE BJORN AGAIN.”

Terry Pratchett book Men at Arms

Source: Men at Arms

Life, Death, Help

“However much we are affected by the things of the world, however deeply they may stir and stimulate us, they become human for us only when we can discuss them with our fellows. Whatever cannot become the object of discourse - the truly sublime, the truly horrible or the uncanny - may find human voice through which to sound into the world, but it is not exactly human. We humanize what is going on in the world and in ourselves only by speaking of it, and in the course of speaking of it we learn to be human.”

Hannah Arendt book Men in Dark Times

Source: Men in Dark Times

World, Learning

“I really didn't foresee the Internet. But then, neither did the computer industry. Not that that tells us very much of course--the computer industry didn't even foresee that the century was going to end.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

“All human beings were of course unique, and they only discovered that when someone else fell in love with them or when no one ever fell in love with them.”

Harry Mulisch book The Discovery of Heaven

Source: The Discovery of Heaven

Love

“The greatest feminists have also been the greatest lovers. I'm thinking not only of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley, but of Anais Nin, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and of course Sappho. You cannot divide creative juices from human juices. And as long as juicy women are equated with bad women, we will err on the side of being bad.”

Erica Jong (1942) Novelist, poet, memoirist, critic

Women, Lovers, Thinking, Daughters

“The Pope would have an easier job than the President of the United States in adopting a change of course.”

Hans Küng (1928) Swiss Catholic priest, theologian and author

"If Obama were Pope" (31 January 2009) http://www.progressiveinvolvement.com/progressive_involvement/2009/01/if-obama-were-pope-by-professor-hans-kung.html Context: The Pope would have an easier job than the President of the United States in adopting a change of course. He has no Congress alongside him as a legislative body nor a Supreme Court as a judiciary. He is absolute head of government, legislator and supreme judge in the church. If he wanted to, he could authorize contraception over night, permit the marriage of priests, make possible the ordination of women and allow eucharistic fellowship with this Protestant churches. What would a Pope do who acted in the spirit of Obama?

Change

“In a course of a lifetime, what does it matter?”

Sharon Creech Walk Two Moons

Source: Walk Two Moons

“To recognize one's own insanity is, of course, the arising of sanity, the beginning of healing and transcendence.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

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

“Of course it is,’ said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree to everything
that Alice said; ‘there’s a large mustard-mine near here. And the moral
of that is– “The more there is of mine, the less there is of yours.”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice in Wonderland

“I waited for my thighs and butt to uncramp. Of course, they didn't know the loosening rule. They were screaming things like *Are you crazy? Do you know we're thirty-five years old? Sit down and feed us a Twinkie!”

P. C. Cast book Divine By Mistake

Source: Divine By Mistake

Waiting

“He is really not so ugly after all, provided, of course, that one shuts one's eyes, and does not look at him.”

Oscar Wilde book A House of Pomegranates

"The Birthday of the Infanta", The House of Pomegranates http://emotionalliteracyeducation.com/classic_books_online/hpomg10.htm (1892) Source: A House of Pomegranates

“You're not going to die, are you sir?' he said.
'Of course I am. Everyone is. That's what being alive is all about.”

Terry Pratchett book Sourcery

Truckers, Ch. 7
The Nome Trilogy (1989 - 1990)
Source: Sourcery

“Of course you like him; everyone enjoys flattery.”

Christopher Paolini (1983) American author

“Are you saying that you people knew about these amorophobots all the time?"
"Of course we did. They attacked us in Iceland. Remember?"
"No. I was unconscious.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Atlantis Complex

People, Time

“He who only wishes and hopes does not interfere actively with the course of events and with the shaping of his own destiny.”

Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) austrian economist

Source: Human Action: A Treatise on Economics

Hope

“Religion is not an exact science. Sometimes, of course, neither is science.”

Terry Pratchett book Nation

Source: Nation

Religion, Science

“Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot. Take thou what course thou wilt.”

William Shakespeare Julius Caesar

Source: Julius Caesar

Art

“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

“What does it matter? Science has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than right any day.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Happiness, Science

“Accidents did not just happen. From time to time they were carefully plotted, calculated, and arranged to one’s advantage-all, of course, under the cloak of happenstance.”

Jodi Picoult book The Pact

Source: The Pact

Time

“The will of God is not something you add to your life. It’s a course you choose. You either line yourself up with the Son of God…or you capitulate to the principle which governs the rest of the world.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Life, God, World

“This is space. It's sometimes called the final frontier.

(Except that of course you can't have afrontier, because there'd be nothing for it to be a frontier, but as frontiers go, it's pretty penultimate…)”

Terry Pratchett book Moving Pictures

Source: Moving Pictures

“Of course, maybe I'd end up like one of those crazy old people with, like, sixty cats. And one day, the neighbors would complain about the smell, and it would turn out I'd died and the cats had eaten me.

Still, it might be nice to have a cat.”

Alex Flinn (1966) American children's writer

People, Cats

“Ay me! for aught that ever I could read,
could ever hear by tale or history,
the course of true love never did run smooth.”

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream

Source: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Love, History, Reading

“Oh, I don’t care about Jack. I don’t care for anybody in the whole world but you. I love you, Cecily. You will marry me, won’t you?
You silly boy! Of course. Why, we have been engaged for the last three months.
For the last three months?”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

Love, World, Boy

“Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Exercises

“Even when a river of tears courses through this body, the flame of love cannot be quenched.”

Izumi Shikibu (976–1033) Japanese poet

Love, Tear

“I have satisfied myself that the [cosmic] rays are not generated by the formation of new matter in space, a process which would be like water running up a hill. Nor do they come to any appreciable amount from the stars. According to my investigations the sun emits a radiation of such penetrative power that it is virtually impossible to absorb it in lead or other substances…. This ray, which I call the primary solar ray, gives rise to a secondary radiation by impact against the cosmic dust scattered through space. It is the secondary radiation which now is commonly called the cosmic ray, and comes, of course, equally from all directions in space. [The article continues: The phenomena of radioactivity are not the result of forces within the radioactive substances but are caused by this ray emitted by the sun. If radium could be screened effectively against this ray it would cease to be radioactive, he said. ]”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Quoted in 'Tesla, 75, Predicts New Power Source', New York Times (5 Jul 1931), Section 2, 1.

Star, Water, Sun

“I am of course notoriously hooked on cigarettes. I keep hoping the things will kill me. A fire at one end and a fool at the other.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

Cold Turkey (2004)

Hope, Fools

“John is very sweet. He always mentions me in all his interviews; saying that he’s really fond of me. He says that he thinks of me as one of his favourite actors- its very nice. I’ve seen John’s growth from his first film to Baabul and beyond. I think he’s grown as an actor and of course he has become one of the most sought after stars today. I see girl fans who’re crazy about him. I feel good about that and I always believe that good people get good things in life - John is one of them Rani quotes.”

Rani Mukerji (1978) Indian film actress

http://ranimukherji.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=interviews&action=display&thread=407.
Rani On Celebrities

Life, People, Feeling, Quotes

“Not as in rest she bowed,
But large hot tears were coursing down her cheek.
And her low-panted sobs broke awefully
Upon the sleeping echoes of the night.”

Lewis Carroll Three Sunsets and Other Poems

The Path of Roses (1856)
Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898)

Tear, Sleep, Night

“I am thankful, of course, for the prize and thankful to God for each story, each idea, each word, each day.”

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–1991) Polish-born Jewish-American author

On winning the Nobel Prize, TIME magazine (16 October 1978)

God, Idea

“Like a whirling wind which rushes down a sandy and hollow valley, and which, in its hasty course, drives to its centre every thing that opposes its furious course… No otherwise does the Northern blast whirl round in its tempestuous progress…”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XXI Letters. Personal Records. Dated Notes.

“Evolution is an undeniable process, therefore changes will occur in the future. "for sure", But I can’t tell you now what will happen with my work, because I don’t even know what course I will take.”

Clandestine Culture (1970) American artist

http://culturedesigners.com/street-artist-profile-clandestine-culture/

Change, Future

“My dear Sir: Herewith is a little sketch, as you requested. There is not much of it, for the reason, I suppose, that there is not much of me. If anything be made out of it, I wish it to be modest, and not to go beyond the material. If it were thought necessary to incorporate anything from any of my speeches, I suppose there would be no objection. Of course it must not appear to have been written by myself.”

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

p, 125
1850s, Autobiographical Sketch Written for Jesse W. Fell (1859)

Appearance

“The very fact that religions are not content to stand on their own feet, but insist on crippling or warping the flexible minds of children in their favour, forms a sufficient proof that there is no truth in them. If there were any truth in religion, it would be even more acceptable to a mature mind than to an infant mind—yet no mature mind ever accepts religion unless it has been crippled in infancy. … The whole basis of religion is a symbolic emotionalism which modern knowledge has rendered meaningless & even unhealthy. Today we know that the cosmos is simply a flux of purposeless rearrangement amidst which man is a wholly negligible incident or accident. There is no reason why it should be otherwise, or why we should wish it otherwise. All the florid romancing about man's "dignity", "immortality", &c. &c. is simply egotistical delusions plus primitive ignorance. So, too, are the infantile concepts of "sin" or cosmic "right" & "wrong". Actually, organic life on our planet is simply a momentary spark of no importance or meaning whatsoever. Man matters to nobody except himself. Nor are his "noble" imaginative concepts any proof of the objective reality of the things they visualise. Psychologists understand how these concepts are built up out of fragments of experience, instinct, & misapprehension. Man is essentially a machine of a very complex sort, as La Mettrie recognised nearly 2 centuries ago. He arises through certain typical chemical & physical reactions, & his members gradually break down into their constituent parts & vanish from existence. The idea of personal "immortality" is merely the dream of a child or savage. However, there is nothing anti-ethical or anti-social in such a realistic view of things. Although meaning nothing in the cosmos as a whole, mankind obviously means a good deal to itself. Therefore it must be regulated by customs which shall ensure, for its own benefit, the full development of its various accidental potentialities. It has a fortuitous jumble of reactions, some of which it instinctively seeks to heighten & prolong, & some of which it instinctively seeks to shorten or lessen. Also, we see that certain courses of action tend to increase its radius of comprehension & degree of specialised organisation (things usually promoting the wished-for reactions, & in general removing the species from a clod-like, unorganised state), while other courses of action tend to exert an opposite effect. Now since man means nothing to the cosmos, it is plan that his only logical goal (a goal whose sole reference is to himself) is simply the achievement of a reasonable equilibrium which shall enhance his likelihood of experiencing the sort of reactions he wishes, & which shall help along his natural impulse to increase his differentiation from unorganised force & matter. This goal can be reached only through teaching individual men how best to keep out of each other's way, & how best to reconcile the various conflicting instincts which a haphazard cosmic drift has placed within the breast of the same person. Here, then, is a practical & imperative system of ethics, resting on the firmest possible foundation & being essentially that taught by Epicurus & Lucretius. It has no need of supernatualism, & indeed has nothing to do with it.”

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

Letter to Natalie H. Wooley (2 May 1936), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 240-241
Non-Fiction, Letters

Life, Men, Children, Truth

“China is now suffering from poverty, not from unequal distribution of wealth. Where there are inequalities of wealth, the methods of Marx can, of course, be used; a class war can be advocated to destroy the inequalities. But in China, where industry is not yet developed, Marx's class war and dictatorship of the proletariat are impracticable.”

Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) Chinese physician, politician and revolutionary

Capital and the State (1924)

War, Suffering, Wealth

“Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."
"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.”

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

2008, A More Perfect Union (March 2008)

War, Children, Health, Education

“The main dimensions of Marx’s discussion of alienation are as follows: …
1. The worker … has no power to determine the fate of what he produces. …
2. The work task does not offer intrinsic satisfactions. …
3. Human relations, in capitalism, tend to become reduced to operations of the market. … Money promotes the rationalization of social relationships, since it provides an abstract standard in terms of which the most heterogeneous qualities can be compared, and reduced, to one another. …
4. Some animals do produce, of course, but only in a mechanical, adaptive fashion. Alienated labor reduces human productive activity to the level of adaptation to, rather than active mastery of, nature.”

Anthony Giddens (1938) British sociologist

Source: Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971), pp. 12-13.

Money, Fate, Fashion, Nature

“The Master once referred to the Hindu notion that all creation is "leela" — God's play — and the universe is his playground. The aim of spirituality, he claimed, is to make all life play.
This seemed too frivolous for a puritanical visitor. "Is their no room then for work?"
"Of course there is. But work becomes spiritual only when it is transformed into play."”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Source: One Minute Nonsense (1992), p. 96
("Leela" is more commonly spelled "Lila")

Life, God, Universe

“First of all I want to remind you of the essential features of models. In my opinion they are: (i) drawing up a list of the variables to be considered; (ii) drawing up a list of the equations or relations the variables have to obey and (iii) testing the validity of the equations, which implies the estimation of their coefficients, if any. As a consequence of especially (iii) we may have to revise (i) and (ii) so as to arrive at a satisfactory degree of realism of the theory embodied in the model. Then, the model may be used for various purposes, that is, for the solution of various problems. The advantages of models are, on one hand, that they force us to present a "complete" theory by which I mean a theory taking into account all relevant phenomena and relations and, on the other hand, the confrontation with observation, that is, reality. Of course these remarks are far from new.”

Jan Tinbergen (1903–1994) Dutch economist

"The Use of Models: Experience," 1969

Problem, Reality, Drawing

“Of course one worries about getting older - we're all fearful of death, let's not kid ourselves. I'm simply not panicking as my laugh lines grow deeper. Who wants a face with no history, no sense of humor?”

Cate Blanchett (1969) Australian actress

11 Amazing Quotes From Cate Blanchett, Marie Claire, 13 November 2014 https://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/marie-claire/news-and-views/celebrity/a/25503850/11-amazing-quotes-from-cate-blanchett/,

Death, Fear, History, Sense

“"Our Second Experiment", the Professor announced, as Bruno returned to his place, still thoughtfully rubbing his elbows, "is the production of that seldom-seen-but-greatly-to-be-admired phenomenon, Black Light! You have seen White Light, Red Light, Green Light, and so on: but never, till this wonderful day, have any eyes but mine seen Black Light! This box", carefully lifting it upon the table, and covering it with a heap of blankets, "is quite full of it. The way I made it was this - I took a lighted candle into a dark cupboard and shut the door. Of course the cupboard was then full of Yellow Light. Then I took a bottle of Black ink, and poured it over the candle: and, to my delight, every atom of the Yellow Light turned Black! That was indeed the proudest moment of my life! Then I filled a box with it. And now - would anyone like to get under the blankets and see it?"Dead silence followed this appeal: but at last Bruno said "I'll get under, if it won't jingle my elbows."Satisfied on this point, Bruno crawled under the blankets, and, after a minute or two, crawled out again, very hot and dusty, and with his hair in the wildest confusion."What did you see in the box?" Sylvie eagerly enquired."I saw nuffin!" Bruno sadly replied. "It were too dark!""He has described the appearance of the thing exactly!"”

Lewis Carroll book Sylvie and Bruno

the Professor exclaimed with enthusiasm. "Black Light, and Nothing, look so extremely alike, at first sight, that I don't wonder he failed to distinguish them! We will now proceed to the Third Experiment."
Source: Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893), Chapter 21: The Professor's Lecture

Life, Way, Light, Silence

“Nothing has astonished me more (and I think my publishers) than the welcome given to The Lord of the Rings. But it is, of course, a constant source of consolation and pleasure to me. And, I may say, a piece of singular good fortune, much envied by some of my contemporaries. Wonderful people still buy the book, and to a man 'retired' that is both grateful and comforting.”

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

No. 165: To Houghton Mifflin Co. (30 June, 1955); also quoted in 'Tolkien on Tolkien' in Diplomat magazine (October 1966).
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1981)

People, Pleasure, Books, Thinking

“What can a man say about woman, his own opposite? I mean of course something sensible, that is outside the sexual program, free of resentment, illusion, and theory. Where is the man to be found capable of such superiority? Woman always stands just where the man's shadow falls, so that he is only too liable to confuse the two. Then, when he tries to repair this misunderstanding, he overvalues her and believes her the most desirable thing in the world.”

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

Source: "Woman in Europe" (1927), P. 236

World

“Now, today is the day we honor, of course, the Presidents, ranging from George Washington, who couldn't tell a lie, to George Bush, who couldn't tell the truth, to Bill Clinton, who couldn't tell the difference.”

Jay Leno (1950) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, voice actor and television host

Monologue, 19 February 2007 (U.S. Presidents Day)
The Tonight Show

Truth, Lie

“Students using astrophysical textbooks remain essentially ignorant of even the existence of plasma concepts, despite the fact that some of them have been known for half a century. The conclusion is that astrophysics is too important to be left in the hands of astrophysicists who have gotten their main knowledge from these textbooks. Earthbound and space telescope data must be treated by scientists who are familiar with laboratory and magnetospheric physics and circuit theory, and of course with modern plasma theory.”

Hannes Alfvén (1908–1995) Swedish electrical engineer and plasma physicist

Source: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents (1988), p. 197.

Knowledge

“We have a given problem to solve. If we undertake the solution, there is, of course, always danger that we may not solve it aright; but to refuse to undertake the solution simply renders it certain that we cannot possibly solve it aright.”

Theodore Roosevelt The Strenuous Life

1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), The Strenuous Life

Problem

“Of course, we also are soberly aware that historical problems remain in cross-strait relations, and that there will be issues in the future that will require time, patience and joint efforts to resolve.”

Xi Jinping (1953) General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and paramount leader of China

As quoted in "China’s Xi pledges peaceful ties with Taiwan in meeting" http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2013/02/26/2003555737 in Taipei Times (26 February 2013). 2010s

Problem, Effort, Time, Future

“Of course it's tempting to close one's eyes to history, and instead speculate about the roots of war in some possible animal instinct: as if, like the tiger, we still had to kill to live, or, like the robin redbreast, to defend a nesting territory. But war, organized war, is not a human instinct. It is a highly planned and cooperative form of theft. And that form of theft began 10,000 years ago when the harvesters of wheat accumulated a surplus and the nomads rose out of the desert to rob them of what they themselves could not provide. The evidence for that, we saw, in the walled city of Jericho and its prehistoric tower… That is the beginning of war.”

Jacob Bronowski The Ascent of Man

Episode 2: "The Harvest of the Seasons"
The Ascent of Man (1973)

War, History, Animals

“Of course not. After all, I may be wrong.”

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

When asked asked if he was willing to die for his beliefs.
The Times book of quotations (2000), p. 84
Disputed
Variant: "I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."

“Of course, Alexander the Great was a hero, but why smash the chairs?”

Nikolai Gogol book The Government Inspector

Epigraph; said of a history teacher who smashed a chair in his excitement when discussing the conqueror
The Inspector General (1836)

“The impetuous conquests of Alexander, the more politic and premeditated extension of territory made by the Romans, the wild and cruel incursions of the Mexicans, and the despotic acquisitions of the incas, have in both hemispheres contributed to put an end to the separate existence of many tribes as independent nations, and tended at the same time to establish more extended international amalgamation. Men of great and strong minds, as well as whole nations, acted under the influence of one idea, the purity of which was, however, utterly unknown to them. It was Christianity which first promulgated the truth of its exalted charity, although the seed sown yielded but a slow and scanty harvest. Before the religion of Christ manifested its form, its existence was only revealed by a faint foreshadowing presentiment. In recent times, the idea of civilization has acquired additional intensity, and has given rise to a desire of extending more widely the relations of national intercourse and of intellectual cultivation; even selfishness begins to learn that by such a course its interests will be better served than by violent and forced isolation. Language more than any other attribute of mankind, binds together the whole human race. By its idiomatic properties it certainly seems to separate nations, but the reciprocal understanding of foreign languages connects men together on the other hand without injuring individual national characteristics.”

Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835) German (Prussian) philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the University of Berlin

Kosmos (1847)

Men, Truth, Religion, Idea

“Mothers, of course, are all right. They pay a chap's bills and don't bother him. But fathers bother a chap and never pay his bills.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Jack, Act I
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

“Star of descending night! fair is thy light in the west! thou liftest thy unshorn head from thy cloud: thy steps are stately on thy hill. What dost thou behold in the plain? The stormy winds are laid. The murmur of the torrent comes from afar. Roaring waves climb the distant rock. The flies of evening are on their feeble wings; the hum of their course is on the field. What dost thou behold, fair light? But thou dost smile and depart. The waves come with joy around thee: they bathe thy lovely hair. Farewell, thou silent beam! Let the light of Ossian's soul arise!”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

"The Songs of Selma"
The Poems of Ossian

Love, Smile, Soul, Star

“Translated: For four years, there were whole square miles of land where murder was obligatory, while it was strictly forbidden half an hour away. Did I say: murder? Of course murder. Soldiers are murderers.”

Kurt Tucholský (1890–1935) German-Jewish journalist, satirist and writer

Da gab es vier Jahre lang ganze Quadratmeilen Landes, auf denen war der Mord obligatorisch, während er eine halbe Stunde davon entfernt ebenso streng verboten war. Sagte ich: Mord? Natürlich Mord. Soldaten sind Mörder. From Der bewachte Kriegsschauplatz, published 1931 under the pseudonym Ignaz Wrobel; compare http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldaten_sind_M%C3%B6rder.

“Fellow countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.”

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

1860s, Second Inaugural Address (1865)

Hope, Appearance, Future, Dependency

“I do differ from you radically in respect to familiar things & scenes; for I always demand close correlation with the landscape & historic stream to which I belong, & would feel completely lost in infinity without a system of reference-points based on known & accustomed objects. I take complete relativity so much for granted, that I cannot conceive of anything as existing in itself in any recognisable form. What gives things an aspect & quasi-significance to us is the fact that we view things consistently from a certain artificial & fortuitous angle. Without the preservation of that angle, coherent consciousness & entity itself becomes inconceivable. Thus my wish for freedom is not so much a wish to put all terrestrial things behind me & plunge forever into abysses beyond light, matter, & energy. That, indeed, would mean annihilation as a personality rather than liberation. My wish is perhaps best defined as a wish for infinite visioning & voyaging power, yet without loss of the familiar background which gives all things significance. I want to know what stretches Outside, & be able to visit all the gulfs & dimensions beyond Space & Time. I want, too, to juggle the calendar at will; bringing things from the immemorial past down into the present, & making long journeys into the forgotten years. But I want the familiar Old Providence of my childhood as a perpetual base for these necromancies & excursions—& in a good part of these necromancies & excursions I want certain transmuted features of Old Providence to form part of the alien voids I visit or conjure up. I am as geographic-minded as a cat—places are everything to me. Long observation has shewn me that no other objective experience can give me even a quarter of the kick I can extract from the sight of a fresh landscape or urban vista whose antiquity & historic linkages are such as to correspond with certain fixed childhood dream-patterns of mine. Of course my twilight cosmos of half-familiar, fleetingly remembered marvels is just as unattainable as your Ultimate Abysses—this being the real secret of its fascination. Nothing really known can continue to be acutely fascinating—the charm of many familiar things being mainly resident in their power to symbolise or suggest unknown extensions & overtones.”

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

Letter to Clark Ashton Smith (7 November 1930), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 214
Non-Fiction, Letters

Secret, Dreams, Feeling, Cats

“The Jews represent the Semitic principle; all that is spiritual in our nature. They are the trustees of tradition, and the conservators of the religious element. They are a living and the most striking evidence of the falsity of that pernicious doctrine of modern times, the natural equality of man. The political equality of a particular race is a matter of municipal arrangement and depends entirely on political considerations and circumstances; but the natural equality of man now in vogue, and taking the form of cosmopolitan fraternity, is a principle which, were it possible to act on it, would deteriorate the great races and destroy all the genius of the world. What would be the consequence on the great Anglo-Saxon republic, for example, were its citizens to secede from their sound principle of reserve, and mingle with their negro and coloured populations? In the course of time they would become so deteriorated that their states would probably be reconquered and regained by the aborigines whom they have expelled and who would then be their superiors.”

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

Lord George Bentinck: A Political Biography (1852), p. 496.
1850s

World, Nature, Time, Dependency

“In this way, a philosophy which veiled the Philistine confessions of its founder beneath neat twists and flourishes of language proceeded further to discover a formula for the canonization of the commonplace. It expatiated upon the rationalism of all reality, and thus ingratiated itself with the Culture-Philistine, who also loves neat twists and flourishes, and who, above all, considers himself real, and regards his reality as the standard of reason for the world. From this time forward he began to allow every one, and even himself, to reflect, to investigate, to aestheticise, and, more particularly, to make poetry, music, and even pictures—not to mention systems of philosophy; provided, of course, that … no assault were made upon the “reasonable” and the “real”—that is to say, upon the Philistine.”

Friedrich Nietzsche Untimely Meditations

(A. Ludovici trans.), “David Strauss,” § 1.2, p. 17
Untimely Meditations (1876)

Love, World, Music, Way

“The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organisation of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Source: The German Ideology (1845-1846), Volume I; Part 1; "Feuerbach. Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook"; Section A, "Idealism and Materialism".

History, Nature

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Quotes about course
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