Quotes about daily
page 7

Ellen G. White photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo

“I hope.... to paint some in a lighter gamut, more flesh and blood, but, at the same time, I am trying to get a still stronger soft soap and copper-like effect. In reality I daily see, in the gloomy huts, effects against the light or in the evening twilight.... which I compare to soft soap and brass color of a worn-out 10 centime piece.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Nuenen, The Netherlands, June 1885; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 410) p. 31
1880s, 1885

Tenzin Gyatso photo

“All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness … the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

As quoted in Especially for Christians: Powerful Thought-provoking Words from the Past (2005) by Mark Alton Rose, p. 19

Harriet Beecher Stowe photo
Dag Hammarskjöld photo
Shreya Ghoshal photo

“I don't believe in pretending to be someone else. I'm what I actually am in real life. For instance, like any normal girl, I fight with my mother. I mean, it is just fine. In fact, I fight daily with my mother.”

Shreya Ghoshal (1984) Indian playback singer

Asked about maintaining her image http://www.timesofindia.com/entertainment/hindi/music/news/I-am-a-girl-next-door-Shreya-Ghoshal/articleshow/9455640.cms

Madeleine Stowe photo
Bea Arthur photo
Dinah Craik photo
Russell Brand photo
Fausto Cercignani photo

“Stellar wars are a sort of parallel reality in the filmic imagination, terrestrial wars are still today a harsh daily reality.”

Fausto Cercignani (1941) Italian scholar, essayist and poet

Examples of self-translation (c. 2004), Quotes - Zitate - Citations - Citazioni

David Allen photo

“Staying in control daily, weekly, & yearly requires different things for each. Handling one doesn't handle the others.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

24 May 2012 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/205804670864732161
Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

Wang Yu-chi photo

“I told him (Zhang Zhijun) that this (daily massive protest) is pretty much what we (Republic of China government) experience in our daily lives. We are used to it. Now that he is head of the Taiwan Affairs Office, he has to understand Taiwan more.”

Wang Yu-chi (1969) Taiwanese politician

Wang Yu-chi (2014) cited in " CROSSING THE STRAIT: Protesters hurl paint at Chinese official’s convoy http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2014/06/29/2003593937" on Taipei Times, 29 June 2014

Benjamin Rush photo
André Maurois photo
Christopher Hitchens photo
Adrienne Rich photo
Lama Ole Nydahl photo
James Clerk Maxwell photo

“He that would enjoy life and act with freedom must have the work of the day continually before his eyes. Not yesterday's work, lest he fall into despair; nor to-morrow's, lest he become a visionary—not that which ends with the day, which is a worldly work; nor yet that only which remains to eternity, for by it he cannot shape his actions.
Happy is the man who can recognise in the work of to-day a connected portion of the work of life and an embodiment of the work of Eternity. The foundations of his confidence are unchangeable, for he has been made a partaker of Infinity. He strenuously works out his daily enterprises because the present is given him for a possession.
Thus ought Man to be an impersonation of the divine process of nature, and to show forth the union of the infinite with the finite, not slighting his temporal existence, remembering that in it only is individual action possible; nor yet shutting out from his view that which is eternal, knowing that Time is a mystery which man cannot endure to contemplate until eternal Truth enlighten it.”

James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) Scottish physicist

Paper communicated to Frederic Farrar (1854) Æt. 23, as quoted in Lewis Campbell, William Garnett, The Life of James Clerk Maxwell: With Selections from His Correspondence and Occasional Writings (1884) pp. 144-145, https://books.google.com/books?id=B7gEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA144 and in Richard Glazebrook, James Clerk Maxwell and Modern Physics (1896) pp. 39-40. https://books.google.com/books?id=hbcEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA39

William Ernest Henley photo
Gerhard Richter photo

“Faithful horoscope-watching, practiced daily, provides just the sort of small but warm and infinitely reassuring fillip that gets matters off to a spirited start.”

Shana Alexander (1925–2005) Journalist

A delicious appeal to unreason (2005) http://books.google.com/books?id=XVYEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=%22Faithful+horoscope-watching,+practiced+daily,+provides+just+the+sort+of+small+but+warm+and+infinitely+reassuring+fillip+that+gets+matters+off+to+a+spirited+start.%22&source=bl&ots=WlTZPOXd1a&sig=B7LI5-SEDOdMddoH_OQp3QlQMOE&hl=en&ei=EJY7TOSIK8XdnAfe-6XfAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CDAQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=%22Faithful%20horoscope-watching%2C%20practiced%20daily%2C%20provides%20just%20the%20sort%20of%20small%20but%20warm%20and%20infinitely%20reassuring%20fillip%20that%20gets%20matters%20off%20to%20a%20spirited%20start.%22&f=false

Bell Hooks photo

“To be in the margin is to be part of the whole but outside the main body. As black Americans living in a small Kentucky town, the railroad tracks were a daily reminder of our marginality. Across those tracks were paved streets, stores we could not enter, restaurants we could not eat in, and people we could not look directly in the face. Across those tracks was a world we could work in as maids, as janitors, as prostitutes, as long as it was in a service capacity. We could enter that world but we could not live there. We had always to return to the margin, to cross the tracks, to shacks and abandoned houses on the edge of town. There were laws to ensure our return. To not return was to risk being punished. Living as we did-on the edge-we developed a particular way of seeing reality. We looked both from the outside in and and from the inside out. We focused our attention on the center as well as on the margin. We understood both. This mode of seeing reminded us of the existence of a whole universe, a main body made up of both margin and center. Our survival depended on an ongoing public awareness of the separation between margin and center and an ongoing private acknowledgment that we were a necessary, vital part of that whole. This sense of wholeness, impressed upon our consciousness by the structure of our daily lives, provided us an oppositional world view-a mode of seeing unknown to most of our oppressors, that sustained us, aided us in our struggle to transcend poverty and despair, strengthened our sense of self and our solidarity. … Much feminist theory emerges from privileged women who live at the center, whose perspectives on reality rarely include knowledge and awareness of the lives of women and men who live in the margin. As a consequence, feminist theory lacks wholeness, lacks the broad analysis that could encompass a variety of human experiences. Although feminist theorists are aware of the need to develop ideas and analysis that encompass a larger number of experiences, that serve to unify rather than to polarize, such theory is complex and slow in formation. At its most visionary, it will emerge from individuals who have knowledge of both margin and center.”

p. xvii https://books.google.com/books?id=ClWvBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT8.
Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984), Preface

Robert Fisk photo

“I do truly treasure this story. It proves my point that the Los Angeles Times -- along with the big East Coast dailies -- should all be called U. S. OFFICIALS SAY.”

Robert Fisk (1946) English writer and journalist

March 21, 2006: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/263664_fisk21.html, March 21, 2006
2006

Maneka Gandhi photo

“It is a win-win situation for us — no harm to janitors by way of daily exposure to chemicals, and cows will be valued more.”

Maneka Gandhi (1956) Indian politician and activist

On the use of gomutra as a floor cleaner, as quoted in "Holy cow! Government offices may soon be cleaned using liquid made from bovine urine" http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-01-09/news/57883715_1_cow-urine-product-floors, The Economic Times (9 January 2015)
2011-present

A. James Gregor photo
Friedrich Hayek photo
Walter Cronkite photo
Stephen Vizinczey photo
John Muir photo

“The rugged old Norsemen spoke of death as Heimgang — home-going. So the snow-flowers go home when they melt and flow to the sea, and the rock-ferns, after unrolling their fronds to the light and beautifying the rocks, roll them up close again in the autumn and blend with the soil. Myriads of rejoicing living creatures, daily, hourly, perhaps every moment sink into death’s arms, dust to dust, spirit to spirit — waited on, watched over, noticed only by their Maker, each arriving at its own heaven-dealt destiny. All the merry dwellers of the trees and streams, and the myriad swarms of the air, called into life by the sunbeam of a summer morning, go home through death, wings folded perhaps in the last red rays of sunset of the day they were first tried. Trees towering in the sky, braving storms of centuries, flowers turning faces to the light for a single day or hour, having enjoyed their share of life’s feast — all alike pass on and away under the law of death and love. Yet all are our brothers and they enjoy life as we do, share heaven’s blessings with us, die and are buried in hallowed ground, come with us out of eternity and return into eternity. 'Our little lives are rounded with a sleep.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

pages 439-440
("Trees towering … into eternity" are the next-to-last lines of the documentary film " John Muir in the New World http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/john-muir-in-the-new-world/watch-the-full-documentary-film/1823/" (American Masters), produced, directed, and written by Catherine Tatge.)
John of the Mountains, 1938

Norman Angell photo
Luís de Camões photo

“You saw, with what unheard of insolence
The highest heavens they did invade of yore:
You saw, how (against reason, against sense)
They did invade the sea with sail and oar:
Actions so proud, so daring, so immense,
You saw; and we see daily more, and more:
That in few years (I fear) of heaven and sea,
Men, will be called gods; and but men, we.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Vistes que, com grandíssima ousadia,
Foram já cometer o Céu supremo;
Vistes aquela insana fantasia
De tentarem o mar com vela e remo;
Vistes, e ainda vemos cada dia,
Soberbas e insolências tais, que temo
Que do Mar e do Céu, em poucos anos,
Venham Deuses a ser, e nós, humanos.
Stanza 29 (tr. Richard Fanshawe); council of the sea gods.
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto VI

Erving Goffman photo
Sister Nivedita photo

“Our daily life creates our symbol of God. No two ever cover quite the same conception.”

Sister Nivedita (1867–1911) Scots-Irish social worker, author, teacher and a disciple of Swami Vivekananda

Kali the Mother http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/ktm/ktm02.htm, Concerning Symbols (1900)

Pope Benedict XVI photo
Adrienne von Speyr photo
Benjamin Peirce photo
Robert Louis Stevenson photo
Benjamin Graham photo
Jeet Thayil photo
Catharine A. MacKinnon photo
George Long photo
Andrei Lankov photo
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex photo

“I have meddled in so many matters under your Highness that I am not able to answer them all…but hard it is for me or any other meddling as I have done to live under your grace and your laws but we must daily offend.”

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (1485–1540) English statesman and chief minister to King Henry VIII of England

Source: Letter to Henry VIII whilst imprisoned in the Tower of London. (Merriman, ii. p. 266.)

Rousas John Rushdoony photo
Paramahansa Yogananda photo
Tim Cook photo

“All of these things are great conveniences of life. They change your daily life in a great way. But if you're getting bombarded by notifications all day long, that's probably a use of the system that might not be so good anymore.”

Tim Cook (1960) American business executive

NPR: "Apple Requested 'Zero' Personal Data In Deals With Facebook, CEO Tim Cook Says" https://www.npr.org/2018/06/04/616280585/apple-requested-zero-personal-data-in-deals-with-facebook-ceo-tim-cook-says (4 June 2018)

“Very well, the starting point would be that claim of Professor Quarrey’s, which had been in the news at the beginning of the year, that the country’s greatest export was noxious gas. And who would like to stir up the fuss again? Obviously, the Canadians, cramped into a narrow band to the north of their more powerful neighbors, growing daily angrier about the dirt that drifted to them on the wind, spoiling crops, causing chest diseases and soiling laundry hung out to dry. So she’d called the magazine Hemisphere in Toronto, and the editor had immediately offered ten thousand dollars for three articles.
Very conscious that all calls out of the country were apt to be monitored, she’d put the proposition to him in highly general terms: the risk of the Baltic going the same way as the Mediterranean, the danger of further dust-bowl like the Mekong Desert, the effects of bringing about climactic change. That was back in the news—the Russians had revised their plan to reverse the Yenisei and Ob. Moreover, there was the Danube problem, worse than the Rhine had ever been, and Welsh nationalists were sabotaging pipelines meant to carry “their” water into England, and the border war in West Pakistan had been dragging on so long most people seemed to have forgotten that it concerned a river.
And so on.
Almost as soon as she started digging, though, she thought she might never be able to stop. It was out of the question to cover the entire planet. Her pledged total of twelve thousand words would be exhausted by North American material alone.”

June “A PLACE TO STAND”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

Alan Bennett photo
John Milton photo
Hans von Bülow photo

“The editor of this selection from Chopin’s Pianoforte Studies has, however, no such intention; on the contrary. he wishes to make some of them, which owing to their difficulty have hitherto remained unpopularised, more accessible, particularly to the amateur, by pointing out the way to their correct study. And thus, on the basis of the technical facility to be acquired through these pieces, to enable even the non-professional to enjoy a more intimate acquaintance with those works of the classical romanticist, which, though representing the best and most undying side of his genius, have found till now but a small, though daily increasing circle of admirers; for the “Ladies’-Chopin”, which for forty years has blossomed in the pale and sickly rays of dilettantism; the “talented, languishing, Polish youth” to whom the most modest place on the Parnassus of musical literature was denied by the amateurish criticism of German professors, is as little the genuine entire Chopin, as is the Beethoven of “Adelaide” and the “Moonlight Sonata”, the god of Symphony. Truly a span of time must yet elapse before the matured and manly Chopin, the author of the two Sonatas, the 3rd and 4th Scherzos, the 4th Ballade, the Polonaise in F# minor, the later Mazurkas and Nocturnes etc., will be completely and generally appreciated at his full worth. At the same time much may be done by preparing and clearing the way; and one of the best means towards this end is sifting the material, and replacing favourite and unimportant works, by those less known though more important.”

Hans von Bülow (1830–1894) German musician

Preface to Instructive ausgabe. Klavier-Etuden von Fr. Chopin, 1880.

Assata Shakur photo
Yeshayahu Leibowitz photo

“Only a religion addressed to life's prose, a religion of the dull routine of daily activity, is worthy of the name.”

Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903–1994) israeli intellectual

"Judaism, Human Values and the Jewish State" (1995)

Baldur von Schirach photo

“Führer, my Führer given me by God. Protect and preserve my life for long. You rescued Germany from its deepest need. I thank you for my daily bread. Stay for a long time with me, leave me not. Führer, my Führer, my faith, my light. Hail my Führer.”

Baldur von Schirach (1907–1974) German Nazi leader convicted of crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg trial

A prayer written by Schirach and repeated by the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) before meals. Quoted in "The Trial of the Germans" - Page 288 - by Eugene Davidson - History - 1997

Seneca the Younger photo

“What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily?”
Quem mihi dabis qui aliquod pretium tempori ponat, qui diem aestimet, qui intellegat se cotidie mori?

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter I: On Saving Time

Rudyard Kipling photo

“There rise her timeless capitals of Empires daily born,
Whose plinths are laid at midnight, and whose streets are packed at morn;
And here come hired youths and maids that feign to love or sin
In tones like rusty razor-blades to tunes like smitten tin.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Naaman's Song http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/prose/LimitsRenewals/naamansong.html, Stanza 2.
Other works

David Lloyd George photo
Frederick II of Prussia photo
Michael Grimm photo

“From my days as a Marine in combat, to my tenure working undercover in the FBI, to my service as a Congressman representing the hardworking families on Staten Island and Brooklyn, I have spent my entire life fighting on behalf of the People with honor and integrity. The past 24 hours haven’t changed a thing, and I plan to work harder than ever for the people I am exceedingly proud to represent. To my constituents, let me be absolutely clear: the trumped-up charges against me are false and after my peers see the truth, justice will prevail. And while this groundless witch hunt proves there are powerful forces dedicated to tarnishing my reputation as part of a political vendetta, I’ll tell you what it doesn’t do: It doesn’t take back the billions of dollars in Superstorm Sandy aid I fought for in Congress, it doesn’t undo my flood insurance reform bill that will spare millions of Americans from skyrocketing premiums and home foreclosures, and it doesn’t negate the countless success stories of my office helping constituents with difficult challenges, from losing health coverage thanks to Obamacare, to being denied veteran survivor benefits, to helping our seniors deal with multiple daily struggles, simply put…the lives my staff and I have touched for the better are innumerable. And that’s why I am so heartened by the outpouring of love and support – I am truly humbled to work for the most salt of the earth people in the world. Which is why I am back working hard and doing what I’ve done from day one, relentless trying to improve their quality of life through old fashioned hard work and determination.”

Michael Grimm (1970) American politician

Facebook (29 April 2014) https://www.facebook.com/repmichaelgrimm
2010s

Kage Baker photo
Ilana Mercer photo
Jeff Flake photo
Auguste Rodin photo
Salvador Dalí photo
Newton Lee photo

“Experiencing a melting pot of cultures within an immediate or extended family on a daily basis is nothing less than marvelous, stimulating, and conducive to personal growth.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2015

George Hendrik Breitner photo

“It is just most delightful to me that I live in this way in the heart of Amsterdam. In a second you can eat somewhere and be back home again. You never have to wait for the tram. It is less than seven minutes [walking] from Dam Square. To me that is so unusual and so pleasant. I walk there daily.... the window [of his new studio] is about 2.25 m wide and high, and underneath a standing window of the same size, breadth-wise.”

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) Dutch painter and photographer

translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (citaat van Breitner's brief, in het Nederlands:) 't is al allerheerlijkst voor me, dat ik zoo midden in Amsterdam woon. In een oogenblik kun je ergens gaan eten en weer 't huis zijn. Je hoeft nooit op de tram te gaan staan. 't is niet verder dan een minuut of zeven van de Dam. dat is voor mij zoo ongewoon en zoo prettig. Ik loop er heen, dag in en uit.. ..'t raam [van het atelier] is ongeveer 2.25 m breed en hoog, en daaronder een staand raam van zelfde breedte.
Quote of Breitner in his letter from Amsterdam, 11 May 1893, to Herman van der Weele; from the original letter in the RKD-Archive, The Hague https://rkd.nl/explore/excerpts/1154
1890 - 1900

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Honoré de Balzac photo

“Between persons who are perpetually in each other's company dislike or love increases daily; every moment brings reasons to love or hate each other more and more.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

Entre personnes sans cesse en présence, la haine et l'amour vont toujours croissant: on trouve à tout moment des raisons pour s'aimer ou se haïr mieux.
Source: The Vicar of Tours (1832), Ch. I.

Bernard Mandeville photo
Stanley Baldwin photo
Nassim Nicholas Taleb photo
Slavoj Žižek photo
Bill Hybels photo
Franklin D. Roosevelt photo
Abbas Kiarostami photo

“The calling of art is to extract us from our daily reality, to bring us to a hidden truth that's difficult to access - to a level that's not material but spiritual.”

Abbas Kiarostami (1940–2016) Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/jun/13/abbas-kiarostami-film

Alistair Cooke photo

“In life no such colour brightened the grey picture of a man devoted to the daily study of warfare on several continents with all the ardour of a certified public accountant.”

Alistair Cooke (1908–2004) British journalist and broadcaster

(1959) About George Marshall
Source: Letter from America, 1946-2004 (2007).

Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

“From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city, every village, and every rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Signing into law the phrase "One nation under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9920 (14 June 1954)
1950s

George Washington Carver photo
Josefa Iloilo photo
Barbara Ehrenreich photo
Theo Jansen photo

“[Pelsaert laments] “the utter subjection and poverty of the common people-poverty so great and miserable that the life of the people can be depicted or accurately described only as the home of stark want and the dwelling place of bitter woe.” He continues: “There are three classes of people who are indeed nominally free, but whose status differs very little from voluntary slavery-workmen, peons or servants and shopkeepers. For the workmen there are two scourges, the first of which is low wages. Goldsmiths, painters (of cloth or chintz), embroiderers, carpet makers, cotton or silk weavers, black-smiths, copper-smiths, tailors, masons, builders, stone-cutters, a hundred crafts in all-any of these working from morning to night can earn only 5 or 6 tackas (tankahs), that is 4 or 5 strivers in wages. The second (scourge) is (the oppression of) the Governor, the nobles, the Diwan, the Kotwal, the Bakshi, and other royal officers. If any of these wants a workman, the man is not asked if he is willing to come, but is seized in the house or in the street, well beaten if he should dare to raise any objection, and in the evening paid half his wages, or nothing at all. From these facts the nature of their food can be easily inferred… For their monotonous daily food they have nothing but a little khichri… in the day time, they munch a little parched pulse or other grain, which they say suffices for their lean stomachs… Their houses are built of mud with thatched roofs. Furniture there is little or none, except some earthenware pots to hold water and for cooking… Their bedclothes are scanty, merely a sheet or perhaps two… this is sufficient in the hot weather, but the bitter cold nights are miserable indeed, and they try to keep warm over little cowdung fires… the smoke from these fires all over the city is so great that the eyes run, and the throat seems to be choked.””

Francisco Pelsaert (1591–1630) Dutch merchant, commander of the ship Batavia

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7
Jahangir’s India

George W. Bush photo

“As you watch the developments in Baghdad, it's important to understand that we will not be able to prevent every al Qaeda attack. When a terrorist is willing to kill himself to kill others, it's really hard to stop him. Yet, over time, the security operation in Baghdad is designed to shrink the areas where al Qaeda can operate, it's designed to bring out more intelligence about their presence, and designed to allow American and Iraqi forces to dismantle their network.We have a strategy to deal with al Qaeda in Iraq. But any time you say to a bunch of cold-blooded killers, success depends on no violence, all that does is hand them the opportunity to be successful. And it's hard. I know it's hard for the American people to turn on their TV screens and see the horrific violence. It speaks volumes about the American desire to protect lives of innocent people, America's deep concern about human rights and human dignity. It also speaks volumes about al Qaeda, that they're willing to take innocent life to achieve political objectives.The terrorists will continue to fight back. In other words, they understand what they're doing. And casualties are likely to stay high. Yet, day by day, block by block, we are steadfast in helping Iraqi leaders counter the terrorists, protect their people, and reclaim the capital. And if I didn't think it was necessary for the security of the country, I wouldn't put our kids in harm's way.…Either we'll succeed, or we won't succeed. And the definition of success as I described is sectarian violence down. Success is not, no violence. There are parts of our own country that have got a certain level of violence to it. But success is a level of violence where the people feel comfortable about living their daily lives. And that's what we're trying to achieve.”

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

President Bush Discusses War on Terror, Economy with Associated General Contractors of America http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070502-2.html (May 2, 2007)
2000s, 2007

Alain de Botton photo

“Alcohol-inspired fights … are a reminder of the price we pay for our daily submission at the altars of prudence and order.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009), pp. 45-46.

Tristan Tzara photo
Ernest Becker photo

“What are we to make of a creation in which the routine activity is for organisms to be tearing others apart with teeth of all types—biting, grinding flesh, plant stalks, bones between molars, pushing the pulp greedily down the gullet with delight, incorporating its essence into one's own organization, and then excreting with foul stench and gasses the residue. Everyone reaching out to incorporate others who are edible to him. The mosquitoes bloating themselves on blood, the maggots, the killer-bees attacking with a fury and a demonism, sharks continuing to tear and swallow while their own innards are being torn out—not to mention the daily dismemberment and slaughter in "natural" accidents of all types: an earthquake buries alive 70 thousand bodies in Peru, automobiles make a pyramid heap of over 50 thousand a year in the U. S. alone, a tidal wave washes over a quarter of a million in the Indian Ocean. Creation is a nightmare spectacular taking place on a planet that has been soaked for hundreds of millions of years in the blood of all its creatures. The soberest conclusion that we could make about what has actually been taking place on the planet for about three billion years is that it is being turned into a vast pit of fertilizer. But the sun distracts our attention, always baking the blood dry, making things grow over it, and with its warmth giving the hope that comes with the organism's comfort and expansiveness.”

"Psychology and Religion: What Is the Heroic Individual?", pp. 282–283
The Denial of Death (1973)

Chelsea Manning photo