Quotes about day
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“What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like, "What does it matter so long as they are contented?" We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven — a senile benevolence who, as they say, "liked to see young people enjoying themselves" and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, "a good time was had by all".”

Clive Staples Lewis book The Problem of Pain

The Problem of Pain (1940)

God, People, Universe, Time

“She watched the lights upon the shore. The glare that was Plymouth in the distance. She thought, the dance is over. The girls are going out of the overheated hall into the cold air. They shiver; their young men hurry after them. Some have got home and find their dresses stained or torn; yet they've enjoyed themselves. Which is the more important? Wallflowers think of the young men who haven't danced with them; probably each has a dream-day hero. Remember the lieutenant to whom I never spoke a word; yet I married him and had children and grandchildren, though he never knew it. And there are others, madly happy, look in their mirrors and smile and wonder. Even the latest home has a warm bed to go to.”

Arthur Calder-Marshall (1908–1992) English novelist, essayist, critic, memoirist and biographer

Calder-Marshall, Arthur. At Sea. London: Jonathan Cape. 1934.

Men, Happiness, Children, Smile

“It is good to recall how our freedom has been gained in this country—not by great abstract campaigns but through the objections of ordinary men and women to having their money taken from them by the State. In the early days, people banded together and said to the then Government, “You shall not take our money before you have redressed our grievances”. It was their money, their wealth, which was the source of their independence against the Government.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (20 October 1967) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/101586 Backbench MP

Women, Men, Money, People

“Every day I make more progress in technique: understanding of color, the material and the line. [I] can even give better theoretical explanations. And moreover, gradually I live more and more connected with the matter of the profession. What I mean is that my thinking and feeling are more directly, more fundamentally connected with painting itself. No longer so much thinking and feeling get lost.”

Roger Raveel (1921–2013) painter

Steeds ga ik vooruit wat betreft tecniek: begrip van kleur, matérie, lijnen. Kan zelfs beter téoretisch uitleggingen geven. En wat meer is ik leef langs om meer méé met de materie van de stiel. Ik wil zeggen dat mijn denken en voelen directer, en wezenlijker in kontakt staat met schilderen. Er gaat niet meer zoveel denken en voelen verloren.
Quote of Raveel, in a letter to his friend Hugo Claus, from Machelen aan de Leie, 5 March 1950; as cited in Hugo Claus, Roger Raveel; Brieven 1947 – 1962, ed. Katrien Jacobs, Ludion; Gent Belgium, 2007 - ISBN 978-90-5544-665-0, p. 118 (translation: Fons Heijnsbroek)
1945 - 1960

Color, Feeling, Understanding, Thinking

“Not a day passes over the earth, but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows.”

Charles Reade book The Cloister and the Hearth

Source: The Cloister and the Hearth (1861), CHAPTER I

Women, Men, Suffering

“Where did love begin? What human being looked at another and saw in their face the forests and the sea? Was there a day, exhausted and weary, dragging home food, arms cut and scarred, that you saw yellow flowers and, not knowing what you did, picked them because I love you?”

Jeanette Winterson book Lighthousekeeping

Lighthousekeeping (2004)

Love, Food, Home, Flowers

“I had to wear an oxygen mask both in the water and on land because of the carbon monoxide. I fainted four times during the first day of filming. We were shooting the scene in which Godzilla emerges from the water as he approaches Hong Kong. I wasn't warned about the carbon monoxide, so I wasn't wearing an oxygen mask. We were shooting in water, so nobody could just run up to me when they saw me acting strangely. We were filming a long shot, so nobody was very close to me. The members of the staff didn't realize I'd fainted that first time until they started opening up the costume so I could get out.”

Kenpachiro Satsuma (1947) Japanese actor

As quoted by David Milner, "Kenpachiro Satsuma Interview III" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/satsum3.htm, Kaiju Conversations (December 1995)

Water, Time

“Margaret Thatcher: …The first eleven and a half years have not been so bad – and with regard to a twilight, please remember that there are 24 hours in a day.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

House of Commons statement on the CSCE Summit (21 November, 1990) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=108253 Third term as Prime Minister

“An intelligent man said that the world felt Napoleon as a weight, and that when he died it would give a great oof of relief. This is just as true of Byron, or of such Byrons of their days as Kipling and Hemingway: after a generation or two the world is tired of being their pedestal, shakes them of with an oof, and then—hoisting onto its back a new world-figure—feels the penetrating satisfaction of having made a mistake all its own.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“On Preparing to Read Kipling”, pp. 116–117
A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays & Fables (1962)

World, Feeling, Intelligence

“Capitalism, in contrast, has existed for fewer than 300 years. If the entire history of Homo sapiens was a 24-hour day, then capitalism has existed for two minutes.”

Jim Stanford (1961) Canadian economist

Part 1, Chapter 2, Capitalism, p. 33
Economics For Everyone (2008)

History

“At the 9th Division headquarters at El Guettar, Tunisia, enemy planes bombed and strafed incessantly, so that the security normally associated with a headquarters in the rear was missing. Although officers and men alike dug deep, even in foxholes they could get little sleep. One day a small convoy of vehicles arrived, sirens alive, Patton standing in the lead vehicle. While the division commander, Major General Manton Eddy, rushed to greet him, the staff pondered what fault Patton would find this time. "Manton, Goddamn it," Patton shouted in his high-pitched voice, "I want you to get these staff officers out front and get them shot at!" Having been bombarded day and night by enemy planes, having had no sleep for days, a young personnel officer went berserk and had to be evacuated for medical treatment.”

William Westmoreland book A Soldier Reports

Source: A Soldier Reports (1976), p. 21.

Men, Sleep, Time, Night

“On the bank of the Nile opposite Old Cairo is the place known as The Garden, which is a pleasure park and promenade, containing many beautiful gardens, for the people of Cairo are given to pleasure and amusements. I witnessed a fete once in Cairo for the sultan's recovery from a fractured hand; all the merchants decorated their bazaars and had rich stuffs, ornaments and silken fabrics hanging in their shops for several days.”

Ibn Battuta (1304–1377) Moroccan explorer

Travels in Asia and Africa (Rehalã of Ibn Battûta)

People, Pleasure, Beauty

“It's a beautiful day…
Don't let it get away”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

"Beautiful Day"
Lyrics, All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000)

Beauty

“It's flattering being compared to Will Smith because he's successful and brilliant at what he does and he's a nice and funny guy. But at the end of the day, I want to be known as Richard Blackwood.”

Richard Blackwood (1972) British comedian

Guy, Success

“The most sensational surprise was the sudden discovery, one day, that my pictures, for the first time in history, had become walls. By means of what strange process had I arrived at such precise images? And why did they make me, their first viewer, quake with emotion?”

Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist

1945 - 1970, A Report on the Wall' 1970

History, Time

“Barren are the years behind me. This is the first day of my span, here is the threshold of my life.”
Steriles transmisimus annos: haec aevi mihi prima dies, hic limina vitae.

Statius Silvae

ii, line 12
Silvae, Book IV

Life

“Afterwards Nadir Shah himself, with the Emperor of Hindustan, entered the fort of Delhi. It is said that he appointed a place on one side in the fort for the residence of Muhammad Shah and his dependents, and on the other side he chose the Diwan-i Khas, or, as some say, the Garden of Hayat Bakhsh, for his own accommodation. He sent to the Emperor of Hindustan, as to a prisoner, some food and wine from his own table. One Friday his own name was read in the khutba, but on the next he ordered Muhammad Shah's name to be read. It is related that one day a rumour spread in the city that Nadir Shah had been slain in the fort. This produced a general confusion, and the people of the city destroyed five thousand1 men of his camp. On hearing of this, Nadir Shah came of the fort, sat in the golden masjid which was built by Rashanu-d daula, and gave orders for a general massacre. For nine hours an indiscriminate slaughter of all and of every degree was committed. It is said that the number of those who were slain amounted to one hundred thousand. The losses and calamities of the people of Delhi were exceedingly great….
After this violence and cruelty, Nadir Shah collected immense riches, which he began to send to his country laden on elephants and camels.”

Nader Shah (1688–1747) ruled as Shah of Iran

Tarikh-i Hindi by Rustam ‘Ali. In The History of India as Told by its own Historians. The Posthumous Papers of the Late Sir H. M. Elliot. John Dowson, ed. 1st ed. 1867. 2nd ed., Calcutta: Susil Gupta, 1956, vol. 22, pp. 37-67. https://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/h_es/h_es_tarikh-i5_frameset.htm

Men, People, Food, Wine

“We thought all the time that we were passing through time when we really weren’t, when we never have. We’ve just been moving along with time. We said, there’s another second gone, there’s another minute and another hour and another day, when, as a matter of fact the second or the minute or the hour was never gone. It was the same one all the time. It had just moved along and we had moved with it.”

Clifford D. Simak book City

Source: City (1952), Chapter 7, “Aesop” (p. 207)

Time

“The hardest things in the world are being unique and having your life be a story. In the old days, it was much easier, but our modern fame-driven culture, with its real-time 24-7 marinade of electronic information, demands a lot from modern citizens, and poses great obstacles to narrative.”

Douglas Coupland book Generation A

Generation A (2009)

Life, World, Time

“You Danes really are a sorry lot if you think that the day will dawn when you'll get hold of Snæfríður, Iceland's sun.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Þórður Narfason
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part II: The Fair Maiden

Thinking, Sun

“As far as I'm concerned, they can strike for a day, a month, until death.”

Tzachi Hanegbi (1957) Israeli politician

In reference to convicted Palestinian prisoners announcing a hunger strike. Hanegbi: Prisoners on hunger strike 'can starve to death' http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=464469 Haaretz, 14 August 2004

Death

“It's often said of Jesus that he could have saved himself, but he chose not to. And if you read the Gospels it's clear that he could have talked himself out of that crucifixion quite easily, but he was just too stubborn. The Romans didn't really want to kill him at all, but in the end they went along with it because he was being such a prick about it. The truth is he couldn't wait to get up on that cross. In fact, I think Christianity only exists because Jesus Christ just happened to be a masochist. I think he took one look at the hammer and nails and he couldn't believe his luck. He thought, "Well, in three days I'll be in Heaven, but until then I'm going to enjoy myself."”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"Happy Easter" (5 April 2007) https://youtube.com/watch?v=RCPwdfQyxe4 2007

Truth, Thinking, Waiting, Reading

“If you watch animals objectively for any length of time, you're driven to the conclusion that their main aim in life is to pass on their genes to the next generation. Most do so directly, by breeding. In the few examples that don't do so by design, they do it indirectly, by helping a relative with whom they share a great number of their genes. And in as much as the legacy that human beings pass on to the next generation is not only genetic but to a unique degree cultural, we do the same. So animals and ourselves, to continue the line, will endure all kinds of hardship, overcome all kinds of difficulties, and eventually the next generation appears. This albatross is over 30 years old, she's already a grandmother, and this year once again she has produced a chick. She will devote the next 10 months of her life looking after it. She has faced the trials of life and triumphed, for her little 2 day old chick the trials are just beginning.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

Closing lines
The Trials of Life (1990)

Life, Appearance, Time, Help

“Basically, the whole thing of the project is to take it back to my old sound, the old DJ Paul sound. Before Three 6 Mafia when I was just DJ Paul and it was just me and my brother Lord Infamous. It was like a mix of songs and it was either me or members of my crew and some of it would be my signature “Crunkstrumentals” which would be instrumentals with crunk chants and sampled hooks and this and that on it. I brought those back a little bit on my last album Yots (Year Of The Six) Pt. 2 that dropped last quarter of last year, 2016. So, there will be more of those on there, like I said it’s just the original OG Paul sound that’s what the fans been asking for and I see that what a lot of people are back into these days, there using that old three six sounds and a lot of people are sampling it and clear samples from me. They sampled the creator it takes the king to bring it back himself. I never left it alone, to be honest with you, but I just didn’t do full albums of it. It would just be a track on my albums or mixtapes, not a single but this whole Volume 17 mixtape is going to be like that.”

DJ Paul (1977) American rapper and record producer

Interview with Three 6 Mafia Founder DJ Paul http://therapfest.com/behind-lyrics-interview-three-6-mafias-founder-dj-paul/

People

“The hope of the nation and of Christendom, and of the lands called heathen, alike is to be found in the indoctrination of little children in the knowledge of God's truth; for the missionaries will tell you that the adult heathen population of to-day are to die heathen; the minister will tell you that the adult, virtually heathen population of Christian lands to-day are to die in that condition, unless God showers down altogether unprecedented grace — with only such occasional exceptions as confirm this general and terrible law. If this be so, the hope of Christianity is in childhood. Towards childhood must be directed the work of the sappers and miners of the church. Here is the weak point of the enemy's fortress. Here let the breach be made, and his topmost turret shall be laid low.”

Cyrus David Foss (1834–1910) American bishop

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 570.

God, Children, Truth, Law

“I wish to know your Excellency's pleasure about my returning to camp. I expect Mrs. Greene will be put to bed every day. She is very desirous of my stay until that event; and, as she has set her heart so much upon it, I could wish to gratify her, for fear of some disagreeable consequences, as women sometimes, under such circumstances, receive great injury by being disappointed.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (September 1778)

Women, Pleasure, Fear, Disappointment

“Some day I’m going to climb Everest.”

Edmund Hillary (1919–2008) New Zealand mountaineer

Statement to a friend just before World War II.
Sir Edmund Hillary : King Of The World

“I try every day to challenge myself further, and I believe in doing this I slay the monster (within) bit by bit. That's why being political is an essential part of my life. In the end, its all I have.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, ACTIVISM

Life, Parting

“Advertisers are the interpreters of our dreams — Joseph interpreting for Pharaoh. Like the movies, they infect the routine futility of our days with purposeful adventure. Their weapons are our weaknesses: fear, ambition, illness, pride, selfishness, desire, ignorance. And these weapons must be kept as bright as a sword.”

E. B. White (1899–1985) American writer

"Truth in Advertising," The New Yorker (11 July 1936)

Fear, Dreams, Selfishness

“I encouraged my infidel subjects to embrace the religion of the prophet, and I proclaimed that every one who repeated the creed and became a Musalman should be exempt from the jizya or poll-tax. Information of this came to the ears of the people at large, and great numbers of Hindus presented themselves, and were admitted to the honour of Islam. Thus they came forward day by day from every quarter, and, adopting the faith, were exonerated from the jizya, and were favoured with presents and honours.”

Firuz Shah Tughlaq (1309–1388) Tughluq sultan

Vincent Arthur Smith, The Oxford History of India: From the Earliest Times to the End of 1911 (Clarendon Press, 1920), as quoted in Spencer, Robert (2018). The history of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS.
Quotes from the Futuhat-i-Firuz Shahi

People, Faith, Religion

“On the day / While closing my eyes in the mist of the sacred temple / I suddenly heard / The true world of your prayer
In that month / I turned around all the prayer wheels / Not for the purpose of purification / But for caressing your finger tips
In that year / I knocked my head for a long time on the mountain path / Not for the purpose of pilgrimage / But for pressing near the warmth of your body
During that life / I turned around mountains, rivers, and Buddhist towers / Not for seeking after a better future life / But for meeting you on the way”

He Xuntian (1953) Chinese musician

Believer

Life, World, Way, Mountain

“When, like the rising day,
Eileen Aroon!
Love sends his early ray,
Eileen Aroon!
What makes his dawning glow
Changeless through joy and woe?
Only the constant know!—
Eileen Aroon!”

Gerald Griffin (1803–1840) Irish novelist, poet and playwright

Eileen Aroon, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love, Joy

“You who represent the more recent accretions to our population, know how generously you have been received. You know how free and unquestioned has been your access to the opportunities of this land. You have been expected to do your honest share of the day's work in a community which ranked productive toil as a distinction rather than a degradation. We have all taken our chance on that condition. Because we have been willing to do so, we have been prospered in material things and, what is ever more worth while, in the things of the spirit. Generation after generation, from the beginnings of permanent settlement here, the country has been able to receive and absorb a great number of newcomers from the older countries. That was possible so long as there was cheap land for settlement, and the assurance that industry could put value into it.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Genius of America (1924)

Communication, Chance, Country

“Then I got Mary pregnant and man that was all she wrote.
And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat.
We went down to the courthouse and the judge put it all to rest.
No wedding day smiles no walk down the aisle,
No flowers no wedding dress.That night we went down to the river.
And into the river we'd dive.
Oh down to the river we did ride.”

Bruce Springsteen (1949) American singer and songwriter

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

Smile, Flowers, Birthday, Wedding

“Adam Warlock, a being who wished nothing more than to spend the rest of his days within the peaceful environment of the Soul Gem. He now possesses the Infinite Power and the responsibility that goes with it. While I, whose entire life was dedicated to the pursuit of power, now find myself scraping out a living from the soil. Irony worthy of the drama.
Yet strangely enough though, I envy not Adam Warlock.
Somehow I feel, that in the long run, Thanos of Titan came out ahead in this particular deal.”

Jim Starlin (1949) Comic creator

Thanos, in The Infinity Gauntlet (1991), Issue 6 : The Final Confrontation

Life, Peace, Feeling, Soul

“In persevering through my own darkness, I found, I call it my immortal soul, and sanctuary, who can survive whatever life throws at me. Life's so short. To get up every morning and take a good look around in a way that takes nothing for granted. Every day is a gift. Never treat life casually. Never let the bitterness and devilry steal your sweetness, happiness. DRA-2015.”

Linh Nga (1982) American-Vietnamese film director, film producer, actress, screenwriter, and news anchor

Vnexpress. Giai tri page http://giaitri.vnexpress.net/sao/nguyen-linh-nga-93701/tieu-su.html 2015

Life, Happiness, Way, Soul

“God appears and god is light
To those poor souls who dwell in night
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Source: 1800s, Auguries of Innocence (1803), Line 129

God, Soul, Light, Appearance

“I am admittedly insecure about my racial identity, an attitude that has much improved since my younger days when I absolutely abhorred it. Any attention paid to me being different was incredibly shameful…but the mirrors became too much…what a disappointing reality check!”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, HATING ONESELF

Disappointment, Reality

“To-day Europe is neither at war nor at peace, but stands at armed attention…That, in itself, is a sufficiently melancholy, devastating reply to all the efforts of the lovers of peace. But what is much worse is this: peace in some quarters is proclaimed as a bad dream, and war sanctified as an ideal for rational men. As long as the British Empire lasts we will raise our voices against these false gods.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Empire Rally of Youth at the Royal Albert Hall (18 May 1937), quoted in Service of Our Lives (1937), pp. 163-164.
1937

Men, God, War, Peace

“Despite the aural onslaught, King (For A Day) is not an assault I think it's us being us, more than anything. I think we finally had the resources to be us on this record.”

Mike Patton (1968) American singer

"Faith No More" - (CMJ New Music Monthly, April 1995)

Thinking

“In February, India and Pakistan agreed to restart peace talks on all issues. In May, Indian parliamentarians visited Islamabad to advance the cause of peace. In July, Foreign Minister Rabbani Khar visited New Delhi. A month later, MPs from both countries met in India to continue deliberations. In September, Pakistani and Indian railway officials met to help boost connectivity and trade," he said at the eight-member regional summit that opened here in Addu. And in the past few days, Pakistan improved trade links by deciding to grant India the status of Most Favoured Nation. Today, the Pakistani and Indian Prime Ministers met in the lovely setting of the Shangri La in the Maldives.”

Mohamed Nasheed (1967) Maldivian politician, 4th president of the Maldives

In his address delivered at the inaugural session of the 17th SAARC Summit, the President expressed his hope that both the countries [India and Pakistan] can work to resolve their core issues, quoted on HaveeruOnline, "Indo-Pak relations improving: President Nasheed" http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/38636, November 20, 2011.

Love, Peace, Past, Help

“The leading cause of carbon emissions in the world is animal agriculture and no one is talking about it. This is the real issue that is driving climate change. … As a vegan I save 1,100 gallons of water a day. … If we are talking about a sustainability message, you cannot leave out the animal message – absolutely impossible. … We are looking at a world that is facing ultimate destruction if we don’t make better, smarter choices, and that starts with you. Every dollar you spend goes to feed a corporation that is either responsible or not responsible. … There are three things I want to make movies about: environmental problems, animals and human rights. Those are the three things I look out for all the time.”

Maggie Q (1979) American actress

“Hollywood actress Maggie Q on how becoming vegan can help save the planet,” interview with City Weekend (21 October 2017) http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/2116303/hollywood-actress-maggie-q-how-becoming-vegan-can.

World, Problem, Water, Change

“I went outside, tripping over slabs of sunshine the size of towns. The sun was like a crowd of people, it was a party, it was music. The sun was blaring through the walls of the houses and beating down the steps. The Sun was drumming time into the stone. The sun was rhythming the day.”

Jeanette Winterson book Lighthousekeeping

Source: Lighthousekeeping (2004), p. 197

People, Music, Time, Sun

“Psychologically, present-day cynics can be understood as borderline melancholics, who can keep their symptoms of depression under control and can remain more or less able to work. … Their psychic (seelisch) apparatus has become elastic enough to incorporate as a survival factor a permanent doubt about their own activities. They know what they are doing, but they do it because, in the short run, the force of circumstances and the instinct for self-preservation are speaking the same language, and they are telling them that it has to be so.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 5

“Please, know that for as long as I live I will be haunted with the sorrow for what I did and when I die I will have counted it more mercy than I deserved to have lived the life I did. Until that day, I want you to also know, I will spend my life trying to do things that will touch the world in a good way, to give back for all I took from you. That’s the only thing I can offer with my hands and my heart. It’s simply all I have.”

Sean Sellers (1969–1999) American murderer

The Confession of My Crimes

Life, World, Way, Heart

“I hated my life when I was going through those early days and having to deal with drunken musicians and drugged musicians. I hated it.”

Anne Murray (1945) Canadian singer

On her early career in the 1960s, as quoted in "Anne Murray says farewell with All of Me", CBC Arts, CBC.ca, 29 October 2009 https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/anne-murray-says-farewell-with-all-of-me-1.806879

Life, Hate

“I can pass days
Stretch'd in the shade of those old cedar trees,
Watching the sunshine like a blessing fall,—
The breeze like music wandering o'er the boughs,—
Each tree a natural harp,— each different leaf
A different note, blent in one vast thanks-giving.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Ancestress (Spoken by Jaromir)
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Music, Nature, Tree

“And when that foghorn blows,
I will be coming home,
When that foghorn blows,
I wanna hear it, I don't have to fear it,
And I wanna rock your gypsy soul,
Just like way back in the days of old,
And magnificently we will fold
Into the mystic.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Into the Mystic
Song lyrics, Moondance (1970)

Fear, Way, Home, Soul

“The game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and that they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game.”

Karl Popper book The Logic of Scientific Discovery

Source: The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934), Ch. 2 "On the Problem of a Theory of Scientific Method", Section XI: Methodological Rules as Conventions

Game, Science

“A “discerning person” (anthropos diakritikos), according to the Orthodox Greeks, is someone perpetually mindful or watchful of God working in all things and at all times. Ever conscious of God’s Love, which is God’s Will, a vigilant Christian is never taken unawares by circumstances. In the eschatological discourses of the Gospels, Jesus advises us to read the cosmic signs that announce God’s recurrent visitations and thus remain watchful and awake every hour of the day and night, that is to say, remain perpetually mindful. Hence there is no better description of biblical spirituality than ceaseless vigilance or perpetual mindfulness.”

Aloysius Pieris (1934) Sri Lankan Jesuit priest

Source: "Spirituality as Mindfulness: Biblical and Buddhist Approaches", p. 39

Love, God, Time, Reading

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

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

2010s, Markets, Governments, and the Common Good

People, Past, Clothes

“What is a portrait good for, unless it shows just how the subject was seen by the painter? In the old days before photography came in a sitter had a perfect right to say to the artist: "Paint me just as I am." Now if he wishes absolute fidelity he can go to the photographer and get it.”

Aubrey Beardsley (1872–1898) English illustrator and author

As quoted in Aubrey Beardsley : A Biography (1999) by Matthew Sturgis, p. 189

Painting, Perfection

“Look around you, and you will behold the universe full of active powers. Action is, so to speak, the genius of nature. By motion and exertion, the system of being is preserved in vigor. By its different parts always acting in subordination one to another, the perfection of the whole is carried on. The heavenly bodies perpetually revolve. Day and night incessantly repeat their appointed course. Continual operations are going on in the earth and in the waters. Nothing stands still. All is alive and stirring throughout the universe. In the midst of this animated and busy scene, is man alone to remain idle in his place? Belongs it to him to be the sole inactive and slothful being in the creation, when in so many various ways he might improve his own nature; might advance the glory of the God who made him; and contribute his part in the general good?”

Hugh Blair (1718–1800) British philosopher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 4.

God, Way, Business, Nature

“Lots of my friends have babies, but I don't have any babies. But I have lots of friends; babies don't have any friends. They all have those baby-monitors so they can hear the baby from the other room, which I consider a form of wiretapping. One day there's gonna be a really smart baby who makes a fake recording of some fake baby noises…gonna crawl out of the window and go to Italy.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

When the Leaves Blow Away (2006), I Still Have a Pony (2007)

Baby

“This is all strictly against regulations, of course, and Marie-Claude should never have asked you in. And naturally, I should have turned you out the second I knew you were here. But Marie-Claude doesn't care much for their regulations these days, and I must say, neither do I.”

Kazuo Ishiguro book Never Let Me Go

Source: Never Let Me Go (2005), Chapter 22, p. 259

Nature

“This is probably as bad a day as the court has had on social issues since Roe v. Wade.”

Jerry Falwell (1933–2007) American evangelical pastor, televangelist, and conservative political commentator

On the US Supreme Court's ruling in Lawrence V. Texas regarding sodomy laws, as quoted in "Conservatives condemn 'error of biblical proportions'" in The San Francisco Chronicle (27 June 2003) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/06/27/MN131241.DTL

“Cruisin on the grey snakes till my dyin day
Checkin all the hen houses out along the way
Wastin time and drinkin wine
Life is short and I ain't lyin
Livin all I can through every day.”

Bob Seger (1945) American singer-songwriter

Lucifer
Song lyrics, Mongrel (1969)

Life, Way, Wine, Time

“Mary knows that within her a child is gestating. For she thereupon composed a song. It is the greatest song in history. This "Magnificat" is the battle-hymn of democracy. Sensing a child within her, Mary feels herself equal to the Roman Empire; and she announces that the days of despotism are numbered. Caesar on his seven-hilled throne may sacrilegiously style himself Augustus, "the divine one." But Mary as confidently disallows him that title. Heaven is not on the side of privilege and oppression, she affirms, but is rather on the side of the trodden. Rome is great, but Galilee with God is greater. In this song three classes of people are objects of Our Lady's invective — "the proud," "the mighty," and "the rich."”

Bouck White (1874–1951) American author and novelist

And she passes upon them a threefold sentence: they are to be "scattered," "put down from their seats," and "sent empty away."
Source: The Call of the Carpenter (1914), p. 22

God, People, Feeling, Democracy

“All of you know I'm having to become quite an expert in this business of asking for forgiveness. And I ----. It gets a little easier the more you do it. And if you have a family, an Administration, a Congress and a whole country to ask, you're going to get a lot of practice. But I have to tell that in these last days it has come home to me again, something I first learned as President, but it wasn't burned in my bones -- and that is that in order to get it, you have to be willing to give it. And all of us -- the anger, the resentment, the bitterness, the desire for recrimination against people you believe have wronged you -- they harden the heart and deaden the spirit and lead to self-inflicted wounds. And so it is important that we are able to forgive those we believe have wronged us, even as we ask for forgiveness from people we have wronged. And I heard that first -- first -- in the Civil Rights Movement. Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

On August 28, 1998 at Union Chapel in Oak Bluff, Massachusetts, speaking on the 35th anniversary of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Published in the August 29, 1998 edition of The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/29/us/in-clinton-s-remarks-a-focus-on-interdependence-and-forgiveness.html?pagewanted=5 1990s

Love, People, Family, Home

“On the May 11 2006 broadcast of The Big Story, Gibson called for caucasians to have more children. His reasoning appeared to be in part to prevent Hispanics from ever being the racial majority in America. It is projected by the U. S. Census Bureau that persons of Hispanic descent will make up well over one-third of the U. S. population by the year 2050. The next day he said that he meant all Americans should have more children.”

John Gibson (media host) (1946) American radio talk show host

http://mediamatters.org/items/200605120006 http://mediamatters.org/items/200605180001 http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/usinterimproj/

Children, Appearance, Parting, Personality

“Come here my love
And I will lift my spirits high for you
I'd like to fly away and spend a day or two
Just contemplating the fields and leaves and talking about nothing
Just layin' down in shades of effervescent, effervescent odors
And shades of time and tide.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Come Here My Love
Song lyrics, Veedon Fleece (1974)

Love, Time, Flying

“The life of a godly man is like a river, not like a stagnant pool or a dead sea. It is ever in motion, sometimes sparkling in the sunbeam, and sometimes shivering in the clouds; sometimes chanting through scenery as beautiful as Eden, and sometimes moaning through districts of miserable desolation; sometimes clear as the day, and sometimes black as the night. Still it is ever moving to its ocean destiny — progress is its law, infinitude is its home.”

David Thomas (born 1813) (1813–1894) 19th-century Welsh preacher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 566.

Life, Law, Beauty, Home

“What is asked of a man that he may be able to pray for his enemies? To pray for one’s enemies is the hardest thing of all. That is why it exasperates us so much in our present day situation.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Journals and Papers X4A 435
1840s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s

“"Let byegones be byegones," — they foolishly say,
And bid me be wise and forget them;
But old recollections are active to-day,
And I can do nought but regret them.”

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

Byegones, l. 1-4.
Ballads for the Times (1851)

Forgetting

“I want to thank you for letting me share this special day with you. I wish you all the very best. Stay in touch with your friends. Love your family. Treat this day as a step toward a lifetime of learning. And go forth with confidence. May God bless you.”

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

2010s, 2015, Remarks at the SMU 100th Spring Commencement (May 2015)

Love, God, Family, Confidence

“Fair friend, in singing I call you:
Sleep no longer, for I hear the bird sing
Who goes seeking day through the wood
And I fear that the jealous one will attack you,
And soon it will be dawn!”

Giraut de Bornelh (1138–1220) French writer

Bel companho, en chantan vos apel!
No dormatz plus, qu'eu auch chantar l'auzel
Que vai queren lo jorn per lo boschatge
Et ai paor que.l gilos vos assatge
Et ades sera l'alba.
"Reis glorios", line 11; translation from Gale Sigal Erotic Dawn-Songs of the Middle Ages (1996) p. 148.

Fear, Bird, Sleep, Singing

“In the days of madness, my brother, my sister,
When you're dragged toward the Hell-mouth,
You will beg for the end, but there ain't gonna be one, friend,
For the grave will spew you out! It will spew you out!”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Song lyrics, Tender Prey (1988), City of Refuge

Hell, Sister, Madness

“The following anecdote is related of Sultan Shamsuddin Iltutmish. He was greatly enamoured of a Turkish slave girl in his harem, whom he had purchased, and sought her caresses, but was always unable to achieve his object. One day he was seated, having his head anointed with some perfumed oil by the hands of the same slave girl, when he felt some tears fall on his head. On looking up, he found that she was weeping. He inquired of her the cause. She replied, “Once I had a brother who had such a bald place on his head as you have, and it reminds me of him.” On making further inquiries it was found that the slave girl was his own sister. They had both been sold as slaves, in their early childhood, by their half-brothers; and thus had Almighty God saved him from committing a great sin. Badaoni states in his work, “I heard this story myself, from the emperor Akbar’s own lips, and the monarch stated that this anecdote had been orally traced to Sultan Ghiyasuddin Balban himself.””

Iltutmish (1210–1236) Sultan of Mamluk Sultanate

Minhaj, 506, 526n. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 12

God, Girl, Sister, Tear

“The loorie brought to his cinnamon nest.
The bee from the midst of its honey quest,
And open the leaves of the lotus lay
To welcome the noon of the summer day.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Improvisatrice (1824)

Bee, Summer

“Another hallway led to a green steel door. "This is the execution chamber," the officer said. "The day of the execution, we take the man through this door." He opened the green door, and we blinked at the bright lights inside. A big chair filled the room. I could smell leather. "All right, boys," he said. "Line up." The kids made a straight line that led out the green door, then moved ahead, one at a time, to sit in the big wooden chair. "This is the electric chair, Tommy Ray," my dad explained. "It's where murderers are executed." The boys inched forward. Some sat longer in the chair than others. Executed meant killed, that much I knew. "This is the ultimate consequence for the ultimate act of evil," my father told the troop. When all the boys had sat in the chair, it was my turn. I reached up and felt the smooth wood, the leather straps with cold metal buckles. There was a black steel cap dangling up there like a lamp without a bulb. "Up you go, Tommy Ray," Dad said, hoisting me into the chair. The boys were staring at me. But I wasn't even a little bit afraid. My father stood right beside me. I could feel his warm hand next to the cool metal buckle. As the school bus rumbled out of the prison parking lot that afternoon, I stared back at the high walls. I had learned another important lesson. A consequence was what followed what you did. If you did good things, you'd be rewarded with further good things. If you broke the law, you'd have to pay the price. I have never forgotten that lesson.”

Tommy Franks (1945) United States Army general

Source: American Soldier (2004), p. 8

School, Law, Feeling, Boy

“The day is past, and the moonbeams weep
O'er the many that rest in their last cold sleep;
Near to the gashed and the nerveless hand
Is the pointless spear and the broken brand;
The archer lies like an arrow spent,
His shafts all loose and his bow unbent;
Many a white plume torn and red,
Bright curls rent from the graceful head,
Helmet and breast-plate scattered around,
Lie a fearful show on the well-fought ground;
While the crow and the raven flock overhead
To feed on the hearts of the helpless dead,
Save when scared by the glaring eye
Of some wretch in his last death agony.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Warrior from The London Literary Gazette (25th October 1823) Sketch
The Improvisatrice (1824)

Death, Lie, Fear, Sleep

“I just wanted to study how to portray clairvoyance, and I finally took an ocular approach. She has these beautiful blue eyes and her gaze is gently penetrating. All the obvious stuff about her you can find online but I wanted more of the nitty-gritty, like how did it affect her sex life? If you're domestic ballbuster by day and a ghostbuster by night, how does that affect your home life? I opted not to go down to their museum of the occult that they maintain in the basement, Patrick and I both. We stayed upstairs.”

Vera Farmiga (1973) American actress

On getting to know Lorraine Warren for her role in The Conjuring, as quoted in " Vera Farmiga on The Conjuring, Bates Motel, maternal angst … and knitting https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/aug/01/vera-farmiga-conjuring-bates-motel-interview" by John Patterson at The Guardian (August 2, 2013)

Life, Beauty, Sex, Home

“What the world did not deem possible the German people have achieved…. It is already war history how the German Armies defeated the legions of capitalism and plutocracy. After forty-five days this campaign in the West was equally and emphatically terminated.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

“Adolf Hitler’s Order of the Day Calling for Invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece,” Berlin, (April 6, 1941), New York Times, April 7, 1941
1940s

War, People, World, History

“My use of social media is not Presidential - it's MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL. Make America Great Again!”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Tweet published by @realdonaldtrump https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/881281755017355264 (1 July 2017) 2010s, 2017, July

“I'm fortunate to know many of the trustees. Well, for example I'm good friends with the Chairman, Mike Boone. And there’s one trustee I know really well, a proud graduate of the SMU Class of 1968 who went on to become our nation’s greatest First Lady. Do me a favor and don’t tell Mother. I know how much the trustees love and care for this great university. I see it firsthand when I attend the Bring-Your-Spouse-Night Dinners. I also get to drop by classes on occasion. I am really impressed by the intelligence and energy of the SMU faculty. I want to thank you for your dedication and thank you for sharing your knowledge with your students. To reach this day, the graduates have had the support of loving families. Some of them love you so much they are watching from overflow sites across campus. I congratulate the parents who have sacrificed to make this moment possible. It is a glorious day when your child graduates from college — and a really great day for your bank account. I know the members of the Class of 2015 will join me in thanking you for your love and your support. Most of all, I congratulate the members of the Class of 2015. You worked hard to reach this milestone. You leave with lifelong friends and fond memories. You will always remember how much you enjoyed the right to buy a required campus meal plan. You'll remember your frequent battles with the Park ‘N’ Pony Office. And you may or may not remember those productive nights at the Barley House.”

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

2010s, 2015, Remarks at the SMU 100th Spring Commencement (May 2015)

Love, Family, Intelligence, Support

“What does peace mean in a world in which the combined wealth of the world's 587 billionaires exceeds the combined gross domestic product of the world's 135 poorest countries? Or when rich countries that pay farm subsidies of a billion dollars a day, try and force poor countries to drop their subsidies? What does peace mean to people in occupied Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, Tibet and Chechnya? Or to the aboriginal people of Australia? Or the Ogoni of Nigeria? Or the Kurds in Turkey? Or the Dalits and Adivasis of India? What does peace mean to non-Muslims in Islamic countries, or to women in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan? What does it mean to the millions who are being uprooted from their lands by dams and development projects? What does peace mean to the poor who are being actively robbed of their resources and for whom everyday life is a grim battle for water, shelter, survival and, above all, some semblance of dignity? For them, peace is war.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

A selection from a speech entitled "Peace given on November 7, 2004 while accepting the Sydney Peace Prize.
Speeches

Life, Women, War, People

“In its most general form, confinement was explained, or at least justified, by a will to avoid scandal. It thereby signalled an important change in the consciousness of evil. The Renaissance had let unreason in all its forms come out into the light of day, as public exposure gave evil the chance to redeem itself and to serve as an exemplum.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Part One: 5. The Insane
History of Madness (1961)

Light, Evil, Change, Chance

“My dream is to perform in a big, celebratory concert in a free Cuba, but I don't think they'd even let me into the country. And if they did, I'd have to speak against what is going on, which the government fears. I don't know how much change toward democracy we'll see as long as one of the Castro brothers is around, but I do believe there is a future with a new leader someday. But this leader will also love Cuba and really want to take her forward. When that day comes, Emilio and I will be there in any way that we can be of service.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

Latina Magazine (September, 2007)
2007, 2008

Love, Fear, Dreams, Way

“The convulsive hold which Mary to this day maintains over human imagination,— as you can see at Lourdes,— was due much less to her power of saving soul or body than to her sympathy with people who suffered under law,— divine or human,— justly or unjustly, by accident or design, by decree of God or by guile of Devil. She cared not a straw for conventional morality, and she had no notion of letting her friends be punished, to the tenth or any other generation, for the sins of their ancestors or the peccadillos of Eve.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

God, People, Law, Soul

“I walk from five to fifteen miles a day, no exaggeration, soliciting clothes and delivering them and when I’m not doing that I wash and clean clothes. Not an overly pleasant occupation but I like it all right. I work on commision and ought to make about $40 per month, some months more.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

From a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith (September 9, 1923)
Letters

Clothes

“I find there, especially among the Labour Party, many men who fifty years ago would inevitably have gone into the Christian Ministry. They have been drawn into political life from a deep desire to help the people. Such men are common in all parties to-day…I certainly agree with many observers that since the war the manifest forces of Satan have been more conspicuously at large. But the very manifestation of these forces is calling other forces into the field.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at the Langham Hotel (11 February 1926), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), p. 196.
1926

Life, Men, War, People

“If one day
They are connected
And form lines”

Ayumi Hamasaki (1978) Japanese recording artist, lyricist, model, and actress

Forgiveness
Lyrics, Memorial Address

“Well, the first days are the hardest days, don't you worry anymore. When life looks like Easy Street there is danger at your door.”

Robert Hunter (1941–2019) American musician

"Uncle John's Band"
Workingman's Dead (1970)

Life

“Fellow-citizens, being fully invested with that high office to which the partiality of my countrymen has called me, I now take an affectionate leave of you. You will bear with you to your homes the remembrance of the pledge I have this day given to discharge all the high duties of my exalted station according to the best of my ability, and I shall enter upon their performance with entire confidence in the support of a just and generous peeps.”

William Henry Harrison (1773–1841) American general and politician, 9th President of the United States (in office in 1841)

Inaugural address (March 4, 1841)

Home, Confidence, Support

“A man who is not afraid of the sea will soon be drowned, he said, for he will be going out on a day he shouldn't. But we do be afraid of the sea, and we do only be drownded now and again.”

John Millington Synge (1871–1909) Irish playwright, poet, prose writer, and collector of folklore

The Aran Islands (1907)

Sea

“Every political debate these days contains a lot about economic policies. So much so that sometimes I think people get a little tired of hearing about them. Naturally there is a cry that Government must put people before economics. Who could disagree? That is the very reason why we in our Party have constantly fought Marxism and Communism. Fought Marxism because of —its compulsory society —its nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange. —its attempt to snuff out individual conscience. —the absence of the great voluntary societies which are so much a part of our way of life. —its denial of freedom to choose —its elevation of the values of the State above those of religion. Its denial of the right to educate children outside the state system. —its extinction of private property because property rights support human rights.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Conservative Women’s Conference (20 May 1981) https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104653 First term as Prime Minister

Life, Children, People, Education

“Muhammad Tughlaq confined Shaikhzada Jami in an iron cage leading to his death. Under him punishments laid down by the Shariat were scrupulously awarded. The mother of prince Masud was ordered by the Sultan to be stoned to death for adultery, the verdict having been pronounced by Qazi Kamaluddin. Ibn Battutah relates that on one occasion he himself as Qazi gave eighty stripes to one Razi of Multan for making himself drunk and stealing five hundred dinars. He also says that during Muhammad Tughlaq's reign people used to admit uncommitted crimes and courted death to escape torture. When the royal order was issued for the execution of any person, he was executed at the gate of the palace where his corpse remained for three days. The Diwan-i-Siyasat worked vigorously and every day hundreds of culprits were brought for punishments.”

Muhammad bin Tughluq (1290–1351) Turkic Sultan of Delhi

Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3

Death, People, Personality

“Joy is like restless day; but peace divine
Like quiet night;
Lead me, O Lord, — till perfect Day shall shine
Through Peace to Light.”

Adelaide Anne Procter (1825–1864) English poet and songwriter

"Per Pacem ad Lucem".
A Chaplet of Verses (1862)

Peace, Light, Joy, Perfection

““You know the answers, but just between ourselves, that sketch smells a bit. It’s sloppy.”
“I never did have any artistic talent,” Art said defensively. “I’d rather take a photograph any day.”
“You’ve taken too many photographs, maybe. As for artistic talent, I haven’t any either, but I learned to sketch. Look, Art—the rest of you guys get this, too—if you can’t sketch, you can’t see. If you really see what you’re looking at, you can put it down on paper, accurately. If you really remember what you have looked at, you can sketch it accurately from memory.”
“But the lines don’t go where I intend them to.”
“A pencil will go where you push it. It hasn’t any life of its own. The answer is practice and more practice and thinking about what you are looking at. All of you lugs want to be scientists. Well, the ability to sketch accurately is as necessary to a scientist as his slipstick. More necessary, you can get along without a slide rule.””

Robert A. Heinlein book Rocket Ship Galileo

Source: Rocket Ship Galileo (1947), Chapter 10, “The Method of Science”, p. 108

Life, Art, Guy, Thinking

“I do remember one formative influence in my undergraduate life. There was an elderly professor in my department who had been passionately keen on a particular theory for, oh, a number of years, and one day an American visiting researcher came and he completely and utterly disproved our old man's hypothesis. The old man strode to the front, shook his hand and said, "My dear fellow, I wish to thank you, I have been wrong these fifteen years". And we all clapped our hands raw. That was the scientific ideal, of somebody who had a lot invested, a lifetime almost invested in a theory, and he was rejoicing that he had been shown wrong and that scientific truth had been advanced.”

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

Part 1, 00:13:32
The Root of All Evil? (January 2006)

Life, Truth, Passion, Parting

“p>One translucent day I leave the city
to visit my home, the land of Champa.Here are stupas gaunt with yearning,
ancient temples ruined by time,
streams that creep alone through the dark
past peeling statues that moan of Champa.Here are dense and drooping forests
where long processions, lost souls of Champa,
march; and evening spills through thick,
fragrant leaves, mingling with the cries of moorhens.Here is the field where two great armies
were reduced to a horde of clamoring souls.
Champa blood still cascades in streams of hatred
to grinding oceans filled with Champa bones.Here too are placid images: hamlets at rest
in evening sun, Champa girls gliding homeward,
their light chatter floating
with the pink and saffron of their dresses.Here are magnificent sunbaked palaces,
temples that blaze in cerulean skies.
Here battleships dream on the glossy river, while the thunder
of sacred elephants shakes the walls.Here, in opaque light sinking through lapis lazuli,
the Champa king and his men are lost in a maze of flesh
as dancers weave, wreathe, entranced,
their bodies harmonizing with the flutes.All this I saw on my way home years ago
and still I am obsessed,
my mind stunned, sagged with sorrow
for the race of Champa.”

Chế Lan Viên (1920–1989) Vietnamese writer

"On the Way Home", in A Thousand Years of Vietnamese Poetry, ed. Nguyễn Ngọc Bích (Alfred A. Knopf, 1975), p. 167; quoted in full in Buddhism & Zen in Vietnam by Thich Thien-an (Tuttle Publishing, 1992)

Men, Dreams, Way, Home

“We have much studied and much perfected, of late, the great civilized invention of the division of labour; only we give it a false name. It is not, truly speaking, the labour that it divided; but the men: — Divided into mere segments of men — broken into small fragments and crumbs of life; so that all the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts itself in making the point of a pin or the head of a nail. Now it is a good and desirable thing, truly, to make many pins in a day; but if we could only see with what crystal sand their points were polished, — sand of human soul, much to be magnified before it can be discerned for what it is — we should think that there might be some loss in it also. And the great cry that rises from our manufacturing cities, louder than their furnace blast, is all in very deed for this, — that we manufacture everything there except men; we blanch cotton, and strengthen steel, and refine sugar, and shape pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to refine, or to form a single living spirit, never enters into our estimate of advantages. And all the evil to which that cry is urging our myriads can be met only in one way: not by teaching nor preaching, for to teach them is but to show them their misery, and to preach at them, if we do nothing more than preach, is to mock at it. It can only be met by a right understanding, on the part of all classes, of what kinds of labour are good for men, raising them, and making them happy; by a determined sacrifice of such convenience or beauty, or cheapness as is to be got only by the degradation of the workman; and by equally determined demand for the products and results of healthy and ennobling labour.”

John Ruskin book The Stones of Venice

Volume II, chapter VI, section 16.
The Stones of Venice (1853)

Life, Men, Happiness, Beauty

“I want to tell you why I did this. My mother was the first one to tell me about the Statue of Liberty. She saw at first from the deck of the ship that brought her to America: she was an immigrant. She impressed upon me how precious our liberty is and how easily it can be lost. And then one day it occurred to me that I could show with magic how we take our freedom for granted. Sometimes we don't realize how important something is until it's gone. So I asked our government for permission to let me make the Statue of Liberty disappear… just for a few minutes. I thought that if we faced emptiness where, for as long as we can remember, that great lady is, lifted up our land, why then… we might imagine what the world would be like without liberty and we realize how precious our freedom really is. And then I will make the Statue of Liberty reappear, by remembering the world that made it appear in the first place. The world is freedom. Freedom is the true magic. It's beyond the power of any magician. But wherever one human being guarantees another the same rights he or she enjoys, we find freedom. [The curtain between the live audience and the Statue of Liberty used to hide the secret of its disappearance is raised] How long can we stay free? But just as long as we keep thinking, and speaking, and acting as free human beings. Our ancestors just couldn’t. We can. And I will show you the way. Nooooow!”

David Copperfield (1956) American illusionist

The curtain is lowered and the Statue of Liberty reappears
From "The Magic of David Copperfield V: The Statue of Liberty Disappears" (April 8th, 1983)

Secret, World, Way, Imagination

“Little, however, is to be learned in confused, hurried tourist trips, spending only a poor noisy hour in a branded grove with a guide. You should go looking and listening alone on long walks through the wild forests and groves in all the seasons of the year. In the spring the winds are balmy and sweet…. In summer the days go by in almost constant brightness…. In the autumn the sighing of the winds is softer than ever…. Winter comes suddenly, arrayed in storms.”

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

Source: 1900s, Our National Parks (1901), chapter 9: The Sequoia and General Grant National Parks

Spring, Autumn, Learning, Winter

“In these days, under the rule of capitalism, a government, even if it is full of philanthropy and animated by the best of intentions, can do nothing of real value to our cause. One must keep free from illusions.”

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

Animals

“I can't help reflecting that it's taken a Government headed by a housewife with experience of running a family to balance the books for the first time in twenty years—with a little left over for a rainy day.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Conservative Women's Conference (25 May 1988) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107248 Third term as Prime Minister

Books, Family, Time, Help

“"Well, mother, people have different names for different things. I hear a great deal about Ellery Davenport's tact and knowledge of the world, and all that; but he does a great deal of what I call lying, — so there! Now there are some folks who lie blunderingly, and unskilfully, but I 'll say for Ellery Davenport that he can lie as innocently and sweetly and prettily as a French woman, and I can't say any more. And if a woman does n't want to believe him, she just must n't listen to him, that 's all. I always believe him when he is around, but when he 's away and I think him over, I know just what he is, and see just what an old fool he has made of me."
These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of them much at the time, but there came a day in my life when the ring was fished up out of the well, good as new.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Old Town Folks

Old Town Folks (1869) Ch. 25.

Life, People, Lie, World

“The old dualistic notion of mind and matter, so prominent in Cartesianism, as two radically different kinds of substance, will hardly find defenders to-day. Rejecting this, we are driven to some form of hylopathy, otherwise called monism.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

The Architecture of Theories (1891)

“Looking at them, it does not seem as though even progress in intellect, slow as that also is, made the pace very much more rapid. When we look at those whose intellect is scarcely developed, they seem after each day of life to sink to sleep almost on the place they occupied the day before; and when we glance over those who are more highly evolved so far as intellect is concerned, they too are travelling very very slowly, and seem to make small progress in each day of life.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

https://theosophy.world/sites/default/files/ebooks/Annie%20Besant-In-The-Outer-Court.pdf In the Outer Court, 1895, p. 11

Life, Travel, Sleep

“Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”

Hannah Arendt book The Origins of Totalitarianism

Part 3, Ch. 2 The Totalitarian Movement, page 80 https://books.google.de/books?id=I0pVKCVM4TQC&pg=PT104&dq=A+mixture+of+gullibility+and+cynicism+had+been+an+outstanding+characteristic+of+mob+mentality+before+it+became+an+everyday+phenomenon+of+masses.&hl=de&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=A%20mixture%20of%20gullibility%20and%20cynicism%20had%20been%20an%20outstanding%20characteristic%20of%20mob%20mentality%20before%20it%20became%20an%20everyday%20phenomenon%20of%20masses.&f=false The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) Context: A mixture of gullibility and cynicism had been an outstanding characteristic of mob mentality before it became an everyday phenomenon of masses. In an ever-changing, incomprehensible, world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything is possible and that nothing was true. The mixture in itself was remarkable enough, because it spelled the end of the illusion that gullibility was a weakness of unsuspecting primitive souls and cynism the vice of superior and refined minds. Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.

People, Lie, Time

Quotes about day page 57

Quotes about day
page 57