Quotes about doe (9994 quotes, page 95)

“Some one will say, Does he not know without a monitor both what our difficulties are, and what is meet for our interest, so that it seems in some measure superfluous to solicit him by our prayers, as if he were winking, or even sleeping, until aroused by the sound of our voice? Those who argue thus attend not to the end for which the Lord taught us to pray. It was not so much for his sake as for ours. … It is very much for our interest to be constantly supplicating him; first, that our heart may always be inflamed with a serious and ardent desire of seeking, loving and serving him, while we accustom ourselves to have recourse to him as a sacred anchor in every necessity; secondly, that no desires, no longing whatever, of which we are ashamed to make him the witness, may enter our minds, while we learn to place all our wishes in his sight, and thus pour out our heart before him; and, lastly, that we may be prepared to receive all his benefits with true gratitude and thanksgiving, while our prayers remind us that they proceed from his hand.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book 3, Chapter 20, Section 3
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

Sleep , Gratitude , Heart , Learning

“But a prince, when he binds himself, does not bind himself alone, otherwise he would be in the same position as a private individual. Instead, he exposes great countries and great provinces to a thousand misfortunes. Therefore, it is better that he should break his contract rather than that the people should perish.”

Frederick II of Prussia (1712–1786) king of Prussia

Historie vom Jahre 1746, quoted in W. W. Coole (ed.), Thus Spake Germany (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1941), p. 82

People , Country

“I leave undecided the question whether complete mutual freedom of international commerce, such as is contemplated by the theory of Free Trade, would not serve the interests of Germany. But as long as most of the countries with which our trade is carried on surround themselves with customs barriers…it does not seem to me justifiable, or to the economic interest of the nation, that we should allow ourselves to be restricted in the satisfaction of our financial wants by the apprehension that German products will thereby be slightly preferred to foreign ones. … The minority of the population, which does not produce at all, but exclusively consumes, will apparently be injured by a customs system favouring the entire national production. Yet if by means of such a system the aggregate sum of the values produced in the country increase, and thus the national wealth be on the whole enhanced, the non-producing parts of the population…will eventually be benefited.”

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman, Chancellor of Germany

Letter to the Bundesrath committee on tariff revision (15 December 1878), quoted in Percy Ashley, Modern Tariff History: Germany–United States–France (1970), pp. 45–46
1870s

Question , Country , Freedom , Wealth

“Of all pitiful parts none is more pitiful than passing for more than one really is; and it is the fate of monarchy that this misfortune inevitably clings to it, for barely once in a thousand years does there arise among the people a man who is king not merely in name, but in reality.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 4, pt. 2, translated by W.P.Dickson.
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 2

Reality , People , Parting , Fate

“Having destroyed the social power of the nobility and the guildmasters, the bourgeois also destroyed their political power. Having raised itself to the actual position of first class in society, it proclaims itself to be also the dominant political class. This it does through the introduction of the representative system which rests on bourgeois equality before the law and the recognition of free competition, and in European countries takes the form of constitutional monarchy. In these constitutional monarchies, only those who possess a certain capital are voters – that is to say, only members of the bourgeoisie. These bourgeois voters choose the deputies, and these bourgeois deputies, by using their right to refuse to vote taxes, choose a bourgeois government.”

Friedrich Engels book Principles of Communism

Principles of Communism (1847)

Law , Country

“From a strictly technical viewpoint, socialism is the principle of public service. In the final analysis every worker has the status not of a businessman, but of a public servant, as does every employer..”

Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) German historian and philosopher

Prussianism and Socialism (1919)

“In following this movement towards its end we shall inevitably reach a point beyond which the scene is darkened by the shadow of Hitler. Unfortunately, it does not go without saying that in our examination we must avoid the fallacy that in the last decades has frequently been used as a substitute for the reductio ad absurdum: the reductio ad Hitlerum. A view is not refuted by the fact that it happens to have been shared by Hitler.”

Leo Strauss (1899–1973) Classical philosophy specialist and father of neoconservativism

Source: Natural Right and History (1953), p. 42

“The good deeds of one who, without any appropriate excuse does not offer his prayer until its time passes away, are annulled.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

He then said: "The divide between a believer and disbelief is the abandonment of prayers."
Biharul Anwar, Volume 82, Page 202
Shi'ite Hadith

Time

“There can be no such thing in the long run as the prosperity of an isolated nation…until the trade of the world once more begins to move from one country to another and goods can be exchanged and paid for—until that happens there is no permanency to the security we have gained. Does not that bring us back to this, that while we all know that we have got to go on, and go on quickly, with this matter of armaments, there is driven into us once more the mad folly of Europe to-day in the expenditure she is making on armaments at the sacrifice of her international trade? We have to do what we can in our conversations with foreign countries to show the folly of this, which, if protracted too long, may bring ruin to us all. Therefore we have still to hold on to the faith that sooner or later it may be possible once again to discuss the reduction of armaments. If and when that time comes we must all of us throw our weight into the effort. This massing of huge armaments on the Continent, even the work that we are doing—the money would be far better used for the progress of the world.”

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

Speech to the centenary dinner of the City of London Conservative and Unionist Association (2 July 1936), quoted in Service of Our Lives (1937), pp. 44-45.
1936

Money , Faith , Time , Country

“Given Greater Sunrise falls within Timor Leste, why does Australia get any (oil royalties)? It was 50-50 when there were no (sea) boundaries. After they agreed on the boundaries everything was different.”

Mari Alkatiri (1949) Prime Minister of East Timor

Mari Alkatiri (2019) cited in: " Timor’s former PM: Australia’s spies didn’t fool me https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/timors-former-pm-australias-spies-didnt-fool-me/news-story/d684911f8a2e1d41bc8ec38685d22e91" in The Australian, 28 August 2019.

Sea

“Faith, like love, does not take up only a few hours of existence, but is its soul, its constant breathing.”

Gianfranco Ravasi (1942) Catholic cardinal

Source: The Encounter: Discovering God Through Prayer (2014), Ch. 1

Love , Faith , Making love , Soul

“The argument, in essence, is that protected speech may be banned as a means to ban unprotected speech. This analysis turns the First Amendment upside down. The Government may not suppress lawful speech as the means to suppress unlawful speech. Protected speech does not become unprotected merely because it resembles the latter. The Constitution requires the reverse.”

Anthony Kennedy (1936) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002) (Opinion of the Court).

Law

“The (respective) position of Judaism toward Spinoza coincides with the (respective) position of Europe toward him. However, it does not completely coincide with it. Spinoza played a special role in the Judaism of the past century. When what mattered was the justification of the breakup of the Jewish tradition and the entry of the Jews into modern Europe, perhaps no better, but certainly no more convenient, reference offered itself than the appeal to Spinoza. Who was more suitable for undertaking the justification of modern Judaism before the tribunal of the Jewish tradition, on the one hand, and before the tribunal of modern Europe, on the other, than Spinoza, who, as was almost universally recognized, was a classical exponent of this Europe and who, as one did not grow weary of at least asserting, had thought his thoughts in the spirit of Judaism and by means of Judaism? It is clear that, at a time when modern Europe has been shaken to its foundations, one can no longer justify oneself before this Europe for the sake of Judaism, nor before Judaism for the sake of this Europe, supposing one still wants to do so.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Leo Strauss, Das Testament Spinozas (1932) [original in German]
S - Z

Universe , Past , Time

“Regarding my reputation among physicians, it really does not mean much. They know me through my textbooks, which are to me what lens polishing was to the great philosopher Spinoza. I have to do this as a secondary occupation, necessary to sustenance.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Wilhelm Wundt, in a letter to his future wife Sophie Mau, June 1872 [original in German]. As quoted in Saulo de Freitas Araujo, Wundt and the Philosophical Foundations of Psychology: A Reappraisal (Springer, 2015)
S - Z

“Neophil: …Leibniz, Wolff, and their various successors, to what a level of perfection and completeness they have brought philosophy! How proud Germany can be of them! Yet what does it help to claim more for oneself than is right? Let us always acknowledge that someone other than a German, I add further, someone other than a Christian, namely, Spinoza, has participated immensely in the work of bettering philosophy. Before the transition from the Cartesian to the Leibnizian philosophy could occur, it was necessary for someone to take the plunge into the monstrous abyss lying between them. This unhappy lot fell to Spinoza. How his fate is to be pitied! He was a sacrifice for the human intellect, but one that deserves to be decorated with flowers. Without him, philosophy would never have been able to extend its borders so far.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Moses Mendelssohn, in his Philosophical Writings (1755–77) [original in German]
M - R

Fate , Help , Perfection , Flowers

“From this point we glance back to the alleged atheism of Spinoza. The charge will be seen to be unfounded if we remember that his system, instead of denying God, rather recognises that he alone really is. Nor can it be maintained that the God of Spinoza, although he is described as alone true, is not the true God, and therefore as good as no God. If that were a just charge, it would only prove that all other systems, where speculation has not gone beyond a subordinate stage of the idea — that the Jews and Mohammedans who know God only as the Lord — and that even the many Christians for whom God is merely the most high, unknowable, and transcendent being, are as much atheists as Spinoza. The so-called atheism of Spinoza is merely an exaggeration of the fact that he defrauds the principle of difference or finitude of its due. Hence his system, as it holds that there is properly speaking no world, at any rate that the world has no positive being, should rather be styled Acosmism. These considerations will also show what is to be said of the charge of Pantheism. If Pantheism means, as it often does, the doctrine which takes finite things in their finitude and in the complex of them to be God, we must acquit the system of Spinoza of the crime of Pantheism. For in that system, finite things and the world as a whole are denied all truth. On the other hand, the philosophy which is Acosmism is for that reason certainly pantheistic.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences: The Logic
G - L, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

World , Truth , God , Idea

“An empire that cannot distance itself from such a gruesome sin that so deeply affects its internal structure does not have the right to education, to future development and participation in history.”

Alexander Herzen (1812–1870) Russian author

"Appeal to Nobles", (June 1853), Imperial Russia, A Source Book 1700-1917

Education , Future , History

“The first attempt of a democracy which includes the previously disfranchised poor is to redistribute wealth and income, and this is exactly what the black South attempted. The theory is that the wealth and the current income of the wealthy ruling class does not belong to them entirely, but is the product of the work and striving of the great millions; and that, therefore, these millions ought to have a voice in its more equitable distribution; and if this is true in modern countries, like France and England and Germany, how much more true was it in the South after the war where the poorest class represented the most extreme case of theft of labor that the world can conceive; namely, chattel slavery?”

W.E.B. Du Bois book Black Reconstruction

Source: Black Reconstruction in America (1935), p. 604

Democracy , Country , War , Wealth

“Older doesn’t necessarily mean wiser, Emile, but it does mean older. More…experienced. More adept at dealing with the galaxy, at…taking care of oneself.”

Steve Perry book The Man Who Never Missed

Source: The Man Who Never Missed (1985), Chapter 11 (p. 95; ellipses in the original)

“What is the use of all knowledge, if one does not act in accordance with it? This remark implies that knowledge is regarded as a means to action, and the latter as the real end. One could put the question the other way round and ask: How can we possibly act well without knowing what the Good is? This way of expressing it would regard knowledge as conditioning action. But both expressions are one-sided, and the truth is that both, knowledge as well as action, are in the same way inseparable elements of rational life.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book Address to the German Nation

Consequences of the Difference p. 75
Addresses to the German Nation (Reden an die deutsche Nation) 1808, Fifth Address

Question , Knowledge , Truth , Way

“True Religion does not manifest itself outwardly, and impels man to no course of external conduct which he would not otherwise have adopted, but that it only completes his true In ward Being and Dignity. It is neither an Action, nor an incentive to Action, but a Thought:—it is LIGHT, and the One True Light, which bears within it all Life and all the forms of Life, and pervades their innermost substance. Once arisen, this Light flows on spontaneously forever, spreading itself forth without term or limit;-and it is as idle to bid it shine, as it would be to address such a command to the material sun when it stands in the noon-day heavens. It does this without our bidding; and if it shine not, then has it not arisen. At its uprising, Darkness, and the brood of spectres and phantasms which are born of Darkness, vanish of themselves.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Characteristics of the Present Age (1806), p. 264

Light , Sun , Life , Religion

“I veil my face before thee, and lay my finger on my lips. What thou art in thyself, or how thou appearest to thyself, I can never know. After living through a thousand lives, I shall comprehend Thee as little as I do now in this mansion of clay. What I can comprehend, becomes finite by my mere comprehension, and this can never, by perpetual ascent, be transformed into the infinite, for it does not differ from it in degree merely, but in kind. By that ascent we may find a greater and greater man, but never a God, who is capable of no measurement.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book The Vocation of Man

Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p.115
The Vocation of Man (1800), Faith

God , Art

“I believe it to be this; that my will, absolutely of itself, and without the intervention of any instrument that might weaken its effect, shall act in a sphere perfectly congenial — reason upon reason, spirit upon spirit; in a sphere to which it does not give the laws of life, of activity, of progress, but which has them in itself, therefore, upon self-active reason. But spontaneous, self-active reason is will. The law of the transcendental world must, therefore, be a Will.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book The Vocation of Man

Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p.110
The Vocation of Man (1800), Faith

World , Self-confidence , Life , Law

“Reason does not exist for the sake of life, but life for the sake of reason. An existence which does not of itself satisfy reason and solve all her doubts, cannot be the true one.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book The Vocation of Man

Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p.94
The Vocation of Man (1800), Faith

Life

“The voice in my soul in which I will have faith, and for the sake of which I have faith in all else, does not merely command me generally to act, but in every particular situation it declares what I shall do and what leave undone; it accompanies me through every event of my life, and it is impossible for me to contend against it. To listen to it and obey it honestly and impartially, without fear or equivocation, is the business of my existence. My life is no longer an empty I play without truth or significance. It is appointed that what I conscience ordains me shall be done, and for this purpose am I here. I have understanding to know, and power to execute it. By conscience alone comes truth and reality into my representations.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book The Vocation of Man

Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 77
The Vocation of Man (1800), Faith

Life , Soul , Faith , Understanding

“It is a proof that the state is not an arbitrary invention, but is established by nature and reason, when we actually find that, in places where men have lived together for a time and have become educated, states are erected, although the people in the one such place know not that the same thing has been done in other places. Each people, which does not live in a condition of nature, but has a government, no matter how constituted, has a right to compel its recognition from all adjoining states.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Science of Rights 1796, P. 474, 477

Time , People , Nature , Education

“On condition that you protect my rights, I will protect your rights. How, then, does some party obtain the right to claim the protection of the other? Evidently, by actually protecting the rights of the other. But if this is so, no party will ever obtain a strictly legal claim to the protection of the other.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Science of Rights 1796, P. 220

“But how shall the condition, the true subjection of the other to the law, be given? Not through signs of repentance, promises of future better behavior, offers of damages, etc.; for there is no ground to believe his sincerity. It is quite as possible that he has been forced by his present weakness into this repentance, and is only awaiting a better opportunity to renew the attack. This uncertainty does not warrant the other in laying down his arms and thus again exposing all his safety. He will, therefore, continue to exercise his compulsion; but since the condition of the right is problematical, his exercise also will be problematical. t is the same with the violator. If he has offered the complete restitution which the law inevitably requires, and it being possible that he may now have voluntarily subjected himself in all sincerity to the law, it is also likely that he will oppose any further restriction of his freedom, (any further compulsion by the other,) but his right to make this opposition is also problematical. It seems, therefore, that the decisive point can not be ascertained, since it rests in the ascertainment of inner sincerity, which can not be proved, but is a matter of conscience for each. The ground of decision, indeed, could be given only, if it were possible to ascertain the whole future life of the violator.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Science of Rights 1796, P. 145

Life , Law , Freedom , Future

“The law commands that the other person shall treat me as a rational being. He does not do so; and the law now absolves mc from all obligation to treat him as a rational being. But by that very absolving it makes itself valid. For the law, in saying that it depends now altogether upon my free-will how I desire to treat the other, or that I have a compulsory right against him, says, virtually, that the other person can not prevent my compulsion; that is, can not prevent it through the mere principle of law, though he may prevent it through physical strength, or through an appeal to morality, (may induce me to forego my compelling him, or prevent me from compelling him by superior strength.)If an absolute community is to be established between persons, as such, each member thereof must assume the above law; for only by constantly treating each other as free beings can they remain free beings or persons. Moreover, since it is possible for each member to treat the other as not a free being, but as a mere thing, it is also conceivable that each member may form the resolve, never to treat the others as mere things, but always as free beings; and since for such a resolve no other ground is discoverable than that such a community of free beings ought to exist, it is also conceivable that each member should have formed that resolve from this ground and upon this presupposition.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Science of Rights 1796, P. 132

Dependency , Law , Personality , Communication

“I posit myself as individual, in opposition to another individual, by ascribing to myself a sphere for my freedom, from which I exclude the other, and by ascribing to him a sphere, from which I exclude myself — of course, only in the thinking of a fact and by virtue of this fact. Hence, I have posited myself as free a side of him without danger to the possibility of his freedom. Through this positing of my freedom I have determined myself; to be free constitutes my essential character. But what does to be free mean? Evidently to be able to carry out the conceptions of acts I may entertain. But the carrying out always follows the conception, and the perception of the desired product of my causality is always — in relation to its first conception — a matter of the future. Freedom is therefore always posited in the future; and if it is to constitute the character of a being, it is posited for all the future of the individual; is posited in the future as far as the individual himself is posited in the future.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Science of Rights 1796, P. 77

Future , Thinking , Relation ships , Freedom

“The conception of Rights involves that when men are to live in a community, each must so restrict his freedom as to permit the coexistence of the freedom of all others. But it does not involve that this particular person, A, is to restrict his freedom by the freedom of those particular persons, B, C, and D. That it has happened so that I, A, must conform myself particularly to the freedom of these, B, C, and D, of all other men, is purely the result of my living together with them; and I so live with them, simply by my free-will, not because there is an obligation for me to do so.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Science of Rights 1796, P. 23-24

Communication , Personality , Freedom , Men

“Humans are currently the dominant species on earth and exercise a great deal of power and control over nature. But very few believe might makes right, so the fact that we have greater power cannot enter into a justification of our use and treatment of animals. Rather, where other beings are under our power, we should feel obligated to show self-restraint and to act out of mercy and compassion. We cannot avoid causing harm to other beings in the process of living our own lives. Nor does morality consist in trying to be perfect and pure. But we can adopt an orientation toward minimizing the amount of harm we cause and taking full responsibility for it, seeing it for what it is. To justify animal experimentation is to start at one end of a continuum. Much of what we do will be morally acceptable (in our eyes), and we will chip away at the extremity where what we do shades into cruelty. I no longer believe that a general moral justification of animal experimentation can be given.”

Michael Allen Fox (1940)

" Animal Experimentation: A Philosopher's Changing Views https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1609&context=bts" (1987), in Between the Species, vol. 3, iss. 2, p. 59.

Nature , Animals , Self-confidence , Perfection

“Today, I will have to tell my children, along with all the children of Palestinian Arab towns in the country, that the state has declared that it does not want us here. … It has passed a law of Jewish supremacy and told us that we will always be second-class citizens.”

Ayman Odeh (1975) Israeli lawyer and member of the Knesset

About the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, as quoted in Israel 'nation-state' law prompts criticism around the world, including from U.S. Jewish groups https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-nation-state-law-prompts-criticism-around-world-n893036 (July 20, 2018) by Paul Goldman, Lawahez Jabari and F. Brinley Bruton, NBC News.

Children , Law , Country

“Tyranny does not impose itself only in the political sphere. This tyranny uses every possible leverage at the disposal of the state to institutionalize discrimination on the basis of gender, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, and ideological orientation, particularly against women. By sustaining patriarchal dominance, drafting and enforcing misogynistic laws, and even by fabricating a false culture in contradiction with the norms of the society, it deprives women of their human and civil rights and seeks to prevent them from social engagement. Therefore, when a woman like me decides to break their dictated norms, she must suffer prison and separation from her children, as an intimidating lesson for other women.”

Narges Mohammadi (1972) Iranian human rights activist

Letter Accepting 2018 Andrei Sakharov Prizefrom (2018)

Religion , Law , Children , Suffering

“I will probably end my life fighting. … I just hope that if it does happen, it will be in an honest and fair competition. My body is fucked but my mind is still here. I’ve still got my senses about me and I know what’s right and wrong, which is the main thing. … I feel proud that I got here without cheating. Proud that I got here without taking any shortcuts and by doing it the proper way. My way. … I’d be champ already if it wasn’t for the cheaters. … We need the Ali Act put in place. Fighters want to know what they’re worth. … These guys don’t get paid jack shit.”

Mark Hunt (1974) New Zealand kickboxer and mixed martial artist

"If I die fighting, that’s fine", in Players Voice (4 July 2017) https://www.playersvoice.com.au/mark-hunt-if-i-die-fighting-thats-fine/#0A07ZKS7jbAZhme6.97.

Cheating , Hope , Fight , Sense

“The universe is indifferent to our fates. This was the crushing burden that the character took with him as he struggled through the surf toward survival or extinction. The universe just does not give a shit.”

Dan Simmons book Endymion

Source: Endymion (1996), Chapter 34 (p. 344)

Universe , Indifference , Fate

“What does apartheid mean, in Israeli terms? Apartheid means fundamentalist clergy spearheading the deepening of segregation, inequality, supremacism, and subjugation.”

Bradley Burston israeli journalist

It's Time to Admit It. Israeli Policy Is What It Is: Apartheid (2015)

“Having conflicting goals, dedicating resources to unconnected targets, and accommodating incompatible interests are the luxuries of the rich and powerful, but they make for bad strategy. Despite this, most organizations will not create focused strategies. Instead, they will generate laundry lists of desirable outcomes and, at the same time, ignore the need for genuine competence in coordinating and focusing their resources. Good strategy requires leaders who are willing and able to say no to a wide variety of actions and interests. Strategy is at least as much about what an organization does not do as it is about what it does.”

Richard Rumelt (1942) American economist

Source: Good Strategy Bad Strategy, 2011, p. 20

Bad luck , Time , Making love

“The American Left champions causes such as gay rights (including gay marriage), equality for women (suffrage, the right to work, etc.), and religious freedom (usually in the form of freedom from religion). Yet, fundamentalist Islam opposes nearly everything the American Left stands for. In many Islamic countries, homosexuality is punishable by death. In Iran, a top government official recently said that torture followed by death is the appropriate punishment for being gay. In Saudi Arabia, women can’t vote, run for public office, or drive cars. Women are routinely jailed and beaten for merely being in the presence of a man not related to them. The Saudi version of Dr. Phil provides televised lessons to men on how to properly beat their wives. In many Islamic countries, women are forced into arranged marriages and held as property by their husbands, something not exactly in line with progressive Western thinking. In some Muslim countries, women aren’t even allowed to decide what clothes to wear. To reveal even the smallest patch of skin is a crime. Religious freedom is often nonexistent under Islamic rule. In countries like Afghanistan and Iran, people who convert from Islam to another religion face public execution. So why does the American Left hate Christianity yet love Islam?”

Chuck Hustmyre (1963) American journalist

2000s, 2009, The Left's love affair with Islam (2009)

Clothes , Religion , Hate , Freedom

“Each line is now the actual experience with its own innate history. It does not illustrate — it is the sensation of its own realization.”

Cy Twombly (1928–2011) American painter

a written art note by Twombly on a painting he created in 1957
Quote of Twombly in 'Writings', Flash Art International, Laura Cherubini, October 2008 (translation from Italian: Beatrice Barbareschi)
1950 - 1960

History

“Aristotle believed that the world did not come into being at some time in the past; it had always existed and it would always exist, unchanged in essence for ever. He placed a high premium on symmetry and believed that the sphere was the most perfect of all shapes. Hence the universe must be spherical. …An important feature of the spherical shape… was the fact that when a sphere rotates it does not cut into empty space where there is no matter and it leaves no empty space behind. …A vacuum was impossible. It could no more exist than an infinite physical quantity. …Circular motion was the most perfect and natural movement of all.”

John D. Barrow (1952–2020) British scientist

The Book of Universes: Exploring the Limits of the Cosmos (2011)

Time , Past , Nature , Universe

“I have tried to find some explanation that does not rely on logic, but once the borders of rationality have been removed I cannot imagine what should take their place. How does one begin to measure? What standards should one apply?”

Sean Russell (1952) author

The prince understood what she meant. Once reason was no longer your guide, you were like a man stranded in a featureless landscape. There were no landmarks to use. One direction was as likely to yield results as any other.
Source: Sea Without a Shore (1996), Chapter 26 (p. 353)

Imagination

“Vivekananda often asserted that only in becoming a ṛṣi does one understand the scripture properly. His argument appears to be that as products and records of direct perception, these texts were not written for the intellect, or for understanding through a process of rational inquiry and analysis. They become meaningful only when one has lifted oneself to the same heights of perception.”

Anantanand Rambachan (1951) Hindu studies scholar

Source: The Nature and Authority of Scripture (1995), p. 23

Appearance , Understanding

“One minute? Where the fuck does one minute come from?”

Jürgen Klinsmann (1964) German footballer and manager

Belgium v. United States https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDiUIvLAHWg&feature=youtu.be (1 July 2014), 2014 FIFA World Cup, Brazil
2010s, 2014

“I have just concluded my series of paintings, I look at them constantly. I who made them often find them horrible. I understand them only at rare moments, when I have forgotten all about them, on days when I feel kindly disposed and indulgent to their poor maker. Sometimes I am horribly afraid to turn round canvases which I have piled against the wall; I am constantly afraid of finding monsters where I believed there were precious gems!... Thus it does not astonish me that the critics in London relegate me to the lowest rank. Alas! I fear that they are only too justified!”

Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) French painter

However, at times I come across works of mine which are soundly done and really in my style, and at such moments I find great solace. But no more of that. Painting, art in general, enchants me. It is my life. What else matters?
Quote in a letter, 20 Nov. 1883; as quoted in Painting Outside the lines, Patterns of Creativity in Modern Art, ed. David W. Galenson, Harvard University Press, 30 Jun 2009, p. 84
1880's

Fear , Painting , Feeling , Understanding

“Therefore, come to our aid you who alone are able. For this rivalry exists for sake of you, whom alone they revere in everything that all seem to worship. For each one desires in all that he seems to desire only the good which you are; no one is seeking with all his intellectual searching for anything else than the truth which you are. For what does the living seek except to live? What does the existing seek except to exist?”

Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) German philosopher, theologian, jurist, and astronomer

De Pace Fidei (The Peace of Faith) (1453)

Truth , Search

“The incorporation of… earlier sources does not mean that the Pentateuch or Former Prophets is the work of an editor who pasted together various docuements. Once we view the work as a whole, we see that it is a fresh creation though not a creatio ex nihilo.”

Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) American linguist

The same holds for Homeric Epic that has been subjected to the same kinds of modern literary criticism.
Source: The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965 [1962]), Ch.VIII Further Observations on the Bible

Past

“Tulsidas is the highest tree in the garden of Hindu poetry, though his name does not appear in Aeen-i-Akbari or any book of Muslim historians or even narratives of European writers who worked on information taken from Persian historians. Yet, Tuslidas was the greatest man of India of his time. In fact he can be called greater than Akbar because the victory that the poet registered in the hearts of thousands of millions of people was greater and more lasting than all the imperious victories put together…the Ramacharritamanas is such an enormous epic that its English adaptation by Growse is of 362 pages. The declinations in this epic are so similar to Christianity that on numerous spots, if Rama is replaced by Christ, there can be no question.”

Tulsidas (1532–1623) Hindu poet-saint

Vincent Smith in "A Garden of Deeds: Ramacharitmanas, a Message of Human Ethics", pp.34-35
On Tulsidas’s epic Ramacharritamanas

Tree , Time , Question , Victory

“It looks stunning and it does exactly what we hoped.”

Anish Kapoor (1954) British contemporary artist of Indian birth

Israeli sky in Anish’s steel- India-born artist sculpts landmark symbol for museum

Hope

“If a woman does not get love in her life, it is better for her to die.”

Premchand (1880–1936) Hindi writer

In page =90
Portrayal of Women in Premchands Stories A Critique

Love , Life , Making love

“Does being a man make all things forgivable and being a woman all things unforgivable?”

Premchand (1880–1936) Hindi writer

Portrayal of Women in Premchands Stories A Critique

Forgiveness , Making love

“For the Chair of Physics created by Sir Palit, we have been fortunate enough to secure the services of Mr. Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, who has greatly distinguished himself and acquired a European fame by his brilliant research in the domain of Physical Science, assiduously carried on under the most adverse circumstances amidst the distraction of pressing official duties. I rejoice to think that many of these valuable researches have been carried on in the laboratory of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, founded by our late illustrious colleague, Dr. Mahandra Lal Sircar, who devoted a lifetime to the foundation of an institution for the cultivation and advancement of science in this country. I should fail in my duty if I were to restrain myself in my expression of genuine admiration I feel for the courage and spirit of self-sacrifice with which Mr. Raman had decided to exchange a lucrative official appointment with attractive prospects, for a University Professorship, which, I regret to say, does not carry even liberal emoluments. This one instance encourages me to entertain the hope that there will be no lack of seeker after truth in the Temple of Knowledge which it is our ambition to erect.”

C. V. Raman (1888–1970) Indian physicist

Quoted from Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman:A Legend of Modern Indian Science, 22 November 2013, Official Government of Indian website Vigyan Prasar http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/scientists/cvraman/raman1.htm,

Courage , Country , Hope , Universe

“Sometimes God comes into the soul when it has neither called, prayed, or summoned him. and he instills into the soul and uncommon fire and love and sweetness in which it delights and rejoices greatly. The soul believes that the presence of God himself has cause this consolation, but this is not certain. But then the soul perceives that God is within itself - although it cannot see him inwardly - because it does sense and take delight in that his grace is present. Yet even this is not certain.”

Angela of Foligno (1248–1309) Italian saint

The Memorial and Instructions

God , Soul , Sense , Love

“In analyzing organization work, a single chart can frequently express more than any amount of detailed written explanation. First of all, clearly define author- ities within your establishment; then chart those authorities simply and graphically, so that every workman knows to whom he is responsible, and every executive knows who is responsible to him. Place this chart conspicuously in every department where each employee can see it. In case of disputed authority, final proof is immediately at hand. There is then no loop-hole through which a neglectful workman, foreman or executive can crawl no longer does he have the excuse that he thought somebody else was going to do it.”

Clinton Edgar Woods (1863) American engineer

In clean-cut form, his duties and relations to other men of the organization are laid down once and for all, and responsibility rests on the right man. Failure so to specify responsibilities inevitably means confusion all down the line.
Source: Industrial organization (1914), p. 24-25

“Nothing may happen without wyrd, for it is present in everything, but wyrd does not make things happen. Wyrd is created at every instant, and so wyrd is the happening.”

Brian Bates (1944) British academic

The Way of the Wyrd : Tales of an Anglo-Saxon Sorcerer (1983)

Making love

“The new work obviously resembles sculpture more than it does painting, but it is nearer to painting.”

Donald Judd (1928–1994) artist

Source: 1960s, "Specific Objects," 1965, p. 75; Cited in: Diane Waldman. Carl Andre https://archive.org/stream/carlandre00wald#page/6/mode/1up. Published 1970 by Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. p. 6

Painting

“When he wills, the devil does all things well.”

François Andrieux (1759–1833) French man of letters and playwright

Quand il veut, le diable fait tout bien.
Le Doyen de Badajoz. (Ed. 1818, Vol. III., p. 266).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 185.

“Liquor does this? Even after you’re sober?”

Scott Lynch The Lies of Locke Lamora

“A cruel joke, isn’t it? The gods put a price tag on everything, it seems.”
Interlude “The Last Mistake” section 1 (p. 179)
The Lies of Locke Lamora (2006)

“Yes, I own Kamal. Yet, he does not belong to me — he belongs to the world of cinema. It is often argued that had he been born abroad, he would have won the Oscar many times over.”

Kamal Haasan (1954) Indian actor

K Balachander, in K Balachander praises Kamal Hassan! (2 September 2010) http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/others/news-interviews/K-Balachander-praises-Kamal-Hassan/articleshow/6474377.cms?

World , Time

“Shaun: You know, when you sponsor a child like Doris here, you’ll be doing more than just putting food on her table. If every Australian gave a dollar a week to someone like Doris, that would guarantee her a weekly income of about 18 million dollars. Almost a billion dollars a year. That buys a lot in Doris’ village. Enough coconuts to stretch from here to Neptune transported in solid gold space shuttles fuelled by burning bank notes. Does seem a bit excessive doesn’t it?”

Shaun Micallef (1962) Australian actor

The Micallef P(r)ogram(me)

Food

“Mengistu does not understand the meaning of self-determination, either historically or in the abstract. He cannot conceive of a nation as anything but an absolute centralized authority, totalitarianism, for his rule is nothing less than that now.”

Mengistu Haile Mariam (1937) Former dictator of Ethiopia

Dawit Wolde Giorgis (1989) Red Tears: War, Famine and Revolution in Ethiopia, The Red Sea Press Inc., p. 112
About Mengistu

Self-confidence , Understanding

“His remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, a organization that receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, does subsidize abortions.”

Jon Kyl (1942) junior U.S. Senator from Arizona

Statement from Jon Kyl's office to CNN, regarding his 2011-04-08 statement in the Senate that abortion is "well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does"
Kyl Walks Back Planned Parenthood Claim: It ‘Was Not Intended To Be A Factual Statement’
2011-04-08
ThinkProgress
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/08/kyl-walks-back-claim-about-planned-parenthoo/
2011-04-15

“How many Microsoft employees does it take to screw in a light bulb?”

Guy Kawasaki (1954) American businessman and author

The answer to that is none because Bill Gates has declared darkness the new standard.
Speech at Stanford University 2 March 2011 http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2669

Light

“How many Macintosh division employees does it take to screw in a light bulb?”

Guy Kawasaki (1954) American businessman and author

The answer is one. The Macintosh division employee holds up the light bulb and expects the universe to revolve around it.
Speech at Stanford University 2 March 2011 http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2669

Light

“But the First Amendment protects against the Government; it does not leave us at the mercy of noblesse oblige.”

John Roberts (1955) Chief Justice of the United States

We would not uphold an unconstitutional statute merely because the Government promised to use it responsibly. [...] The Government’s assurance that it will apply [a statutory provision] more restrictively than its language provides is pertinent only as an implicit acknowledgment of the potential constitutional problems with a more natural reading.
United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 1577 (2010) (Opinion of the Court).

“My own beliefs are that the road to a scientific discovery is seldom direct, and that it does not necessarily require great expertise.”

Ivar Giaever (1929) Norwegian physicist

In fact, I am convinced that often a newcomer to a field has a great advantage because he is ignorant and does not know all the complicated reasons why a particular experiment should not be attempted.
Nobel lecture (1973)

“Michigan State already has one of the coolest mascots in college football, but if Sparty ever needs a day off, Javon Ringer could do the job. After all, he already does just about everything else for MSU.”

Javon Ringer (1987) All-American college football player, professional football player, running back

Bruce Hooley of FOXSports.com, quoted at Ringer 23.com (undated)

Football

“Nobody else in the world can play the way Scholes does. The passes he produces all over the field and the way he changes the game is brilliant. Every manager would like him. But luckily he is here and playing with us. Paul practices that all the time. When he has finished training he always goes out and shoots.”

Paul Scholes (1974) English footballer

http://cantheyscore.com/2011/05/31/paul-scholes-50-quotes-that-define-a-legend/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SportBullet%2Ffeed+%28Sport+Bullet%29&utm_content=Google+UK
Dimitar Berbatov

Time , Game , Way , World

“There is no doubt for me that Paul Scholes is still in a class of his own. He’s almost untouchable in what he does. I never tire of watching him play. You rarely come across the complete footballer, but Scholes is as close to it as you can get. One of my regrets is that the opportunity to play alongside him never presented itself during my career.”

Paul Scholes (1974) English footballer

http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Zinedine-Zidane-has-admitted-not-playing-with-Paul-Scholes-is-one-of-the-biggest-regrets-of-his-career-article560373.html
Zinedine Zidane, August 2010

Football

“She is not destructive - but she does have a particular facility for puncturing pomposity.”

Jani Allan (1952) South African columnist and broadcaster

Joe Sutton referring to Allan following their interview. Quoted in Face Value by Jani Allan.

“That man who is responsible for slave labor in Germany does not have my sympathy. I did not like the whole idea of what he did. After all, there are limits to what one can do with foreign populations in the forced labor business. In the first place, the whole idea is completely unproductive. One needs three or four men to watch one compulsory worker. Sauckel deserves the severest punishment.”

Fritz Sauckel (1894–1946) German general

Paul O. Schmidt to Leon Goldensohn, March 13, 1946.

Business , Idea , Men

“Dietrich quite openly criticised measures taken by the Führer. He complains that the Führer does not give his military staff a sufficiently free hand and that this tendency has now become so pronounced that the Führer even lays down the employment of individual companies. But Dietrich is in no position to judge. The Führer cannot rely on his military advisers. They have so often deceived him and thrown dust in his eyes that he now has to attend to every detail. Thank God he does attend to them, for if he did not, matters would be even worse than they are anyway.”

Sepp Dietrich (1892–1966) German SS commander

Joseph Goebbels, diary entry, March 2, 1945

God

“It is the function of the artist to evoke the experience of surprised recognition: to show the viewer what he knows but does not know that he knows. Helnwein is a master of surprised recognition.”

Gottfried Helnwein (1948) Austrian photographer and painter

William S. Burroughs, Helnwein's Work http://www.helnwein.com/texte/selected_authors/artikel_103.html, Lawrence, Kansas, 1990

“The host of specifically religious suggestions and images, in a story that until now has been devoid of such concern, suggests very strongly that Peake is here referring to the Christian religion as a debasing influence. Peake’s treatment of Gormenghast’s ritual shows that he dislikes any system of values imposed on the individual from outside, offering him nothing directly relevant for himself and encouraging him in whatever weakness he possesses. So, here, the Lamb can break down but not build; despite his worshipper’s praise, he does not really understand how to keep his creatures alive. Still the Lamb glories in his power. True, in changing men he has destroyed them, denying them freedom to develop for themselves; to the Lamb, however, that is incidental to his own gratification.”

Mervyn Peake (1911–1968) English writer, artist, poet and illustrator

Joseph L. Sanders, “The Passions in Their Clay” Mervyn Peake’s Titus Stories, reprinted in the omnibus edition The Gormenghast Novels published by The Overlook Press, p. 1093

Religion , Understanding , Freedom , Men

“The picture of the economic revolution as the final step to freedom was false as soon as I asked myself that question. For, in actual fact, The State, The Government, cannot exist. They are abstract concepts, useful enough in their place, as the theory of minus numbers is useful in mathematics. In actual living experience, however, it is impossible to subtract anything from nothing; when a purse is empty, it is empty, it cannot contain a minus ten dollars. On this same plane of actuality, no State, no Government, exists. What does in fact exist is a man, or a few men, in power over many men.”

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist

Give Me Liberty (1936)

Question , Freedom , Falseness , Mathematics

“I put my hand on him. Touching him has always been important to me, it was something I lived for. I never could explain why. Little, nothing touches, my fingers against his shoulder, the outsides of our thighs touching as we squeeled together on the bus. I couldnt explain it, but I needed it. Sometimes I imagined stiching all of our little touches together. How many hundreds of thousands of fingers brushing against each other does it take to make love?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)

Imagination , Love , Making love

“One gets the impression of Duran is that he’s a tough, rough brawler who just wades in and ducks nothing. But all you have to do is look at his face to see that is nonsense. He’s not marked up. He does a lot of cute things in there.”

Roberto Durán (1951) Panamanian boxer

Angelo Dundee, boxing cornerman, 30 January 1978 http://coxscorner.tripod.com/duran.html
About Durán

“It does not frighten me to leave this life that my only son left five years ago, this life that insists we bear sorrow upon sorrow long after we can bear no more. No, I believe I shall gladly take my leave when the time comes. What frightens me, hamshira, is the day God summons me before him and asks, Why did you not do as I said, Mullah? Why did you not obey my laws? How shall I explain myself to him, hamshira?”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

What will be my defense for not heeding His commands? All I can do, all any of us can do, in the time we are granted, is to go on abiding by the laws He has set for us. The clearer I see my end, hamsira, the nearer I am to my day of reckoning, the more determined I grow to carry out His word. However painful it may prove.
Talib Judge, p. 366
A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)

God , Life , Time , Law

“His book has the force of a mob-protest; an outcry from anonymous throats. The wheel turns and turns and it does not matter, one hardly notices that the captain of the company, killed on page 159, is alive again a hundred pages later. It does not matter that every stock situation of the war, suicide, the murder of an officer, the slaughter of prisoners, a vision of Christ, is apportioned to Company K, because the book is not written in any realistic convention. It is the only War-book I have read which has found a new form to fit the novelty of the protest. The prose is bare, lucid, without literary echoes, not an imitation but a development of eighteenth-century prose.”

William March (1893–1954) United States Marine, novelist, short story writer

In a Graham Greene review of the novel Company K for the newspaper The Spectator.

Reading , War , Books , Christ

“I think that, that it would be hard for New Hampshire to vote for somebody who was a fundamentalist minister, affable as he is. He does seem to actually want to write, for example, a prohibition against abortion into the Constitution, which Ronald Reagan, for all his talking about it, never tried to do one time.”

Mike Huckabee (1955) Arkansas politician

Bob Shrum, Meet the Press, MSNBC, 2007-11-25 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21963747/page/6/,

Thinking , Time

“Think about this, the people gave birth to me cannot stop hating each other enough. What does that tell you about me? Half of my genes must be fighting with other half, no wonder I am so fucking messed up.”

Chetan Bhagat book One Night @ the Call Center

Source: One Night @ the Call Center (2005), P. 211

Hate , People , Thinking , Fight

“He thinks in one second and does it the next. He is a special player, one who is original and exceptional. He creates space where there is none. Only the very best players can do that. No matter where he gets the ball or how it comes to him, Zidane can get out of trouble. His imagination and his technique are amazing.”

Zinedine Zidane (1972) French association football player and manager

Edgar Davids, 2000 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/4752511/Guardiola-books-his-chance-to-face-Zidane.html.

Thinking , Imagination

“He has become the most influential player in England, bar none. Not that Vieira lacks anything, but Gerrard does more.”

Steven Gerrard (1980) English footballer

Alex Ferguson, manager of Manchester United FC ( Source http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/l/liverpool/4647845.stm)

“But if we look a little deeper we shall find there is a pathetic, one might almost say a tragic, side to the picture. A shy man means a lonely man—a man cut off from all companionship, all sociability. He moves about the world, but does not mix with it. Between him and his fellow-men there runs ever an impassable barrier—a strong, invisible wall that, trying in vain to scale, he but bruises himself against. He sees the pleasant faces and hears the pleasant voices on the other side, but he cannot stretch his hand across to grasp another hand. He stands watching the merry groups, and he longs to speak and to claim kindred with them. But they pass him by, chatting gayly to one another, and he cannot stay them. He tries to reach them, but his prison walls move with him and hem him in on every side. In the busy street, in the crowded room, in the grind of work, in the whirl of pleasure, amid the many or amid the few—wherever men congregate together, wherever the music of human speech is heard and human thought is flashed from human eyes, there, shunned and solitary, the shy man, like a leper, stands apart. His soul is full of love and longing, but the world knows it not. The iron mask of shyness is riveted before his face, and the man beneath is never seen. Genial words and hearty greetings are ever rising to his lips, but they die away in unheard whispers behind the steel clamps. His heart aches for the weary brother, but his sympathy is dumb. Contempt and indignation against wrong choke up his throat, and finding no safety-valve whence in passionate utterance they may burst forth, they only turn in again and harm him. All the hate and scorn and love of a deep nature such as the shy man is ever cursed by fester and corrupt within, instead of spending themselves abroad, and sour him into a misanthrope and cynic.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Soul , Hate , Business , Strong

“We believe in a democratic society by governments freely and periodically elected by the people… We believe, in the virtue of hard work and that those who work harder in society should be given greater rewards… We believe that the world does not owe us a living and that we have to earn our keep.”

Sinnathamby Rajaratnam (1915–2006) Early life

Adapted from speech by S Rajaratnam, Minister for Foreign Affairs, at a dinner in honour of His Excellency Mr. Hans Dietrich Genscher, Minister for Foreign Affairs.
20 April 1977.

World , People

“You want the short version. Okay, then: shit happens. Does that answer all your question? Thought not. Now, if you shut your face and let me tell this my way, we might actually get somewhere. Thank you.”

Tom Holt (1961) British writer

the spokesclone, p. 319
Falling Sideways (2002)

Way , Question

“Being female in this world is having been robbed of he potential for human choice by men who love to hate s. One does not make choices in freedom. Instead, one conforms in body type and behavior and values to become an object of male sexual desire, which requires an abandonment of a wide-ranging capacity for choice Objectification may well be the most singly destructive aspect of gender hierarchy, specially as it exists in relation to intercourse.”

Andrea Dworkin book Intercourse

Source: Intercourse (1987), Chapter 7

Hate , Freedom , Relation ships , World

“Loving does not necessarily mean liking. But it still is loving, yes — totally, completely, utterly. Take the key of wisdom and unlock your own heart. Then let people in one by one. Listen to them, with full attention, with all your mind, heart, body and soul, unto exhaustion. And look!”

Catherine Doherty (1896–1985) Religious order founder; Servant of God

the exhaustion will be lifted, and you will be able to listen still more. Yes, love must be communicated person to person; otherwise it will not be effective.
Molchanie (1982)

Soul , People , Heart , Love

“It is my contention that if a large body of strong healthy men do not exist as a pool of hope for the race, then the race has no chance to survive. If twenty million starved neurotics manage to live through the plague, does this mean that humanity survives?”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

He paused, throwing the question at them and waiting until they formed their own answer. Then he shouted, "No, it does not! What is humanity, a physical form only? I say it is more. It is intellect and reason and dignity. It is these qualities that must survive, not the mere number of twisted sickly bodies."
Source: The Rebellers (1963), p. 79

Strong , Chance , Hope , Men

“Tattoos are cool because they don’t belong on your body, but you put it there to say something about yourself. Much like my rolls of fat. That shit does not belong on a human body. And I put it there to say something about me. I don’t like fruit. I don’t like it! Long bike ride? I’m out. Hot dog eating contest? I’m listening.”

Dave Attell (1965) comedian

"Skanks for the Memories"

Dogs , Tattoo

“It is not that one ought not to do just what one pleases; it is simply that one cannot do other than what each of us has to do, has to be. The only way out is to refuse to do what has to be done, but this does not set us free to do something else just because it pleases us. In this matter we only possess a negative freedom of will, a noluntas.”

José Ortega Y Gasset book The Revolt of the Masses

We can quite well turn away from our true destiny, but only to fall a prisoner in the deeper dungeons of our destiny. … Theoretic truths not only are disputable, but their whole meaning and force lie in their being disputed, they spring from discussion. They live as long as they are discussed, and they are made exclusively for discussion. But destiny — what from a vital point of view one has to be or has not to be — is not discussed, it is either accepted or rejected. If we accept it, we are genuine; if not, we are the negation, the falsification of ourselves. Destiny does not consist in what we feel we should like to do; rather is it recognised in its clear features in the consciousness that we must do what we do not feel like doing.
Source: The Revolt of the Masses (1929), Chapter XI: The Self-Satisfied Age

Way , Freedom

“I have been thinking of what you say about form... I feel that a real living form is the natural result of the individual’s effort to create the living thing out of the adventure of his spirit into the unknown.... and from that experience comes the desire to make the unknown known. By unknown I mean the thing that means so much to the person that he want to put it down - clarify something he feels but does not clearly understand... Making the unknown known.... if you stop to think of form as form you are lost.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

Quote in a letter to Sherwood Anderson, October 1923; as quoted in Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life, Roxana Robinson, University Press of New England, 1999
1917 - 1929

Understanding , Personality , Nature , Thinking

“Film has dream, film has music. No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul. A little twitch in our optic nerve, a shock effect: twenty-four illuminated frames in a second, darkness in between, the optic nerve incapable of registering darkness. At the editing table, when I run the trip of film through, frame by frame, I still feel that dizzy sense of magic of my childhood: in the darkness of the wardrobe, I slowly wind one frame after another, see almost imperceptible changes, wind faster — a movement.”

Ingmar Bergman book Laterna Magica

Laterna Magica (1987); The Magic Lantern : An Autobiography as translated by Joan Tate (1988).
Variant translation: Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.
As quoted in "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" by John Berger, Sight and Sound (June 1991).

Childhood , Soul , Dreams , Art

“It does not say much about the credibility of the Prime Minister for him to be saying publicly that the Christian churches support the bill after these deliberate acts of deception.”

Epeli Ganilau (1951) Fijian politician

In response to Mataca's claim that Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase had misled a delegation of church leaders as to the true contents of the government's Reconciliation and Unity Bill, which Mataca and Ganilau both oppose
Reaction to comments from Archbishop Petero Mataca, 23 June 2005

Support

“Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or lies. Unable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

"On Invisibility" in Diary of an Unknown (1953)

Alcohol

“When all actions are used for feedback, the consequence of making mistakes will be a corrective and appropriate response, because everything everybody does matters.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

… The more selective you are in the feedback you accept, the more insane your reasoning will become as you will necessarily reject corrective feedback that would have led to better reasoning.
Re: Lisp's future http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/ba8f8f34c16d55f3 (Usenet article).
Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Making love