Quotes about doing (10000 quotes, page 38)

“In the coming days, we will continue to do everything we can to ensure the safety of American citizens and the security of our sources of energy. And we will stand with the people of Japan as they contain this crisis, recover from this hardship, and rebuild their great nation.”

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

2011, Address on the natural and nuclear energy disasters in Japan (March 2011)
Context: In the midst of economic recovery and global upheaval, disasters like this remind us of the common humanity that we share. We see it in the responders who are risking their lives at Fukushima. We show it through the help that has poured into Japan from 70 countries. And we hear it in the cries of a child, miraculously pulled from the rubble.
In the coming days, we will continue to do everything we can to ensure the safety of American citizens and the security of our sources of energy. And we will stand with the people of Japan as they contain this crisis, recover from this hardship, and rebuild their great nation.

People

“Do you remember back at the hotel when you promised that if we lived, you'd get dressed up in a nurse's outfit and give me a sponge bath?"
"Actually, I think you misheard," Clary said. "It was Simon who promised you the sponge bath."
Jace looked involuntarily over at Simon, who smiled at him widely. "As soon as I'm back on my feet, handsome.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

"I knew we should have left you a rat."
Jace, Clary, and Simon, pg. 296-297
The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Smile , Thinking

“I don't pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Speech to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen in Chattanooga, Tennessee (8 September 2013). http://books.google.de/books?id=7_3uugarOF0C&pg=PA105&lpg=PA105&dq=theodore+roosevelt+I+don't+pity+any+man+who+does+hard+work+worth+doing.+I+admire+him.+I+pity+the+creature+who+does+not+work,+at+whichever+end+of+the+social+scale+he+may+regard+himself+as+being.&source=bl&ots=seVM4pX9IN&sig=gd7yTZMy3X2h6rIgQVVp5uR0Xu4&hl=de&sa=X&ei=M5FZUvW4M8LXtQby1YD4AQ&ved=0CG8Q6AEwCTgK#v=onepage&q=theodore%20roosevelt%20I%20don't%20pity%20any%20man%20who%20does%20hard%20work%20worth%20doing.%20I%20admire%20him.%20I%20pity%20the%20creature%20who%20does%20not%20work%2C%20at%20whichever%20end%20of%20the%20social%20scale%20he%20may%20regard%20himself%20as%20being.&f=false
1900s

“If what we are discussing were a point of law or of the humanities, in which neither true nor false exists, one might trust in subtlety of mind and readiness of tongue and in the greater experience of the writers, and expect him who excelled in those things to make his reasoning most plausible, and one might judge it to be the best. But in the natural sciences, whose conclusions are true and necessary and have nothing to do with human will, one must take care not to place oneself in the defense of error; for here a thousand Demostheneses and a thousand Aristotles would be left in the lurch by every mediocre wit who happened to hit upon the truth for himself. Therefore, Simplicio, give up this idea and this hope of yours that there may be men so much more learned, erudite, and well-read than the rest of us as to be able to make that which is false become true in defiance of nature.”

Galileo Galilei book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems

Salviati, p. 61
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632)

Men , Truth , Law , Hope

“My administration has a job to do as well. That job is to get this economy back on its feet. That's my job, and it's a job I gladly accept. I love these folks who helped get us in this mess and then suddenly say, "Well this is Obama's economy." That's fine. GIVE IT TO ME. My job is to solve problems, not to stand on the sidelines and carp and gripe. So, I welcome the job. I want the responsibility.”

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

President Obama, July 14, 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CQBSTomBWls
2009

Love , Problem , Help

“As we do every time this year, Presidents and Prime Ministers converge on this great city to advance important work. But as leaders, we are not the most important people here today. It is the civil society leaders who, in many ways, are going to have the more lasting impact, because as the saying goes, the most important title is not president or prime minister; the most important title is citizen. It is citizens -- ordinary men and women, determined to forge their own future -- who throughout history have sparked all the great change and progress.”

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

2014, Remarks at Clinton Global Initiative (September 2014)

Women , Men , People , Way

“Thanks to guys like Boss Tweed, famous for saying, 'I don't give a damn who does the voting, as long as I do the nominating,' there hasn't been an honest election in the USA since sometime around the War Between the States.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Libertarians: The Connies Speak Out (Part Two)," http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2005/tle339-20051002-02.html 2 October 2005.

War , Guy

“I've had groups of twentysomethings saying they still talk to each other in SpongeBob memes. It's really touching, you know? You get people who have had very difficult lives, and they say that SpongeBob got them through things, which is very touching. Someone told us that they were considering suicide, and SpongeBob made them laugh, and they cycled through that phase of their life. You get everything from that, to I had a great happy childhood and SpongeBob was part of it. You get all colours of the spectrum in terms of people coming up. Not just with SpongeBob either. It may be some cartoon that was a failure, or a videogame that took an hour to record in 1996. But they say it was the biggest thing in their life at one point. It's mind-blowing. You don't realise the footprint of what you're doing is leaving behind.”

Tom Kenny (1962) American actor

Tom Kenny Interview: The Voice of SpongeBob SquarePants http://www.denofgeek.com/us/tv/spongebob-squarepants/248119/tom-kenny-interview-the-voice-of-spongebob-squarepants (August 3, 2015)

Life , People , Failure , Suicide

“A child laughs when it feels joy and cries when it feels pain. Both things, laughing and crying, it does with its whole heart. We have all become so tall and so clever. We know so much and we have read so much. But one thing we have forgot: to laugh and cry like the children do.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Das Kind lacht, wenn es Freude hat, und weint, wenn es Schmerz empfindet. Bei beidem, bei Lachen und Weinen ist sein ganzes Herz dabei. Wir sind alle so groß und klug geworden. Wir wissen so viel und haben so viel gelesen. Aber eines haben wir vergessen: zu lachen und zu weinen wie die Kinder.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Pain , Children , Feeling , Reading

“The Bhakta has only to surrender himself and do nothing else but he has to do a lot for doing nothing.”

Jagadguru Kripaluji Maharaj (1922–2013) spiritual leader

Indian Philosophy & Culture. Volume 12. Vrindāvan (India): Institute of Oriental Philosophy. 1967.

“And those who oppose all reform will do well to remember that ruin in its worst form is inevitable if our National life brings us nothing whatever but a swollen and badly distributed material prosperity. In other words, I feel that material interests are chieﬂy good, not in themselves, but as an indispensable foundation upon which we should build a higher superstructure, a superstructure without which the foundation becomes worthless. Therefore I believe that the destinies of this country should be shaped primarily by moral forces, and by material forces only as they are subordinated to these moral forces.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)

Life , Feeling , Country

“I know there are some who reject any gun safety measures. But the fact is that our intelligence and law enforcement agencies - no matter how effective they are - cannot identify every would-be mass shooter, whether that individual is motivated by ISIL or some other hateful ideology. What we can do - and must do - is make it harder for them to kill.”

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

2015, Address to the Nation by the President on San Bernardino (December 2015)

Hate , Law , Intelligence , Motivation

“The people are hungry for the bread of life. Do not offer them a stone.”

Ellen G. White (1827–1915) American author and founder/leader of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church

Book II, Ch. 1, p. 24
Selected Messages (1958 - 1980)

Life , People

“As we focus on destroying ISIL, over-the-top claims that this is World War III just play into their hands. Masses of fighters on the back of pickup trucks and twisted souls plotting in apartments or garages pose an enormous danger to civilians and must be stopped. But they do not threaten our national existence. That’s the story ISIL wants to tell; that’s the kind of propaganda they use to recruit. We don’t need to build them up to show that we’re serious, nor do we need to push away vital allies in this fight by echoing the lie that ISIL is representative of one of the world’s largest religions. We just need to call them what they are — killers and fanatics who have to be rooted out, hunted down, and destroyed.”

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

2016, State of the Union address (January 2016)

War , Lie , World , Religion

“I want to be clear: The United States of America has done what we said we would do.
That’s not to say that our work is complete.”

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

2011, Address on interventions in Libya (March 2011)

“Educators ought to know better than their pupils what an education is. If the educators do not, they have wasted their lives. The art of teaching consists in large part of interesting people in things that ought to interest them, but do not. The task of educators is to discover what an education is and then to invent the methods of interesting their students in it.”

Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899–1977) philosopher and university president

Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

People , Education , Art , Parting

“If we have the most perfect neighborhoods without proper connections between them we do not have a city, but nomadic life in a jungle.”

Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis (1914–1975) Greek architect

Source: Building Entopia - 1975, Chapter 16, The need for a system, p. 240

Life , Perfection

“You've got a degree in philosophy,
So you think you're cleverer than me.
But I'm not just some drama queen,
Cos it's where you're at not where you've been.
So what do you expect from me,
To hold your head above the sea?
And there are you even though you're bigger,
Cos don't you know you crush my tiny figure?
And anyway we're still so young
And this isn't yet the day.
I can't help you if you won't help yourself.”

Amy Winehouse (1983–2011) English singer and songwriter

Help Yourself
Song lyrics, Frank (2003)

Thinking , Help , Sea

“You call these baubles, well, it is with baubles that men are led… Do you think that you would be able to make men fight by reasoning? Never. That is only good for the scholar in his study. The soldier needs glory, distinctions, and rewards.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

On awards, as quoted in Mémoires sur le Consulat. 1799 à 1804 (1827) by Antoine-Claire, Comte Thibaudeau. Chez Ponthieu, pp. 83–84. Original: "On appelle cela des hochets; eh bien! c'est avec des hochets que l'on mène les hommes… Croyez-vous que vous feríez battre des hommes par l'analyse? Jamais. Elle n'est bonne que pour le savant dans son cabinet. Il faut au soldat de la gloire, des distinctions, des récomponses."
Attributed

Men , Thinking , Study , Fight

“Why do they put the Gideon Bibles only in the bedrooms, where it's usually too late, and not in the barroom downstairs?”

Christopher Morley (1890–1957) American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet

"Contribution to a Contribution" as quoted in The Twin Bedside Anthology (1946) by Charles Lee, p. 183

“Use, do not abuse; as the wise man commands. I flee Epictetus and Petronius alike. Neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Usez, n’abusez point; le sage ainsi l’ordonne.
Je fuis également Épictète et Pétrone.
L’abstinence ou l’excès ne fit jamais d’heureux.
"Cinquième discours: sur la nature de plaisir," Sept Discours en Vers sur l'Homme (1738)
Citas

Happiness

“Civil war, such as you have just passed through naturally engenders feelings of animosity, hatred, and revenge. It is our duty to divest ourselves of all such feelings; and as far as it is in our power to do so, to cultivate friendly feelings towards those with whom we have so long contended, and heretofore so widely, but honestly, differed. Neighborhood feuds, personal animosities, and private differences should be blotted out; and, when you return home, a manly, straightforward course of conduct will secure the respect of your enemies. Whatever your responsibilities may be to Government, to society, or to individuals meet them like men.”

Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877) Confederate Army general

1860s, Farewell address (1865)

Men , War , Feeling , Home

“No, we are not related. No, we are not related. Do I walk? Have I feet still? I raise my eyes, I let them move round, and turn myself with them, one circle, one circle, and I stand in the midst. All is usual. Only the Militiaman Stanislaus Katczinsky has died. Then I know nothing more.”

Erich Maria Remarque book All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)

“"I know you don't have to help us out-it's a favor-"
"Stop. I don't do favors, Alec. I do things for you because-- well, why do you think I do them?”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Alec and Magnus, pg. 406
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

Thinking , Help

“Because if we had gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. It would have been a U. S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq. Once you got to Iraq and took it over and took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world. And if you take down the central government in Iraq, you could easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off. Part of it the Syrians would like to have, the west. Part of eastern Iraq the Iranians would like to claim. Fought over for eight years. In the north, you've got the Kurds. And if the Kurds spin loose and join with Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq. The other thing is casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact that we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had, but for the 146 Americans killed in action and for the families it wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the president in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad and took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein was, how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? And our judgment was not very many, and I think we got it right.”

Dick Cheney (1941) American politician and businessman

Cheney, on not pushing on to Baghdad during the first Gulf War; C-SPAN 4-15-94 Interview on CNN http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0708/13/sitroom.03.html
1990s

War , World , Family , Question

“The sea is superb, but the cliffs don't match up to those at Fecamp. Here I'll be certain to do more boats.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

in his letter from Dieppe; as quoted in: Howard F. Isham (2004) Image of the Sea: Oceanic Consciousness in the Romantic Century. p. 336 : About his 1880s travels
1870 - 1890

Sea

““I can’t keep giving my will into other people hands no more, ain’t? I have to decide what I want to do for myself.” No answer. It wasn’t going to tell her.”

Nalo Hopkinson book Brown Girl in the Ring

Source: Brown Girl in the Ring (1998), Chapter 12 (p. 220)

People

“As regards capital cases, the trouble is that emotional men and women always see only the individual whose fate is up at the moment, and neither his victim nor the many millions of unknown individuals who would in the long run be harmed by what they ask. Moreover, almost any criminal, however brutal, has usually some person, often a person whom he has greatly wronged, who will plead for him. If the mother is alive she will always come, and she cannot help feeling that the case in which she is so concerned is peculiar, that in this case a pardon should be granted. It was really heartrending to have to see the kinfolk and friends of murderers who were condemned to death, and among the very rare occasions when anything governmental or official caused me to lose sleep were times when I had to listen to some poor mother making a plea for a "criminal" so wicked, so utterly brutal and depraved, that it would have been a crime on my part to remit his punishment.
On the other hand, there were certain crimes where requests for leniency merely made me angry. Such crimes were, for instance, rape, or the circulation of indecent literature, or anything connected with what would now be called the "white slave" traffic, or wife murder, or gross cruelty to women or children, or seduction and abandonment, or the action of some man in getting a girl whom he seduced to commit abortion. In an astonishing number of these cases men of high standing signed petitions or wrote letters asking me to show leniency to the criminal. In two or three of the cases — one where some young roughs had committed rape on a helpless immigrant girl, and another in which a physician of wealth and high standing had seduced a girl and then induced her to commit abortion — I rather lost my temper, and wrote to the individuals who had asked for the pardon, saying that I extremely regretted that it was not in my power to increase the sentence. I then let the facts be made public, for I thought that my petitioners deserved public censure. Whether they received this public censure or not I did not know, but that my action made them very angry I do know, and their anger gave me real satisfaction.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Source: 1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913), Ch. VIII : The New York Governorship

Death , Women , Men , Fate

“There will be a sovereign Palestinian state, a sovereign Jewish state of Israel and those two states can, I think, will be able to deal with each other the same way all states do. I mean, you know, the United States and Canada has arguments once in a while, but they’re not the nature of arguments that can’t be solved diplomatically.”

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

Press conference in Ramallah (21 March 2013), as quoted in "Obama Compares Israeli-Palestinian Conflict to Arguments Between U.S. and Canada" in Wall Street Journal (21 March 2013) http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/03/21/transcript-of-obamas-press-conference-with-mahmoud-abbas/,
2013

Way , Nature , Thinking

“I remember, you know, you go to these parties on Saturday night and people would say, about 8:00 on Sunday morning "Whoa, I have to go - I gotta get to church!" People would say, "Why do you want to go to church, all those hypocrites." And I say, "Look, why do I want to stay here with all you hypocrites?"I never knew why going to church made you a hypocrite. They'd say because you go to church and you're all "Holy, Holy, Holy" for two or three hours, and then you go home and sin. I'd say "exactly!" For two or three hours you're doing pretty good! Maybe the problem isn't that you go to church, maybe the problem is that you go home! I never understood why going to church made you a hypocrite either, because nobody goes to church because they're perfect. If you've got it all together, you don't need to go. You can go jogging with all the other perfect people on Sunday morning Every time you go to church, you're confessing again to yourself, to your family, to the people you pass on the way there, to the people who will greet you there, that you don't have it all together. And that you need their support. You need their direction. You need some accountability, you need some help.”

Rich Mullins (1955–1997) American christian musician

Anderson, Indiana http://www.kidbrothers.net/words/concert-transcripts/anderson-indiana-nov1695.html (November 16, 1995)
In Concert

People , Family , Way , Home

“I love the drawing board because most of the work I do is of half scale, so I can have the complete car in front of me, whereas the CAD system limits you to the size of the screen.”

Adrian Newey (1958) British Formula One engineer

Interview, 2013 http://www.formula1.com/news/interviews/2013/11/15315.html

Love , Cars , Drawing

“Though I be a woman yet I have as good a courage answerable to my place as ever my father had. I am your anointed Queen. I will never be by violence constrained to do anything. I thank God I am endued with such qualities that if I were turned out of the Realm in my petticoat I were able to live in any place in Christendom.”

Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) Queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until 1603

Response to Parliament (October 1566).

God , Courage

“I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again.”

Stephen Grellet (1773–1855) American Quaker missionary

This, and variants of it, have been been widely circulated as a Quaker saying since at least 1869, and attributed to Grellet since at least 1893. W. Gurney Benham in Benham's Book of Quotations, Proverbs, and Household Words (1907) states that though sometimes attributed to others, "there seems to be some authority in favor of Stephen Grellet being the author, but the passage does not appear in any of his printed works." It appears to have been published as an anonymous proverb at least as early as 1859, when it appeared in Household Words : A Weekly Journal.
It has also often become attributed to the more famous Quaker William Penn, as well as others including Mahatma Gandhi and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Variants:
I expect to pass through this world but once. If, therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do any fellow human being let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I will not pass this way again.
Writing of an unnamed Quaker, as quoted in Scott's Monthly Magazine Vol. VII, No. 6 (June 1869, p. 475, edited by William J. Scott
I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow human being let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
As quoted anonymously in Hour by Hour; or, The Christian's Daily Life (1885), compiled by E.A.L., p. 37, and as "the old Quaker's words" in The Unitarian Vol. VI (July 1891); this version was given the title "Do It Now" in Heart Throbs: In Prose and Verse (1905) by Joe Mitchell Chapple.
I shall pass through this world but once! Any good thing, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now, in his name, and for his sake! Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
Anonymous quotation on a card, as quoted in The Friend, Vol. 61 (1888) by The Society of Friends, p. 364
I shall pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
Anonymous quotation on a card, as quoted in A Memorial of a True Life : A Biography of Hugh McAllister Beaver (1898) by Robert Elliott Speer, p. 169
I expect to pass through this world but once. If, therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do, to any fellow being let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
As quoted anonymously in The Lamp Vol. XXVI (February-July 1903)
Disputed

Positive , World , Way

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

Smedley D. Butler (1881–1940) United States Marine Corps General, 2 time Medal of Honor recipient and activist

War is a racket (1935)
Source: Common Sense, Vol. 4, No. 11 (November, 1935), p. 8. Quoted in 'I Might Have Given Al Capone a Few Hints' https://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/10/opinion/l-i-might-have-given-al-capone-a-few-hints-023587.html, The New York Times, September 10, 1987.

Way , Boy , Business , Light

“Every holy Mass, heard with devotion, produces in our souls marvelous effects, abundant spiritual and material graces which we, ourselves, do not know. It is easier for the earth to exist without the sun than without the holy Sacrifice of the Mass.”

Padre Pio (1887–1968) Italian saint, priest, stigmatist and mystic

Gerardo Di Flumeri, The Mystery of the Cross in Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, National Centre for Padre Pio, Barto, PA. p. 16.

Soul , Sun

“International communism would entirely do away with all national and racial qualities which are founded in human nature itself; in property it sees the most primary cause of the break-down of world trade in the capitalist system. Accordingly it exploits this through an extensive and carefully organised and brutal system of action, setting aside personal values and sacrificing the individual to a hollow mass-idol that is only a travesty of actual life itself. At the same time it ignores and destroys all the idealistic and higher strivings of men and nations, through its own crass and empty materialist principles. On the other hand, National Socialism sees in all these things—in property, in personal values and in nation and race and the principles of idealism—these forces which carry on every human civilisation and fundamentally determine its worth.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Speech at the Nazi party Congress at Nuremberg (September 1935) http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/goeb58.htm
1930s

Life , Men , World , Communication

“I certainly do speak Russian. You see, it was the fashionable language par excellence, much more than French, among the nobles of Zembla at least.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pale Fire

Pale Fire (1962)

Fashion

“In late June, my mother moved out of the Summit Town Homes and bought a house in West Hills. It was the first time my mother bought a house, as she had only rented in the past. The house had recently undergone a renovation, so it was practically brand new. The house had a swimming pool and was located in a nice enough area, though I would have still preferred it if my mother had gotten married to a wealthy man and moved into a mansion. I still continued to pester her to do this, and she still stubbornly refused. I will always resent my mother for refusing to do this. If not for her sake, she should have done it for mine. Joining a family of great wealth would have truly saved my life. I would have a high enough status to attract beautiful girlfriends and live above all of my enemies. All of my horrific troubles would have been eased instantly. It is very selfish of my mother to not consider this.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), 19-22, UC Santa Barbara, Perspective on incelness

Life , Family , Beauty , Home

“We communists know only one possession that is sacred — the life of the working man, the life of the worker, his wife and his children. That is the only possession which is sacred so far as we are concerned, and it gives us the right to do anything and everything.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Into the Fight Against Famine
6. The Kulaks - bulwark and hope of the counter-revolution
How the Revolution Armed (1923)

Life , Children

“It's not a bad idea to call this Cthulhuism & Yog-Sothothery of mine "The Mythology of Hastur"—although it was really from Machen & Dunsany & others, rather than through the Bierce-Chambers line, that I picked up my gradually developing hash of theogony—or daimonogony. Come to think of it, I guess I sling this stuff more as Chambers does than as Machen & Dunsany do—though I had written a good deal of it before I ever suspected that Chambers ever wrote a weird story!”

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

Letter to August Derleth (16 May 1931), responding to Derleth's suggestion that he call the interconnected mythology of his stories (what would later be known as the Cthulhu Mythos) "The Mythology of Hastur", quoted in "H.P. Lovecraft, a Life" by S.T. Joshi, p. 505
Non-Fiction, Letters, to August Derleth

Idea , Thinking

“It will be a great day for America, incidentally, when we begin to eat bread again, instead of the blasphemous and tasteless foam rubber that we have substituted for it. And I am not being frivolous here, either. Something very sinister happens to the people of a country when they begin to distrust their own reactions as deeply as they do here, and become as joyless as they have become.”

James Baldwin book The Fire Next Time

The Fire Next Time (1963)

People , Country

“On his career: "I admit I've done a few lousy roles in the beginning of my career, like my role in Critters 3 (1991). But at that age, you'll do anything for attention!”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.flixster.com/actor/leonardo-di-caprio/leonardo-dicaprio-quotes

Age

“As for the general idea of what one would do if certain of death in an hour—I fancy most persons in normal health tend to sentimentalise and romanticise a bit about it. For my part—as a realist beyond the age of theatricalism and naive beliefs—I feel quite certain that my own known last hour would be spent quite prosaically in writing instructions for the disposition of certain books, manuscripts, heirlooms, and other possessions. Such a task would—in view of the mental stress—take at least an hour—and it would be the most useful thing I could do before dropping off into oblivion. If I did finish ahead of time, I'd probably spend the residual minutes getting a last look at something closely associated with my earliest memories—a picture, a library table, an 1895 Farmer's Almanack, a small music-box I used to play with at 2 ½, or some kindred symbol—completing a psychological circle in a spirit half of humour and half of whimsical sentimentality. Then—nothingness, as before Aug. 20, 1890.”

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

Letter to a round-robin letter-writing group called "the Coryciani" (14 July 1936), quoted in Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters edited by S.T. Joshi, p. 339
Non-Fiction, Letters

Death , Health , Books , Age

“In Jeet Kune Do, it’s not how much you have learned, but how much you have absorbed from what you have learned. It is not how much fixed knowledge you can accumulate, but what you can apply livingly that counts. ‘Being’ is more valued than "doing."”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Source: The Warrior Within : The Philosophies of Bruce Lee (1996), p. 117

Knowledge , Learning

“You say, as I have often given tongue
In praise of what another's said or sung,
'Twere politic to do the like by these;
But was there ever a dog that praised his fleas?”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

To A Poet, Who Would Have Me Praise Certain Bad Poets, Imitators of His and Mine http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1724/
The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)

Dogs

“I simply want tomorrow to be better than today. I want Palestine to be independent and sovereign… Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”

Mahmoud Abbas (1935) Palestinian statesman

Address to the UN General Assembly (21 September 2006), quoted in BBC News (22 September 2006) " Hamas rejects Abbas unity pledge http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5370628.stm

“Civil society organisations make a major contribution to human development, particularly when democracies are failing, or have failed; for it is then that the institutions of civil society can, and often do, carry an added burden to help sustain improvements in quality of life. I believe strongly that a critical part of any development strategy should include support for civil society. I know that Norway supports this approach and works actively with its own civil society organizations to build capacity in the developing world.”

Aga Khan IV (1936) 49th and current Imam of Nizari Ismailism

In a speech on Democratic Development, Pluralism and Civil Society delivered at the Nobel Institute, Oslo, Norway (7 April 2005). http://www.akdn.org/speech/nobel-institute-oslo

Life , World , Democracy , Support

“Authoritarian, paralyzing, circular, occasionally elliptical, stock phrases, also jocularly referred to as nuggets of wisdom, are malignant plague, one of the very worst ever to ravage the earth. We say to the confused, Know thyself, as if knowing yourself was not the fifth and most difficult of human arithmetical operations, we say to the apathetic, Where there’s a will, there’s a way, as if the brute realities of the world did not amuse themselves each day by turning that phrase on its head, we say to the indecisive, Begin at the beginning, as if that beginning were the clearly visible point of a loosely wound thread and that all we had to do was to keep pulling until we reached the other end, and as if, between the former and the latter, we had held in our hands a smooth, continuous thread with no knots to untie, no snarled to untangle, a complete impossibility in the life of a skien, or indeed, if we may be permitted on more stock phrase, in the skien of life. … These are the delusions of the pure and unprepared, the beginning is never the clear, precise end of a thread, the beginning is a long, painfully slow process that requires time and patience in order to find out in which direction it is heading, a process that feels its way along the path ahead like a blind man the beginning is just the beginning, what came before is nigh on worthless.”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 54 (Vintage 2003)

Life , Wisdom , World , Way

“In my memoir, I wanted to introduce American women to Iranian women and our lives. I'm not from the highest echelons of society, nor the lowest. I'm a women who is a lawyer, who is a professor at a university, who won the Nobel Peace Prize. At the same time, I cook. And even when I'm about to go to prison, one of the first things I do is to make enough food and put it in the fridge for my family.”

Shirin Ebadi (1947) Iranian lawyer, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

From 2006 interview with Ebadi by New America Media editor Brian Shott (translator, Banafsheh Keynoush) about her newly released book, Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope.
New America Media, 2006. http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=8ad8e36442c10ef7fc33f0c8e70c08d8 (retrieved Oct. 15, 2008)

Women , Family , Peace , Food

“[I]f we should find about us only bodies as hot as our furnaces, how can we condense steam? What should we do with it if once produced?”

Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot (1796–1832) French physicist, the "father of thermodynamics" (1796–1832)

p, 125
Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat (1824)

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

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

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

Hate , Thinking , Personality

“We would do a disservice to those warriors of justice -- Tubman, and Douglass, and Lincoln, and King -- were we to deny that the scars of our nation’s original sin are still with us today. We condemn ourselves to shackles once more if we fail to answer those who wonder if they’re truly equals in their communities, or in their justice systems, or in a job interview. We betray the efforts of the past if we fail to push back against bigotry in all its forms.”

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

2015, Commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the 13th Amendment (December 2015)

Justice , Communication , Effort , Past

“What world lies beyond that stormy sea I do not know, but every ocean has a distant shore, and I shall reach it.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

World , Distant , Sea

“Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit: That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States.”

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

1860s, Emancipation Proclamation (1863)

People , Faith , Effort , Freedom

“There should be a notice ahead of the movie that says 'This movie is PG. Can you read? You are a Parent. Do you understand what Guidance is? Or are you just another stupid toddler who thinks they're an adult simply because they've grown older and, unfortunately, have developed fully-functioning sexual organs? Would you like some committee somewhere to decide *everything* for you? Get a damn grip, will you? And shut the wretched kid up!”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

alt.fan.pratchett (10 July 2001) http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=uu9i54Ab2rS7EACj%40unseen.demon.co.uk
Usenet

Stupidity , Understanding , Thinking , Parent

“Enjoin him to play so many hours every day, and look that he do it; and you shall see he will quickly be sick of it; and willing to leave it. By this means making the recreations you dislike a business to him, he will of himself with delight betake himself to those things you would have him do, especially if they be proposed as rewards for having performed the task in that play which is commanded of him.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 129
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Business

“O' my Allah! Sustainer of the high sky and the suspended firmament which Thou hast made a shelter for the night and the day, an orbit for the sun and the moon and a path for the rotating stars, and for populating it Thou hast created a group of Thy angels who do not get weary of worshipping Thee. O' Sustainer of this earth which Thou hast made an abode for people and a place for the movement of insects and beasts and countless other creatures seen and unseen. O' Sustainer of strong mountains which Thou hast made as pegs for the earth and (a means of) support for people. If Thou givest us victory over our enemy, save us from excesses and keep us on the straight path of truth. But if Thou givest them victory over us, then grant us martyrdom and save us from mischief.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

People , Truth , Angels , Mountain

“[Unlike the] utilitarian… I judge pleasure and pain to be of small importance compared to knowledge, the appreciation and contemplation of beauty, and a certain intrinsic excellence of mind which, apart from its practical effects, appears to me to deserve the name of virtue. [For] many years it seemed to me perfectly self-evident that pleasure is the only good and pain the only evil. Now, however, the opposite seems to me self-evident.
What first turned me away from utilitarianism was the persuasion that I myself ought to pursue philosophy, although I had (and have still) no doubt that by doing economics and the theory of politics I could add more to human happiness. It appeared to me that the dignity of which human existence is capable is not attainable by devotion to the mechanism of life, and that unless the contemplation of eternal things is preserved, mankind will become no better than well-fed pigs. But I do not believe that such contemplation on the whole tends to happiness. It gives moments of delight, but these are outweighed by years of effort and depression.”

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

Letter to Gilbert Murray, April 3, 1902
1900s

Life , Pain , Pleasure , Beauty

“Since He is the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus has been made Head of the Church, and the faithful are His members. Wherefore He says: "For them I hallow Myself" (John 17:19). But when He says, "For them I hallow Myself," what else can He mean but this: "I sanctify them in Myself, since truly they are Myself"? For, as I have remarked, they of whom He speaks are His members, and the Head of the body are one Christ. … That He signifies this unity is certain from the remainder of the same verse. For having said, "For them I hallow Myself," He immediately adds, "in order that they too may be hallowed in truth," to show that He refers to the holiness that we are to receive in Him. Now the words "in truth" can only mean "in Me," since Truth is the Word who in the beginning was God.
The Son of man was Himself sanctified in the Word as the moment of His creation, when the Word was made flesh, for Word and man became one Person. It was therefore in that instant that He hallowed Himself in Himself; that is, He hallowed Himself as man, in Himself as the Word. For there is but one Christ, Word and man, sanctifying the man in the Word.
But now it is on behalf of His members that He adds: "and for them I hallow Myself." That is to say, that since they too are Myself, so they too may profit by this sanctification just as I profited by it as man without them. "And for them I hallow Myself"; that is, I sanctify them in Myself as Myself, since in Me they too are Myself. "In order that they too may be hallowed in truth." What do the words "they too" mean, if not that thy may be sanctified as I am sanctified; that is to say, "in truth," which is I Myself?”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Quia et ipsi sunt ego. "Since they too are myself"
Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, pp. 431-432

Men , God , Truth , Faith

“We must not indulge in unfavourable views of mankind, since by doing it we make bad men believe that they are no worse than others, and we teach the good that they are good in vain.”

Walter Savage Landor Imaginary Conversations

"Barrow and Newton".
Imaginary Conversations (1824-1829)

Men

“There's an insistence that the Being that's spoken into being through Truth is Good. This is the most profound ever. It is also the most believable idea ever. What cures in therapy is Truth. Of course, you must encounter the things that you're afraid of, but this is enacted Truth, because if you know that there's something you need to do by your own set of rules and you're avoiding it, then you're enacting a lie. You're not speaking the lie, but you're enacting it, and that's the same thing: untruth. If you can confront If I can get you to face what it is that you know you shouldn't be avoiding, then what's happening is that we're both partaking in the process of you attempting to act out your deepest truth. That improves people's lives radically. The clinical evidence for that is overwhelming. We know that if you expose people to the things that they're afraid of and are avoiding, they get better. You have to do it carefully, cautiously, and with their approval and participation. Of all the things that clinicians have established that's credible, that's #1. It's redemptive insofar as both people are telling the truth. The difference between deception and repression is very small. People can handle earthquakes and cancer and even death, but they can't handle deception. They can't handle the rug being pulled out from underneath them by people who they love and trust. This does them in. It makes them ill, it hurts them psycho-physiologically, and worse than that it makes them cynical, bitter, vicious, and resentful. And then they also start to act all that out in the world, and that makes it worse.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

Love , Death , People , Truth

“Whether, then, all ought not immediately to discontinue and renounce it, with grief and abhorrence? Should not every society bear testimony against it, and account obstinate persisters in it bad men, enemies to their country, and exclude them from fellowship; as they often do for much lesser faults?”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1770s, African Slavery in America (March 1775)

Men , Country

“Why do we never expect dull people to be rascals?”

Mason Cooley (1927–2002) American academic

City Aphorisms, Thirteenth Selection (1994)

People

“We do not owe our morals to our intelligence: we owe them to the fact that some groups uncomprehendingly accepted certain rules of conduct — the rules of private property, of honesty, and of the family — that enabled the groups practising them to prosper, multiply, and gradually to displace the others.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

1980s and later, Knowledge, Evolution and Society (1983), "Coping with Ignorance", "Our Moral Heritage"

Family , Intelligence

“The more extensive an author's knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do.”

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

Isaac D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature.
Misattributed, Isaac D'Israeli

Knowledge

“Let us… be careful of admitting into our souls the notion that there is no truth or health or soundness in any arguments at all; but let us rather say that there is as yet no health in us, and that we must quit ourselves like men and do our best to gain health—you and all other men with a view to the whole of your future life, and I myself with a view to death.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Life , Death , Men , Health

“My interests drew me in different directions. On the one hand I was powerfully attracted by science, with its truths based on facts; on the other hand I was fascinated by everything to do with comparative religion. […] In science I missed the factor of meaning; and in religion, that of empiricism.”

C.G. Jung book Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963), p. 72

Truth , Religion , Science

“If a woman becomes weary and at last dead from bearing, that matters not; let her only die from bearing, she is there to do it.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Sermon Von dem ehelichen Stande (1519), p. 41 — as quoted in The Ethic of Freethought: A Selection of Essays and Lectures (1888) by Karl Pearson, "The Sex-Relations in Germany", p. 424
The quote actually comes from Von dem eelichen Leben (1522). It can be seen in an original edition here https://books.google.com/books?id=YGZcAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP28, in a 19th century reissue here https://books.google.com/books?id=wJEKAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA538, and in English translation (as " On the Estate of Marriage https://books.google.com/books?id=KFU0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA33") here https://books.google.com/books?id=KFU0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA74.

Dead

“Everyone must destroy their life. According to the way they do it, they're either triumphants or failures.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

The Book of Delusions (1936)

Life , Way , Failure

“The children face problems such as violence, abuse, suicide etc. that medicine can not heal. It will never help these children psychologically and be his support …? Even when they are in difficulty, in principle they do not speak with adults, or confide about their true intentions. However, expect some serious messages from adults. I will continue to send messages through manga. Children avoid them what force or what they want to impose anything. That is why I will continue to look for those things that […] inspire their hearts.”

Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989) Japanese cartoonist and animator

From the intervention to the fifteenth national conference on school health and safety in schools , 1987; quoted in AA.VV., Osamu Tezuka: A Manga Biography , vol. 2, translated by Marta Fogato, Coconino Press, Bologna, 2001, p. 79. ISBN 8888063072

Children , Confidence , Support , Problem

“Our relation with the animals finds its expression especially in the amazing variety of benefits they provide for us in their guidance, protection, and companionship. Beyond these modes of assistance, they provide a world of wonder and meaning for the mind—beauty for the imagination. Even beyond all these, they provide an emotional intimacy that is unique, that can come to us from no other source. The animals can do for us, both physically and spiritually, what we cannot do for ourselves or for each other. These more precious gifts they provide through their presence and their responsiveness to our inner needs.”

Thomas Berry (1914–2009) American priest

Source: Evening Thoughts, Chapter 3, p. 39

World , Beauty , Imagination , Animals

“If one takes pleasure in calling the gold standard a "barbarous relic," one cannot object to the application of the same term to every historically determined institution. Then the fact that the British speak English — and not Danish, German, or French — is a barbarous relic too, and every Briton who opposes the substitution of Esperanto for English is no less dogmatic and orthodox than those who do not wax rapturous about the plans for a managed currency.”

Ludwig von Mises book Human Action

The Gold Standard http://mises.org/daily/4153 - LvMI, excerpt from chapter 17 of Human Action
Human Action (1949)

Pleasure

“Cubism is no different from any other school of painting. The same principles and the same elements are common to all. The fact that for a long time cubism has not been understood and that even today there are people who cannot see anything in it, means nothing. I do not read English, and an English book is a blank to me. This does not mean that the English language does not exist, and why should I blame anyone but myself if I cannot understand what I know nothing about?”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Source: 1920s, "Picasso Speaks" (1923), p. 319.

People , Books , School , Understanding

“I do not believe it is in our nature to love impartially. We deceive ourselves when we think we can love two beings, even our own children, equally. There is always a dominant affection.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Love , Children , Nature , Thinking

“And also to the alien, who is not of Thy people Israel, but comes from a distant land on account of Thy fame; for hearing of Thy great name and Thy strong hand, and Thine outstretched arm, he comes to this house to pray… do Thou listen in the heavens, the place where Thou dwellest, and perform all that the alien begs of Thee, so that all the peoples of the earth may know Thy name, to fear Thee like Thine own people Israel, and to know that Thy name is proclaimed over this house that I have built.”

Solomon (-990–-931 BC) king of Israel and the son of David

I Kings 8:41-43 on the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem

People , Fear , Strong , Distant

“I do not merely assert that the ideal orator should be a good man, but I affirm that no man can be an orator unless he is a good man. For it is impossible to regard those men as gifted with intelligence who on being offered the choice between the two paths of virtue and of vice choose the latter, nor can we allow them prudence, when by the unforeseen issue of their own actions they render themselves liable not merely to the heaviest penalties of the laws, but to the inevitable torment of an evil conscience.”
Neque enim tantum id dico, eum qui sit orator virum bonum esse oportere, sed ne futurum quidem oratorem nisi virum bonum. Nam certe neque intellegentiam concesseris iis qui proposita honestorum ac turpium via peiorem sequi malent, neque prudentiam, cum in gravissimas frequenter legum, semper vero malae conscientiae poenas a semet ipsis inproviso rerum exitu induantur.

Quintilian (35–96) ancient Roman rhetor

Book XII, Chapter I, 3; translation by H. E. Butler
De Institutione Oratoria (c. 95 AD)

Men , Law , Penalty , Intelligence

“Will tomorrow ever come? This depends upon the purposes, aims, desires, hopes and fears! Does the body desire to get well? Is God in his Heaven? Are the lives and activities of those ye touch helped through the spreading of His work? Do you need to get well? These are all answered in self. He withholds no good thing from those who serve Him. Let ALL remember that, believe it, know it! For it IS the truth! Each illness, each disturbance is sin at thy door! The Edgar Cayce Remedies, p. 254”

Edgar Cayce (1877–1945) Purported clairvoyant healer and psychic

Cayce answered this to the question Will I ever get well?

God , Truth , Fear , Hope

“Out of the unconscious you get ritual, dreams, drama, story, art, music, and that sort of buffers us. We have our little domain of competence, and we're buffered by the domain of fantasy and culture. That's really what you learn about when you come to university if you're lucky and the professors are smart enough to actually teach you something about culture instead of constantly telling you that it's completely reprehensible and that it should be destroyed. Why you would prefer chaos to order is beyond me. The only possible reason is that you haven't read enough history to understand exactly what chaos means. And believe me, if you knew what chaos means, you'd be pretty goddamn careful about tearing down the temple that you live in, unless you want to be a denizen of chaos. And some people do. That's when the impulses you harbor can really come out and shine. And so a little gratitude is in order, and that makes you appreciative of the wise king while being smart enough to know that he's also an evil tyrant. That's a total conception of the world. It's balanced. Yah, we should preserve nature, but it IS trying to kill us. YES our culture is tyrannical and oppresses people, but it IS protecting us from dying. And YES we're reasonably good people, but don't take that theory too far until you've tested yourself. That's wisdom, at least in part, and that's what these stories try to teach you.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Wisdom , People , World , Dreams

“Teach us that wealth is not elegance; that profusion is not magnificence; and that splendour is not beauty. Teach us that taste is a talisman which can do greater wonders than the millions of the loanmonger. Teach us that to vie is not to rival, and to imitate not to invent. Teach us that pretension is a bore. Teach us that wit is excessively good-natured, and, like champagne, not only sparkles, but is sweet. Teach us the vulgarity of malignity. Teach us that envy spoils our complexions, and that anxiety destroys our figure.”

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

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), The Young Duke (1831), Chapter 10.

Beauty , Nature , Envy , Wealth

“The Faith you mention has doubtless its use in the World. I do not desire to see it diminished, nor would I endeavour to lessen it in any Man. But I wish it were more productive of good Works, than I have generally seen it: I mean real good Works, Works of Kindness, Charity, Mercy, and Publick Spirit; not Holiday-keeping, Sermon-Reading or Hearing; performing Church Ceremonies, or making long Prayers, filled with Flatteries and Compliments, despis’d even by wise Men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity. The worship of God is a Duty; the hearing and reading of Sermons may be useful; but, if Men rest in Hearing and Praying, as too many do, it is as if a Tree should Value itself on being water’d and putting forth Leaves, tho’ it never produc’d any Fruit.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Letter to Joseph Huey (6 June 1753); published in Albert Henry Smyth, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, volume 3, p. 145.
Epistles

Men , God , World , Faith

“The economic transmission of power without wires is of all-surpassing importance to man. By its means he will gain complete mastery of the air, the sea and the desert. It will enable him to dispense with the necessity of mining, pumping, transporting and burning fuel, and so do away with innumerable causes of sinful waste. By its means, he will obtain at any place and in any desired amount, the energy of remote waterfalls — to drive his machinery, to construct his canals, tunnels and highways, to manufacture the materials of his want, his clothing and food, to heat and light his home — year in, year out, ever and ever, by day and by night. It will make the living glorious sun his obedient, toiling slave. It will bring peace and harmony on earth.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

A Means for Furthering Peace (1905)

Peace , Food , Home , Light

“"Do you think it was a coincidence?"
"Do I think what was a coincidence?"
"That we wound up in Pandemonium the same night that Jace and the others just happened to be there, pursuing a demon? The night before Valentine came for my mother?"
Simon shook his head. "I don't believe in coincidences."
"Neither do I."
"But I have to admit, coincidence or not, it turned out to be a fortuitous occurrence."”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Clary and Simon, pg. 474
The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Thinking , Night

“Everything I loved had been dead for two centuries—or, as in the case of Graeco-Roman classicism, for two milenniums. I am never a part of anything around me—in everything I am an outsider. Should I find it possible to crawl backward through the Halls of Time to that age which is nearest my own fancy, I should doubtless be bawled out of the coffee-houses for heresy in religion, or else lampooned by John Dennis till I found refuge in the deep, silent Thames, that covers many another unfortunate. Yes, I seem to be a decided pessimist!—But pray do not think, gentlemen, that I am utterly forlorn and misanthropick creature. … Despite my solitary life, I have found infinite joy in books and writing, and am by far too much interested in the affairs of the world to quit the scene before Nature shall claim me. Though not a participant in the Business of life; I am, like the character of Addison and Steele, an impartial (or more or less impartial) Spectator, who finds not a little recreation in watching the antics of those strange and puny puppets called men. A sense of humour has helped me to endure existence; in fact, when all else fails, I never fail to extract a sarcastic smile from the contemplation of my own empty and egotistical career!”

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

Letter to "The Keicomolo"—Kleiner, Cole, and Moe (October 1916), in Selected Letters I, 1911-1924 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 27
Non-Fiction, Letters

Love , Life , Men , Books

“Tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do!”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

"Saul", xviii.
Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845)

“An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. The Christian holds that we can know there is a God; the atheist, that we can know there is not. The Agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. At the same time, an Agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold it so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice. In that case, he is not far removed from atheism. His attitude may be that which a careful philosopher would have towards the gods of ancient Greece. If I were asked to prove that Zeus and Poseidon and Hera and the rest of the Olympians do not exist, I should be at a loss to find conclusive arguments. An Agnostic may think the Christian God as improbable as the Olympians; in that case, he is, for practical purposes, at one with the atheists.”

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

What is an Agnostic? (1953)
1950s

God , Thinking , Loss , Time

“The good citizen is the man who, whatever his wealth or his poverty, strives manfully to do his duty to himself, to his family, to his neighbor, to the States; who is incapable of the baseness which manifests itself either in arrogance or in envy, but who while demanding justice for himself is no less scrupulous to do justice to others.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, A Square Deal (1903)

Family , Justice , Envy , Wealth

“I get 0.5 seconds to react to a ball, sometimes even less than that. I can't be thinking of what XYZ has said about me. I need to surrender myself to my natural instincts. My subconscious mind knows exactly what to do. It is trained to react. At home, my family doesn't discuss media coverage.”

Sachin Tendulkar (1973) A former Indian cricketer from India and one of the greatest cricketers ever seen in the world

Family , Home , Nature , Thinking

“What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.”
Quid est ergo tempus? Si nemo ex me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio.

Aurelius Augustinus book Confessions

XI, 14
Confessions (c. 397)

Time

“No opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

"Notes on Music and Opera", p. 472
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

People , Feeling , Singing

“Do not unjustly eat fish the water has given up,

And do not desire as food the flesh of slaughtered animals,

Or the white milk of mothers who intended its pure draught
for their young, not noble ladies.
And do not grieve the unsuspecting birds by taking eggs;
for injustice is the worst of crimes.
And spare the honey which the bees get industriously
from the flowers of fragrant plants;
For they did not store it that it might belong to others,
Nor did they gather it for bounty and gifts.
I washed my hands of all this; and wish that I
Perceived my way before my hair went gray!”

Al-Maʿarri (973–1057) Medieval Arab philosopher

As quoted in "The Meditations of Al-Maʿarri", Studies in Islamic Poetry (1921) by R. A. Nicholson, Verse 197, pp. 134–135

Food , Way , Flowers , Bird

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

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

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

World , Question , Time