Quotes about down
page 52

“Life is made up of a series of judgments on insufficient data, and if we waited to run down all our doubts, it would flow past us.”

Learned Hand (1872–1961) American legal scholar, Court of Appeals judge

"On Receiving an Honorary Degree" (1939).
Extra-judicial writings

Life, Waiting, Past

“I am sorry for everything here. These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid, that they have no idea how to live. We don't even care when we hear each other talk about running their children down in the dirt streets with our armored trucks.”

Bowe Bergdahl (1986) American soldier captured by the Taliban in 2009 and released in 2014 as part of a prisoner swap

Last e-mail to parents (2009)

Children, People, Stupidity, World

“Why, of all places in Johannesburg, the Indian location should be chosen for dumping down all kaffirs of the town, passes my comprehension. Of course, under my suggestion, the Town Council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location. About this mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians I must confess I feel most strongly. I think it is very unfair to the Indian population, and it is an undue tax on even the proverbial patience of my countrymen.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Letter to Dr. Porter, Medical Officer of Health for Johannesburg (15 February 1905); later published in The Indian Opinion.
1900s

Feeling, Thinking, Patience

“We have other things to get over besides the occupation and discrimination. We are fighters and don't give in. If you don't open the door for me, I will come in through the window, and if it is closed, down the chimney. We were too polite, but we learned Israeli chutzpah. It's easy to humiliate an Arab who kowtows, but when that person says 'Listen, pal, tone it down, don't talk to me like that,' you arrive at a dialogue.”

Lucy Aharish (1981) Arab-Israeli journalist

Source: [Halutz, Doron, A generation of Israeli Arabs nurtured on Jewish chutzpah, http://www.haaretz.com/a-generation-of-israeli-arabs-nurtured-on-jewish-chutzpah-1.279267, 5 April 2011, Haaretz, 3 July 2009, That strategy seems to be working. Aharish is a reporter on Good Evening, a program about the entertainment industry hosted by the veteran Guy Pines; the anchor of the children's news program on Channel 1 (state television); and twice a week she also anchors the morning show of the Tel Aviv-based Radio 99, alongside Emanuel Rosen and Maya Bengal.]

Learning, Personality

“I felt like Sojourner Truth was pushing down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman was pushing down on the other, saying, 'Sit down girl!”

Claudette Colvin (1939) African-American civil rights movement leader

I was glued to my seat. Claudette Colvin https://www.biography.com/people/claudette-colvin-11378 at biograph.com, accessed 27 July 2018

Truth, Girl

“Men are idolaters, and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw themselves down before; they always did, they always will; and if you don't make it of wood, you must make it of words…”

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician

Source: The Poet at the Breakfast Table (1872), p. 266 The Writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vol. 3 (1892)

Men, Kiss

“We are permitted to ride, providing we sit in a position ruinous to the horse; providing we wear a riding-habit long enough to hide the obscene human foot, weighed down by ten pounds of gravel to cheat the wind in its free blowing, so running the risk of disabling ourselves completely should accident throw us from the saddle. Think how we swim! We must even wear clothing in the water, and run the gauntlet of derision, if we dare battle in the surf minus stockings!”

Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) American anarchist writer and feminist

Sex Slavery (1890)

Thinking, Water, Horse, Cheating

“Women who are daily beaten down, mentally, physically, and spiritually-women who are powerless to change their condition in life. They are a silent majority. A mark of their victimization is that they accept their lot in life without visible question, without organized protest, without collective anger or rage.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

p. 1 https://books.google.com/books?id=uvIQbop4cdsC&pg=PA1. (1984), Chapter 1: Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory

Life, Women, Question, Rage

“Artists have, for the most part, bound themselves down to follow a blind routine. Noble exceptions, however, have presented themselves. Nicholas Poussin, one of the most profound thinkers, whom the arts have produced, took care to correct and regulate by the antique the proportions which Leon Baptista Alberti and Albert Durer had given from the living model.”

Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist

Preface of M. Quetelet
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

Art, Parting

“It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

Inscribed on the Robert F. Kennedy gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery
Day of Affirmation Address (1966)

Hope, History, Courage, Time

“In the same manner therefore as we have laid it down that the Sun holds the supremacy in the Intelligible world, having round about his own being, in one species, a vast multitude of gods (supposing him to have the same in the Sensible world), all of which move along their everlasting and most felicitous course in a circle, so do we prove him to be Leader and Lord, imparting to and filling the whole heaven, as he does, with his own splendour, likewise with infinite other blessings that be invisible to us: whilst the benefits commenced by the other deities are brought to perfection by him; nay, more, before this, these gods themselves were rendered perfect through his spontaneous and divine operation.”

Julian (emperor) (331–363) Roman Emperor, philosopher and writer

Upon the Sovereign Sun (362)

God, World, Intelligence, Sun

“Letterman: "Oh, stop it! Will you stop? Ladies and gentlemen, turn down your volume. Turn down the volume immediately! She can't be stopped! There's something wrong with her!"”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

On The Late Show with David Letterman (1994)

“We have looked first at man with his vanities and greed and his problems of a day or a year; and then only, and from this biased point of view, we have looked outward at the earth he has inhabited so briefly and at the universe in which our earth is so minute a part. Yet these are the great realities, and against them we see our human problems in a different perspective. Perhaps if we reversed the telescope and looked at man down these long vistas, we should find less time and inclination to plan for our own destruction.”

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist

Acceptance speech of the National Book Award for Nonfiction (1952); also in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1999) edited by Linda Lear, p. 91

Problem, Reality, Universe, Time

“They successfully combined piracy and puritanism, which aren't so unlike when you come right down to it. Both had a strong dislike for opposition and both had a roving eye for other people's property.”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part One, Chapter III

People, Strong

“DOBSON: Yes, there has been down through the years, but I don't think that's the predominant factor. I mean, if you look at the teachings of Christ, the centerpiece is love. That's been the essence of what He has thought.”

James Dobson (1936) Evangelical Christian psychologist, author, and radio broadcaster.

2002

Love, Thinking, Christ

“After the Spaniards settled the Southwest, the Navajo began another burst of cultural borrowing—or, more actually, stealing. Spanish ranches and villages were so depleted of horses—not to mention sheep—that by 1775 the Spaniards had to send to Europe for 1,500 additional horses. After the Pueblo Rebellion against the Spaniards was put down in 1692, many Pueblo took refuge with their Navajo neighbors—and taught them how to weave blankets, a skill for which the Navajo are still noted, and to make pottery. During this time the Navajo probably absorbed many Pueblo religious and social ideas and customs as well, such as ceremonial paraphernalia and possibly the Pueblo class system.”

Peter Farb (1929–1980) American academic and writer

Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)

Idea, Time, Horse

“In the early days of the crash it was widely believed that Jesse L. Livermore, a Bostonian with a large and unquestionably exaggerated reputation for bear operations, leading asyndicate that was driving the market down.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Great Crash, 1929

Source: The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929), Chapter VIII, Aftermath I, Section III, p. 141

“We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, someway or another, and some in South Korea too.… Over a period of three years or so, we killed off — what — twenty percent of the population of Korea as direct casualties of war, or from starvation and exposure?”

Curtis LeMay (1906–1990) American general and politician

Strategic Air Warfare: An Interview with Generals (1988), p. 88.

War

“Don't say that he's hypocritical,
Say rather that he's apolitical.
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun.”

Tom Lehrer (1928) American singer-songwriter and mathematician

"Wernher Von Braun"
That Was the Year That Was (1965)

“There are… many… names for winds derived from localities or from the squalls which sweep from rivers or down mountains.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book I, Chapter VI, Sec. 10

Mountain

“A mine was dug, and in two or three days the walls fell down, and the fort of Multan was taken. Six thousand warriors were put to death, and all their relations and dependents were taken as slaves. Protection was given to the merchants, artisans and the agriculturists. Muhammad Kasim said the booty ought to be sent to the treasury of the Khalifa; but as the soldiers have taken so much pains, have suffered so many hardships, have hazarded their lives, and have been so long a time employed in digging the mine and carrying on the war, and as the fort is now taken, it is proper that the booty should be divided, and their dues given to the soldiers. Then all the great and principal inhabitants of the city assembled together, and silver to the weight of sixty thousand dirams was distributed and every horseman got a share of four hundred dirams weight. After this, Muhammad Kasim said that some plan should be devised for realizing the money to be sent to the Khalifa. He was pondering over this, when suddenly a Brahman came and said, 'Heathenism is now at an end, the temples are thrown down, the world has received the light of Islam, and mosques are built instead of idol temples. I have heard from the elders of Multan that in ancient times there was a chief in this city whose name was Jibawin, and who was a descendent of the Rai of Kashmir. He was a Brahman and a monk, he strictly followed his religion, and always occupied his time in worshipping idols. When his treasures exceeded all limits and computation, he made a reservoir on the eastern side of Multan, which was hundred yards square. In the middle of it he built a temple fifty yards square, and he made a chamber in which he concealed forty copper jars each of which was filled with African gold dust. A treasure of three hundred and thirty mans of gold was buried there. Over it there is an idol made of red gold, and trees are planted round the reservoir.'… It is related by historians, on the authority of… Ali bin Muhammad who had heard it from Abu Muhammad Hindui that Muhammad Kasim arose and with his counsellors, guards and attendants, went to the temple. He saw there an idol made of gold, and its two eye were bright red rubies… Muhammad Kasim ordered the idol to be taken up. Two hundred and thirty mans of gold were obtained, and forty jars filled with gold dust… This gold and the image were brought to treasury together with the gems and pearls and treasures which were obtained from the plunder of Multan.”

Muhammad bin Qasim (695–715) Umayyad general

Multan (Punjab) . The Chach Nama, in: Elliot and Dowson, Vol. I : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 205-06.
Quotes from The Chach Nama

Death, Money, Pain, War

“If we in this movement are going to ask the decent, silent majority of Muslim men - and women - to have the courage to face down the extremist bullies, then we need to have the courage and character to stand shoulder to shoulder with them doing it.”

John Reid, Baron Reid of Cardowan (1947) British politician

Speech to the Labour Party conference in Manchester, 28 September 2006. BBC News 28 September 2006 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5388112.stm

Women, Men, Courage

“But the thing about getting rejected is that you reflect and think and analyze about why you got turned down. You learn a lot more from stories about getting rejected than stories about becoming happy.”

Makoto Shinkai (1973) Japanese anime director and former graphic designer

Interviewed on Anime Diet http://animediet.net/conventions/the-garden-of-thoughts-an-interview-with-makoto-shinkai About The Garden of Words

Happiness, Thinking, Learning

“Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time, and ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down — they are truly down.”

Joseph McCarthy (1908–1957) Wisconsin politician

Speech in Wheeling, West Virginia (9 February 1950), as quoted at History Matters http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6456

Communication, Time

“They are unfettered by precedent in the administration of justice. Customs have been handed down by ages of repetition, but the punishment for ignoring a custom is a matter for individual treatment by a jury of the culprit’s peers, and I may say that justice seldom misses fire, but seems rather to rule in inverse ratio to the ascendency of law. In one respect at least the Martians are a happy people; they have no lawyers.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book A Princess of Mars

Source: A Princess of Mars (1917), Chapter 9

Happiness, People, Age, Justice

“99,9% of men are convinced that they have to live silently, with a bitter irony of the twist of fate, that means, nobody knows they're really a spy. And an amazing guitarist. Men give serious time and thought on "How would I deal with, if the rocket came down of that alley right now? Yeah, I'd handle that situation pretty well!" A spy who plays guitar at night! I basically think, you know, I'm what would have happened if James Dean had lived and discovered carbohydrates and orthopaedic shoes. You have to tell yourself this bullshit just to keep going! Cause you're constantly being reminded how redundant you are!”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

On men.
What It Is (2009)

Men, Fate, Shoe, Thinking

“There never has been, and till we see it we never shall believe that there can be, a system of geometry worthy of the name, which has any material departures (we do not speak of corrections or extensions or developments) from the plan laid down by Euclid.”

Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871) British mathematician, philosopher and university teacher (1806-1871)

"Short Supplementary Remarks on the First Six Books of Euclid's Elements" (Oct, 1848) Companion to the Almanac for 1849 as quoted by Sir Thomas Little Heath, The Thirteen Books of Euclid's Elements Vol.1 https://books.google.com/books?id=UhgPAAAAIAAJ, Introduction and Books I, II. Preface, p. v.

Departure

“Then what you find out is, what humans then do is, they create institutions - that's where institutionalism has a tie with Post Keynesianism - they create institutions which limit outcomes, which permit you to control outcomes as long as the society agrees to live by the rules of the game, which are the rules of the institutions. Now, if society rejects those rules, then society breaks down. What are the rules of the game? Well, money is a rule of the economic game. There are lots of human economic arrangements which don't use money. The family unit solves its economic problems, of what and how to produce within the family, without the use of money and without the use of markets. All the 24 hours of the day are either employed or leisure. There's no involuntary unemployment in the family. So you can solve the problem, but it's a different economy. We are talking about a money-using economy, and money is a human institution. You have to ask yourself, why was it created? Why is it so strange? You see, in Lerner, in neoclassical economics, money is a commodity. It's peanuts, with a very high elasticity of production. If people want more money, that creates just as many jobs as if people want goods. Then you have to say to yourself - and this was the question that Milton Friedman asked me in the debate - he says, 'That's nonsense; Davidson says money is not producible. Why are there historical cases where Indians used beads as money? Aren't beads easily producible?”

Paul Davidson (1930) Post Keynesian economist

But not in the Indian economy. They didn't know how to produce them.
quoted in Conversations with Post Keynesians (1995) by J. E. King

Money, People, Family, Game

“We have come to the holiest place in Ireland; holier to us even than the place where Patrick sleeps in Down. Patrick brought us life, but this man died for us. And though many before him and some since have died in testimony of the truth of Ireland’s claim to nationhood, Wolfe Tone was the greatest of all that have made that testimony, the greatest of all that have died for Ireland whether in old times or in new. He was the greatest of Irish Nationalists; I believe he was the greatest of Irish men. And if I am right in this I am right in saying that we stand in the holiest place in Ireland, for it must be that the holiest sod of a nation’s soil is the sod where the greatest of her dead lies buried.”

Patrick Pearse (1879–1916) Irish revolutionary, shot by the British Army in 1916

Address delivered at the Grave of Wolfe Tone in Bodenstown Churchyard, Co. Kildare, 22 June 1913

Life, Men, Truth, Sleep

“This mortal Don Quixote died and descended into hell, which he entered lance on rest, and freed all the condemned, as he freed the galley slaves, and he shut the gates of hell, and tore down the scroll that Dante saw there and replaced it by one on which was written "Long live hope!" and escorted by those whom he had freed, and they laughing at him, he went to heaven. And God laughed paternally at him, and this divine laughter filled his soul with eternal happiness.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), Conclusion : Don Quixote in the Contemporary European Tragi-Comedy

God, Happiness, Hope, Soul

“In Abstract Expressionism the paintings symbolize the idea of ground-directedness as opposed to object-directedness. You put something down, react to it, put something else down, and the painting itself becomes a symbol of this. The difference is that rather than symbolize this ground-directedness I do an object-directed appearing thing. There is humor here. The work is still ground-directed; the fact that it's an eyebrow or an almost direct copy of something is unimportant. The ground-directedness is in the painter's mind and not immediately in apparent in the painting. Pop Art makes the statement that ground-directedness is not a quality that the painting has because of what it looks like…”

Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997) American pop artist

Source: 1960's, What is Pop Art? Interviews with eight painters' (1963), pp. 25-27

Art, Idea, Appearance, Painting

“It sounds rather strange to talk of an infinite universe still expanding. If we were certain that the curvature was negative, we might still, as in the case of positive curvature, replace the phrase "the universe expands" by the equivalent one "the curvature of the universe decreases." But if the curvature is zero, and remains zero throughout, what sort of meaning are we to attach to the "expansion"? The real meaning is, of course, that the mutual distances between the galactic systems, measured in so-called natural measure, increase proportionally to a certain quantity R appearing in the equations, and varying with the time. The interpretation of R as the "radius of curvature" of the universe, though still possible if the universe has a curvature, evidently does not go down to the fundamental meaning of it.”

Willem de Sitter (1872–1934) Dutch cosmologist

Kosmos (1932), Above is Beginning Quote of the Last Chapter: Relativity and Modern Theories of the Universe -->

Nature, Universe, Appearance, Time

“You feel that nothing you have learned has put down roots, that while you’re capable of entering the magical universe, you cannot remain submerged in it. You feel that all of this may be nothing but a fantasy dreamed up by people to fend off their fear of death.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Aleph (2011)

Death, People, Fear, Dreams

“On Wednesday, June 2, 1976, I graduated and my father commissioned me as a second lieutenant. Our graduation ceremony was where we'd begun our cadet experience, at Michie Stadium. As I sat with 834 other members of my class, out of an original 1,378, waiting to receive our diplomas, I realized I was very different from the seventeen-year-old boy whose friend had dropped him off a few years earlier. I wondered if I could, or would, be the kind of military leader I admired, and I was eager to try. When the ceremony ended, in accordance with tradition, we launched our hats into the air and congratulated one another. I rapidly looked for Annie- and the exit. As quickly as possible, I threw everything I owned into the used Chevy Vega I'd bought and set course with Annie down the hill away from campus. As we neared the last bend before the academy gates, I turned to her. "Hey, look back at West Point." "Why?"”

Stanley A. McChrystal (1954) American general

she asked, twisting in her seat to look at the tips of the parapets getting smaller behind the hills. "Because that's the last time we'll ever see it."
Source: My Share Of The Task (2013), p. 22

Boy, Time, Waiting

“While bringing about reforms and improving institutions, we have to be cautious that while shaking the tree to remove the bad fruit, we do not bring down the tree itself.”

Pratibha Patil (1934) 12th President of India

Quoted in BBC News, "India President Pratibha Patil cautions on reform" http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-16724191, January 25, 2012.

Tree

“[In the year 1957] I have just returned from an exciting meeting of the American Society for Engineering Education where I heard a paper on the new discipline of systems engineering. It is no longer sufficient for engineers merely to design boxes such as computers with the expectation that they would become components of larger, more complex systems. That is wasteful because frequently the box component is a bad fit in the system and has to be redesigned or worse, can lead to system failure. We must learn how to design large-scale, complex systems from the top down so that the specification for each component is derivable from the requirements for the overall system. We must also take a much larger view of systems. We must design the man-machine interfaces and even the system-society interfaces. Systems engineers must be trained for the design of large-scale, complex, man-machine-social systems.”

A. Wayne Wymore (1927–2011) American mathematician

Systems Movement: Autobiographical Retrospectives (2004)

Education, Failure, Learning, Training

“In vain she strives with dying hands
To wrench away the blade:
Fixed in her ribs the weapon stands,
Closed by the wound it made.
Bloodless and faint, she gasps for breath;
Her heavy eyes sink down in death;
Her cheek's bright colors fade.”

John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book XI, p. 427

Death, Color

“From far, far in the distant past,
Down to this day, this very instant,
Those things we have longed for most
Have not been attained, and we sorrow.”

Ippen (1239–1289) Japanese Buddhist monk, founder of the Jishu school.

"Hymn of Amida's Vow" (Chapter 1, p. 3).
No Abode: The Record of Ippen (1997)

Distant, Past

“To rephrase what Cicero wrote of Socrates, Paul called down modern economics from the skies and implanted it in the universities throughout the world.”

Michael Szenberg (1934) American economist

2.Paul Samuelson is a Pioneer
Ten Ways to Know Paul A. Samuelson (2006)

World, Universe

“The Harpies swooped down through the clouds and snatched the food from his mouth and hands with their beaks, sometimes leaving him not a morsel, sometimes a few scraps, so that he might live and be tormented.”

Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica

Of Phineus
Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book II. Onward to Colchis

Food

“It’s an old story, perhaps the oldest on earth,” Joan said. “The sky rumbles, the clouds congeal, the sun spasms. Is that a saint I see on high? An angel? The Lord God Jehovah himself? Now a holy voice booms down, instructing the poor prophet to grab a sword and thrust it into a fellow human, or perhaps a hundred fellow humans, or even a million if the cause is sufficiently sacred. The prophet never talks back. The tradition existed before me. It flourishes to this day. The sword, the blood, the freshly created corpses littering the battlefield, exuding the stink of epiphany.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: The Philosopher's Apprentice (2008), Chapter 10 (p. 243)

God, Angels, Sun

“In the circumstances it is much to be regretted that the men have not as yet responded generally to the call to return to work. A hold up of the food supplies of London will inevitably cause hardship and grave inconvenience to millions of householders; but this is by no means the end of the damage. The handling of the country's overseas trade normally stretches to the limit the capacity of our available shipping. A hold up of any length delays the turn-round of ships and cannot be made up subsequently. The stoppage cuts millions of dollars and other needed foreign currency off our earnings—and cuts them off finally. Already the prospect of attaining this month's export target is affected, the gap in the balance of our payments is widened and the pace of national recovery slowed down. I cannot believe that the general body of strikers have hitherto realised the true consequences of their action. They should return to work and allow any grievances they may feel to be dealt with by the proper machinery.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1948-06-23/debates/9760a034-59cb-488b-996c-87677bbd0572/LondonDocksStrike#1365 in the House of Commons (23 June 1948) on the London dock strike 1940s

Men, Food, Feeling, Country

“Keeping the Army of Northern Virginia fed and clothed was a never-ending struggle. His men were making their own shoes now, when they could get the leather, which as not often. The ration was down to three-quarters of a pound of meat a day, along with a little salt, sugar, coffee- or rather, chicory and burnt grain- and lard. Bread, rice, corn… they trickled up the Virginia Central and Orange and Alexandria Railroad every so often, but not nearly often enough. He would have to cut the daily allowance again, if more did not arrive soon. President Davis, however, was as aware of all that as Lee could make him. To hash it over once more would only seem like carping.”

Harry Turtledove book The Guns of the South

Source: The Guns of the South (1992), p. 4

Men, Shoe, Coffee, Clothes

“The United States and the post-Stalinist Soviet Union … share the same cultural aims. Both issue from the assumption that wealth is a superior and adequate substitute for symbolic impoverishment. Both American and Soviet cultures are essentially variants of the same belief in wealth as the functional equivalent of a high civilization. In both cultures, the controlling symbolism has been stripped down to belief in the efficacy of wealth. Quantity has become quality. The answer to all questions of “what for?””

Philip Rieff (1922–2006) American sociologist

is “more.”
The Triumph of the Therapeutic (1966)

Question, Wealth

“I drove a bus down Sunset Boulevard once, and I didn’t kill anyone.”

Sanjaya Malakar (1989) American reality television personality

Asked, at age 17, about his driving skills. http://web.archive.org/web/20070621231816/http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-malakar_pjun07,1,5161622.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

“Success requires a focused attention of your time and energy. This is true no matter what you want to achieve – to change the world or simply change apartments. All success stories come down to one person having a focused aim – so focused at times it can look like an obsession.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

World, Change, Time, Success

“I'm back at my cliff
still throwing things off
I listen to the sounds they make
on their way down
I follow with my eyes 'til they crash
imagine what my body would sound like slamming against those rocks
and when it lands
will my eyes
be closed or open?”

Björk (1965) Icelandic singer-songwriter

"Hyper-Ballad", from Post (1995)
Songs

Way, Imagination

“Making this crowd happy is the second easiest job you could ever have. First easiest… whoever gets to put Michael Jackson in a witness chair and create "reasonable doubt." How hard can that be? I don't even have a law degree and I think I could get Michael Jackson, y'know? I would just go, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury… there he is! That's all I have. Y'all get a good look at my boy? See if you think he's capable of anything out of the ordinary. There he is." But it's a tough thing to prosecute Michael Jackson, y'know? Because everyone's entitled to a jury of their peers! You could run the vacuum up and down the gene pool 24/7 without suckin' up this much of whatever that has become. He has no peers. He's peerless. So why am I pickin' on poor little mutated Michael Jackson? Because Michael Jackson is a cautionary tale for the rest of us, folks. Michael Jackson is what happens when you keep fixin' it until it's broke!”

Richard Jeni (1957–2007) American comedian

A Big, Steaming Pile Of Me

Happiness, Law, Boy, Thinking

“For a viewer to think the custodian was trying to break free is the exact opposite of what the scene was supposed to convey. There is nothing gained from that kind of ambiguity. Ambiguity is not desirable or meaningful if it confuses an issue that is meant to be clear. This is the challenge of making a film that communicates but doesn't talk down: a lot of viewers and studio execs (and directors) hold that ANY ambiguity is the result of the filmmaker's failure. I disagree, but I also hold that, in order for ambiguity to be effective, certain things NEED to be unambiguous. For example, if it wasn't clear that Judy on the stage is the same character as Judy who'd invited Aeon to the Hostess' lair, then that's just bad execution. If the episode had been finished and seen in a version say, where we don't see her face drawn correctly, and viewers weren't sure it was the same character, they may wonder about things irrelevant to the story's themes, such as "do the custodians alter the appearance of their hosts", or "Trevor is masquerading a different person who is playing the role of Judy on the stage", etc, all of which does not help the story. Thinking that the custodian had a will of its own and wanted to break free is the same type of undesired speculation.”

Peter Chung (1961) Korean-American animator

Re: Utopia or Deuteranopia? http://ilx.wh3rd.net/thread.php?msgid=6622756

Communication, Failure, Thinking, Appearance

“Let’s just grant the possibility that there is a Creator God, who’s omniscient, who occasionally authors books. And he’s gonna give us a book – the most useful book. He’s a loving God, he’s a compassionate God, and he’s gonna give us a guide to life. He’s got a scribe, the scribe’s gonna write it down. What’s gonna be in that book? I mean just think of how good a book would be if it were authored by an omniscient deity. I mean, there is not a single line in the Bible or the Koran that could not have been authored by a first century person. There is not one reference to anything – there are pages and pages about how to sacrifice animals, and keep slaves, and who to kill and why. There’s nothing about electricity, there’s nothing about DNA, there’s nothing about infectious disease, the principles of infectious disease. There’s nothing particularly useful, and there’s a lot of iron age barbarism in there, and superstition. This is not a candidate book.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris in interview by Big Think (04/07/2007) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zV3vIXZ-1Y&t=4m43s 2000s

Love, Life, God, Books

“No one was allowed to leave the theatre during his recitals, however pressing the reason. We read of women in the audience giving birth, and of men being so bored with listening and applauding that they furtively dropped down from the wall at the rear, since the gates were kept barred, or shammed dead and were carried away for burial.”
Cantante eo ne necessaria quidem causa excedere theatro licitum est. Itaque et enixae quaedam in spectaculis dicuntur et multi taedio audendi laudandique clausis oppidorum portis aut furtim desiluisse de muro aut morte simulata funere elati.

Sueton book The Twelve Caesars

Of Nero's public performances in musical competitions.
Source: The Twelve Caesars, Nero, Ch. 23

Women, Men, Birth, Reading

“We have to include a wider array of institutions—to distinguish democracy from authoritarian governments, and even there we need a scale to do so. But it means not just elections, indeed free and fair elections; I think it’s come in the twentieth century to mean a universal electorate, male and female, moving the age down a bit, that’s now just standard. Political parties and political competition and free and fair elections, and something that I’ve tried to add on, without, I suppose, a great deal of success in the real world or elsewhere: the ultimate popular control over the agenda.”

Robert A. Dahl (1915–2014) American political scientist

A Conversation with Robert A. Dahl (2009)

Age, World, Democracy, Thinking

“"Rock" [music]… is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

2000, The Spirit of the Liturgy (2000)

People, Music, Light, Universe

“Organized religion, he saw, back in the day, had been purely a signal-to-noise proposition, at once the medium and the message, a one-channel universe. For Europe, that channel was Christian, and broadcasting from Rome, but nothing could be broadcast faster than a man could travel on horseback. There was a hierarchy in place, and a highly organized methodology of top-down signal dissemination, but the time lag enforced by tech-lack imposed a near-disastrous ratio, the noise of heresy constantly threatening to overwhelm the signal.”

William Gibson book Spook Country

Source: Spook Country‎ (2007), Ch. 23, Two Moors, p. 117

Religion, Travel, Universe, Time

“Nearer my Father's house,
Where the many mansions be,
Nearer the great white throne,
Nearer the crystal sea.

Nearer the bound of life,
Where we lay our burdens down,
Nearer leaving the cross,
Nearer gaining the crown.”

Phoebe Cary Nearer Home

Nearer Home, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Life, Housing, Sea

“We drove him home, down Spring Street to First and over the railroad tracks to a black neighborhood that picked up the sounds of the rattling Ford and threw the echoes over an area of dirty frame houses and tired picket fences. He got out at a place where a dying pepper tree had spilled its brown leaves over the ground, and when he walked to the porch you could hear his feet wading through the hissing dead leaves.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Home, Spring, Tree, Housing

“We went to Kyoto -- back to Japan -- to work in the Matsuo Tiasha shrine which Sei Shonagon had visited regularly. I couldn't give up such an opportunity. I was also a little homesick. We didn't finish walking the cat-walk until midnight when all the audience had gone. I didn't mind -- Sei Shonagon had watched the moon rise in that garden a thousand years ago -- I could have walked up and down that path all night long.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Nagiko's journal for Nov 9 1997
The Pillow Book

Cats, Night

“I can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves, setting up their devil doll stool pigeons, crooning over my spoon and dropper I throw away at Washington Square Station, vault a turnstile and two flights down the iron stairs, catch an uptown A train…”

William S. Burroughs book Naked Lunch

Opening Chapter
Naked Lunch (1959)

Feeling, Training

“The game of Bees in the Trees is a variant of musical chairs and is best played with funeral music and in the open air. The object of the game is to sit down on a vacant chair when the music stops. If the chair sat in is occupied by bees, it is permissible to arrange a professional foul.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Drowning By Numbers

Music, Game, Tree, Bee

“Molly Notkin often confides on the phone to Joelle van Dyne about the one tormented love of Notkin's life thus far, an erotically circumscribed G. W. Pabst scholar at New York University tortured by the neurotic conviction that there are only a finite number of erections possible in the world at any one time and that his tumescence means e. g. the detumescence of some perhaps more deserving or tortured Third World sorghum farmer or something, so that whenever he tumifies he'll suffer the same order of guilt that your less eccentrically tortured Ph. D.-type person will suffer at the idea of, say, wearing baby-seal fur. Molly still takes the high-speed rail down to visit him every couple of weeks, to be there for him in case by some selfish mischance he happens to harden, prompting black waves of self-disgust and an extreme neediness for understanding and nonjudgmental love.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest (1996)

Love, Life, World, Confidence

“I don't know whether it's the governor's problem, or it's the president's problem, but somebody needs to get … on a plane and sit down, the two of them, and figure this out right now.”

Ray Nagin (1956) politician, businessman

2005, Interview with New Orleans radio station WWL (2005)

Problem

“Self-help books are making life downright unsafe. Women desperate to catch a man practice all the ploys recommended by these authors. Bump into him, trip over him, knock him down, spill something on him, scald him, but meet him.”

Florence King (1936–2016) American writer

"Does Your Child Taste Salty?", in Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye (1989)

Life, Women, Books, Help

“Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.”

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008) American conservative author and commentator

Source: Misattributed, P. J. O'Rourke, as quoted in Busted : Stone Cowboys, Narco-lords, and Washington's War on Drugs (2002) edited by Mike Gray.

People, Marijuana, Madness, Night

“Twenty-five years ago I couldn't walk down the street without being recognized. Now I can put a cap on, walk anywhere and no one pays me any attention. They don't ask me about my movies and they don't ask me about my salad dressing because they don't know who I am. Am I happy about this? You bet.”

Paul Newman (1925–2008) American actor and film director

Quoted in Geoff Pevere, "Getting noticed: the spooky side of celebrity," http://www.toronto.com/movies/article/525796 toronto.com (2007-08-10)

Happiness

“And I've always said, you know, that I don't respect people that don't proselytize. I don't respect that at all. If you believe that there's a heaven and hell, and people could be going to hell — or not getting eternal life, or whatever — and you think that, "Well, it's not really worth tellin' 'em this, because it would make it socially awkward", and atheists who think that people shouldn't proselytize, "Just leave me alone. Keep your religion to yourself"… How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that? I mean, if I believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that a truck was coming at you and you didn't believe it —that truck was bearing down on you — there's a certain point where I tackle you, and this is more important than that.”

Penn Jillette (1955) American magician

" A Gift of a Bible http://www.crackle.com/c/penn-says/a-gift-of-a-bible/2415037", Penn Says episode 192 (), Crackle, 2:59 2000s

Life, Hate, People, Religion

“Sultãn Muzaffar… started for Îdar. When he arrived in the town of Mahrãsã, he sent armies for destroying Îdar. The Rãjã of Îdar evacuated the fort and took refuge in the mountain of Bîjãnagar. The Sultãn, when he reached Îdar, found there ten Rajpûts ready to lay down their lives. He heaped barbarities on them and killed them. He did not leave even a trace of palaces, temples, gardens and trees…”

Nizamuddin Ahmad (1551–1594) historian

Sultãn Muzaffar Shãh II of Gujarat (AD 1511-1526) Idar (Gujarat)
Tabqãt-i-Akharî

Mountain, Tree

“Hindu writers have been entirely excluded from holding public offices, and all the worshipping places of the infidels and great temples of these infamous people have been thrown down and destroyed in a manner which excites astonishment at the successful completion of so difficult a task. His Majesty personally teaches the sacred kalima to many infidels with success. All the mosques in the empire are repaired at public expense. Imama, criers to the daily prayers, and readers of the khutba, have been appointed to each of them, so that a large sum of money has been and is still laid out in these disbursements.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Mir-at-i 'alam, Mir-at-i Jahan-numa, of Bakhtawar Khan, in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. VII, p. 159.
Quotes from late medieval histories

Money, People, Success, Personality

“You pulled out of MacWorld and began hosting your own strictly scripted events. … Despite the gorgeous products and services you've created, we worry that you're headed down a road that may lead to your own demise.”

John Battelle (1965) American writer

An Open Letter To Apple Regarding the Company's Approach To Conversation With Its Peers and Its Community http://battellemedia.com/archives/2010/04/_an_open_letter_to_apple_regarding_the_companys_approach_to_conversation_with_its_peers_and_its_community in John Battelle's searchblog (17 April 2010)

“Many of the visions and revelations handed down as having been given by him are spurious. The miracles ascribed to him are all fabrications of Moslem zealots. He expressly and repeatedly disclaimed all miracles excepting the Koran; which, considering its incomparable merit, and the way in which it had come down to him from heaven, he pronounced the greatest of miracles. And here we must indulge a few observations on this famous document. While zealous Moslems and some of the most learned doctors of the faith draw proofs of its divine origin from the inimitable excellence of its style and composition, and the avowed illiteracy of Mahomet, less devout critics have pronounced it a chaos of beauties and defects; without method or arrangement; full of obscurities, incoherencies, repetitions, false versions of scriptural stories, and direct contradictions. The truth is that the Koran as it now exists is not the same Koran delivered by Mahomet to his disciples, but has undergone many corruptions and interpolations.”

Washington Irving (1783–1859) writer, historian and diplomat from the United States

Mahomet and his successors, George P. Putnam, 1850, p. 330-331.
Mahomet and his successors (1849)

Truth, Faith, Beauty, Way

“Not long ago a friend of mine opened the door of the garage at her summer cottage, and found a man inside who had hanged himself about two months before; what is more he had been cut down. She is deeply anxious to know (a) why he hanged himself; (b) if he hanged himself or was hanged; (c) who cut him down; (d) what it was about her garage that appealed to his morbid fancy. She will probably never know any of these things. It is thus that life falls short of the movies.”

Robertson Davies book The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)

Life, Summer

“Legends abound of the truly great leapers who could touch the top of the board. Almost always the feat involves money-claims that the player could grab a dollar bill off the top of the board, or could pluck off a quarter and leave two dimes and a nickel change… "I defy anyone to say they took change off the top of the backboard," Chamberlain said. "I could. Someone would put a quarter up and I'd snatch it down. I've heard stories about Jackie Jackson doing it, but I've never seen anyone (but himself) come close." Sonny Hill, a Philadelphia leaping legend of the '60s, backs Wilt, saying, "The only man that's been to the top, that's Wilt. I asked Kareem if he ever did, and he could jump a little bit. He told me, `Sonny, no.'"”

Wilt Chamberlain (1936–1999) basketball player

Dunking

Money, Change

“I frequently ask leaders if they know what their personal values are, and most say yes. Then I ask them: ‘Have you written them down?’ Most say no. Values are incredibly important! They determine who we really are—what our character is, the real you when the mask is off.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ Live Learn Lead to Make a Difference https://books.google.com/books?id=s0q7mZf9oDkC&lpg=pg=PP1&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2006 p. 68-69. On Living Your Values

Personality

“It should be never absent from our recollection that there are now two distinct nations in China--the Chinese and the Tartars--whose characters essentially differ, notwithstanding their external appearance be nearly the same. They are both subject to the most absolute authority that can be vested in a Prince(Qianlong), but with this distinction--that to the Chinese it is a foreign tyranny, to the Tartar a domestic despotism. The latter consider themselves as in some degree partakers of their Sovereign's dominions over the former, and that imagination may, perhaps, somewhat console them under the pressure of his power upon themselves--like the house servants and house negroes belonging to a great landlord in Livonia or planter in Jamaica, who, though serfs themselves, look down upon the peasantry and field negroes as much their inferiors.”

George Macartney (1737–1806) British statesman, colonial administrator and diplomat

Our First Ambassador to China (Biography, 1908)

Imagination, Appearance, Housing

“We plucked down all His altars, left not one
Save where, perchance (and ah, the joy was fleet),
We laid our garlands in the sun
At the white Sea-born's feet.”

Alfred Noyes (1880–1958) English poet

Resurrection
Collected Poems (1913)

Sun, Joy, Sea

“Deep down in Louisiana close to New Orleans
Way back up in the woods among the evergreens
There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood
Where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode
Who never ever learned to read or write so well
But he could play the guitar just like a ringing a bell. Go, go,
Go, Johnny go…”

Chuck Berry (1926–2017) American rock-and-roll musician

"Johnny B. Goode" (1958) · Live performance (1958) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ROwVrF0Ceg Song lyrics

Way, Boy, Learning, Reading

“Ah, no; the years, the years;
Down their carved names the raindrop plows.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

" During Wind and Rain http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/96.html", lines 27-28, from Moments of Vision (1917)

“Ultimately it is the yearning to believe that anyone can be brought up to college level that has brought colleges down to everyone's level.”

William A. Henry III (1950–1994) American critic

In Defense of Elitism

“The Israeli people are actually incredible. Even with world opinion beating down upon them. They’re not broken. You know, for the most part, they don’t care. You know, they need to be protected and again I’m amazed by the courage that I see in the people.
To be honest with you. I don’t think that journalists should be anywhere allowed war. I mean you guys report where our troops are at. You report what’s happening day today. You make a big deal out of it. I think its asinine. I like back in World War I and World War II when you’d go to the theatre and you’d see your troops, on a, on the screen, and everyone would be real excited and happy for them. Now everyone’s got an opinion and wants to down our, down soldiers, you know, American soldiers, Israeli soldiers; And I think media should be abolished, from ah, you know, reporting. War is hell. And if you’re going to sit there and say look at this atrocity. Well, you don’t know the full story behind it half the time. So I think the media should have no business in it.”

Joe the Plumber (1973) American conservative activist and commentator

"Joe Plumber: Media Shouldn't Report War" Associated Press report (11 January 2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJYCxj8KXjQ&feature=related.

War, Happiness, People, World

“Another sign was seen in heaven. Look! A great fiery-colored dragon, with seven heads and ten horns and on its heads seven diadems; and its tail drags a third of the stars of heaven, and it hurled them down to the earth. And the dragon kept standing before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she did give birth, it might devour her child.”

John the Evangelist (10–98) author of the Gospel of John; traditionally identified with John the Apostle of Jesus, John of Patmos (author o…

Revelation 12:3-4 http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/nwt/books/revelation/12/, NWT Revelation

Color, Star, Birth

“The shadow of a dove
Falls on the cote, the trees are filled with wings;
And down the valley through the crying trees
The body of the darker storm flies; brings
With its new air the breath of sunken seas
And slender tenuous thunder...
But I wait...
Wait for the mists and for the blacker rain —
Heavier winds that stir the veil of fate,
Happier winds that pile her hair;
Again
They tear me, teach me, strew the heavy air
Upon me, winds that I know, and storm.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Quoted, This Side of Paradise (1920)

Fate, Tear, Tree, Waiting

“God's commandments are not grievous. God put them in the garden, said "You can eat of any tree except that one tree, The Knowledge of Good and Evil." It's real simple, Adam. Enjoy the garden, have lots of kids, and don't learn about evil. […] Parents, don't teach your kids about all the evil things. Don't have drug education classes where you show them, "Hey, this is marijuana. This is how you smoke it. Now don't you do that." Duh. Don't put them in sex ed classes in seventh grade, it's a plumbing class at that time. Don't do that, okay? Let them be ignorant. Let them learn it from mom and dad, not from some heathen, okay? It's real simple Adam. Enjoy the world and have lots of kids and don't learn about evil. Don't learn all that stuff. The Lord said, "Hey, have you eaten off that tree I told you not to eat from?" God is not asking for information. He's asking for a confession. And the man said, "The woman (he passed the buck) whom thou gavest to be with me. Now God, this is really your fault, you know. If you hadn't given her to me I wouldn't have this problem." He said to the woman, "Have you done this?" She said, "Well, the snake that you made…." We still do the same thing, nothing changes, okay? Fear God, keep his commandments. Just like the taking of life is very important in any culture. Murder is serious. Giving life is important. That's why God put certain rules down for reproduction, okay? Follow his rules. "Thou shalt not commit adultery. Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." Don't even look and lust or you've committed adultery already in your heart. By the way, ladies, that's why it's important how you dress, okay? My daddy always said, "If you're not in business, don't advertise."”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Women should dress in modest apparel. That's what the Bible says, alright.
Creation seminars (2003-2005), The dangers of evolution

Life, Women, God, World

“I had killed over twenty before the German major said he would make them give up. I covered him with my automatic and told him if he didn't make them stop firing I would take off his head next. And he knew I meant it. He told me if I didn't kill him, and if I stopped shooting the others in the trench, he would make them surrender.
He blew a little whistle and they came down and began to gather around and throw down their guns and belts. All but one of them came off the hill with their hands up, and just before that one got to me he threw a little hand grenade which burst in the air in front of me.
I had to touch him off. The rest surrendered without any more trouble. There were nearly 100 of them.”

Alvin C. York (1887–1964) United States Army Medal of Honor recipient

Account of 8 October 1918.
Diary of Alvin York

“How can we help loving best those who first gave us possession of ourselves? All the day long they were together: living as they did, they could not help being so; only parting at night for a few short hours to dream over the happy past day, and to meet again the next morning, the happier for their brief separation. It was a new life to him: what had often hung before him as a fairy vision — what he had longed for, but never found; and here, as if sent down from heaven, was what more than answered to his wildest dreams. Now for the first time he found himself loved for himself — slighted and neglected as he had been …. suddenly he was singled out by a fascinating woman, who made no secret of the pleasure his friendship gave her.”

James Anthony Froude book The Nemesis of Faith

Arthur's commentary
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)

Love, Life, Friendship, Happiness

“'A'isha reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "When one of you dozes off while he is praying, he should go and lie down until he is no longer sleepy. If someone prays when he is drowsy, he may not know whether he is asking for forgiveness or asking for something bad for himself."”

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

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 1, hadith number 147
Sunni Hadith

Lie, Peace, Forgiveness

“Well, you know, if Mr. Hawking wants to come on and tell us how the earth got here or why the sun comes up and goes down without interruption, why the tide goes in and goes out — no miscommunications ever, you know, if he wants to explain how all that happened, we're ready to receive him, but of course he can't.”

Bill O'Reilly (1949) American political commentator, television host and writer

Sun

“Some of the gold possessed by the Romans is doubtless mixed with what we now possess; and some small part of it will be handed down as long as the human race exists.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter VII, Theory of Capital, p. 198.

Parting

“And when a strong man is sweet, even Goddesses look down from Mount Olympus.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

The Mummy or Ramses the Damned (1989)

Strong

“But Rizvi has summarized them in the following words from Waliullah’s magnum opus in Arabic, Hujjat-Allah al-Baligha: “According to Shah Wali-Allah the mark of the perfect implementation of the Sharia was the performance of jihad. There were people, said the Shah, who indulged in their lower nature by following their ancestral religion, ignoring the advice and commands of the Prophet Mohammed. If one chose to explain Islam to people like this it was to do them a disservice. Force, said the Shah, was the better course - Islam should be forced down their throats like bitter medicine to a child. This, however, was possible only if the leaders of the non-Muslim communities who failed to accept Islam were killed, the strength of the community was reduced, their property confiscated and a situation was created which led to their followers and descendants willingly accepting Islam. Another means of ensuring conversions was to prevent other religious communities from worshipping their own gods. Moreover, unfavourable discriminating laws should be imposed on non-Muslims in matters of rule of retaliation, compensation for manslaughter, and marriage and political matters. However, the proselytization programme of Shah Wali-Allah only included the leaders of the Hindu community. The low class of the infidels, according to him, were to be left alone to work in the fields and for paying jiziya. They like beasts of burden and agricultural livestock were to be kept in abject misery and despair.””

Shah Waliullah Dehlawi (1703–1762) Indian muslim scholar

S.A.A. Rizvi, Shah Wali-Allah and His Times, Canberra. 1980, p.285-6 Quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (1995). Muslim separatism: Causes and consequences. ISBN 9788185990262

God, Marriage, People, Religion

“I've been down so long that coming up is giving me the bends.”

Tod A (1965) American musician

"Three-legged Dog", The Golden Hour (May 6, 2008).
Lyrics, Firewater

“We came down here for wind and sand, and we have got them.”

Orville Wright (1871–1948) American aviation pioneer

Letter to Katherine Wright, 18 October 1900; as published in Marvin W. McFarland, ed., The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1953), vol. 1, p. 37.

“Well what happened was I was asked to be on Seinfeld. They said: “Would you do a Seinfeld?” And I said, and I just happened to know to see a few Seinfelds and I knew these guys were really tops; they were really, really clever guys, and I liked the show. And so I said “Sure!” and I thought they would ask me to do a walk-on, the way it came: "Would you come be part of the show?" And I said “Yeah, sure I’ll do it.” You know what I mean? Then I got the script and my name was on every page because it was about my car. And I laughed; it was hysterically funny. So I was really delighted to do it. The writer came up to me and he said “Jon, would you come take a look at my car to see if you ever owned it?”, because the writer wrote it from a real experience where someone sold him the car based on the fact that it was my car. And I went down and I looked at the car and I said “No, I never had this car.””

Jon Voight (1938) American actor

So unfortunately I had to give him the bad news. But it was a funny episode. In a Red Carpet interview at the 2006 BAFTA Emmy Awards describing his involvement in and appearance on the 1994 Seinfeld episode The Mom and Pop Store http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8o140TFyAA

Cars, Way, Guy, Parting

“"Pull yourself together," said the Voice, "for you have to do the job I've chosen for you."Mr. Marvel blew out his cheeks, and his eyes were round."I've chosen you," said the Voice. "You are the only man except some of those fools down there, who knows there is such a thing as an invisible man. You have to be my helper. Help me—and I will do great things for you. An invisible man is a man of power."”

H. G. Wells book The Invisible Man

Source: The Invisible Man (1897), Chapter 9: Mr. Thomas Marvel

Fools, Help

“We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscope flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic systems of our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way—an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language. The agreement is of course, an implicit and unstated one, but its terms are absolutely obligatory; we cannot talk at all except by subscribing to the organization and classification of data that the agreement decrees. We are thus introduced to a new principle of relativity, which holds that all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar, or can in some way be calibrated”

Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1941) American linguist

Whorf (1940) "Science and linguistics" in: MIT Technology Review Vol 42. p. 229-31.

World, Way, Communication, Nature

“Death!
Plop.
The barges down in the river flop.
Flop, plop,
Above, beneath.
From the slimy branches the grey drips drop…
To the oozy waters, that lounge and flop…
And my head shrieks--"Stop"
And my heart shrieks--"Die"…”

Theo Marzials (1850–1920) Anglo-French poet and eccentric

A Tragedy, reported by several critics to be the worst poem published in the English language. http://www.reedleycollege.edu/academic/Departments/CompLitComm/sbowie/Tragedy.htm.

Death, Water, Heart

“For us (Taiwan and Mainland China) to simply sit at the same table, sit down to discuss issues, is already not an easy thing.”

Wang Yu-chi (1969) Taiwanese politician

Wang Yu-chi (2014) cited in " China and Taiwan in first government talks http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-26129171" on BBC, 11 February 2014

“I may go down in history as the guy who killed Pluto.”

Michael E. Brown

Dinky Pluto loses its status as planet, authorKole, William J., Associated Press, 2006-08-24, 2006-08-28 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060824/ap_on_sc/planet_mutiny,

Guy, History

“With government driving up the cost of labor, it's driving down the number of jobs. You're going to see automation not just in airports and grocery stores, but in restaurants. This is the problem with Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton, and progressives who push very hard to raise the minimum wage. Does it really help if Sally makes $3 more an hour if Suzie has no job? If you're making labor more expensive, and automation less expensive — this is not rocket science. They're always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there's never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case.”

Andrew Puzder (1950) American businessman

Fast-food CEO says he's investing in machines because the government is making it difficult to afford employees http://www.businessinsider.com/carls-jr-wants-open-automated-location-2016-3 (March 16, 2016)

Age, Sex, Problem, Science