Quotes about down (8440 quotes, page 70)

“The Braves have been digging in on us all year. They're taking toeholds on our pitchers. Somebody is going down tonight if I have to come in from right field and do it myself.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Speaking with reporters after a 14-1 loss, as quoted in "Hot Braves Stagger Pirate Pennant Hopes" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=hr0bAAAAIBAJ&sjid=VU8EAAAAIBAJ&pg=7552%2C3389475 by Les Biederman, in The Pittsburgh Press (September 23, 1966), p. 32
Comment: Apparently, Clemente's words were heeded, as hard-throwing Bob Veale hit the second Braves batter of the game that night, en route to a 4-hit, 12-strikeout, 3-0 victory http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1966/B09230ATL1966.htm.
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1966</big>

“The approach that dominates organizational theory, teaching, and practice for most of the twentieth century looked at organizations from the top-down, starting with a view of the CEO as the "leader" who shapes the organization's strategy, structure, culture, and performance potential. The nature of work and the role of the workforce enter the analysis much later, after considerations of technology and organization design have been considered. However, if the key source of value in the twenty-first-century organization is to be derived from the workforce itself, an inversion of the dominant approach will be needed. The new perspective will start not at the top of the organization, but at but at the front lines, with people and the work itself — which is where value is created. Such an inversion will lead to a transformation in the management and organization of work workers, and knowledge. This transformation was signalled by McGregor, but we must go further.”

Douglas McGregor (1906–1964) American professor

(2006; 366) Section "Beyond McGregor's Theory Y," by Thomas A. Kochan. Prepared for the Sloan School 50th Anniversary Session on October 11 (2002).
The Human Side of Enterprise (1960)

People , Nature , Knowledge

“Since suffering a concussion eight years ago, I find my inside emotions are right to the front and as such, when I heard that Antonio Carlos Jobim had died in December of 1994 I was much affected, I experienced happenings like no other time in my life. While sleeping one night, I dreamed that I was conducting a recording session with strings in Brazil and we were performing Jobim's "Corcovado," except that besides thje melody and harmony, there was polyharmonic bass line. As I awakened from this dream, I went to my piano and wrote down what I had dreamed.”

Clare Fischer (1928–2012) American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

Explaining the genesis of the track "Corcovado Fúnebre" in the liner notes from Clare Fischer's Jazz Corps

Life , Dreams , Sleep , Suffering

“Down all the stretches of Hell to its last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this —
More tongued with censure of the world's blind greed —
More filled with signs and portents for the soul —
More fraught with menace to the universe.”

Edwin Markham (1852–1940) American poet

The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems (1899), The Man With the Hoe (1898)

World , Soul , Hell , Universe

“When I asked Sergio Mendes why he still called his group Brasil '66 in 1967, he said "'66 was a very good year!" That's his group and the French song from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. It's not one of their better tracks. Some of the things they've done I have enjoyed tremendously, though it's getting to the point where he's had commercial success doing what he's doing, so it's now somewhere in between strong Brazilian music and quasi-rock. Joao Palma is an excellent drummer. Here they have John Pisano of the Tijuana Brass playing an amplified guitar. He is one of the few people who, on the regular amplified guitar, has really got the Brazilian thing down. He can play in the Baden Powell style, which is so compelling and so dynamic. Sergio is usually a much more melodic pianist, but here he's trying to give a hardness and vitality to the over-all commercial sound, and he comes out lacking what he usually has—his lines are usually very smoothly melodic. This has nothing to do with jazz, but I find it pleasant; on the other hand, some of the things they do, like O Pato [from Mendes' previous album], or some of the faster things, I enjoy much more. Two stars.”

Clare Fischer (1928–2012) American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

Reviewing Mendes' recording of Michel Legrand's '"Watch What Happens," from the album Equinox; as quoted in "Clare Fischer: Blindfold Test" http://www.mediafire.com/view/fix6ane8h54gx/Clare_Fischer#2nmgk677qzm4cnu

People , Music , Star , Strong

“Let the hand of the law strike me down if it will, but I ask that my story be heard and considered.”

Ned Kelly (1855–1880) Australian bushranger

Statements to the press (1880)

Law

“Taxes are a barbaric remnant of ancient times in which early farmers, tied to the land, no longer able to roam freely, unable to fight back with awkward agricultural tools the way they once could with hunting implements, became victims, first, of itinerant plunderers, then of bandits settling down beside them to become the governments we know today.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"The Unnecessary Depression".

Way , Time , Fight

“It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving picaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness. They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in Watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Daily Telegraph 10 January 2002
2000s, 2002

Love , Smile , Home , Imagination

“Germany agreed to restrict her Navy to one third the size of the British but was accorded the right to build submarines, explicitly denied her by the peace treaty, up to 60 percent of British strength, and to 100 percent in case she decided it was necessary to her security, which she shortly did. Germany also pledged that her U-boats would never attack unarmed merchant ships, a word that she went back on from the very beginning of the second war. As soon as the deal with Britain was concluded Germany laid down two battleships, the Bismarck and Tirpitz, with a displacement of over 45,000 tons. By the terms of the Washington and London naval accords, Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and the United States had to limit their battleships to 35,000 tons. Great Britain, as the French contended, had no legal right to absolve Germany from respecting the naval clauses of the Versailles Treaty. And, as many Frenchmen added, no moral right either.”

William L. Shirer book The Collapse of the Third Republic

Book Three, Chapter 15, Aftermath: Widening of the Gulf: 1934-1936, discussing the Anglo-German Naval Agreement.
The Collapse of the Third Republic (1969)

War , Peace

“I had been trying to find a publisher who would put some of my stuff into book form, but I met with no encouragement. Every well-known publisher in the United States turned down Tarzan of the Apes, including A. C. McClurg & Co., who finally issued it, my first story in book form.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950) American writer

How I Wrote the Tarzan Books (1929)

Books

“As far as my tax returns, you don't learn that much from tax returns. That I can tell you. You learn a lot from financial disclosure. And you should go down and take a look at that.”

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

2010s, 2016, September, First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

Learning

“The bear bent down to do up its case again. As he did so, Mrs. Brown caught a glimpse of the writing on the label. It said, simply, PLEASE LOOK AFTER THIS BEAR. THANK YOU.”

Michael Bond (1926–2017) English author, creator of Paddington the Bear

Page 10.
A Bear Called Paddington (1958)

“When I saw the funeral scene, I just broke down. I ran out of the cabin into the woods, and for nearly 2-1/2 hours, I just cried: "Why, God, did You take him?"”

Bernice King (1963) American minister, daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Reflection on experience at age sixteen in "Faces of Faith: A Connection Magazine Anthology" (2006), p. 82.

God

“It’s what they call a “theocracy”—priest-ridden in the extreme, full of dark superstitions and darker myths and legends, where all gods and demons are honoured, doubtless to be on the safe side. The people are cruel, ignorant, dirty and proud—they look down their noses at all other races.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 1, Chapter 2 “The Temple at Teku Benga” (p. 14)
The Warlord of the Air (1971)

God , People

“The first thing the Muslim Sultanate of Delhi started on was construction of impressive buildings. The first sultan Qutbuddin Aibak had to establish Muslim power in India and to raise buildings "as quickly as possible, so that no time might be lost in making an impression on their newly-conquered subjects". Architecture was considered as the visual symbol of Muslim political power. It denoted victory with authority. The first two buildings of the early period in Delhi are the Qutb Minar and the congregational mosque named purposefully as the Quwwat-ul-Islam (might of Islam) Masjid. This mosque was commenced by Aibak in 592/1195. It was built with materials and gold obtained by destroying 27 Hindu and Jain temples in Delhi and its neighborhood. A Persian inscription in the mosque testifies to this. The Qutb Minar, planned and commenced by Aibak sometime in or before 1199 and completed by Iltutmish, was also constructed with similar materials, "the sculptured figures on the stones being either defaced or concealed by turning them upside down". A century and a quarter later Ibn Battutah describes the congregational mosque and the Qutb Minar. "About the latter he says that its staircase is so wide that elephants can go up there." About the former his observations are interesting. "Near the eastern gate of the mosque their lie two very big idols of copper connected together by stones. Every one who comes in and goes out of the mosque treads over them. On the site of this mosque was a bud khana, that is an idol house. After the conquest of Delhi it was turned into a mosque."”

Qutb al-Din Aibak (1150–1210) Turkic peoples king of Northwest India

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 5 (quoting Gordon Sanderson, 'Archaeology at the Qutb', Archaeological Survey of India Report, 1912-13; Ibn Battutah)

Lie , Time , Victory , Housing

“"The ability to see what is, sir, is essential for the leader of a great nation," the British minister said. He wanted to let Lincoln down easy if he could. "I see what is, all right. I surely do," the president said. "I see that you European powers are taking advantage of this rebellion to meddle in America, the way you used to before the Monroe Doctrine warned you to keep your hands off. Napoleon props up a tin-pot emperor in Mexico, and now France and England are in cahoots"- another phrase that briefly baffled Lord Lyons- "to help the Rebels and pull us down. All right, sir." He breathed heavily. "If that's the way the game's going to be played, we aren't strong enough to prevent it now. But I warn you, Mr. Minister, we can play, too." "You are indeed a free and independent nation," Lord Lyons agreed. "You may pursue diplomacy to the full extent of your interests and abilities." "Mighty generous of you," Lincoln said with cutting irony. "And one fine day, I reckon, we'll have friends in Europe, too, friends who'll help us get back what's rightfully ours and what you've taken away." "A European power- to help you against England and France?" For the first time, Lord Lyons was undiplomatic enough to laugh. American bluster was bad enough most times, but this lunacy- "Good luck to you, Mr. President. Good luck."”

Harry Turtledove book The Great War: American Front

Source: The Great War: American Front (1998), p. 9

Way , Game , Strong , Time

“The fact is that building a pyramid is fairly easy, aside from the lifting. You just pile up stones in receding layers, placing one layer carefully upon another, and pretty soon you have a pyramid. You can't help it. In other words, it is not in the nature of a pyramid to fall down.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

Footnote: It probably could not fall down if it tried.
The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part I: It Seems There Were Two Egyptians, Cheops, or Khufu

Nature , Help

“They say in the military that a good battle plan can last as long as five minutes in real fighting. After that, it comes down to if the general is favored by fate and the spirits.”

Paolo Bacigalupi book The Windup Girl

Source: The Windup Girl (2009), p. 306

Fate , Fight

“Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen. On the farm the weather was the great fact, and men's affairs went on underneath it, as the streams creep under the ice. But in Black Hawk the scene of human life was spread out shrunken and pinched, frozen down to the bare stalk.”

Willa Cather book My Ántonia

Book II, Ch. 7
My Antonia (1918)

Life , Men , Winter , Weather

“That big muscular frame of his held plenty of animal courage, but helped him to no decision when the dangers to be braved were such as could neither be knocked down nor throttled.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Source: Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (1861), Chapter 3 (at page 28)

Courage , Decision , Help , Animals

“For Muslims the Quran is the Word of God; it is sacred scripture, not a work of "literature," a manual of law, or a text of theology, philosophy or history although it is of incomparable literary quality, contains many injunctions about a Sacred Law, is replete with verses of metaphysical, theological, and philosophical significance, and contains many accounts of sacred history. The unique structure of the Quran and the flow of its content constitute a particular challenge to most modern readers. For traditional Muslims the Quran is not a typical "read" or manual to be studied. For most of them, the most fruitful way of interacting with the Quran is not to sit down and read the Sacred Tex from cover to cover (although there are exceptions, such as completing the whole text during Ramadan). it is, rather, to recite a section with full awareness of it as the Word of God and to meditate upon it as one whose soul is being directly addressed, as the Prophet's soul was addressed during its revelation. … In this context it must be remembered that the Quran itself speaks constantly of the Origin and the Return, of all things coming from God and returning to Him, who himself has no origin or end. As the Word of god, the Quran also seems to have no beginning and no end. Certain turns of phrase and teachings about the Divine Reality, the human condition, the life of this world, and the Hereafter are often repeated, but they are not mere repetitions. Rather each iteration of a particular word, phrase, or verse opens the door of a hidden passage to other parts of the Quran. Each coda is always a prelude to an as yet undiscovered truth.”

Seyyed Hossein Nasr book The Study Quran

The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary https://books.google.com/books?id=GVSzBgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover (2015)

Life , God , Truth , World

“Then a sentimental passion of a vegetable fashion must excite your languid spleen,
An attachment à la Plato for a bashful young potato, or a not-too-French French bean!
Though the Philistines may jostle, you will rank as an apostle in the high aesthetic band,
If you walk down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lily in your medieval hand.”

W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) English librettist of the Gilbert & Sullivan duo

Act I
Patience (1881)

Fashion , Passion

“Y'know, there are other possibilities if we assume that filenames are UTF-8…yikes…wait, put down that meat cleaver! Aieeee!!!”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

[199806181655.JAA10702@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

Waiting

“Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws — always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: Please pass this so that I won't be able to do something I know I should stop. Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them for their own good.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966)

Hate , People , Law , Tree

“It was like being quite alone on the roof of the world. I felt that if I were to go to the edge and look over … I would see below all that I had ever known; all the crowded cities and seas covered with ships, and the clamor of harbors and traffic of rivers, and farmlands being worked, and herds of cattle driven in dust across interminable plains. All the clamor and clatter, confusion of voices, tumults, and conflicts, must still be going on, down there—over the edge, and below—but here there was only the sky, and a stillness made audible by the brittle grass. Emptiness was so perfect all around me that I felt a part of it, empty myself.”

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist

Letter to the Clarence Day (June 10, 1926)
Describing her stop on a remote Russian plateau while with the Red Cross after WWI.

World , Grass , Parting , Perfection

“I hold the brimming wineglass and relive the toils of my grandfathers and great-grandfathers. The sweat of my labor runs down like a fountain from my tall, intoxicated brow.
I am a sack filled with meat and bones, blood, sweat, and tears, desires and visions.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)

Tear

“One of the biggest pieces of bunkum shoved down the American throat was the story of the 1929 Italian election. For this I cannot blame my colleagues.”

George Seldes (1890–1995) American journalist

Can These Things Be! (1931)

“When you hear me singing
you get the rifle down
and the flashlight, aiming for my brain,
but you always miss and when you set out the poison
I piss on it
to warn the others.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

"Rat Song" http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=21984 (1974)
Selected Poems 1965-1975 (1976)

Singing

“And you will believe in love
And all that it's supposed to be
But just until the fish start to smell
And you're struck down by a hammer.”

Rufus Wainwright (1973) American-Canadian singer-songwriter and composer

April Fool's
Song lyrics, Rufus Wainwright (1998)

Love , Fish

“It wasn't as bad, Garraty discovered, if you stared down at your feet as you walked and leaned forward a little. You stared strictly down at the tiny patch of pavement between your feet and it gave you the impression that you were walking on level ground. Of course, you couldn't kid yourself that your lungs and the breath in your throat weren't heating up, because they were.”

Stephen King book The Long Walk

The Long Walk (1979)

“Violence creates nothing but violence, no matter what we call it and what the excuse. And so it goes, down all the centuries.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 8 “Revolutions” (p. 423)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“We have already discovered two species that are very intelligent but technically less advanced than us — the common chimpanzee and pygmy chimpanzee. Has our response been to sit down and try to communicate with them? Of course not. Instead we shoot them, stuff them, dissect them, cut off their hands for trophies, put them on exhibit in cages, inject them with AIDS virus as a medical experiment, and destroy or take over their habitat. That response was predictable, because human explorers who discovered technically less advanced humans also regularly responded by shooting them, decimating their populations with new diseases, and destroying or taking over their habitat. Any advanced extraterrestrials who discovered us would surely treat us in the same way…If there really are any radio civilizations within listening distance of us, then for heaven's sake let's turn off our own transmitters and try to escape detection, or we are doomed.”

Jared Diamond book The Third Chimpanzee

The Third Chimpanzee (1991)
The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (1991)

Disease , Way , Intelligence , Communication

“Every concession gives rise to further concessions, we cannot back down, because behind us there is only an abyss, we must keep our promises and demand that they be kept.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 5 : The Politics of Hope, p. 110

“…And in the year AH 631 (AD 1233) having made an incursion in the direction of the province of Malwah and taken Bhilsa and also captured the city of Ujjain, and having destroyed the idol-temple of Ujjain which had been built six hundred years previously, and was called Mahakal, he levelled it to its foundations, and threw down the image of Rai Vikrmajit from whom the Hindus reckon their era… and brought certain other images of cast molten brass and placed them on the ground in front of the door of the mosque of old Dihli and ordered the people to trample them under foot…”

`Abd al-Qadir Bada'uni book Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh

Sultan Shamsu’d-Din Iltutmish (AD 1210~1236) Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh)
Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh

People

“The Postulates of Mathematics Were Not on the Stone Tablets that Moses Brought Down from Mt. Sinai.”

Richard Hamming (1915–1998) American mathematician and information theorist

Emphatic capitalization in original.
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics (1980)

Mathematics

“Now the great thing about the current Britney (Spears) tour, is that it has a lot of fantastic dancing… and she doesn't get bogged down in any…. ahm…singing!”

Kathy Griffin (1960) American actress and comedian

Balls of Steel (2009)

Singing , Dance

“Shall we then, I ask you, even for a moment, be hopeless of our great cause? I feel almost ashamed even to argue it to such a meeting as this. I call to mind where I am, and who are those whom I see before me. Am I not in the town of Birmingham—England's central capital; and do not these eyes look upon the sons of those who, not thirty years ago, shook the fabric of privilege to its base? Not a few of the strong men of that time are now white with age. They approach the confines of their mortal day. Its evening is cheered with the remembrance of that great contest, and they rejoice in the freedom they have won. Shall their sons be less noble than they? Shall the fire which they kindled be extinguished with you? I see your answer in every face. You are resolved that the legacy which they bequeathed to you, you will hand down in an accumulated wealth of freedom to your children. As for me, my voice is feeble. I feel now sensibly and painfully that I am not what I was. I speak with diminished fire; I act with a lessened force; but as I am, my countrymen and my constituents, I will, if you will let me, be found in your ranks in the impending struggle.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech in Birmingham (27 October 1858) referring to the Reform Crisis, quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), pp. 272-273.
1850s

Men , Children , Age , Feeling

“Sometimes, when I'm feeling down because nothing seems to be going right, I like to take a home pregnancy test. Then I can say, "Hey, at least I'm not pregnant."”

Daniel Tosh (1975) American stand-up comedian

Comedy Central Presents: Daniel Tosh (2003)

Feeling , Home

“The game is giant, but my marriage is even bigger. I love my wife, and you will hear me say to others, “We might have to get rid of Laura, maybe,” but there is no way I would ever write my wife's name down--I don't see it. I already told Laura, “If you have to, because I know I'm gonna be a lot bigger target than you,” if Laura has to write my name down, it's more than fine, it's more than fine.”

Rupert Boneham (1964) American mentor, television personality, and politician

Rupert Boneham & Laura Boneham: 'Survivor: Blood vs. Water' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LE6THeb9dA, YouTube

Love , Marriage , Way , Game

“The ultimate meaning of the angry young man is not known. What is known is the shape of his greatest fear—that all of his efforts, from learning to speak to learning to write, to write well, to write badly, to write angrily, from learning to despise to learning to abominate, to abominate well, to abominate badly, to abominate abominably, to rant, to fulminate, to shout down the sea, to age, to age graefully, to age awkwardly, to age at all, to think, to regret, to list himself in the newspapers under “Lost and Found”, might culminate precisely in this: a roaring, raging, crazy mad passionate bibliography.”

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

“The Angry Young Man”, p. 111.
The Teachings of Don. B: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays of Donald Barthelme (1992)

Age , Fear , Thinking , Effort

“I knew the minute I heard the "gay inhale". He literally goes "Diva, what are you doing here?". It was heaven! I found my gay, even in Kandahar, Afghanistan! He plonks down next to me, puts the tray down, puts his gun down… he's like "Errghh, girl, I'm on graveyard tonight… I am a wreck… I'm exhausted… my roommates are all snoring, yee-ukk, they're pigs! Anyway, what's going on with Ben and J-Lo?"”

Kathy Griffin (1960) American actress and comedian

Allegedly (2004)

Girl

“I don't say I was 'proceeding down a thoroughfare', I say I 'walked down the road'. I don't say I 'passed a hallowed institute of learning', I say I 'passed a school'. You don't wear all your jewellery at once. You're much more believable if you talk in your own voice.”

Maeve Binchy (1940–2012) Irish novelist

On her secret to writing. bbc.co.uk http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19057922

School , Learning

“When people listen to my music, I hope that they will notice that if you take a piece by a composer like Schubert, the major and the minor triad is an extermely important thing not merely as harmony, but in creating melodic lines. Schubert is always walking up and down with arpeggios on C, E, G and so forth. I am not doing anything different really, except using a different system of harmony.”

Elliott Carter (1908–2012) American composer

Carter interviewed by Joël Bons. Album notes for Elliot Carter: homages & dedications, p.17 [CD booklet]. Montaigne Records (2003), MO 782089.

People , Hope , Music

“Johnson: What do you think about this Vietnam thing? I’d like to hear you talk a little bit.
Russell: Well, frankly, Mr. President, it’s the damn worse mess that I ever saw, and I don’t like to brag and I never have been right many times in my life, but I knew that we were going to get into this sort of mess when we went in there. And I don’t see how we’re ever going to get out of it without fighting a major war with the Chinese and all of them down there in those rice paddies and jungles. I just don’t see it. I just don’t know what to do.
Johnson: Well, that’s the way I have been feeling for six months.
Russell: Our position is deteriorating and it looks like the more we try to do for them, the less they are willing to do for themselves. It is a mess and it’s going to get worse, and I don’t know how or what to do. I don’t think the American people are quite ready for us to send our troops in there to do the fighting. If I was going to get out, I’d get the same crowd that got rid of old Diem [the Vietnamese prime minister who was overthrown and assassinated in 1963] to get rid of these people and to get some fellow in there that said we wish to hell we would get out. That would give us a good excuse for getting out.
Johnson: How important is it to us?
Russell: It isn’t important a damn bit for all this new missile stuff.
Johnson: I guess it is important.
Russell: From a psychological standpoint. Other than the question of our word and saving face, that’s the reason that I said that I don’t think that anybody would expect us to stay in there. It’s going to be a headache to anybody that tries to fool with it. You’ve got all the brains in the country, Mr. President—you better get ahold of them. I don’t know what to do about this. I saw it all coming on, but that don’t do any good now, that’s water over the dam and under the bridge. And we are there.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Telephone call with Senator Richard Russell (May 27, 1964)

Life , War , People , Fools

“For a man will not have strength to fight his way forward all day
long until the sun goes down if he is starved for food.”

Homér Iliad

XIX. 162–163 (tr. R. Lattimore).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Food , Way , Sun , Fight

“Attention, attention, the key to practice, so many teachers have said. It’s true. When we come to know, even a little, this truly miraculous and open nature of our being, we begin to appreciate the jewels and riches in these very simple instructions that come down to us through our teachers.”

Ken McLeod (1948) Canadian lama

Buddha Nature http://www.unfetteredmind.org/buddha-nature. Unfettered Mind http://www.unfetteredmind.org. (Topic: Practice)

Nature , Teachers

“[I]n a confederation the South must accept the ultra-nationalist Kim Il Sung cult, whereas the North must acknowledge only the South’s superior prosperity and technology — and one of the main goals of confederation is to eliminate that gap as rapidly as possible. (It will be as much a matter of pulling the South down as the North up.)”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, "Heaven is Helping Us": More from the Nationalist Left (August 2018)

“I think what happened: the mammoths were up there chopping on their tropical flowers. It was a beautiful day, and it began to snow super cold snow. They had never seen snow before. One of the mammoths looked at his buddy and said, "Herman, this is peculiar weather we're having here. What is this white stuff falling out of the sky?" "I don't know, but let's get out of here." They started running around trying to find a place to hide and the snow got deeper and deeper and deeper and they got stuck in the snow standing up, and they couldn't even fall down. How many of you have ever been in a snow drift so deep you couldn't even fall over? Ever been in one of those? I think that's what happened to the mammoths. People say, "Well the mammoths have long hair. They're designed for cold weather." No, mammoths are not designed for cold weather. A lot of animals in the jungle have long hair. It is hot there. If the temperature is seventy degrees, long hair is just simply a decoration. There's a lot of things about the mammoth that shows that they were not designed for cold weather. There's a whole section just in this book about mammoths showing that they were not designed for cold weather. You can read all about that. For the mammoths, some of them ended frozen standing up. It was in super cold ice, perhaps 300 degrees below zero!”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Hovind theory

People , Books , Beauty , Flowers

“For nearly forty years, Ed Bradley dedicated his life to journalism and uncovered some of history's greatest stories. His legacy, his life's work, is a story for all of us to admire. Ed was a man of journalistic integrity, he not only set a high standard for his fellow journalists; he also helped to break down barriers in a field that traditionally has not reflected the true diversity of our Nation.”

Ed Bradley (1941–2006) News correspondent

[Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Congressional Record, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2006-12-06/html/CREC-2006-12-06-pt2-PgH8798-3.htm, Honoring the Contributions and Life of Edward R. Bradley, H8798-H8800; Volume 152, Number 133, December 6, 2006, United States House of Representatives , printed by the United States Government Printing Office]
About

Life , History , Help

“Antony … used to say that it behooved a man to give all his time to his soul rather than his body, yet to grant a short space to the body through its necessities; but all the more earnestly to give up the whole remainder to the soul and seek its profit, that it might not be dragged down by the pleasures of the body, but, on the contrary, the body might be in subjection to the soul.”

Athanasius of Alexandria (295–373) Patriarch of Alexandria

§ 45
Life of Anthony of Egypt

Pleasure , Soul , Time

“Project managers who believe that closing down a project will wreck their careers are tempted to carry on in the hope they will have a slight chance of saving their reputations. Both courses carry the risk of disaster for those responsible for a project, but one—abandonment—is often far better for the company.”

David Davis (1948) British Conservative Party politician and former businessman

"New Projects: Beware of False Economies" https://hbr.org/1985/03/new-projects-beware-of-false-economies, published in Harvard Business Review (March 1985)
On management of big projects

Hope , Chance

“He is Karna, whom the world has abandoned. Karna Alone. Condemned goods. A prince raised in poverty. Born to die unfairly, unarmed and alone at the hands of his brother. Majestic in his complete despair. Praying on the banks of the Ganga. Stoned out of his skull.
Then Kunti appeared. She too was a man, but a man grown soft and womanly, a man with breasts, from doing female parts for years. Her movements were fluid. Full of women. Kunti, too, was stoned. High on the same shared joints. She had come to tell Karna a story.
Karna inclined his beautiful head and listened.
Red-eyed, Kunti danced for him. She told him of a young woman who had been granted a boon. A secret mantra that she could use to choose a lover from among the gods. Of how, with the imprudence of youth, the woman decided to test it to see if it really worked. How she stood alone in an empty field, turned her face to the heavens and recited the mantra. The words had scarcely left her foolish lips, Kunti said, when Surya, the God of Day, appeared before her. The young woman, bewitched by the beauty of the shimmering young god, gave herself to him. Nine months later she bore him a son. The baby was born sheathed in light, with gold earrings in his ears and a gold breastplate on his chest, engraved with the emblem of the sun.
The young mother loved her first-born son deeply, Kunti said, but she was unmarried and couldn't keep him. She put him in a reed basket and cast him away in a river. The child was found downriver by Adhirata, a charioteer. And named Karna.
Karna looked up to Kunti. Who was she? Who was my mother? Tell me where she is. Take me to her.
Kunti bowed her head. She's here, she said. Standing before you.
Karna's elation and anger at the revelation. His dance of confusion and despair. Where were you, he asked her, when I needed you the most? Did you ever hold me in your arms? Did you feed me? Did you ever look for me? Did you wonder where I might be?
In reply Kunti took the regal face in her hands, green the face, red the eyes, and kissed him on his brow. Karna shuddered in delight. A warrior reduced to infancy. The ecstasy of that kiss. He dispatched it to the ends of his body. To his toes. His fingertips. His lovely mother's kiss. Did you know how much I missed you? Rahel could see it coursing through his veins, as clearly as an egg travelling down an ostrich's neck.
A travelling kiss whose journey was cut short by dismay when Karna realised that his mother had revealed herself to him only to secure the safety of her five other, more beloved sons - the Pandavas - poised on the brink of their epic battle with their one hundred cousins. It is them that Kunti sought to protect by announcing to Karna that she was his mother. She had a promise to extract.
She invoked the Love Laws.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

pages 232-233.
The God of Small Things (1997)

Love , Women , God , Secret

“The buzz about Google these days is that it’s like America itself: still the biggest game in town, but inevitably and irrevocably on the decline. Both are superpowers with unmatched resources, but both are faced with fast-growing rivals, and both will eventually be eclipsed. For America, that rival is China; for Google, it’s Facebook…But here’s the difference: staring down the inevitable, American pays defense contractors to build aircraft carriers. Google pays brilliant programmers to do whatever the hell they want.”

Robin Sloan (1979) American writer

Source: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (2012), Chapter 11 “The Spider” (p. 82; ellipsis represents minor elision of description)

Game , Hell

“It’s a terrible thing, being afraid. It’s like an illness; like wanting to fall down, and not being able to faint. You see you never get used to it. You live with it and live with it and every day it’s worse; and one day it’s the worst of all. I thought, when it…happened, I wouldn’t be afraid. But I was wrong….”

Keith Roberts book Pavane

Sixth measure “Corfe Gate” (p. 260)
Pavane (1968)

“The good Lord had had a chance for a long time before the abolition. I believe that there is a moral government; and that God reigns. I am no pessimist; I give thanks to the good Lord, and also to the good men through whom He has worked. Prominent among them was Garrison, and scarcely less so was Phillips. It was they and their associates who made Abraham Lincoln and the Republican party possible. What abolished slavery was the moral sentiment which had been created, not by the pulpit, but by the Garrisonian platform. The churches did not do much to abolish slavery; but they did much to keep the agitation down.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1890s, Speech at Tremont Temple (1890)

Men , God , Chance , Time

“Sit down in climbing, and hear the pines sing.”

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

page 428
John of the Mountains, 1938

Singing

“He looks at the city where no one had known him.
He looks at the sky where no one looks down.
He looks at his life and what it has shown him.
He looks for his shadow it cannot be found.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

Sniper
Song lyrics, Sniper and Other Love Songs (1972)

Life

“I want my Pope to be a traditionalist. Otherwise religion has no meaning, whatsoever. I'm not a bagel-and-lox Jew; let me put it to you that way. I stopped going to the temple a long time ago when they did the bagel and lox job. I didn't go there to eat sponge cake. I didn't go there to hear about liberation theology in a synagogue and I'm sure many Catholics stopped going to church because they wanted to go to hear fire and brimstone. They wanted the priests to roar in the pulpit. They wanted him to bring heaven itself down into that church and they weren't getting what they went for. And so they stopped going, but they didn't stop wearing the cross, nor did they stop believing in God…”

Michael Savage book The Savage Nation

The Savage Nation
The Savage Nation (1995- ), 2013-09-24
Radio, 01:06
2013

God , Religion , Way , Time

“We've shipped millions of jobs overseas and we have a strange situation because we have a process in Washington where after you've served for a while you cash in and become a foreign lobbyist, make $30,000 a month; then take a leave, work on Presidential campaigns, make sure you got good contacts, and then go back out. Now if you just want to get down to brass tacks, the first thing you ought to do is get all these folks who've got these one-way trade agreements that we've negotiated over the years and say, "Fellows, we'll take the same deal we gave you." And they'll gridlock right at that point because, for example, we've got international competitors who simply could not unload their cars off the ships if they had to comply -- you see, if it was a two-way street -- just couldn't do it. We have got to stop sending jobs overseas.”

Ross Perot (1930–2019) American businessman

Cars , Way

“Next he will be foxtrotting down to the Tory party's fundraising ball, auctioning City internships for the children of the highest bidder. Is that not the Government's idea of social mobility?”

Harriet Harman (1950) British politician

On Nick Clegg's social mobility pledges, during a debate in the House of Commons http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8441262/Harriet-Harman-facing-questions-over-sons-internship.html, 11 April 2011.

Children , Idea

“Not that I'd grudge a tear
for any man gone down to meet his fate.
What other tribute can we pay to wretched men
than to cut a lock, let tears roll down our cheeks?”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

IV. 195–198 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Men , Fate , Tear

“People first want to spend money on food -- that is common across the world. The second, in India, is education. In many parts of the world, it comes way down the list of priorities. So, there is a huge opportunity.”

Mukesh Ambani (1957) Indian business magnate

Mukesh Ambani on retail and SEZ plans

Money , People , World , Education

“Nonviolence begins with the insights that all life is sacred, that all human beings are children of the God of peace, and that as God’s children, we are under certain obligations. Of course, we should never hurt or kill another human being, wage war, build nuclear weapons, or sit idly by while millions of human beings starve to death each year. Nonviolence invites us, also, to reevaluate the way we treat animals in our society. While we resist violence, injustice, and war, and while we practice nonviolence, seek peace, and struggle for justice for the poor, we are also invited to break down the species barrier, extending our belief in Christian compassion to the animal kingdom by, among other things, adopting a vegetarian diet.”

John Dear (1959) Catholic priest from the United States

Christianity and Vegetarianism (1990)

Life , Death , God , War

“If you would have clear and irrefragable for a perpetual joy, a glory and a defense, the unwavering confidence, "I am Thy child," go to God's throne, and lie down at the foot of it, and let the first thought be, "My Father in heaven;" and that will brighten, that will establish, that will make omnipotent in your life, the witness of the Spirit that you are the child of God.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 17.

Life , God , Lie , Confidence

“A feather will weigh down a scale when there is nothing in the opposite one.”

Thomas Robert Malthus Principles of Political Economy

Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section V, p. 355
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)

“The Hindus of this region had been victims of Muslim high-handedness for a long time, particularly in respect of their women. Murshid Qulî Khãn, the faujdãr of Mathura who died in 1638, was notorious for seizing “all their most beautiful women” and forcing them into his harem. “On the birthday of Krishna,” narrates Ma’sîr-ul-Umara, “a vast gathering of Hindu men and women takes place at Govardhan on the Jumna opposite Mathura. The Khan, painting his forehead and wearing dhoti like a Hindu, used to walk up and down in the crowd. Whenever he saw a woman whose beauty filled even the moon with envy, he snatched her away like a wolf pouncing upon a flock, and placing her in the boat which his men kept ready on the bank, he sped to Agra. The Hindu [for shame] never divulged what had happened to his daughter.” Another notorious faujdãr of Mathura was Abdu’n Nabî Khãn. He plundered the people unscrupulously and amassed great wealth. But his worst offence was the pulling down of the foremost Hindu temple in the heart of Mathura and building a Jãmi‘ Masjid on its site. This he did in AD 1660-61. Soon after, in 1665, Aurangzeb imposed a pilgrim tax on the Hindus. In 1668, he prohibited celebration of all Hindu festivals, particularly Holi and Diwali. The Jats who rightly regarded themselves as the defenders of Hindu hounour were no longer in a mood to take it lying. (Jadunath Sarkar, History of Aurangzeb, Vol. III, Calcutta, 1972 )”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

Women , Men , People , Beauty

“Took a walk and passed your house late last night,
All the shades were pulled and drawn way down tight.
From within, the dim light cast two silhouettes on the shade.”

Frank Slay (1930–2017) American record producer

Song: "Silhouettes"

Way , Light , Housing , Night

“I know that the Crusaders of Majorca put to death, in a single night, all the prisoners who were huddled in the Catalonian trenches. They took the whole herd down to the shore and shot them, one beast at a time - they were quite leisurely about it. The Lord High Archbishop of Palma arranged to be represented at the ceremony, by a certain number of his priests. You can picture the scene can't you? 'Come on, father, isn't that one ready?' - 'Just a moment captain, I'm handing him over to you at once.' When the job was finished, the Crusaders piled their cattle in two heaps - those who'd been given absolution and those who hadn't- then sprinkled petrol over them. It is quite likely that this purification by fire may then have taken on, by reason of the presence of priests officiating a liturgical significance. Unfortunately I only saw these blackened, shiny creatures two days after that, contorted by the flames, some of them counterfeiting obscene poses in death, which must have been very distressing for the ladies of Palma and for their eminent confessors. A reeking tar oozed out of them…”

Georges Bernanos book Les grands cimetières sous la lune

Source: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.153-154

Death , Time , Night

“Faith is letting down our nets into the transparent deeps at the Divine command, not knowing what we shall take.”

Frederick William Faber (1814–1863) British hymn writer and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 238.

Faith

“You're always waiting on the tide,
It's time you decide.
I've walked down long roads that seem to have no end at all.
You never wanted time to end,
To let my life offend.”

Sarah McLachlan (1968) Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter

Steaming
Song lyrics, Touch (1988)

Life , Time , Waiting

“Slow down, you move too fast.
You got to make the morning last.
Just kicking down the cobblestones.
Looking for fun and Feelin' Groovy.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

The 59th Street Bridge Song
Song lyrics, Parsley (1966)

“The unions might be good for the people who are in the unions but it doesn't do a thing for the people who are unemployed. Because the union keeps down the number of jobs, it doesn't do a thing for them.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

Interview with Brian Lamb, In Depth Book TV (2000)

People

“The odd thing is not that we are in the business of overthrowing other people's governments, but that we can still be surprised when somebody reminds us of it. In Asia, in Latin America, Africa, the Mediterranean and the Middle East we have been propping up and knocking down governments more or less openly for the past twenty-five years.
It is an established policy. Everybody knows it. It is supposed to be done covertly, which is only sensible if you hope to succeed since publicity in matters of this sort can only make the natives restless and defeat the project. Imagine the chauvinistic rallying around President Nixon that would have occurred if Canada, say, had announced that her agents were going to destabilize United States society so that discontented Americans could heave the Nixon Administration out of office.”

Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States

"Our Uncle Is Now Dorian Sam" (p.93)
So This Is Depravity (1980)

People , Hope , Imagination , Business

“Thank you dear Father Massimiliano, I'll try not to let you down and I promise you two and a half months of complete sexual abstinence until April 9 [election].”

Silvio Berlusconi (1936) Italian politician

Speaking at his party's convention in Sardinia (28 January 2006), as reported in Il Giornale (29 January 2006)
Variant translation: I'll try not to let you down and I promise you two and a half months of complete sexual abstinence until election day.
As reported in "Did I say This? in The Observer (20 April 2008) http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/apr/20/italy
2006

“The Rev. Jesse Jackson once said, “There is nothing more painful for me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery—then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”

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

2010s, American Contempt for Liberty (2015)

Life , Pain , Feeling , Thinking

“[about Fruit of the Loom] What does fruit got to do with underbritches? I guess it's to remind us when we take them down we go, "Oh, I should've eaten more fruit today. I guess."”

Larry the Cable Guy (1963) American stand-up comedian, actor, country music artist, voice artist

Morning Constitutions (2007)

“To protest about bullfighting in Spain, the eating of dogs in South Korea, or the slaughter of baby seals in Canada while continuing to eat eggs from hens who have spent their lives crammed into cages, or veal from calves who have been deprived of their mothers, their proper diet, and the freedom to lie down with their legs extended, is like denouncing apartheid in South Africa while asking your neighbors not to sell their houses to blacks.”

Peter Singer book Animal Liberation

Source: Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for our Treatment of Animals (1975), Ch. 4: Becoming a Vegetarian

Lie , Dogs , Freedom , Baby

“Some people hope for a miracle cure
Some people just accept the world as it is.
But I'm not willing to lay down and die
Because I am an innocent man.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

An Innocent Man.
Song lyrics, An Innocent Man (1983)

People , World , Hope

“Now I'm standing alone in a crowded room
And we're not speaking.
And I'm dyin' to know:
Is it killing you
Like it's killing me?
Yeah.
I don't know what to say since a twist of fate, when it all broke down
And the story of us looks a lot like a tragedy now.”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

The Story of Us.
Song lyrics, Speak Now (2010)

Fate

“Standing still as a statue in the October shadows, he looked, grotesquely, more like a patriot than anything usually seen on a baseball field. A trick of light perhaps. Yet what famous athlete last died for a cause bigger than himself? Clemente could sometimes seem like a pest, a nagging narcissist, with only his burningly serious play to deny it. Yet when that plane crashed carrying relief supplies to Nicaragua we saw what he had meant all along. It was like the old Clemente crashing into the right field wall in a losing game: the act of a totally serious man.
By chance I met Clemente once, in the humble role of autograph-seeker. He was doing wind sprints down at the Pirate training camp in Bradenton, Florida. And although I claimed I was getting an autograph for my son (true, for a change), he looked at me with a hidalgo’s contempt – at a grown man simpering over a blunt pencil; he turned his back abruptly and did another wind sprint, then slashed his name onto my scorecard and sauntered away. To hell with you, Clemente, I thought. But on the way out, I saw him funning with three old ladies from Allentown, Pennsylvania, and I have never seen sweeter courtesy.”

Wilfrid Sheed (1930–2011) English-American novelist and essayist

From the foreword to Clemente! (1973) by Kal Wagenheim

Way , Game , Hell , Light

“In many churches Christianity has been watered down until the solution is so weak that if it were poison it would not hurt anyone, and if it were medicine it would not cure anyone!”

Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897–1963) American missionary

I Talk Back to the Devil: Essays in Spiritual Perfection (1990).

Water , Hurt

“How many women does one need to sing the scale of love all the way up and down?”

Georg Büchner Leonce and Lena

Act I.
Leonce and Lena (1838)

Love , Women , Way , Singing

“I usually seem to finish a poem when I write it down. I may have been carrying the notion around in my head.”

John Hollander (1929–2013) American poet

“I want to tell you that, when the army of Egypt came down the streets, came to protect you, and stayed for 18 months, none of the soldiers harmed you, Our hands must be cut if they would harm you. I am repeating this for you to know, during those 18 months, there were 150,000 soldier in the streets. it means for 500 days with 150,000 soldier in the street there were 7.5 million possibilities, we were struggling not to harm any Egyptian!”

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (1954) Current President of Egypt

Remarks by el-Sisi on Sinai liberation celebrations day (28 April 2013) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x1xN8LUYG4.
2013

“Under an accumulation of staggerers, no man can be considered a free agent. No man knocks himself down; if his destiny knocks him down, his destiny must pick him up again.”

Charles Dickens book The Old Curiosity Shop

Source: The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), Ch. 34

“Ole man trouble
Go find you someone else to pick on.
I live my life now you see.
Ole man trouble,
Please stay away from me, now.Oh I look like I'm down in my luck.
Please send faith to help pick me up.
I've lived this way so many years
Ole man trouble,
Please wash away all my fears.”

Otis Redding (1941–1967) American singer, songwriter and record producer

Ole Man Trouble.
Song lyrics, Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul (1965)

Life , Fear , Faith , Way

“What does NOT work best for anyone, though, is being forced to keep a Windows partition around just to play video games. The best operating system for playing games is the one that lets you keep your word processor, instant messenger, email, and music player open in the background while you play. The worst is the one that will force you to shut all that down just to screw around for a few minutes.”

Ryan C. Gordon (1978) Computer programmer

Quoted in Robin Heggelund Hansen, "Porting games to Linux" http://www.hardware.no/artikler/ryan_c_gordon_and_michael_simms/68450/1 hardware.no (2009-03-10)

Music , Game

“Mind and matter brought down to the essential, to the consciousness and its object, form a natural whole, and the difficulty does not consist in uniting but in separating them.”

Alfred Binet (1857–1911) French psychologist and inventor of the first usable intelligence test

Source: The Mind and the Brain, 1907, p. 184

Nature

“Concerning the night assault of Lord Asano's ronin, the fact that they did not commit seppuku at the Sengakuji was an error, for there was a long delay between the time their lord was struck down and the time when they struck down the enemy. If Lord Kira had died of illness within that period, it would have been extremely regrettable.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Commentary on the tale of The Forty-Seven Samurai (or the "Forty-seven Ronin", or Akō Rōshi, the Akō "vendetta"), emphasizing his view that Bushido demands prompt action, and not delay, or concern about success and failure. Variant: "What if, nine months after Asano's death, Kira had died of an illness?"
Hagakure (c. 1716)

Error , Time , Night

“Mandela has walked a long road and now stands at the top of the hill. A traveler would sit down and admire the view. But a man of destiny knows that beyond this hill lies another and another. The journey is never complete. As he contemplates the next hill I hold out my hand in friendship and in cooperation. I should like to make clear that I believe that my political task is just beginning. Everything that we have done so far - the four years of difficult and often frustrating negotiations, the problems and the crises - have been simply a preparation for the work that lies ahead. The greatest challenge which we will face in the government of national unity will be to defend and nurture our new constitution. Our greatest task will be to ensure our young and vulnerable democracy will take root and flourish.”

F. W. de Klerk (1936) South African politician

Concession speech (1994), as quoted in "De Klerk: 'My Political Task Is Just Beginning'" https://web.archive.org/web/20180920124105/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/05/03/de-klerk-my-political-task-is-just-beginning/ccdb96c6-5a8f-48d9-9872-3e016b4ee287/?utm_term=.bf09056315ad (3 May 1994), Reuters
1990s, 1994

Friendship , Travel , Democracy , Problem

“There's a lot of things that were going on. I'd run out of OxyContin, I was doing a lot of Dilaudid. Dilaudid is like a millimeter down from OxyContin. I was doing a lot of those, and life just got super stressful for me.”

Jack Osbourne (1985) Son of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne

MTV.com Jack Talks About His Addiction and Recovery

Life

“In 1932 many dark clouds still hung round the horizon. In 1933, although the outlook was distinctly brighter, there was no settled feeling that we were about to enjoy a spell of fine weather. To-day the atmosphere is distinctly brighter. The events of the last 12 months have shown gratifying evidence that the efforts of His Majesty's Government are bearing fruit…If you look to what I might call the telltale statistics, the unemployment figures and statistics of such things as retail trade, consumption of electricity, transport, iron and steel production and house building, in every case you see a definite revival of activity…If I might borrow an illustration from the titles of two well-known works of fiction, I would say that we have now finished the story of "Bleak House" and that we are sitting down this afternoon to enjoy the first chapter of "Great Expectations."”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Budget speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1934/apr/17/financial-statement in the House of Commons (17 April 1934)
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Feeling , Effort , Housing , Weather

“On his neglect of being a rock star: There’s a certain discipline about being a rock star, and I don’t have it. If I was a rock star, I wouldn’t have let a photographer in here, dressed like this. I’d have been down the hairdressers. You try and get Sting to do something without 15 advisors. These boys are like Russian princes…”

Chris Rea (1951) English singer-songwriter

2015

Star , Boy

“In AH 871 (AD 1466-67) he started for the conquest of Karnãl [Girnãr] which is now known as JûnãgaDh. It is said that this country had been in the possession of the predecessors of Rãi Mandalîk for the past two thousand years… Sultãn Mahmûd relied on the help of Allãh and proceeded there; on the way he laid waste the land of SoraTh… From that place the Sultãn went towards the temple of those people. Many Rajpûts who were known as Parwhãn, decided to lay down their lives, and started fighting with swords and spears in (defence) of the temple… Sultãn Mahmûd postponed the conquest of the fort to the next year… and returned to Ahmadãbãd.”

Nizamuddin Ahmad (1551–1594) historian

Sultãn Mahmûd BegDhã of Gujarat (AD 1458-1511) Junagadh (Gujarat)
Tabqãt-i-Akharî

People , Way , Past , Help

“O ah hear her walkin',
Walkin' barefoot 'cross the floor-boards,
All thru this lonesome night,
And ah hear her crying too.
Hot-tears come splashin' down,
Leaking thru the cracks,
Down upon my face, ah catch'em in my mouth!”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Song lyrics, From Her to Eternity (1984), From Her to Eternity

Tear , Cry , Night

“Beware! By Allah the son of Abu Quhafah (Abu Bakr) dressed himself with it (the caliphate) and he certainly knew that my position in relation to it was the same as the position of the axis in relation to the hand-mill. The flood water flows down from me and the bird cannot fly upto me. I put a curtain against the caliphate and kept myself detached from it.
Then I began to think whether I should assault or endure calmly the blinding darkness of tribulations wherein the grown up are made feeble and the young grow old and the true believer acts under strain till he meets Allah (on his death). I found that endurance thereon was wiser. So I adopted patience although there was pricking in the eye and suffocation (of mortification) in the throat. I watched the plundering of my inheritance till the first one went his way but handed over the Caliphate to Ibn al-Khattab after himself.
(Then he quoted al-A`sha's verse):
My days are now passed on the camel's back (in difficulty) while there were days (of ease) when I enjoyed the company of Jabir's brother Hayyan.
It is strange that during his lifetime he wished to be released from the caliphate but he confirmed it for the other one after his death. No doubt these two shared its udders strictly among themselves. This one put the Caliphate in a tough enclosure where the utterance was haughty and the touch was rough. Mistakes were in plenty and so also the excuses therefore. One in contact with it was like the rider of an unruly camel. If he pulled up its rein the very nostril would be slit, but if he let it loose he would be thrown. Consequently, by Allah people got involved in recklessness, wickedness, unsteadiness and deviation.
Nevertheless, I remained patient despite length of period and stiffness of trial, till when he went his way (of death) he put the matter (of Caliphate) in a group and regarded me to be one of them. But good Heavens! what had I to do with this "consultation"? Where was any doubt about me with regard to the first of them that I was now considered akin to these ones? But I remained low when they were low and flew high when they flew high. One of them turned against me because of his hatred and the other got inclined the other way due to his in-law relationship and this thing and that thing, till the third man of these people stood up with heaving breasts between his dung and fodder. With him his children of his grand-father, (Umayyah) also stood up swallowing up Allah's wealth like a camel devouring the foliage of spring, till his rope broke down, his actions finished him and his gluttony brought him down prostrate.
At that moment, nothing took me by surprise, but the crowd of people rushing to me. It advanced towards me from every side like the mane of the hyena so much so that Hasan and Husayn were getting crushed and both the ends of my shoulder garment were torn. They collected around me like the herd of sheep and goats. When I took up the reins of government one party broke away and another turned disobedient while the rest began acting wrongfully as if they had not heard the word of Allah saying:
That abode in the hereafter, We assign it for those who intend not to exult themselves in the earth, nor (to make) mischief (therein); and the end is (best) for the pious ones. (Qur'an, 28:83)
Yes, by Allah, they had heard it and understood it but the world appeared glittering in their eyes and its embellishments seduced them. Behold, by Him who split the grain (to grow) and created living beings, if people had not come to me and supporters had not exhausted the argument and if there had been no pledge of Allah with the learned to the effect that they should not acquiesce in the gluttony of the oppressor and the hunger of the oppressed I would have cast the rope of Caliphate on its own shoulders, and would have given the last one the same treatment as to the first one. Then you would have seen that in my view this world of yours is no better than the sneezing of a goat.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Known as the Sermon of ash-Shiqshiqiyyah (roar of the camel), It is said that when Amir al-mu'minin reached here in his sermon a man of Iraq stood up and handed him over a writing. Amir al-mu'minin began looking at it, when Ibn `Abbas said, "O' Amir al-mu'minin, I wish you resumed your Sermon from where you broke it." Thereupon he replied, "O' Ibn `Abbas it was like the foam of a Camel which gushed out but subsided." Ibn `Abbas says that he never grieved over any utterance as he did over this one because Amir al-mu'minin could not finish it as he wished to.
Nahj al-Balagha

Death , Hunger , Children , People