Quotes about drive
page 12

“The desire that drives an artist to graphic work is perhaps partly the effort to capture the unique and indefinite nature of a drawing in a fixed and durable form. Another aspect of it is that the technical manipulations exercise energies in the artist that he does not use in the far less strenuous crafts of drawing and painting... the mysterious attraction that surrounded the invention of printing in the Middle Ages is still felt by anyone who takes up graphics seriously and performs every stage in the process wit hits own hands.”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) German painter, sculptor, engraver and printmaker

as quoted in Expressionism, de:Wolf-Dieter Dube; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 27
undated

Age, Exercises, Nature, Effort

“I, I will be king.
And you, you will be queen.
Though nothing will drive them away.
We can beat them, just for one day.
We can be heroes, just for one day.”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

"Heroes", written with Brian Eno
Song lyrics, "Heroes" (1977)

“We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

As quoted in Pocket Patriot : Quotes from American Heroes (2005) edited by Kelly Nickell, p. 157

People, Way

“The comics medium is a very specialized area of the Arts, home to many rare and talented blooms and flowering imaginations and it breaks my heart to see so many of our best and brightest bowing down to the same market pressures which drive lowest-common-denominator blockbuster movies and television cop shows. Let's see if we can call time on this trend by demanding and creating big, wild comics which stretch our imaginations. Let's make living breathing, sprawling adventures filled with mind-blowing images of things unseen on Earth. Let's make artefacts that are not faux-games or movies but something other, something so rare and strange it might as well be a window into another universe because that's what it is.”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

2004
https://web.archive.org/web/20040803000924/http://www.popimage.com/content/grant20041.html Popimage interview
On comics

Art, Home, Imagination, Game

“See driving is like stabbing someone, it's very personal. While flying is like shooting someone, it's more distant.”

Bushwick Bill (1966–2019) American rapper

Source: Dirty South: Southern Rappers Who Changed the Game

Distant, Personality, Flying

“If in later life she has mastered her hunger drive by ego control, she may assume that she can control her fate herself. But that ego may in fact be very weak, because it has been built by cutting herself off from the mainstream of life through severe dieting. It is built on negative rather than positive need. In a real life crisis, such an ego may fail to operate because she does not know consciously what her own needs are. […] An ego which sets itself up against Fate is attempting to usurp the power of the Self; it swings from light to dark, from inflation to depression. Only when her ego is firmly rooted in her own feminine feeling can a woman be released from her compulsive behavior.”

Marion Woodman (1928–2018) Canadian writer

Source: The Owl Was a Baker's Daughter (1980), p. 33

Life, Hunger, Fate, Behavior

“Plato in his allegory of the soul—in the Phaedrus—though he apparently divides the passions which draw the human chariot into two classes, the heavenward and the earthward—figured by the white horse and the black horse respectively—does not recommend that the black horse should be destroyed or dismissed, but only that he (as well as the white horse) should be kept under due control by the charioteer. By which he seems to intend that there is a power in man which stands above and behind the passions, and under whose control alone the human being can safely move. In fact if the fiercer and so-called more earthly passions were removed, half the driving force would be gone from the chariot of the human soul. Hatred may be devilish at times—but after all the true value of it depends on what you hate, on the use to which the passion is put. Anger, though inhuman at one time is magnificent and divine at another. Obstinacy may be out of place in a drawing-room, but it is the latest virtue on a battlefield when an important position has to be held against the full brunt of the enemy. And Lust, though maniacal and monstrous in its aberrations, cannot in the last resort be separated from its divine companion, Love. To let the more amiable passions have entire sway notoriously does not do: to turn your cheek, too literally, to the smiter, is (pace Tolstoy) only to encourage smiting; and when society becomes so altruistic that everybody runs to fetch the coal-scuttle we feel sure that something has gone wrong. The white-washed heroes of our biographies with their many virtues and no faults do not please us. We have an impression that the man without faults is, to say the least, a vague, uninteresting being—a picture without light and shade—and the conventional semi-pious classification of character into good and bad qualities (as if the good might be kept and the bad thrown away) seems both inadequate and false.”

Edward Carpenter (1844–1929) British poet and academic

Defence of Criminals: A Criticism of Morality (1889)

Love, Hate, Feeling, Soul

“Ever since [ Copernicus], writers eager to drive the lesson home have urged us […] to abandon all sentimental egoism, and to see ourselves objectively in the true perspective of time and space. What precisely does this mean? In a full 'main feature' film, recapitulating faithfully the complete history of the universe, the rise of human beings from the first beginnings of man to the achievements of the twentieth century would flash by in a single second. Alternatively, if we decided to examine the universe objectively in the sense of paying equal attention to portions of equal mass, this would result in a lifelong preoccupation with interstellar dust, relieved only at brief intervals by a survey of incandescent masses of hydrogen — not in a thousand million lifetimes would the turn come to give man even a second's notice. It goes without saying that no one — scientists included — looks at the universe in this way, whatever lip-service is given to 'objectivity.”

Michael Polanyi (1891–1976) Hungarian-British polymath

Source: Personal Knowledge (1958), p. 3

Way, Home, History, Sense

“Driving is boring," Rabbit pontificates, "but it's what we do. Most of American life is driving somewhere and then driving back wondering why the hell you went.”

John Updike book Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

Life, Hell

“If the Jewish state becomes a fact, and this is realized by the Arab peoples, they will drive the Jews who live in their midst into the sea.”

Hassan Banna (1906–1949) Egyptian politician

AIM TO OUST JEWS PLEDGED BY SHEIKH, New York Times, August 02, 1948 http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10E13FF385A157B93C0A91783D85F4C8485F9

People, Sea

“My job driving the ambulance was not very severe, you did what you were supposed to do. That was my main job.”

Frank Buckles (1901–2011) United States Army soldier and centenarian

On his Job in WWI
kansascity.com.

“The broad cloud-driving moon in the clear sky
Lifts o’er the firs her shining shield,
And in her tranquil light
Sleep falls on forest and field.
See! sleep hath fallen: the trees are asleep:
The night is come. The land is wrapt in sleep.”

Robert Seymour Bridges (1844–1930) British writer

The Storm is Over, The Land Hushes to Rest, l. 38-43.
Poetry

Sleep, Tree, Light, Night

“Temple, who was driving, suddenly faltered and wept. “I’ve read that libraries are where immortality lies.... I don’t want my thoughts to die with me.... I want to have done something.... I’m not interested in power, or piles of money. I want to leave something behind. I want to make a positive contribution—know that my life has meaning. Right now, I’m talking about things at the very core of my existence.” I was stunned. As I stepped out of the car to say goodbye, I said, “I’m going to hug you. I hope you don’t mind.””

Oliver Sacks (1933–2015) British neurologist and writer

I hugged her—and (I think) she hugged me back.
An Anthropologist On Mars, The New Yorker, 27 December 1993

Life, Money, Hope, Cars

“A word about Hayti. We are not to judge her by the height which the Anglo-Saxon has reached. We are to judge by the depths from which she has come. We are to look at the relation she sustained to the outside world, and the outside world sustained to her. One hundred years ago every civilized nation was slave-holding. Yet these negroes, ignorant, downtrodden, had the manhood to arise and drive off their masters and assert their liberty. Her government is not so unsteady as we think.”

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

1890s, Speech at the Abolitionist Reunion in Boston (1890)

World, Thinking

“His hips felt as if an army of mad acupuncturists had been driving hot needles into them.”

T.C. Boyle (1948) American novelist and short story writer

Acts of God (1989)

Madness

“This is really an opportunity to mobilize a new generation of scholars and pastors not just to equip the saints but also to engage the culture and reclaim it for Christ. That's really what is driving me.”

William A. Dembski (1960) American intelligent design advocate

Dembski to head seminary's new science & theology center
2004-09-16
Baptist Press
Jeff
Robinson
http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/bpnews.asp?ID=19115
2011-10-23
2000s

Christ

“Corbyn needs to show he’s ready to lead from the front. He and those around him must come out of their bunker, stop blaming everybody else, and show the discipline and determination to drive our message home. These elections were a terrible missed opportunity. We cannot afford any more.”

Jo Cox (1974–2016) UK politician

We nominated Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership. Now we regret it (6 May 2016)

Home

“If this is neglected, any effort at development will fail, because factions will emerge with their own form of protest that would drive underground anyone seeking help. This will endanger whatever development has taken place.”

Epeli Ganilau (1951) Fijian politician

Address to the Pan Pacific HIV/AIDS Conference, Auckland, New Zealand, October 2005

Effort, Help

“For such is the work of philosophy: it cures souls, draws off vain anxieties, confers freedom from desires, drives away fears.”
Nam efficit hoc philosophia: medetur animis, inanes sollicitudines detrahit, cupiditatibus liberat, pellit timores.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Book II, Chapter IV; translation by Andrew P. Peabody
Tusculanae Disputationes – Tusculan Disputations (45 BC)

Fear, Soul, Freedom, Drawing

“I hit many what you call the "bad bol" pitches, and get good wood. The bol' travel like bullet. That remind me, I hit 565 foote hum-rum in Chicaga last year; the bol' disappear from centerfield, and Raj Hornsby tell me it longest drive he ever saw hit out of Wrigley Field. The bol' feel good on the bat but I feel bad at heart, when no writer with our team play up the big drive. I feel effort not appreciated.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted by Bill Nunn, Jr. in The New Pittsburgh Courier (June 25, 1960); reproduced in Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero https://books.google.com/books?id=jIhcvFs-k1cC&pg=PA98 (2006) by David Maraniss, p. 98 Comment: Clemente is not entirely correct. At least nationally (via TSN's weekly Pirates report), one veteran Pirates beat writer did do his part to publicize the blast. See Les Biederman (5/27/59 and 6/6/66) in Media, as well as Ernie Banks in Opponents. Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1960</big>

Travel, Feeling, Effort, Heart

“All the cold-reading clairvoyants and the nonsensical astrologers and absurd ESP merchants and other such people who talk about vibrations and energies…. God, if there’s a word that drives me mad it’s “energy” used in a nonsensical way—don’t get me started!”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

" Last Chance to Think http://www.csicop.org/si/show/stephen_fry--last_chance_to_think/" Interview (2010) by Kylie Sturgess in Skeptical Inquirer. Vol 34 (1) 2000s

God, People, Way, Reading

“To have some idea what it's like, stand in the outside lane of a motorway, get your mate to drive his car at you at 95 mph and wait until he's 12 yards away, before you decide which way to jump.”

Geoff Boycott (1940) cricket player of England

Cars, Way, Idea, Waiting

“The range of human potentialities is also the range of human needs because of man's vital drive that impels him to seek to realize his potentialities. this drive is even more mysterious than the potentialities it seeks to realize.”

Carroll Quigley (1910–1977) American historian

Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 2, Man and Culture, p. 55

“Sadiq Khan’s latest outburst that President Trump is ‘not welcome’ in London is well beyond his pay grade and flies in the face of common courtesy. It is also hypocritical: he is willing to host the ambassadors of countries which have a travel ban on Israeli citizens at a reception at City Hall, but hurls insults at President Trump who has highlighted the horrors of Islamism and wants to protect his own citizens from violent jihadis. His so-called drive to be ‘inclusive’ is a sham. He has snubbed the democratically elected President of the United States and the American people who voted for him, and London will be worse off for the continuing deterioration of his tone.”

David Kurten (1971) British politician

‘Not Welcome’: London’s Muslim Mayor Repeats Calls to Cancel Trump Visit http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/12/26/not-welcome-londons-muslim-mayor-repeats-calls-cancel-trump-visit/ (December 26, 2017)

People, Travel, Country

“The state does not function as we desired. The car does not obey. A man is at the wheel and he seems to lead it, but the car does not drive in the desired direction. It moves as another force wishes.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

As quoted in A Fate Worse than Debt (1988) Susan George.
Attributions

Cars

“A man that is not afraid of a Lion is afraid of a Cat; not afraid of starving, and yet is afraid of some joint of meat at the table, presented to feed him; not afraid of the sound of drums, and trumpets, and shot, and those, which they seek to drown, the last cries of men, and is afraid of some particular harmonious instrument; so much afraid, as that with any of these the enemy might drive this man, otherwise valiant enough, out of the field.”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

VI. Metuit. The physician is afraid
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)

Men, Cats

“Because Arizona has two things people will drive thousands of miles to see — Grand Canyon and the Petrified Forest. They can't get there without roads.”

Carl Hayden (1877–1972) American federal politician

"Carl T. Hayden is Dead at 94; Arizonan in Congress 56 years", New York Times, January 26, 1972, pp. 40.
Said to Franklin D. Roosevelt when asked why Hayden was always interested in roads.

People

“I'm here – but I haven't been given permission to drive.”

Gordon Brown (1951) British Labour Party politician

George Pascoe-Watson, "I wannabe No10 pilot", The Sun, 19 May 2006, p. 2.
Response to question by Sky News journalist "Do you like the feeling of being in the driving seat?" when in the Cockpit of an Airbus A380 on 18 May 2006.
Chancellor of the Exchequer

“By destroying the peasant economy and driving the peasant from the country to the town, the famine creates a proletariat… Furthermore the famine can and should be a progressive factor not only economically. It will force the peasant to reflect on the bases of the capitalist system, demolish faith in the tsar and tsarism, and consequently in due course make the victory of the revolution easier… Psychologically all this talk about feeding the starving and so on essentially reflects the usual sugary sentimentality of our intelligentsia.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

From V. Vodovozov's memoirs about Lenin's position regarding the famine of 1891-1892, which is often cited
Was falsely attributed to Lenin by Michael Ellman, The Role of Leadership Perceptions and of Intent in the Soviet Famine of 1931-1934, Europe-Asia Studies, September 2005, page 823
Misattributed

Faith, Victory, Country

“Like Rimbaud before them, the surrealists abandoned the aesthetic altogether; it takes a certain courage to leave poetry for Africa [as Rimbaud himself did]. They revealed their insight as essentially moral in never forgetting for a moment that most living is a process of conforming to an established order which is inhuman in its drives and consequences. Their hatred sustained them through all the humiliating situations in which the modern artist find himself, and led them to conceptions beyond the reach of more passive souls. For them true 'poetry' was freedom from mechanical social responses. No wonder they loved the work of children and the insane – if not the creatures themselves.”

Mark Rothko (1903–1970) American painter

Source: 1940's, Beyond the Aesthetics (1946), pp. 39-40

Love, Children, Soul, Courage

“So many young men of color become part of that officer’s life experience because so many minority families and communities are struggling, so many boys and young men grow up in environments lacking role models, adequate education, and decent employment—they lack all sorts of opportunities that most of us take for granted. A tragedy of American life—one that most citizens are able to drive around because it doesn’t touch them—is that young people in “those neighborhoods” too often inherit a legacy of crime and prison. And with that inheritance, they become part of a police officer’s life, and shape the way that officer—whether white or black—sees the world. Changing that legacy is a challenge so enormous and so complicated that it is, unfortunately, easier to talk only about the cops. And that’s not fair.”

James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

Life, Men, People, World

“Well-ordered states and wise princes have taken every care not to drive the nobles to desperation, and to keep the people satisfied and contented, for this is one of the most important objects a prince can have.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 19; translated by W. K. Marriot

People

“The balance you have between drive & patience may be your master key to success.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

26 October 2011 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/129326605360316416 Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

Success, Patience

“I think they [the public] should not look for, but look passively — and try to receive what the painting has to offer and not bring a subject matter or preconceived idea of what they are to be looking for... and I think the unconsciousness drives do mean a lot in looking at paintings... I think it should enjoyed just as music is enjoyed — after a while you may like it or you may not. But it doesn't seem to be too serious. I like some flowers, and others, other flowers I don't like. I think at least it gives — at least give it a chance.”

Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) American artist

Source: 1950's, Interview by William Wright, Summer 1950, pp. 139-140

Music, Flowers, Idea, Thinking

“Weep bitterly over the dead, for he is worthy, and then comfort thyself; drive heaviness away: thou shall not do him good, but hurt thyself.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

Diary entry for the day he died (15 April 1888); from Ecclesiasticus, xxxviii
Matthew Arnold's Notebooks (1902)

Hurt, Dead

“Don't be misled by the current atheistic drive to take God out of the classroom. "Separation of church and state" was to keep creeds out of the curriculum, but not God. It would be as unconstitutional to teach irreligion in the classroom as it would be to emphasize some particular religion. As teachers we are not to teach a particular faith, but parents are within their rights when they insist that the classroom is not be used by those few teachers who seek to destroy faith. Teachers who believe that teaching atheism is a necessary part of a good education are not really qualified to teach in a Judaic-Christian culture. They are entitled to be atheists but, as public employees, they are not entitled to teach it. If they do, they are violating an important constitutional principle.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

God, Education, Faith, Religion

“I'm very happy. Very happy. This is a great honor. The only thing I would trade this for is a pennant. This is the first year a manager made me feel like I wanted to keep going all the time. In 1965 he told me I'd hit.325 when I was sick with malaria and batting about.270. Last spring he told me he wanted me to hit 25 home runs and drive in 100 runs. He made me feel I belonged. He did the job. Maybe he isn't the best manager in the game but he works hard. He made us what we are. Got to give him credit. I had my best year for Walker. So did a lot of others.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "The Scorebaord: Pride Drives Clemente" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Z0sqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pk8EAAAAIBAJ&pg=5301,452323 by Les Biederman, in The Pittsburgh Press (Wednesday, November 16, 1966), p. 87 Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1966</big>

Happiness, Feeling, Home, Game

“Irony: While we increasingly hold people more responsible if they drink and drive, we hold women less responsible if they drink and have sex.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 320.

Women, People, Sex, Drink

“I'm here to validate all the millions of people who are opposed to the Obama healthcare. We're witnessing a slow and steady takeover of our true freedoms. We're becoming a socialist nation, and Obama is causing civil unrest in this country… The stimulus didn't work…. We're being told what cars we can drive, how much we can make…. Obama has made this [healthcare] a personal crusade now…. As we can see it really is about him. He is arrogant and he's adamant that he's going to get this passed…. He's trying everything, even the so-called God card. If you love God, he tells us, then it's your duty to vote this healthcare bill in…. They're taking away God's first gift to man. Our free will.”

Jon Voight (1938) American actor

Criticizing President Obama's healthcare proposal on the August 30, 2009 edition of Fox News Sunday with Mike Huckabee http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/31/jon-voight-on-huckabee-ob_n_272571.html

Love, God, People, Cars

“Junk short-circuits sex. The drive to non-sexual sociability comes from the same place sex comes from, so when I have an H or M shooting habit I am non-sociable. If someone wants to talk, O. K. But there is no drive to get acquainted. When I come off the junk, I often run through a period of uncontrolled sociability and talk to anyone who will listen.”

William S. Burroughs book Junkie

Junkie (1953)

Sex

“Is it (Sports Night) a comedy or a drama? That's generally not a question I try and answer for myself before I'm going to write something. The example I would use is, if you're driving in your car and you're listening to a rock 'n' roll station on the radio and a song comes on, and in the song you hear elements of jazz and folk and you hear strings in there … it's not necessary to answer the question, "Is this jazz, is this folk, or is this rock?"”

Aaron Sorkin (1961) American screenwriter, producer, playwright

before you decide to listen to it and like it or not.
Interview for Comedy Central.

Cars, Question, Sport, Night

“I should've been a cowboy.
I should've learned to rope and ride.
Wearing my six-shooter, riding my pony on a cattle drive
Stealing the young girls' hearts
Just like Gene and Roy
Singing those campfire songs.
I should've been a cowboy.”

Toby Keith (1961) American country music singer and actor

Should've Been a Cowboy.
Song lyrics, Toby Keith (1993)

Girl, Learning, Singing, Heart

“I got one entire song from fortune cookies (Land of Sunshine). On another one, I took words from different Frank Sinatra songs and pasted them together. Another one, I was just driving around and there was a piece of paper on the ground, so I stole it.”

Mike Patton (1968) American singer

Guitar Magazine, September 1992.

Past

“The last jobs I had were fixing cars and covering football games for a local access TV station. As in driving the mobile van to the field, setting up 3 cameras, teaching depressed grownups and interns how to use them and directing the game from the van and then wanting to kill myself.”

Louis C.K. (1967) American comedian and actor

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/n9tef/hi_im_louis_ck_and_this_is_a_thing/

Cars, Game, Football

“Many companies are not driving significant business value from the digitized platforms they build as part of their enterprise architecture initiatives. Our 2011 survey of 146 senior IT leaders found that the companies that benefit from their platforms' efforts are consistently relying on four architecture-related practices that encourage organizational learning about the value of enterprise architecture: 1) making IT costs transparent, 2) debating architectural exceptions, 3) performing post-implementation reviews, and 4) making IT investments with enterprise architecture in mind.”

Jeanne W. Ross (1958) American computer scientist

Jeanne W. Ross & Anne Quaadgras (2012) " Enterprise Architecture Is Not Just for Architects http://cisr.mit.edu/blog/documents/2012/09/19/2012_0901_architecturelearning_rossquaadgras.pdf/," Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Vol. XII, No. 9, September 2012

Business, Effort, Learning, Parting

“When Marinetti founded Futurism in 1909, he called for ‘incendiary violence’ that might drive Italy and Italians out of the ‘fetid somnolence’ of dolce far niente. He incited Futurists and their allies to the destruction of museums, monuments, and universities—to decimate everything that ‘stank of the past’… All of this was suffused with aggression and violence, with an appeal to slaps and blows, to culminate in an invocation to what he called the ‘beauty of battle,’ and the ‘hygiene of war.”

A. James Gregor (1929–2019) American political scientist

Source: Mussolini’s Intellectuals: Fascist Social and Political Thought (2005), pp. 250-51

War, Beauty, Universe, Past

“Thou and I are but the blind instruments of some irresistible fatality, that hurries us along, like goodly vessels driving before the storm, which are dashed against each other, and so perish.”

Walter Scott book Ivanhoe

Source: Ivanhoe (1819), Ch. 39, De Bois-Guilbert speaking to Rebecca.

“What Phædrus thought and said is significant. But no one was listening at that time and they only thought him eccentric at first, then undesirable, then slightly mad, and then genuinely insane. There seems little doubt that he was insane, but much of his writing at the time indicates that what was driving him insane was this hostile opinion of him. Unusual behavior tends to produce estrangement in others which tends to further the unusual behavior and thus the estrangement in self-stoking cycles until some sort of climax is reached. In Phædrus' case there was a court-ordered police arrest and permanent removal from society.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 6

Hostility, Behavior, Time, Madness

“Not many people know this, but on top of writing regularly for every known newspaper and magazine, Anthony Burgess writes regularly for every unknown one, too. Pick up a Hungarian quarterly or a Portuguese tabloid - and there is Burgess, discoursing on goulash or test-driving the new Fiat 500. 'Wedged as we are between two eternities of idleness, there is no excuse for being idle now.' Even today, at seventy, and still producing book after book, Burgess spends half his time writing music. He additionally claims to do all the housework.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

Opening paragraph of his review of Little Wilson and Big God: Being the First Part of the Confessions of Anthony Burgess, p. 123
The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000 (2001)

People, Books, Music, Time

“Society … can afford to grant more than before because its interests have become the innermost drives of its citizens.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), p. 72

“I'm afraid that someday I'll kill some pitcher. It is one thing I've always dreaded. My heart stood still in that game in Detroit when I almost got Ehmke with that drive through the box. I thought for a certainty that the ball would hit him before he got his hands up to protect himself. A couple of pitchers have asked me not to hit the ball back at them, and I always try not to. Why should I try to hurt any ball players? We are all out there trying to make a living, and no man worthwhile would deliberately try to injure another.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

As quoted in "Ruth Has One Great Fear: May Drive Ball Back At Pitcher Some Day and Injure Him," in The Lousiville Courier-Journal (July 18, 1920), p. C3

Game, Heart, Hurt, Box

“Only those with great ambitions know what great fears drive them forward.”

Peter Ackroyd book The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde

Page 52.
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983)

Fear

“Satan's design in instigating the French revolution was to create an alarm throughout Europe, especially among the influential class, unfavorable to liberty, and so illustrate in France the theory that, were the superstitions of Rome to be overthrown and liberty to be given full sway, all law and order would speedily end. This was a master-stroke of policy, worthy of its author, and designed, as the prophet shows, to overwhelm the "woman" (the reformed Church), and to drive all conservatives and peace-lovers - rulers and ruled - back to union and harmony with Papacy. The failure of the scheme was not due to lack of craftiness in its designer, but to the overruling power of God, whereby he is able to cause all things to work together for good.”

Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916) Founder of the Bible Student Movement

Source: Milennial Dawn, Vol. III: Thy Kingdom Come (1891), p. 66.

God, Peace, Law, Lovers

“American housewives have not had their brains shot away, nor are they schizophrenic in the clinical sense. But if … the fundamental human drive is not the urge for pleasure or the satisfaction of biological needs, but the need to grow and to realize one’s full potential, their comfortable, empty, purposeless days are indeed cause for a nameless terror.”

Betty Friedan book The Feminine Mystique

Ch 13 "The Forfeited Self".
The Feminine Mystique (1963)

Pleasure, Sense

“Work me, lord. Please don't you leave me. I feel so useless down here with no one to love. Though I looked everywhere, and I can't find me anybody to love, to feel my care…So, work me lord, oh, use me lord. Can I show you how hard it is trying to live when you're all alone? Everyday I keep trying to move forward but something is driving me, oh, back. Something's trying to hold on to me, to my way of life. So, oh, don't you forget me down here lord, no no no no no, don't you forget me, lord. Well I don't think I'm any very special kind of person down here, I know better. But I don't think you're gonna find anybody, not anybody who can say that they tried like I tried. The worst that you can say all about me is that I'm never satisfied…”

Janis Joplin (1943–1970) American singer and songwriter

"Work me, Lord", live at Woodstock (1969)

Love, Life, Way, Feeling

“I have gradually come to one negative conclusion about the good life. It seems to me that the good life is not any fixed state. It is not, in my estimation, a state of virtue, or contentment, or nirvana, or happiness. It is not a condition in which the individual is adjusted or fulfilled or actualized. To use psychological terms, it is not a state of drive-reduction, or tension-reduction, or homeostasis”

Carl R. Rogers (1902–1987) American psychologist

Person to person: The problem of being human: A new trend in psychology (1967)
Source: page 185-186.

Life, Happiness

“Politics in this country are dominated by debates about our relationship with Europe and the Eurocentralism that goes with that. I am firmly an internationalist, so I am not necessarily opposed to Europe. However, I am opposed to a fortress Europe that basically creates wealth for itself at the expense of the world, creates an undemocratic control of government for the whole of Europe, and, in truth, works only for the good of multinational corporations and banking systems. It will cause further imbalances in world poverty and world trade arrangements. I view the free market of 1992 not as an opportunity, but as a disaster for very many people throughout the world. I believe that Europe will contribute to the economic problems of the world. I do not agree with the sort of racist nonsense that has been published in the Sun and other newspapers during the past few weeks. It is a disgusting way to report matters. However, I believe that the drive towards a market economy in Europe will create poverty on the rims of Europe and an inner-colonialism in which western Europe will act as a sort of colonial master for eastern Europe and much of the rest of the world. It is about time that we began to take an international and global view rather than shut ourselves into a Europe that does not act in a socially just and reasonable manner. I hope that the debate will now begin to turn on those matters.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1990/nov/07/first-day in the House of Commons (7 November 1990). 1990s

People, Truth, World, Hope

“These days too many children's movies are infected by the virus of Winning, as if kids are nothing more than underage pro athletes, and the values of Vince Lombardi prevail: It's not how you play the game, but whether you win or lose. This is a movie that breaks with that tradition, that allows its kids to be kids, that shows them in the insular world of imagination and dreaming that children create entirely apart from adult domains and values. There was a moment in the film when Rodriguez hit a line drive directly at the pitcher's mound, and I ducked and held up my mitt, and then I realized I didn't have a mitt, and it was then I also realized how completely this movie had seduced me with its memories of what really matters when you are 12.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-sandlot-1993 of The Sandlot (7 April 1993) Reviews, Three star reviews

Children, World, Dreams, Imagination

“I find it difficult to take these psycho-analysts at all seriously when they try to scrutinise spiritual experience by the flicker of their torch-lights,'yet perhaps one ought to, for half-knowledge is a powerful thing and can be a great obstacle to the coming in front of the true Truth. This new psychology looks to me very much like children learning some summary and not very adequate alphabet, exulting in putting their a-b-c-d of the subconscient and the mysterious underground super-ego together and imagining that their first book of obscure beginnings (c-a-t cat, t-r-e-e tree) is the very heart of the real knowledge. They look from down up and explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities; but the foundation of these things is above and not below, upari budhna esam [Rig-Veda, 1.24.7]. The superconscient, not the subconscient, is the true foundation of things. The significance of the lotus is not to be found by analysing the secrets of the mud from which it grows here; its secret is to be found in the heavenly archetype of the lotus that blooms for ever in the Light above. The self-chosen field of these psychologists is besides poor, dark and limited; you must know the whole before you can know the part and the highest before you can truly understand the lowest. That is the promise of the greater psychology awaiting its hour before which these poor gropings will disappear and come to nothing…. Wanton waste, careless spoiling of physical things in an incredibly short time, loose disorder, misuse of service and materials due either to vital grasping or to tamasic inertia are baneful to prosperity and tend to drive away or discourage the Wealth-Power. These things have long been rampant in the society and, if that continues, an increase in our means might well mean a proportionate increase in the wastage and disorder and neutralise the material advantage. This must be remedied if there is to be any sound progress…. Asceticism for its own sake is not the ideal of this yoga, but self-control in the vital and right order in the material are a very important part of it… and even an ascetic discipline is better for our purpose than a loose absence of true control. Mastery of the material does not mean having plenty and profusely throwing it out or spoiling it as fast as it comes or faster. Mastery implies in it the right and careful utilisation of things and also a self-control in their use…. There is a consciousness in [things], a life which is not the life and consciousness of man and animal which we know, but still secret and real. That is why we must have a respect for physical things and use them rightly, not misuse and waste, ill-treat or handle with a careless roughness. This feeling of all being consciousness or alive comes when our own physical consciousness'and not the mind only'awakes out of its obscurity and becomes aware of the One in all things, the Divine everywhere.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Undated
India's Rebirth

Life, Children, Truth, Secret

“One would not die from my cooking, but I am not sure one would survive my driving.”

Margrethe II of Denmark (1940) Queen of Denmark

From 'Om man så må sige – 350 Dronning Margrethe-citater', quoted in English here http://trondni.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/new-books-wit-and-wisdom-of-margrethe-ii.html. Personal

Cooking

“The bodies breathe, feed, store up strength, and then in an erotic moment are shattered, are spent and drained utterly, that they may bequeath their spirit to their sons. What spirit? The drive upward!”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)

“The single biggest impact a person can have on the Earth is driving a car, either driving a fuel-efficient car or just driving it less.”

Bill Nye (1955) American science educator, comedian, television host, actor, writer, scientist and former mechanical engineer

[NewsBank, Nye: We must all save the Earth, The Madison Courier, Madison, Indiana, February 21, 2009, Pat Whitney]

Cars, Personality

“In some organizations where staff assistance is overemphasized, from the standpoint of both the influence and the number of staff officials, the chief executive is likely to be cut off from his department heads. An executive should never lose sight of the fact that his closest contacts must be with the heads of the operating departments, and that it is upon them more than any others that the success of the program depends. If he permits himself to become cloistered because of the more favored position of the staff officials, the morale and driving force of the program will be impaired.”

Marshall E. Dimock (1903–1991) American writer

Source: "The Meshing of Line and Staff", 1945, pp. 102-104, as cited in Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 306-7

Success, Dependency

“The problem, if anything, was precisely the opposite. I had too much to write: too many fine and miserable buildings to construct and streets to name and clock towers to set chiming, too many characters to raise up from the dirt like flowers whose petals I peeled down to the intricate frail organs within, too many terrible genetic and fiduciary secrets to dig up and bury and dig up again, too many divorces to grant, heirs to disinherit, trysts to arrange, letters to misdirect into evil hands, innocent children to slay with rheumatic fever, women to leave unfulfilled and hopeless, men to drive to adultery and theft, fires to ignite at the hearts of ancient houses.”

Michael Chabon book Wonder Boys

Wonder Boys (1995)

Women, Men, Children, Secret

“Hayek fails to account either for the passion among intellectuals for equality, or for the resulting success of socialists and their egalitarian successors in driving the liberal idea from the stage of politics. This passion for equality is not a new thing, and indeed pre-dates socialism by many centuries, finding its most influential expression in the writings of Rousseau. There is no consensus as to how equality might be achieved, what it would consist in if achieved, or why it is so desirable in the first place. But no argument against the cogency or viability of the idea has the faintest chance of being listened to or discussed by those who have fallen under its spell.”

Roger Scruton (1944–2020) English philosopher

"Hayek and conservatism", in Edward Feser (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hayek (2006)

Idea, Passion, Chance, Success

“Bill Clinton's brother Roger was arrested this week for drunk driving in California and then was thrown out of a restaurant after threatening the doorman. Despite all this, Roger Clinton is still the least embarrassing member of his family.”

Tina Fey (1970) American comedian, writer, producer and actress

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/00/00mupdate.phtml

Family

“[T]he litigation between Qualcomm and Apple/Intel … is weird. What makes it weird is that Intel appears to think that by helping Apple drive down Qualcomm prices, it will gain an advantage, but since its only value is as a lower cost, lower performing, alternative to Qualcomm's modems, the result would be more aggressively priced better alternatives to Intel's offerings from Qualcomm/Broadcom, wiping Intel out of the market. On paper, this is a lose/lose for Intel and even for Apple. The lower prices would flow to Apple competitors as well, lowering the price of competing phones. So, Apple would not get a lasting benefit either.”

Rob Enderle (1954) American financial analyst

Broadcom/Qualcomm Merger: A Train Wreck in Slow Motion http://itbusinessedge.com/blogs/unfiltered-opinion/broadcomqualcomm-merger-a-train-wreck-in-slow-motion.html in IT Business Edge (1 March 2018)

Thinking, Appearance, Help

“The male is completely egocentric, trapped inside himself, incapable of empathizing or identifying with others, or love, friendship, affection or tenderness. He is a completely isolated unit, incapable of rapport with anyone. His responses are entirely visceral, not cerebral; his intelligence is a mere tool in the services of his drives and needs; he is incapable of mental passion, mental interaction; he can't relate to anything other than his own physical sensations. He is a half-dead, unresponsive lump, incapable of giving or receiving pleasure or happiness; consequently, he is at best an utter bore, an inoffensive blob, since only those capable of absorption in others can be charming.”

Valerie Solanas (1936–1988) American radical feminist and writer. Attempted to assassinate Andy Warhol.

Source: SCUM MANIFESTO (1967), p. [1]

Love, Friendship, Happiness, Pleasure

“Philosophy resembles poetry in being an art for enforcing meditation, for driving the mind inwards until it sinks into its Object.”

L. P. Jacks (1860–1955) British educator, philosopher, and Unitarian minister

The Usurpation Of Language (1910)

Art

“For the time being I am enjoying my chance to enjoy civilian life off the road. If I combined all the months that I have lived out of a van or tour bus it would amount to twelve solid years. That would be twelve years of driving or flying an average of 100 to 400 miles per day and sleeping in a different city every night. It was a very unique lifestyle that I adapted to and even enjoyed with it’s surreal pace. It’s also a lifestyle that can take a toll on the body and relationships with the people that you are constantly leaving behind.”

Natalie Merchant (1963) American singer-songwriter

Quotes from NatalieMerchant.com

Life, People, Sleep, Chance

“This is an existential conflict. It is the kind of conflict that's going to drive our policy and our government for the next 20 or 30 or 40 years. We have to prevail and we have to have the stomach for the fight long term.”

Dick Cheney (1941) American politician and businessman

On Fox News Sunday http://web.archive.org/web/20070114221322/http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/14/US.iraq.ap/index.html responding to the opposition against sending 21,500 more troops to Iraq (January 14, 2007) 2000s, 2007

Fight

“It doesn’t matter what business you are in, it is essential that the primary motivation and driving force behind everything you do is based on the impact it will have on your customer.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ The Wal-Mart Way: The Inside Story of the Success of the World's Largest Company https://books.google.com/books?id=mIxwVLXdyjQC&lpg=PR9&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PR9#v=onepage&q=Don%20Soderquist&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2005, p. 81. On working hard

Motivation, Business

“Success to your meetings. Future of this country depends on breaking up the land monopoly—it withers the land, depresses wages, destroys independence, and drives millions into dwellings which poison their strength. Godspeed to every effort to put an end to this oppression.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Telegram to a national conference to promote the taxation and rating of land held in Cardiff (13 October 1913), quoted in The Times (14 October 1913), p. 10
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Effort, Success, Future, Dependency

“You may drive a dog off the King's armchair, and it will climb into the preacher's pulpit; he views the world unmoved, unembarrassed, unabashed.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Chassez un chien du fauteuil du Roi, il grimpe à la chaire du prédicateur; il regarde le monde indifféremment, sans embarras, sans pudeur; il n'a pas, non plus que le sot, de quoi rougir.
Aphorism 38
Les Caractères (1688), Du mérite personnel

World, Dogs

“The drive to see what’s over the next hill is in part the fear that one may never know, that if one doesn’t go over the hill today, one may never get farther than the village graveyard.”

John Barnes book Mother of Storms

Source: Mother of Storms (1994), p. 484

Fear, Parting

“Despair leads to many forms of thought,” said the magus, “and many kinds of action. Despair drives some to greater sanity, towards an analysis of the world as it is and what it might be. Others it drives to deep and dangerous insanity, towards an imposition of their own desires upon reality. I sympathize with your despair, Johannes Klosterheim, because it has no solace, in the end. Your despair is the worst there is to know. And yet men often look upon the likes of you and envy you, as you doubtless envy Duke Arioch, as Duke Arioch doubtless envies his master Lucifer, whom he would betray, and perhaps as Lucifer envied God. And what does God envy, I wonder? Perhaps he envies the simple mortal who is content with his lot and envies nobody.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Source: The von Bek family, The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 15 (p. 153)

Men, God, World, Reality

“In the early 1970s,… economists began to embrace the Rational Expectations Hypothesis (REH), according to which market participants’ expectations are “essentially the same as the predictions of the relevant economic theory” (Muth 1961: 316). What has been largely overlooked is that, … REH theorists presume that the role of market participants’ expectations in driving outcomes is not autonomous from the other components of the model. … Because REH models, by design, rule out an autonomous role for expectations, they are best viewed as derailing, rather than developing, the microfoundations approach.”

Roman Frydman (1948) American economist

"Which Way Forward for Macroeconomics and Policy Analysis?" 2013

“Now the "rosy morn appearing"
Floods with light the dazzled heaven;
And the schoolboy groans on hearing
That eternal clock strike seven
Now the waggoner is driving
Towards the fields his clattering wain;
Now the bluebottle, reviving,
Buzzes down his native pane.”

Charles Stuart Calverley (1831–1884) British poet

Ode - "On a Distant Prospect" of Making a Fortune, from Verses and Translations (1862).

Light, Appearance

“I was born to be an explorer. There never was any decision to make. I coudn't be anything else and be happy, the desire to see new places, to discover new facts- the curiosity of life always has been a resistless driving force to me.”

Roy Chapman Andrews (1884–1960) American explorer, adventurer and naturalist

'This Business of Exploring' pub, 1935

Life, Happiness, Decision

“Doctor No said, in the same soft resonant voice, ‘You are right. Mister Bond. That is just what I am, a maniac. All the greatest men are maniacs. They are possessed by a mania which drives them forward towards their goal. The great scientists, the artists, the philosophers, the religious leaders – all maniacs. What else but a blind singleness of purpose could have given focus to their genius, would have kept them in the groove of their purpose? Mania, my dear Mister Bond, is as priceless as genius. Dissipation of energy, fragmentation of vision, loss of momentum, the lack of follow-through — these are the vices of the herd.’ Doctor No sat slightly back in his chair. ‘I do not possess these vices. I am, as you correctly say, a maniac – a maniac, Mister Bond, with a mania for power. That’ – the black holes glittered blankly at Bond through the contact lenses – ‘is the meaning of my life. That is why I am here. That is why you are here. That is why here exists.”

Ian Fleming (1908–1964) English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer

Dr. Julius No, in Ch. 15 : Pandora’s Box
Dr. No (1958)

Life, Men, Loss

“Nothing in life is certain except death, taxes and the second law of thermodynamics. All three are processes in which useful or accessible forms of some quantity, such as energy or money, are transformed into useless, inaccessible forms of the same quantity. That is not to say that these three processes don't have fringe benefits: taxes pay for roads and schools; the second law of thermodynamics drives cars, computers and metabolism; and death, at the very least, opens up tenured faculty positions.”

Seth Lloyd (1960) American engineer

Nature 430, 971 (26 August 2004); doi:10.1038/430971a

Life, Death, Money, School

“In all living nature (and perhaps also in that which we consider as dead) love is the motive force which drives the creative activity in the most diverse directions.”

P. D. Ouspensky book Tertium Organum

Tertium Organum (1922)
Context: Generally speaking, the significance of the indirect results may very often be of more importance than the significance of direct ones. And since we are able to trace how the energy of love transforms itself into instincts, ideas, creative forces on different planes of life; into symbols of art, song, music, poetry; so can we easily imagine how the same energy may transform itself into a higher order of intuition, into a higher consciousness which will reveal to us a marvelous and mysterious world.
In all living nature (and perhaps also in that which we consider as dead) love is the motive force which drives the creative activity in the most diverse directions.

Love, Motivation, Nature, Dead

“Nothing so evil as money ever grew to be current among men. This lays cities low, this drives men from their homes, this trains and warps honest souls till they set themselves to works of shame; this still teaches folk to practise villainies, and to know every godless deed. But all the men who wrought this thing for hire have made it sure that, soon or late, they shall pay the price.”

Sophocles (-496–-406 BC) ancient Greek tragedian

Source: Antigone, Lines 295-303

Men, Money, Home, Soul

“They worked until the building was completed — master builders, artists, labourers, clowns, noblemen, priests, burghers. But they all remained anonymous, and no one knows to this day who built the cathedral of Chartres.
Regardless of my own beliefs and my own doubts, which are unimportant in this connection, it is my opinion that art lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separated from worship. It severed an umbilical cord and now lives its own sterile life, generating and degenerating itself. In former days the artist remained unknown and his work was to the glory of God.”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker

Four Screenplays of Ingmar Bergman (1960).
Context: People ask what are my intentions with my films — my aims. It is a difficult and dangerous question, and I usually give an evasive answer: I try to tell the truth about the human condition, the truth as I see it. This answer seems to satisfy everyone, but it is not quite correct. I prefer to describe what I would like my aim to be. There is an old story of how the cathedral of Chartres was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Then thousands of people came from all points of the compass, like a giant procession of ants, and together they began to rebuild the cathedral on its old site. They worked until the building was completed — master builders, artists, labourers, clowns, noblemen, priests, burghers. But they all remained anonymous, and no one knows to this day who built the cathedral of Chartres.
Regardless of my own beliefs and my own doubts, which are unimportant in this connection, it is my opinion that art lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separated from worship. It severed an umbilical cord and now lives its own sterile life, generating and degenerating itself. In former days the artist remained unknown and his work was to the glory of God. He lived and died without being more or less important than other artisans; 'eternal values,' 'immortality' and 'masterpiece' were terms not applicable in his case. The ability to create was a gift. In such a world flourished invulnerable assurance and natural humility. Today the individual has become the highest form and the greatest bane of artistic creation.
The smallest wound or pain of the ego is examined under a microscope as if it were of eternal importance. The artist considers his isolation, his subjectivity, his individualism almost holy. Thus we finally gather in one large pen, where we stand and bleat about our loneliness without listening to each other and without realizing that we are smothering each other to death. The individualists stare into each other's eyes and yet deny the existence of each other.
We walk in circles, so limited by our own anxieties that we can no longer distinguish between true and false, between the gangster's whim and the purest ideal. Thus if I am asked what I would like the general purpose of my films to be, I would reply that I want to be one of the artists in the cathedral on the great plain. I want to make a dragon's head, an angel, a devil — or perhaps a saint — out of stone. It does not matter which; it is the sense of satisfaction that counts.
Regardless of whether I believe or not, whether I am a Christian or not, I would play my part in the collective building of the cathedral.

Life, God, Art

“In Japan people drive on the left. In China people drive on the right. In Vietnam it doesn't matter.”

P. J. O'Rourke (1947) American journalist

All the Trouble in the World (1994)

People

“The promise of survival beyond individual death or dispersion appeals to the most primal driving force of existence.”

Anand Gandhi (1980) Indian film director

"There is no free will, but you have a choice! (And the role of memes in choice-creation)" in Handbags and Lingo (3 November 2013) http://anand.memesyslab.com/2013/11/there-is-no-free-will-but-you-have.html Context: The promise of survival beyond individual death or dispersion appeals to the most primal driving force of existence. Promises of transcendence have evolved out of the thriving desire to ward off the inevitable threat of individual death. Most systems propose a more or less perfect immortality – one where memories, hopes, desires, knowledge and even experiences survive the death of the physical body. An engagement and acceptance of this meme makes death particularly irrelevant. The upholding of the promise at the cost of individual sacrifice becomes acceptable. Individual sacrifices even become necessary in validating the promise.

Death

“Unconscionable Love,
To what extremes will you not drive our hearts!”
Improbe Amor, quid non mortalia pectora cogis!

Virgil book Aeneid

Compare:
Σχέτλι᾽ Ἔρως, μέγα πῆμα, μέγα στύγος ἀνθρώποισιν,
ἐκ σέθεν οὐλόμεναί τ᾽ ἔριδες στοναχαί τε γόοι τε,
ἄλγεά τ᾽ ἄλλ᾽ ἐπὶ τοῖσιν ἀπείρονα τετρήχασιν.
Unconscionable Love, bane and tormentor of mankind, parent of strife, fountain of tears, source of a thousand ills.
Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, IV, 445–447 (tr. E. V. Rieu)
Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book IV, Line 412 (tr. Fitzgerald)

Love, Heart

“The will to power which always emanates from individuals or from small minorities in society is in fact a most important driving force in history.”

Rudolf Rocker book Nationalism and Culture

Source: Nationalism and Culture (1937), Ch. 1 "The Insufficiency of Economic Materialism"
Context: The will to power which always emanates from individuals or from small minorities in society is in fact a most important driving force in history. The extent of its influence has up to now been regarded far too little, although it has frequently been the determining factor in the shaping of the whole of economic and social life.

History

“It provokes new acts of revolt, individual and collective, it drives the rebels to heroism; and in rapid succession these acts spread, become general, develop. The revolutionary party is strengthened by elements which up to this time were hostile or indifferent to it.”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

The Spirit of Revolt (1880)
Context: One courageous act has sufficed to upset in a few days the entire governmental machinery, to make the colossus tremble; another revolt has stirred a whole province into turmoil, and the army, till now always so imposing, has retreated before a handful of peasants armed with sticks and stones. The people observe that the monster is not so terrible as they thought they begin dimly to perceive that a few energetic efforts will be sufficient to throw it down. Hope is born in their hearts, and let us remember that if exasperation often drives men to revolt, it is always hope, the hope of victory, which makes revolutions.
The government resists; it is savage in its repressions. But, though formerly persecution killed the energy of the oppressed, now, in periods of excitement, it produces the opposite result. It provokes new acts of revolt, individual and collective, it drives the rebels to heroism; and in rapid succession these acts spread, become general, develop. The revolutionary party is strengthened by elements which up to this time were hostile or indifferent to it.

Hostility, Time, Success, Indifference

“The magician to some degree is trying to drive him or herself mad in a controlled setting, within controlled laws.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

De Abaitua interview (1998)
Context: The magician to some degree is trying to drive him or herself mad in a controlled setting, within controlled laws. You ask the protective spirits to look after you, or whatever. This provides a framework over an essentially amorphous experience. You are setting up your terms, your ritual, your channels – but you deliberately stepping over the edge into the madness. You are not falling over the edge, or tripping over the edge.
When I was a kid, I used to go to the seaside and play in the waves. The thing you learn about waves, is that when you see a big one coming, you run towards it. You try and get out of its way and you’ll end up twenty yards up the beach covered in scratches. Dive into it, and then you can get behind it. You get on top it, you won’t be hurt. It is counter-intuitive, the impulse is to run away, but the right thing to do is to plunge into it deliberately, and be in control when you do it. Magic is a response to the madness of the twentieth century.

Law, Madness

“You're going to radiate health. You're going to have a better sex drive. That's what shifting away from meat and dairy does”

James Cameron (1954) Canadian film director

Interview http://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/nutrition/james-cameron-why-i-eat-a-vegan-diet-20150915 with John Gaudiosi in Men's Journal (15 September 2015) Context: [About veganism] You're going to be healthier, you're going to live longer, you're going to look better. You're going to have fewer zits. You're going to be slimmer. You're going to radiate health. You're going to have a better sex drive. That's what shifting away from meat and dairy does. My whole family did this, and we're doing spectacularly well from a health standpoint. I have not had a single sniffle, not a flu, not a cold, nothing that's taken me offline as much as an hour in three and a half years.

Health, Sex

“We drive by night. Nevertheless our reason penetrates the darkness enough to show us a little of the road ahead. It is by the light of reason that we interpret the signposts and make out the landmarks along our way.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Source: The Ascent to Truth (1951), Ch. X : Reason in the Life of Contemplation, p. 114.
Context: One might compare the journey of the soul to mystical union, by way of pure faith, to the journey of a car on a dark highway. The only way the driver can keep to the road is by using his headlights. So in the mystical life, reason has its function. The way of faith is necessarily obscure. We drive by night. Nevertheless our reason penetrates the darkness enough to show us a little of the road ahead. It is by the light of reason that we interpret the signposts and make out the landmarks along our way.
Those who misunderstand Saint John of the Cross imagine that the way of nada is like driving by night, without any headlights whatever. This is a dangerous misunderstanding of the saint's doctrine.

Way, Light, Night

“Whenever the therapist stands with society, he will interpret his work as adjusting the individual and coaxing his 'unconscious drives' into social respectability. But such 'official psychotherapy' lacks integrity and becomes the obedient tool of armies, bureaucracies, churches, corporations, and all agencies that require individual brainwashing. On the other hand, the therapist who is really interested in helping the individual is forced into social criticism. This does not mean that he has to engage directly in political revolution; it means that he has to help the individual in liberating himself from various forms of social conditioning, which includes liberation from hating this conditioning — hatred being a form of bondage to its object.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Source: Psychotherapy, East and West (1961), p. 8

Hate, Help

“There is nothing in it but what men might have written; much, oh much, which it would drive me mad to think any but men, and most mistaken men, had written.”

James Anthony Froude book The Nemesis of Faith

Letter III
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Context: The Mahometans say their Koran was written by God. The Hindoos say the Vedas were; we say the Bible was, and we are but interested witnesses in deciding absolutely and exclusively for ourselves. If it be immeasurably the highest of the three, it is because it is not the most divine but the most human. It does not differ from them in kind; and it seems to me that in ascribing it to God we are doing a double dishonour; to ourselves for want of faith in our soul's strength, and to God in making Him responsible for our weakness. There is nothing in it but what men might have written; much, oh much, which it would drive me mad to think any but men, and most mistaken men, had written. Yet still, as a whole, it is by far the noblest collection of sacred books in the world; the outpouring of the mind of a people in whom a larger share of God's spirit was for many centuries working than in any other of mankind, or who at least most clearly caught and carried home to themselves the idea of the direct and immediate dependence of the world upon Him. It is so good that as men looked at it they said this is too good for man: nothing but the inspiration of God could have given this. Likely enough men should say so; but what might be admired as a metaphor became petrified into a doctrine, and perhaps the world has never witnessed any more grotesque idol-worship than what has resulted from it in modern Bibliolatry. And yet they say we are not Christians, we cannot be religious teachers, nay, we are without religion, we are infidels, unless we believe with them. We have not yet found the liberty with which Christ has made us free. Infidels, Arthur! Ah, it is a hard word! The only infidelity I know is to distrust God, to distrust his care of us, his love for us. And yet that word! How words cling to us, and like an accursed spell force us to become what they say we have become.

Men, Thinking, Madness

“You never know, he thought. You just never know. You drift along, year after year, presuming certain values to be fixed; like being able to drive on a public thoroughfare without somebody trying to murder you.”

Richard Matheson book Duel

"Duel" (1971), a short story, which he later adapted into a screenplay for Duel (1971), Steven Spielberg's first feature-length film.
Context: You never know, he thought. You just never know. You drift along, year after year, presuming certain values to be fixed; like being able to drive on a public thoroughfare without somebody trying to murder you. You came to depend on that sort of thing. Then something occurs and all bets are off. One shocking incident and all the years of logic and acceptance are displaced and, suddenly, the jungle is in front of you again. Man, part animal, part angel. Where had he come across that phrase? He shivered.
It was entirely an animal in that truck out there.

“The crowd was unarmed, except with bludgeons. It was not attacking anybody or anything. It was holding a seditious meeting. When fire had been opened upon it to disperse it, it tried to run away. Pinned up in a narrow place considerably smaller than Trafalgar Square, with hardly any exits, and packed together so that one bullet would drive through three or four bodies, the people ran madly this way and the other. When the fire was directed upon the centre, they ran to the sides. The fire was then directed to the sides. Many threw themselves down on the ground, and the fire was then directed on the ground. This was continued for 8 or 10 minutes …”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in the House of Commons, July 8, 1920 "Amritsar" http://lachlan.bluehaze.com.au/churchill/am-text.htm Early career years (1898–1929) Context: Let me marshal the facts. The crowd was unarmed, except with bludgeons. It was not attacking anybody or anything. It was holding a seditious meeting. When fire had been opened upon it to disperse it, it tried to run away. Pinned up in a narrow place considerably smaller than Trafalgar Square, with hardly any exits, and packed together so that one bullet would drive through three or four bodies, the people ran madly this way and the other. When the fire was directed upon the centre, they ran to the sides. The fire was then directed to the sides. Many threw themselves down on the ground, and the fire was then directed on the ground. This was continued for 8 or 10 minutes... [i]f the road had not been so narrow, the machine guns and the armoured cars would have joined in. Finally, when the ammunition had reached the point that only enough remained to allow for the safe return of the troops, and after 379 persons … had been killed, and when most certainly 1,200 or more had been wounded, the troops, at whom not even a stone had been thrown, swung round and marched away. … We have to make it absolutely clear … that this is not the British way of doing business. … Our reign, in India or anywhere else, has never stood on the basis of physical force alone, and it would be fatal to the British Empire if we were to try to base ourselves only upon it.

People, Way

“We see what you are driving at, but you have not said it, and therefore we shall go on as before.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice

Johnson v. United States, 163 F. 30 (1st Cir. 1908) (Justice Holmes sitting by designation as a judge of the First Circuit).
1900s
Context: The major premise of the conclusion expressed in a statute, the change of policy that induces the enactment, may not be set out in terms, but it is not an adequate discharge of duty for courts to say: We see what you are driving at, but you have not said it, and therefore we shall go on as before.

“The people I gravitate to are neither rich nor popular. They do not have the power to boost or end careers at the flick of a pen; nor do they own fancy things or drive fancy cars.”

Manuel Rivera-Ortiz (1968) American photographer

Biographical profile
Official site
Context: I'm more likely to come in after the newspapers and television cameras have long disappeared from the scene post-disaster. The people I gravitate to are neither rich nor popular. They do not have the power to boost or end careers at the flick of a pen; nor do they own fancy things or drive fancy cars. These people live in slums and muddle trough piles of waste and trash on their way home to a little shack, which they share with a throng of other family members. Outside the cacophony of worldwide charitable organizations, their struggles are rarely suitable topic for common everyday talk.

People, Cars

“That's what is driving a girl like Margaret Vance, who has everything that the world can offer her young beauty, on to the work of a Sister of Charity among the poor and the dying.”

William Dean Howells (1837–1920) author, critic and playwright from the United States

A Hazard Of New Fortunes, Ch. XI
Context: The life of Christ, it wasn't only in healing the sick and going about to do good; it was suffering for the sins of others. That's as great a mystery as the mystery of death. Why should there be such a principle in the world? But it's been felt, and more or less dumbly, blindly recognized ever since Calvary. If we love mankind, pity them, we even wish to suffer for them. That's what has created the religious orders in all times--the brotherhoods and sisterhoods that belong to our day as much as to the mediaeval past. That's what is driving a girl like Margaret Vance, who has everything that the world can offer her young beauty, on to the work of a Sister of Charity among the poor and the dying.

World, Beauty, Girl, Sister

“It is highly advantageous for the business world to foster hatred for pointy-headed government bureaucrats and to drive out of people's minds the subversive idea that the government might become an instrument of popular will, a government of, by and for the people.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

First published in Truthout http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/38360-trump-in-the-white-house-an-interview-with-noam-chomsky on 14 November 2016. Then published in the book Optimism over Despair in 2017, page 125 (ISBN 9780241981979). Quotes 2010s, 2016 Context: One of the great achievements of the doctrinal system has been to divert anger from the corporate sector to the government that implements the programs that the corporate sector designs, such as the highly protectionist corporate/investor rights agreements that are uniformly mis-described as "free trade agreements" in the media and commentary. With all its flaws, the government is, to some extent, under popular influence and control, unlike the corporate sector. It is highly advantageous for the business world to foster hatred for pointy-headed government bureaucrats and to drive out of people's minds the subversive idea that the government might become an instrument of popular will, a government of, by and for the people.

People, World, Idea, Business

Quotes about drive page 12

Quotes about drive
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