Quotes about evening
page 97

Julian Assange photo

“Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love. In a modern economy it is impossible to seal oneself off from injustice. If we have brains or courage, then we are blessed and called on not to frit these qualities away, standing agape at the ideas of others, winning pissing contests, improving the efficiencies of the neocorporate state, or immersing ourselves in obscuranta, but rather to prove the vigor of our talents against the strongest opponents of love we can find. If we can only live once, then let it be a daring adventure that draws on all our powers. Let it be with similar types whos hearts and heads we may be proud of. Let our grandchildren delight to find the start of our stories in their ears but the endings all around in their wandering eyes. The whole universe or the structure that perceives it is a worthy opponent, but try as I may I can not escape the sound of suffering. Perhaps as an old man I will take great comfort in pottering around in a lab and gently talking to students in the summer evening and will accept suffering with insouciance. But not now; men in their prime, if they have convictions are tasked to act on them.”

Julian Assange (1971) Australian editor, activist, publisher and journalist

[Witnessing, 2007-01-03, 2012-08-16, http://web.archive.org/web/20071020051936/http://iq.org/#Witnessing]

Ogden Nash photo
Ann Coulter photo

“We've gone from a representative democracy to a monarchy, and the most appalling thing is – even conservatives just hope like the dickens the next king is a good one.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

Who was the 2nd choice?
2005-10-20
Townhall
http://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2005/10/20/who_was_the_2nd_choice/page/full/
2005

Larry Wall photo

“tt>#define NULL 0 /* silly thing is, we don't even use this */

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

Source code, <code>perl.c</code>

Luther Burbank photo
Aron Ra photo

“[Religion] is literally a delusion, but one caused by conditioning rather than pathology. There are a number of studies showing a negative correlation of faith as debilitating certain areas of the brain. So religion can lead to, conceal, or even encourage mental disorders without actually being one itself.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Patheos, Anti-theist Answers to Christian Questions http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2015/11/22/anti-theist-answers-to-christian-questions/ (November 22, 2015)

Emily Dickinson photo
Willem de Kooning photo
Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle photo
José Ortega Y Gasset photo
Menachem Elon photo

“The body of the legal system needs a soul and sometimes even an additional soul”

Menachem Elon (1923–2013) Israeli High Court judge

see: Neshama yeterah ba-mishpaṭ / Mozaiḳah, 2003

Marie-Louise von Franz photo
J. C. R. Licklider photo
Anton Chekhov photo

“Lying is the same as alcoholism. Liars prevaricate even on their deathbeds.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Letter to A.N. Pleshcheev (October 9, 1888)
Letters

Robert Charles Wilson photo
Frances Bean Cobain photo
Samuel Butler photo

“It is said of money that it is more easily made than kept and this is true of many things, such as friendship; and even life itself is more easily got than kept.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Colour http://books.google.com/books?id=JHguFYrTEQ0C&q=%22It+is+said+of+money+that+it+is+more+easily+made+than+kept+and+this+is+true+of+many+things+such+as+friendship+and+even+life+itself+is+more+easily+got+than+kept%22&pg=PA141#v=onepage
Often paraphrased as "Friendship is like money, easier made than kept."
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part IX - A Painter's Views on Painting

Derren Brown photo
David Lynch photo
Henry Carey photo
Adi Da Samraj photo
Geert Wilders photo
Margaret Fuller photo
Piero Scaruffi photo
Peter F. Drucker photo
Greg Egan photo
John Bright photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Warren Farrell photo
Sam Harris photo
Daniel Barenboim photo
Thomas Hood photo
Cole Porter photo

“Some Argentines, without means, do it,
People say, in Boston, even beans do it.
Let's do it, let's fall in love.”

Cole Porter (1891–1964) American composer and songwriter

"Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love" (there have been many variant renditions of this song by various artists).
Paris (1928)

“I wonder if anyone always knows-you, me, Jackie Robinson, even Robert Frost-that we will cross to Safety. Or is it rather that when we are There, we think we always knew?”

Roger Kahn (1927–2020) American baseball writer

Source: The Boys Of Summer, Chapter 2, Ceremonies of Innocence, p. 82

“I was filled with joy when studying quantum physics at the university as a means to understand the universe. But at the same time, I was preoccupied with the oppressive conditions in my country and the tyranny suffered by our universities, intellectuals, and the media. Like many others in our universities, I felt compelled to join the struggle for freedom. What we experience is a decades-old tyranny, that cannot tolerate freedom of speech and thought. In the name of religion, it restricts and punishes science, intellect, and even love. It labels as a threat to national security and toxic to society whatever is not compatible with its political and economic interests. It considers punishing unwelcome ideas as a positive thing. It does not tolerate differences of opinion; it responds to logic not by logic, discussion or dialog, but by suppression. By tyranny I mean a ruling power that tries to make only one voice—the voice of a ruling minority in Iran—dominant, with no regard for pluralism in the society. By tyranny I mean a judiciary that disregards even the Islamic Republic’s own constitution, and sentences intellectuals, writers, journalists, and political and civil activists to long prison terms, without due process and trial in a court of law. … By tyranny I mean power-holders who believe they stand above the law and who disregard justice and the urgent demands of the human conscience.”

Narges Mohammadi (1972) Iranian human rights activist

Letter Accepting 2018 Andrei Sakharov Prizefrom (2018)

Yu Zhengsheng photo

“Even those who once supported and promoted Taiwan independence, or followed those who do, so long as they are willing to help improve and develop cross-strait relations, will be welcome to visit the mainland and to join us in promoting exchanges and cooperation between the two sides of the (Taiwan) strait.”

Yu Zhengsheng (1945) Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference

Yu Zhengsheng (2013) cited in " China unveils 6 new cross-strait measures http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/china-taiwan-relations/2013/06/17/381387/China-unveils.htm" on The China Post, 17 June 2013.

Alex Salmond photo

“No matter the lie, even if I was on my own, I'd have to play it. I can hear my dad saying: 'Play the ball as it lies.' Because of the way I was taught, I would feel awful about it. I don't know if that makes me dead honest or dead stupid.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Alex Salmond: The new king of Scotland http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/alex-salmond-the-new-king-of-scotland-889764.html, ' (9 August 2008)

Muhammad photo
Abby Sunderland photo

“Even without looking I knew: there was no way I still had a mast. And without a mast, the trip was over.”

Abby Sunderland (1993) Camera Assistant, Inspirational Speaker and Sailor

Source: Unsinkable: A Young Woman's Courageous Battle on the High Seas (2011), p. 156

Kumar Sangakkara photo
Claudia Alexander photo
Thomas Frank photo

“Class, conservatives insist, is not really about money or birth or even occupation. It is primarily a matter of authenticity, that most valuable cultural commodity. Class is about what one drives and where one shops and how one prays, and only secondarily about the work one does or the income one makes. What makes one a member of the noble proletariat is not work per se, but unpretentiousness, humility, and the rest of the qualities that our punditry claims to spy in the red states that voted for George W. Bush. The nation’s producers don’t care about unemployment or a dead-end life or a boss who makes five hundred times as much as they do. No. In red land both workers and their bosses are supposed to be united in disgust with those affected college boys at the next table, prattling on about French cheese and villas in Tuscany and the big ideas for running things that they read in books.This sounds like a complicated maneuver, but it should be quite familiar after all these years. We see it in its most ordinary, run-of-the-mill variety every time we hear a conservative pundit or politician deplore "class warfare"”

meaning any talk about the failures of free-market capitalism — and then, seconds later, hear them rail against the "media elite" or the haughty, Volvo driving "eastern establishment."
Part II: The Fury Which Passeth All Understanding, Chapter Six: Persecuted, Powerless, and Blind (pp. 113-114).
What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004)

Kazimir Malevich photo

“I recommend [the students] that you should work actively at the Hermitage and study the artistic structures of Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian, Watteau, Poussin, and other painters, even Chardin, where he is an artist. Study very closely their dabbing manner of execution and try to copy a small piece of canvas, just one square inch.”

Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) Russian and Soviet artist of polish descent

Quote in a letter of Malevich to his student Yudin, summer of 1924; as quoted in Marc Chagall – the Russian years 1906 – 1922, ed. By Christoph Vitali, exhibition catalogue, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 1991, p. 66
1921 - 1930

Maggie Stiefvater photo
Kirsten Gillibrand photo
Amartya Sen photo
Antonin Scalia photo

“Humanity has been around for at least some 5,000 years or so, and I doubt that the basic challenges it has confronted are any worse now, or, alas, even much different, from what they ever were.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart graduation commencement speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJSOOYx6wYM, .
2010s

Fausto Cercignani photo

“Courtesy is fundamental: sometimes it keeps at bay even snarling people.”

Fausto Cercignani (1941) Italian scholar, essayist and poet

Examples of self-translation (c. 2004), Quotes - Zitate - Citations - Citazioni

Camille Paglia photo
Aung San Suu Kyi photo
John Updike photo
Nicomachus photo
George Carlin photo
Dejan Stojanovic photo

“It is beautiful to talk about beautiful things and even more beautiful to silently gaze at them.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

Words and Beauty http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/words-and-beauty/
From the poems written in English

Didier Sornette photo

“The phenomena and underlying mechanisms discussed in this book may thus become even more relevant to a larger and larger portion of human activity. Understand their origin, and be prepared for subtle but significant precursors!”

Didier Sornette (1957) French scientist

Source: Why Stock Markets Crash - Critical Events in Complex Systems (2003), Chapter 10, 2050: The End Of The Growth Era?, p. 396.

Jerry Seinfeld photo
Patrick Buchanan photo
John Fante photo
Ernest Dimnet photo
Vātsyāyana photo

“The US has not committed atrocities in Iraq that are even remotely comparable to what Saddam did.”

Kanan Makiya (1949) American orientalist

Kanan Makiya, "Kanan Makiya speaks about Iraq 5 years later...", Washington Post (March 20, 2008)

Gore Vidal photo
George Galloway photo

“Your Excellency, Mr President: I greet you, in the name of the many thousands of people in Britain who stood against the tide and opposed the war and aggression against Iraq and continue to oppose the war by economic means, which is aimed to strangle the life out of the great people of Iraq. I greet you, too, in the name of the Palestinian people, amongst whom I've just spent two weeks in the occupied Palestinian territories. I can honestly tell you that there was not a single person to whom I told I was coming to Iraq and hoping to meet with yourself who did not wish me to convey their heartfelt, fraternal greetings and support. And this was true, especially at the base in the refugee camps of Jabaliyah and Beach Camp in Gaza, in the Balatah refugee camp in Nablus and on the streets of the towns and villages in the occupied lands.I thought the president would appreciate knowing that even today, three years after the war, I still met families who were calling their newborn sons Saddam; and that two weeks ago, when I was trapped inside the Orient House, which is the Palestinian headquarters in al-Quds [Jerusalem], with 5,000 armed mustwatinin [settlers] outside demonstrating, pledging to tear down the Palestinian flag from the flagpole, the hundreds of shabab [youths] inside the compound were chanting that they wish to be with a DSh K [machine gun] in Baghdad to avenge the eyes of Abu Jihad. And the Youth Club in Silwan, which is the one of the most resistant of all the villages around Jerusalem, asked me to ask the president's permission if they could enrol him as an honourary member of their club and to present him with this flag from holy Jerusalem.I wish to say, sir, that I believe that we are turning the tide in Europe, that the scale of the humanitarian disaster which has been imposed upon the Iraqi people is now becoming more and more widely known and accepted. Fifty-five British members of parliament opposed the war, but 125 are demanding the lifting of the embargo; and this does not include the invisible section of the Conservative Party who must also be moving in that direction, and Sir Edward Heath is being a very persuasive advocate inside the Conservative Party.It is my belief that we must convey the very clear picture that 1994 has to be the year of the ending of the embargo against Iraq. Otherwise, famine and all the awful consequences, including acts of despair by Iraqis, will be the result; and this is the message we must convey to civilized opinion in Europe.Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability, and I want you to know that we are with you, hatta al-nasr, hatta al-nasr, hatta al-Quds”

George Galloway (1954) British politician, broadcaster, and writer

until victory, until victory, until Jerusalem
"'I greet you in the name of thousands of Britons'", The Times, January 20, 1994, citing BBC monitoring service at 9 PM on January 19 as its source.
Speech to Saddam Hussein, January 19, 1994.
Source: See also David Morley Gorgeous George: The Life and Adventures of George Galloway, London: Politicos, 2007, p. 210-11. Galloway disputes the reporting of this quote and has repeatedly stated that the conclusion was a salute to "the Iraqi people" rather than Saddam Hussein personally.

Desmond Morris photo
Evelyn Waugh photo
Uthradom Thirunal Marthanda Varma photo
Eric S. Raymond photo
John Fante photo
Miyamoto Musashi photo
Dashiell Hammett photo
David Lindsay photo

“Lyndsay, with all his ancient coarseness…maintained for two centuries, even among the precise, his position as the popular poet of Scotland.”

David Lindsay (1490–1554) Scottish noble and poet

George Gordon The Discipline of Letters (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946) p. 91.
Criticism

Stephen Fry photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Allan Kaprow photo

“Pollock.... left us [c. 1958] at the point where we must be preoccupied with and even dazzled by the space and objects of our everyday life, either our bodies, clothes, rooms, or, if need be, the vastness of Forty-Second Street [New York].... Objects of every sorts are materials for the new art, paints, chairs, food, electric and neon-lights, smoke, water, old socks, a dog, movies, a thousand other things which will be discovered by the present generation of artists.... All will become materials for this new concrete art.”

Allan Kaprow (1927–2006) American artist

In his essay 'The legacy of Jackson Pollock', published in 'ARTnews', Fall of 1958; as quoted by Christina Bryan Rosenberger, in 'Drawing the Line: The Early Work of Agnes Martin', Univ. of California Press, July 2016, p 121
this essay of 1958 became more or less an art-manifesto for the generation American artists after Abstract Expressionism

Lisa Randall photo
Steph Davis photo
John C. Wright photo

“Everyone loses in war, even the winners.”

Source: Orphans of Chaos (2005), Chapter 7, “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” Section 2 (p. 109)

Thaddeus Stevens photo
Daniel Handler photo
Lewis Pugh photo

“Going against the tide has never been difficult for me. It wasn’t even a conscious decision but the natural consequence of following my own instinct.”

Lewis Pugh (1969) Environmental campaigner, maritime lawyer and endurance swimmer

p 37
Achieving The Impossible (2010)

Paul Weller (singer) photo

“I play out my role, I've even been out walking -
They tell me that it helps, but I know when I'm beaten…”

Paul Weller (singer) (1958) English singer-songwriter, Guitarist

Long Hot Summer, from Introducing The Style Council (1983)

Paulo Freire photo
Bill Bryson photo
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington photo
John Rupert Firth photo

“Collocations are actual words in habitual company. A word in a usual collocation stares you in the face just as it is. Colligations cannot be of words as such. Colligations of grammatical categories related in a grammatical structure do not necessarily follow word divisions or even sub-divisions of words.”

John Rupert Firth (1890–1960) English linguist

Firth (1962, p. 14), as cited in Wendy J. Anderson, A corpus linguistic analysis of phraseology and collocation in the register of current European Union administrative French. Diss. University of St Andrews, 2003.

James Howard Kunstler photo
George Eliot photo

“He fled to his usual refuge, that of hoping for some unforeseen turn of fortune, some favourable chance which would save him from unpleasant consequences – perhaps even justify his insincerity by manifesting prudence.
In this point of trusting in some throw of fortune's dice, Godfrey can hardly be called old-fashioned. Favourable Chance is the god of all men who follow their own devices instead of obeying a law they believe in. Let even a polished man of these days get into a position he is ashamed to avow, and his mind will be bent on all the possible issues that may deliver him from the calculable results of that position. Let him live outside his income, or shirk the resolute honest work that brings wages, and he will presently find himself dreaming of a possible benefactor, a possible simpleton who may be cajoled into using his interest, a possible state of mind in some possible person not yet forthcoming. Let him neglect the responsibilities of his office, and he will inevitably anchor himself on the chance, that the thing left undone may turn out not to be of the supposed importance. Let him betray his friend's confidence, and he will adore that same cunning complexity called Chance, which gives him the hope that his friend will never know. Let him forsake a decent craft that he may pursue the gentilities of a profession to which nature never called him, and his religion will infallibly be the worship of blessed Chance, which he will believe in as the mighty creator of success. The evil principle deprecated in that religion, is the orderly sequence by which the seed brings forth a crop after its kind.”

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

Source: Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (1861), Chapter 9 (at page 73-74)

Alan Greenspan photo
Gertrude Stein photo