Quotes about everyone
page 19

“My dear Theo, Feeling, even a fine feeling, for the beauties of nature isn't the same as religious feeling, although I believe that the two are closely connected. The same is true of a feeling for art. Don't give in to that too much either. Hold fast especially to your love for the firm [of the Paris' art dealers Goupil & C0, where both brothers worked - Vincent started in 1869 and Theo in 1873] and for your work.... Nearly everyone has a feeling for nature, some more than others, but there are few who feel that God is a spirit, and that they must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Pa is one of the few, Ma too, and also Uncle Vincent, I believe.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

quote from his Letter #049 to Theo on 'religious feeling' (Paris, 17 Sept. 1875) http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let049/letter.html 1870s

Love, God, Truth, Beauty

“Perhaps the most dangerous element that was picked out of the Muslim tradition and changed and transformed in the hands of these young men who perpetrated Sept. 11 is this idea of committing suicide. They call it martyrdom, of course. Suicide is firmly rejected in Islam as an act of worship. In the tradition, generally, to die in battle for a larger purpose -- that is, for the sake of the community at large -- is a noble thing to do. Self-sacrifice yourself as you defend the community -- that is a traditional thing, and that has a traditional meaning of "jihad." But what is non-traditional, what is new is this idea that jihad is almost like an act of private worship. You become closer to God by blowing yourself up in such a way. You, privately, irrespective of what effect it has on everyone else…. For these young men, that is the new idea of jihad. This idea of jihad allows you to lose all the old distinctions between combatants and non-combatants, between just and unjust wars, between the rules of engagement of different types. All of that is gone, because now the act of martyrdom is an act of worship… in and of itself. It's like going on the pilgrimage. It's like paying your alms, which every Muslim has to do. It's like praying in the direction of Mecca, and so on and so forth. It is an individual act of worship. That's terrifying, and that's new. That's an entirely new idea, which these young men have taken out, developed.”

Kanan Makiya (1949) American orientalist

"Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/faith/interviews/makiya.html, PBS Frontline (2002)

Men, God, War, Way

“We are brutal with ourselves…., and one of the consequences this could have is that we will be equally brutal and cold with everyone else. Perhaps that's exactly what I've been missing…. A stroke of a sword, a well-aimed bullet must be less than what I feel when I think of being near you.”

Gudrun Ensslin (1940–1977) German terrorist

Letter to Baader in The element of madness, July 12, 2009, Perlentaucher Medien GmbH, February 22, 2010 http://www.signandsight.com/features/1964.html,

Feeling, Thinking

“The [Labour] moderates split off and that split of the moderates delayed the realignment of British politics for at least one generation and possibly two, because as a conservative passionately believing in freedom under the law and believing that socialism cannot stand for that, the realignment - you hear me say my job is to stay in long enough so that everyone knows that socialism and the British character do not mix, so socialism has got to go - is to get the fundamental realignment which I think is in keeping with the British character, which is two parties, a free enterprise party, because if you have political freedom under the rule of law you have got to have economic freedom as well. It is to bring about that can only be done really by eventually the Labour Party splitting off the Left and rejecting the Clause 4 and the command economy, and then we really should get a realignment.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Interview for The Standard (13 March 1987) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106595 Second term as Prime Minister

Law, Thinking, Freedom, Passion

“A novelist carries with him constantly what most women carry in large purses: much that is useless, a few absolutely essential items, and then, for good measure, a great number of things that fall in between. But the novelist does not transport them physically because his trove of possessions is mental. Now and then he adds a new and entirely useless idea; now and then he reluctantly cleans out the trash -- the obviously worthless ideas -- and with a few sentimental tears sheds them. Once in a great while, however, he happens by chance onto a thoroughly stunning idea new to him that he hopes will turn out to be new to everyone else. It is this final category that dignifies his existence. But such truly priceless ideas… perhaps during his entire lifetime he may, at best, acquire only a meager few. But that is enough; he has, through them, justified his existence to himself and to his God.”

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

"If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others" (1977)

Women, God, Hope, Idea

“Put the money into schools. Rational ones that train young minds to think, to demand that persons in authority show the evidence for the ideas they push. Do that, and we won’t need to provide a world for the Sacred Brethren who, given the opportunity, would run everyone else off the planet.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Odyssey (2006), Chapter 2 (p. 13)

Money, World, School, Idea

“I always want to design a frame that’s open to everyone. I don’t see art as a secret code.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

“ Artist’s Quotes http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/unilever-series-ai-weiwei/artists-quote.” Excerpted from a conversation with curators Juliet Bingham and Marko Daniel, Beijing, May 31 and June 1, 2010. Tate Museums, UK. 2010-, 2010

Secret, Art

“There is always trouble if meat is not divided by lot. Someone immediately says that he has been given more than his share, and tries to hand a piece to someone else. Then there is much arguing and swearing by God, with everyone insisting that he has been given too much, and finally a deadlock ensues which can only be settled by casting lots for the meat – as should have been done in the first place. I have never heard a man grumble that he has received less than his share. Such behaviour would be inconceivable to the Bedu, for they are careful never to appear greedy, and quick to notice anyone who is.”

Wilfred Thesiger book Arabian Sands

Source: Arabian Sands (1959), p. 71.

God, Appearance

“I was a looker someone who looked over at every car at every traffic light, hoping something would happen, and almost never finding anyone looking back- always everyone looking forward, and every time I felt stupid. Why should people look over at you? Why would they care?”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

You Shall Know Our Velocity! (2002)

People, Stupidity, Hope, Cars

“I'm angry that I can't sleep that I hate myself
that I can’t write as well as I want
because I’m so damn angry I can’t breathe
Furious that nobody else seems to be angry
and they don’t want me to be either
Enraged at this whole sodden rotting mess they keep calling
civilization
as it poisons the air and the water and kills everyone in it’s way.”

Chrystos (1946) American writer, activist

"They're always telling me I'm too angry" (1995)

Hate, Way, Sleep, Water

“Civilization is the art of living in towns of such size that everyone does not know everyone else.”

Julian Jaynes book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

Book II, Chapter 1, p. 149
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976)

Art

“The official style is at once humble, polite, curt and disagreeable: it derives partly from that used in Byzantine times by the eunuch slave-secretariat, writing stiffly in the name of His Sacred Majesty, whose confidence they enjoyed, to their fellow-slaves outside the palace precincts — for the Emperor had summary power over everyone; and partly from the style used by the cleric-bureaucracy of the Middle Ages, writing stiffly in the name of the feudal lords to their serfs and, though cautious of offending their employers, protected from injury by being servants of the Church, not of the Crown, and so subject to canon, not feudal, law. The official style of civil servants, so far as it recalls its Byzantine derivation, is written by slaves to fellow-slaves of a fictitious tyrant; and, so far as it recalls its mediaeval derivation, is written by members of a quasi-ecclesiastical body, on behalf of quasi-feudal ministers (who, being politicians, come under a different code of behaviour from theirs) to a serflike public.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

Source: The Reader Over Your Shoulder (1943), Ch. 4: "The Use and Abuse of Official English".

Age, Law, Confidence, Time

“Everyone said how tormented directors can be. I've never enjoyed something so much in my life!”

Salma Hayek (1966) Mexican-American actress and producer

O interview (2003)

Life

“The Barnum Statements are very famous and well known about and there’s a great experiment… There’s a terrific experiment that was done on this with students. I’ve filmed this myself. We did it with three different groups of people across the world, where you have… everybody in the group is given a reading, a personality reading. Normally beforehand there’s some nonsense about asking for their birth date or getting some objects off them - so there’s some sort of process apparently involved - and they’re given a reading. And it’s a long reading, it’s a very detailed personality reading and they all get one individually, they’re all asked to read it and, invariably, they will all say afterwards that it’s very, very accurate, that it was not at all vague or ambiguous or what people might expect and they’ll give it 85, 90, 95 percent accuracy. I’ve seen this happen and people are amazed by it. And then you get them to swap with each other and say “perhaps you can identify someone else by their reading”. Then they realise they’ve all been given exactly the same thing which was written months ago before I even met them and the statements that fill those sorts of readings are generally Barnum Statements. Barnum statements are things which essentially apply to anybody – this is only part of the cold-reading skill but it’s a major part of it… PT Barnum… “something for everyone” and, famously “a sucker is born every minute””

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

Other TV and web appearances, The Enemies of Reason (Richard Dawkins)

People, World, Birth, Reading

“This approach costs lives, and has cost lives in Britain because it inundates analysts with too much data. It is 99% useless. Who wants to know everyone who has ever [been] at Google or the BBC? We have known for decades that that swamps analysts”

William Binney former U.S. intelligence official and cryptoanalyst; whistleblower

Snooper's charter' will cost British lives, MPs are warned ' http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/06/snoopers-charter-will-cost-british-lives-mps-warned, published by The Guardian on 6th January 2016.

“What’s the difference between provincialism, which unthinkingly takes its situation for everyone’s, and cosmopolitanism, which is confident it has the right to?”

James Richardson (1950) American poet

#431
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

Confidence

“So I think we need a new plan. Next time a country wants to take us on, 'stead of sending bombs, let's try this: send everyone in the country a color television and a satellite dish. And give 'em the basic package, not HBO — screw those people. And before the war starts, we make them all sit down. "Okay, we'll go to war with you. You want a piece of us, fine, fine. Before we go, I want you guys to understand us a little better, so you have to sit down and watch ESPN2 for 24 hours. 'Cause you watch ESPN2 for a full day, you're gonna understand America a lot better. 'Hi, we're America! We build monster trucks for fun! We developed the top fuel dragster, zero to three hundred thirty miles an hour in under five seconds, cause, pfft, we were bored. Piss us off, heh, and see what we build! And we may feel bad about it later! Ask Japan. But before we feel bad…we're gonna jack you up! And then we're gonna send you FOOD! 'Cause we're America; we're schizophrenic. Don't mess with a nation that needs medication!'"”

Christopher Titus (1964) actor, writer, podcaster

The Fifth-Annual End-of-the-World Tour (2007)

War, People, Food, Color

“You are a tongue of the debased,
of the unreasonable, hating themselves
even more than they hate other nations,
a tongue of informers,
a tongue of the confused,
ill with their own innocence.But without you, who am I?
Only a scholar in a distant country,
a success, without fears and humiliations.
Yes, who am I without you?
Just a philosopher, like everyone else.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

"My Faithful Mother Tongue" (1968), trans. Czesŀaw Miŀosz and Robert Pinsky
City Without a Name (1969)

Hate, Fear, Distant, Success

“I photographed the ears. Something organic. Something from the inside out. Coming from the head. I did this ear series in New York ['Ohr' (Ear). c. 1980] and I asked people, women, on the street if I could photograph their ear. Not a single woman said no. Because I didn't ask for their face, but for something largely anonymous.... just women on the street... It only took a moment. The women always said, what, my ear? Sure! But I never offended anyone by examining them. It was just the ear. And everyone thought that was great. That was a nice experience. For me as a photographer, too. Of course, I did work with some light and hair shining in the sun... I tried to make the situation nice for the ear.”

Isa Genzken (1948) German sculptor

2001 - 2010, Isa Genzken in conversation with Wolfgang Tillmans' (2003)

Women, People, Light, Sun

“Ichthyophils imagine that human beings want a life in which they can make their own choices. But what if they can be fulfilled only by a life in which they follow each other? The majority who obey the fashion of the day may be acting on a secret awareness that they lack the potential for a truly individual existence. Liberalism – the ichthyophil variety, at any rate – teaches that everyone yearns to be free. Herzen’s experience of the abortive European revolutions of 1848 led him to doubt that this was so. It was because of his disillusionment that he criticized Mill so sharply. But if it is true that Mill was deluded in thinking that everyone loves freedom, it may also be true that without this illusion there would be still less freedom in the world. The charm of a liberal way of life is that it enables most people to renounce their freedom unknowingly.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

An Old Chaos: Ichthyophils and Liberals (p. 62)
The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths (2013)

Love, Life, People, Secret

“There is no such thing as a Republican position on Zika or Democrat position on Zika because these mosquitoes bite everyone, and they're not going to ask you what your party registration is or who you plan to vote for in November.”

Marco Rubio (1971) U.S. Senator from state of Florida, United States; politician

Marco Rubio Press Release: VIDEO: Rubio Urges Congress To Put Politics Aside On Zika https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=628288BE-603B-4F10-8867-C3EACDE33E59 (28 April 2016) 2010s, 2016

“I have long had a theory that the popularity of Christianity has always depended on its appeal to the sadism of its adherents. The exceptional should be crucified, saith Society; and somehow everyone suspects (in spite of all arguments to the contrary) that if there is a God, he may be exceptional in some way. So the figure of Christ crucified becomes the figure of the dangerous exceptional alien—suitably defeated. 'Only a suffering God can help', said Bonhoeffer, licking his lips.”

Celia Green (1935) British philosopher

Advice to Clever Children (1981)

God, Way, Suffering, Help

“I am the Jesus Christ of politics. I am a patient victim, I sacrifice myself for everyone.”

Silvio Berlusconi (1936) Italian politician

At the launch of his 2006 campaign, as quoted in "In quotes: Berlusconi in his own words" at BBC News (2 May 2006) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3041288.stm, and "Did I say This? in The Observer (20 April 2008) http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/apr/20/italy 2006

Christ

“Even if victory were possible, it still couldn’t provide meaning or genuine happiness, because saying “I want to be the best” is simply the polite way of saying “I want everyone else to be worse.””

Malcolm Azania book From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain

Source: From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (2007), Chapter 2 “Facing the Ultimate Archenemy” (p. 58)

Happiness, Way, Victory

“The American statesmen, by subjecting the Church to the same regulations governing all other associations and institutions, have limited its field of activity to reasonable proportions; and, as the State does not contribute from State Funds one single cent to the church, the whole clergy cringes and sings hymns in praise of Government. This is not to be wondered at! The parson, like everyone else, has got to live; what he makes out of the public offertory doesn't amount to much, and so he is more or less dependent on State charity. As he has no legal claim whatever on the State, he therefore takes very good care that his demeanour is always pleasing in the eyes of the State and therefore deserving of the crumbs it cares to toss to him.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

4 July 1942.
Disputed, (1941-1944) (published 1953)

Singing, Dependency

“He always gave himself to everyone without following anyone. And in that world, where almost everyone follows everyone without giving themselves to anyone.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

Se daba a todos sin seguir a nadie. Y en aquel mundo, donde casi todos siguen a todos sin darse a nadie.
Voces (1943)

World

“What’s true is that everyone is uncomfortable with expressing anger and being critical. Anger and criticism generates rejection. And everyone hates rejection.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000), p. 21.

Hate, Anger

“Devin had never trusted the priests of Eanna in his whole life. They were too shrewd, by far the most subtle of the clergy, by far the most apt to steer events to their own ends, which might lie out of sight, generations away. Servants of a goddess, he supposed, might find it easier to take the longer view of things. But everyone knew that all across the peninsula the clergy of the Triad had their own triple understanding with the Tyrants from abroad: their collective silence, their tacit complicity, bought in exchange for being allowed to preserve the rites that mattered more to them, it seemed, than freedom in the Palm.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Source: Tigana (1990), Chapter 15 (p. 461)

Life, Lie, Understanding, Freedom

“Don."
"Yeah."
"Why don't people believe?"
"Why don't they believe what?"
"In God."
"I don't know. Not everyone has a Volkswagen.”

Donald Miller (1971) American writer

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

God, People

“Service is the currency that keeps our economy moving. I serve you in one business, you serve me in another. When either of us improves, the economy gets a little better. When both of us improve, people are sure to take notice. When everyone improves, the whole world grows stronger and closer together.”

Ron Kaufman (1956) American author and consultant

Lift Me UP! Service With A Smile (2005)

People, World, Business

“Trudeau keeps pushing his “diversity is our strength” slogan. Yes, Canada is a huge and diverse country. This diversity is part of us and should be celebrated. But where do we draw the line?
Ethnic, religious, linguistic, sexual and other minorities were unjustly repressed in the past. We’ve done a lot to redress those injustices and give everyone equal rights. Canada is today one of the countries where people have the most freedom to express their identity.
But why should we promote ever more diversity? If anything and everything is Canadian, does being Canadian mean something? Shouldn’t we emphasize our cultural traditions, what we have built and have in common, what makes us different from other cultures and societies?
Having people live among us who reject basic Western values such as freedom, equality, tolerance and openness doesn’t make us strong. People who refuse to integrate into our society and want to live apart in their ghetto don’t make our society strong.
Trudeau’s extreme multiculturalism and cult of diversity will divide us into little tribes that have less and less in common, apart from their dependence on government in Ottawa. These tribes become political clienteles to be bought with taxpayers $ and special privileges.
Cultural balkanisation brings distrust, social conflict, and potentially violence, as we are seeing everywhere. It’s time we reverse this trend before the situation gets worse. More diversity will not be our strength, it will destroy what has made us such a great country.”

Maxime Bernier (1963) Canadian politician

12 August 2018 on Twitter https://twitter.com/MaximeBernier/status/1028800406535716864

People, Freedom, Strong, Time

“The way a new leader acts early in his or her job will show what kind of person he or she is. During that time frame, everyone develops their own long-lasting perception. And those perceptions—hard to change—determine how they respond to the new leadership long into the future.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ Live Learn Lead to Make a Difference https://books.google.com/books?id=s0q7mZf9oDkC&lpg=pg=PP1&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2006 p. 154. On Building Trust

Way, Change, Time, Future

“Your imagination is notoriously poor. Not everyone holds identical ambitions to your own!”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 2, Chapter 4 (p. 560)
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)

Imagination

“American corporations often say human resources are their most important asset. In our national discourse, everyone talks about jobs. Yet as a society we somehow tolerate persistent high unemployment, 30 years of stagnating wages and growing wage inequality, two decades of declining job satisfaction and loss of pension and retirement benefits, and continuous challenges from the consequences of unemployment on family life. If we really valued work and human resources, we would address these problems with the vigor required to solve them.”

Thomas A. Kochan (1947) American academic

Thomas A. Kochan in: "An interview with Thomas A. Kochan," in: Harvard Magazine, Sept. 2012. online at harvardmagazine.com.

Life, Family, Problem, Loss

“Inside all of us is a boss. You just gotta go find her. That’s the truth. Everyone is capable. Everyone has the ability. A lot of it is timing. A lot of it is right place, right time. A lot of it is not giving up. A lot if it is push, dreams, following those [dreams] through, and tenacity. You can do it. It’s going to be hard. People are going to tell you no. But no matter what your goal is in life, there’s always a way. You just have to look for that way. Sometimes you have to make that way. Sometimes you have to go around people. Sometimes you may have to go through people. But there’s always a way to make it happen.”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

Erika Jayne interview to Refinery29 https://www.refinery29.com/erika-jayne-girardi-real-housewives-of-beverly-hills-interview (2017)

Life, People, Truth, Dreams

“The goal of public policy is to make our lives better. Does that mean richer? Or healthier? No policy change is good for everyone, so we must weigh total gains against total losses. But even that task is more complicated than it first appears.”

Charles Wheelan (1966) American politician

Introduction to Public Policy (2011), Ch. 5 : Evaluating Social Welfare

Appearance, Change, Loss

“I had to go to the Bauhaus to the basic course that was given by Itten. And I submitted to that although I was a little older than Itten. But I have not the best memories of my studies there. So when that course was over everyone had to exhibit his work and then it was decided whether or not one could continue. I was accepted to continue. But I wanted to go into a workshop and I wanted to make stained glass. That was my old dream. Glass pictures. But Itten thought I was not ready for that. Certainly to delay my study in glass, Itten said, 'Glass painting is a branch of wall painting and you should go first to our wall painting workshop,' And I said, 'That's nonsense. Wall painting has to do with reflected light and glass painting with direct light.' So I said 'Sorry, I'll do my own stuff on my own.”

Josef Albers (1888–1976) German-American artist and educator

I had no money. Just a Rucksack and a hammer. And I started these assemblages. That was in 1921, But in all books on assemblages these things are not mentioned.
Homage to the square' (1964), Oral history interview with Josef Albers' (1968)

Money, Books, Dreams, Study

“Delighted customers are the only advertisement everyone believes.”

Ron Kaufman (1956) American author and consultant

Lift Me UP! Service With A Smile (2005)

“Kurt got to the point where he eventually had to sacrifice every bit of who he was to his art, because the world demanded it of him," Frances says bluntly at one point. "I think that was one of the main triggers as to why he felt he didn't want to be here and everyone would be happier without him."But "in reality, if he had lived," she goes on, "I would have had a dad. And that would have been an incredible experience.”

Frances Bean Cobain (1992) American artist

David Fricke quoting Frances Bean Cobain " Frances Bean Cobain on Life After Kurt's Death: An Exclusive Q&A http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/frances-bean-life-after-kurt-cobain-death-exclusive-interview-20150408" (2015)

World, Art, Thinking, Reality

“Everyone who lives in border areas of the country knows that illegal immigration is a major source of crime and assorted social mayhem.”

Jeffrey Tucker (1963) American writer

Source: "Jack Kemp, American Socialist" by Jeffrey Tucker, The Rothbard-Rockwell Report, September 1996, UNZ.org, 2016-05-22 http://www.unz.org/Pub/RothbardRockwellReport-1996sep-00001,

Country

“If the automobile had followed the same development as the computer, a Rolls Royce would today cost $100 and get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year killing everyone inside.”

Robert X. Cringely (1953) American technology journalist and columnist

Robert X. Cringely (1989), "Noted from the field" in: InfoWorld magazine, Vol. 11, nr. 10, March 6, 1989, p. 94

“I think implicit bias is a problem for everyone, not just police. I think, unfortunately, too many of us in our great country jump to conclusions about each other.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

Problem, Thinking, Country

“Dark Helmet [after everyone on the bridge announces that their last name is "Asshole."]: I knew it, I'm surrounded by Assholes.”

Mel Brooks (1926) American director, writer, actor, and producer

Spaceballs

“Wherever there is greater joy, there is the direction of everyone’s activity, because the innermost of everyone is really the lighted lamp of Total Knowledge, total organising power of knowledge, it’s all bliss, it’s not necessary for the people to suffer.”

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1917–2008) Inventor of Transcendental Meditation, musician

Quoted from: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Main Message - from Victory Day, October 21, 2007 Maharishi Channel http://www.bienfaits-meditation.com/en/maharishi/videos/maharishi_main_message_2007

People, Knowledge, Light, Suffering

“Not everyone knows when to be silent and when to go. It not infrequently happens that even diplomatic persons of good worldly breeding fail to observe that their presence is arousing a feeling akin to hatred in their exhausted or busy host, and that this feeling is being concealed with an effort and disguised with a lie.”

Anton Chekhov book The Letter

The Letter (1887)

Lie, Feeling, Business, Effort

“In 1982, when he was 45 and Philadelphia 76er owner Harold Katz was hot after him, the Houston Chronicle's George White asked Elvin Hayes if Chamberlain could still play. "Some things about Wilt, you never forgot," Hayes said. "He was such an awesome physical specimen. To go up under Wilt Chamberlain, to be down there and look up at him when he's towering up over you waiting to dunk, was a terrifying picture. To see him poised up there, knowing he was about to sweep down with that big jam... that must be the most frightening sight in sports. The ball goes shooting through the net and you better have your body covered up because he could really hurt someone. I was scared. Everyone was scared when he got that look in his eye, that don't-try-to-stop-this look that he got when he really wanted it.... "I think Russell realized there was no way he could have stopped Wilt if he had been fully intent on making it a two-man game. No one who ever put on a uniform could have done it. When I played him, I kept this foremost in my mind: Above all, don't make him mad. Don't embarrass him. You wanted to keep him quiet as long as possible."”

Wilt Chamberlain (1936–1999) basketball player

[Heisler, Mark, Larger Than Life, The Los Angeles Times, 1999-10-13]
Post-NBA life

Way, Game, Thinking, Sport

“Democratization of commerce is based on everyone having the right to exercise their roles as micro consumers, micro producers, micro entrepreneurs, micro investors, and micro innovators. Access to information removes the first impediment to building this brave, new world. Information asymmetry has always been at the heart of poverty.”

C.K. Prahalad book The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Source: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, 2009, p. 22

World, Exercises, Heart

“This naturally leads us to the subject to Continence. Our soi-disant manly man with a false sneer of bravado and utter lack of stability considers that Continence is not possible, and like the ostrich tries to hide from the truth. For not only is Continence possible but it is practiced with brilliant success, voluntarily, by hundreds and hundreds of men and women in all walks of life and by all castes and creeds. (Please note the stress on the word voluntarily.) But its attainment needs courage and determination of the highest degree and which is naturally out of the reach of our flabby indolent moderns, who succumb to the slightest temptation and want to drag everyone down to their own low moral levels.”

Peter de Noronha (1897–1970) Indian businessman

The Pageant of Life (1964), On Promiscuity & Continence

Life, Women, Men, Truth

“Our No. 1 enemy is ignorance. And I believe that is the No. 1 enemy for everyone — it's not understanding what actually is going on in the world.”

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

[Newton, Lee, Facebook Nation: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), Springer Science+Business Media, 2014]

World, Understanding

“Yet the American forces are distinctly the forces of peace. They are the guaranties of that order and tranquility in this part of the world, which is alike beneficial to us and all the other nations. Everyone knows that we covet no territory, we entertain no imperialistic designs, we harbor no enmity toward any other people. We seek no revenge, we nurse no grievances, we have inflicted no injuries, and we fear no enemies. Our ways are the ways of peace.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Ways to Peace (1926)

People, World, Fear, Peace

“But just because I believe that religion is a cynical perversion of the human spirit that exists purely for the benefit of the parasites we know as clergy, doesn't mean I'm not looking for answers to the big questions just like everybody else — you know, the questions that religion pretends it has answers to, because it knows that for some people, anyone answer is better than no answer at all. Questions like, Why are we here? Where did we come from? Where are we going?…Is there an afterlife, and if so, is it fully licensed for alcoholic drinks? That last bit may seem like a trivial concern to you, but not to me, because I live in a society where many people enjoy a social drink from time to time — not a huge amount, just enough to kill a horse. And in these enlightened days of the twenty-first century, when everyone's human rights and cultural identity are so very important, I don't see why I should have to abandon my culture, just because I'm dead. It's only the afterlife, not Saudi Arabia. Let's keep things in perspective. Of course in reality, we know that there will be beer in heaven, and lots of it, otherwise it wouldn't be heaven, would it? It's almost not even worth pointing that out, but I thought I would anyway, just in case someone wants to take the opportunity to be offended.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"God is not enough" (23 May 2008) http://youtube.com/watch?v=1czXvHSjDac&feature=related) 2008

People, Alcohol, Religion, Drink

“Fawning ambition so plainly expressed in the classroom was quite another matter. It wasn’t that I got A’s; other boys got A’s. It was that I wanted my A’s so badly and sought them so blatantly—that’s what everyone saw. Nixon: “I won my share of scholarships, and of speaking and debating prizes in school, not because I was smarter but because I worked longer and harder than some of my more gifted colleagues.””

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)

School, Boy

“It [America] was founded and I hope that it resurges the notion of liberty, the notion of freedom, the notion of a system that treats everyone equally. I think we move further and further away from that not closer and closer and that if we could all focus on that that would be the focus and we could actually accomplish that. And that’s what I talk about all the time. As governor of New Mexico I like to think that on a daily basis it was about a system that was gonna treat everybody equally as opposed to politics which you know is hit and miss and it’s politics it’s who you know as opposed to a system that provides that equality.”

Gary Johnson (1953) American politician, businessman, and 29th Governor of New Mexico

Statement made to representatives of the Pagan Newswire Collective (PNC)
2011-10-16
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/paganswithdisabilities/2011/10/full-transcript-of-qa-with-presidential-candidate-gary-johnson/
2012-02-24
2011

Hope, Thinking, Freedom, Time

“Perhaps she was not really so perfect, but he had made her so in his mind. People did this; he had seen it. As though the world of humans was created from their desires as much as their perception—an issue the empiricists tried to deal with in their natural philosophy.
Although he realized this was a trivial truth, still, trying to comprehend the reality of a situation was his constant activity. He could not necessarily trust the word of ministers, who all had their own purposes; nor what his mother might think, for her own perception was colored by her desire to see people in certain ways. One did not trust the periodicals, certainly, and pamphleteers were never disinterested. Everyone seemed to see the world and events a little differently, depending on their own personal mixture of desire and pragmatism. In history there were any number of rulers whose perception of events was so far removed from reality that it led to calamity. Prince Wilam did not want to be one of those—at any cost. Even if it meant giving up the world as he desired it to be.”

Sean Russell (1952) author

Source: Sea Without a Shore (1996), Chapter 26 (p. 352)

People, Truth, World, Color

“To undress is the dress code these days and I didn't start it. We are all voyeurs, so why the complaints? Until girls don't walk in a swimsuit on the stage they don't get the crown so why is everyone so holier-than-thou?”

Mallika Sherawat (1976) Indian actress

[The Babe with Balls, http://www.binabakshi.com/journalism.htm, Bina Bakshi, May 2004]

Girl

“I thought that young people had more problems than old people, and I hoped I could last until I was older so I wouldn't have all those problems. Then I looked around and saw that everybody who looked young had young problems and that everybody who looked old had old problems. The "old" problems to me looked easier to take than the "young" problems. So I decided to go gray so nobody would know now old I was and I would look younger to them than how old they thought I was. I would gain a lot by going gray: (1) I would have old problems, which were easier to take than young problems, (2) everyone would be impressed by how young I looked, and (3) I would be relieved of the responsibility of acting young—I could occasionally lapse into eccentricity or senility and no one would think anything of it because of my gray hair. When you've got gray hair, every move you make seems "young" and "spry," instead of just being normally active. It's like you're getting a new talent. So I dyed my hair gray when I was about twenty-three or twenty-four.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 6: Work

People, Hope, Problem, Thinking

“Modern warfare wasn't supposed to have this much blood in it. The weapons were supposed to cook everyone neatly, like eggs in their shells.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Mirror Dance (1994)

Cooking

“I look around Tokyo Games Show, and everyone’s making awful games; Japan is at least five years behind.”

Keiji Inafune (1965) Japanese video game designer

Source:Tabuchi, Hiroko. "To Regain Video Game Lead, Japan Looks to West". https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/technology/20game.html?_r=2Retrieved 2018-07-15.

Game

“We have a good image among the population - we should distinguish between voting and image, not everyone who appreciate us actually votes for us.”

Raid Jahid Fahmi (1950) Iraqi politician

Interview with Al Jazeera (25 May 2018)

“By the way, Mr. President, thank you for agreeing to be on my show. I was just as shocked as everyone here is, I promise you. How's Tuesday for you? I've got Frank Rich, but we can bump him. And I mean bump him. I know a guy. Say the word.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

Source: White House Correspondents' Association Dinner (2006)

Way, Guy

“Dada is a farce, a legend, a state of myth. A badly behaved myth whose subterranean survival and capricious manifestation upset everyone... The aesthetic of absolute negativity has been changed into methodical doubt, thanks to which it will finally be able to incarnate new signs... After the NO and the ZERO, there is a third position for the myth; the anti-art gesture of Marcel Duchamp has been charged with positive energy. The Dada spirit identifies itself with a method of appropriation of exterior reality of the modern world... The ready-made is no longer the height of negativity or of polemic, but the basis element of a new expressive repertoire. Such is the New Realism: a direct means for getting one's feet back on the ground but at 40 degree above Dada zero.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

Source: after 2000, Doubt and belief in painting' (2003), p. 41, note 30

World, Art, Reality, Change

“Everyone thinks they can write a play; you just write down what happened to you. But the art of it is drawing from all the moments of your life.”

Neil Simon (1927–2018) playwright, writer, academic

New York Times, March 24, 1985

Life, Art, Thinking, Drawing

“You cannot work too hard at poetry. People are bad at it not because they have tin ears, but because they simply don't have the faintest idea how much work goes into it. It's not as if you're ordering a pizza or doing something that requires direct communication in a very banal way. But it seems these days the only people who spend time over things are retired people and prisoners. We bolt things, untasted. It's so easy to say, 'That'll do.' Everyone's in a hurry. People are intellectually lazy, morally lazy, ethically lazy… All the time. When people get angry with a traffic warden they don't stop and think what it would be like to be a traffic warden or how annoying it would be if people could park wherever they liked. People talk lazily about how hypocritical politicians are. But everyone is. On the one hand we hate that petrol is expensive and on the other we go on about global warming. We abrogate the responsibility for thought and moral decisions onto others and then have the luxury of saying it's not good enough.”

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

Interview with The Daily Telegraph promoting his book The Ode Less Travelled. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3647424/The-would-be-don.html 2000s

Hate, People, Way, Communication

“The United States doesn't and can't condone torture. And I want to make very clear that that's the view and the policy of the administration, the policy of the president, and that he's made very clear to American personnel that we will not condone torture…. Senator, under no circumstances should we or have we condoned torture. And the president has been very clear that he expects everyone to live up to our international obligations and to American law.”

Condoleezza Rice (1954) American Republican politician; U.S. Secretary of State; political scientist

Secretary of State confirmation hearing http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/18/politics/18TEXT-RICE2.html?pagewanted=13&ei=5070&en=0134785e4e0eeadd&ex=1182225600, January 18, 2005.

Law

“Since the abortive coup, Erdogan has been acting like a wounded giant, moving in every direction, hitting everyone in sight and groping for ghosts in the dark. To impose his image as a man of action he has ordered thousands of arrests, massive purges and favor-distribution on a gargantuan scale. He has also put into circulation a dime-a-dozen ideas for constitutional and judicial reform. In the process he has ignored another lesson of Mazrban Nameh: to think as a man of action but to act as a man of thought.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Opinion: Turkey – Towards a “One and a Half Party” System http://english.aawsat.com/2016/08/article55355819/opinion-turkey-towards-one-half-party-system, Ashraq Al-Awsat (5 Aug, 2016).

Idea, Thinking

“We, the people, were denied of the right even to mention the word peace or peace partisans and everyone related to them had to suffer from imprisonment as if it were an unpardonable crime. But now, after the people have been liberated from slavery, and after July 14 ha dawned on us, this Republic and her sons have been liberated and have been marching on the path of freedom ever since.”

Abd al-Karim Qasim (1914–1963) Prime Minister of Iraq

Speech delivered at the second congress of the peace partisans (April 14, 1959).
Principles of the 14th July Revolution (1959)

People, Peace, Freedom, Suffering

“Political skepticism is the source of so many of our dilemmas. Even if free markets worked as advertised, it would be hard to claim that they constituted a sufficient basis for the well-lived life. So what precisely is it that we find lacking in unrestrained financial capitalism, or ‘commercial society’ as the 18th century had it? What do we find instinctively amiss in our present arrangements and what can we do about them? What is it that offends our sense of propriety when faced with unfettered lobbying by the wealthy at the expense of everyone else? What have we lost?
We are all children of the Greeks. We intuitively grasp the need for a sense of moral direction: it is not necessary to be familiar with Socrates to feel that the unexamined life is not worth much. Natural Aristotelians, we assume that a just society is one in which justice is habitually practiced; a good society one in which people behave well. But in order for such an implicitly circular account to convince, we need to agree on the meaning of ‘just’ or ‘well’.”

Tony Judt (1948–2010) British historian

Ill Fares the Land (2010), Ch. 5 : What Is to be Done?

Life, Children, People, Justice

“One runs a business ultimately to do well so you can do good for everyone.”

Ted Malloch (1952) American businessman

Source: Doing Virtuous Business (Thomas Nelson, 2011), p. 102.

Business

“I think it's Romney. I think he's stealing in "like a thief with good tools," in Walker Percy's old words. While everyone is looking at the polls and the storm, Romney's slipping into the presidency. He's quietly rising, and he's been rising for a while.”

Peggy Noonan (1950) American author and journalist

Thinking

“I read On the Road in maybe 1959. It changed my life like it changed everyone else's.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

On the influence of Jack Kerouac on him, as quoted Grasping for the Wind : The Search for Meaning in the 20th Century (2001) by John W. Whitehead

Life, Change, Reading

“When I was fourteen or fifteen […] the Yom Kippur service ended in an unforgettable way, for Schechter, who always put great effort into the blowing of the shofar—he would go red in the face with exertion—produced a long, seemingly endless note of unearthly beauty, and then dropped dead before us on the bema, the raised platform where he would sing. I had the feeling that God had killed Schechter, sent a thunderbolt, stricken him. The shock of this for everyone was tempered by the reflection that if there was ever a moment in which a soul was pure, forgiven, relieved of all sin, it was at this moment, when the shofar was blown in conclusion of the fast […].”

Oliver Sacks book Uncle Tungsten

Source: Uncle Tungsten (2001), p. 177

God, Beauty, Way, Feeling

“THERAPIST: your problem is, that youre perfect, and everyone is jealous of your good posts, and that makes you rightfully upset.
ME: I agree”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/516183352106577920] Tweets by year, 2014

Problem, Perfection

“I don't have prejudice, I hate everyone equally.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Attributed in The Mammoth Book of Jokes (2006) edited by Geoff Tibbals; no earlier citation yet located.
Disputed

Hate

“Definition of design = Everyone designs who devise courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones. The intellectual activity that produces material artifacts is no different fundamentally from the one that prescribes remedies for a sick patient or the one that devises a new sales plan for a company or a social welfare policy for a state.”

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

Source: 1960s-1970s, The Sciences of the Artificial, 1969, p. 130.

Change

“An order must first of all be clear. A meditation may be vague, a scheme always has something of the vision in it, but an order must be precise. All order can be misunderstood; an obscure one will never be understood. "To do a thing well," said Napoleon, "one must do to oneself." This is not always true, but the prudent leader will admit that few people understand and that almost everyone forgets. It is therefore not enough to give an order; one must see to its execution and, when giving it, anticipate anything that may nullify its effectiveness. The stupidity of human beings and the malevolence of chance are limitless. The unexpected always happens. The leader who endeavors to frustrate the onset of ill luck and who strengthens the weak points in his schemes against stupidity is more apt to impose his will than one who does not take these measures.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Leadership

People, Stupidity, Understanding, Chance

“The idea in being a painter is to declare an identity. Not just my identity, an identity for me, but an identity big enough for everyone to share in. Isn't that what it's all about?!”

Frank Stella (1936) American artist

Quote, 1960's; as quoted in The New York school – the painters & sculptors of the fifties, Irving Sandler, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1978, p. 307
Quotes, 1960 - 1970

Idea

“For intellectuals, everyone’s mind is closed but their own.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

Les intellos Speak http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon_11_10_04td.html (November 10, 2004). City Journal (1998 - 2008)

“People Who Get Higher Pay Require Less Security. ITEM. It's 2004. I am presenting Why Men Earn More to the sales and marketing teams of my publisher (AMACOM). To illustrate financial risk as one of the ways to higher pay, I ask everyone in the room who is paid by commission to stand up. Eight men stand; no women. I then ask those paid by salary to stand: About equal numbers of men and women stand.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 107.

Women, Men, People, Way

“Study your craft and know who you are and what's special about you. Find out what everyone does on a film set, ask questions and listen. Make sure you live life, which means don't do things where you court celebrity, and give something positive back to our society.”

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

Quoted in Craig Modderno, "Newman remains animated at 81," Reuters (2006-06-12)

Life, Question, Study

“...he took his lesson of political morality as learned, his notice to quit as duly served, and supposed his education to be finished.

Everyone thought so, and the whole City was in a turmoil. Any intelligent education ought to end when it is complete. One would then feel fewer hesitations and would handle a surer world. The old-fashioned logical drama required unity and sense; the actual drama is a pointless puzzle, without even an intrigue. When the curtain fell on Gladstone's speech, any student had the right to suppose the drama ended; none could have affirmed that it was about to begin; that one's painful lesson was thrown away.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907), Chapter X Political Morality

Pain, World, Education, Feeling

“Why so much innuendo, draped like ivy to hide a cesspool, when everyone knew the cesspool was there?”

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

Source: The devil in the hills (1949), Chapter 18, p. 354

“In his (Barack Obama's) distorted understanding of economics, when anyone, but especially the rich get a tax break or pay less in taxes, someone else has to pay the difference or the supposed shortfall adds to the debt. His assumption, typical of most Democrats and Republicans, is the government is “owed” a portion of the fruits of our labor. It never occurs to him that perhaps the government has no business taking money from people who earn it in the first place. He never thinks that the solution is to stop government spending and stop robbing Peter to pay Paul.He and other members of the ruling elite can only see the economy as a pie, with only so much to go around. If one person gets “more,” someone has to do with “less.” It never occurs to them that the free market is like a bakery that can produce many pies, and bigger pies, and different kinds of pies so that everyone has their fill.”

R. Lee Wrights (1958–2017) American gubernatorial candidate

2012, " The State of the Union is Still a State of War http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=7189"

Money, People, Understanding, Business

“Earlier today, I addressed the media, and through them and the Australian public, about ongoing investigations in to a group of officers and NCOs whose conduct, if proven, has not only brought the Australia Army into disrepute, but has let down everyone of you, and all of those whose past service has won them the respect of our nation.”

David Morrison (1956) Australian army general

Message regarding unacceptable behaviour (2013)

Past

“Most religions, and certainly the Abrahamic ones, have three features that are foreign to science. The most important is religion’s linkage to moral codes that define and enforce proper behavior, behavior supposedly reflecting God’s will. The second is the widespread belief in eternal reward and punishment: the notion that after death not just your fate but everyone else’s depends on adherence to conduct mandated by your religion. And the third is the notion of absolute truth: that the nature of your god, and what it wants, is unchanging. While some believers see their ability to fathom God’s nature as limited, and don’t accept the notion of a heaven or hell, the certainty of religious dogma is ar more absolute and far less provisional than the pronouncements of science.
This combination of certainty, morality, and universal punishment is toxic. It is what leads many believers not only to accept unenlightened views, like the disenfranchisement of women and gays, opposition to birth control, and intrusions into people’s private sex lives, but also to force those views on others, including their own children and society at large, and sometimes even to kill those who disagree.”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), pp. 219-220

Death, Women, God, Fate

“It’s a hard life, she said, and not everyone can bear the hardships that are part of a life of music.”

Gangubai Hangal (1913–2009) Indian singer

In Legacy of Two Rich Voices - Upholding tradition without being traditionalists http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100425/jsp/opinion/story_12359659.jsp

Life, Music, Parting

“It isn't that some gay will get some rights. It's that everyone else in our state will lose rights. For instance, parents will lose the right to protect and direct the upbringing of their children. Because our K-12 public school system, of which 90% of all youth are in the public school system, they will be required to learn that homosexuality is normal, equal and perhaps you should try it. And that will occur immediately, that all schools will begin teaching homosexuality.”

Michele Bachmann (1956) American politician

2000s

Children, Youth, School, Parent

“In a pointed remark when defending Esser in 1921 against attacks from within the party, Hitler commented: ‘Everyone was at one time a Social Democrat.”

Ian Kershaw (1943) British historian

Source: Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris (1999), p. 119

Time

“Everyone is helping each other out. That's what we do.... You know what happens? Infrastructure might not come through -- but people do come through. We all try to do our best. I know we just got power back in one of our restuarants, and I know there are a lot of people without power. So, we invited a thousand people with children to come over and have a hot lunch on us.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

comment in aftermath of Hurricane Wilma (CNN's Showbiz Tonight-October 27, 2005)
2007, 2008

Children, People, Help

“If you just took everyone in the BNP and everyone who votes for them and shot them in the back of the head, there would be a brighter future for us all.”

Jeremy Hardy (1961–2019) British comedian

Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation, BBC Radio 4, 13 September 2004

Future

“I’m against these aggressive tax avoidance schemes but I’m not just against them, this Government has taken a huge amount of steps to legislate and toughen the laws and go after aggressive tax avoidance schemes for the very simple reason that if people go after these schemes and aggressively avoid tax they’re making it the case that everyone else has to pay higher taxes as a result so I think we should be very clear, tax evasion is illegal and for that you can be prosecuted, you can go to prison for tax evasion. Tax avoidance is in these cases, very aggressive tax avoidance schemes, they are wrong and we should really persuade not to do them and that’s why we have these court cases where the court looks at whether a scheme is really about avoiding tax rather than anything else and the court was very clear in this case.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

On Good Morning Britain speaking about his view of tax avoidance schemes and if Gary Barlow should give back his OBE following claims that the singer took part in one - Prime Minister David Cameron speaks to Good Morning Britain, ITV (12 May 2014) http://www.itv.com/presscentre/press-releases/prime-minister-david-cameron-speaks-good-morning-britain 2010s, 2014

People, Law, Thinking