Anita Sarkeesian (1983) American blogger
"How to Be a Feminist" panel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzcs4ti_bdI?t=32m12s (March 8, 2015), All About Women Festival 2015, Sydney, Australia, @32:12
Anita Sarkeesian (1983) American blogger
"How to Be a Feminist" panel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzcs4ti_bdI?t=32m12s (March 8, 2015), All About Women Festival 2015, Sydney, Australia, @32:12
George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States
2000s, 2001, First inaugural address (January 2001)
Hugh Laurie (1959) British actor, comedian, writer, musician and director
Source: [2006-08-21, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060821/ap_en_tv/people_hugh_laurie, Hugh Laurie plays U.S. doctor on `House', Associated Press (via Yahoo! News), 2006-08-21]
Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist
Song lyrics, Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Desolation Row
Arthur Li (1945) Hong Kong politician
Leaked recording: Arthur Li speaks against Johannes Chan, EJ Insight, http://www.webcitation.org/6cfxbjx4k, 30 October 2015 http://www.ejinsight.com/20151028-leaked-recording-arthur-li-speaks-against-johannes-chan/,
Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) American artist
In 1958 (three years after breaking up with Greenberg, Frankenthaler married Robert Motherwell; their marriage ended in 1971.
1970s - 1980s, interview with Deborah Salomon in 'New York Times', 1989
Eben Moglen (1959) American law professor and free software advocate
The DotCommunist Manifesto, UNC-Chapel Hill, Howard W. Odum Institute, November 8, 2001 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2263095526020953463.
Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America
A Message from President-Elect Donald J. Trump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xX_KaStFT8 (21 November 2016) <br class="br">2010s, 2016, November
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party
In 1931, as quoted in Nazi Economics: Ideology, Theory, and Policy https://books.google.com/books?id=kp3p_sIk8h8C&pg=PA303 (1990), by Avraham Barkai, pp. 26&ndash;27 <br class="br">1930s
Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist
Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp.36-39
John McLaughlin (1942) guitarist, founder of the Mahavishnu Orchestra
[Denyer, Ralph, The Guitar Handbook, 2002, 114, 0-679-74275-1]
Frédéric Bazille (1841–1870) French painter
about a 'backstage-scene' of the Paris Opera, from his letter to Bazille's mother c. 1866; as cited in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 49
1866 - 1870
Jack Osbourne (1985) Son of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne
MTV.com Jack Talks About His Addiction and Recovery
Richard A. Posner (1939) United States federal judge
" Against Creative Capitalism https://web.archive.org/web/20080813084622/http://creativecapitalism.typepad.com:80/creative_capitalism/2008/06/against-creativ.html" (2008), published in Creative Capitalism: A Conversation with Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Other Economic Leaders.
John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals
The Vices of Morality: Justice and Fashion (p. 102-3)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)
Albert Camus (1913–1960) French author and journalist
"Letter to P.B." in Lyrical and Critical Essays (1970)
Jerry Mander (1936) American activist
Source: Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978), p. 133
Lech Kaczyński (1949–2010) Polish politician, president of Poland
Rzeczpospolita interview (March 2005)
Jonathan Arnott (1981) British politician
It is time for our national conversation to move away from discussing whether Brexit will happen to a debate on how to make Brexit work for everyone in the UK http://www.jonathanarnott.co.uk/2017/02/it-is-time-for-our-national-conversation-to-move-away-from-discussing-whether-brexit-will-happen-to-a-debate-on-how-to-make-brexit-work-for-everyone-in-the-uk/ (February 13, 2017)
Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet
Leningrad, 1 April 1957
Requiem; 1935-1940 (1963; 1987), Instead of a Preface
“Not everyone does evil, but everyone stands accused.”
Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet
El mal no lo hacen todos, pero acusa a todos.
Voces (1943)
E. Lee Spence (1947) German anthropologist, photographer, archaeologist, historian, photojournalist and academic
Diving Into Sunken-Treasure Investing http://www.cnbc.com/id/39342234, CNBC Special Report by Shelly K. Scwartz, Published: October 18, 2010.
W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006) ex FBI agent, conservative United States author and faith-based political theorist
The 5,000 Year Leap (1981)
“I have discovered motives, my own and everyone else's, to be impenetrable.”
Alex Miller book The Ancestor Game
Page 264.
The Ancestor Game (1992)
Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate
Superman Comes to the Supermarket (1960)
John Frusciante (1970) American guitarist, singer, songwriter and record producer
Every Person
Lyrics, Shadows Collide with People (2004)
“Everyone can commit to 20 minutes, especially if there’s a glass of Chardonnay afterwards.”
Kate Winslet (1975) English actress and singer
Of working out in a gym <br class="br"> Isn’t She Deneuvely?: Vanity Fair, Dec 2008 http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/12/winslet200812
Kevin Rashid Johnson (1971) American prisoner and social activist
Defying the Tomb: Selected Prison Writings and Art of Kevin Rashid Johnson (2010)
Nicole Lapin (1984) American journalist
Interview with Men's Health Magazine. http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site=MensHealth&channel=style&category=style.files&conitem=2cfa694820a64110VgnVCM20000012281eac____ (September 2007)
Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer
On receiving the Nobel Prize, in The New York Times (8 October 1993) http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/01/11/home/28957.html
Griff Rhys Jones (1953) British actor and comedian
Michael Odell, "This much I know: Griff Rhys Jones", The Guardian, November 5 2006.
Talking about talent
Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader
To Die Before Death: The Sufi Way of Life (1997)
“The understanding that so many people demand of others is that everyone should join their party.”
Josemaría Escrivá (1902–1975) Spanish theologian
#576
The Furrow (1986)
“The earth can produce enough for everyone’s need. But not enough for everyone’s greed.”
Philip Wollen (1950) Australian philanthropist
"Animals Should Be Off the Menu" (2012)
Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer
Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume III: Solace for the Heart in Difficult Times (Hari-Nama Press, 2000), Chapter 6 - A Spiritual Warrior's View of the World
Ed Seykota (1946) American commodities trader
Source: Covel, Michael W., Trend Following: How Great Traders Make Millions in Up or Down Markets, FT Press (2007), pages 172-173, ISBN 0-13-613718-0
Daniel Drezner (1968) American journalist
Preface
Theories of International Politics and Zombies (2011)
Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928–2000) Austrian artist
Window Dictatorship and Window Rights (1990) http://www1.kunsthauswien.com/english/fenster.htm
Miley Cyrus (1992) American actor and singer-songwriter
MTV.com http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1601181/story.jhtml (December 11, 2008)
George E. Mendenhall (1916–2016) American academic
Ancient Israel’s Faith and History: An Introduction the Bible in Context (2001)
Steve Alten (1959) American writer
Interview with Steve Alten http://www.screenwritersutopia.com/article/d14867f2 (March 11th, 2004)
“Tara: Well, I go online sometimes, but everyone's spelling is really bad. It's depressing.”
Amber Benson (1977) actress from the United States
Family [5.6]
Willow & Tara (2000-2002)
Marc Connelly (1890–1980) American playwright
Source: Voices offstage: a book of memoirs, (1968), p. 237; Cited in: Michael A. Morrison (1999) John Barrymore, Shakespearean Actor. p. 345
John Buchan book Salute to Adventurers
Source: Salute to Adventurers (1915), Ch. 24 "I Suffer the Heathen's Rage"
Daniel Vávra (1975) Czech entrepreneur
Kingdom Come: Deliverance’s Kickstarter milestone https://www.redbull.com/us-en/kingdom-come-deliverance-dan-vavra-interview (April 28, 2016)
Lewis Black (1948) American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor
The End of the Universe (2002)
Joe Bob Briggs (1953) American film critic, writer, and actor; alter ego of John Bloom
La Femme Nikita review http://www.joebobbriggs.com/drivein/1991/lafemmenikita.htm
W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006) ex FBI agent, conservative United States author and faith-based political theorist
The 5,000 Year Leap (1981)
Richard Miles (historian) (1969) British historian and archaeologist
My bright idea: Civilisation is still worth striving for
James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979
Speech at Woolwich (30 January 1976)
Foreign Secretary
Julian Jaynes book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
Book III, Chapter 5, p. 405
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976)
Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician
Speech (9 November 1978), as quoted in The Most Truthful Individual in Recent History" in Iranshenasi, Vol. XIV, No. 4 (Winter 2003), as translated by Farhad Mafie
Foreign policy
Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War
Speech to the crowd from the balcony of the Ministry of Health in Whitehall, London (8 May 1945), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Road to Victory: Winston S. Churchill, 1941-1945 (London: Heinemann, 1986), p. 1347
The Second World War (1939–1945)
Arthur Ponsonby (1871–1946) British Liberal and later Labour politician and pacifist
Falsehood in Wartime (1928), Introduction
Context: War being established as a recognized institution to be resorted to when Governments quarrel, the people are more or less prepared. They quite willingly delude themselves in order to justify their own actions. They are anxious to find an excuse for displaying their patriotism, or they are disposed to seize the opportunity for the excitement and new life of adventure which war opens out to them. So there is a sort of national wink, everyone goes forward, and the individual, in his turn, takes up lying as a patriotic duty. In the low standard of morality which prevails in war-time, such a practice appears almost innocent.
Viola Spolin (1906–1994) American academic and acting theorist
Improvisation for the Theater (1963), page 3
Context: Everyone can act. Everyone can improvise. Anyone who wishes to can play in the theater and learn to become 'stage-worthy.' We learn through experience and experiencing, and no one teaches anyone anything. This is as true for the infant moving from kicking and crawling to walking as it is for the scientist with his equations. If the environment permits it, anyone can learn whatever he chooses to learn; and if the individual permits it, the environment will teach him everything it has to teach. 'Talent' or 'lack of talent' have little to do with it.
John D. MacDonald (1916–1986) writer from the United States
Travis McGee series, A Tan and Sandy Silence (1972)
Albert Camus (1913–1960) French author and journalist
Between Hell and Reason (1945)
Context: The world is what it is, which is to say, nothing much. This is what everyone learned yesterday, thanks to the formidable concert of opinion coming from radios, newspapers, and information agencies. Indeed we are told, in the midst of hundreds of enthusiastic commentaries, that any average city can be wiped out by a bomb the size of a football. American, English, and French newspapers are filled with eloquent essays on the future, the past, the inventors, the cost, the peaceful incentives, the military advantages, and even the life-of-its-own character of the atom bomb.
We can sum it up in one sentence: Our technical civilization has just reached its greatest level of savagery. We will have to choose, in the more or less near future, between collective suicide and the intelligent use of our scientific conquests.
Meanwhile we think there is something indecent in celebrating a discovery whose use has caused the most formidable rage of destruction ever known to man. What will it bring to a world already given over to all the convulsions of violence, incapable of any control, indifferent to justice and the simple happiness of men — a world where science devotes itself to organized murder? No one but the most unrelenting idealists would dare to wonder.
“The right for the right's sake is the motto which everyone should take for his own life.”
Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer
Section 9 : Ethical Outlook
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)
Context: The right for the right's sake is the motto which everyone should take for his own life. With that as a standard of value we can descend into our hearts, appraise ourselves, and determine in how far we already are moral beings, in how far not yet.
“When everyone thinks alike not much gets thought.”
Johan Norberg (1973) author
Ett annat Sverige är möjligt (2006), p. 18
Context: Now it happens to have been the Social Democrats who have regimented the important institutions in society, but it would have been dangerous whichever party it had been. Development and diversity depend on independent initiatives and competition. When everyone thinks alike not much gets thought.
Ramakrishna (1836–1886) Indian mystic and religious preacher
Source: The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1942), p. 423
Context: Truth is one; only It is called by different names. All people are seeking the same Truth; the variance is due to climate, temperament, and name. A lake has many ghats. From one ghat the Hindus take water in jars and call it "jal". From another ghat the Mussalmāns take water in leather bags and call it "pāni". From a third the Christians take the same thing and call it "water". Suppose someone says that the thing is not "jal" but "pāni", or that it is not "pāni" but "water", or that it is not "water" but "jal", It would indeed be ridiculous. But this very thing is at the root of the friction among sects, their misunderstandings and quarrels. This is why people injure and kill one another, and shed blood, in the name of religion. But this is not good. Everyone is going toward God. They will all realize Him if they have sincerity and longing of heart.
Jack Donovan (1974) American activist, editor and writer
Pg 88
Becoming A Barbarian (2016)
Context: The modern individualist - egoist, even - usually still talks about what everyone else talks about when they are talking about it, operates within a comfort one of social norms and lives by himself in a way that is generally acceptable to what he calls, usually with some derision, "the herd." At his most individualistic, he is a troll, a heckler, a parasite. A troll can't be trusted, and should always be shunned and despised, even though it will only feed into his self-schema.
E. B. White (1899–1985) American writer
"Here Is New York," Holiday (1948); reprinted in Here is New York (1949)
Context: The subtlest change in New York is something people don't speak much about but that is in everyone's mind. The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions. The intimation of mortality is part of New York now: in the sounds of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest edition.
All dwellers in cities must dwell with the stubborn fact of annihilation; in New York the fact is somewhat more concentrated because of the concentration of the city itself and because, of all targets, New York has a certain clear priority. In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer who might loose the lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm.
Moinuddin Chishti (1142–1236) Sufi saint
Amir Khurd, Siyar-ul-Awliya, New Delhi, 1985, pp. 111-12. Quoted in S.R.Goel, The Calcutta Quran Petition (1999) ISBN 9788185990583
Greg Lukianoff American lawyer
Speaking on Stossel http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/ (2009). <br class="br">Context: Words are supposed to hurt. That's considered a legitimate way of fighting things out. And what did it replace in the historical scene? It replaced actual violence. Words are supposed to be free so we CAN actually fight things out, in the battleplace of ideas, so we don't end up fighting them out in civil wars. If we try to legitimately ban anything can hurt someone's feelings, everyone is reduced to silence.
Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
Context: It is the aim of public life to arrange that all forms of power are entrusted, so far as possible, to men who effectively consent to be bound by the obligation towards all human beings which lies upon everyone, and who understand the obligation.
Law is the quality of the permanent provisions for making this aim effective.
“I don't believe the majority always knows what's best for everyone.”
Penn Jillette (1955) American magician
2010s, I don't know, so I'm an atheist libertarian (2011)
Context: Government is force — literally, not figuratively.
I don't believe the majority always knows what's best for everyone. The fact that the majority thinks they have a way to get something good does not give them the right to use force on the minority that don't want to pay for it. If you have to use a gun, I don't believe you really know jack. Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It's just ganging up against the weird kid, and I'm always the weird kid.
Heidi Klum (1973) German model, television host, businesswoman, fashion designer, television producer, and actress
Quoted in Parade Magazine 10 July 2008 http://www.parade.com/celebrity/celebrity-parade/archive/pc_0194.html. <br class="br">Context: I jumped into the water with 45 sharks without a cage in the Bahamas for a Discovery Channel show. That was a really good experience. I'm not saying that everyone should swim with sharks, but sometimes you have to jump over your own shadow in order to learn something that you will never forget for the rest of your life. Then you know you can conquer your fears.
Aaron Swartz (1986–2013) computer programmer and internet-political activist
Freedom to Connect speech (2012)
Context: We won this fight because everyone made themselves the hero of their own story. Everyone took it as their job to save this crucial freedom. They threw themselves into it. They did whatever they could think of to do. They didn’t stop to ask anyone for permission. … The senators were right: The Internet really is out of control. But if we forget that, if we let Hollywood rewrite the story so it was just big company Google who stopped the bill, if we let them persuade us we didn’t actually make a difference, if we start seeing it as someone else’s responsibility to do this work and it’s our job just to go home and pop some popcorn and curl up on the couch to watch Transformers, well, then next time they might just win. Let’s not let that happen.
Leonard H. Courtney (1832–1918) British politician
To My Fellow-Disciples at Saratoga Springs (1895)
Context: The young man who is moved in any way to contemplate an entry into public life, whose creed is not in absolute inheritance from his fathers, learns first of all to understand that there are two great political organizations, with one of which he must associate himself, learning and echoing its catch-words, accepting its leadership, and steeping himself in the belief that in it are wisdom and truth while the other party is void of both. It is not everyone whose ductile mind takes him through this training, and a goodly number of up-growing men of not the worst promise for the future have to step aside.
Stephen Spender (1909–1995) English poet and man of letters
"Thoughts During An Air Raid"
The Still Centre (1939)
Context: Yet supposing that a bomb should dive
Its nose right through this bed, with me upon it?
The thought is obscene. Still, there are many
To whom my death would only be a name,
One figure in a column. The essential is
That all the 'I's should remain separate
Propped up under flowers, and no one suffer
For his neighbour. Then horror is postponed
For everyone until it settles on him
And drags him to that incommunicable grief
Which is all mystery or nothing.
Yoko Ono (1933) Japanese artist, author, and peace activist
Quoted from: Yoko Ono - Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Guru to Beatles and Beach Boys died in The Netherlands, RollingStone magazine, 6 Mars 2008. 1047, 16, n°1047 http://www.bienfaits-meditation.com/en/the_beatles_and_tm/john_lennon/john_and_yoko_2008 <br class="br">Context: If Lennon were alive today, he probably would have reconciled with the man he accused of having "made a fool of everyone." John would have been the first one now, if he had been there, to recognise and acknowledge what Maharishi has done for the world and appreciate it.
William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist
Lecture I, "Religion and Neurology"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
Context: There are moments of sentimental and mystical experience... that carry an enormous sense of inner authority and illumination with them when they come. But they come seldom, and they do not come to everyone; and the rest of life makes either no connection with them, or tends to contradict them more than it confirms them. Some persons follow more the voice of the moment in these cases, some prefer to be guided by the average results. Hence the sad discordancy of so many of the spiritual judgments of human beings; a discordancy which will be brought home to us acutely enough before these lectures end.
Ridley Scott (1937) English film director and film producer
Esquire interview (2012)
Context: I do despair. That's a heavy word, but picking up a newspaper every day, how can you not despair at what's happening in the world, and how we're represented as human beings? The disappointments and corruption are dismaying at every level. And the biggest source of evil is of course religion. … Can you think of a good one? A just and kind and tolerant religion? … Everyone is tearing each other apart in the name of their personal god. And the irony is, by definition, they're probably worshipping the same god.
Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist
"Verse Chronicle," The Nation (23 February 1946); reprinted as "Bad Poets" in Poetry and the Age (1953)
General sources
Context: Sometimes it is hard to criticize, one wants only to chronicle. The good and mediocre books come in from week to week, and I put them aside and read them and think of what to say; but the "worthless" books come in day after day, like the cries and truck sounds from the street, and there is nothing that anyone could think of that is good enough for them. In the bad type of thin pamphlets, in hand-set lines on imported paper, people's hard lives and hopeless ambitions have expressed themselves more directly and heartbreakingly than they have ever expressed in any work of art: it is as if the writers had sent you their ripped-out arms and legs, with "This is a poem" scrawled on them in lipstick. After a while one is embarrassed not so much for them as for poetry, which is for these poor poets one more of the openings against which everyone in the end beats his brains out; and one finds it unbearable that poetry should be so hard to write — a game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey in which there is for most of the players no tail, no donkey, not even a booby prize.
Plotinus (203–270) Neoplatonist philosopher
An Essay on the Beautiful
Context: The sensitive eye can never be able to survey, the orb of the sun, unless strongly endued with solar fire, and participating largely of the vivid ray. Everyone therefore must become divine, and of godlike beauty, before he can gaze upon a god and the beautiful itself. Thus proceeding in the right way of beauty he will first ascend into the region of intellect, contemplating every fair species, the beauty of which he will perceive to be no other than ideas themselves; for all things are beautiful by the supervening irradiations of these, because they are the offspring and essence of intellect. But that which is superior to these is no other than the fountain of good, everywhere widely diffusing around the streams of beauty, and hence in discourse called the beautiful itself because beauty is its immediate offspring. But if you accurately distinguish the intelligible objects you will call the beautiful the receptacle of ideas; but the good itself, which is superior, the fountain and principle of the beautiful; or, you may place the first beautiful and the good in the same principle, independent of the beauty which there subsists.
Katie Melua (1984) British singer-songwriter
About meeting Kate Bush.
Context: Of course [Kate Bush] is still relevant. I wasn't actually in the country when her music first came out, so I only discovered it three or four years ago. What's amazing is that something like "Wuthering Heights" still sounds so different. I actually saw her about nine months ago, we were just passing at an industry event and I went up to her and said I was a big fan and asked her about the new record. She was really excited about it but quite nervous because she felt that everyone was hyping it up a bit and she just wanted to bring out an album. You know, she's a musician.
Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–1655) French novelist, dramatist, scientist and duelist
The Other World (1657)
Context: "I ask you only why you find the belief inconvenient. I'm quite sure you can find no reason. Since it can only be useful, why do you not let yourself be persuaded? If God exists and you don't believe in Him, you will have made a mistake and disobeyed the commandment to believe in Him. If there is no God, you won't be any better off than the rest of us."
"Oh yes I will be better off than you," he answered, "because if there is no God, the game is tied. But, on the contrary, if there is one, I can't have offended something I thought did not exist. Sin requires knowing or willing. Don't you see? Even the least wise would not take offense if some uncouth man insulted him as long as the man hadn't intended to, or had mistaken him for someone else, or wine had loosened his tongue. All the more reason then to ask: will God, who is all-imperturbable, get mad at us for not having recognized Him when He, himself, has denied us the means of knowing Him?
"But by all you believe, my little animal, if belief in God were so necessary and were of eternal importance to us, would God himself not infuse in everyone enlightenment as bright as the Sun, which hides from no one? Do we pretend that God wants to play hide-and-seek with us, like children calling 'Peekaboo, I see you!'? Does God put on a mask and then take it off? Does He disguise himself to some and reveal himself to others? That would be a God who is either silly or malicious.
“Everyone gossips on television; it's all so trivial and it's impossible to hear anything.”
Terry Gilliam (1940) American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe
Terry Gilliam's flying circus (2006)
Context: I am quite bored nowadays. I don't know if it's age and the fact that I have seen so many things and am less surprised, or whether the problem is truly the content. But things have been repeating themselves for 30-40 years already. It seems to me that there is no desire to push the envelope or even to peek there. People are afraid. In the 1960s and 1970s we pushed the limits farther. More attention was paid to what was going on around.
Television and the media are everywhere and they are taking over so powerfully. They don't shut up for a second. So you are unable to think. It is very difficult to think independently when you are surrounded by all that noise. What I most aspire to is to be alone. Not lonely, but alone. To stop all this noise. That is what I do when I go to Umbria. There is no television there, no telephone.
The situation is especially serious with television. The money is dispersed among hundreds of stations so that no money is left for good things. In our time there was far greater depth. Not everything is artificial and as cheap as possible. Everyone gossips on television; it's all so trivial and it's impossible to hear anything.
Robert Anton Wilson book Reality Is What You Can Get Away With
Reality Is What You Can Get Away With (1993, 1996)
Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project
1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)
Context: GNU is not in the public domain. Everyone will be permitted to modify and redistribute GNU, but no distributor will be allowed to restrict its further redistribution. That is to say, proprietary modifications will not be allowed. I want to make sure that all versions of GNU remain free.
Karl Barth book Church Dogmatics
2:2 <!-- p. 625 -->
Church Dogmatics (1932–1968)
Context: The saving of anyone is something which is not in the power of man, but only of God. No one can be saved — in virtue of what he can do. Everyone can be saved — in virtue of what God can do. The divine claim takes the form that it puts both the obedient and the disobedient together and compels them to realise this, to recognise their common status in face of the commanding God.
Mark Driscoll (1970) American pastor
Jesus Took Our Wrath (Propitiation) http://www.marshillchurch.org/audio/Atonement8_Driscoll_112005_16k.mp3, Sermon preached November 6, 2005 at Mars Hill Church. <br class="br">Context: You have been told that God is a loving, gracious, merciful, kind, compassionate, wonderful, and good sky fairy who runs a day care in the sky and has a bucket of suckers for everyone because we're all good people. That is a lie... God looks down and says 'I hate you, you are my enemy, and I will crush you,' and we say that is deserved, right and just, and then God says 'Because of Jesus I will love you and forgive you.' This is a miracle.
James Clavell book Noble House
Noble House (1981)
Context: "Changi changed everyone, changed values permanently. For instance, it gave you a dullness about death — we saw too much of it to have the same sort of meaning to outsiders, to normal people. We are a generation of dinosaurs, we the few who survived. I suppose anyone who goes to war, any war, sees life with different eyes if they end up in one piece."
What did you see?"
"A lot of bull that's worshipped as the be-all and end-all of existence. So much of 'normal, civilized' life is bull that you can't imagine. … What frightens you, doesn't frighten me, what frightens me, you'd laugh at."
Aleksandr Zinovyev (1922–2006) Russian writer
Katastroika (1988)
Context: The members of the commission flew to Partgrad the very next day – it was an unprecendented case in the Soviet Union. During the Brezhnev era, it would have taken a couple of months for all the discussions, after which the commission would have flown for a holiday to the Crimea or Caucasus in a body. And really, why should one fly to a certain Partgrad if everyone knows that all those ‘Lighthouses’ are mere swindle.
Edie Brickell (1966) singer from the United States
On her inspiration for the song "What I Am" in "Edie Brickell, New Bohemians Return to The Fillmore" in San Francisco Bay Times (12 October 2006) http://www.sfbaytimes.com/index.php?sec=article&article_id=5601 <br class="br">Context: In a world religion class, everyone was complicating life and existence by over-thinking. I had this sense it's right here, right now. It's who we are and what we feel. It's not this tangled web of psychology and philosophy. I was driving to band practice and started singing that song. I wanted to be real, not adopt some philosophy or role. Instinct is our driving force.
Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union
Why I Am An Agnostic (1929)
Context: An agnostic is a doubter. The word is generally applied to those who doubt the verity of accepted religious creeds of faiths. Everyone is an agnostic as to the beliefs or creeds they do not accept. Catholics are agnostic to the Protestant creeds, and the Protestants are agnostic to the Catholic creed. Any one who thinks is an agnostic about something, otherwise he must believe that he is possessed of all knowledge. And the proper place for such a person is in the madhouse or the home for the feeble-minded. In a popular way, in the western world, an agnostic is one who doubts or disbelieves the main tenets of the Christian faith.
Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American screen and stage actor
Songs My Mother Taught Me (1994)
Context: I have always considered my life a private affair and the business of no one beyond my family and those I love. Except for moral and political issues that aroused in me a desire to speak out, I have done my utmost throughout my life, for the sake of my children and myself, to remain silent … But now, in my seventieth year, I have decided to tell the story of my life as best I can, so that my children can separate the truth from the myths that others have created about me, as myths are created about everyone swept up in the turbulent and distorting maelstrom of celebrity in our culture.