Quotes about excitement (1050 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

love , Love , Life , People

“It would be an incredible adventure. And life needs to be more than just solving every day problems. You need to wake up and be excited about the future”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

On "eyeing" for Mars, IAC 2016 meeting, presentation on sustainable Mars colonization.

Life , Problem , Future

“The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing - and then marry him.”

Cher (1946) American singer and actress

Women

“There is something within me that might be illusion as it is often case with young delighted people, but if I would be fortunate to achieve some of my ideals, it would be on the behalf of the whole of humanity. If those hopes would become fulfilled, the most exciting thought would be that it is a deed of a Serb.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Address at the Belgrade train station (1 June 1892)

People , Hope

“And before the stars were born.
The greatest gift you can offer anyone is their complete freedom.
Freedom to love, to laugh, to cry, to feel scared, angry, insecure, full of doubt or full of joy.
To hold them in that safe and sacred space.
You don't exist to make anyone else happy.
But you can be present.
Present to their unhappiness, their excitement.
Present to the life that moves in them.
And you can invite them to a deeper Happiness.
The Happiness of Being itself.
The Happiness that holds them exactly as they are.
The way you hold them now.
The way the ground holds the flowers, the trees, the great mountain ranges.
The way you were held as a little one.
And before the stars were born.”

Джефф Фостер (1977) American basketball player

Love , Life , Way , Feeling

“I learned the real meaning of love. Love is absolute loyalty. People fade, looks fade, but loyalty never fades. You can depend so much on certain people, you can set your watch by them. And that's love, even if it doesn't seem very exciting.”

Sylvester Stallone (1946) American actor, screenwriter, and film director

Love , People , Learning , Dependency

“The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.”

Roald Dahl book Matilda

Source: Matilda

People , Books , World , Travel

“I don't have emotions about a lot of things. I rarely get angry, I rarely cry. I guess I do get excited a lot, but I don't get sad and enormously happy.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm

Sadness , Cry , Happiness

“All the drinking and all the other junk that I was stuck in… It was so predictable. So boring. I wake up the next day - somewhere, in some bed, I don't know who this person is next to me… and I'm drunk, competely hung over and have a show to do. The result is the same… When life now is pretty… exciting. You don't know what's gonna happen.”

James Hetfield (1963) American musician, songwriter and record producer

Some Kind of Monster, 2003 - Talking about his addictions and big changes.

Life , Drink , Personality

“If I had my way, if I was lucky enough, if I could be on the brink my entire life — that great sense of expectation and excitement without the disappointment — that would be the perfect state.”

Cate Blanchett (1969) Australian actress

As quoted in Vanity Fair, Vol. 62, (1999)

Life , Disappointment , Way , Sense

“For all the folks getting excited about my quotes. Here is another - Yes, I am a terrible coder, but I am probably still better than you :)”

Rasmus Lerdorf (1968) Danish programmer and creator of PHP

@rasmus http://twitter.com/rasmus/status/12481790397

Quotes

“Life has many exciting things in store for you…so many thrilling nooks and crannies…

Don't be a "goody 2 shoes" who runs on the boring and safe side in life…. remaining on the same old path all the time.

Live life as grandly as you can imagine!

Enjoy the winding paths… feel the euphoria from your own microscopic perceptions in the universe…No one else can see what you see.

The times you were fortunate enough to have spent there…in those special places…

Those moments that took your breath away are what make you remember and feel fabulous

No one can know your perspective.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Imagination , Life , Universe , Time

“Many people think excitement is happiness…. But when you are excited you are not peaceful. True happiness is based on peace.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: The Art of Power

Peaceful , People , Peace , Thinking

“No matter how good you get you can always get better, and that's the exciting part.”

Tiger Woods (1975) American professional golfer

Parting

“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

Source: Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation (1983)

Life , Pain , Way , Heart

“If man is to survive, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life's exciting variety, not something to fear.”

Gene Roddenberry (1921–1991) American television screenwriter and producer

Life , Men , Fear , Idea

“Rocket ships
are exciting
but so are roses
on a birthday.”

Leonard Nimoy (1931–2015) American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer

Source: Come Be With Me: A Collection of Poems

Birthday

“It's quite exciting," said Sherlock Holmes, with a yawn.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book A Study in Scarlet

Source: A Study in Scarlet

“You shall create beauty not to excite the senses
but to give sustenance to the soul.”

Gabriela Mistral (1889–1957) Chilean poet-diplomat, writer, educator and feminist.

Beauty , Soul , Sense

“Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all is a form of planning.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Dreams , Imagination

“Pornography is used in rape - to plan it, to execute it, to choreograph it, to engender the excitement to commit the act.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

Testimony before the New York Attorney General's Commission on Pornography in 1986.

“I often liken the process of physics research to solving a jigsaw puzzle. As we put together pieces to form patches, a certain image of the overall picture emerges, but until the game is sufficiently progressed, we are not quite sure. I feel much the same way about the wealth of signs for new particles. We have patches that have been put together, but we are not quite sure how all pieces will fit together into a coherent whole. There are also certain pieces which do not seem to fit into any patches at all. For the most part, the experimental findings have not been completely unexpected, but there have been certain surprises that I, for one, had not foreseen. This is what makes particle physics exciting and tantalizing. At moments of despair and frustration, I feel as though somebody has scrambled two boxes of jigsaw puzzles for me to put together.”

Benjamin W. Lee (1935–1977) Korean American physicist

about his work as a particle physicist, at the Fermilab History and Archives Project: Benjamin Lee comments on HEP discoveries http://history.fnal.gov/significant_staff.html#Benjamin_Lee (May, 1976).

Way , Feeling , Game , Parting

“A live concert to me is exciting because of all the electricity that is generated in the crowd and on stage. It's my favorite part of the business — live concerts.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

Press conference (5 September 1972), also quoted in Paranoia & Power : Fear & Fame of Entertainment Icons (2007) by Gene N Landrum, p. 60

Business , Parting

“The kind of mathematics foisted on children in schools is not meaningful, fun, or even very useful. This does not mean that an individual child cannot turn it into a valuable and enjoyable personal game. For some the game is scoring grades; for others it is outwitting the teacher and the system. For many, school math is enjoyable in its repetitiveness, precisely because it is so mindless and dissociated that it provides a shelter from having to think about what is going on in the classroom. But all this proves is the ingenuity of children. It is not a justifications for school math to say that despite its intrinsic dullness, inventive children can find excitement and meaning in it.”

Seymour Papert book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas

Source: Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (1980), Chapter 2, Mathophobia: The Fear of Learning

Children , School , Game , Mathematics

“Every entering mind-mass excites all related mind-masses and this excitation is the more powerful the more insignificant the diversity of their inner states”

Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) German mathematician

quality
Gesammelte Mathematische Werke (1876)

“It has been my personal experience that the true flavour, the real fun, the continuous excitement of work lie in the process of doing it rather than in having it over and done with.”

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam book Wings of Fire

Source: Wings of Fire, p. 135.

Lie , Personality

“But the exceedingly foul deed of Onan, the basest of wretches, follows. Onan must have been a malicious and incorrigible scoundrel. This is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest and adultery. We call it unchastity, yes a Sodomitic sin. For Onan goes in to her; that is, he lies with her and copulates, and when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed. Accordingly, it was a most disgraceful crime to produce semen and excite the woman, and to frustrate her at that very moment.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Luther's works Vol. 7 (1965), Lectures on Genesis, Chapters 38-44

God , Nature , Time

“Gordon and his friends had quite an exciting time with their 'subversive ideas'. For a whole year they ran an unofficial monthly paper called the Bolshevik, duplicated with jellygraph. It advocated Socialism, free love, the dismemberment of the British Empire, the abolition of the Army and Navy, and so on and so forth. It was great fun. Every intelligent boy of sixteen is a Socialist. At that age one does not see the hook sticking out of the rather stodgy bait.”

George Orwell book Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 3

Love , Age , Intelligence , Boy

“I want you to still write a lot of stories so I get excited when I see them, Because I want to see who is making up the best story and when I'm tired of it I will let you know where I will go.”

Zlatan Ibrahimović (1981) Swedish association football player

Talking about rumours where will he go http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/06/01/zlatan-ibrahimovic-keeps-man-utd-guessing-by-saying-he-is-excite/
Attributed

“Religionists have kept their followers in line by suppressing their egos. By making their followers feel inferior, the awesomeness of their god is insured. Satanism encourages its members to develop a good strong ego because it gives them the self-respect necessary for a vital existence in this life. If a person has been vital throughout his life and has fought to the end for his earthly existence, it is this ego which will refuse to die, even after the expiration of the flesh which housed it. Young children are to be admired for their driving enthusiasm for life. This is exemplified by the small child who refuses to go to bed when there is something exciting going on, and when once put to bed, will sneak down the stairs to peek through the curtain and watch. It is this child-like vitality that will allow the Satanist to peek through the curtain of darkness and death and remain earthbound.”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (1969)

Life , Death , God , Children

“I think you’re always worried someone’s going to find out that you’re not the real deal and send you home—I don’t think there’s ever going to be a point where I’m feeling super secure and stable, but I’m really happy and excited with the way my career is going.”

Claire Holt (1988) Australian actress and model

Exclusive: The Australian Actress Hollywood Can't Get Enough Of (June 10, 2016)

Way , Feeling , Home , Thinking

“Why hasn’t America risen up in protest? Because American democracy was dysfunctional even before Trump ran for president. The moneyed interests had already taken over much of it. It’s hard for people to get very excited about returning to the widening inequalities and growing corruption of the decades before Trump. Which partly explains why Biden is foundering.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

"The Enemy Within" (2019)

Money , Democracy , People

“The greatest gift you can offer anyone
is their complete freedom.
Freedom to love, to laugh, to cry,
to feel scared, angry, insecure,
full of doubt or full of joy.
To hold them in a safe and sacred space.

You don't exist to make anyone else happy.
But you can be present.
Present to their unhappiness, their excitement.
Present to the life that moves in them.

And you can invite them into a deeper Happiness.
The Happiness of Being itself.
The Happiness that holds them
exactly as they are.

The way you hold them now.

The way the ground holds the flowers, the trees, the great mountain ranges.

The way you were held as a little one.

And before the stars were born.”

Jeff Foster (1980) Spiritual teacher

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/BxctntcHCUR/

“Never allow yourself to become comfortable for that is when fear is guiding your decisions. Confronting fear can be exciting and exhilarating. Let others believe your mad. Only you require truth.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1980

Truth , Fear , Madness , Decision

“Verona is full of pictures which have never been painted. Every step excites emotion and gives rise to unaffected reflection. In the course of a short stroll, you may pass by a Roman amphitheatre, still used, then the castle of some petty prince of the Middle Ages, and while you are contrasting the sublime elevation of antiquity with the heterogeneous palace of a Scaliger your eyes light on a gate of Oriental appearance and fantastic ornament... The illusion is perfect, the eye rests with pain on the passing citizens in their modern costumes; you look for black velvets and gold chains, white feathers and red stockings.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Letter to Isaac Disraeli (September 1826), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume I. 1804–1859 (1929), p. 107

Painting , Perfection , Pain , Light

“I've always had this deep-down conviction that I'm not like everybody else, and there's an amazingly exciting new life waiting for me just around the corner.”

Sophie Kinsella book Can You Keep a Secret?

Source: Can You Keep a Secret?

Life , Waiting

“If you are cold, tea will warm you;
if you are too heated, it will cool you;
If you are depressed, it will cheer you;
If you are excited, it will calm you.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Tea

“It's a disease. Nobody thinks or feels or cares any more; nobody gets excited or believes in anything except their own comfortable little God damn mediocrity.”

Richard Yates book Revolutionary Road

Source: Revolutionary Road

God , Disease , Feeling , Thinking

“I really don't see what is so romantic about proposing. One may be accepted - one usually is, I believe - and then the excitement is ended. The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Algernon, Act I.
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Context: I really don’t see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty.

“Altogether it will be found that a quiet life is characteristic of great men, and that their pleasures have not been of the sort that would look exciting to the outward eye.”

Bertrand Russell book The Conquest of Happiness

Source: The Conquest of Happiness

Life , Men , Pleasure

“The world and the universe is an extremely beautiful place, and the more we understand about it the more beautiful does it appear. It is an immensely exciting experience to be born in the world, born in the universe, and look around you and realise that before you die you have the opportunity of understanding an immense amount about that world and about that universe and about life and about why we're here. We have the opportunity of understanding far, far more than any of our predecessors ever. That is such an exciting possibility, it would be such a shame to blow it and end your life not having understood what there is to understand.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

An Interview by Sheena McDonald (1995)

Life , World , Beauty , Understanding

“There is no more exciting sport than flying, for if you lose, you die.”

Christopher Paolini book Brisingr

Source: Brisingr

Sport , Flying

“I’ve seen excitement, and I’ve seen boredom. And boredom was best.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: The Color of Magic

“And yet, the only exciting life is the imaginary one.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Life

“I want to infect you with the tremendous excitement of living, because I believe that you have the strength to bear it.”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

Source: The Selected Letters, Vol. 1: 1920-1945

“I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Color , Change

“What is this terror? what is this ecstasy? he thought to himself. What is it that fills me with this extraordinary excitement?
It is Clarissa, he said.
For there she was.”

Virginia Woolf book Mrs Dalloway

Source: Mrs. Dalloway

“Now to find Tristan, if he survived the excitement. I hope he did. I have some things to say to him, and none of them are 'Goddess bless'.

-Numair Salmalin”

Tamora Pierce book Wolf-Speaker

Source: Wolf-Speaker

Hope

“I was on duty when our submarine went into port in Nassau and tied up at the Prince George Wharf, and I was the officer who accepted an invitation from the governor-general of the Bahamas for our officers and crewmen to attend an official ball to honor the U. S. Navy. There was a more private comment that a number of young ladies would be present with their chaperones. All of us were pleased and excited, and Captain Andrews responded affirmatively. We received a notice the next day that, of course, the nonwhite crewmen would not be included. When I brought this message to the captain, he had the crew assemble in the mess hall and asked for their guidance in drafting a response. After multiple expletives were censored from the message, we unanimously declined to participate. The decision by the crew of the K-1 was an indication of how equal racial treatment had been accepted—and relished. I was very proud of my ship. On leave”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Source: A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety

Decision

“The idea of 10 dimensions might sound exciting, but they would cause real problems if you forget where you parked your car.”

Stephen Hawking book The Grand Design

Source: The Grand Design

Cars , Idea , Problem , Forgetting

“Could you love a woman you didn't respect? Could you worship someone without believeing in her? Could you be madly in love with a woman you didn't admire? Well, you could. Not only that, it might be better that way. Easier. It took Paul almost forty years to learn that carnal platitude. Nevertheless, he always took Sonia to dinners where, sooner or later, her stupidity would explode, with the result that brighter souls would inevitably pick up on it right away and cast a sympathetic, albeit ironical, look in his direction, which only excited him all the more.”

Françoise Sagan (1935–2004) French writer

Un chagrin de passage (1994, A Fleeting Sorrow, translated 1995)

Love , Stupidity , Way , Soul

“The Republicans inculcate, with whatever of ability they can, that the negro is a man; that his bondage is cruelly wrong, and that the field of his oppression ought not to be enlarged. The Democrats deny his manhood; deny, or dwarf to insignificance, the wrong of his bondage; so far as possible, crush all sympathy for him, and cultivate and excite hatred and disgust against him; compliment themselves as Union-savers for doing so; and call the indefinite outspreading of his bondage "a sacred right of self-government."”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1850s, Speech on the Dred Scott Decision (1857)

“There is no virtue they should be excited to, nor fault they should be kept from, which I do not think they may be convinced of; but it must be by such reasons as their age and understandings are capable of, and those propos'd always in very few and plain words.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 81
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Age , Understanding , Thinking

“I can't say that anything has been "exciting". Rather, I would choose the word "interesting". Not too long ago, the Chinese University of Hong Kong conducted a survey to determine which consumer products were using Fuzzy Logic. The result was a thick report, some 150-200 pages long-washing machines, camcorders, microwave ovens, etc. What interested me wasn't the particular applications so much as the breadth of applications-so many products were incorporating Fuzzy Logic.”

Lotfi A. Zadeh (1921–2017) Electrical engineer and computer scientist

About "What kinds of applications have you been excited to see develop?"
1990s, Interview with Lotfi Zadeh, Creator of Fuzzy Logic (1994)

Universe

“He reminds me of that excitement when De Niro and I stumbled upon a way of working together - a similar kind of energy to the actors in the 1970s. It’s very rare for me to find that kind of connection again. Leo will give me the emotion where I least expect it and could only hope for it about three or four scenes. And he can do it take after take.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

Martin Scorsese http://www.flixster.com/actor/leonardo-di-caprio/leonardo-dicaprio-quotes
About

Hope , Way

“Life and experience. If one notices how some individuals know how to treat their experiences (their insignificant everyday experiences) so that these become a plot of ground that bears fruit three times a year; while others (and how many of them!) are driven through the waves of the most exciting turns of fate, of the most varied currents of their time or nation, and yet always stay lightly on the surface, like cork: then one is finally tempted to divide mankind into a minority (minimality) of those people who know how to make much out of little and a majority of those who know how to make a little out of much; indeed, one meets those perverse wizards who, instead of creating the world out of nothing, create nothing out of the world.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

Section IX, "Man Alone with Himself" / aphorism 627
Human, All Too Human (1878), Helen Zimmern translation

Life , Fate , People , World

“In the 1970s I was amazed to be talked about as a ’60s sex symbol. I wasn’t that person, as if I were a doll from the past. I had to learn to come to terms with that. It’s funny, it’s silly, the ridiculousness of having asked so much of celebrity. Then it becomes really interesting and very much part of the excitement of the life you’re living now, knowing you’re approaching the end of it.”

Julie Christie (1940) British actress and activist

As quoted in "A Role About Winter for Julie Christie, a Star in Eternal Spring]" by Alan Riding in The New York Times (18 April 2007)

Life , Sex , Learning , Past

“Just as maniacs, who never enjoy tranquility, so also he who is resentful and retains an enemy will never have the enjoyment of any peace; incessantly raging and daily increasing the tempest of his thoughts calling to mind his words and acts, and detesting the very name of him who has aggrieved him. Do you but mention his enemy, he becomes furious at once, and sustains much inward anguish; and should he chance to get only a bare sight of him, he fears and trembles, as if encountering the worst evils, Indeed, if he perceives any of his relations, if but his garment, or his dwelling, or street, he is tormented by the sight of them. For as in the case of those who are beloved, their faces, their garments, their sandals, their houses, or streets, excite us, the instant we behold them; so also should we observe a servant, or friend, or house, or street, or any thing else belonging to those We hate and hold our enemies, we are stung by all these things; and the strokes we endure from the sight of each one of them are frequent and continual. What is the need then of sustaining such a siege, such torment and such punishment? For if hell did not threaten the resentful, yet for the very torment resulting from the thing itself we ought to forgive the offences of those who have aggrieved us. But when deathless punishments remain behind, what can be more senseless than the man, who both here and there brings punishment upon himself, while he thinks to be revenged upon his enemy!”

John Chrysostom (349–407) important Early Church Father

Homilies on the Statues http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf109/Page_474.html, Homily XX

Hate , Fear , Peace , Forgiveness

“Did you read [Holly Near's book]? Let me save you the trouble. This is the most exciting sentence in the book:…"I feel like a lesbian when I'm making love to a woman." Gooooooooood, Holly! Well, the major difference between me and Holly Near is that I feel like a lesbian when I am BREATHING!”

Lea DeLaria (1958) American actress and singer

Bulldyke in a China Shop

Love , Books , Making love , Feeling

“I love tea. Mmmm. I know I'm getting old because I'm startin' get excited about tea. Just sitting in the loungeroom bored ya no. Somebody goes "You want a cup of tea?" and I go "Oar he hor." Start feeling a little bit depressed when it gets to the bottom, I think to myself I'll just make myself another cup, I can feel happy again.”

Carl Barron (1964) Australian comedian

Carl Barron Live (2003)

Love , Feeling , Thinking , Tea

“A civil war occurring in a country, where foreigners reside and carry on trade under treaty stipulations is necessarily fruitful of complaints of the violation of neutral rights. All such collisions tend to excite misapprehensions, and possibly to produce mutual reclamations between nations which have a common interest in preserving peace and friendship.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Second State of the Union address (1862)

Friendship , War , Peace , Country

“We are most likely to get angry and excited in our opposition to some idea when we ourselves are not quite certain of our own position, and are inwardly tempted to take the other side.”

Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German novelist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate

Buddenbrooks [Buddenbrooks: Verfall einer Familie, Roman] (1901). Pt 8, Ch. 2

Idea

“he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers; is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Known as the "anti-slavery clause", this section drafted by Thomas Jefferson was removed from the Declaration at the behest of representatives of South Carolina http://alexpeak.com/twr/doi/draft/#ex2.
1770s, Declaration of Independence (1776), Earlier drafts

Life , Death , Men , War

“It is actually quite exciting when you're flying headfirst into a barrier—the initial part, the initial part is actually quite fun, especially when you hit the gravel trap and you get some air, and then you see it coming and you think 'erk—it's gonna hurt!”

Lewis Hamilton (1985) British racing driver

Top Gear, Series 10, Episode 8, 2 December 2007

Thinking , Parting , Hurt , Flying

“The language of imagination is the native language of man. It is the language of his excited intellect, of his aroused passions, of his devotion, of all the higher moods and temperaments of his mind.”

George Gilfillan (1813–1878) Scottish writer

Introduction
Bards of the Bible, 1850

Imagination , Mood , Passion

“My aim is to understand love. I know how alive I felt when I was in love, and I know that everything I have now, however interesting it might seem, doesn't really excited me.
But love is a terrible thing: I've seen my girlfriends suffer and I don't want the same thing to happen to me. … Although my aim is to understand love, and although I suffer to think of people to whom I gave my heart, I see that those who touched my heart failed to arouse my body, and that those who aroused my body failed to touch my heart.”

Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes

Maria's diary entry at the age of 17, p. 16.
Eleven Minutes (2003)

Love , People , Understanding , Thinking

“What can I write about Vytautas Juozapaitis? Months ago, a singer with this same name gave one of the most Mozartean accounts of Don Giovanni I've ever experienced: a lean, yet warm sound, exciting and a little on the dangerous side - utterly (and wonderfully) self-absorbed. The man singing Giorgio Germont could not possibly have been this same artist. This was Verdi singing of the highest order - as if to the manor born. A molten, rich expressivity and attention to Verdian line that in its size, detail and musicality recalled the greats: Gorin, Merrill… you get the idea. The name may not trip off American tongues with ease… yet, but in an era often thought bereft of Verdian voices Juozapaitis is the real deal. Every moment of his Germont was filled passion and, like all of the cast members, every word of the Italian was naturally produced and understandable. Mama mia this man's got it!”

Vytautas Juozapaitis (1963) Lithuanian opera singer

Paolo Padillo, "A Traviata of Note: Teatro Lirico d'Europa". Opera - L (March, 2004) http://listserv.cuny.edu/Scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0403d&L=opera-l&F=&S=&P=15287

Music , Idea , Understanding , Nature

“There are one or two rules of thumb which are useful in distinguishing sadism from exciting adventure in the comics. Threat of torture is harmless, but when the torture it’s self is shown it becomes sadism. When a lovely heroine is show bound to the stake, comics followers are sure that the rescue will arrive just in the nick of time. The readers wish is to save the girl, not to see her suffer. A bound or chained person does not suffer even embarrassment in the comics, and the reader, therefore is not being taught to enjoy suffering.”

William Moulton Marston (1893–1947) American psychologist, lawyer, inventor and comic book writer

As quoted in Olive Richard Bryne's, "Don't laugh at the comics" Family Circle, Oct 25, 1940.

Love , Girl , Suffering , Time

“I am distinctly opposed to visibly arrogant and arbitrary extremes of government—but this is simply because I wish the safety of an artistic and intellectual civilisation to be secure, not because I have any sympathy with the coarse-grained herd who would menace the civilisation if not placated by sops. Surely you can see the profound and abysmal difference between this emotional attitude and the attitude of the democratic reformer who becomes wildly excited over the "wrongs of the masses". This reformer has uppermost in his mind the welfare of those masses themselves—he feels with them, takes up a mental-emotional point of view as one of them, regards their advancement as his prime objective independently of anything else, and would willingly sacrifice the finest fruits of the civilisation for the sake of stuffing their bellies and giving them two cinema shows instead of one per day. I, on the other hand, don't give a hang about the masses except so far as I think deliberate cruelty is coarse and unaesthetic—be it towards horses, oxen, undeveloped men, dogs, negroes, or poultry. All that I care about is the civilisation—the state of development and organisation which is capable of gratifying the complex mental-emotional-aesthetic needs of highly evolved and acutely sensitive men. Any indignation I may feel in the whole matter is not for the woes of the downtrodden, but for the threat of social unrest to the traditional institutions of the civilisation. The reformer cares only for the masses, but may make concessions to the civilisation. I care only for the civilisation, but may make concessions to the masses. Do you not see the antipodal difference between the two positions? Both the reformer and I may unite in opposing an unworkably arrogant piece of legislation, but the motivating reasons will be absolutely antithetical. He wants to give the crowd as much as can be given them without wrecking all semblance of civilisation, whereas I want to give them only as much as can be given them without even slightly impairing the level of national culture. … He works for as democratic a government as possible; I for as aristocratic a one as possible.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

But both recognise the limitations of possibility.
Letter to Woodburn Harris (25 February-1 March 1929), in Selected Letters II, 1925-1929 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 289-290
Non-Fiction, Letters

Men , Dogs , Feeling , Motivation

“It is just as ridiculous to get excited & hysterical over a coming cultural change as to get excited & hysterical over one's physical aging... There is legitimate pathos about both processes; but blame & rebellion are essentially cheap, because inappropriate, emotions... It is wholly appropriate to feel a deep sadness at the coming of unknown things & the departure of those around which all our symbolic associations are entwined. All life is fundamentally & inextricably sad, with the perpetual snatching away of all the chance combinations of image & vista & mood that we become attached to, & the perpetual encroachment of the shadow of decay upon illusions of expansion & liberation which buoyed us up & spurred us on in youth. That is why I consider all jauntiness, & many forms of carelessly generalised humour, as essentially cheap & mocking, & occasionally ghastly & corpselike. Jauntiness & non-ironic humour in this world of basic & inescapable sadness are like the hysterical dances that a madman might execute on the grave of all his hopes. But if, at one extreme, intellectual poses of spurious happiness be cheap & disgusting; so at the other extreme are all gestures & fist-clenchings of rebellion equally silly & inappropriate—if not quite so overtly repulsive. All these things are ridiculous & contemptible because they are not legitimately applicable... The sole sensible way to face the cosmos & its essential sadness (an adumbration of true tragedy which no destruction of values can touch) is with manly resignation—eyes open to the real facts of perpetual frustration, & mind & sense alert to catch what little pleasure there is to be caught during one's brief instant of existence. Once we know, as a matter of course, how nature inescapably sets our freedom-adventure-expansion desires, & our symbol-&-experience-affections, definitely beyond all zones of possible fulfilment, we are in a sense fortified in advance, & able to endure the ordeal of consciousness with considerable equanimity... Life, if well filled with distracting images & activities favourable to the ego's sense of expansion, freedom, & adventurous expectancy, can be very far from gloomy—& the best way to achieve this condition is to get rid of the unnatural conceptions which make conscious evils out of impersonal and inevitable limitations... get rid of these, & of those false & unattainable standards which breed misery & mockery through their beckoning emptiness.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Frank Belknap Long (27 February 1931), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 291
Non-Fiction, Letters, to Frank Belknap Long

Life , Pleasure , Youth , Age

“All men without distinction, are allured by immediate advantages. Great minds alone are excited by distant good. So long as wisdom in it's projects, calculates upon wisdom, or relies upon it's own strength, it forms none by chimerical schemes - and runs the risk of making itself the laughter of the world. But it is certain of success, and can reckon upon aid and admiration, when it finds a place in it's plans for barbarism, rapacity and superstition and can render the selifsh passions of mankind the executor of its' purposes.”

Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright

History of the Thirty Years War - Volume II
The Thirty Years War

Wisdom , Men , World , Laughter

“It appears to general observation, that revolutions create genius and talents; but those events do no more than bring them forward. There is existing in man, a mass of sense lying in a dormant state, and which, unless something excites it to action, will descend with him, in that condition, to the grave. As it is to the advantage of society that the whole of its faculties should be employed, the construction of government ought to be such as to bring forward, by a quiet and regular operation, all that extent of capacity which never fails to appear in revolutions.”

Thomas Paine book Rights of Man

Part 2.5 Chapter III. Of the old and new systems of government
1790s, Rights of Man, Part 2 (1792)

Lying , Sense , Appearance

“In the beginning of the year 1854 a new policy was inaugurated with the avowed object and confident promise that it would entirely and forever put an end to the Slavery agitation. It was again and again declared that under this policy, when once successfully established, the country would be forever rid of this whole question. Yet under the operation of that policy this agitation has not only not ceased, but it has been constantly augmented. And this too, although, from the day of its introduction, its friends, who promised that it would wholly end all agitation, constantly insisted, down to the time that the Lecompton bill was introduced, that it was working admirably, and that its inevitable tendency was to remove the question forever from the politics of the country. Can you call to mind any Democratic speech, made after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, down to the time of the Lecompton bill, in which it was not predicted that the Slavery agitation was just at an end; that "the abolition excitement was played out," "the Kansas question was dead," "they have made the most they can out of this question and it is now forever settled."”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

But since the Lecompton bill no Democrat, within my experience, has ever pretended that he could see the end. That cry has been dropped. They themselves do not pretend, now, that the agitation of this subject has come to an end yet.
1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)

Confidence , Question , Time , Cry

“[While working beneath the cliff at Manneport, Normandy] I didn't see a huge wave coming; it threw me against the cliff and I was tossed about in its wake along with all my materials! My immediate thought was that I was done for, as the water dragged me down, but in the end I managed to clamber out on all fours, but Lord, what a state I was in! My boots, my thick stockings and my coat were soaked through. The palette which I had kept a grip on had been knocked over my face and my beard was covered in blue, yellow etc. But anyway, now the excitement is passed and no harm's done, the worst of it was that I lost my painting which was very soon broken up, along with my easel, bag etc. Impossible to fish anything out. Besides, everything was torn to shreds by the sea, that "old hag" as you sister calls her.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

in a letter from Etretat to Alice Hoschedé, 1884; as quoted in: Howard F. Isham (2004) Image of the Sea: Oceanic Consciousness in the Romantic Century. p. 337
1870 - 1890

Fish , Sister , Water , Painting

“Since the settlement of [the] Constitution, now nearly two centuries ago, England has never experienced a revolution, though there is no country in which there has been so continuous and such considerable change. How is this? Because the wisdom of your forefathers placed the prize of supreme power without the sphere of human passions. Whatever the struggle of parties, whatever the strife of factions, whatever the excitement and exaltation of the public mind, there has always been something in this country round which all classes and parties could rally, representing the majesty of the law, the administration of justice, and involving, at the same time, the security for every man's rights and the fountain of honour.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech to the Conservatives of Manchester (3 April 1872) on the monarchy, quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume II. 1860–1881 (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 527.

Wisdom , Justice , Law , Passion

“The principal lever relied on by the insurgents for exciting foreign nations to hostility against us, as already intimated, is the embarrassment of commerce. Those nations, however, not improbably saw from the first that it was the Union which made as well our foreign as our domestic commerce. They can scarcely have failed to perceive that the effort for disunion produces the existing difficulty, and that one strong nation promises more durable peace and a more extensive, valuable, and reliable commerce than can the same nation broken into hostile fragments.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, First State of the Union address (1861)

Hostility , Peace , Effort , Strong

“I am amused at my relations with her: left so ardent in January – and now what? Also I like her presence and her beauty. Am I in love with her? But what is love? Her being 'in love' with me, excites and flatters; and interests. What is this 'love?”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Thursday 20 May 1926
A Moment's Liberty (1990)

Love , Beauty

“Fast, truly exciting cars are being killed off so that pretty soon the officers will all be gone, leaving us with a field full of enlisted men.”

Jeremy Clarkson book Born to be Riled

Source: Born to be Riled (1999), p. 34

Men , Cars

“Making money ain't nothing exciting to me. … You might be able to buy a little better booze than some wino on the corner. But you get sick just like the next cat, and when you die you're just as graveyard dead as he is.”

Louis Armstrong (1901–1971) American jazz trumpeter, composer and singer

Ebony magazine, November 1964 http://books.google.com/books?id=G98DAAAAMBAJ&q=%22making+money+ain't+nothing+exciting+to+me%22+%22You+might+be+able+to+buy+a+little+better+booze+than+some+wino+on+the+corner+But+you+get+sick+just+like+the+next+cat+and+when+you+die+you're+just+as+graveyard+dead+as+he+is%22&pg=PA138#v=onepage

Money , Cats , Dead

“I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the ratio of this elevating excitement. But all excitements are, through a psychal necessity, transient.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

The Poetic Principle (1850)
Context: I hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, "a long poem," is simply a flat contradiction in terms.
I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the ratio of this elevating excitement. But all excitements are, through a psychal necessity, transient. That degree of excitement which would entitle a poem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained throughout a composition of any great length.

Soul

“Here's the thing. I always hear that whole 'metal is dead' crap. The truth of the matter is that when we started the Ozzfest, media-wise, yes, metal was dead. But as far as the kids went, it was still huge. It was just that radio and MTV decided it wasn't in vogue with what they wanted to do at the time, so the average person didn't hear too much about it. That's why when it comes to picking the new acts each summer, we have people out there on the internet and in the clubs looking for good music and finding bands that people are excited about. I want to know what the kids are into, because I don't trust the industry.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

Guitar World Issue 37, 2000.

People , Truth , Music , Time

“Where danger shews it self, apprehension cannot, without stupidity, be wanting; where danger is, sense of danger should be; and so much fear as should keep us awake, and excite our attention, industry, and vigour; but not to disturb the calm use of our reason, nor hinder the execution of what that dictates.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 115
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Stupidity , Fear , Sense

“We did the ‘unplugged’ project, “Acoustica“, in Portugal. There was always something new and exciting. In-between all these records and projects we’re still touring all over the world: last year, with this latest album, “Unbreakable”, we went back to Japan and played in Scandinavia again; before we come to Tel Aviv, we play in Paris, at “Olympia”; we go back to Russia, we play Kazan, the only show this year with an orchestra; so there’s a lot of things. And that, I think, keeps us going, and the fact that after all these years we have a chance to come and play in Israel is very very exciting and emotional, and it also feels like a new chapter.”

Klaus Meine (1948) German singer

World , Feeling , Thinking , Chance

“I just realized that I hadn't posted about the film "An Inconvenient Truth" for those of you who don't know, this movie talks about global warming. I went into the movie a little skeptical, wondering if I was going to be preached at by Al Gore, the narrator and spokesperson for the film. It's a documentary, too, so I wasn't expecting anything too exciting. As it turns out, this movie is a must-see. it's not about Al Gore, tree-hugging hippies, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, George Bush, or U. S. issues. This film and the movement surrounding it is about being aware of the nasty turn our world and weather seems to be taking, and what we can do to turn it around before we ruin the only pace we have to live. The information in this film is shocking. Parts of our planet that I assumed were covered in ice are now melting, and the photos of these places, seen in the movie, make me nervous. The links from this past year's natural disasters to the overall direction of global warming is an issue that is worth looking at. The ten hottest years ever measured were in the last 14 years. The hottest was last year, but it doesn't take a genius to tell that this year is hotter.”

Mike Shinoda (1977) American musician

LP/FM MB 2006

Truth , World , Photo , Nature

“I do not believe that it is wise or safe for us as a party to take refuge in mere negation and to say that there are no evils to be corrected. It seems to me that our attitude should be one of correcting evils and thereby showing that, whereas the Populists, Socialists, and others really do not correct evils at all, or else do so at the expense of producing others in aggravated form, on the contrary we Republicans hold the just balance and set ourselves as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other. I understand perfectly that such an attitude of moderation is apt to be misunderstood when passions are greatly excited and when victory is apt to rest with the extremists on one side or the other; yet I think it is in the long run the only wise attitude…”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Source: 1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913), Ch. VIII : The New York Governorship

Understanding , Thinking , Passion , Evil

“When the great truth accidentally revealed and experimentally confirmed is fully recognized, that this planet, with all its appalling immensity, is to electric currents virtually no more than a small metal ball and that by this fact many possibilities, each baffling imagination and of incalculable consequence, are rendered absolutely sure of accomplishment; when the first plant is inaugurated and it is shown that a telegraphic message, almost as secret and non-interferable as a thought, can be transmitted to any terrestrial distance, the sound of the human voice, with all its intonations and inflections, faithfully and instantly reproduced at any other point of the globe, the energy of a waterfall made available for supplying light, heat or motive power, anywhere — on sea, or land, or high in the air — humanity will be like an ant heap stirred up with a stick: See the excitement coming!”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

"The Transmission of Electric Energy Without Wires" in Electrical World and Engineer (5 March 1904)

Truth , Secret , Imagination , Motivation

“The English people are, without exception, the most enthusiastic people in the world. There are more excitable races. The French, the Italians, are much more excitable; but for deep and fervid feeling, there is no race in the world at all equal to the English. And what is the subject, of all others, upon which the English people have been most enthusiastic? Religion. The notes on the gamut of their feeling are few, but they are deep. Industry, Liberty, Religion, form the solemn scale. Industry, Liberty, Religion — that is the history of England.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech in Wycombe (30 October 1862), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume II. 1860–1881 (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 98.

People , World , Religion , Feeling

“Tocqueville predicted that in democratic countries the public would demand larger and larger doses of excitement and increasingly stronger stimulants from its writers. He probably did not expect that public to dramatize itself so extensively, to make the world scene everybody's theatre, or, in the developed countries, to take to alcohol and drugs in order to get relief from the horrors of ceaseless intensity, the torment of thrills and distractions. A great many writers have done little more than meet the mounting demand for thrills. I think that this demand has, in the language of marketing, peaked.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

"The Distracted Public" (1990)
It All Adds Up (1994)

Alcohol , World , Thinking , Country

“And now to explain colours. I suppose that as bodies excite sounds of various tones and consequently vibrations, in the air of various bignesses, so when rays of light by impinging on the stiff refracting superficies excite vibrations in the ether, these rays excite vibrations of various bignesses… therefore, the ends of the capillamenta of the optic nerve which front or face the retina being such refracting superficies, when the rays impinge on them they must there excite these vibrations, which vibrations (like those of sound in a trumpet) will run along the pores or crystalline pith of the capillamenta through the optic nerves into the sensorium (which light itself cannot do), and there, I suppose, affect the sense with various colours, according to their bigness and mixture—the biggest with the strongest colours, reds and yellows; the least with the weakest, blues and violets; middle with green; and a confusion of all with white, much after the manner, that in the sense of hearing, nature makes use of aereal vibrations of several bignesses to generate sounds of divers tones; for the analogy of nature is to be observed.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

"Hypothesis explaining the Properties of Light" (1675)

Nature , Sense , Light

“As for the soul: why did I say I would leave it out? I forget. And the truth is, one can't write directly about the soul. Looked at, it vanishes; but look at the ceiling, at Grizzle, at the cheaper beasts in the Zoo which are exposed to walkers in Regent's Pak, and the soul slips in. Mrs Webb's book has made me think a little what I could say of my own life. But then there were causes in her life: prayer; principle. None in mine. Great excitability and search after something. Great content – almost always enjoying what I'm at, but with constant change of mood. I don't think I'm ever bored. Yet I have some restless searcher in me. Why is there not a discovery in life? Something one can lay hands on and say 'This is it'? What is it? And shall I die before I can find it? Then (as I was walking through Russell Square last night) I see mountains in the sky: the great clouds, and the moon which is risen over Persia; I have a great and astonishing sense of something there, which is 'it' – A sense of my own strangeness, walking on the earth is there too. Who am I, what am I, and so on; these questions are always floating about in me. Is that what I meant to say? Not in the least. I was thinking about my own character; not about the universe. Oh and about society again; dining with Lord Berners at Clive's made me think that. How, at a certain moment, I see through what I'm saying; detest myself; and wish for the other side of the moon; reading alone, that is.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Saturday 27 February 1926
A Moment's Liberty (1990)

Life , Truth , Books , Soul

“I would love to work with Salman. We have a great tuning so if we work together, it will be great fun. But till the time we don't get a good script, a script that excites both of us, we can't work together.”

Aamir Khan (1965) Indian film actor, director, and producer of Hindi Cinema

On Salman Khan, 10 September, 2011. http://www.hindustantimes.com/Entertainment/Bollywood/Salman-is-number-one-Aamir-Khan/Article1-743829.aspx.

Love , Time

“Moreover, it is well to remember that these movements never achieve the end they nominally have in view. They do nothing whatsoever except to increase among the men of the various churches the spirit of sectarian intolerance which is base and unlovely in any civilization, but which is utterly revolting among a free people that profess the principles we profess. No such movement can ever permanently succeed here. All that it does is for a decade or so to greatly increase the spirit of theological animosity, both among the people to whom it appeals and among the people whom it assails. Furthermore, it has in the past invariably resulted, in so far as it was successful at all, in putting unworthy men into office; for there is nothing that a man of loose principles and of evil practices in public life so desires as the chance to distract attention from his own shortcomings and misdeeds by exciting and inflaming theological and sectarian prejudice.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)

Life , Men , People , Evil

“Do not several sorts of Rays make Vibrations of several bignesses, which according to their bigness excite Sensations of several Colours, much after the manner that the Vibrations of the Air, according to their several bignesses excite Sensations of several Sounds? And particularly do not the most refrangible Rays excite the shortest Vibrations for making a Sensation of deep violet, the least refrangible the largest form making a Sensation of deep red, and several intermediate sorts of Rays, Vibrations of several intermediate bignesses to make Sensations of several intemediate Colours?”

Isaac Newton book Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light

Query 13
Opticks (1704)

“Pointless but intense excitement holds us in TV dramas. We hear threatening music. A killer with a gun steals into the bedroom of a sleeping woman. More subliminal sounds of danger, pointlessly ominous. The woman wakes and runs into the kitchen for a knife. The cops are on the case. We watch as the criminal is pursued through night streets; shots, a death; a body falls from a roof. Then time is up, another drama begins. Now we are in a church. No, we are in a lecture hall; no again — a drawer opens in a morgue. A woman is looking for her kidnapped child. Then that ends, and we are on the veld with zebras and giraffes. Then with Lenin at a mass meeting. And suddenly we flash away to a cooking school; we are shown how to stuff a turkey. Next the Berlin Wall comes down. Or flags are burning. Or a panel is worrying about the rug crisis. More and more public themes, with less and less personal consciousness. Clearly, personal consciousness is shrinking.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

"The Distracted Public" (1990), pp. 159-160
It All Adds Up (1994)

Death , School , Music , Sleep

“A kind of music far superior, in my opinion, to that of operas, and which in all Italy has not its equal, nor perhaps in the whole world, is that of the 'scuole'. The 'scuole' are houses of charity, established for the education of young girls without fortune, to whom the republic afterwards gives a portion either in marriage or for the cloister. Amongst talents cultivated in these young girls, music is in the first rank. Every Sunday at the church of each of the four 'scuole', during vespers, motettos or anthems with full choruses, accompanied by a great orchestra, and composed and directed by the best masters in Italy, are sung in the galleries by girls only; not one of whom is more than twenty years of age. I have not an idea of anything so voluptuous and affecting as this music; the richness of the art, the exquisite taste of the vocal part, the excellence of the voices, the justness of the execution, everything in these delightful concerts concurs to produce an impression which certainly is not the mode, but from which I am of opinion no heart is secure. Carrio and I never failed being present at these vespers of the 'Mendicanti', and we were not alone. The church was always full of the lovers of the art, and even the actors of the opera came there to form their tastes after these excellent models. What vexed me was the iron grate, which suffered nothing to escape but sounds, and concealed from me the angels of which they were worthy. I talked of nothing else. One day I spoke of it at Le Blond's; "If you are so desirous," said he, "to see those little girls, it will be an easy matter to satisfy your wishes. I am one of the administrators of the house, I will give you a collation [light meal] with them." I did not let him rest until he had fulfilled his promise. In entering the saloon, which contained these beauties I so much sighed to see, I felt a trembling of love which I had never before experienced. M. le Blond presented to me one after the other, these celebrated female singers, of whom the names and voices were all with which I was acquainted. Come, Sophia, — she was horrid. Come, Cattina, — she had but one eye. Come, Bettina, — the small-pox had entirely disfigured her. Scarcely one of them was without some striking defect.
Le Blond laughed at my surprise; however, two or three of them appeared tolerable; these never sung but in the choruses; I was almost in despair. During the collation we endeavored to excite them, and they soon became enlivened; ugliness does not exclude the graces, and I found they possessed them. I said to myself, they cannot sing in this manner without intelligence and sensibility, they must have both; in fine, my manner of seeing them changed to such a degree that I left the house almost in love with each of these ugly faces. I had scarcely courage enough to return to vespers. But after having seen the girls, the danger was lessened. I still found their singing delightful; and their voices so much embellished their persons that, in spite of my eyes, I obstinately continued to think them beautiful.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1765-1770; published 1782), On the musicians of the Ospedale della Pieta (book VII)

Love , Marriage , Age , World

“A great deal of work is sedentary, and most manual work exercises only a few specialized muscles. When crowds assemble in Trafalgar Square to cheer to the echo an announcement that the government has decided to have them killed, they would not do so if they had all walked twenty-five miles that day. This cure for bellicosity is, however, impracticable, and if the human race is to survive – a thing which is, perhaps, undesirable – other means must be found for securing an innocent outlet for the unused physical energy that produces love of excitement. This is a matter which has been too little considered, both by moralists and by social reformers. The social reformers are of the opinion that they have more serious things to consider. The moralists, on the other hand, are immensely impressed with the seriousness of all the permitted outlets of the love of excitement; the seriousness, however, in their minds, is that of Sin. Dance halls, cinemas, this age of jazz, are all, if we may believe our ears, gateways to Hell, and we should be better employed sitting at home contemplating our sins. I find myself unable to be in entire agreement with the grave men who utter these warnings. The devil has many forms, some designed to deceive the young, some designed to deceive the old and serious. If it is the devil that tempts the young to enjoy themselves, is it not, perhaps, the same personage that persuades the old to condemn their enjoyment? And is not condemnation perhaps merely a form of excitement appropriate to old age? And is it not, perhaps, a drug which – like opium – has to be taken in continually stronger doses to produce the desired effect? Is it not to be feared that, beginning with the wickedness of the cinema, we should be led step by step to condemn the opposite political party, dagoes, wops, Asiatics, and, in short, everybody except the fellow members of our club? And it is from just such condemnations, when widespread, that wars proceed. I have never heard of a war that proceeded from dance halls.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)

Love , Men , War , Age

“I had, to be sure, been drawn into economics when the General Theory was an exciting revelation for students hungry for explanation and remedy of the Great Depression. At the same time, I was uncomfortable with several aspects of Keynes’ theory, and I sought to improve what would now be called the microfoundations of his macroeconomic relations.”

James Tobin (1918–2002) American economist

"Price Flexibility and Output Stability: An Old Keynesian View" (1993)

Time

“What I now heard so graphically at first-hand, though it was really no more than a detailed confirmation of what my uncle had written, excited me afresh; for I felt sure that I was on the track of a very real, very secret, and very ancient religion whose discovery would make me an anthropologist of note. My attitude was still one of absolute materialism, as l wish it still were, and I discounted with almost inexplicable perversity the coincidence of the dream notes and odd cuttings collected by Professor Angell.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Fiction, The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

Secret , Religion , Dreams , Angels

“Tjaden reappears. He is still quite excited and again joins the conversation, wondering just how a war gets started. 'Mostly by one country badly offending another,' answers Albert with a slight air of superiority. Then Tjaden pretends to be obtuse. 'A country? I don't follow. A mountain in Germany cannot offend a mountain in France. Or a river, or a wood, or a field of wheat.' 'Are you really as stupid as that, or are you just pulling my leg?' growls Kropp. 'I don't mean that at all. One people offends the other—' 'Then I haven't any business here at all,' replies Tjaden, 'I don't feel myself offended.' 'Well, let me tell you,' says Albert sourly,' it doesn't apply to tramps like you.”

Erich Maria Remarque book All Quiet on the Western Front

'Then I can be going home right away,' retorts Tjaden, and we all laugh.
Source: All Quiet on the Western Front (1929), Ch. 9

War , People , Stupidity , Feeling

“Demon’s Souls wasn’t doing well,” he says. “The project had problems and the team had been unable to create a compelling prototype. But when I heard it was a fantasy-action role-playing game, I was excited. I figured if I could find a way to take control of the game, I could turn it into anything I wanted. Best of all, if my ideas failed, nobody would care – it was already a failure.”

Hidetaka Miyazaki (1974) Japanese video game director

Bloodborne creator Hidetaka Miyazaki: ‘I didn’t have a dream. I wasn’t ambitious' https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/31/bloodborne-dark-souls-creator-hidetaka-miyazaki-interview (March 31, 2015)

Way , Soul , Game , Idea