Quotes about excitement
page 8

Marcus Tullius Cicero photo

“The evil was not in bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of the games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease.”

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

From Ben Moreell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Moreell, " Of Bread and Circuses http://fee.org/freeman/of-bread-and-circuses/", The Freeman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Freeman, January 1956, pp. 29–32 https://www.unz.org/Pub/Freeman-1956jan-00029. The quotation is from the left column of p. 31 in the original publication. Moreell's piece makes no mention of Cicero, but opens with a correct attribution of the phrase " Bread and circuses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses" to Juvenal.
Misattributed

Donald Ervin Knuth photo

“I can’t be as confident about computer science as I can about biology. Biology easily has 500 years of exciting problems to work on. It’s at that level.”

Donald Ervin Knuth (1938) American computer scientist

Computer Literacy Bookshops Interview http://karthikr.wordpress.com/2006/04/06/donald-knuth-%e2%80%94-computer-literacy-bookshops-interview-1993/ Computer Literacy Bookshops Interview (1993)
On why bioinformatics is very exciting

John Derbyshire photo
Lana Turner photo

“I find men terribly exciting, and any girl who says she doesn't is an anemic old maid, a streetwalker, or a saint.”

Lana Turner (1921–1995) American actress

Quoted in Lewis, John: Hard-Boiled Hollywood: Crime and Punishment in Postwar Los Angeles (2017), p. 91.
Miscellaneous

Colin Wilson photo
Jim Rogers photo

“I am dying to find a way to invest in both North Korea and Myanmar. The major changes in these two countries are among the most exciting things I see right now, looking to the future.”

Jim Rogers (1942) American writer

Jim Rogers Octafinance Interview http://www.octafinance.com/jim-rogers-on-why-you-must-understand-china-and-what-after-north-and-south-korea-unite/27277/

Marvin Minsky photo

“When David Marr at MIT moved into computer vision, he generated a lot of excitement, but he hit up against the problem of knowledge representation; he had no good representations for knowledge in his vision systems.”

Marvin Minsky (1927–2016) American cognitive scientist

Marvin Minsky in: David G. Stork (1998). HAL's Legacy: 2001's Computer As Dream and Reality. p. 16

Henry Hawkins, 1st Baron Brampton photo

“One cannot look too closely at and weigh in too golden scales the acts of men hot in their political excitement.”

Henry Hawkins, 1st Baron Brampton (1817–1907) British judge

Ex parte Castioni (1890), 60 L. J. Rep. (N. S.) Mag. Cas. 33.

Grace Aguilar photo
Jeremy Clarkson photo
George Bancroft photo

“By common consent grey hairs are a crown of glory; the only object of respect that can never excite envy.”

George Bancroft (1800–1891) American historian and statesman

"The Ruling Passion in Death" (1833), p. 75
Literary and Historical Miscellanies (1855)

Girish Raghunath Karnad photo

“I was excited by the story of Yayati. This exchange of ages between the father and the son, which seemed to be terribly powerful and terribly modern. At the same time I was reading a lot of Sartre and the Existentialist. This consistent harping on responsibility which the Existentialist indulge in suddenly seemed to link up with the story of Yayati.”

Girish Raghunath Karnad (1938–2019) Indian playwright

This story of Yayati from the Mahabhrata generated interst in him to become a playwright and he explains this here.[Sahu, Nandini title=The Post-colonial Space: Writing the Self and the Nation, http://books.google.com/books?id=xs_tj0tDnnwC&pg=PA59, 2007, Atlantic Publishers & Dist, 978-81-269-0777-9, 120]

Dugald Stewart photo
Kenneth Minogue photo
Stella McCartney photo

“My mum was Jewish. Maybe I'm a really bad Jew because I'm always so excited to say that I am, but I don't live and breathe the religion.”

Stella McCartney (1971) British fashion designer

Interview with British Glamour; quoted in "Stella McCartney on freedom of chosenness" https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Stella-McCartney-on-freedom-of-chosenness-3314959.php, SFgate.com (18 December 2002).

Prito Reza photo
Charles Krauthammer photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo
Andy Kessler photo

“Our portfolio was more of a Roach Motel-stocks came in and never left. This was exciting.”

Andy Kessler (1958) American writer

Part IV, Intellectual Property, It Works Again!, p. 142.
Running Money (2004) First Edition

“I am one of the last of a small tribe of troubadours, who still believe that life is a beautiful and exciting journey with a purpose and grace which are well worth singing about.”

Yip Harburg (1896–1981) American song lyricist

As quoted in "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", by Scott Jacobs, in The Week Behind (23 September 2009).

Scott Moir photo

“We're very proud of our business relationship, it's been very special for 20 years. Who can say that? It makes me shake my head sometimes driving to the rink, because I'm still excited to see Tessa at the arena for warmup. Who enjoys going in to work every day? That's ridiculous.”

Scott Moir (1987) Canadian figure skater

Scott Moir, quoted in "Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir's Quotes About Each Other Will Make You Wish They Were Dating" https://www.elitedaily.com/p/tessa-virtue-scott-moirs-quotes-about-each-other-will-make-you-wish-they-were-dating-8287527 (February 2018)
Partnership with Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir about Virtue

Ray Bradbury photo
Winston S. Churchill photo

“Politics are almost as exciting as war, and – quite as dangerous … [I]n war, you can only be killed once. But in politics many times.”

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

From a conversational exchange with Harold Begbie, as cited in Master Workers, Begbie, Methuen & Co. (1906), p. 177.
Early career years (1898–1929)

Marshall McLuhan photo
Ogden Nash photo

“The most exciting happiness is the happiness generated by forces beyond your control.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

"The Anatomy of Happiness"
I'm a Stranger Here Myself (1938)

Edsger W. Dijkstra photo
David Hume photo
Steve Bannon photo

“We don’t like to try to guess what’s going to happen in the future, but I’ve got to tell you, I think people were very engaged in this election, and I think will be very engaged as time goes forward. The key is to hold people accountable. The hobbits, or the deplorables, had a great run in ’16. Everybody mocked them and ridiculed them, and now they’ve spoken. I think ’17 is going to be a very exciting year”

Steve Bannon (1953) American media executive and former White House Chief Strategist for Donald Trump

Steve Bannon: ‘Hobbits and Deplorables Had a Great Run in 2016,’ but It’s Only ‘Top of the First Inning’ http://www.breitbart.com/radio/2016/12/30/bannon-hobbits-deplorables-great-run-2016-top-first-inning/ (December 30, 2016)

Dana Gioia photo
Anthony Bourdain photo
Daniel Drake photo

“A religious spirit animates the infancy of our literature, and must continue to gloe in its maturity. The public taste calls for this quality, and would relish no work in which it might be supplanted by a principle of infidelity. Our best authors have written under the influence of Christian feeling; but had they been destitute of this sentiment, they would have found it necessary to accommodate themselves to the opinions of the people, and follow Christian precedents. The beneficent influence of religion on literature, is like that of our evening sun, when it awakens in the clouds those beautiful and burning tints, which clothe the firmament in gold and purple. It constitutes the heart of learning - the great source of its moral power. Religion addresses itself to the highest and holiest of our sentiments - benevolence and veneration, and their excitement stirs up the imagination, strengthens the undeerstanding, and purifies the taste. Thus, both in the mind of the author and the reader, Christianity and literature act and react on each other, with the effect of elevating both, and carrying the human character to the highest perfection which it is destined to reach. Learning should be proud of this companionship, and exert all her wisdom to render it perpetual.”

Daniel Drake (1785–1852) American physician and writer

Daniel Drake (1834). Discourse on the History, Character, and Prospects of the West: Delivered to the Union Literary Society of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, at Their Ninth Anniversary, September 23, 1834. Truman and Smith. p. 31

Manav Gupta photo
Colin Wilson photo
Marc Maron photo

“My dad is actually a manic depressive, which is very exciting half the time.”

Marc Maron (1963) Comedian

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/2ufif7/comedy-central-presents-bipolar-coaster
Comedy Central Presents (2007)

Roger Nash Baldwin photo
Mark Satin photo
Louis-ferdinand Céline photo
Muammar Gaddafi photo
Bernhard Riemann photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Irene Dunne photo
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel photo

“Without rhetorical exaggeration, a simply truthful combination of the miseries that have overwhelmed the noblest of nations and polities, and the finest exemplars of private virtue, forms a picture of most fearful aspect, and excites emotions of the profoundest and most hopeless sadness, counterbalanced by no consolatory result. We endure in beholding it a mental torture, allowing no defence or escape but the consideration that what has happened could not be otherwise; that it is a fatality which no intervention could alter. And at last we draw back from the intolerable disgust with which these sorrowful reflections threaten us, into the more agreeable environment of our individual life the Present formed by our private aims and interests. In short we retreat into the selfishness that stands on the quiet shore, and thence enjoys in safety the distant spectacle of "wrecks confusedly hurled." But even regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimised the question involuntarily arises to what principle, to what final aim these. enormous sacrifices have been offered.”

Geschichte Als Schlachtbank
Pt. III, sec. 2, ch. 24 Lectures on the History of History Vol 1 p. 22 John Sibree translation (1857), 1914
Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832), Volume 1

Jordan Peterson photo

“Partly what you need to do is decide what your highest value is. It's the star. What are you aiming for? You can decide. But there are some criteria. It should be good for you in a way that facilitates your moving forward. Maybe it should be good for you in a way that's also good for your family, as well as for the larger community. It should cover the domain of life. There's constraints on what you should regard as a value, but within those constraints you have the choice. You have choice. The thing is that people will carry a heavy load if they get to pick the load. And they think, 'well, I won't carry any load.' Ok, fine, but then you'll be like the slead dog that has nothing to pull. You'll get bored. People are pack animals. They need to pull against a wait. And that's not true for everyone. It's not true for conscientious people. For the typical person, they'll eat themselves up unless they have a load. This is why there's such an opiate epidemic among so many dispossessed white, middle aged, unemployed men in the U. S. They lose their job, and then they're done. They despise themselves. They develop chronic pain syndromes and depression. And the chronic pain is treated with opiates. That's what we're doing. And you should watch when you talk to young men about responsibility. They're so thrilled about it. It just blows me away. Really?! That's what the counter-culture is? Grow up and do something useful. Really? I can do that? Oh, I'm so excited by that idea. No one ever mentioned that before. Rights, rights, rights, rights. Jesus. It's appalling. People have had enough of that. And they better have, because it's a non-productive mode of being. Responsibility, man. That's where the meaning in life is.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

John D. Carmack photo

“Honestly, I spend very little time thinking about past events, and I certainly don't have them ranked in any way. I look back and think that I have done a lot of good work over the years, but I am much more excited about what the future holds.”

John D. Carmack (1970) American computer programmer, engineer, and businessman

When asked about the highlight of his career, Quoted in "John Carmack Interview, January 2006" http://archive.videogamesdaily.com/features/id_johncarmack_interview_jan05.asp Video Games Daily (2006-01-03)

William Wordsworth photo

“One did not go to Ebbets Field for sociology. Exciting baseball was the attraction, and a wonder of the sociological Brookln Dodgers was the excitement of their play.”

Roger Kahn (1927–2020) American baseball writer

Source: The Boys Of Summer, Lines On The Transpontine Madness, p. xvii

Barbara Hepworth photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Walt Disney photo
Bart D. Ehrman photo
Walter Pater photo

“Rousseau … asked himself how he might make as much as possible of the interval that remained; and he was not biassed by anything in his previous life when he decided that it must be by intellectual excitement.”

Walter Pater (1839–1894) essayist, art and literature critic, fiction writer

Conclusion
The Renaissance http://www.authorama.com/renaissance-1.html (1873)

George Bernard Shaw photo
William Westmoreland photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Lewis Mumford photo
Roger Manganelli photo
Norbert Elias photo

“I wish you all the pleasurable excitement one can have without hurting others and one's own dignity.”

Norbert Elias (1897–1990) German sociologist

Closing statement on a Dutch TV interview http://www.vpro.nl/programma/beschaving/afleveringen/22058443/items/22149355/.
Lessen van Elias, Norbert Elias, portret van een socioloog, VPRO, april 23 1975/ 2005

John Banville photo
Fred Brooks photo
John D. Carmack photo
David Dixon Porter photo
Colin Wilson photo
Emily Brontë photo
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk photo
Stella Vine photo
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo

“I have read your speech and I must frankly say, with much regret as there is little in it that I can agree with, and much from which I differ. You lay down broadly the Doctrine of Universal Suffrage which I can never accept. I intirely deny that every sane and not disqualified man has a moral right to a vote—I use that Expression instead of “the Pale of the Constitution”, because I hold that all who enjoy the Security and civil Rights which the Constitution provides are within its Pale—What every Man and Woman too have a Right to, is to be well governed and under just Laws, and they who propose a change ought to shew that the present organization does not accomplish those objects…[Your speech] was more like the Sort of Speech with which Bright would have introduced the Reform Bill which he would like to propose than the Sort of Speech which might have been expected from the Treasury bench in the present State of Things. Your Speech may win Lancashire for you, though that is doubtful but I fear it will tend to lose England for you. It is to be regretted that you should, as you stated, have taken the opportunity of your receiving a Deputation of working men, to exhort them to set on Foot an Agitation for Parliamentary Reform—The Function of a Government is to calm rather than to excite Agitation.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Letter to William Ewart Gladstone (12 May 1864), quoted in Philip Guedalla (ed.), Gladstone and Palmerston, being the Correspondence of Lord Palmerston with Mr. Gladstone 1851-1865 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1928), pp. 281-282.
1860s

Clay Shirky photo
Patrick Swift photo
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley photo

“…aaaaahhhh…excuse me for being excited…I think I just saw a ghost…a flash of 1960 Di Stéfano or Puskás…that goal has just woken the spirit of Bernabéu himself…astonishing and mesmerizing skill and grace…”

Ray Hudson (1955) English footballer

[Mandis, Steven G., The Real Madrid Way: How Values Created the Most Successful Sports Team on the Planet, 2016, BenBella Books, https://books.google.fi/books/about/The_Real_Madrid_Way.html?id=IEbQDAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y, 978-1-942952-54-1]
After Zinedine Zidane scored the winning goal, a left-footed volley into the top corner, assisted by Roberto Carlos to make it 2–1, winning the Champions League trophy for Real Madrid.
2002 UEFA Champions League Final

S. I. Hayakawa photo
Daisy Ashford photo
Adam Smith photo

“Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity:…”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter III, Part II, p. 534.

Samuel Johnson photo

“I'll come no more behind your scenes, David [Garrick]; for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

1750 Journal
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

Karen Kwiatkowski photo

“It wasn't intelligence — it was propaganda. They'd take a little bit of intelligence, cherry-pick it, make it sound much more exciting, usually by taking it out of context, often by juxtaposition of two pieces of information that don't belong together.”

Karen Kwiatkowski (1960) retired military officer and author

Interview by Robert Dreyfuss and Jason Vest, " The Lie Factory http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_405.html", Mother Jones, January/February 2004.

Irene Dunne photo
Chris Cornell photo
Regina Jonas photo

“It is nothing special to see women, it is a matter of being accustomed, it does not excite the fantasies of a man.”

Regina Jonas (1902–1944) rabbi

Can a Woman Be a Rabbi According to Halachic Sources?

“I can get excitement watching rain on a puddle. And then I paint it. Now, I admit, there are not too many people who would find that exciting. But I would. And I want life thrilling and rich. And it is. I make sure it is.”

David Hockney (1937) British artist

Interview with Marion Finlay, "Hockney on … politics, pleasure, and smoking in public places" http://www.forestonline.org/output/Page264.asp FOREST Online (28 July 2004)
2000s

Alain de Botton photo

“I passed by a corner office in which an employee was typing up a document relating to brand performance. … Something about her brought to mind a painting by Edward Hopper which I had seen several years before at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. In New York Movie (1939), an usherette stands by the stairwell of an ornate pre-war theatre. Whereas the audience is sunk in semidarkness, she is bathed in a rich pool of yellow light. As often in Hopper’s work, her expression suggests that her thoughts have carried her elsewhere. She is beautiful and young, with carefully curled blond hair, and there are a touching fragility and an anxiety about her which elicit both care and desire. Despite her lowly job, she is the painting’s guardian of integrity and intelligence, the Cinderella of the cinema. Hopper seems to be delivering a subtle commentary on, and indictment of, the medium itself, implying that a technological invention associated with communal excitement has paradoxically succeeded in curtailing our concern for others. The painting’s power hangs on the juxtaposition of two ideas: first, that the woman is more interesting that the film, and second, that she is being ignored because of the film. In their haste to take their seats, the members of the audience have omitted to notice that they have in their midst a heroine more sympathetic and compelling than any character Hollywood could offer up. It is left to the painter, working in a quieter, more observant idiom, to rescue what the film has encouraged its viewers not to see.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009), pp. 83-84.

Boris Johnson photo

“The excitement is growing so much I think the Geiger counter of Olympo-mania is going to go zoink off the scale.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

2010s, 2012
Source: On the forthcoming London Olympic Games. Daily Telegraph, 27 July 2012.

Ai Weiwei photo

“No outdoor sports can be more elegant than throwing stones at autocracy; no melees can be more exciting than those in cyberspace.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

Ai Weiwei Twitter feed: @AiWW (8:03 a.m. March 10, 2010)
2010-, Twitter feeds, 2010-12

Jeremy Clarkson photo
Ai Weiwei photo
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex photo
Vera Farmiga photo