Quotes about first
page 71

“Many grand notions and titles have over time attached themselves to this place: a paradise at the southern tip of Africa, the world’s richest floral kingdom, a maritime fulcrum between West and East, a European outpost at the foot of the continent, the Tavern of the Seas. But the two names that are the most potent are also two of the earliest: the contradictory claims of this being both a Cape of Storms and a Cape of Good Hope. The tension between these ideas encapsulates many of the tensions of this city.
Legend has it that the first Portuguese navigator to round the southern tip of Africa, Bartolomeu Dias, named this stormy peninsula Cabo das Tormentas. However, King João II rejected Dias’s name in favour of one that would be more inspirational for the Portuguese people: Cabo da Boa Esperança. The turning point for the Lusitanian caravels would spell untold riches in the East. But the dialectic between the two contending titles is as virile today in a city whose promise is limitless and whose socio-political storms act as a sea anchor.”

Justin D. Fox (1967) South African author, photojournalist, lecturer and editor

Cape Town Calling (2007)

People, World, Hope, Idea

“Competition has been curtailed by larger corporations; it has been sabotaged by groups of smaller entrepreneurs acting collectively. Both groups have made clear the locus of liberalism's rhetoric of small business and family farm.The character and ideology of the small entrepreneur and the facts of the market are selling the idea of competition short. These liberal heroes, the small businessmen and the farmer, do not want to develop their characters by free and open competition; they do not believe in competition, and they have been doing their best to get away from it.When the small businessmen are asked whether they think free competition is…a good thing, they answer…, 'Yes, of course—what do you mean?' … Finally: 'How about here in this town in furniture?'—or groceries, or whatever the man's line is. Their answers are of two sorts: 'Yes, if it's fair competition,' which turns out to mean: 'if it doesn't make me compete.' … The small businessman, as well as the farmer, wants to become big, not directly by eating up others like himself in competition, but by the indirect ways means practiced by his own particular heroes—those already big. In the dream life of the small entrepreneur, the sure fix is replacing the open market.But if small men wish to close their ranks, why do they continue to talk…about free competition? The answer is that the political function of free competition is what really matters now…[f]or, if there is free competition and a constant coming and going of enterprises, the one who remains established is 'the better man' and 'deserves to be where he is.' But if instead of such competition, there is a rigid line between successful entrepreneurs and the employee community, the man on top may be 'coasting on what his father did,' and not really be worthy of his hard-won position. Nobody talks more of free enterprise and competition and of the best man winning than the man who inherited his father's store or farm. …… In Congress small-business committees clamored for legislation to save the weak backbone of the national economy. Their legislative efforts have been directed against their more efficient competitors. First they tried to kill off the low-priced chain stores by taxation; then they tried to eliminate the alleged buying advantages of mass distributor; finally they tried to freeze the profits of all distributors in order to protect their own profits from those who could and were selling goods cheaper to the consumer.The independent retailer…has been pushing to maintain a given margin under the guise of 'fair competition' and 'fair-trade' laws. He now regularly demands that the number of outlets controlled by chain stores be drastically limited and that production be divorced from distribution. This would, of course, kill the low prices charged consumers by the A&P;, which makes very small retail profits, selling almost at cost, and whose real profits come from the manufacturing and packaging.…Under the threat of 'ruinous competition,' laws are on the books of many states and cities legalizing the ruin of competition.”

C. Wright Mills book White Collar: The American Middle Classes

Section One: The Competitive Way of Life.
White Collar: The American Middle Classes (1951)

Life, Men, Books, Family

“He looked up from it at the stars again, and the view was warped and distorted by something in his eyes, which at first he thought was rain.”

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, The Player of Games (1988), Chapter 4 “The Passed Pawn” (p. 390).

Star

“There is … no first person plural to the verb "cogito." Observation, verification, and inference are functions which are perfected only in their independent individual exercise. I am not unmindful of the importance of the corroboration of one mind by another; but such corroboration is valuable only in so far as both minds have reached their results alone. Corroboration implies the absence of collusion. The devotee of the intellect must, then, have the strength to work alone.”

Ralph Barton Perry (1876–1957) American philosopher

The Integrity of the Intellect (July 1920)

Exercises, Personality, Perfection

“Subject…. no specific scene but many incidents. – The first word I spoke was Argula – it has no meaning. I was then five years old. Thus I called this painting 'Argula' as I was entering a new period closer to my instincts.
(Technique..:) Hundreds and hundreds of layers of paint to obtain the weight of reality – Art this period I measured by weight. [mid 1930's]”

Arshile Gorky (1904–1948) Armenian-American painter

in his reply to Questionnaires of the MOMA museum, 1941
Gorky's quote refers on his multi-layered painting technique Gorky applied those days
1930 - 1941

Art, Reality, Painting

“There is almost as great a distance between the first apparatus in which the expansive force of steam was displayed and the existing machine, as between the first raft that man ever made and the modern vessel.”

Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot (1796–1832) French physicist, the "father of thermodynamics" (1796–1832)

p, 125
Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat (1824)

“A civilization is complicated, in the first place, because it is dynamic; that is, it is constantly changing in the passage of time, until it has perished.”

Carroll Quigley (1910–1977) American historian

Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 4, Historical Analysis, p. 85

Change, Time

“I give you three examples: first, medical space research may open up new understanding of man's relation to his environment. Examinations of the astronaut's physical, and mental, and emotional reactions can teach us more about the differences between normal and abnormal, about the causes and effects of disorientation, about changes in metabolism which could result in extending the life span. When you study the effects on our astronauts of exhaust gases which can contaminate their environment, and you seek ways to alter these gases so as to reduce their toxicity, you are working on problems similar to those in our great urban centers which themselves are being corrupted by gases and which must be clear.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, President John F. Kennedy's last formal speech and public words

Life, Way, Understanding, Problem

“My dear mother was really narrow-minded! I remember when we first got to Miami & I was only six years old: It didn't seem to matter, after years & years of telling me not to, I was still doing it!--In fact, I'm still doing it now! So she came in & caught me playing with it again!I suppose she thought she was going to make me so ashamed I was going to do it anymore. So she brought in the whole family, if you can imagine!--And my governess whom I didn't even like anyhow, & my brother & sister, scolding me before all!She brought a washbasin, a little bowl & a know & and told me she was going to cut it off! Oh I was terrified! I was absolutely petrified! I almost never forgave my mother for that, threatening to cut it off & embarrassing me in front of the family! But that didn't stop me. It felt too good to quit! I just kept it up in secret, my terrible secret sin!”

David Berg (1919–1994) Children of God founder

My Childhood Sex!—Doin' What Comes Naturally

Secret, Family, Imagination, Sister

“Should such an ignorant people lead the world? How did it come to this in the first place? 82 percent of us don't even have a passport! Just a handful can speak a language other than English”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

and we don't even speak that very well. On Americans in an Open Letter to the German publication Die Zeit (11 June 2003) (published in German) http://www.zeit.de/2003/46/AbdruckMoor 2003

People, World

“The only law to which we can give our obedience is the one of which we are convinced. And this way to act cannot be alleged to be egocentric or disorderly. First of all it is easy to realize that everybody really acts like this, that is, he does not obey laws to which the doors of his conscience have not been willingly opened. But the difference lies in that some choose an authority, and from then onwards are prepared to obey all its commands. Others instead prefer to often re-examine the reasons for these prescriptions, and do not entrust anybody with the keys of their own conscience. This does not mean that they will want to undertake a deep study of every law, every regulation, but the fact is that they do not recognize even their country’s government or their society’s president as an absolute authority. This second way will certainly be more tiring, but it is certain that the first will be more dangerous, because it diseducates people and harms those who exercise power and those who are governed.”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

Hymn

People, Law, Way, Exercises

“Look what happened in Tower Hamlets, in the heart of our capital city. We had political corruption on an epic scale: with voters intimidated and a court adjudicating on accusations of ‘undue spiritual influence’ for the first time since the 19th century. As the judge said: those in authority were too afraid to ‘confront wrongdoing for fear of allegations of racism’. Well this has got to stop.”

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

2010s, 2015, Speech on (20 July 2015)

Fear, Time, Heart

“Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Source: " The Voice http://www.portablepoetry.com/poems/thomas_hardy/the_voice.html" (1912), lines 1-4, from Satires of Circumstance (1914)

Change

“You too, find release only in art, you are one of those privileged people who have that gift, and you will be free and at peace so long as you make use of it. Art gives us an inner superiority, for it has scope for every sensation of which human beings are capable, and first and foremost for love, which is the basis for knowledge. The artist loves without wanting to possess, and no one on earth can understand that except other artists, that is why other people think us mad.”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) German painter, sculptor, engraver and printmaker

Letter to Nele van de Velde ((daughter of Henry van de Velde), Frauenkirch, 29 November 1920; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, pp. 224-225
1920's

Love, People, Peace, Art

“Each part of the mind sees only a little of what happens in some others, and that little is swiftly refined, reformulated and "represented." We like to believe that these fragments have meanings in themselves — apart from the great webs of structure from which they emerge — and indeed this illusion is valuable to us qua thinkers — but not to us as psychologists — because it leads us to think that expressible knowledge is the first thing to study.”

Marvin Minsky (1927–2016) American cognitive scientist

K-Linesː A Theory of Memory (1980)

Knowledge, Thinking, Study, Parting

“We have a habit in writing articles published in scientific journals to make the work as finished as possible, to cover all the tracks, to not worry about the blind alleys or to describe how you had the wrong idea first, and so on. So there isn't any place to publish, in a dignified manner, what you actually did in order to get to do the work.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

"The Development of the Space-Time View of Quantum Electrodynamics," Nobel Lecture http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-lecture.html (11 December 1965)

Idea

“We have worked together for the last 20 years, first in America and now at INSEAD in France, with time also spent in Asia along the way. From the get-go, we shared an intellectual curiosity to understand what it takes to stand apart and create strong profitable growth. In search of an answer to this question, we looked back more than 100 years and across more than 30 industries. Contrary to common thought, we did not find any permanently excellent companies, nor permanently excellent industries in our research. What we did find, however, were smart strategic moves. And the strategic move that we found matters centrally is to create blue oceans. Blue oceans allow companies to stand apart and create strong profitable growth. This led to our book, Blue Ocean Strategy. Even before Blue Ocean Strategy was released, it broke Harvard Business School Press's historical record for most foreign licenses ever obtained.”

Renée Mauborgne American economist

W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne in: Alistair Craven " Guru Interview: W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne http://first.emeraldinsight.com/interviews/pdf/kim_mauborgne.pdf?PHPSESSID=1423baeb156c88436a5b11," Emerald Management First, p. 2. Accessed 08.2016.

Books, School, Way, Search

“The Concept of Dread, by Soren Kierkegaard, appeared in 1844, first year of the commercial telegraph…It mentions the telegraph as a reason for dread and nowness or existenz.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1970s, Culture Is Our Business (1970)

Appearance

“Due to the nature of my profession, I’ve been around death quite a lot, and while I’m not exactly on a first-name basis with the Reaper, we’ve exchanged business cards enough times to give each other a friendly nod when we pass by on the job.”

Eric Garcia (1972) An amazing author who has written several wonderful books!

Source: The Repossession Mambo (2009), Chapter 5 (p. 80)

Death, Business, Nature, Time

“Mooney's unpublished paper “The Science of Industrial Organization” (1929) portrays GM's multidivisional organization's use of the line-staff concept in organizing overseas assembly plants. Here I compare General Motors with Ford Motor Company, which had first-mover advantages overseas, and examine how each company organized and managed their international operations. “Linking pins,” a social-science concept, illustrates how GM's organizational hierarchy achieved vertical coordination of effort.”

Daniel A. Wren (1932) American business theorist

Daniel A. Wren, "James D. Mooney and General Motors' Multinational Operations, 1922–1940." Business History Review 87.03 (2013): 515-543 : Article abstract

Effort, Science

“You don’t talk to Ahmadinejad. First of all, he’s not the decision maker. When Senator Obama suggests that he would be prepared to meet with him, he says such a meeting first has to be prepared. What he means is that you have to coordinate with your allies - all your allies. Secondly, it means you have to check whether you can put together an agenda for a lower-level meeting. If it becomes clear that you can’t put together such an agenda, then you don’t hold a meeting at a high level - the presidential level - because it’s not going to lead anywhere. But if you can produce something that you know will lead somewhere, then it’s silly not to do that.”

Dennis Ross (1948) American diplomat

Haaretz, October 23, 2008. http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/g-d-help-us-if-this-resolutely-dull-as-dishwater-solid-b-cliche-ridden-power-groveling-middle-aged-windbag-whose-only-known-professional-accomplishment-was-controlling-his-bowel-movements-during/

Decision

“He loved hitherto-unthought-of, thereafter-unthinkable combinations of instruments. When some extraordinary array of players filed half-proudly, half-sheepishly on to the stage, looking like the Bremen Town Musicians—if those were, as I think they were, a rooster, a cat, a dog, and a donkey—you could guess beforehand that it was to be one of Gottfried’s compositions. His Joyous Celebration of the Memory of the Master Johann Sebastian Bach had a tone-row composed of the notes B, A, C, and H (in the German notation), of these inverted, and of these transposed; and there were four movements, the first played on instruments beginning with the letter b, the second on instruments beginning with the letter a, and so on. After the magnificent group that ushered in the piece (bugle, bass-viol, bassoon, basset-horn, bombardon, bass-drum, baritone, and a violinist with only his bow) it was sad to see an Alp horn and an accordion come in to play the second movement. Gottfriend himself said about the first group: “Vot a bunch!””

Randall Jarrell book Pictures from an Institution

When I asked him how he had thought of it he said placidly: “De devil soldt me his soul.”
Source: Pictures from an Institution (1954) [novel], Chapter 4: “Constance and the Rosenbaums”, p. 136

Love, Sadness, Dogs, Soul

“The first sign of senility is that a man forgets his theorems, the second sign is that he forgets to zip up, the third sign is that he forgets to zip down.”

Stanislaw Ulam (1909–1984) Polish-American mathematician

Attributed in Paul Hoffman, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdős and the Search for Mathematical Truth (1998)
This has also been attributed, with variants, to Paul Erdős, who repeated the remark.

Forgetting

“We are drawn on to the supposition, that the first step in the creation of life upon this planet was a chemico-electric operation, by which simple germinal vesicles were produced.”

Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation

Source: Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), p. 204-205

Life

“The new painter owes the abstract artist a debt for giving him his language, but the new painting is concerned with a new type of abstract thought... He [the new painter] is declaring that the art of Western Europe is voluptuous art first, an intellectual art by accident. He is reversing the situation by declaring that art is an expression of the mind first and whatever sensuous elements are involved are incidental to that expression. The new painter is therefore the true revolutionary, the real leader who is placing the artist's function on its rightful plane of the philosopher and the pure scientist who is exploring the world of ideas, not the world of the senses.... so the artist is today giving us a vision of the world of truth in terms of visual symbols.”

Barnett Newman (1905–1970) American artist

Source: 1940 - 1950, The Plasmic Image 2. 1943-1945, p. 127

Truth, World, Art, Idea

“Get there first with the most men.”

Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877) Confederate Army general

Reported by General Basil W. Duke and Richard Taylor
Often erroneously reported as "Git thar fustest with the most mostest." In The Quote Verifier : Who Said What, Where, and When (2006) by Ralph Keyes, p. 272, the phrase he used has also been reported to have been "I always make it a rule to get there first with the most men" and "I just took the short cut and got there first with the most men."
1860s

Men

“Derangement is the signature expression of the Great Backlash, a style of conservatism that first came snarling onto the national stage in response to the partying and protests of the late sixties. While earlier forms of conservatism emphasized fiscal sobriety, the backlash mobilizes voters with explosive social issues — summoning public outrage over everything from busing to un-Christian art — which it then marries to pro-business economic polices. Cultural anger is marshaled to achieve economic ends. And it is these economic achievements — not the forgettable skirmishes of the never-ending culture wars — that are the movement’s greatest monuments. The backlash is what has made possible the international free-market consensus of recent years, with all the privatization, deregulation, and de-unionization that are its components. Backlash ensures that Republicans will continue to be returned to office even when their free-market miracles fail and their libertarian schemes don’t deliver and their "New Economy" collapses. It makes possible the police pushers’ fantasies of “globalization” and a free-trade empire that are foisted upon the rest of the world with such self-assurance. Because some artist decides to shock the hicks by dunking Jesus in urine, the entire plant must remake itself along the lines preferred by the Republican Party, U. S. A.The Great Backlash has made the laissez-faire revival possible, but this does not mean that it speak to us in the manner of the capitalists of old, invoking the divine right of money or demanding that the lowly learn their place in the great chain of being. On the contrary; the backlash imagines itself as a foe of the elite, as the voice of the unfairly persecuted, as a righteous protest of the people on history’s receiving end. That is champions today control all three branches of government matters not a whit. That is greatest beneficiaries are the wealthiest people on the plant does not give it pause.”

Thomas Frank book What's the Matter with Kansas?

Introduction: What's the Matter with America (pp. 5-6).
What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004)

Money, War, People, World

“But blast the man, with curses loud and deep,
Whate'er the rascal's name, or age, or station,
Who first invented, and went round advising,
That artificial cut-off, — Early Rising!”

John Godfrey Saxe (1816–1887) American poet

"Early Rising".

Age

“I think that virtuosity is the first sign of morality in a musician. It means you're serious enough to practice.”

Wynton Marsalis (1961) American jazz musician

Attributed

Thinking

“Mr. Speaker, you have no idea how great this feels to be great back here at work in people’s House. As you can imagine, these last 3 1/2 months have been pretty challenging times for me and my family. But, if you look at the outpouring of love — my gosh Jennifer and I have been overwhelmed with the outpouring — It’s given us the strength to get through all of this. And get to this point today; it starts with God. When I was laying out on that ball field, the first thing I did once I was down and couldn’t move anymore, I started to pray. And tell you, it gave me an unbelievable sense of calm knowing at that point it’s in God’s hands. I prayed for specific things, and I’ll tell you, pretty much every one of those prayers was answered. They were some pretty challenging prayers I was putting in God’s hands, but he really did deliver for me and my family. And it just gives you that renewed faith and understanding that the power of prayer is something you cannot under estimate. So I’m a living example that miracles really do happen.”

Steve Scalise (1965) American politician

Love, God, People, Family

“You should always determine first what you want to say. It's a bad situation for a cartoonist to think of his pictures first…A cartoonist should get out of bed mad and stay mad. The cartoonist's function is essentially a negative one, and the cartoon that advocates something usually says nothing.”

Paul Conrad (1924–2010) German theologian

As quoted in One of the Few. (1960, June 13). Time, 75(24): 54.

Thinking, Madness

“I have known many dogs, and many a story I could tell of their wisdom and devotion; but to none do I owe so much as to Stickeen. At first the least promising and least known of my dog-friends, he suddenly became the best known of them all. Our storm-battle for life brought him to light, and through him as through a window I have ever since been looking with deeper sympathy into all my fellow mortals.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

Terry Gifford, LLO, page 696
1900s, Stickeen (1909)

Life, Wisdom, Dogs, Light

“I was very, very, very shocked about the outcome of the first one, what it became, and the domino effect from the news outlets that were covering it and the social media trends that grew out of it. It goes to show that you never know what is going to take off in Hollywood; it’s so unpredictable, so you just have to have fun with it.”

Cassie Scerbo (1990) American actress, singer and dancer

Cassie Scerbo Interview https://www.clichemag.com/entertainment-interview/cassie-scerbo-interview (June 15, 2015)

“There are two reasons for drinking: one is, when you are thirsty, to cure it; the other, when you are not thirsty, to prevent it. The first is obvious, mechanical, and plebeian; the second is most refined, abstract, prospicient, and canonical.”

Thomas Love Peacock book Melincourt

Melincourt, chapter XVI.

Drink

“In strategic thinking, one first seeks a clear understanding of the particular character of each element of a situation and then makes the fullest possible use of human brainpower to restructure the elements in the most advantageous way. Phenomena and events in the real word do not always fit a linear model. Hence the most reliable means of dissecting a situation into its constituent parts and reassembling then in the desired pattern is not a step-by-step methodology such as systems analysis. Rather, it is that ultimate nonlinear thinking tool, the human brain. True strategic thinking thus contrasts sharply with the conventional mechanical systems approach based on linear thinking. But it also contrasts with the approach that stakes everything on intuition, reaching conclusions without any real breakdown or analysis… No matter how difficult or unprecedented the problem, a breakthrough to the best possible solution can come only from a combination of rational analysis, based on the real nature of things, and imaginative reintegration of all the different items into a new pattern, using nonlinear brainpower. This is always the most effective approach to devising strategies for dealing successfully with challenges and opportunities, in the market arena as on the battlefield.”

Kenichi Ohmae (1943) Japanese academic

Source: The Mind Of The Strategist, 1982, p. 304

Way, Imagination, Understanding, Nature

“The disposition to consider intelligence a peril is an old Anglo-Saxon inheritance. Our ancestors have celebrated this disposition in verse and prose. Splendid as our literature is, it has not voiced all the aspirations of humanity, nor could it be expected to voice an aspiration that has not characteristically belonged to the English race; the praise of intelligence is not one of its characteristic glories. “Be good, sweet maid, and let who will he clever.” [Charles Kingsley, “A Farewell”] Here is the startling alternative which to the English, alone among great nations, has been not startling but a matter of course. Here is the casual assumption that a choice must be made between goodness and intelligence; that stupidity is first cousin to moral conduct, and cleverness the first step into mischief; that reason and God are not on good terms with each other; that the mind and the heart are rival buckets in the well of truth, inexorably balanced—full mind, starved heart—stout heart, weak head.”

John Erskine (1879–1951) American educator

Source: The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent (1915), p. 5

God, Truth, Stupidity, Intelligence

“Perhaps not only in his attitude towards truth, but in his attitude towards himself, Montaigne was a precursor. Perhaps here again he was ahead of his own time, ahead of our time also, since none of us would have the courage to imitate him. It may be that some future century will vindicate this unseemly performance; in the meanwhile it will be of interest to examine the reasons which he gives us for it. He says, in the first place, that he found this study of himself, this registering of his moods and imaginations, extremely amusing; it was an exploration of an unknown region, full of the queerest chimeras and monsters, a new art of discovery, in which he had become by practice “the cunningest man alive.” It was profitable also, for most people enjoy their pleasures without knowing it; they glide over them, and fix and feed their minds on the miseries of life. But to observe and record one’s pleasant experiences and imaginations, to associate one’s mind with them, not to let them dully and unfeelingly escape us, was to make them not only more delightful but more lasting. As life grows shorter we should endeavour, he says, to make it deeper and more full. But he found moral profit also in this self-study; for how, he asked, can we correct our vices if we do not know them, how cure the diseases of our soul if we never observe their symptoms? The man who has not learned to know himself is not the master, but the slave of life: he is the “explorer without knowledge, the magistrate without jurisdiction, and when all is done, the fool of the play.””

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) British American-born writer

“Montaigne,” p. 6
Reperusals and Recollections (1936)

Life, People, Pleasure, Truth

“The first day I was in a daze thinking, ‘What am I doing? What’s my role?’ and then slowly we started writing with each other, and it was great. It took me way back to my high school days when I was playing in a rock band.”

A. R. Rahman (1966) Indian singer and composer

During the recording of music “SuperHeavy” quoted in "What Is Superheavy?"

School, Way, Thinking

“I find it quite difficult to watch the film once it is done, because in your head or imagination it is totally different. In the beginning it is quite hard, and I don't mean hard as in a negative or a positive. It is difficult to see the film being edited and see the real images for the first time coming out of your head and onto the screen. Sometimes you are surprised that he left something in and he took something out. The director is the creator; he's the captain of the ship when it comes to the creative journey of the film, along of course with the producer. So when you start out acting you have to find a way to understand and to deal with that. But as I say I don't mean it as a negative or a positive.”

Marwan Kenzari (1983) Dutch Tunesian actor

Fight Cub: Marwan Kenzari and Nasrdin Dchar Talk Wolf http://thequietus.com/articles/16646-wolf-kenzari-dchar-interview (November 8th, 2014)

Way, Imagination, Understanding, Time

“If grand unified theories are correct, we ought to be able to derive the relative power of the strong, weak, and electromagnetic interactions at accessible energies from their presumed equality at much higher energies. When this is attempted, a wonderful result emerges. …in the form first calculated by Howard Georgi, Helen Quinn, and Steven Weinberg …The couplings of strong-interaction gluons decrease, those of the [weak interaction] W bosons stay roughly constant, and those of the [electromagnetic interaction] photons increase at short distances [or high energies]—so they all tend to converge, as desired.”

Frank Wilczek (1951) physicist

Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics (1987)

Strong

“God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed it is the purest of human pleasures.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Gardens
Essays (1625)

God, Pleasure

“Considerations of justice are also integral to efforts to generate transcultural security in the first instance and, ultimately, transcultural synergy.”

Nayef Al-Rodhan (1959) philosopher, neuroscientist, geostrategist, and author

Source: Sustainable History and the Dignity of Man (2009), p.403

Justice, Effort

“[I believe in Oliver Cromwell] because he was a great fighting Dissenter. He was perhaps the first statesman to recognize that as soon as the Government became a democracy the Churches became directly responsible for any misgovernment. His great idea was to make Christ's law the law of the land, and any obstacle to this he ruthlessly swept away. How he would have dealt with Romish practices now! He said to the priest who babbled his Paternosters in Peterborough Cathedral, "Leave off your fooling and come down, sir." There was the man for the Ritualists (cheers)— worth a wagon-load of Bishops. How he would have dealt with the House of Lords! From the House of Commons he would have removed many a bauble, and he would have shaken his head and said, "The Lord deliver us from Joseph Chamberlain."”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the National Council of the Evangelical Free Churches at the City Temple, London (25 April 1899) for the 300th anniversary of Oliver Cromwell's birth, quoted in The Times (26 April 1899), p. 12.
Backbench MP

Law, Fools, Democracy, Idea

“There must be opportunities for judgment to mature. When, therefore, you increase your business to a very great extent, and the multitude of problems increase with its growth, you will find, in the first place, that the man at the head has a diminishing knowledge of the facts and, in the second place, a diminishing opportunity of exercising a careful judgment upon them.”

Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) American Supreme Court Justice

Testimony before the United States Senate, Committee On Interstate Commerce (December 14, 1911).
Extra-judicial writings

Exercises, Business, Knowledge, Problem

“Opening my first Donald Duck comic book felt like seeing the daylight again for someone who had been trapped underground by a mine-disaster for many days. I squinted cautiously because my eyes hadn't gotten used to the dazzlingly bright sun of Duckburg yet, and I greedily sucked the fresh breeze into my dusty lungs that came drifting over from Uncle Scrooge's money bin. I was back home again, in a decent world where one could get flattened by steam-rollers and perforated by bullets without serious harm. A world in which people still looked proper, with yellow beaks or black knobs instead of noses. And it was here that I met the man who would forever change my life - Donald Duck.”

Gottfried Helnwein (1948) Austrian photographer and painter

Memories of Duckburg, http://www.helnwein.com/texte/helnweintexts/artikel_398.html, Zeit Magazin, Hamburg, 1989

Life, Money, People, Books

“There have been a few players described as the new George Best over the years, but this is the first time it's been a compliment to me.”

George Best (1946–2005) British footballer

On Cristiano Ronaldo; reported in " Funniest ever footie quotes http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article891202.ece", TheSun.co.uk (March 8, 2008).

Time

“Jews abused and attacked on the streets of European cities… Muslim mobs attacking synagogues… Nobody gives a damn about Jews and they never have, which is why the Holocaust was allowed to happen in the first place.”

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

"A New Kind of Hate" (27 January 2015) https://youtube.com/watch/?v=YQjTLGgQV2w 2015

“We must first of all, however, definitely understand, in reference to the end we have in view, that it is not the concern of philosophy to produce religion in any individual. Its existence is, on the contrary, presupposed as forming what is fundamental in every one. So far as man s essential nature is concerned, nothing new is to be introduced into him. To try to do this would be as absurd as to give a dog printed writings to chew, under the idea that in this way you could put mind into it. It may happen that religion is awakened in the heart by means of philosophical knowledge, but it is not necessarily so. It is not the purpose of philosophy to edify, and quite as little is it necessary for it to make good its claims by showing in any particular case that it must produce religious feeling in the individual.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German philosopher

Lectures on the philosophy of religion, together with a work on the proofs of the existence of God. Translated from the 2d German ed. by E.B. Speirs, and J. Burdon Sanderson: the translation edited by E.B. Speirs. Published 1895 p. 4
Lectures on Philosophy of Religion, Volume 1 (1827)

Religion, Dogs, Way, Feeling

“He leapt upon his steed, and like the wind
They speed them on; at first his giddy brain
Swam like a chaos— mystery of the mind
Which would guide its own workings, but in vain :”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The London Literary Gazette, 1826

Speed

“Mixed feelings when he [Max Ernst frequently writes about himself in the third person] enters the forest for the first time: delight and oppression. And what the Romantics spoke of as 'being at one with Nature'. Wonderful joy in breathing freely in an open space, but also anxiety at being encircled by hostile trees. Outside and inside at the same time, free and trapped.”

Max Ernst (1891–1976) German painter, sculptor and graphic artist

Quote in 'Room 6, Max Ernst', the exhibition text of FONDATION BEYELER 2 - MAX ERNST, 2013, texts: Raphaël Bouvier & Ioana Jimborean; ed. Valentina Locatelli; transl. Karen Williams
Max Ernst is describing an early childhood experience, in the third person
posthumous

Hostility, Feeling, Nature, Tree

“After his first training session in heaven, George Best, from his favourite right wing, turned the head of God who was filling in at left-back. I would love him to save me a place in his team - George Best that is, not God.”

Eric Cantona (1966) French actor and association football player

Quotes of the week, BBC News, 6 December 2005, 2007-04-18 http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/funny_old_game/4498894.stm,

Love, God, Training

“I do not laugh. I am quite straight-faced as I ask soberly:
"But what on earth is whiteness that one should so desire it?" Then always, somehow, some way, silently but clearly, I am given to understand that whiteness is the ownership of the earth forever and ever, Amen!
Now what is the effect on a man or a nation when it comes passionately to believe such an extraordinary dictum as this? That nations are coming to believe it is manifest daily. Wave on wave, each with increasing virulence, is dashing this new religion of whiteness on the shores of our time. Its first effects are funny: the strut of the Southerner, the arrogance of the Englishman amuck, the whoop of the hoodlum who vicariously leads your mob.”

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer

Darkwater http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15210/15210-h/15210-h.htm (1920), Ch. II: The Souls of White Folk

Religion, Way, Understanding, Passion

“The Court must never forget, and will never forget, first of all, the rights of family life which are sacred.”

Charles Bowen (1835–1894) English judge

In re Agar-Ellis, Agar-Ellis v. Lascelles, (1883), id., L. R. 24 C. D. 337.

Life, Family, Forgetting

“The flat tax I got on my first meeting with Margaret Thatcher, who I admired very much and who was a great admirer of Milton Friedman. I met her first when I had been prime minister I think for some months and so on, and when I told her what I am planning to do, she looked at me with these big eyes and said “you are one brave young man.” And then a little bit introduced me on the realities of the Western world on which I was not very well informed. But I didn’t stop.”

Mart Laar (1960) Estonian politician and historian

Interview with Stephen J. Dubner, for 'Freakonomics Radio' podcast (24 March 2010), when asked how he learned the fate of Friedman's policies in the Western world.

World, Thinking, Reality

“It's often been observed that the first casualty of war is the truth. But that's a lie, too, in its way. The reality is that, for most wars to begin, the truth has to have been sacrificed a long time in advance.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Empire of Lies" Presented to the Libertarian Party of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 15 June 2003 http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2003/libe228-20030622-01.html.

War, Truth, Lie, Way

“I disagree with the concept that somehow or another we're going to pack up 10, to 12, to 15 million people and ship them back to the country of origin. That's not going to happen. So reality has to be part of our conversation. And then you need to have a strategy to deal with it. That is what I think we will have, but first you have to secure that border.”

Rick Perry (1950) 14th and current United States Secretary of Energy

2011-11-03T20:27
Perry supports work visas for illegal immigrants
Dana
Thompson
Houston Chronicle
http://blog.chron.com/rickperry/2011/11/perry-supports-work-visas-for-illegal-immigrants/
2011

People, Thinking, Reality, Parting

“The first time I remember women reacting to me was when we were filming Hud in Texas. Women were literally trying to climb through the transoms at the motel where I stayed. At first, it's flattering to the ego. At first. Then you realize that they're mixing me up with the roles I play — characters created by writers who have nothing to do with who I am.”

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

Quoted in Paul and Joanne: A Biography of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward by Joe Morella and Edward Z. Epstein (Delacorte Press, 1988, ISBN 0-440-50004-4), p. 96

Women, Time

“Water, making but one globe with the earth, is yet higher than it. This appears, first, because it is a body not so heavy; secondly, it is observed by sailors that their ships move faster to the shore than from it, whereof no reason can be given but the height of the water above the land; thirdly to such as stand on the shore the sea seems to swell into the form of a round hill till it puts a bound upon our sight. Now that the sea, hovering thus over and above the earth doth, not overwhelm it, can be ascribed only to his Providence who 'hath made the waters to stand on an heap that they turn not again to cover the earth.”

Peter Heylin (1599–1662) English ecclesiastic and author of polemical, historical, political and theological tracts

Microcosmos: a Little Description of the Great World (1621)

Water, Appearance, Sea

“My first memories are of the early '60s at mount road which was then an emerging area. We were a close-knit family and the four of us -- Dipti, Nina, Anil and I -- were left to do what we wanted. There were boundaries, of course, but within those, we were not micro-managed. Things have changed so much now. When my kids, Isha and Akash, were in the third standard, we behaved as though it was our exam.”

Mukesh Ambani (1957) Indian business magnate

Always invest in businesses of the future and in talent

Family, Memory, Change

“Icarus, Icarus, though the end is piteous,
Yet forever, yea, forever we shall see thee rising thus,
See the first supernal glory, not the ruin hideous.”

Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943) poet, short story writer, novelist

Source: Young Adventure (1918), Winged Man

“Out of five hundred who speak glibly of love, not one can spell the first letter of his name.”

Marie de France medieval poet

Tel cinc cent parolent d'amur,
N'en sevent pas le pior tur,
Ne que est loiax druerie.
"Graelent", line 77; p. 149.
Misattributed

Love

“Has any man, or any society of men, a truth to speak, a piece of spiritual work to do; they can nowise proceed at once and with the mere natural organs, but must first call a public meeting, appoint committees, issue prospectuses, eat a public dinner; in a word, construct or borrow machinery, wherewith to speak it and do it. Without machinery, they were hopeless, helpless.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1820s, Signs of the Times (1829)

Men, Truth, Nature

“These dangers inherent in the very idea of humanitarianism and altruism, dangers which have to-day produced their full harvest of human waste, of inequality and inefficiency, were fully recognized in the last century at the moment when such ideas were first put into practice.”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

The Pivot of Civilization, 1922

Idea

“Given the profits he and Pharaoh must have made, one might call Joseph the first international arbitrageur.”

Benoît Mandelbrot (1924–2010) Polish-born, French and American mathematician

Source: The (Mis)Behavior of Markets (2004, 2008), Ch. 10, p. 201 (A reference to Genesis 41:48–49, 54–57.)

“I'm very happy as I am. I realise that I made sacrifices early in my career and that it was hard on my relationships because, when I am working, I am very focused and it isn't easy, when you have been in the studio all day, to say to someone, 'I'll meet up with you later on.' I learned that it was necessary to be dedicated and put work first. But, at the same time, it was a wonderful feeling to be successful at doing something I loved.”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

Women's Weekly interview (2006)

Love, Happiness, Feeling, Learning

“The truth is Darwinism is not a scientific theory, but a materialistic creation myth masquerading as science. It is first and foremost a weapon against religion – especially traditional Christianity. Evidence is brought in afterwards, as window dressing.”

Jonathan Wells (1942) American intelligent design advocate

Why Darwinism is Doomed http://www.discovery.org/a/3750, 2006.

Truth, Religion, Science

“I could not have learned to listen to coyotes without having first learned to listen to my unwillingness to sell my hours, then to listen to the signals of my body, then to listen to the disease that has made my insides my home, and thus become a part of me. And I could not have learned to listen to coyotes without having talked to other people courageous enough to validate my perception of an animate world. I talked to the writer Christoper Manes, who said, 'For most cultures through history--including our own in preliterate times--the entire world used to speak. Anthropologists call this animism, the most pervasive worldview in human history. Animistic cultures listen to the natural world. For them, birds have something to say. So do worms, wolves, and waterfalls.' Later the philosopher Thomas Berry told me, 'The universe is composed of subjects to be communed with, not objects to be exploited. Everything has its own voice. Thunder and lightning and stars and planets, flowers, birds, animals, trees--all these have voices, and they constitute a community of existence that is profoundly related.”

Derrick Jensen book A Language Older Than Words

Source: A Language Older Than Words (2000), p. 361

People, World, Disease, Home

“Brokeback Mountain was released last weekend. Its notable for being the first Western where the good guys get it in the end.”

Tina Fey (1970) American comedian, writer, producer and actress

citation needed

Guy, Mountain

“Every single living human being who encountered the first ray of light of this new century will pass away this century”

He Xuntian (1953) Chinese musician

Passing By the Earth (1999)

Light

“I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both; and I believe they both get paid in the end; but the fools first.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Kidnapped

Kidnapped, ch. 14 (1886).

Men, Fools

“The only substantial contribution was made by an RSS lawyer hailing from Anantnag in Kashmir. “I have studied Islam in depth,” he said, “and found it to be a great religion. I cannot understand anyone placing Islam in the dock.” Ironically enough this defender of Islam was literally the first to be shot dead when the ethnic cleansing started in the Valley in the winter of 1989.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Time for Stock-Taking (1997)

Religion, Understanding, Study, Winter

“When it was assumed that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs, it was correspondingly presumed that their flight evolved among climbers that first glided and then developed powered flight. This has the advantage that we know that arboreal animals can evolve powered flight with the aid of gravity, as per bats. When it was realized that birds descended from deinonychosaurs, many researchers switched to the hypothesis that running dinosaurs learned to fly from the ground up. This has the disadvantage that it is not certain whether it is practical for tetrapod flight to evolve among ground runners working against gravity.
The characteristics of birds indicate that they evolved from dinosaurs that had first evolved as bipedal runners, and then evolved into long armed climbers. If the ancestors of birds had been entirely arboreal, then they should be semiquadrupedal forms whose sprawling legs were integrated into the main airfoil, like bats. That birds are bipeds whose erect legs are separate from the wings indicates that their ancestors evolved to run.”

Gregory Scott Paul book The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs

Gregory S. Paul (2010) The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, Princeton University Press, p. 52
The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs

Bird, Learning, Animals, Flying

“Beethoven is the first composer to represent the complex process of memory-not merely the sense of loss and regret that accompanies visions of the past, but the physical experience of calling up the past within the present.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 3 : Mountains and Song Cycles

Sense, Memory, Loss, Past

“Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must first set yourself on fire.”

Fred Shero (1925–1990) Former ice hockey player and coach

Jim
Jackson
Walking Together Forever: The Broad Street Bullies, Then and Now
2004
31 &32
Sports Publishing L.L.C.
1-58261-389-3

Success, Graduation

“Three factors defeated us in the West where I was in command. First, the unheard-of superiority of your air force, which made all movement in daytime impossible. Second, the lack of motor fuel - oil and gas - so that the Panzers and even the Luftwaffe were unable to move. Third, the systematic destruction of all railway communications so that it was impossible to bring one single railroad train across the Rhine.”

Gerd von Rundstedt (1875–1953) German Field Marshal during World War II

Quoted in "The Battle of the Bulge: Hitler's Final Gamble" - by Patrick Delaforce - History - 2004

Communication, Training

“Now, the most eloquent irreligious individual voice in Nigeria is our first Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka. Soyinka is an eminent literary scholar. He has consistently argued for tolerance and respect for the humanity of all in the face of religious intolerance and extremism. Soyinka has not minced words in condemning the unconscionable religious gladiators in the region that have often turned the country into a theatre of absurdity and holy wars. He has been consistent in his condemnation of the jihadists and crusaders who often orchestrate religious bloodletting in their quest to implement Sharia law or to further some self-styled divine mandate. While I cannot say for sure how impactful his rational appeals are on policies and programs, Soyinka’s statements are sources of hope and light at times of darkness and despair. I can say for certain that on occasions when religious extremists push the nation to the brink. When religion blinds and people are unable to see or think clearly, when fear and fanaticism loom very large, Soyinka is a voice of rational sanity, thoughtful courage, and moderation.”

Leo Igwe (1970) Nigerian human rights activist

An Interview with Dr. Leo Igwe — Founder, Nigerian Humanist Movement (2017)

War, People, Fear, Religion

“Ernst Toller reported that a fellow-prisoner also interned for involvement in the Räterepublik had met Hitler in a Munich barracks during the first months after the revolution, and that the latter had then been calling himself a Social Democrat. Konrad Heiden remarked that, during the time of the Councils Republic, Hitler had, in heated discussions among his comrades, voiced support for the Social Democratic government against the of the Communists.”

Ian Kershaw (1943) British historian

Source: Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris (1999), pp. 118-119

Support, Time

“Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things that people do.”

William Zinsser (1922–2015) writer, editor, journalist, literary critic, professor

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 2, Simplicity, p. 12.

People, Time, Despair

“The problem of the biquadratic equation was laid prominently before Italian mathematicians by Zuanne de Tonini da Coi, who in 1540 proposed the problem, "Divide 10 parts into three parts such that they shall be continued in proportion and that the product of the first two shall be 6." He gave this to Cardan with the statement that it could not be solved, but Cardan denied the assertion, although himself unable to solve it. He gave it to Ferrari, his pupil, and the latter, although then a mere youth, succeeded where the master had failed. …This method soon became known to algebraists through Cardan's Ars Magna, and in 1567 we find it used by Nicolas Petri”

David Eugene Smith (1860–1944) American mathematician

of Deventer
Source: History of Mathematics (1925) Vol.2, pp.467-468

Youth, Problem, Parting

“Those whose conduct gives room for talk
Are always the first to attack their neighbors.”

Molière book Tartuffe

Ceux de qui la conduite offre le plus à rire
Sont toujours sur autrui les premiers à médire.
Act I, sc. i
Tartuffe (1664)

“It is my burning desire to help Christians get back to a simple faith in God’s Word. Satan’s method has always been to instill [sic] doubt in God’s Word. The first sentence that came from Satan that is recorded for us in the Bible is: “Yea, hath God said?” He started by questioning God’s Word in the garden of Eden. It worked there so he has used it ever since. In the twentieth century the major attack Satan has launched has been against the first eleven chapters of Genesis. He knows that the entire Bible stands or falls on the validity of these chapters. I believe that the Bible is the infallible, inerrant, inspired, perfect Word of God. I believe that the Bible needs to be read and believed as it stands. Christians are often guilty of neglecting or twisting the Bible to fit their lifestyle or their preconceived ideas.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Dissertation for doctor of philosophy in christian education (May 25, 1991)

God, Faith, Idea, Question

“The corner-gang structure arises out of the habitual association of the members over a long period of time. The nuclei of most gangs can be traced back to early boyhood, when living close together provided the first opportunities for social contacts… The gangs grew up on the corner and remained there with remarkable persistence from early boyhood until the members reached their late twenties or early thirties. In the course of years some groups were broken up by the movement of families away from Cornerville, and the remaining members merged with gangs on near-by corners; but frequently movement out of the district does not take the corner boy away from his corner. On any evening on almost any corner one finds corner boys who have come in from other parts of the city or from suburbs to be with their old friends…”

William Foote Whyte book Street Corner Society

Source: Street Corner Society, 1943, pp. 255-63, as cited in: Blaine E. Mercer (1958), Introduction to the study of society https://archive.org/stream/introductiontost00merc#page/35/mode/1up, p. 35-40.

Family, Boy, Time, Parting

“For the Norse people, the Man now named Odin, and Chief Norse God, we fancy, was such a man. A Teacher, and Captain of soul and of body; a Hero, of worth immeasurable; admiration for whom, transcending the known bounds, became adoration. Has he not the power of articulate Thinking; and many other powers, as yet miraculous? So, with boundless gratitude, would the rude Norse heart feel. Has he not solved for them the sphinx-enigma of this Universe; given assurance to them of their own destiny there? By him they know now what they have to do here, what to look for hereafter. Existence has become articulate, melodious by him; he first has made Life alive!—We may call this Odin, the origin of Norse Mythology: Odin, or whatever name the First Norse Thinker bore while he was a man among men. His view of the Universe once promulgated, a like view starts into being in all minds; grows, keeps ever growing, while it continues credible there. In all minds it lay written, but invisibly, as in sympathetic ink; at his word it starts into visibility in all. Nay, in every epoch of the world, the great event, parent of all others, is it not the arrival of a Thinker in the world—!”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Divinity

Life, Men, God, People

“That is always the way with you men; you believe nothing the first time; and it is foolish enough to let mere repetition convince you of what you consider in itself unbelievable.”

George MacDonald book Phantastes

Phantastes (1858)

Men, Way, Time

“One of my first sculptures was made of bicycle parts. I was living at that time in a attic in the red light section of Amsterdam. I started to work without any specific materials. I was looking in the street like when I was a young boy, in the garbage cans, for ropes, wires, and paint. I left my parents in 1940. Years later I saw an exhibition of Kurt Schwitters at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam curated by Willem Sandberg and there I saw the real 'objet trouvé'; until then I had never heard about it. Schwitters was a shattering experience.”

Karel Appel (1921–2006) Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet

Source: Karel Appel – the complete sculptures,' (1990), p. 79 'Quotes', K. Appel (1989)

Boy, Parent, Light, Time

“Some think that we are approaching a critical moment in the history of Liberalism…We hear of a divergence of old Liberalism and new…The terrible new school, we hear, are for beginning operations by dethroning Gladstonian finance. They are for laying hands on the sacred ark. But did any one suppose that the fiscal structure which was reared in 1853 was to last for ever, incapable of improvement, and guaranteed to need no repair? We can all of us recall, at any rate, one very memorable admission that the great system of Gladstonian finance had not reached perfection. That admission was made by no other person than Mr. Gladstone himself in his famous manifesto of 1874, when he promised the most extraordinary reduction of which our taxation is capable. Surely there is as much room for improvement in taxation as in every other work of fallible man, provided that we always cherish the just and sacred principle of taxation that it is equality of private sacrifice for public good. Another heresy is imputed to this new school which fixes a deep gulf between the wicked new Liberals and the virtuous old. We are adjured to try freedom first before we try interference of the State. That is a captivating formula, but it puzzles me to find that the eminent statesman who urges us to lay this lesson to heart is strongly in favour of maintaining the control of the State over the Church? But is State interference an innovation? I thought that for 30 years past Liberals had been as much in favour as other people of this protective legislation. Are to we assume that it has all been wrong? Is my right hon. friend going to propose its repeal or the repeal of any of it; or has all past interference been wise, and we have now come to the exact point where not another step can be taken without mischief? …other countries have tried freedom and it is just because we have decided that freedom in such a case is only a fine name for neglect, and have tried State supervision, that we have saved our industrial population from the waste, destruction, destitution, and degradation that would otherwise have overtaken them…In short, gentlemen, I am not prepared to allow that the Liberty and the Property Defence League are the only people with a real grasp of Liberal principles, that Lord Bramwell and the Earl of Wemyss are the only Abdiels of the Liberal Party.”

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor

Annual presidential address to the Junior Liberal Association of Glasgow (10 February 1885), quoted in 'Mr. John Morley At Glasgow', The Times (11 February 1885), p. 10.

People, School, History, Thinking

“Now the consequences, the disruptive effects of such self-centeredness, such egocentric desires, are tragic. And we see these every day. At first, it leads to frustration and disillusionment and unhappiness at many points. For usually when people are self-centered, they are self-centered because they are seeking attention, they want to be admired and this is the way they set out to do it. But in the process, because of their self-centeredness, they are not admired; they are mawkish and people don’t want to be bothered with them. And so the very thing they seek, they never get. And they end up frustrated and unhappy and disillusioned.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)
Context: The individual who is self-centered, the individual who is egocentric ends up being very sensitive, a very touchy person. And that is one of the tragic effects of a self-centered attitude, that it leads to a very sensitive and touchy response toward the universe. These are the people you have to handle with kid gloves because they are touchy, they are sensitive. And they are sensitive because they are self-centered. They are too absorbed in self and anything gets them off, anything makes them angry. Anything makes them feel that people are looking over them because of a tragic self-centeredness. That even leads to the point that the individual is not capable of facing trouble and the hard moments of life. One can become so self-centered, so egocentric that when the hard and difficult moments of life come, he cannot face them because he’s too centered in himself.
Context: The individual who is self-centered, the individual who is egocentric ends up being very sensitive, a very touchy person. And that is one of the tragic effects of a self-centered attitude, that it leads to a very sensitive and touchy response toward the universe. These are the people you have to handle with kid gloves because they are touchy, they are sensitive. And they are sensitive because they are self-centered. They are too absorbed in self and anything gets them off, anything makes them angry. Anything makes them feel that people are looking over them because of a tragic self-centeredness. That even leads to the point that the individual is not capable of facing trouble and the hard moments of life. One can become so self-centered, so egocentric that when the hard and difficult moments of life come, he cannot face them because he’s too centered in himself. These are the people who cannot face disappointments. These are the people who cannot face being defeated. These are the people who cannot face being criticized. These are the people who cannot face these many experiences of life which inevitably come because they are too centered in themselves. In time, somebody criticizes them, time somebody says something about them that they don’t like too well, time they are disappointed, time they are defeated, even in a little game, they end up broken-hearted. They can’t stand up under it because they are centered in self.

People, Way

“Progress in modifying our concept of control has been and will be comparatively slow. In the first place, it requires the application of certain modern physical concepts; and in the second place it requires the application of statistical methods which up to the present time have been for the most part left undisturbed in the journal in which they appeared.”

Walter A. Shewhart (1891–1967) American statistician

Source: Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product,1931, p. 4-5

Appearance, Time, Parting

“It is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals that their maxims have a plausible air; and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as copper coin; and about as valuable. They serve equally the first capacities and the lowest; and they are, at least, as useful to the worst men as to the best. Of this stamp is the cant of not man, but measures; a sort of charm by which many people get loose from every honourable engagement.”

Edmund Burke book Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents

Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770)

Wisdom, Men, People, Light

“You know I have no political ambitions. My job is to command my army and see that it is kept as a first rate instrument. Your job is to look after the country.”

Sam Manekshaw (1914–2008) First Field marshal of the Indian Army

This was a reply he gave when Indira Gandhi called him to her chamber and confronted him with the question Are you trying to take over from me? [Jayakar, Pupul Jayakar, Indira Gandhi: A Biography, http://books.google.com/books?id=gm5JGkb2rhkC&pg=PA512, 27 November 1997, Penguin Books India, 978-0-14-011462-1, 215]

Country

“I have also always believed that we have to confront big decisions, not duck them. That is why we delivered the first coalition government in 70 years, to bring our economy back from the brink.”

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

Speech delivered outside outside 10 Downing Street, announcing that he would resign as prime minister after British voters chose to leave the European Union in a referendum (June 24, 2016), see David Cameron's resignation speech in full http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/24/europe/david-cameron-full-resignation-speech/ (published by CNN) 2010s, 2016

Decision

“If an addict who has been completely cured starts smoking again he no longer experiences the discomfort of his first addiction. There exists, therefore, outside alkaloids and habit, a sense for opium, an intangible habit which lives on, despite the recasting of the organism…. The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

Opium (1929)

Sense, Housing, Dead

“About six months ago, I listened to Siamese Dream. That was the first time I'd ever really heard my own album, because I had separated from the experience of making the record. And it really moved me. It made me cry, it's so beautiful.”

Billy Corgan (1967) American musician, songwriter, producer, and author

"Out on a Limb." Details Magazine. October 1996.

Beauty, Dreams, Time, Cry

“In the Autumn semester, 1955, I taught Principles of Economics, and found it a challenge to convey basic microeconomic theory to students. Why/how could any market approximate a competitive equilibrium? I resolved that on the first day of class the following semester, I would try running a market experiment that would give the students an opportunity to experience an actual market, and me the opportunity to observe one in which I knew, but they did not know what were the alleged driving conditions of supply and demand in that market”

Vernon L. Smith (1927) American economist

Vernon L. Smith (2002) in: " Vernon L. Smith - Biographical http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/2002/smith-bio.html". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2013. Web. 13 Jun 2014.

Autumn

“.. emotion that I experienced on first seeing the fresh paint come out of the tube.... the impression of colours strewn over the palette: of colours – alive, waiting, as yet unseen and hidden in their little tubes..”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

Source: 1916 -1920, Autobiography', 1918, p. 9

Waiting, Painting

“The chief weakness in France’s anti-terrorism strategy is the inability of its leadership elite to agree on a workable definition of the threat the nation faces. Many still cling to the notion that Bouhelel and other terrorists are trying to take revenge against France for tis colonial past. Yet Tunisia, where Bouhelel’s family came from in the 1960s, has been independent for more than 60 years, double the life of the terrorist — who had not been there, even as a tourist. Some, like the Islamologist Gilles Kepel, blame French society for “the sense of exclusion” inflicted on immigrants of Muslim origin. However, leaving aside self-exclusion, there are few barriers that French citizens of Muslim faith can’t cross. Today, the Cabinet of Prime Minister Manuel Valls includes at least two Muslim ministers. Others still claim that France is being hit because of Muslim grievances over Palestine, although successive French governments have gone out of their way to sympathize with the “Arab cause.” France was the first nation to impose an arms embargo on Israel in 1967 and the first in the West to recognize the PLO. The blame-the-victim school also claims that France is attacked because of the “mess in the Middle East,” although the French took no part in toppling Saddam Hussein and have stayed largely on the sidelines in the conflict in Syria. Isn’t it possible that this new kind of terrorism, practiced by neo-Islam, is not related to any particular issue? Isn’t it possible that Bouhelel didn’t want anything specific because he wanted everything, starting with the right to kill people not because of what they did but because of who they were?”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"A cry from France: After Nice, can we finally face the truth about this war?" http://nypost.com/2016/07/15/a-cry-from-france-after-nice-can-we-finally-face-the-truth-about-this-war/ New York Post (July 15, 2016) New York Post

Life, People, School, Family

“In the corner of the morning in the past
I would sit and blame the master first and last.
All the roads were straight and narrow
And the prayers were small and yellow.
And the rumour spread that I was aging fast.
Then I ran across a monster who was sleeping
By a tree.
And I looked and frowned and the monster was me.”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

The Width of a Circle
Song lyrics, The Man Who Sold the World (1970)

Age, Sleep, Tree, Past

“Even the Revenue is better loved by the twenty first century Irish natives than were the English colonists who ruled from Dublin Castle in earlier centuries.”

Dennis O'Driscoll (1954–2012) Irish poet, critic

'Sing for the Taxman' -Poetry Magazine-Poetry Foundation May 1 2009
Having lived in Ireland all my life I can hardly be more 'Irish', in ways that are invisible to me. My inclination is to play down my Irishness rather than whip it up. Nothing is more potentially damaging to an Irish writer than buying into the myth that we have some locutions and the so called ' gift of the gab' too many Irish writers have fall prey to such delusions.
Interview ,Mark Thwaite, 12th August 2005. 'Ready Steady Book for literature'
Other Quotes

Love

“But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve,
He taught; but first he folwed it himselve.”

Geoffrey Chaucer book The Canterbury Tales

General Prologue, l. 529
The Canterbury Tales

“When I first painted a number of canvases grey all over (about eight years ago), I did so because I did not know what to paint, or what there might be to paint: so wretched a start could lead to nothing meaningful. As time went on, however, I observed differences of quality among the grey surfaces – and also that these betrayed nothing of the destructive motivation that lay behind them. The pictures began to teach me. By generalizing a personal dilemma, they resolved it.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

Quote of Richter on his 'Grey Paintings', in a letter to nl:Edy de Wilde, 23 February 1975; as cited on collected quotes on the website of Gerhard Richter: on 'Grey-paintings' https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/quotes/subjects-2/grey-paintings-9 1970's

Motivation, Time, Painting, Personality

Quotes about first page 71

Quotes about first
page 71