Quotes about first
page 9

“The logical conclusion of intersectionality is individuality. There's so many different ways of categorizing people's advantages and disadvantages, that if you take that all the way out to the end you say 'Well, the individual is the ultimate minority' – and that's exactly right. And that's exactly what the West discovered. The intersectionalists will get there if they don't kill everyone first.”

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

Identity politics and the Marxist lie of white privilege talk, 3rd November 2017

People, Way

“To know when one's self is interested, is the first condition of interesting other people.”

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

Source: Marius the Epicurean http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/8mrs110.txt (1885), Ch. 6

People

“When you read Genesis, you find that it was Adam who was given the specific instruction not to eat the fruit of the tree. You see, Adam was created first, and God had ordained that he was to be the head of his family. He then gave Adam instruction as to what was expected of him. Adam, of course, would've told Eve, because she was really under his headship. Therefore, when Eve took the fruit, Adam shouldn't have joined her. He should've gone directly to God and asked for a solution. Instead, he joined his wife and brought sin and death into the world. You know, this is a lesson we need to learn today about men taking the leadership role in their families.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

Did Adam have a Bellybutton?: And other tough questions about the Bible (2000)

Death, Men, God, World

“Psychology has a long past, yet its real history is short. For thousands of years it has existed and has been growing older; but in the earlier part of this period it cannot boast of any continuous progress toward a riper and richer development. In the fourth century before our era that giant thinker, Aristotle, built it up into an edifice comparing very favorably with any other science of that time. But this edifice stood without undergoing any noteworthy changes or extensions, well into the eighteenth or even the nineteenth century. Only in recent times do we find an advance, at first slow but later increasing in rapidity, in the development of psychology.”

Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909) German psychologist

Source: Psychology: An elementary textbook, 1908, p. 3: Partly cited in: Edwin Boring (1929) A History of Experimental Psychology p. ix

History, Science, Change, Time

“I'm not a prude, I just want some respect (that's right)
So close the door if you want me to respond
Cause privacy is my middle name
My last name is control
No, my first name ain't baby
It's Janet — Ms. Jackson, if you're nasty”

Janet Jackson (1966) singer from the United States

Nasty
Control (1986)

Baby

“And in the meantime, Michelle has had a chance to greet the incoming First Lady. And we had an excellent conversation with her as well. And we want to make sure that they feel welcome as they prepare to make this transition.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, Presidential transition of Donald Trump (November 2016)

Feeling, Chance

“Our first and immutable commitment must be to the security of Israel, our only true ally in the Middle East and the only democracy”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Chicago Daily Herald (18 October 2004) http://www.democrats.org/page/speakout/unfit 2004

Democracy

“My first teachers were street players, guys who would hustle you, get in your head, break you down mentally before they did it over the board.”

Josh Waitzkin (1976) Chess player

Sonshi interview

Guy, Teachers

“With the new weapons like the atom bomb, Russia would have it, too, and use it first. It is a very difficult world. But that trouble is imminent is obvious.”

Karl Dönitz (1891–1980) President of Germany; admiral in command of German submarine forces during World War II

To Leon Goldensohn, July 14, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.

World

“As geological time goes, it is but a moment since the human race began and only the twinkling of an eye since the arts of civilization were first invented. In spite of some alarmists, it is hardly likely that our species will completely exterminate itself. And so long as man continues to exist, we may be pretty sure that, whatever he may suffer for a time, and whatever brightness may be eclipsed, he will emerge sooner or later, perhaps strengthened and reinvigorated by a period of mental sleep. The universe is vast and men are but tiny specks on an insignificant planet. But the more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic forces, the more astonishing becomes what human beings have achieved.”

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

"If We are to Survive this Dark Time", The New York Times Magazine (3 September 1950)
1950s

Men, Art, Sleep, Suffering

“The best and safest method of philosophizing seems to be, first to enquire diligently into the properties of things, and to establish these properties by experiment, and then to proceed more slowly to hypothesis for the explanation of them. For hypotheses should be employed only in explaining the properties of things, but not assumed in determining them, unless so far as they may furnish experiments.”

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

Letter to Ignatius Pardies (1672) Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (Feb. 1671/2) as quoted by William L. Harper, Isaac Newton's Scientific Method: Turning Data Into Evidence about Gravity and Cosmology (2011)

“In Africa a thing is true at first light and a lie by noon and you have no more respect for it than for the lovely, perfect wood-fringed lake you see across the sun-baked salt plain. You have walked across that plain in the morning and you know that no such lake is there. But now it is there absolutely true, beautiful and believable.”

Ernest Hemingway book True at First Light

Source: True at First Light (1999), Ch. 10

Love, Lie, Beauty, Light

“And something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and I suddenly saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Y algo golpeaba en mi alma,
fiebre o alas perdidas,
y me fui haciendo solo,
descifrando
aquella quemadura
y escribí la primera línea vaga,
vaga, sin cuerpo, pura,
tontería
pura sabiduría
del que no sabe nada,
y vi de pronto
el cielo
desgranado
y abierto.
Poesía (Poetry) from Memorial de Isla Negra (Memorial of Isla Negra) (1964), Selected Poems by Pablo Neruda [Houghton Mifflin, 1990, ISBN 0-395-54418-1] (p. 457).

Wisdom, Way, Soul

“It did take a Clinton to clean up after the first Bush, and I think it might take another one to clean up after the second Bush.”

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

CNN http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/31/debate.main/index.html Presidential campaign (January 20, 2007 – 2008)

Thinking

“Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first.”

Peter Ustinov book Dear Me

Dear Me (1977)

People

“He's the quietest little fellow you ever saw. He makes the least fuss of any man you ever knew. I believe he had been in this room a minute or so before I knew he was here. Grant is the first general I have had. You know how it's been with all the rest. As soon as I put a man in command of the army, they all wanted me to be the general. Now it isn't so with Grant. He hasn't told me what his plans are. I don't know and I don't want to know. I am glad to find a man who can go ahead without me. He doesn't ask impossibilities of me, and he's the first general I've had that didn't.”

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

About General U.S. Grant, as quoted in The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln: A Narrative and Descriptive Biography http://www.granthomepage.com/grantgeneral.htm, by Francis Fisher Brown, p. 520 1860s

“Farabi followed Plato not merely as regards the manner in which he presented the philosophic teaching in his most important books. He held the view that Plato’s philosophy was the true philosophy. To reconcile his Platonism with his adherence to Aristotle, he could take three more or less different ways. First, he could try to show that the explicit teachings of both philosophers can be reconciled with each other. He devoted to this attempt his Concordance of the opinions of Plato and Aristotle. The argument of that work is partly based on the so-called Theology of Aristotle: by accepting this piece of neo-platonic origin as a genuine work of Aristotle, he could easily succeed in proving the substantial agreement of the explicit teachings of both philosophers concerning the crucial subjects. It is however very doubtful whether Farabi considered his Concordance as more than an exoteric treatise, and thus whether it would be wise of us to attach great importance to its explicit argument. Secondly, he could show that the esoteric teachings of both philosophers are identical. Thirdly, he could show that “the aim” of both philosophers is identical.”

Al-Farabi (872–951) Philosopher in 10th century Central Asia

Leo Strauss, Farabi's Plato http://contemporarythinkers.org/leo-strauss/essay/farabis-plato/, Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume, American Academy for Jewish Research, 1945. Reprinted, revised and abbreviated, in Persecution and the Art of Writing.

Books, Way

“[Nasreddin had to don his finest clothes in order to be admitted to a fancy dinner party. ]
He reached over, took a piece of meat and stuffed it in his shirt. He poked the next piece into his cummerbund. Then he jammed one into each pocket of his pants. All eyes were on Nasreddin as he gathered the long sleeves of his cloak and soaked them in the bowl of hot gravy. A stunned guest jumped to his feet and demanded, Effendi! [Sir! ] What is the meaning of your outrageous behavior?" "Well," said Nasreddin Odjah, "when you find yourself in a place where clothes are more welcome than the person wearing them, you must feed the clothes first and the person afterward!"”

Nasreddin (1208–1284) philosopher, Sufi and wise man from Turkey, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes

Flora Joy, Treasures from Europe: stories and classroom activities (2003), "Nasreddin Odjah's Clothes (Macedonia)", , p. 104

Behavior, Personality, Clothes

“Truth," it has been said, "is the first casualty of war.”

Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden (1864–1937) British politician

Introduction to Truth and the War, by E. D. Morel. London, July 1916. p. ix books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=gQFIAAAAIAAJ&q=casualty. p. xiii in the 3rd edition 1918 archive.org http://www.archive.org/stream/truthwar00more#page/n17/mode/2up (cf. Aeschylus#Misattributed) Hiram Johnson is often credited with this statement, or something similar. However, Snowden's use appears to have predated those of Johnson while being more consistent with the now-common, "Truth is the first casualty of war."

War, Truth

“Progress towards sanity is achieved by abandoning first the desire for omnipotence and then that for exceptional achievement.”

Celia Green (1935) British philosopher

Advice to Clever Children (1981)

“My greatest concern was what to call it. I thought of calling it 'information,' but the word was overly used, so I decided to call it 'uncertainty.' When I discussed it with John von Neumann, he had a better idea. Von Neumann told me, 'You should call it entropy, for two reasons. In the first place your uncertainty function has been used in statistical mechanics under that name, so it already has a name. In the second place, and more important, no one really knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage.”

Claude Elwood Shannon (1916–2001) American mathematician and information theorist

Scientific American (1971), volume 225, page 180.
Explaining why he named his uncertainty function "entropy".

Idea

“About ten months ago a report reached my ears that a certain Fleming had constructed a spyglass by means of which visible objects, though very distant from the eye of the observer, were distinctly seen as if nearby. Of the truly remarkable effect several experiences were related, to which some persons gave credence while others denied them. A few days later a report was confirmed to me in a letter from a noble Frenchman in Paris, Jacques Badovere, which caused me to apply myself wholeheartedly to inquire into means by which I might arrive at the invention of a similar instrument. This I did shortly afterwards, my basis being the theory of refraction. First I prepared a tube of lead, at the ends I fitted two glass lenses, both plane on one side while on the other side one was spherically convex and the other concave. Then placing my eye near the concave lens I perceived objects satisfactorily large and near, for they appeared three times closer and nine times larger than when seen with the naked eye alone. Next I constructed another one, more accurate, which represented objects as enlarged more than sixty times. Finally, sparing neither labor nor expense, I succeeded in constructing for myself so excellent an instrument that objects seen by means of it appeared nearly one thousand times larger and over thirty times closer than when regarded with our natural vision.”

Galileo Galilei book Sidereus Nuncius

Translation by Stillman Drake in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (1957)
Sidereus Nuncius (Venice, 1609)

Nature, Distant, Appearance, Time

“Interview "Cosmopolitan Sofia":
If there were a fire in your house, what would be the first thing you would take away with you?
- I would take away my legs.”

Sofia Rotaru (1947) Ukrainain soviet and Ukrainian musician, singer, songwriter, actress, author of Moldavian origin

Housing

“I am a sincere Catholic as it were Corneille, Racine, La Bruyère, Bossnet, Bourdaloue, Fènelon, as were and still are so many of the most of the honor of out science, philosophy and literature, and have conferred such brilliant ustre on our Academies. I share the deep conviction openly manifested in words, deeds and writings by so many savants of the first rank, by a Ruffini, a Haüy, a Laënnec, an Ampere, a Pelletier, a Freycinet, a Coriolis and I avoid naming any of those living, for fear of paining their podesty. I may at least be allowed to say that I loved to recognize all the noble generosity of the Christian Faith in my illustrious friends the creator of Crystallography (Haüy), the introducers of quinine and stethoscope (Pelletier and Laënnec), the famous voyager on board of the 'Urania', and the immortal founders of the theory of Dynamic Electricity”

Augustin Louis Cauchy (1789–1857) French mathematician (1789–1857)

Frencinet and Ampère

Love, Pain, Fear, Faith

“Be kind to thy father, for when thou wert young,
Who loved thee so fondly as he?
He caught the first accents that fell from thy tongue,
And joined in thy innocent glee.”

Margaret Courtney (1822–1862) American poet (1822-1862)

Be Kind

Love

“Irony is the first hint that consciousness became conscious.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 151
The Book of Disquiet
Original: A ironia é o primeiro indício de que a consciência se tornou consciente.

“O admirable impartiality of Thine, Thou first Mover; Thou hast not permitted that any force should fail of the order or quality of its necessary results.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

“It's a new day
For the faceless,
Take the torches
From the useless,
First amendment,
Second guesses,
All dependent,
I'll do anything to help youFallen crosses,
New alliance,
Deeper thinkers,
Modern science,
Open guest list,
All inclusive,
No one loses,
Everything you've always wanted”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

Let It Die, written by Ozzy Osbourne, Kevin Churko and Adam Wakeman.
Song lyrics, Scream (2010)

Science, Help, Dependency

“The simplest and commonest truth seems new and miraculous the very moment we first experience it in ourselves.”

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer

Die einfachste und bekannteste Wahrheit erscheint uns augenblicklich neu und wunderbar, sobald wir sie zum ersten Mal an uns selbst erleben.
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 20.

Truth

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

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

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

Hostility, Peace, Effort, Strong

“First, I say, that woman in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man, not to rule and command him. As St. Paul does reason in these words: "Man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. And man was not created for the cause of the woman, but the woman for the cause of man; and therefore ought the woman to have a power upon her head" [1 Cor. 11:8-10] (that is, a cover in sign of subjection). Of which words it is plain that the apostle means, that woman in her greatest perfection should have known that man was lord above her; and therefore that she should never have pretended any kind of superiority above him, no more than do the angels above God the Creator, or above Christ their head. [38] So I say, that in her greatest perfection, woman was created to be subject to man.”

John Knox (1514–1572) Scottish clergyman, writer and historian

God, Angels, Christ, Perfection

“The noble lord in this case, as in so many others, first destroys his opponent, and then destroys his own position afterwards. The noble lord is the Prince Rupert of parliamentary discussion: his charge is resistless, but when he returns from the pursuit he always finds his camp in the possession of the enemy.”

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

Speech in the House of Commons (24 April 1844), referring to Lord Stanley; compare: "The brilliant chief, irregularly great, / Frank, haughty, rash,—the Rupert of debate!", Edward Bulwer-Lytton, The New Timon (1846), Part i.
1840s

“There is not less wit nor invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought. Cardinal du Perron has been heard to say that the happy application of a verse of Virgil has deserved a talent.”

Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) French philosopher and writer

Pierre Bayle, Works, Volume II, p. 779; in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 653-54: About quotation.

Happiness, Books

“Another illustration. When for the first time I met Mister Clay, the other day in the cars, in front of us sat an old gentleman with an enormous wen upon his neck. Everybody would say the wen was a great evil, and would cause the man's death after a while. But you couldn't cut it out, for he'd bleed to death in a minute. But would you engraft the seeds of that wen on the necks of sound and healthy men? He must endure and be patient, hoping for possible relief. The wen represents slavery on the neck of this country. This only applies to those who think slavery is wrong. Those who think it right would consider the snake a jewel, and the wen an ornament.”

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

1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)

Death, Men, Hope, Cars

“When God sees the Soul pure as it was in its origins, He tugs at it with a glance, draws it and binds it to Himself with a fiery love that by itself could annihilate the immortal soul. In so acting, God so transforms the soul in Him that it knows nothing other than God; and He continues to draw it up into His fiery love until He restores it to that pure state from which it first issued. These rays purify and then annihilate. The soul becomes like gold that becomes purer as it is fired, all dross being cast out. Having come to the point of twenty-four carats, gold cannot be purified any further; and this is what happens to the soul in the fire of God’s love”

Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510) Italian author and nurse

Source: The Treatise on Purgatory, p. 79-80

Love, God, Soul, Drawing

“I was pleased because he is the first American rapper to say something positive about gay people. I met his mum, she's lovely.”

Boy George (1961) English musician

The London Evening Standard, 20 February 2006:
On Kanye West's winning of the Brit award

Love, People

“It is the study of the Chemists to liberate that unsensual truth from its fetters in things of sense, for through it the heavenly powers are persued with subtle understanding…. Knowledge is the sure and undoubted resolution by experiment of all opinions concerning the truth…. Experiment is manifest demonstration of the truth, and resolution the putting away of doubt. We cannot be resolved of any doubt save by experiment, and therefore is no better way to make it than on ourselves. Let us therefore verify what we have said above concerning the truth, beginning with ourselves. We have said that piety consists in knowledge of ourselves, and hence it is said that we make philosophical knowledge begin from this also. But no man can know himself unless he know what and not who he is, on whom he depends and whose he is (for by the law of truth no one belongs to himself, and to what end he was made. With this knowledge piety begins, which is concerned with two things, namely, with the Creator and the creature that is made like unto him. For it is impossible for the creature to know himself of himself, unless he first know his Creator…. No one can better know the Creator, than the workman is known by his work.”

Gerhard Dorn (1530–1584) alchemist, bibliophile, philosopher, physician, translator

Theatrum Chemicum Volume 1 phil. med.

Truth, Law, Way, Understanding

“The man changed position, turned his back on the wardrobe blocking the door and let his right arm slide down toward the side on which the dog is lying. A minute later, he was awake. He was thirsty. He turned on his bedside light, got up, shuffled his feet into the slippers which were, as always, providing a pillow for the dog's head, and went into the kitchen. Death followed him. The man filled a glass with water and drank it. At this point, the dog appeared, slaked his thirst in the water-dish next to the back door and then looked up at his master. I suppose you want to go out, said the cellist. He opened the door and waited until the animal came back. A little water remained in his glass. Death looked at it and made an effort to imagine what it must be like to feel thirsty, but failed. She would have been equally incapable of imagining it when she'd had to make people die of thirst in the desert, but at the time she hadn't even tried. The dog returned, wagging his tail. Let's go back to sleep, said the man. They went into the bedroom again, the dog turned around twice, then curled up into a ball. The man drew the sheet up to his neck, coughed twice and soon afterward was asleep again. Sitting in her corner, death was watching. Much later, the dog got up from the carpet and jumped onto the sofa. For the first time in her life, death knew what it felt like to have a dog on her lap.”

José Saramago book Death with Interruptions

Source: Death with Interruptions (2005), p. 172

Life, Death, People, Dogs

“As far as I can recall, the initial shiver of inspiration was somehow prompted by a newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: this sketch showed the bars of the poor creature's cage.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

As quoted at Penn State University Libraries http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/wlolita.htm. On a Book Entitled Lolita (1956)

Animals, Drawing

“The light microscope opened the first gate to microcosm. The electron microscope opened the second gate to microcosm. What will we find opening the third gate?”

Ernst Ruska (1906–1988) German physicist

Das Lichtmikroskop öffnete das erste Tor zum Mikrokosmos. Das Elektronenmikroskop öffnete das zweite Tor zum Mikrokosmos. Was werden wir finden wenn wir das dritte Tor öffnen? as quoted by Nan Yao, director of the Imaging and Analysis Center at the Princeton Materials Institute, in the Princeton Weekly Bulletin, February 26, 2001, Vol. 90, No. 18 http://www.princeton.edu/~iac/pwb2_26b.html.

Light

“First words upon returning to Earth, to a woman and a girl near where his capsule landed (12 April 1961) The woman asked: "Can it be that you have come from outer space?" to which Gagarin replied: "As a matter of fact, I have!" As quoted in The Air Up There : More Great Quotations on Flight (2003) by Dave English, p. 118”

Yuri Gagarin (1934–1968) Soviet pilot and cosmonaut, the first human in space

Rays were blazing through the of the earth, the horizon became bright orange, gradually passing into all the colors of the rainbow: from light blue to dark blue, to violet and then to black. What an indescribable gamut of colors! Just like the paintings of the artist Nicholas Roerich.

Quotes, Girl

“The first thing I ever noticed about Miss Lyon was her incredible laziness. Laziness was my own specialty, & I did not like this competition. Dear me, I was to find out, in the course of time, that in the matter of laziness I was a runaway train on a down grade & she a-standing still. At my very laziest I could hear myself whiz, when she was around.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 3 (2015), p. 386

Time, Training

“[Women's] boarding schools, as we know, hold the three principal subjects which constitute the basis of human virtue to be the French language (a thing indispensable to the happiness of married life), piano-playing (a thing wherewith to beguile a husband’s leisure moments), and that particular department of housewifery which is comprised in the knitting of purses and other “surprises.” Nevertheless changes and improvements have begun to take place, since things now are governed more by the personal inclinations and idiosyncracies of the keepers of such establishments. For instance, in some seminaries the regimen places piano-playing first, and the French language second, and then the above department of housewifery; while in other seminaries the knitting of “surprises” heads the list, and then the French language, and then the playing of pianos—so diverse are the systems in force!”

Nikolai Gogol book Dead Souls

Vol. 1, ch. 2
Dead Souls (1842)

Life, Women, Happiness, School

“Tomorrow night I appear for the first time before a Boston audience — 4000 critics.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Letter to Pamela Clemens Moffet, 9 November 1869, in Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain's Letters: Arranged with Comment (1917), Vol. 1, p. 168 http://books.google.com/books?id=Ia8hAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA168

Appearance, Time, Night

“The lieutenant-colonel realized for the first time what most people never realize about themselves—that he was not only a victim of outrageous fortune, but one of outrageous fortune’s cruelest agents as well.”

Kurt Vonnegut book The Sirens of Titan

Source: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 6 “A Deserter in Time of War” (p. 162)

People, Time

“Success soon palls. The joyous time is, when the breeze first strikes your sails, and the waters rustle under your bows.”

Charles Buxton (1823–1871) English brewer, philanthropist, writer and politician

Source: Notes of Thought (1883), p. 91

Water, Time, Success

“Brother Nabi - to a philosophical letter [he received from Denis ] a philosophical answer... [but] first of all, forgive the incoherence of my last letter. I am feeling remorsed about what I told you about Gauguin. There is no humbug about him, not, at any rate, with respect to those he knows are capable of understanding him. I have lived with him for the past fifteen days in the closest association [in Pont-Aven]. We share a room. I have told him what I dislike about his work; what I said can be regarded as a sally against the ingrained habits of contemporary painting. But let's go back to our philosophy....(a:) Immutable principles exist in art. There is a science, namely aesthetics, that teaches them. Today this science is dead. It was alive in the days of the beatific primitives…”

Paul Sérusier (1864–1927) French painter

Source: from: 'A letter to Maurice Denis, p. 237

Art, Feeling, Forgiveness, Understanding

“The continual endeavor of man should be to lessen the sum of suffering and cruelty: that is the first duty of humanity.”

Romain Rolland (1866–1944) French author

Jean-Christophe (1904 - 1912), Journey's End: The Burning Bush (1911)

Suffering

“There are those who are dissatisfied with me. To such I would say: You desire peace; and you blame me that we do not have it. But how can we attain it? There are but three conceivable ways. First, to suppress the rebellion by force of arms. This, I am trying to do. Are you for it? If you are, so far we are agreed. If you are not for it, a second way is, to give up the Union. I am against this. Are you for it? If you are, you should say so plainly. If you are not for force, nor yet for dissolution, there only remains some imaginable compromise. I do not believe any compromise, embracing the maintenance of the Union, is now possible. All I learn, leads to a directly opposite belief. The strength of the rebellion, is its military — its army. That army dominates all the country, and all the people, within its range. Any offer of terms made by any man or men within that range, in opposition to that army, is simply nothing for the present; because such man or men, have no power whatever to enforce their side of a compromise, if one were made with them.”

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

1860s, Letter to James C. Conkling (1863)

Men, People, Peace, Way

“Between the first and second Passover John and Christ baptized together, till the imprisonment of John, which was four months before the second. Then Christ began to preach, and call his disciples; and after he had instructed them a year, lent them to preach in the cities of the Jews: at the same time John hearing of the fame of Christ, sent to him to know who he was. At the third, the chief Priests began to consult about the death of Christ. A little before the fourth, the twelve after they had preached a year in all the cities, returned to Christ; and at the same time Herod beheaded John in prison, after he had been in prison two years and a quarter: and thereupon Christ fled into the desert for fear of Herod. The fourth Christ went not up to Jerusalem for fear of the Jews, who at the Passover before had consulted his death, and because his time was not yet come. Thenceforward therefore till the feast of Tabernacles he walked in Galilee, and that secretly for fear of Herod: and after the feast of Tabernacles he returned no more into Galilee, but sometimes was at Jerusalem, and sometimes retired beyond Jordan, or to the city Ephraim by the wilderness, till the Passover in which he was betrayed, apprehended, and crucified.”

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

Vol. I, Ch. 11: Of the Times of the Birth and Passion of Christ
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)

Death, Fear, Time, Christ

“That it must have been hunger alone, which first drove man to slay the animals and feed upon their flesh and blood; and that this compulsion was no mere consequence of his removal into colder climes … is proved by the patent fact that great nations with ample supplies of grain suffer nothing in strength or endurance even in colder regions through an almost exclusively vegetable diet, as is shewn by the eminent length of life of Russian peasants; while the Japanese, who know no other food than vegetables, are further renowned for their warlike valour and keenness of intellect. We may therefore call it quite an abnormality when hunger bred the thirst for blood … that thirst which history teaches us can never more be slaked, and fills its victims with a raging madness, not with courage. One can only account for it all by the human beast of prey having made itself monarch of the peaceful world, just as the ravening wild beast usurped dominion of the woods … And little as the savage animals have prospered, we see the sovereign human beast of prey decaying too. Owing to a nutriment against his nature, he falls sick with maladies that claim but him, attains no more his natural span of life or gentle death, but, plagued by pains and cares of body and soul unknown to any other species, he shuffles through an empty life to its ever fearful cutting short.”

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) German composer, conductor

Part III
Religion and Art (1880)

Life, Death, Hunger, Pain

“I was honored to be the first U. S. President to visit Cuba in almost 90 years. And we still have differences with the Cuban government, but what I said to President Castro is we can't be imprisoned by the past. When something doesn't work for 50 years, we have to try something new. And I believe that engagement and dialogue is more powerful than isolation, and that the changes that we're making can improve the lives of the Cuban people.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative Town Hall (March 2016)

People, Change, Past

“Those who do not speak the words of God with humility must be advised that when they apply medicine to the sick, they must first inspect the poison of their own infection, or else by attempting to heal others, they kill themselves.”

Pope Gregory I (540–604) Pope from 590 to 604

Source: The Book of Pastoral Rule, p.159

God

“Whether we are Christians or Muslims or nationalists or agnostics or atheists, we must first learn to forget our differences. If we have differences, let us differ in the closet; when we come out in front, let us not have anything to argue about until we get finished arguing with the man.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Source: The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)

Learning, Forgetting

“Executives do many things in addition to making decisions. But only executives make decisions. The first managerial skill is, therefore, the making of effective decisions.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 2, p. 465

Decision

“I see my way as birds their trackless way.
I shall arrive,—what time, what circuit first,
I ask not; but unless God send his hail
Or blinding fire-balls, sleet or stifling snow,
In some time, his good time, I shall arrive:
He guides me and the bird. In his good time.”

Robert Browning Paracelsus

Part 1.
Paracelsus (1835)

God, Way, Bird, Time

“First, without reference to England, looking at all countries, I say that it is the first duty of the Minister, and the first interest of the State, to maintain a balance between the two great branches of national industry; that is a principle which has been recognised by all great Ministers for the last two hundred years…Why we should maintain that balance between the two great branches of national industry, involves political considerations—social considerations, affecting the happiness, prosperity, and morality of the people, as well as the stability of the State. But I go further; I say that in England we are bound to do more—I repeat what I have repeated before, that in this country there are special reasons why we should not only maintain the balance between the two branches of our national industry, but why we should give a preponderance…to the agricultural branch; and the reason is, because in England we have a territorial Constitution. We have thrown upon the land the revenues of the Church, the administration of justice, and the estate of the poor; and this has been done, not to gratify the pride, or pamper the luxury of the proprietors of the land, but because, in a territorial Constitution, you, and those whom you have succeeded, have found the only security for self-government—the only barrier against that centralising system which has taken root in other countries.”

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

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1846/feb/20/commercial-policy-customs-corn-laws in the House of Commons (20 February 1846). 1840s

Happiness, People, Justice, Country

“In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.”

Hugo Black (1886–1971) U.S. Supreme Court justice

Concurring in New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971).

People, Secret, Democracy

“By first recognizing false goods, you begin to escape the burden of their influence; then afterwards true goods may gain possession of your spirit.”
Tu quoque falsa tuens bona prius incipe colla iugo retrahere: Vera dehinc animum subierint.

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480) philosopher of the early 6th century

Poem I, lines 11-13; translation by Richard H. Green
The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book III

Falseness

“Association, applied to land, shares the economic advantage of large-scale landed property, and first brings to realization the original tendency inherent in land-division, namely, equality. In the same way association also re-establishes, now on a rational basis, no longer mediated by serfdom, overlordship and the silly mysticism of property, the intimate ties of man with the earth, since the earth ceases to be an object of huckstering, and through free labour and free enjoyment becomes once more a true personal property of man.”

Karl Marx book Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Rent of Land, p. 65.
Paris Manuscripts (1844)

Way, Personality

“I had now—not for the first time, nor the thousandth—trampled upon an old and wise and stern maxim of mine, to wit: "Supposing is good, but finding out is better."”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 3 (2015), p. 99

Time

“First of all I’m not the architect of the Yemen operation. We are a country of institutions. The decision to proceed with the operation in Yemen, this is a decision to do with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defence, with the intelligence, the council of ministers, and the council of security and political affairs, and then all recommendations are submitted to His Majesty, and the decision to go forward is with His Majesty.”

Mohammad bin Salman (1985) Saudi crown prince and minister of defense

2016-01-06, on being called the 'architect' of the Saudi intervention in Yemen. Interview with Muhammad bin Salman, The Economist

Intelligence, Decision, Country

“In the first place, an unjust law exists in this Commonwealth, by which marriages between persons of different color is pronounced illegal. I am perfectly aware of the gross ridicule to which I may subject myself by alluding to this particular; but I have lived too long, and observed too much, to be disturbed by the world's mockery.”

Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) American abolitionist, author and women's rights activist

Chapter VIII http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abeslmca5t.html 1830s, An Appeal on Behalf of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833)

Marriage, World, Law, Color

“I dreamed of becoming a writer. And... this dream is about to become a reality with the publication of my first, and hopefully not my last, children's book...”

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

address to LULAC (July 1, 2005)
2007, 2008

Children, Books, Dreams, Reality

“"It would be a crime to exhibit the fine side of war, even if there were one!" murmured one of the somber soldiers.
The first man continued. "They'll say those things to us by way of paying us with glory, and to pay themselves, too, for what they haven't done. But military glory — it isn't even true for us common soldiers. It's for some, but outside those elect the soldier's glory is a lie, like every other fine-looking thing in war. In reality, the soldier's sacrifice is obscurely concealed. The multitudes that make up the waves of attack have no reward. They run to hurl themselves into a frightful inglorious nothing. You cannot even heap up their names, their poor little names of nobodies."”

Henri Barbusse book Under Fire

Under Fire (1916), Ch. 24 - The Dawn

War, Lie, Way, Reality

“And I'm a big tipper I don't need to be tripping?
This my first Rolex it don't even be ticking
This my first pair of earrings I can wear in the shower,
Without them clouding up in half an hour.”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

My Baby, produced by Kanye West
Lyrics, Damita Jo (2004)

“"The first time you saw me, I bet you didn't think, He's going to get me killed."
"The first time I saw you, I wished you'd go back to Idris. You know I don't like change."
"I grew on you, though."
"Eventually. Like a moss, or a skin disease."”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Jace Herondale and Alec Lightwood, pg. 437-438
The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)

Disease, Thinking, Change, Time

“The entire revolutionary movement necessarily finds both its empirical and its theoretical basis in the movement of private property – more precisely, in that of the economy. This material, immediately perceptible private property is the material perceptible expression of estranged human life. Its movement – production and consumption – is the perceptible revelation of the movement of all production until now, i. e., the realisation or the reality of man. Religion, family, state, law, morality, science, art, etc., are only particular modes of production, and fall under its general law. The positive transcendence of private property as the appropriation of human life, is therefore the positive transcendence of all estrangement – that is to say, the return of man from religion, family, state, etc., to his human, i. e., social, existence. Religious estrangement as such occurs only in the realm of consciousness, of man’s inner life, but economic estrangement is that of real life; its transcendence therefore embraces both aspects. It is evident that the initial stage of the movement amongst the various peoples depends on whether the true recognised life of the people manifests itself more in consciousness or in the external world – is more ideal or real. Communism begins where atheism begins (Owen), but atheism is at the outset still far from being communism; indeed it is still for the most part an abstraction. The philanthropy of atheism is therefore at first only philosophical, abstract philanthropy, and that of communism is at once real and directly bent on action.”

Karl Marx book Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Private Property and Communism
Paris Manuscripts (1844)

Life, People, World, Family

“That which was at first bound, cast out and rent by many and various beaters will be respected and honoured, and its precepts will be listened to with reverence and love.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XX Humorous Writings

Love

“First, I wanna say 'peace' to my mother. She's not here but I gotta give a 'peace out' to her because I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for my mother.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Atlanta (1992)

Peace

“Their forms had no more influence on me than they did on Matisse. Or Derain. But for them, the masks were sculptures like all others. When Matisse showed me his first African head, he spoke to me of Egyptian art.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Andre Malraux cites Picasso in: Anatoliĭ Podoksik, ‎Marina Aleksandrovna Bessonova, ‎Pablo Picasso (1989), Picasso: The Artists Work in Soviet Museums. p. 13.
Picasso talking about his discovery of African art.
Attributed from posthumous publications

Art

“Love is at first not anything that means merging, giving over and uniting with another (for what would a union be of something unclarified and unfinished, still subordinate?), it is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become world, to become world for himself for another's sake. It is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Letter Seven (14 May 1904)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)

Love, World

“You know Seymour, there are some men who cannot stand too much perfection. They see it as a disease, which must be stamped out at its first rash showing.”

Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) English actor, writer, and dramatist

Captain Vere
Billy Budd (1962)

Men, Disease, Perfection

“A really free mind is scarcely attached to its opinions. If the mind cannot help giving birth to … emotions and affections which at first appear to be inseparable from them, it reacts against these intimate phenomena it experiences against its will.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Source: Regards sur le monde actuel [Reflections on the World Today] (1931), p. 55

Birth, Appearance, Help

“The word art has in ordinary usage three senses. First, it means the creation of objects or the pursuit of activities called works of art, by people called artists; these works being distinguished from other objects and acts not merely as human products, but as products intended to be beautiful. Secondly, it means the creation of objects or the pursuit of activities called artificial as opposed to natural; that is to say objects created or activities pursued by human beings consciously free to control their natural impulses and to organize their life in a plan. Thirdly, it means that frame of mind which we call artistic, the frame of mind in which we are aware of beauty.”

R. G. Collingwood (1889–1943) British historian and philosopher

Source: Outlines of a Philosophy of Art, 1925, p. 7

Life, People, Beauty, Art

“When I arrived at Harvard in 1969, my fellow first-year graduate students and I were taken up to the roof of the Widener Library by a well-known professor of classics. He told us how many Episcopal churches could be seen from that vantage point. As a Jew (in fact a convert from Episcopalian Christianity), I knew that my husband and I would have been forbidden to marry in Harvard's church, which had just refused to accept a Jewish wedding. As a woman I could not eat in the main dining room of the faculty club, even as a member's guest. Only a few years before, a woman would not have been able to use the undergraduate library. In 1972 I became the first female to hold the Junior Fellowship that relieved certain graduate students from teaching so that they could get on with their research. At that time I received a letter of congratulation from a prestigious classicist saying that it would be difficult to know what to call a female fellow, since "fellowess" was an awkward term. Perhaps the Greek language could solve the problem: since the masculine for "fellow" in Greek was hetairos, I could be called a hetaira. Hetaira, however, as I knew, is the ancient Greek word not for “fellowess” but for “courtesan.””

Martha C. Nussbaum (1947) American philosopher

[Martha C. Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity, https://books.google.com/books?id=V7QrAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA6, 1 October 1998, Harvard University Press, 978-0-674-73546-0, 6–7]

Problem, Wedding, Time

“The first requisite of a good citizen in this Republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight; that he shall not be a mere passenger, but shall do his share in the work that each generation of us finds ready to hand; and, furthermore, that in doing his work he shall show, not only the capacity for sturdy self-help, but also self-respecting regard for the rights of others.”

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

Speech at New York (11 November 1902)
1900s

Help

“Wherever slavery is, it has been first introduced without law. The oldest laws we find concerning it, are not laws introducing it; but regulating it, as an already existing thing.”

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

1850s, Speech at Peoria, Illinois (1854)

Law

“This sophism derives much, perhaps the whole, of its currency from the assumption that there is some omnipotent and sacred supremacy pertaining to a State — to each State of our Federal Union. Our States have neither more nor less power than that reserved to them in the Union by the Constitution, no one of them ever having been a State out of the Union. The original ones passed into the Union even before they cast off their British colonial dependence, and the new ones each came into the Union directly from a condition of dependence, excepting Texas; and even Texas, in its temporary independence, was never designated a State. The new ones only took the designation of States on coming into the Union, while that name was first adopted for the old ones in and by the Declaration of Independence. Therein the "United Colonies" were declared to be "free and independent States;" but even then the object plainly was not to declare their independence of one another or of the Union, but directly the contrary, as their mutual pledge and their mutual action before, at the time, and afterwards abundantly show. The express plighting of faith by each and all of the original thirteen in the Articles of Confederation, two years later, that the Union shall be perpetual is most conclusive. Having never been States, either in substance or in name, outside of the Union, whence this magical omnipotence of "State rights," asserting a claim of power to lawfully destroy the Union itself? Much is said about the "sovereignty" of the States, but the word even is not in the National Constitution, nor, as is believed, in any of the State constitutions. What is a "sovereignty" in the political sense of the term? Would it be far wrong to define it "a political community without a political superior"? Tested by this, no one of our States, except Texas, ever was a sovereignty; and even Texas gave up the character on coming into the Union, by which act she acknowledged the Constitution of the United States and the laws and treaties of the United States made in pursuance of the Constitution to be for her the supreme law of the land. The States have their status in the Union, and they have no other legal status. If they break from this, they can only do so against law and by revolution. The Union, and not themselves separately, procured their independence and their liberty. By conquest or purchase the Union gave each of them whatever of independence and liberty it has. The Union is older than any of the States, and, in fact, it created them as States. Originally some dependent colonies made the Union, and in turn the Union threw off their old dependence for them and made them States, such as they are. Not one of them ever had a State constitution independent of the Union. Of course it is not forgotten that all the new States framed their constitutions before they entered the Union, nevertheless dependent upon and preparatory to coming into the Union.”

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

1860s, Fourth of July Address to Congress (1861)

Faith, Law, Communication, Sense

“About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was part of him — and I didn't know how potent that part might be — that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.”

Stephenie Meyer (1973) American author

Bella Swan, p. 195
Twilight series, Twilight (2005)

Love, Parting

“Self-alienation is the source of all degradation as well as, on the contrary, the basis of all true elevation. The first step will be a look inward, an isolating contemplation of our self. Whoever remains standing here proceeds only halfway. The second step must be an active look outward, an autonomous, determined observation of the outer world.”

Novalis book Blüthenstaub

Fragment No. 24 Variant translation: The first step is to look within, the discriminating contemplation of the self. He who remains at this point only half develops. The second step must be a telling look without, independent, sustained contemplation of the external world.
Blüthenstaub (1798)

World

“The darkness around us might somewhat light up if we would first practice using the light we have on the place we are.”

Henry S. Haskins (1875–1957)

Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 80

Light

“Humour is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue.”

Virginia Woolf The Common Reader

On Not Knowing Greek http://books.google.com/books?id=lQLAv2zRY7MC&q=&quot;Humour+is+the+first+of+the+gifts+to+perish+in+a+foreign+tongue&quot;&pg=PA36#v=onepage The Common Reader (1925)

“As an artistic triumph in psychological corruption … the Gospels, in fact, stand alone … Here we are among Jews: this is the first thing to be borne in mind if we are not to lose the thread of the matter. This positive genius for conjuring up a delusion of personal "holiness" unmatched anywhere else, either in books or by men; this elevation of fraud in word and attitude to the level of an art — all this is not an accident due to the chance talents of an individual, or to any violation of nature. The thing responsible is race.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Antichrist

Sec. 44
The Antichrist (1888)

Men, Books, Art, Fraud

“My dear Pissarro, Forgive me for not answering your first letter earlier, but I 'm starting to work full steam ahead and have hardly any time. I received your second letter this morning and I see that you are going to great pains on my behalf and getting nowhere: I'm sorry to be giving you so much trouble; so drop the whole thing, and I'll ask Durand-Ruel if he could see to it for me, he might be able to get rid of these damn frames.
I see that you are definitely going to leave that delightful country for good. Where are you going to, Paris or Louveciennes? I hope you'll write and let me know…”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

in a letter from Zaandam, The Netherlands, to Camille Pissarro (still in England), 17 June 1871; Cited in: Marianne Alphant (1994), Claude Monet en Holland, p. 87
1870 - 1890

Pain, Hope, Forgiveness, Time

“One of the first lessons life teaches us is that on these occasions of back-chat between the delicately-nurtured a man should retire into the offing, curl up in a ball, and imitate the prudent tactics of the opossum, which, when danger is in the air, pretends to be dead, frequently going to the length of hanging out crêpe and instructing its friends to stand round and say what a pity it all is.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Very Good, Jeeves

Very Good, Jeeves (1930)

Life, Dead

“Now, justification in this life is given to us according to these three things: first by the laver of regeneration by which all sins are forgiven; then, by a struggle with the faults from whose guilt we have been absolved; the third, when our prayer is heard, in which we say: ‘Forgive us our debts,’ because however bravely we fight against our faults, we are men; but the grace of God so aids as we fight in this corruptible body that there is reason for His hearing us as we ask forgiveness.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Against Julian, Book II, ch. 8, 22. In The Fathers of the Church, Matthew A. Schumacher, tr., 1957, ISBN 0813214009 ISBN 9780813214009pp. 83-84. http://books.google.com/books?id=lxED1d6DAXoC&pg=PA83&lpg=PA83&dq=%22justification+in+this+life+is+given+to+us+according+to+these+three+things%22&source=bl&ots=K9fP-vBQqj&sig=2yV56Mq2aukLy8iM1FvpSfmULqA&hl=en&ei=8ZuCTdXGC4WO0QGCl-HGCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22justification%20in%20this%20life%20is%20given%20to%20us%20according%20to%20these%20three%20things%22&f=false Contra Julianum

Life, Men, God, Forgiveness

“He got out of the van to see how many other suppliers were ahead of him and thus calculate, more or less accurately, how long he would have to wait. He was number thirteen, he counted again, no, there was no doubt about it. Although he was not a suspirations person, he knew about that number’s bad reputation, in any conversation about chance, fate or destiny, someone always chips in with some real-life experience of the negative, even fatal influence of the number thirteen. He tried to remember if he had ever been in this place in the queue before, but the long and the short of it was that either it had never happened or else he had simply forgotten. he got annoyed with himself, it was nonsense, utterly absurd to worry about something that has no real existence, yes, that was right, he had never thought of that before, numbers don’t really exist, things couldn’t care less what number we give them, its all the same to them if we say they’re number thirteen or number forty-four, we can conclude, at the very least, that they do not even notice the position they happen to end up in. people aren’t things, people always want to be in first place”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 9 (Vintage 2003)

Life, Fate, People, Chance

“He emphasized that I must maintain my speed for the first 300 metres, and then give it my all in the last 100 metres. He said that if I ran the first 300 metres at full speed, Spence would do the same, although that was not his running strategy.”

Milkha Singh (1935) Indian track and field athlete

At the 1958 Commonwealth Games, Milkha describes how Dr. Howard, the American coach built the strategy to outrace his biggest threat Milkha At Midnight, 13 December 2013, publisher+Outlook India http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?282698,

Speed

“America shall not lag a century behind Europe: it will stride as an equal first, and lead later; it will, in the end, be the most illuminated by the sciences just as it is most illuminated by the sun.”

Jose Cecilio del Valle (1777–1996) Honduran politician-

El Amigo de la Patria, 1821

Science, Sun

“The same King [Greek Empire] placed holiness in abstinence from marriage. Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical history tells us, that Musanus wrote a tract against those who fell away to the heresy of the Encratites, which was then newly risen, and had introduced pernicious errors; and that Tatian, the disciple of Justin, was the author thereof; and that Irenæus in his first book against heresies teaches this… But although the followers of Tatian were at first condemned as heretics by the name of Encratites, or Continentes; their principles could not be yet quite exploded: for Montanus refined upon them, and made only second marriages unlawful; he also introduced frequent fastings, and annual, fasting days, the keeping of Lent, and feeding upon dried meats. The Apostolici, about the middle of the third century, condemned marriage, and were a branch of the disciples of Tatian. The Hierocitæ in Egypt, in the latter end of the third century, also condemned marriage. Paul the Eremite [Hermit] fled into the wilderness from the persecution of Decius, and lived there a solitary life till the reign of Constantine the great, but made no disciples. Antony did the like in the persecution of Dioclesian, or a little before, and made disciples; and many others soon followed his example.”

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

Vol. I, Ch. 13: Of the King who did according to his will, and magnified himself above every God, and honored Mahuzzims, and regarded not the desire of women
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)

Life, Marriage, Books, Error

“The recognition and acceptance of a genocide, and mass murder of nations is not to merely point a finger at a tyrant guilty of those crimes. It is acceptance of facts and truths with the ultimate goal to mend bridges between the races. It is not to merely condemn but to create the first step towards world peace.”

Rosie Malek-Yonan (1965) Assyrian actress, author, director, public figure and human rights activist

Speech at the House of Lords in London, United Kingdom. As quoted in "The House of Lords (London)" http://www.aina.org/news/20080423181206.htm (12 March 2008), by R. Malek-Yonan, Assyrian International News Agency.

Truth, World, Peace

“Describing her first day back in grade school after a long absence, a teacher said, "It was like trying to hold 35 corks under water at the same time."”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Incorrectly attributed to Twain, this is actually a quotation from an article in The Pocono Record (18 February 1971, page 4 http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/40447792/) Misattributed

School, Teachers, Water, Time

“My first introduction to economics came by way of Professor B. H. Hibbard. I remember being asked in 1910, at the close of my college course, who had influenced me most, and I said Professor Hibbard. Later, of course, we came to disagree violently about the McNary-Haugen Bill and some other things; but I still think that Professor Hibbard is a very good teacher.”

Henry A. Wallace (1888–1965) Vice President of the United States

Henry Agard Wallace (1973), Democracy reborn, p. 96; cited in: Gerard F. Vaaughn, " Benjamin H. Hibbard: Scholar for Policy Making http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/132025/2/BenjaminHibbard.pdf," in Choices, First Quarter 1998, p. 38.

Way, Thinking, Teachers

“I am proud that for the first time in the history of Afghanistan, I am raising the flag of such a people, who are producing all material and immaterial equipment necessary for the life in this country and who make all efforts for prosperity and serendipity of the society. This glorious and magnificent red flag is the symbol of the greatness and pride of these people.”

Nur Muhammad Taraki (1917–1979) Prime Minister of Afghanistan

Speech during the presentation of the new national symbols, October 19, 1978 https://pad.ma/BSI/info.

Life, People, History, Effort

“He remembered how the night dew had fallen upon him,—how the dark forest had whispered to him,—how the stars had gleamed upon him,—a simple and loving man, watching his fire in the years gone by, and ever musing as it burned. He remembered with what tenderness, with what love and sympathy for mankind, and what pity for human guilt and woe, he had first begun to contemplate those ideas which afterwards became the inspiration of his life; with what reverence he had then looked into the heart of man, viewing it as a temple originally divine, and, however desecrated, still to be held as sacred to a brother; with what awful fear he had deprecated the success of his pursuit, and prayed that the Unpardonable Sin might never be revealed to him. Then ensued the base intellectual development which, in its progress, disturbed the counterpoise between his mind and heart.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)

p, 125
"Ethan Brand" (1850)

Love, Life, Fear, Star

“As a square number is known to be the product of a number multiplied by itself, so every polygonal number, multiplied by one number and added to another, both of which depend upon the number of its angles, produces a square number. I shall prove this, and shall show also how from a given side to find its polygon and conversely. Some auxiliary propositions must first be proved.”

Diophantus Arithmetica

As quoted by James Gow, A Short History of Greek Mathematics https://books.google.com/books?id=9d8DAAAAMAAJ (1884) Arithmetica (c. 250 AD)

Dependency

“Talk is abroad about removing statues of 'Confederates', meaning prominent Democrats, from the U. S. Capitol and some state capitols. The statue of Democrat Jefferson Davis, the ex-president of the Confederacy who also served as a Democratic Congressman, U. S. Senator, and Secretary of War in a Democratic administration, has been mentioned for possible removal from its place in Kentucky’s state capitol. Interesting. A growing mass call to remove the names of one prominent Democrat after another from the public square. One has to ask? Is it time to rename the Woodrow Wilson Bridge that crosses the Potomac from Virginia to Washington, the latter a majority black city? If so, may I suggest the name of Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first black U. S. Senator, in 1870? Oh, yes. Senator Revels was also a Republican.”

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America

Jeff Lord, "Will Democrats Apologize for Slavery and Segregation?" https://web.archive.org/web/20150630102356/http://spectator.org/articles/63244/will-democrats-apologize-slavery-and-segregation (25 June 2015), Knowing What We Know Now, The American Spectator.

War, Time

“We most earnestly hope and believe that the chance of our having any hostile military complication with any foreign power is very small. But that there will come a strain, a jar, here and there, from commercial and agricultural—that is, from industrial—competition is almost inevitable. Here again we have got to remember that our first duty is to our own people, and yet that we can best get justice by doing justice. We must continue the policy that has been so brilliantly successful in the past, and so shape our economic system as to give every advantage to the skill, energy, and intelligence of our farmers, merchants, manufacturers, and wage-workers; and yet we must also remember, in dealing with other nations, that benefits must be given where benefits are sought. It is not possible to dogmatize as to the exact way of attaining this end, for the exact conditions cannot be foretold. In the long run, one of our prime needs is stability and continuity of economic policy; and yet, through treaty or by direct legislation, it may, at least in certain cases, become advantageous to supplement our present policy by a system of reciprocal benefit and obligation.”

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

1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), National Duties

Hostility, People, Justice, Hope

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

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

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

Truth, Secret, Imagination, Motivation

Quotes about first page 9

Quotes about first
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