Quotes about friend (4941 quotes, page 28)

“I encourage you to look at the world around you and think about how it works. My friends, you can go forth and make this world a better place.”

Bill Nye (1955) American science educator, comedian, television host, actor, writer, scientist and former mechanical engineer

[NewsBank, 03I, Science Guy Wants You to Ask, 'Why?', The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio, October 24, 2001, Connie A. Higgins]

World , Thinking

“A surprise party is where your friends and family lie to you to make you feel alone and unloved. Then, when they throw you the party they would have thrown, regardless, you experience a sudden rush of emotion as your depressed self returns back to normal. Some people think that life in general's like that. They keep waiting for the party. I call that: denial.”

Ze Frank (1972) American online performance artist

http://www.zefrank.com/wiki/index.php/the_show:_03-30-06
"The Show" (www.zefrank.com/theshow/)

Life , People , Lie , Family

“Comrades and friends! for ours is strength
Has brooked the test of woes;
O worse-scarred hearts! these wounds at length
The Gods will heal, like those.”

John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book I, p. 12

God , Heart

“People who barely know the two of you assume you are close friends; people who know both of you intimately suspect you profoundly hate each other.”

Chuck Klosterman (1972) Author, Columnist

Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas (2006), Recognizing Your Nemesis

Hate , People

“Even the prospect of early annihilation should not keep us from making the most of our days on this unhappy planet. In the best of times, our days are numbered anyway. And it would be a crime against Nature for any generation to take the world crisis so solemnly that it put off enjoying those things for which we were presumably designed in the first place, and which the gravest statesmen and the hoarsest politicians hope to make available to all men in the end: I mean the opportunity to do good work, to fall in love, to enjoy friends, to sit under trees, to read, to hit a ball and bounce the baby.”

Alistair Cooke (1908–2004) British journalist and broadcaster

One Man's America (1952).
Quoted in "The Very Moving Day", Season 6, Episode 1 of All in the Family (1975)

Love , Men , World , Hope

“Einstein’s great friend and intellectual sparring partner Niels Bohr had a nuanced view of truth. Whereas according to Bohr, the opposite of a simple truth is a falsehood, the opposite of a deep truth is another deep truth. In that spirit, let us introduce the concept of a deep falsehood, whose opposite is likewise a deep falsehood. It seems fitting to conclude this essay with an epigram that, paired with the one we started with, gives a nice example: “Naïveté is doing the same thing over and over, and always expecting the same result.””

Frank Wilczek (1951) physicist

Einstein’s Parable of Quantum Insanity (2015)

Truth

“When I am at home, I never go near the synagogue unless, say, there is a bar or bat mitzvah involving the children of friends. But when I am traveling, in a country where Jewish life is scarce or endangered, I often make a visit to the shul.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2003-11-18
Al-Qaida's Latest Target: Understanding the Istanbul synagogue bombings
Slate
1091-2339
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2003/11/alqaidas_latest_target.html
2000s, 2003

Life , Children , Travel , Home

“Firefighters across the country have no greater friend than Rudy Giuliani. Those of us who have worked with Rudy Giuliani know he has always been a strong and consistent supporter of firefighters and first responders. On September 11th and the days that followed Mayor Giuliani once again demonstrated his commitment to the safety and well being of our firefighters and his respect for their extraordinary courage and sacrifice.”

Howard Safir (1941)

A statement by Safir posted on JoinRudy2008.com, Rudy Giuliani's official presidential campaign website
[Howard Safir, http://www.joinrudy2008.com/news/pr/417/, MAYOR GIULIANI’S RECORD OF SUPPORT FOR NEW YORK’S BRAVEST, Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee, Inc., 2007-07-09, 2007-12-20]

Courage , Support , Strong , Country

“Chairman White, and the other Trustees that are present today, faculty and staff and alumni, distinguished guests, cadets, and friends of Hargrave: It's been a great run. It really has. I look out over the congregation gathered here today, and I see faculty, staff, cadets, parents, members of the Parent Council that we work closely with, other colleagues in the same business- and it makes me reflect on on fifteen years here, what all we've accomplished. I can also state that we wouldn't have accomplished much without the leadership of the Board of Trustees. And I'd like to thank all of the Board that's here- the Chairman, past Chairmen, and other members of the Board- that've A, put their trust in my leadership, put up with me at times, and set the guidance and the tone to keep the school on a straight path. Not an easy task. And the Board has done a magnificent job. I would also be remiss if I didn't recognize- I wish I could recognize every member of our faculty and staff, which is the heart and soul of an independent school. Our faculty is the best- best in the nation- very dedication people, that work constant hours with the cadets here, proven by our great success we've had over the past, what… hundred and- we graduated 102nd class last May. It's been really an honor for me to be part of Hargrave's history. But we're not done. We've completed 102 years, and now we've hired Brigadier General Broome, who's the right person to take the helm at Hargrave. And I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that General Broome is ready, willing, and dedicated to take Hargrave to the next level. It's a great school- I would tell you, in my mind, it's the best school in the country, because of the cadets and the folks we have here. I've been spending a lot of time with General Broome and his wife, and they are really gonna be a great fit for Hargrave, and I think Hargrave's gonna have a super next one hundred years. I wish we could all be here a hundred years from now to open our time capsule, but unfortunately, I don't think anybody in this room is gonna see what's in the time capsule… Anyhow, thank you for coming, it's been an honor to be part of this, and I will sincerely miss it. I'm not the type to watch things from the sidelines, but, in this case, I will. Thank you very much.”

Wheeler L. Baker (1938) President of Hargrave Military Academy

Baker's speech at the change-of-command ceremony in Hargrave's chapel on June 24, 2011.

People , School , Soul , History

“Another friend, a child psychologist from the college, once commented that Rachel at age five showed the most reliable indicators of true giftedness in a young person: structured curiosity, empathy for others, compassion, and a fierce sense of fair play.”

Dan Simmons book Hyperion

Source: Hyperion (1989), Chapter 4 (p. 249)

Age , Sense , Personality

“Friends depart, and memory takes them
To her caverns, pure and deep.”

Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797–1839) English poet, songwriter, dramatist, and writer

Teach me to forget, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Memory

“Losing hope is easy
When your only friend is gone
And every time you look around
Well, it all, it all just seems to change
But hanging on is easy
When you've got a friend to call
When nothings making sense at all
You're not the only one that's afraid of change”

Jack Johnson (musician) (1975) American musician

Losing Hope
Song lyrics, Brushfire Fairytales (2001)

Hope , Sense , Change , Time

“A friend of mine in Brooklyn was talking about ethnic writers, and he was using Amy Tan as an example. And he said, "You know, the really interesting thing about ethnic writers in America right now is that the women sit down and tell these sets of interesting stories. Asian girl meets blonde boy and they go to Harvard together—they're dopey stories, but everybody loves them, and they're best sellers. That's what the women write, whereas the guys struggle and try to find these new literary forms—writing these intricate parables that nobody quite follows and so forth."”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

And he said, "Isn't it interesting that women have always had this kind of genius for telling stories in the kitchen."
Violating the Boundaries: An Interview with Richard Rodriguez (1999)

Love , Women , Guy , Girl

“Friends share music with each other, they don't allow themselves to be divided by a system that says that nobody is supposed to have copies.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

LibrePlanet Keynote Speech (2015) @20:45 https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/richard-stallman-free-software-free-hardware/
2010s

Music

“Friends and fellow citizens, the story of our presence here is soon and easily told. We are here in the District of Columbia, here in the city of Washington, the most luminous point of American territory; a city recently transformed and made beautiful in its body and in its spirit; we are here in the place where the ablest and best men of the country are sent to devise the policy, enact the laws, and shape the destiny of the Republic; we are here, with the stately pillars and majestic dome of the Capitol of the nation looking down upon us; we are here, with the broad earth freshly adorned with the foliage and flowers of spring for our church, and all races, colors, and conditions of men for our congregation — in a word, we are here to express, as best we may, by appropriate forms and ceremonies, our grateful sense of the vast, high, and preeminent services rendered to ourselves, to our race, to our country, and to the whole world by Abraham Lincoln.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1870s, Oratory in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1876)

Men , World , Law , Beauty

“Friends, last night I watched the Hollywood (Paramount) movie Noah. It is much, much worse than I thought it would be—much worse. The director of the movie, Darren Aronofsky, has been quoted in the media as saying that Noah is “the least biblical biblical film ever made,” and I agree wholeheartedly with him. I am disgusted. I am going to come right out and say it: this movie is disgusting and evil—paganism! Do you really want your family to see a pagan movie that portrays Noah as a psychopath who says that if his daughter-in-law’s baby is a girl then he will kill her as soon as she’s born? And when two girls are born, bloodstained Noah (the man the Bible calls “righteous” in Genesis 7:1) brings a knife down to the head of one of the babies to kill her—and at the last minute doesn’t do it. And then a bit later, Noah says he failed because he didn’t kill the babies. How can we recommend this movie and then speak against abortion? Psychopathic Noah sees humans as a blight on the planet and wants to rid the world of people. I feel dirty—as if I have to somehow wash the evil off myself. I cannot believe there are Christian leaders who have recommended that people see this movie.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

"The Noah Movie is Disgusting and Evil: Paganism!" http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2014/03/28/the-noah-movie-is-disgusting-and-evil-paganism/, Around the World with Ken Ham (March 28, 2014)
Around the World with Ken Ham (May 2005 - Ongoing)

People , World , Family , Law

“The mad idea that the Jews have no right to exist is a potent intensifier of the almost equally mad idea that the State of Israel can somehow be eliminated. I say 'almost' because a friend of mine in Australia recently presented me with a plausible case that the Middle East would probably be a more peaceful area if the State of Israel had never been founded. Like her argument that the Aborigines would have been a lot happier if the Europeans had never shown up, this contention was hard to rebut, except by rudely pointing out that we were both sitting in an Italian restaurant in Melbourne, history having happened.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

'The University of the Holocaust: On Anti-Semitism Now' (Sunday Times, March 28, 2004)
Essays and reviews

Peace , History , Idea , Madness

“Borderline Personality Disorder* An essential feature of this disorder is a pervasive pattern of instability of self-image, interpersonal relationships, and mood, beginning in early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts. A marked and persistent identity disturbance is almost invariably present. This is often pervasive, and is manifested by uncertainty about several life issues, such as self-image, sexual orientation, long-term goals or career choice, types of friends or lovers to have, and which values to adopt.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Girl, Interrupted (1994)

Life , Lovers , Mood , Personality

“I don't understand Ethel.
I don't, I don't really.
She's one of my very best friends,
Just about the best, nearly.
She's an awfully nice girl, Ethel is,
Dainty and refined,
I mean she'd never do or say
Anything unkind.
But get her inside a stadium
And she seems to go out of her mind.”

Joyce Grenfell (1910–1979) British comedian, singer, actress

Poem Ethel

Girl , Understanding

“In later life I was charged by many with being an agitator; some of my friends in defending me against assault denied that I was an agitator; they were wrong, I was an agitator and as such did all that lay in my power with voice and pen to agitate against the injustices practices on workingmen and women.”

Terence V. Powderly (1849–1924) American mayor

[Powderly, Terence, 'The Path I Trod: The Autobiography of Terence V. Powderly, 1940, Columbia University Press, 9781163178164, https://archive.org/stream/pathitrodautobio00powdrich, 38]

Life , Women

“One day, millions of men will leave the Southern Hemisphere to go to the Northern Hemisphere. And they will not go there as friends. Because they will go there to conquer it. And they will conquer it with their sons. The wombs of our women will give us victory.”

Houari Boumédiène (1932–1978) Huari Bumedien

reportedly during a 1974 speech to the United Nations, as reported by Loonwatch on 25 March 2017 http://www.loonwatch.com/2017/03/25/the-1974-houari-boumedienne-u-n-speech-myth/
Misattributed

Women , Men , Victory

“In a street brawl, I strike men quicker than lightnin', you seen what happened in my last fight, friend? Aight, then! L's a clever threat, a lyricist who never sweat, comparing yourself to me is like a Benz to a Chevrolet”

Big L (rapper) (1974–1999) American rapper

Men , Fight

“Every artist feels alone and isolated. Friends are very important in terms of all sorts of definitions of oneself. They tell you what you are and what they are aside from the intellectual aspects.”

Jasper Johns (1930) American artist

Daily Close-up, after the Flag, Roberta Brandes Gratz, New York Post, 30 December 1970, p. 25
1970s

Feeling

“Your prudence, my wise friend, allows too little room for the mysterious whisperings of life.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

To Ralph Waldo Emerson, as quoted in "Humanity, said Edgar Allan Poe, is divided into Men, Women, and Margaret Fuller" Joseph Jay Deiss in American Heritage magazine, Vol. 23, Issue 5 (August 1972).

Life

“I believe that the human race has developed a form of collective schizophrenia in which we are not only the slaves to this imposed thought behavior, but we are also the police force of it. The reason most people don't express their individuality and actually deny it, is not fear of what prime ministers think of us or the head of the federal reserve, It's what their families and their friends down at the bar are going to think of them.”

David Icke (1952) English writer and public speaker

Source: Leading Edge Newspaper, July/August 1996

People , Fear , Family , Behavior

“I would not enter on my list of friends,
(Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail
That crawls at evening in the public path;
But he that has humanity, forewarn'd,
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, Line 560.

Sense

“For many years I was the youngest among my mathematical friends. It makes me melancholy to realize that I now have become the oldest in most groups of scientists.”

Stanislaw Ulam (1909–1984) Polish-American mathematician

Source: Adventures of a Mathematician - Third Edition (1991), Chapter 2, Student Years, p. 37

Mathematics

“I am glad that my hon. Friend has raised the problems of the Kurdish people in Iraq, and I am sure that they will be grateful for that. Although the Government may not allow the export of military hardware to Iraq, is it not just as beneficial to the Iraqi Government to be given banking facilities, credits and increased trade? They have exactly the same effect of propping up the Iraqi economy, which is used to finance the war machine that is practising genocide against the Kurdish people.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Question http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1989/jul/14/foreign-affairs in the House of Commons (14 July 1989).
1980s

War , People , Problem

“Mr President," I said, " I have to tell you something. I don't want to get too close to you." He looked startled. I imagine it was a rare thing for a U. S. Commander-in-chief to hear. "Canada is your best friend, largest trading partner, and closest ally, but we are also an independent country. Keeping some distance will be good for both of us. If we look as though we're the fifty-first state of the United States, there is nothing we can do for you internationally, just as the governor of a state can't do anything for you internationally. But if we look independent enough, we can do things for you that even the CIA cannot do.”

Jean Chrétien (1934) 20th Prime Minister of Canada

Source: My Years As Prime Minister (2007), Chapter Three, Yankee Traders, p. 87

Imagination , Country

“SPAN ID=A_human_being> A human being, then, is never dependent on his own experience alone for his information. Even in a primitive culture he can make use of the experience of his neighbors, friends, and relatives, which they communicate to him by means of language. Therefore, instead of remaining helpless because of the limitations of his own experience and knowledge, instead of having to discover what others have already discovered, instead of explporing the false traits they explored and repeating their errors, he can go on from where they left off.”

S. I. Hayakawa book Language in Thought and Action

Language, that is to say, makes progress possible. </SPAN>
Source: Language in Thought and Action (1949), The Pooling of Knowledge, p. 12

Error , Communication , Knowledge , Dependency

“Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family — but to a solitary and an exile his friends are everything.”

Willa Cather book Shadows on the Rock

Shadows on the Rock (1931), Book III, Ch. 5

Men , Friendship , Family , Joy

“I think that making a statement whether China is friend or foe we have to be careful not to label all Chinese but in terms of the government I think that there is a very carefully thought out and strategic plan to take over America. I think that China, the Chinese government is definitely a foe and one example is that China is taking American soil right now.”

Christine O'Donnell (1969) American Tea Party politician and former Republican Party candidate

2006 Delaware US Senate race

Thinking

“I have the little idea, my friend, that this is a crime very carefully planned and staged. It is a far-sighted, long-headed crime. It is not — how shall I express it? — a Latin crime. It is a crime that shows traces of a cool, resourceful, deliberate brain — I think an Anglo-Saxon brain.”

Agatha Christie book Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient Express (1934)

Idea , Thinking

“I praise the Frenchman [Voltaire], his remark was shrewd —
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!
But grant me still a friend in my retreat
Whom I may whisper — solitude is sweet.”

William Cowper Retirement

Source: Retirement (1782), Line 739.

Solitude

“How to make friends and keep them.”

Frank Crane (1861–1928) American Presbyterian minister

Four Minute Essays Vol. 7 (1919), A School for Living

“That night I made copies of all the documents with shaking hands and gave them to a friend with contacts in the British secret services. I had a bitter taste in my mouth.”

Jani Allan (1952) South African columnist and broadcaster

Writing in her column about how she reacted after she realised she had been recruited as an 'unwitting' spy by Cliff Saunders in London in the early 1990s. http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=ct20000227222234900S1258
Other

Secret , Night

“Longingly—I think of my friends,
But neither boat nor carriage comes.”

Tao Yuanming (365–427) Chinese poet

"Flood" (translation by A. Waley)

Thinking

“Stranger to love and the benevolent
hand of age……
History has recorded on our papery hearts
By the reed
And each partition of the reed
Complains of the Masnavi of our groans: ………..??
The lines in your hands
(these winding roads)
Is familiar to my eye.
Believe me
The lines in your hand
Are more familiar to me than my own lines…
Ah
O friend…
They buried us together in the grave
A thousand years ago”

Farrokh Tamimi (1934–2003) Iranian poet and translator

Poet, Fare welling Hands

Love , Age , History , Heart

“God would never have let us long for our friends with such a strong and holy love, if they were not waiting for us.”

William Mountford (1816–1885) English Unitarian preacher and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 306.

Love , God , Strong , Waiting

“We lost one of one of the great leaders of our lifetime on Monday. She was a true friend of America, and a champion of freedom. We're going to ensure that Margaret Thatcher’s legacy is honored by the United States government in a way commensurate with her enormous achievements.”

John Boehner (1949) Former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

On the death of Margaret Thatcher. Southern Maryland News, April 14, 2013 http://smnewsnet.com/archives/58622
2010s, 2013

Way , Freedom

“Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

"Epistle to Robert, Earl of Oxford and Mortimer" (1721).

Dead

“A wise partner does not come between her man and his best friend.”

Lindsey Davis book Deadly Election

Deadly Election

“Phobokleon: Hunger knows no friend but its feeder.”

Aristophanés The Wasps

embellished tr. Parker 1962, p. 55 http://books.google.com/books?id=EdpxAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Hunger+knows+no+friend+but+its+feeder%22
Wasps, line 704
Wasps (422 BC)

Hunger

“Roll, roll, roll a joint, twist it at the ends [pause] Light it up and take a puff and pass it to your friends.”

Tré Cool (1972) Drummer, punk rock musician

Sang to the tune of Row Your Boat Bullet in a Bible (2005) (on the tour bus).

Light

“It is quite ordinary for spiritual friends to be able, naturally, spontaneously, and almost effortlessly, to discern the presence of the Divine in each other. When we are really awake, we cannot miss the presence of Divine Reality; it is always calling us.”

Wayne Teasdale (1945–2004) American writer

Source: A Monk in the World: Cultivating a Spiritual Life (2003), p. 87

Nature , Reality

“Nothing is so unpopular as positive change amongst friends.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 148

Change

“All of a sudden, I'm thinking, these guys [Afghani men] aren't so bad. I'm like the type of asshole where if you're nice to me once, I'm your friend for life. Sure, you hacked your kid's clit off, but you were nice!”

Kathy Griffin (1960) American actress and comedian

Allegedly (2004)

Life , Men , Guy , Thinking

“Most Nobel Laureates have carried out our work in safety, but there are others who have acted with great personal courage. None has provided more vivid reminders of the dangers of peacemaking than two of my friends, Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin, who gave their lives for the cause of peace in the Middle East.”

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

Post-Presidency, Nobel lecture (2002)

Peace , Courage , Personality

“I am a great friend to public amusements; for they keep people from vice.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

1772
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)

People

“Rutherford did not pretend to understand quantum mechanics, but he understood that the Gamow formula would give his accelerator a crucial advantage. Even particles accelerated at much lower energies … would be able to penetrate into nuclei. Rutherford invited Gamow to Cambridge in January 1929 … [They] became firm friends and Gamow's insight gave Rutherford the impetus to go full steam ahead with the building of his accelerator.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

The Scientist As Rebel (2006)

Understanding

“A word must become a friend or you will not understand it. Perhaps you do well to be cool and detached when you are seeking information, but I remind you of the wife who complained, 'When I ask John if he loves me, he thinks I am asking for information.”

Edward Coke (1552–1634) English lawyer and judge

Case of Swans, 7 Rep. 15, 17 (1592).

Love , Understanding , Thinking

“No quality of human nature is more remarkable, both in itself and in its consequences, than that propensity we have to sympathize with others, and to receive by communication their inclinations and sentiments, however different from, or even contrary to our own. This is not only conspicuous in children, who implicitly embrace every opinion propos’d to them; but also in men of the greatest judgment and understanding, who find it very difficult to follow their own reason or inclination, in opposition to that of their friends and daily companions. To this principle we ought to ascribe the great uniformity we may observe in the humours and turn of thinking of those of the same nation; and ’tis much more probable, that this resemblance arises from sympathy, than from any influence of the soil and climate, which, tho’ they continue invariably the same, are not able to preserve the character of a nation the same for a century together. A good-natur’d man finds himself in an instant of the same humour with his company; and even the proudest and most surly take a tincture from their countrymen and acquaintance. A chearful countenance infuses a sensible complacency and serenity into my mind; as an angry or sorrowful one throws a sudden dump upon me. Hatred, resentment, esteem, love, courage, mirth and melancholy; all these passions I feel more from communication than from my own natural temper and disposition. So remarkable a phaenomenon merits our attention, and must be trac’d up to its first principles.”

David Hume book A Treatise of Human Nature

Part 1, Section 11
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 2: Of the passions

Love , Men , Children , Feeling

“I say, embrace fear as a friend. It is nature's gift to us. It is the best weapon for liberty. We do not give our permission to be enslaved by acknowledging its presence. Instead, it permits us to escape into the forest if we must. But it does not prevent the boy from rising off the ground one more time to defeat the bully. Fear is presented to us as a signal of danger. It permits us to escape or to fight with power beyond our ability.”

Gerry Spence (1929) American lawyer

Source: Give Me Liberty! (1998), Ch. 14 : The Magical Weapon : Withholding Permission to Be Defeated, p. 163

Fear , Boy , Nature , Time

“I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about sitting with his four-year-old daughter watching a DVD. And in the middle of the movie, apropos nothing, she jumps up off the couch and runs around behind the screen. […] And her dad said, "What you doing?" And she stuck her head out from behind the screen and said, "Looking for the mouse."
Here's something four-year-olds know: A screen that ships without a mouse ships broken. Here's something four-year-olds know: Media that's targeted at you but doesn't include you may not be worth sitting still for. Those are things that make me believe that this is a one-way change. […]
We're going to look at every place that a reader or a listener or a viewer or a user has been locked out, has been served up passive or a fixed or a canned experience, and ask ourselves, "If we carve out a little bit of the cognitive surplus and deploy it here, could we make a good thing happen?"”

Clay Shirky (1964) American technology writer

And I'm betting the answer is yes.
Gin, Television, and Social Surplus (2008)

Way , Change , Daughters

“It is stupid to grieve for the loss of a girl friend: you might never have met her, so you can do without her.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Stupidity , Girl , Loss

“One evening at dinner, realizing that he had done nobody any favour throughout the entire day, he spoke these memorable words: "My friends, I have wasted a day."”
Atque etiam recordatus quondam super cenam, quod nihil cuiquam toto die praestitisset, memorabilem illam meritoque laudatam vocem edidit: "Amici, diem perdidi."

Sueton book The Twelve Caesars

Source: The Twelve Caesars, Titus, Ch. 8

“To my friends pictured within.”

Edward Elgar (1857–1934) English composer

Dedication to the Enigma Variations (1899).

“The dichotomies which are the signature of their work – the esoteric and the exoteric, the civil and the managerial, the friend and the foe, the lawful and the legislative – are so many cordons. Their function is to hold popular sovereignty at bay. The different gifts displayed in this enterprise, whatever view is taken of it, were remarkable. For all his later tendency to textual dressage, Strauss's range and subtlety as a master of the canon of political philosophy had no equal in his generation. Schmitt's moral instability never impaired an extraordinary capacity to fuse conceptual insight and metaphoric imagination in lightning flashes of illumination around the state. Hayek could seem tactically ingenuous, but he fashioned a theoretical synthesis out of his epistemology and economics whose scope and strength has yet to be supplanted. Oakeshott was the literary artist in this gallery. His writing varies considerably in quality, and can be whimsically arch at one moment and curiously crude at another, disconcertingly close to Punch or Cross-Bencher. But at its best, when it moves into high register, it can rise to a lyrical beauty.”

Perry Anderson (1938) British historian

Source: Spectrum: From Right to Left in the World of Ideas (2005), Ch. 1. "The Intransigent Right, Michael Oakeshott, Leo Strauss, Carl Schmitt, Friedrich von Hayek" (1992), p. 27

Law , Beauty , Imagination , Fashion

“I will not go
Prefer a
feast of Friends
To the Giant family”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

An American Prayer (1978)

Family

“The little folk dare anything", said his friend. "And they talk a lot of nonsense. But they talks an awful lot of sense, as well. You listen to 'em at your peril, and you ignore 'em at your peril, too.”

Neil Gaiman book Stardust

Stardust (1999)

Sense

“Can we begin again? Save it for another friend, I was happy in my life I won’t pretend. ~ "EZ"”

Pete Yorn (1974) American musician

Song lyrics

Life , Happiness

“And here I cannot help mentioning a very ridiculous show of a learned pig, which of late days attracted much of the public notice, and at the polite end of the town. This pig, which indeed was a large unwieldy hog, being taught to pick up letters written upon pieces of cards, and to arrange them at command, gave great satisfaction to all who saw him, and filled his tormenter's pocket with money. One would not have thought that a hog had been an animal capable of learning: the fact, however, is another proof of what may be accomplished by assiduity; for the showman assured a friend of mine, that he had lost three very promising brutes in the course of training, and that the phenomenon then exhibited had often given him reason to despair of success.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 248
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Public entertainment

Money , Learning , Success , Help

“I was in my forties and teaching magazine writing for the Journalism Department at the University of New Mexico. I was hired on a fluke. The professor who was scheduled to teach the course became ill, so the chair of the department, my personal friend Tony Hillerman, asked me to fill in for a semester. Tony knew I’d never been to college and didn’t care; he just knew I’d written successfully for magazines for years. The original professor never returned, and someone else replaced Tony as Chair and automatically kept me on. I discovered I loved teaching writing and started to get worried that my deep dark secret, (no college!) might be discovered, so I began taking courses under my married name, Lois Arquette, hoping I could get a degree before someone “outed” me. In the course of that endeavor, I took a juvenile literature class where they were studying “Lois Duncan books.””

Lois Duncan (1934–2016) American young-adult and children's writer

My fellow students were excitedly writing A-plus papers about how many of my books were based on Greek myths. I had never even read those myths!
On teaching and attending college, interview https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20111119202009/https://abbottgran.wordpress.com/2011/04/17/the-deep-bottom-drawer-an-interview-with-lois-duncan/ with Megan Abbott (2011)
2003–2016

Love , Secret , Books , Hope

“There was Johnson (Lyndon) who had compromised too many contradictions and now the contradictions were in his face: when he smiled the corners of his mouth squeezed gloom; when he was pious, his eyes twinkled irony; when he spoke in a righteous tone, he looked corrupt; when he jested, the ham in his jowls looked to quiver. He was not convincing. He was a Southern politician, a Texas Democrat, a liberal Eisenhower; he would do no harm, he would do no good, he would react to the machine, good fellow, nice friend -- the Russians would understand him better than his own. … Johnson gave you all of himself, he was a political animal, he breathed like an animal, sweated like one, you knew his mind was entirely absorbed with the compendium of political fact and maneuver.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

Superman Comes to the Supermarket (1960)

Smile , Understanding , Animals

“To hear Delly describe it, I had next to no friends because I intimidated people by being so exceptional. Not true. I had next to no friends because I wasn't friendly.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

Katniss (p. 188)
The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay (2010)

People

“In the meanwhile I retire to my well-earned bath-chair, from which I shall watch with a fatherly eye the philosophic gambols of my younger friends as they dance to the highly syncopated pipings of Herr Wittgenstein's flute.”

C. D. Broad (1887–1971) English philosopher

From the Preface to Mind and Its Place in Nature (1925)

Dance

“Now let's make this an evening
Lovers for a night, lovers for tonight.
Stay here with me, love, tonight.
Just for an evening
When we make
Our passion pictures.
You and me twist up,
Secret creatures.
And we'll stay here.
Tomorrow go back to being friends.”

Dave Matthews (1967) American singer-songwriter, musician and actor

Say Goodbye
Crash (1996)

Love , Secret , Lovers , Passion

“In my skeptical days, people who wanted to appear very spiritual were always telling me to forget my questions, to shove them under the rug and go on in "faith." In fact, some of my friends thought my questions were my own devices to dodge the "real issues." They thought I must be morally decadent to voice such questions. -Appalachian Melody.”

Mark Heard (1951–1992) American musician and record producer

Liner Notes

People , Faith , Question , Appearance

“Soon after this the blacks who brought me on board went off, and left me abandoned to despair. I now saw myself deprived of all chance of returning to my native country, or even the least glimpse of hope of gaining the shore, which I now considered as friendly; and I even wished for my former slavery in preference to my present situation, which was filled with horrors of every kind, still heightened by my ignorance of what I was to undergo. I was not long suffered to indulge my grief; I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life: so that, with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste any thing. I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables; and, on my refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, and laid me across I think the windlass, and tied my feet, while the other flogged me severely. I had never experienced any thing of this kind before; and although, not being used to the water, I naturally feared that element the first time I saw it, yet nevertheless, could I have got over the nettings, I would have jumped over the side, but I could not; and, besides, the crew used to watch us very closely who were not chained down to the decks, lest we should leap into the water: and I have seen some of these poor African prisoners most severely cut for attempting to do so, and hourly whipped for not eating. This indeed was often the case with myself.”

Olaudah Equiano (1745–1797) African abolitionist

Chap. II
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789)

Life , Death , Men , Fear

“Family trips of my childhood always began with a prayer. I suppose when one goes on vacation, one is courting death in some fashion, tying the morgue tags onto one’s suitcase. But then, too, vacations are respites from death, from thoughts of death. I have sometimes wondered why friends under medical death sentences have undertaken arduous trips or undertaken arduous labors. To put some distance between themselves and death—the obvious answer.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography (2013)

Death , Family , Fashion , Childhood

“I said "Anyone Jewish here?" and someone goes "I'm Jewish!" and I said … "And what year is this now in the Jewish calendar?" And she goes, "Er, I wasn't expecting questions, to be honest…"—and then turned to her presumably gentile friend and had a bit of a natter—and then came back with the single finest answer I have ever heard from a member of an audience, where, without any shame at all, she just went, "Yeah, it's the Jewish Year of the Rat."”

Dara Ó Briain (1972) Irish comedian and television presenter

Dara Ó Briain: Live at the Theatre Royal (2006)

Question

“I must say a few words here concerning the solution of the Polish problem…Groeber has posed the question: Do I not overestimate the value of the military guarantees? Are not political guarantees in connection with good relations between Poland and Germany far better and more durable than it is possible fo military guarantees to be? …The past conduct of the Polish fraction in the Reichstag and the House of Deputies, and the attempts to have the German Ostmark question discussed as a question of international importance at world peace congresses, do not give my political friends a sufficient guarantee to think that future relations between Poland and Germany can be based solely on a formal paper friendship.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Source: 1910s, Speech in the Reichstag, 21 June 1918, p. 175

Friendship , World , Peace , Question

“In all cases that have been investigated, the only time a state government gives permission for nilgai and wild boar shooting is when it is requested by vips, hotel and tourism people or friends of politicians.”

Maneka Gandhi (1956) Indian politician and activist

Criticising Punjab state for giving hunting licences to VIPs, as quoted in "VIP Hunters Get Licence To Kill In Punjab" http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main17.asp?filename=ts042206VIP_hunters.asp, Tehelka (22 April 2006)
2001-2010

People , Time

“The man who is ingenious and wise, who is accompanied by a friend, and who knows the intentions of others, as also the proper time and place for doing everything, can gain over, very easily, even a woman who is very hard to be obtained.”

Vātsyāyana book Kama Sutra

Source: Kama Sutra, p. 30

Time

“Political criticism is our enemies' best friend.”

Bernard Kerik (1955) American police chief

Newsday, October 20, 2003

“A person who is never duped cannot be a friend.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

Personality

“As I approach my 90th birthday, my friends are asking how it feels like, to have completed 90 orbits around the Sun. Well, I actually don't feel a day older than 89!”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

90th Birthday Reflections (2007)

Feeling , Birthday , Sun

“Take heed not to be transformed into a Caesar, not to be dipped in the purple dye, for it does happen. Keep yourself therefore, simple, good, pure, grave, unaffected, the friend of justice, religious, kind, affectionate, strong for your proper work. Wrestle to be the man philosophy wished to make you. Reverence the gods, save men. Life is brief; there is but one harvest of earthly existence, a holy disposition and neighborly acts.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VI, 30
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VI

Life , Men , God , Justice

“She's Beyoncé, and I'm [Jay-Z's] new protégée. When we see each other we say hi. We're not enemies, but we're not friends friends.”

Rihanna (1988) Barbadian singer, songwriter, and actress

Allure magazine, January 2008.

“though every friend be fled,
Lo! Envy waits, that lover of the dead.”

Thomas Tickell (1685–1740) English poet and man of letters

On the Death of the Earl of Cadogan.

Lovers , Waiting , Envy , Dead

“The struggle for existence is very difficult here [Berlin! - in 1911 Kirchner and his Brücke-friends moved from Dresden to Berlin], but the possibilities are also greater. I hope that we can create a fruitful new school and convince many new friends of the value of our efforts.”

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

quote in a letter to Louise Schiefler, from Berlin, 5 November 1911; as quoted in Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Grosstad, Eros und Natur, aus der verborgenen Sammlungen der Region, Städtische Galerie Delmenhorst Germany, 2005, pp. 113-114
about the move of Die Brücke artists from Dresden to Berlin, Kirchner was optimistic in the beginning
1905 - 1915

School , Hope , Effort

“You can't sell anything to the museum nowadays. If one presents something now, one is partly rejected because they have no money in cash. Yes Friend, that's how things are going... It's going very bad here with the old arts in The Hague., I hardly hear of anything. How are things going in Rotterdam? I believe that also there is not much moving.”

Andreas Schelfhout (1787–1870) Dutch painter, etcher and lithographer

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
(original Dutch, citaat van Schelfhout, uit zijn brief:) Aan het museum [ver]koop men tans niets. Als men iets tans presanteert, wort men daar mede afgewezen, daar is geen geld bij kas. Ja Vriend, zo gaat het.. .Het is tans zeer dwaas met de oude kuns bij ons [in Den Haag]., ik hoor bijna van niets. Hoe gaat het te Rott.m? Ik geloof dat daar ook niet veel beweeging er mede is.
Quote from Schelfhout's letter to J. Immerzweel, 8 Jan. 1825; original text from the letter in the collection of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Royal Library), The Hague, no. 133 C12

Money , Art

“Friends are the family you can pick.”

Red Symons (1949) Australian broadcaster and musician

Attributed quotes

Good Morning , For Friend , Family

“There are numerous bugbears in the profession of a politician. First, ordinary life suffers. Second, there are many temptations to ruin you and those around you. And I suppose third, and this is rarely discussed, people at the top generally have no friends.”

Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007) 1st President of Russia and Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR

The Struggle for Russia (1994)
1990s

Life , People , Suffering

“But no, the friend’s indictment was off target; he simply liked them tall, as long as they didn’t slump down in a forlorn effort to appear shorter. It seemed obvious to him that no woman looked good trying to be something she wasn’t.”

Gregory Benford Artifact

Part 2, Chapter 1 (p. 42)
Artifact (1985)

Effort , Appearance

“These burdens and frustrations are accepted by most Americans with maturity and understanding. They may long for the days when war meant charging up San Juan Hill-or when our isolation was guarded by two oceans — or when the atomic bomb was ours alone — or when much of the industrialized world depended upon our resources and our aid. But they now know that those days are gone — and that gone with them are the old policies and the old complacency's. And they know, too, that we must make the best of our new problems and our new opportunities, whatever the risk and the cost.
But there are others who cannot bear the burden of a long twilight struggle. They lack confidence in our long-run capacity to survive and succeed. Hating communism, yet they see communism in the long run, perhaps, as the wave of the future. And they want some quick and easy and final and cheap solution — now.
There are two groups of these frustrated citizens, far apart in their views yet very much alike in their approach. On the one hand are those who urge upon us what I regard to be the pathway of surrender-appeasing our enemies, compromising our commitments, purchasing peace at any price, disavowing our arms, our friends, our obligations. If their view had prevailed, the world of free choice would be smaller today.
On the other hand are those who urge upon us what I regard to be the pathway of war: equating negotiations with appeasement and substituting rigidity for firmness. If their view had prevailed, we would be at war today, and in more than one place.
It is a curious fact that each of these extreme opposites resembles the other. Each believes that we have only two choices: appeasement or war, suicide or surrender, humiliation or holocaust, to be either Red or dead. Each side sees only "hard" and "soft" nations, hard and soft policies, hard and soft men. Each believes that any departure from its own course inevitably leads to the other: one group believes that any peaceful solution means appeasement; the other believes that any arms build-up means war. One group regards everyone else as warmongers, the other regards everyone else as appeasers. Neither side admits that its path will lead to disaster — but neither can tell us how or where to draw the line once we descend the slippery slopes of appeasement or constant intervention.
In short, while both extremes profess to be the true realists of our time, neither could be more unrealistic. While both claim to be doing the nation a service, they could do it no greater disservice. This kind of talk and easy solutions to difficult problems, if believed, could inspire a lack of confidence among our people when they must all — above all else — be united in recognizing the long and difficult days that lie ahead. It could inspire uncertainty among our allies when above all else they must be confident in us. And even more dangerously, it could, if believed, inspire doubt among our adversaries when they must above all be convinced that we will defend our vital interests.
The essential fact that both of these groups fail to grasp is that diplomacy and defense are not substitutes for one another. Either alone would fail. A willingness to resist force, unaccompanied by a willingness to talk, could provoke belligerence — while a willingness to talk, unaccompanied by a willingness to resist force, could invite disaster.”

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

1961, Address at the University of Washington

Men , Hate , War , People

“In our university [of Virginia] you know there is no Professorship of Divinity. A handle has been made of this, to disseminate an idea that this is an institution, not merely of no religion, but against all religion. Occasion was taken at the last meeting of the Visitors, to bring forward an idea that might silence this calumny, which weighed on the minds of some honest friends to the institution.”

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

Letter to Thomas Cooper (3 November 1822), published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 12 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-12_Bk.pdf, p. 272
1820s

Religion , Idea , Silence , Universe

“We enter the Reichstag to arm ourselves with democracy’s weapons. If democracy is foolish enough to give us free railway passes and salaries, that is its problem… We are coming neither as friends or neutrals. We come as enemies! As the wolf attacks the sheep, so come we.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Why Do We Want to Join the Reichstag? Der Angriff, 30 April 1928
1920s

Democracy , Problem , Wolf

“It never ceases to surprise me how few friends the doomed have. One moment they are surrounded by smilingfaces, the next they are uterly friendless.”

David Gemmell book Stormrider

Source: Rigante series, Stormrider, Ch. 4

“Behold you, then, my dear friend, at the head of a great army, establishing the liberties of your country against a foreign enemy. May heaven favor your cause, and make you the channel through which it may pour its favors. While you are exterminating the monster aristocracy, and pulling out the teeth and fangs of its associate, monarchy, a contrary tendency is discovered in some here. A sect has shown itself among us, who declare they espoused our new Constitution, not as a good and sufficient thing in itself, but only as a step to an English constitution, the only thing good and sufficient in itself, in their eye. It is happy for us that these are preachers without followers, and that our people are firm and constant in their republican purity. You will wonder to be told that it is from the eastward chiefly that these champions for a king, lords and commons come. They get some important associates from New York, and are puffed up by a tribe of agitators which have been hatched in a bed of corruption made up after the model of their beloved England. Too many of these stock-jobbers and king-jobbers have come into our legislature, or rather too many of our legislature have become stock-jobbers and king-jobbers. However, the voice of the people is beginning to make itself heard, and will probably cleanse their seats at the ensuing election.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Letter to Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette (16 June 1792)
1790s

People , Country , Happiness

“Paper is my best friend and paper seller is my worst friend!”

Javad Alizadeh (1953) cartoonist, journalist and humorist

Quoted in Humor & Caricature (April 1995), p. 3

“He must not cultivate his friends, but cultivate his friendships within himself. They must be kept, cared for, watered.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

Friendship , Water

“.. I write you from the French front where I'am serving as a soldier in the Russian ambulance Corps. How are you feeling and what are you doing? How are your friends, Lissitsky, Libakov [also former students of Pen], Mazel, Mekler, and Chagall? Please, for God's sake, answer me. I would be so glad to hear how everyone is.
I'm in fine health, but tired of it all – it's utterly disgraceful, makes the soul turn cold. If only it [the war] would just end.
What are you working on, what are you doing? Please write me.”

Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967) French sculptor

Yours Zadkine.
Quote in a letter of Zadkine (in France) to his former art-teacher Yuri Moiseevich Pen in Vitebsk, Russia, 16 Nov. 1916 (transl. into Belorussian E.M. Kichina); as quoted in Vitebsk: The Life of Art, by Aleksandra Semenovna Shatskikh; Yale University Press, 2007, p. 19
1915 - 1940

God , War , Health , Feeling