Quotes about going
page 62

“Rational free spirits are the light brigade who go on ahead and reconnoitre the ground which the heavy brigade of the orthodox will eventually occupy.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

H 36
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook H (1784-1788)

Light

“The Cobra group started new, and first of all we threw away all these things we had known and started afresh, like a child — fresh and new. Sometimes my works look very childish, or childlike, schizophrenic or stupid, you know. But that was the good thing for me. Because, for me, the material is the paint itself. The paint expresses itself. In the mass of paint, I find my imagination and go on to paint it.”

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

Quoted in: 'Karel Appel, Dutch Expressionist Painter, Dies at 85', by Margalit Fox, in 'Art & Design', New York Times May 9, 2006
Quote of an oral history in 'Contemporary Artists' - Karel Appel describes the wild artistic urgency that gave rise to the Cobra artist-group

Stupidity, Imagination, Painting

“I urge the AFP and also the PNP to aggressively go out there and fill the yearly quotas for new recruits. Spend the budget intended for hiring new personnel. Don't let the old system prevail again where the allocation for hiring new personnel is scrimped on so that the amount can be converted into savings and diverted to line the pockets of some unscrupulous individuals. This has already cost so many lives and has orphaned thousands of wives and children.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

The Philippine Star http://www.philstar.com/breaking-news/739506/senator-urges-afp-pnp-review-troop-strength 2011

Children

“It is not where we have come from but where we are going that counts!”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big (1996), p. 193

“Chicken-neck weakness is like a god now. And being totally passive, and being a huge jellyfish slacker who looks like a fried egg in a chair. That is the culture of this, okay? The worship of being destroyed. Literally, I've now discovered the secrets of it. … And everyone's wearing like pink and little green non-threatening, you know, colors, and this is what we face. This is what men look like now, on average. In fact, I used to bash men who were all into being big and muscular with tattoos and black on and going "raagh", now I get it! You don't wanna be like these people! Okay? I used to get mad at guys trying to act tough—no, no! That's good! Do that! In fact, I think I'm gonna just go all out with cut-off sleeves and drive a big fast car and be like "graagh", 'cause I mean I'm starting to get it! Men are running to that, because they see the armies… literally men in pastels… Now there's men everywhere wearing dresses, I'm telling you! It's like, they're just like "New World Order, slaughter me, please!"”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

And the New World Order is like "Act like a jellyfish coward and giggle at all reality", and they're like "Yes, yes!" "Alex Jones: I'm So Trendy Rant!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBA-sa97UYg March 2012. 2012

Men, God, People, Secret

“One of the topics [on the show last week] was the murder of women in the Arab sector, what is referred to, unfortunately, […] as 'honor killing' and has nothing to do with [anything worthy of] honor. The guest in the studio was a woman who had 20 years of experience working for the sake of those same women who die for no good reason, a woman whose everyday job was a holy work for the sake of thousands of Arab women who need a voice that will shout out and cry out their cries. After she had accused the government and the police and everyone of incompetence, I asked her, in a somewhat aggressive manner, as it were, '[…] Where are we in all of this? Where are we Arab women to teach and discipline our sons that a man has no right over a woman? […]' During the commercial break, she got up and told me that I had to learn how to talk to Arabs because the tone that I adopted and the things that I said were said to gain approval from Jews. So I've come to tell you today that I haven't come for approval from you; that I haven't come for approval from anyone; and this is the message that I want you to digest very, very well. In my life I have been accused of many things: that I am the fifth column; that an Arab will always stay an Arab, no matter how liberal he may look; that I bring shame on my family for being in a relationship with a person outside my religion. I've received threats after asking Palestinian residents live on the show why they don't go out against Hamas men, who use them and bring them to their slaughter; I've been attacked on Yom ha-Shoah and Yom ha-Zikaron that the managers at Arutz 2 dared to put an Arab on a show such as that as the host on a day such as that; I've been told that I make Arab women stray off the path of proper behavior; and that I've forgotten where I come from being an 'Ashkenazified', 'Judaized' Arab. So they blamed and they talked—as if that, in itself, made them right.”

Lucy Aharish (1981) Arab-Israeli journalist

Source: Lucy Aharish's campus speech http://www.onlife.co.il/%D7%A2%D7%91%D7%95%D7%93%D7%94/%D7%9E%D7%A0%D7%94%D7%99%D7%92%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9D-%D7%90%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%97%D7%A8/85312/%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%99-%D7%90%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%A9-%D7%9C%D7%90-%D7%91%D7%90%D7%AA%D7%99-%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%90-%D7%97%D7%9F-%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%99-%D7%90%D7%A3-%D7%90%D7%97%D7%93 at "מנהיגות היום את המחר". Onlife. 9 November 2014. Retrieved 27 January 2015. Video available.

Life, Women, Men, Family

“.. by going on drawing those types of working people, etc., I hope to arrive at the point of being able to do illustration work for papers and books.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

In his letter to brother Theo, from Brussels, Belgium (January 1881, letter 140); as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, p. 19 being art student in Brussels 1880s, 1881

People, Books, Hope, Drawing

“Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful. It's amazing to me how much we do, but how little time we spend reflecting on what we just did.”

Margaret J. Wheatley (1941) American writer

Source: Finding Our Way: Leadership For an Uncertain Time (2005), p. 262

Way, Time

“If invited, you would go to this person's wedding and give them a spice rack, but you would secretly hope that their marriage ends in a bitter, public divorce.”

Chuck Klosterman (1972) Author, Columnist

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

Marriage, Hope, Wedding, Personality

“Q: But if you stand out strongly trying to let the Arab world know that this is wrong and then you have the proverbial spokesperson for the conservative party saying this, doesn't that send a mixed message?
Scott McClellan: The President's views have been very -- have been made very clear. Go ahead.”

Scott McClellan (1968) Former White House press secretary

Source: Press briefing http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/05/20040506-8.html, May 6, 2004

World

“And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else. It is dangerous to a democracy. Such behavior does not project strength because our strength comes from our values. It instead projects a corruption of the spirit and weakness. It is often said that children are watching. Well, they are. And what are we going to do about that? When the next generation asks us, ‘Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you speak up?’ What are we going to say?”

Jeff Flake (1962) American politician

Speech in the U.S. Senate (2017)

Children, Behavior, Democracy

“The new government is basically.. is the same as the last one, but with a different face. You know.. majority of what made up this new government used to work for Rajapaksa. So… I think.. you know.. when we say what can the new government can offer the Tamils. I think the Tamils were interested in voting out of Rajapaksa, but they did not necessarily know the face of the new president. Unknown on the very surface level, but I think as time goes on, we are going to find out, that this is pretty similar to the old one.”

Maithripala Sirisena (1951) Sri Lankan politician, 7th President of Sri Lanka

M. I. A. on Sirisena, M I A speaks about Srilankan President Maithripala Sirisena https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6Mqk8NOhIA, video published Jan 14, 2015. About

Thinking, Time

“War is capitalism with the gloves off and many who go to war know it but they go to war because they don't want to be a hero. It takes courage to sit down and be counted.”

Tom Stoppard Travesties

Tzara, Act I
Travesties (1974)

War, Courage

“Tariq: Who's going to tell her? You?”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)

“Strikingly, no concern was voiced over the glaringly obvious fact that no official reason was ever offered for going to war — no reason, that is, that could not be instantly refuted by a literate teenager.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Z Magazine, May 1991 http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9105-what-we-say.html. Quotes 1990s, 1990-1994

War

“I'm always working on the same thing, the creation of an identity. It's mysterious: We think identity is genetically given, but I believe there is creative will involved with the decision of who we are going to be. All my movies are concerned with this.”

David Cronenberg (1943) Canadian film director, screenwriter and actor

Cronenberg: An intellectual with ominous powers http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/arts/19iht-dupont.html (May 19, 2006)

Thinking, Decision

“It is the process that is godliness, not so much the end result. A godly man will involve himself in the process of being godly. For godliness is not so much a place we are going as it is the going itself.”

Donald Miller (1971) American writer

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

“Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation. We have to stop pretending we are individuals that can go it alone.”

Margaret J. Wheatley (1941) American writer

Source: Turning to one another (2002), p. 19

Universe

“Google was not a normal place at all. There was just all kinds of weird stuff going on. I would just walk around and check stuff out like the kid in Willy Wonka going around the chocolate factory.”

Biz Stone (1974) American blogger; co-founder of Twitter

“'Google was Not a Normal Place': Brin, Page, and Mayer on the Accidental Birth of the Company That Changed Everything” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/valley-of-genius-excerpt-google, in Vanity Fair (10 July 2018).

“You're going to have to, Xan. You may have to kill her, too.”

P. D. James book The Children of Men

The Children of Men (1992)

“I used to go and flatten my nose against that window and absorb all I could of his [Degas'] art. It changed my life. I saw art then as I wanted to see it.”

Mary Cassatt (1844–1926) American painter and printmaker

Quote, c. 1875; as cited by Nancy Mowll Mathews, in Mary Cassatt: A Life, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1998, p. 114 - ISBN 978-0-585-36794-1
Cassatt admired Edgar Degas, whose pastels had made a powerful impression on her when she encountered them in an art dealer's window in Paris, 1875

Life, Art, Change

“He has a traditional shopper's DNA, an eye for freshness and appearance, and a consistent sense of a home to go back to.”

Amit Chaudhuri (1962) contemporary Indian-English novelist

Friend of My Youth (2017)

Home, Sense, Appearance

“If you want to be in with a gang then you have to go along with hiding people's things.”

Louise Burfitt-Dons (1953) Activist, writer, blogger

"They Hide Things," Act Against Bullying 2002

People

“He came your way
And when he had to go
There were roses growing in the snow
Silently you'll go to the shadow of your soul
And you know that it was like this before we had to go
You will never see these lights
Glowing in your nights
Until you feel this way.”

Nico (1938–1988) German musician, model and actress, one of Warhol's superstars

Roses in the Snow

Way, Feeling, Soul, Light

“I'd like to dedicate this song real quick, and I'm not going to say anything offensive so that we can make it on TV. This song isn't dedicated to drinking or drug addiction […]. It's basically about a walk in the park. This is something called 'Nightrain.”

Slash (musician) (1965) British-American musician and songwriter

During a show at the Ritz, NY in 1988. Guns N' Roses - "Nightrain" - Live at the Ritz http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gu3gDhESRY 2 February 1988

Drink

“My cell phone number," she says with a wry expression. "I'm staying at my friend's place for a while buy if you ever feel like sseeing somebody, give me a call. We can go out for a bite or whatever. Don't be a stranger, okay? 'Even chance meetings'… how does the rest of that go?”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

"'Are the results of karma.'"
Kafka on the Shore (2002)

Feeling, Chance

“If we have respect for our fathers and we have respect for our children, we will have a better life. I watched on TV when America sent men to the moon, and there were a lot of people whose names weren't given who helped make it possible. You don't have the names of those who run the computers and other things. But they worked together and this is what you have to have … Chinese, American, Jewish, black and white, people working side by side.

This is what you have to do to make this a better life. When you can give opportunity to everybody, we won't have to wait to die to get to heaven. We are going to have heaven on earth.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Conclusion of Tris Speaker Award acceptance speech, as quoted in "800 Turn Out for Baseball Dinner" by Joe Heiling, in The Houston Post (January 30, 1971, p. 1-B)
Other, <big><big>1970s</big></big>

Life, Men, Children, People

“Protocols:
supplementary budget, and all this ends up in accordance with the sum of the total addition, the annual departure from the normal reaches up as much as 50 percent in a year, and so the annual budget is trebled in ten years….
Every kind of loan proves infirmity in the State and a want of understanding of the rights of the State. Loans hang like a sword of Damocles over the heads of rulers, who, instead of taking from their subects by a temporary tax, come begging with outstretched palm of our bankers…the Goy states go on in persisting in putting more on to themselves to that they must inevitably perish, drained by voluntary blood-letting.
Graves: Their interest calculations are the same to support the financial dangers of loans!”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), p.84

Departure, Understanding, Support

“Take a course of good water and air, and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you.”

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

"Mount Shasta" in Picturesque California (1888-1890) page 165; reprinted in Steep Trails (1918), chapter 5
1880s

Youth, Nature, Water

“Of course the sands of Present Time are running out from under our feet. And why not? The Great Conundrum: 'What are we here for?' is all that ever held us here in the first place. Fear. The answer to the Riddle of the Ages has actually been out in the street since the First Step in Space. Who runs may read but few people run fast enough. What are we here for? Does the great metaphysical nut revolve around that? Well, I'll crack it for you, right now. What are we here for? We are here to go!”

Brion Gysin (1916–1986) Canadian artist

The Process Tuning in to the Multimedia Age, p. 49.

People, Age, Fear, Time

“Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools that crowd thee so,
Even thou, who dost thy millions boast,
A village less than Islington wilt grow,
A solitude almost.”

Abraham Cowley Of Solitude

Of Solitude, vii; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Men, Fools, Solitude

“I want people to go to the movies. I am the man of the spectacle. I'm playing.”

Roman Polanski (1933) Polish-French film director, producer, writer, actor, and rapist

Polanski : His Life and Films (1982)

People

“The only things I had to look forward to in life was a job and a career and a family and just going through the whole cycle. It just seemed like what everybody else was doing. And I looked at people around me. I looked at the people that taught the schools and around the government, and I looked at the type of work that my father did, and none of it really interested me that much. And when I first took psychedelics, I felt like I was admitted into a world of compassion and beauty and creativity. It was like nothing I had experienced in my regular life. And almost instantly that became the goal of where I wanted to be…”

D.M. Turner (1962–1996) American drug researcher

Interview with Elizabeth Gips http://www.tripzine.com/articles.asp?id=dmturnergips

Life, People, World, School

“Our laws need to reflect the evolution of technology and the changing expectations of American society. This is why the Constitution is often called a “living” document. But we have a long way to go to get our modern privacy laws in line with modern technology.”

Al Franken (1951) American comedian and politician

"Privacy and Civil Liberties in the Digital Age" in WIRED (2 March 2012) http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/03/opinion-franken-privacyliberties/

Law, Way, Change

“It was true, of course, there was an abnormal level of narcissism in our society, but it did not do, he told himself, to spend too much time going on about it. Society changed. Narcissism was about love, ultimately, even if only love of self. And that was better than hate…. Did it matter if young men thought of fashion and hair gel when, not all that many years ago, their thoughts tended to turn to war and flags and the grim partisanship of the football terrace?”

Alexander McCall Smith book Espresso Tales

Espresso Tales, chapter 3.
The 44 Scotland Street series

Love, Men, Hate, War

“I am going to do some drawings or paintings…in the mirror of my wardrobe.. with myself as a figure doing something.”

Gwen John (1876–1939) Welsh painter

Letter to Rodin (circa 1905)

Drawing, Painting

“People did not go jumping from one place to another with nothing in between. It simply did not happen.”

Stephen R. Lawhead (1950) American writer

Source: The Skin Map (2010), p. 83

People

“I believe that it is as much a right and duty for women to do something with their lives as for men and we are not going to be satisfied with such frivolous parts as you give us.”

Louisa May Alcott book Rose in Bloom

Rose in Bloom (1876), Ch. 1 : Coming Home

Women, Men, Parting

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening, because I have some very sad news for all of you, and, I think, sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world; and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

Speech on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968)

Love, People, World, Sadness

“Going to see Godzilla at the Palais of the Cannes Film Festival is like attending a satanic ritual in St. Peter's Basilica. It's a rebuke to the faith that the building represents. Cannes touchingly adheres to a belief that film can be intelligent, moving and grand. Godzilla is a big, ugly, ungainly device to give teenagers the impression they are seeing a movie. It was the festival's closing film, coming at the end like the horses in a parade, perhaps for the same reason.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/godzilla-1998 of Godzilla (26 May 1998) Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

Faith, Intelligence, Horse

“You have to fight that much harder, and not in a whiny or combatant way,” she said. “You just have to be that much smarter, that much more organized, on your toes, always, and you have to dress that much more professionally. A lot more thought has to go into everything you do.”

Karin Housley (1964) American politician

The Thoroughly Modern Marriage of Phil and Karin Housley http://buffalonews.com/2017/11/23/the-thoroughly-modern-marriage-of-phil-and-karin-housley (November 23, 2017)

Way, Fight

“But often, in the world’s most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us, to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

"The Buried Life" (1852), st. 6

Life, World, Knowledge, Heart

“I joined the Conservatives at Oxford. I didn't consider it a particularly important decision at the time. I was a young Indian boy at a university many in my country would have dreamed to go to, but very few would have fitted into. I became a Conservative, therefore to gain entry into this new elite world. I felt justified in my decision slightly later on when Harold Macmillian gave his Winds of Change speech in South Africa, a speech I thought was very brave. Later on the the 1980s I gave up my membership because of disagreements with the parties views, and I remain a Liberal Democrat voter to this day. Though, I don't see them as very much better.”

Munir Butt (1940–2015) British diplomat

Source: Interview in The Cherwell, Oxford University newspaper, 1997.

World, Dreams, Boy, Decision

“There is no doubt that Jacomoni and Visconti Prasca have a large share of the responsibility in the Albanian affair, but the real blame must be sought elsewhere. It lies entirely with the Duce's command. This is a command that he, the Duce, cannot hold. Let him leave everything to us, and when things go wrong let him punish those responsible.”

Pietro Badoglio (1871–1956) Italian general during both World Wars and a Prime Minister of Italy

To Pavolini. Quoted in " Albania in the Twentieth Century: A History" - Page 68 - by Owen Pearson - 2006

“In the first place I have an enormous regard for common sense. Any time we discover some great thing and it contradicts common sense, we better go back to the laboratory and check it.”

Harry Harlow (1905–1981) American psychologist

in interview with Carol Tavris, as cited in Love According To Harry Harlow http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/love-according-to-harry-harlow#.WE2jv33d7cs, t the Association for Psychological Science's Observer, by Deborah Blum, January 2012.

Sense, Time

“We all have that heritage, no matter what old land our fathers left. All colors and blends of Americans have somewhat the same tendencies. It's a breed — selected out by accident. And so we're overbrave and overfearful — we're kind and cruel as children. We're overfriendly and at the same time frightened of strangers. We boast and are impressed. We're oversentimental and realistic. We are mundane and materialistic — and do you know of any other nation that acts for ideals? We eat too much. We have no taste, no sense of proportion. We throw our energy about like waste. In the old lands they say of us that we go from barbarism to decadence without an intervening culture. Can it be that our critics have not the key or the language of our culture? That's what we are, Cal — all of us. You aren't very different.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

East of Eden (1952)

Children, Color, Sense, Time

“I have known some horses and a good many more pigs who I believe harbored evil intent in their hearts. I will go further and say all cats are wicked, though often useful. Who has not seen Satan in their sly faces?”

Charles Portis book True Grit

Source: True Grit (1968), Chapter 3, p. 29 : thoughts of 'Mattie Ross'

Cats, Evil, Heart, Horse

“We are all going to Heaven, and Vandyck is of the company.”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

Quote in Summer 1788, as cited in Thomas Gainsborough, Lord Ronald Sutherland F.S.A. - publishers, George Bell and Sons, London 1903, p. 10
1770 - 1788

“You don't want to go to Miami. Everybody's always delighted with it--no! Listen! The temperature down there is always over ninety and the humidity--and here's the problem--is way over 100%, way. And you know how it's over 100% humidity? When you're walking down the street for five minutes thinking to yourself, "You know, I should have put deodorant on my balls."”

Lewis Black (1948) American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor

That's over a hundred. Because that's not something you'd think of on your own.
The White Album (2000)

Way, Problem, Thinking

“Being an athlete, you have to consider whether your meals have enough of everything you need. As a vegetarian, you are forced to be creative, which I find makes me more adventurous with my cooking. Following a strict diet based on performance can be tedious, but because I enjoy the variety of my diet, it makes it easier to follow. … If any cyclists are thinking of becoming vegetarian, then I would suggest giving it a go. There’s definitely no harm in trying it! Be prepared to be experimental and open to new foods – you can’t just take out meat from your existing meals, you need to learn new ways of eating.”

Lizzie Deignan (1988) English track and road racing cyclist

"The Fuelling of a Champion: Lizzie Deignan" https://www.cycleplan.co.uk/blog/the-fuelling-of-a-champion-nutrition-of-pro-cyclist-lizzie-deignan, interview with The Cycleplan Blog (9 March 2018).

Food, Way, Thinking, Learning

“If you think learning salsa is your future, you’re going to be pretty insufferable in salsa classes.”

Junot Díaz (1968) Dominican-American writer

Lunch with the FT interview (July 2014) https://www.ft.com/content/a438f98e-01f4-11e4-bb71-00144feab7de

Thinking, Learning, Future

“John Cage, composer, painter, and all-round thinker and cultural catalyst, said that if you introduce twenty percent of novelty into any artwork, watch out -- you are going to lose eighty percent of your audience at once. He said you would lose them for fifteen years. Cage was interested in fifteen-year cycles. But he was hopelessly optimistic. The general appreciation, for example, of Western painting has got stuck around Impressionism, and that was 130 years ago, not fifteen years ago.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

"105 Years of Illustrated Text" in the Zoetrope All-Story, Vol. 5 No. 1.
105 Years of Illustrated Text

Painting

“If you're going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you're not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you're probably doing something wrong.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Speech at Chapman Law School http://lawandordnance.com/oldbrass/2005/08/the_quotable_sc.php (August 2005). 2000s

Faith, Time

“We can't ignore the fact that ahead of us is a great war and this war is going to need significant preparation.”

Ahad Ha'am (1856–1927) Hebrew essayist and thinker

Source: Wrestling with Zion, p. 15.

War

“It's really splendid, my dear. Are you going to bring it into town?”

Fenella Fielding (1927–2018) English actress

To a fellow actress who was showing off her new house in Wandsworth Interview: Independent, Sunday 24 February 2008 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-lady-vanishes-what-ever-happened-to-fenella-fielding-785265.html

“My darling one…. I shall be thinking of you while you are away and hope you will remember to wrap up warm when you go out at night.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, A Clockwork Orange (1962)

Hope, Thinking, Night

“He and Marilyn were lovers, but this was never said in so many words. Explicitness about one’s romantic arrangements had apparently been deemed gauche. In my middle-class teen-age world, the whole apparatus of going steady, exchanging ID bracelets, smooching at dances, fighting, breaking up, submitting to the arbitration of friends — that was the point, the public drama.”

Edmund White (1940) American novelist and LGBT essayist

My Women, The New Yorker, 6 June 2005
Articles and Interviews

Age, World, Lovers, Dance

“I was still in Europe at the time. Truman said he had the authority to relieve him and he did it. I have never made up my mind whether he was right or not, but I happened to be with a British unit the night we learned of MacArthur's dismissal. The British had a brigade in Korea at the time and the British officers in the Mess were very anti-MacArthur and celebrating his demise. I think MacArthur was a magnificent general, but he became more and more insulated from the world by his staff, many of whom had been with him since the Bataan days. I think that was part of the problem. He was not a young man at the time of Korea. I think, perhaps, he got too dependent on his staff officers and certain things happened which were not in MacArthur's best interest… Even after MacArthur was relieved by the President of the United States he had a tickertape parade in New York City and he made two great speeches, one to Congress and one about Duty, Honor, Country. The Duty, Honor, Country speech is one of the greatest ever made by a military man, and he made it without a note at the age of seventy-five. I believe Douglas MacArthur in 1945 could have come home and run for president and won going away. He was worshiped at the end of the war.”

George S. Patton IV (1923–2004) U.S. Army general

Source: The Fighting Pattons (1997) by Brian M. Sobel, p. 67

War, Age, World, Home

“Swaraj means that we must live within ourselves, we must be self-contained. I tell you we are great slaves to-day. Our economic slavery is greater than our political slavery… From Manchester comes 60 crores rupees worth of cloth every year. You will not have to pay these 60 crores rupees which go out of India. If a householder works by Charkha for one o two hours a day at the end of the year he will find himself with all the necessaries of his family.”

Chittaranjan Das (1870–1925) Indian politician and leader of the Swaraj Party

Address delivered on 11th February 1921 at a meeting held in Maulana Mazhar-ul-Haq’s compound at Patna. Source: Collected Works of Deshbandhu.
1921

Family, Clothes

“Mr. President, you're entitled as a president to your own airplane, and to your own house, but not to your own facts. I'm not going to cut education funding. I don't have any plan to cut education funding.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Presidential debate, , * 2012-10-03
2012 presidential debate: President Obama and Mitt Romney’s remarks in Denver on Oct. 3
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/2012-presidential-debate-president-obama-and-mitt-romneys-remarks-in-denver-on-oct-3-running-transcript/2012/10/03/24d6eb6e-0d91-11e2-bd1a-b868e65d57eb_story_4.html
2012-10-04, viewable at [2012-10-03, Special Programming : Mitt Romney zingers at first presidential debate, CNN, YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PvpBLQXEJg, 2012-10-04]
in response to President Obama's assertion, "His running mate, Congressman Ryan, put forward a budget... it wasn't very detailed (this seems to be a trend), but what it did do, if you extrapolated how much money we're talking about, you'd look at cutting the education budget up to 20%."
possibly paraphrasing "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.", attributed to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan
2012

Education, Housing

“There are moments when the Spirit moves among men and the breath of the Lord is abroad upon the waters of our being; there are others when it retires and men are left to act in the strength or the weakness of their own egoism. The first are periods when even a little effort produces great results and changes destiny; the second are spaces of time when much labour goes to the making of a little result. It is true that the latter may prepare the former, may be the little smoke of sacrifice going up to heaven which calls down the rain of God's bounty…. Unhappy is the man or the nation which, when the divine moment arrives, is found sleeping or unprepared to use it, because the lamp has not been kept trimmed for the welcome and the ears are sealed to the call. But thrice woe to them who are strong and ready, yet waste the force or misuse the moment; for them is irreparable loss or a great destruction…. In the hour of God cleanse thy soul of all self-deceit and hypocrisy and vain self-flattering that thou mayst look straight into thy spirit and hear that which summons it. All insincerity of nature, once thy defence against the eye of the Master and the light of the ideal, becomes now a gap in thy armour and invites the blow. Even if thou conquer for the moment, it is the worse for thee, for the blow shall come afterwards and cast thee down in the midst of thy triumph. But being pure cast aside all fear; for the hour is often terrible, a fire and a whirlwind and a tempest, a treading of the winepress of the wrath of God; but he who can stand up in it on the truth of his purpose is he who shall stand; even though he fall, he shall rise again; even though he seem to pass on the wings of the wind, he shall return. Nor let worldly prudence whisper too closely in thy ear; for it is the hour of the unexpected, the incalculable, the immeasurable. Mete not the power of the Breath by thy petty instruments, but trust and go forward…. But most keep thy soul clear, even if for a while, of the clamour of the ego. Then shall a fire march before thee in the night and the storm be thy helper and thy flag shall wave on the highest height of the greatness that was to be conquered.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

1918 (The Hour of God)
India's Rebirth

Men, God, Truth, Fear

“First off, the whole point of airborne troops is surprise: you don't know they're coming until they're there. But because Cain arrived 24 hours after the first wave, the surprise was gone. And to make matters worse, the landing zone was some eight miles from the bridge. So, thanks to some incompetent planning by the top brass in England, the Germans knew that Cain and his men were coming, they knew where he landed, they knew where he was going, and they had the wherewithal to do something about it.”

Jeremy Clarkson (1960) English broadcaster, journalist and writer

The Victoria Cross: For Valour (2003)

Men

“This railway system practically administers the government of the United States, in all things that concern the system, and the governments of the several states of the Union as well. The majority of the United States senators recently elected have been its mere appointees and lobbyists, and agents at the same time for other corporate properties.
In all this corrupt exploitation of the nation by the most degrading sort of economic force, in this debauchery of every citizen of my commonwealth, I am obliged to participate, in order to travel anywhere upon the national highways, whether I go upon God's errands or go in quest of evil to do.”

George D. Herron (1862–1925) American clergyman, writer and activist

Source: Between Caesar and Jesus (1899), pp. 21-22

God, Travel, Evil, Time

“The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go she went.”

Saki (1870–1916) British writer

"Reginald on Besetting Sins"
Reginald (1904)

Cooking

“[On paying the toll at the Severn Bridge] It's worth £5.40 to have that moment where you stop, then you come through and there are no lanes! It takes a very strange sort of man who doesn't go: 'The race is on! Come on, woohoo! First one to the lanes!! Order, order, back in order OK but I had fun while it lasted.”

Michael McIntyre (1976) British comedian

The Comedy Roadshow

“What I consider completely sterile is the attitude, for instance, of Bertalanffy who is going around and jumping around for years saying that all the analytical science and molecular biology doesn’t really get to interesting results; let’s talk in terms of general systems theory … there cannot be anything such as general systems theory, it’s impossible. Or, if it existed, it would be meaningless.”

Jacques Monod (1910–1976) French biologist

Monod (1974) "On chance and necessity". In F. J. Ayala & T. Dobzhansky, (Eds.), Studies in the philosophy of biology. cited in: Brian R. Gaines (1979) " General systems research: quo vadis? http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~gaines/reports/SYS/GS79/GS79.pdf", General Systems, Vol. 24 (1979), p. 4

Science

“The tendency was to sell families as units, if for no other reason [than] to keep the slaves contented. The gangs in transit were usually a cheerful lot, though the presence of a number of the more vicious type sometimes made it necessary for them all to go in chains. At the other extreme, when the Central of Georgia railroad company in 1858 equipped a Negro sleeping car to assist in the slave trade it set a standard not always maintained in a later generation. When on the block, the slave was as likely to hinder as to help in his sale. Some, out of a vain conceit in bringing a high price, would boast of their physical prowess, in which case an unwary purchaser would likely be cheated. Others would malinger, because of a grudge against owners or traders or in order to bring a low price and be put at less tiring labor. Dealers, also, adopted the tricks of horse traders to make their merchants more attractive -- the greasiest Negro was generally considered the healthiest.”

W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006) ex FBI agent, conservative United States author and faith-based political theorist

The Making of America (1986)

Family, Cars, Sleep, Help

“The bourgeois … considered the philosophes to be his true guides, which did not prevent him from taking good care not to adopt their teachings once he realized they might be damaging to the interests of his class. … He seemed quite disposed to make his peace with the Church, now that he was sure of being sufficiently emancipated to be able to live his life as he chose. To go farther, he feared, would to to act contrary to the interests of his class, for disbelief, by spreading among the people, might eventually endanger the principles of the social order which the bourgeoisie needed to establish its domination.”

Bernard Groethuysen (1880–1946) French literary historian, translator and writer

Source: The Bourgeois: Catholicism vs. Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France (1927), p. 46

Life, People, Fear, Peace

“Each year in Africa about two and a half million people go blind…and they just go blind… they sit around in their huts.”

Fred Hollows (1929–1993) New Zealand–Australian ophthalmologist

Culture and Recreation Government Site http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/fredhollows/

People

“Come in peace to my home, Tan-Tan. And when you go, go in friendship.”

Nalo Hopkinson book Midnight Robber

Section 4 (p. 179)
Midnight Robber (2000)

Friendship, Peace, Home

“Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Give all to Love
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

God

“Books serve us simply by opening a window on all we wanted to say and feel and think about. We may not even notice that they have not said it themselves till we go back to them years later and do not find what we loved in them. You cannot keep the view by taking the window with you.”

James Richardson (1950) American poet

#92
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

Love, Books, Feeling, Thinking

“My manager will send me anywhere he wants to, 'cause he doesn't have to fuckin' go.”

Ron White (1956) American comedian

You Can't Fix Stupid

“I would urge you to be as restrained as you can be as the next steps occur. I don’t know exactly what they’re going to be, this could be one of the most challenging times in the history of our country.”

Russ Feingold (1953) Wisconsin politician; three-term U.S. Senator

Concession speech to supporters after losing his 2016 bid for the Senate, in [Rivera, Adrian, An Interview with Democratic Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, http://thepolitic.org/an-interview-with-democratic-wisconsin-senator-russ-feingold/, 20 August 2018, The Politic, January 10, 2018]
2016

History, Time, Country

“My [artworks] have neither object nor space nor line nor anything – no forms. They are light, lightness, about merging, about formlessness, breaking down form. You wouldn’t think of form by the ocean. You can go in if you don’t encounter anything. A world without objects, without interruption, making a work without interruption or obstacle. It is to accept the necessity of this simple, direct going into a field of vision as you could cross and empty beach to look at the ocean.”

Agnes Martin (1912–2004) American artist

her remark in 1966 as quoted by Ann Wilson in 'Linear Webs', Art and Artists 1, no. 7, Oct. 1966, p. 49; as quoted on the Tate exhibition, London June - October 2015 http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/agnes-martin/room-guide/room-nine & by Julie Warchol, on Smith College Museum of Art https://www.smith.edu/artmuseum/Collections/Cunningham-Center/Blog-paper-people/Agnes-Martin-On-a-Clear-Daywebsite 1960's

World, Thinking, Light

“We are here as local information harvesters, local problem-solvers in support of the integrity of eternally regenerative Universe. The fact that we get away from physical problems doesn't mean we go away from problems. The problems are really rarely physical.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

From 1980s onwards, Only Integrity is Going to Count (1983)

Support, Problem, Universe

“You Ministers go on shuffling the old cards till they are so worn out and dirty that one can hardly tell the pips on them.”

Anthony Trollope book The Prime Minister

Source: The Prime Minister (1876), Ch. 21

“We are hurtling back into a Soviet abyss, into an information vacuum that spells death from our own ignorance. All we have left is the internet, where information is still freely available. For the rest, if you want to go on working as a journalist, it's total servility to Putin. Otherwise, it can be death, the bullet, poison, or trial - whatever our special services, Putin's guard dogs, see fit.”

Anna Politkovskaya (1958–2006) Russian journalist

As quoted in " Poisoned by Putin: The horror of Beslan was made still worse by the intimidation of Russia's servile media http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/09/russia.media" (9 September 2004), The Guardian, Guardian News and Media Limited.

Death, Dogs

“Disneyland is a work of love. We didn't go into Disneyland just with the idea of making money.”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

The Quotable Walt Disney (2001)

Love, Money, Idea

“Go by reverently, and read with sober care
How a great people, riding with defiant shouts
The centaur of Revolution,
Spurred and whipped to frenzy,
Shook with terror, seeing the mist of the sea
Over the precipice they were nearing,
And fell from his back in precipitate awe
To celebrate the Feast of the Supreme Being.”

Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950) American writer

" Captain Orlando Killion http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/captain-orlando-killion/'

People, Reading, Sea

“'So then at forty-six years of age I came here to learn to live by cliches,' is what Day says to Charlotte Treat right after Randy Lenz asked what time it was, again, at 0825. 'To turn my will and life over to the care of cliches. One day at a time. Easy does it. First things first. Courage is fear that has said its prayers. Ask for help. Thy will not mine be done. It works if you work it. Grow or go. Keep coming back.' […] I walk around with my arms out straight in front of me and recite these cliches. In a monotone. No inflection necessary. Could that be one? Could that be added to the cliche-pool? "No inflection necessary"? Too many syllables, probably.'”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest (1996)

Life, Age, Fear, Courage

“It's a bit early in the midnight hour for me / To go through all the things that I want to be
Take me away / 'Cos I just don't want to stay / And the lies you make me say / Are getting deeper every day
If you're lost at sea / Well I hope that you drownd"
Please don't cry / Never say die”

Noel Gallagher (1967) British musician

All Around The World
Be Here Now (1997)

Hope, Cry, Sea

“But one can't go without his sleep forever.
The immortals give each thing its proper place
in our mortal lives throughout the good green earth.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XIX. 592–594 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Sleep

“The devil makes work for idle thirsts. But given the choice between booze and cannabis, I go for ganja every time.”

Dennis Nilsen (1945–2018) British serial killer

As quoted in Exclusive: Dennis Nilsen: My Prison Life of Drink and Drugs http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/exclusive-dennis-nilsen-prison-life-555104, Mirror.co.uk (27 August, 2005)

Time

“You know, Nellie, when I was young I would run on fly balls hit to the outfield. I'd go around second base and I suddenly realize the ball is going to be caught. Sometimes I would run across the infield and never re-touch second base. Sometimes the umpires wouldn't notice if the players wouldn't. I didn't know how to run the bases well the first couple of years.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Speaking with Nellie King in 1967 or later; as quoted by King in "Frustration in the Fifties" https://books.google.com/books?id=03XsO25A3I8C&pg=PA60&dq=%22As+Nellie+King+recalls,+Clemente+occasionally%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi63oCQjcfNAhWEOyYKHUvbBrMQ6AEIFDAA#v=onepage&q&f=false, from Roberto Clemente: The Great One (1998) by Bruce Markusen, pp. 60-61 Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1967</big>

Flying

“I think there's a side of me that's trying to compete with Lucas and Spielberg — I don't usually admit this publicly — because I tend to think that they only go so far, and their view of the world is rather simplistic. What I want to do is take whatever cinema is considered normal or successful at a particular time and play around with it — to use it as a way of luring audiences in.”

Terry Gilliam (1940) American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe

IMDB profile http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000416/bio#quotes

World, Way, Thinking, Time

“My business strategy is either to be geographically focused with lots of businesses or you can be a global player in selected businesses. Since I chose the route of being global, that is where I am going. You have to be competitive. It’s a matter of choice.”

Sukanto Tanoto (1949) Indonesian businessman

Globe Asia Interview, Sep, 2015. http://www.inside-rge.com/Sukanto-Tanoto-Resource-King-GlobeAsia 2015

Business

“I think every once in a while I feel the need to break my medium... if I have been doing a very large painting I like to drop into something in small scale. It is a challenge to go into this size. It is just to hold my own interest, and then each media has its own conditions.”

Lee Krasner (1908–1984) American artist

Source: Art Talk, Conversations with 15 woman artists 1975, p. 93.

Feeling, Thinking, Painting

“I remember when I first went to Singapore. I marveled at how planned everything was. But the sense of marvel was not totally positive. They had everything laid out for you: where you were going to be born, what you were going to do as a child, where you were going to get your education, where they would channel you when you’d go to work. They had things planned out for your retirement, and then for your death. It gives rise to the feeling that you might as well go ahead and die and get it over with, if that was going to circumscribe the totality of your life. But thinking about the possibility that true awakening can be found through your efforts: that breaks through those circumscribed limits. That’s not part of anybody else’s plan, but that can be part of your plan. And to whatever extent you can nurture that conviction, it keeps your heart nurtured and nourished as well.”

Thanissaro Bhikkhu (1949) Theravadin Buddhist Monk and Scholar

Conviction and Confidence (2010)

Life, Death, Education, Feeling

“We pulled for you when the wind was against us and the sails were low.
Will you never let us go?”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Song of the Galley-Slaves http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/verse/p4/galleyslaves.html, l. 1-2 (1893). Other works

“Character and training disposed him not to interfere in other mens’s business. His job was to find out what they did, and his inclination was to let them go on doing it. He preferred to be enlightened, rather than to enlighten; to seek facts rather than the Truth. But even the most unmissionary soul, unless he pretend he has no emotions, is sometimes faced with a choice between commission and omission. “What are they doing?” abruptly becomes, “What are we doing?””

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

and then, “What must I do?”
Section 5
Hainish Cycle, The Word for World Is Forest (1972)

Men, Truth, Soul, Business

“Truth be told, having two passports in Japan is not necessarily a problem. If one lived a quiet life, one could conceivably keep renewing a non-Japanese passport ad infinitum. The USG permits dual citizenship and doesn't go out of its way to tell other governments about the nationalities of their citizens. However, as you know, I don't live a quiet life.”

Debito Arudou (1965) Author/activist with Japanese citizenship born in the USA

"How to Lose Your American Passport" http://www.debito.org/deamericanize.html, Debito.org (2003-01-10)

Life, Truth, Way, Problem

“My dear Genron, I am forced to write to you because I can not go to see you because I am detained at Ste. Pelagie by a slight indisposition.... I eagerly await your response. Reply me right away about Cabat or Huet; my respects to your family..
Farewell, the Gouape, H.-D.
she is always in all her Charms (the Republic) - do not talk to me about politics because the letters are opened.”

Honoré Daumier (1808–1879) French printmaker, caricaturist, painter, and sculptor

Quote in Daumier's letter, from prison Ste. Pelagie Prison, Paris, 9 October, 1832; as quoted on website Daumier http://www.daumier.org/14.0.html#c760 His political print 'Gargantua' https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Honor%C3%A9_Daumier_-_Gargantua.jpg, published in 'La Caricature', 1832, cost Daumier six months in prison, because of insulting king Louis Philippe 1830's

Family

“Though it makes me sick to do so without my writers, there are more than a hundred people whose financial well-being depends on our show. It is time to go back to work.”

Jimmy Kimmel (1967) American talk show host and comedian

On returning back to work at Jimmy Kimmel Live! during the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike — reported in San Mateo County Times staff (December 19, 2007) "Here is your pregnant Spears", San Mateo County Times.

People, Time, Dependency