Quotes about going
page 87

“[I]f we’re going to jeer at North Korea for being a de facto monarchy, we must also acknowledge the main advantage of such a system: no divisive squabbling over who has the right to rule. On my book tour for “The Cleanest Race” I used the example of my British mother: a firm supporter of the monarchy with different estimations of the various royals. She doesn’t like the idea of Charles becoming king, but accepts that it will and must happen.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Interview with Joshua Stanton (August 2017)

Books, Idea, Support

“There are different views about what's good for our country, our economy, and our leadership in the world. And I think it's important to look at what we need to do to get the economy going again.”

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

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

World, Thinking, Country

“I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

"Her Kind"
To Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960)

Learning

“In a word, the home is a little dull. When you have got a woman in a box, and you pay rent on the box, her relationship to you insensibly changes character. It loses the fine excitement of democracy. It ceases to be companionship, for companionship is only possible in a democracy. It is no longer a sharing of life together—it is a breaking of life apart. Half a life—cooking, clothes, and children; half a life—business, politics, and baseball. It doesn’t make much difference which is the poorer half. Either half, when it comes to life, is very near to none at all.Of course, this artificial distinction does not strictly obtain in any particular marriage. There is an attempt to break it down. It is an honourable attempt. But our civilization is nevertheless built on that distinction, In order to break down that distinction utterly, it will be necessary to break down all the codes and restrictions and prejudices that keep women out of the great world. It is in the great world that a man finds his sweetheart, and in that narrow little box outside of the world that he loses her. When she has left that box and gone back into the great world, a citizen and a worker, then with surprise and delight he will discover her again, and never let her go.”

Floyd Dell (1887–1969) novelist, poet, playwright, critic, editor

[Dell, Floyd, Feminism for Men, The Masses, New York, 1914]

Life, Women, Marriage, Children

“Now, I have to go back to work on my State of the Union speech. And I worked on it until pretty late last night. I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time, never. These allegations are false, and I need to go back to work for the American people.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

Clinton denying that he had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSDAXGXGiEw. Remarks on the After-School Child Care Initiative, Roosevelt Room, White House Remarks on the After-School Child Care Initiative http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=56257 (January 26, 1998) 1990s

People, Lie, Time, Falseness

“Why I should be in Romania in the name of unknown to me goal. There was a time when I led soldiers to battle, thinking I was doing my duty as a Russian patriot. However, I understood that we have been cheated, that people needed peace. The old army and Soviet Union are not compatible, therefore, my military career had to end. With no remorse, I could go back to my favorite occupation, working in the field.”

Aleksandr Vasilevsky (1895–1977) Soviet military commander

Quoted in "The matter of my whole life" - by Marshal A.M. Vasilevsky - Moscow, Politizdat, 1978 - Page 30.

People, Peace, Thinking, Time

“Mary: You can read?
Pocket: I was raised in a nunnery, wench. I'm a walking library of learning bound in comely leather, suitable for stroking at your service, should you fancy a bit of culture to go with your lack of breeding…or vice verse of course.”

Christopher Moore book Fool

Fool (2009)

Learning, Reading

“Dear brothers and sisters after the great Pope, John Paul II, the cardinals have elected me, a simple and humble worker in the Lord's vineyard. The fact that the Lord can work and act even with insufficient means consoles me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers. In the joy of the resurrected Lord, we go on with his help. He is going to help us and Mary will be on our side. Thank you.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

Full text of his first public speech as pope, upon his presentation as Pope Benedict XVI
2005

Sister, Help, Joy

“My fellow Democrats, my fellow Americans, it is so wonderful to be here.
And nothing — nothing is going to keep me away from this special gathering tonight.
I have come here tonight to stand with you to change America, to restore its future, to rise to our best ideals, and to elect Barack Obama president of the United States.”

Ted Kennedy (1932–2009) United States Senator

DNC Speech (2008)

Change, Future

“One day work is hard, and another day it is easy; but if I had waited for inspiration I am afraid I should have done nothing. The miner does not sit at the top of the shaft waiting for the coal to come bubbling up to the surface. One must go deep down, and work out every vein carefully.”

Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) English composer of the Gilbert & Sullivan duo

Untitled essay, reprinted in Arthur Lawrence Sir Arthur Sullivan: Life-story, Letters and Reminiscences (London: James Bowden, 1899) p. 225.

Waiting

“The difference between faith and superstition is that the first uses reason to go as far as it can, and then makes the jump; the second shuns reason entirely — which is why superstition is not the ally, but the enemy, of true religion.”

Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986) American journalist

"Purely Personal Prejudices"
Strictly Personal (1953)

Faith, Religion

“You can't expect that what you've become a master in will keep you valuable throughout the whole of your career, and you want to add to that the fact that most people are now going to be working into their 70s. Being a generalist is, in my view, very unwise. Your major competitor is Wikipedia or Google.”

Lynda Gratton (1953) Business theorist

Lynda Gratton, cited in: Shalia Dewan, " Working Nonstop to Stay Relevant http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A00EFDF1539F931A1575AC0A9649D8B63," New York Times, September 22, 2012.

People

“We can say to the other revolutionaries: you are right to be dissatisfied with this society with its erroneous and unjust ways, but how can you change everything straightaway with your own hands? Do you want to destroy the persons whom you see as adversaries, and even those who you suspect of not being revolutionary?
Do you want the revolution to go forward with massacres, torture, the absolute power of a group, which prevents other people from speaking, informing themselves or criticizing or even living? We want a society founded on love and shall we start with cultivating and stimulating hatred? We want a free society and should we increase tyranny and absolutism? We want a good and clean end and should we use dirty and terrible means?”

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

Hymn

Love, People, Way, Change

“Well, I think it is accidental. It’s just something I started doing naturally and it had a lot to do with reading. I think that Dylan Thomas, his prose and poetry, was a big influence on me. Just his use of words… He would use so many odd words: like these three- and four-syllable words that you just don’t normally hear. And they’re not used in a manner that sets the text apart from the reader. Rather they’re drawing the reader in. It’s entirely based on the alliteration of the word itself—onomatopoeia and things like that. I feel like a lot of the words I use don’t stick out in the song because they keep the feel of the song in mind. The rhythm—that’s the primary thing. They’re put in there for rhythm and alliteration as much as they are for meaning. And as long as they are not used extraneously, they’re real lightning rods for people listening to the lyrics. If the words are really helping out the rhythm of the song then all they’re going to do is draw the listener in even more”

Colin Meloy (1974) American musician

On his songwriting technique. Interview with Colin Meloy, 2004-06 http://www.believermag.com/issues/200406/?read=interview_meloy,

People, Feeling, Nature, Thinking

“We are in the world and, before we know where we are, we are on one of the paths which we must traverse in our few score years between birth and death. Moreover, each man's path leads up to the theatre on the one side and down from it on the other. The inexorable manager, Fate, requires that each should go through with his comedy or his drama, if he be judged worthy of a leading part, with his scene or his act in another man's piece, if he be fit only to play the walking gentleman, the dumb footman, or the mechanically trained supernumerary who does duty by turns as soldier, sailor, courtier, husbandman, conspirator or red-capped patriot. A few play well, many play badly, all must appear and the majority are feebly applauded and loudly hissed. He counts himself great who is received with such an uproar of clapping and shout of approval as may drown the voice of the discontented; he is called fortunate who, having missed his cue and broken down in his words, makes his exit in the triumphant train of the greater actor upon whom all eyes are turned; he is deemed happy who, having offended no man, is allowed to depart in peace upon his downward road.”

Francis Marion Crawford (1854–1909) Novelist, short story writer, essayist (1854-1909)

A Cigarette-Maker's Romance (1894)

Death, Fate, World, Peace

“Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

The Two Paths, Lecture II: The Unity of Art, section 54 (1859).

Art, Heart

“The Art we look at is made by only a select few. A small group create, promote, purchase, exhibit and decide the success of Art. Only a few hundred people in the world have any real say. When you go to an Art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires…”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Wall and Piece (2005)

People, World, Art, Success

“In those days kitchen matches were heavy-duty implements—more like signal flares than the weedy sticks we get today. You could strike them on any hard surface and fling them at least fifteen feet and they wouldn’t go out. Indeed, even when being beaten vigorously with two hands, as when lodged on the front of one’s sweater, they seemed positively determined not to fail.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

Source: The Life And Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (2006), p. 170

“Well, I didn't ever think about Australia much. To me Australia had never been very interesting, it was just something that happened in the background. It was Neighbours and Crocodile Dundee movies and things that never really registered with me and I didn't pay any attention to it at all. I went out there in 1992, as I was invited to the Melbourne Writers Festival, and I got there and realised almost immediately that this was a really really interesting country and I knew absolutely nothing about it. As I say in the book, the thing that really struck me was that they had this prime minister who disappeared in 1967, Harold Holt and I had never heard about this. I should perhaps tell you because a lot of other people haven't either. In 1967 Harold Holt was prime minister and he was walking along a beach in Victoria just before Christmas and decided impulsively to go for a swim and dove into the water and swam about 100 feet out and vanished underneath the waves, presumably pulled under by the ferocious undertow or rips as they are called, that are a feature of so much of the Australian coastline. In any case, his body was never found. Two things about that amazed me. The first is that a country could just lose a prime minister — that struck me as a really quite special thing to do — and the second was that I had never heard of this. I could not recall ever having heard of this. I was sixteen years old in 1967. I should have known about it and I just realised that there were all these things about Australia that I had never heard about that were actually very very interesting. The more I looked into it, the more I realised that it is a fascinating place. The thing that really endeared Australia to me about Harold Holt's disappearance was not his tragic drowning, but when I learned that about a year after he disappeared the City of Melbourne, his home town, decided to commemorate him in some appropriate way and named a municipal swimming pool after him. I just thought: this is a great country.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

The pool was under construction before he disappeared and is located in the electorate he represented.
Interview with Stanford's Newsletter (June 2001)

People, Books, Way, Home

“It obliges one to think with a particular kind of logic and severity. If it is nonsense, it will not go into Latin…I regard it as cruelty to the young to deprive them of that insight into language…Who would have thought Thatcher would be responsible for introducing the Prussian system, of dictating from central government the content of education in the supposed interest of the state? Translation into Latin was the great stamp and mark of English classical scholarship…My fatal decision was not to be pedantic and leave it in Latin. I had written Et Tiberim multo spumantem sanguine cerno: from Virgil in the Aeneid.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

And at the last minute I said, 'I can't put that out in Latin, that's pedantic'...In Latin, it would have been lost.
Interview with Valerie Grove, The Times (6 August 1993), p. 15
1990s

Education, Thinking, Decision

“They'll drop a cage into the water, and the shark'll be. like, "What you doin' down 'ere? What you fuckin' doin' down 'ere?" And they'll get a bit of meat on a stick and go "Oy! Wanker! Bleurgh!" And they’ll go "Oh, is that for me?" [pretends to shove meat in shark’s mouth] "You fuckin’…"”

Lee Evans (1964) English stand-up comedian and actor

Live from the West End (1995)

Water

“I was born in the richest, most technologically advanced (and consequently the most powerful) country in the world. We were the leaders in science, so of course we had a better economy, and we had a higher standard of living than anyone else at that time. The rest of the globe sent their best and brightest to enroll in our schools because our students were among the most inventive, innovative and involved. Some of the greatest American scientists were the immigrants who stayed and enabled the United States to achieve more than anyone else had in the history of mankind. That's when our secular government still cared about better education. Sadly, that is not the country I still live in. America was number one, but saying that now reminds me of Aesop's fable where the hare is still resting on its laurels long after the tortoise has passed. In the fifty years since I was born, America's rating in science has fallen from number one to number thirty-seven. We have one of the lowest science scores of all countries in the developed world (or first world). Foreign scholars and foreign scientists don't stay here long after graduation (if they come at all), because what sort of environment do we offer intellectuals now? Our own scientists, our own graduate scholars are leaving as well, moving to Europe or Asia where they're more welcome, although an American going abroad now means that he will have to try to live down new stereotype instead of living up to the old one.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Don't Blame the Atheists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0Ca88xNw_w (October 21, 2012)

World, Education, School, History

“I talk about going to his Inauguration and crying when he took the oath, 'cause I was so afraid he was going to "wreck the economy and muck up the drinking water"… the failure of my pessimistic imagination at that moment boggles my mind now.”

Sarah Vowell (1969) American author, journalist, essayist and social commentator

Referring to George W. Bush on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart http://www.cc.com/video-clips/e88k08/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-sarah-vowell (2006-02-21)

Imagination, Failure, Drink, Water

“I don't think that you're born with gut [instinct], a gut matures and gets better and better over time, the struggle that most people have is learning to listen to it. Figuring out how to access it in some way. What I found is that even thought I'm an engineer and an analytical person at heart the most important decisions I've made had nothing to do with any of that. They were always based on intuition. The Apple one [choosing to leave Compaq to take the job at Apple in 1998] is a prime example of that. I remember forming my list of pluses and minuses and I could not get the chart to work out the way I wanted it to. Because I wanted something to say this says I should go to Apple. But it would not. Nothing financially would do that, I talked to people I trusted, that knew me, and they said: 'This is not what you should do'. It wasn't so easy. People said, you're just crazy, you're working for the top PC company in the world, how could you even think of doing it, you've lost your mind. And yet that voice said, 'Go West young man, Go West.”

Tim Cook (1960) American business executive

And some times you just have to go for it. macworld.co.uk http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/apple/apples-tim-cook-following-instinct-finding-best-people-treating-people-fairly-3451130/

People, World, Way, Thinking

“Twenty-five years from now…Computers will be exactly like telephones. They are probably going to be communicating all the time … I would hope that by the year 2000 there is this big [networking] infrastructure, giving us arbitrary bandwidth on a pay-as-you-go basis.”

Gordon Bell (1934) American computer engineer

Computer World "VAX Man" interview

Hope, Communication, Time

“I think that part of being a parent is trying to kill your kids…Because as soon as you have a kid, you know for sure that you're going to die. When you have a kid, you see your own gravestone.”

Stephen King book Christine

Pt. 1, Ch. 3
Christine (1983)

Thinking, Parent, Parting

“Interviewer: Are you in a hurry to finish your term as the Interim President?
Catherine Samba-Panza: I am not in a hurry but I believe that I had a specific mission which I accomplished. When I came into office, I knew that I was going to respect the rules, namely that I was not allowed to run for president in the following elections. I am proud to leave my position having respected these rules and to hand over a governable country to the new leaders that come out of the polls.”

Catherine Samba-Panza (1954) Central African politician

Central African Republic: Samba-Panza - "I Have Accomplished My Mission" http://allafrica.com/stories/201602170346.html (Interview) 2010s, 2016

Country

“Here's good advice for practice: go into partnership with nature; she does more than half the work and asks none of the fee.”

Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962) American university teacher (1879-1962)

Fischerisms (1944)

Nature, Partnership

“He asked my mum, 'Why would I devote myself to one woman and three children when I could be helping thousands?' She said: 'If you even have to ask that, you should go.'One of those times, when he came home, he didn't even know what I was called.”

M.I.A. (1975) British recording artist, songwriter, painter and director

Interview http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jun/13/mia-feature-miranda-sawyer, quote on her father to The Observer (2010) Sourced quotes

Children, Home, Time, Help

“He lacks confidence to the most enormous degree of all the people in the world. He will not even go to see his rushes. He’ll stay out in the alley and pace up and down and worry and collar you when you come out and say: ‘How good was so and so?’, and he’ll keep you for 45 minutes. It would be much simpler if he would go and look at them himself, you know? But he always thinks he’s no good.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Vincente Minnelli quoted in Schickel, Richard. The Men Who Made The Movies. New York: Atheneum, 1975. (M).

People, World, Confidence, Thinking

“While he was climbing the litter-strewn steps his left ball gave a sharp twinge, on and off like a light-switch, then again after he had sat down. Nothing. Just one of the aches and pains that come and go. No significance.”

Kingsley Amis book The Old Devils

The Old Devils (1986)

Pain, Light

“As soon as this is over we'll go home
To plant the seeds of justice in our bones,
To watch the children growing and see the women sewing.
There'll be laughter when the bells of freedom ring.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

My Father's Gun
Song lyrics, Tumbleweed Connection (1970)

Women, Children, Justice, Home

“I was wrong. I am not pleased about it at all and I think all Americans should be concerned about this… What do you want me to do, go over and kiss the camera?”

Bill O'Reilly (1949) American political commentator, television host and writer

2004-02-10

Good Morning America

ABC

Television

in response to a request to make good on his 2003-03-18 promise to publicly apologize if weapons of mass destruction were not found in Iraq

Kiss, Thinking

“I'm a critic. I think the administration has really undermined America's power and reputation and that Iraq may go down in history as the greatest disaster in American foreign policy, which means that I think it's worse than Vietnam in its unintended consequences and for our reputation. This president, because his administration is imposing democracy, which is an oxymoron, has, I think, hurt the concept. It is not just that the administration has been unilateral but that it has been unidimensional. It has paid attention primarily to one part of the world, without enough attention being paid to other parts.”

Madeleine K. Albright (1937–2022) Former U.S. Secretary of State

When asked what the George W. Bush administration's legacy in foreign affairs would be, interview http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2008/01/02/qa-madeleine-albright with Thomas Omestad, U.S. News & World Report (January 2, 2008) 2000s

World, Democracy, History, Thinking

“I'm weary, I'm weary,—this cold world of ours;
I will go dwell afar, with fairies and flowers.
....
I'm weary, I'm weary,—I'm off with the wind:
Can I find a worse fate than the one left behind?”

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

Fantasies, inscribed to T. Crofton Croker, Esq.
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Fate, World, Flowers

“Ah, my friend, if you and I could only
Get out of the war alive and then
immortal and ageless all of our days,
I would never again fight among the foremost
Or send you into battle where men win glory.
But as it is, death is everywhere
In more shapes that we can count,
And since no mortal is immune or can escape,
Let's go forward, either to give glory
To another man, or get glory from him.”

Stanley Lombardo (1943) Philosopher, Classicist

Book XX, lines 333–342; Sarpedon to Glaucus.
Translations, Iliad (1997)

Death, Men, War, Fight

“Now, I have something to tell you today. Mac OS X has been leading a secret double life — for the past five years. There have been rumors to this effect… but this is Apple's campus in Cupertino — let's zoom in on it — in that building right there… we've had teams doing the "just-in-case" scenario; and our rules have been that our designs for OS X must be processor independent, and that every project must be built for both the Power PC and Intel processors. And so today for the first time, I can confirm the rumors that every release of OS X has been compiled for both Power PC and Intel — this has been going on for the last five years. Just in case.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

2000s, WWDC 2005

Life, Secret, Time, Past

“You've got half the room going totally crazy, wild, they loved everything, they wanna do something great for our country, and you have the other side, even on positive news, really positive news, like that, they were like death, and un-American, un-American. Somebody said treasonous, I mean, yeah I guess, why not? Can we call that treason, why not?”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Speaking in Cincinnati about Democrats did not clap https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjwPiE1wCU0 during his State of the Union Address (5 February 2018) 2010s, 2018, February

Love, Death, Country

“I had no place to go. It was up or out.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Page 58
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

“We consider the notion of "system" as an organising concept, before going on to look in detail at various systemic metaphors that may be used as a basis for structuring thinking about organisations and problem situations.”

Mike Jackson (1951) systems scientist

Source: Creative Problem Solving: Total Systems Intervention (1991), p. 2

Problem, Thinking

“I saw a Divine Being. I'm afraid I'm going to have to revise all my various books and opinions.”

Alfred Jules Ayer (1910–1989) English philosopher

A statement he made soon after recovering from his near-death experience, as reported by Dr. Jeremy George, in "Did atheist philosopher see God when he 'died'?" by William Cash, in National Post (3 March 2001) http://gonsalves.org/favorite/atheist.htm.

Books

“Going to a sensational murder trial is the only way I can relax.”

John Waters (1946) American filmmaker, actor, comedian and writer

Books, Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste (1981)

Way

“Dad, by example and through his teaching, had helped me understand something that has been with me since that time: When something we learn contradicts Scripture, we need to first of all go to the Bible and study the words in context very carefully. If, after doing this, we are sure the Bible still clearly means what we had previously gleaned, then we need to question the ideas that contradict the Bible's words. Then, even if we can't find an explanation that shows where the secular idea is in error, we need to continue to search and wait for the answer. Even if we don't find answers in our lifetime, we cannot reinterpret Scripture. To do so would be to make man's ideas infallible and God's Word fallible. This would put us on a course of compromise and unbelief through the rest of Scripture, and Dad often warned us of this "slippery slope."”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

Raising Godly Children in an Ungodly World: Leaving a Lasting Legacy (2008)

God, Error, Search, Idea

“Humiliation is a vast country of imprecise boundaries. If you think you're there, you are. The neurotic rule: when in doubt, go ahead and feel humiliated.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Neurotics and neurosis

Feeling, Thinking, Country

“I go to the typical state school and try to infiltrate it. Yes!... One can do something in the institutions in trying to infiltrate them, and outside one can do something to set a model in place... One must work with divers methods anyway. One must always carry on with what is possible.”

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) German visual artist

1970's, Every Man an Artist: Talks at Documenta 5', 1972

School

“Although Titian's works seem to many to have been created without much effort, this is far from the truth and those who think so are deceiving themselves. In fact, it is clear that Titian retouched his pictures, going over them with his colours several times, so that he must obviously have taken great pains. The method he used is judicious, beautiful, and astonishing, for it makes pictures appear alive and painted with great art, but it conceals the labour that has gone into them.”

Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) Italian painter, architect, writer and historian

Giorgio Vasari in "Titian of Cadore", in Lives of the Artists as translated by George Bull (1987), Vol. I p. 458.

Pain, Truth, Beauty, Art

“I love Nicole. Nicole and I happen to be very great friends. Besides that, the press never get it straight. They do not print what you say… We were in Venice for Birth at the Venice Film Festival. And you know when you have a day when you go from one room to another with the roundtables with about five journalists sitting around at each table throwing questions at you all the time. So in one of these rooms, I'm sitting there. And one of the journalists said, you're an icon and Nicole Kidman's an icon and what do you think about that? And I said, why do you have to burden her with the category? She's a young woman. She's got her whole career ahead of her. Why does she have to be pegged as an icon or as anything? Let her enjoy her time. Don't, you know, suddenly put her in a slot. And that was all I said. The word "legend" never came up. It was "icon."”

Lauren Bacall (1924–2014) American actress, model

On being quoted in 2004 as saying about Nicole Kidman: "She's not a legend. She's a beginner..."
"She's not a legend," Bacall said. "She can't be a legend at whatever age she is. … You have to be older."
Larry King interview (2005)

Love, Birth, Question, Thinking

“Well, if there's no 'war' that begins, but you say 'war begins', no one's going to buy your newspaper the next day because they'll be on to the fact that you don't know what you're talking about.”

Sam Donaldson (1934) American journalist

As quoted in "Respek" http://www.listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=m1_FAsefZ6o (18 July 2004), Da Ali G Show. 2000s

War

“And the law says, better is a mischief than an inconvenience. By a mischief is meant, when one man or some few men suffer by the hardship of a law, which law is yet useful for the public. But an inconvenience is to have a public law disobeyed or broken, or an offence to go unpunished.”

Robert Atkyns (judge) (1621–1710) Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer and Speaker of the House of Lords

11 How. St. Tr. 1208.
Trial of Sir Edward Hales (1686)

Men, Law, Suffering

“The late Indira Gandhi always used to warn about the dangers that the country was facing. She used to keep saying that the country was going through a very dangerous time. This danger is now many times more than what it was at that time. We should all be cautious now.”

Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991) sixth Prime Minister of India

In his address to the party workers on 12 November 1984 to spoil the machinations of terrorist, when he was elected to the post of the President of the Congress party. Quoted by Meena Agrawal in “Rajiv Gandhi” P.74
Quote

Time, Country

“My father was frightened of his mother. I was frightened of my father and I am damned well going to see to it that my children are frightened of me.”

George V of the United Kingdom (1865–1936) King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India

Attributed in Randolph Churchill's Lord Derby (1959), but said by Kenneth Rose https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Rose in King George V (1983) to be almost certainly apocryphal. Attributed

Children

“I liked to go at night when I thought there was a better chance of finding a fight. I was always looking for a fight. I had not known I was capable of such rage. I knew I had been cheated of a future, but I felt I'd been cheated of a past, too. The underpinnings of my life had been kicked out from under me… and it wasn't just the loss of Neilia and Naomi. All my life I'd been taught about our benevolent God. This is a forgiving God, a just God, a God who knows people make mistakes. This is a God who is tolerant. This is a God who gave us free will to be able to doubt. This was a loving God, a God of comfort. Well, I didn't want to hear anything about a merciful God. No words, no prayer, no sermon gave me ease. I felt God had played a horrible trick on me, and I was angry. I found no comfort in the Church. So I kept walking the dark streets to try to exhaust the rage.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Page 81
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

Love, Life, God, People

“I know where I'm going.
But I don't want to leave.
I just have one problem
We're best friends, yeah?
We tied ourselves in knots
Doing cartwheels 'cross the floor
Just forget it alright.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Red Shoes (1993)

Problem, Forgetting

“[In America] people are a little bit more scared to show their bodies. I grew up different. Nudity was a common thing. We went camping on nude beaches in Italy. When my parents were still sleeping, I'd just go outside and run to the beach without anything on.”

Heidi Klum (1973) German model, television host, businesswoman, fashion designer, television producer, and actress

Quoted by Eric Thurnauer for Stuff Magazine (November/December 1998)

People, Parent, Sleep

“The answer to the problem of the American car is not under its hood. …The best car-related innovation we have is not to improve the car but to eliminate the need to drive it everywhere we go.”

Alex Steffen (1968) American writer and futurist

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/feb2008/id20080211_959496.htm

Cars, Problem

“Seymour once said that all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next.”

Jerome David Salinger book Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963), Seymour: An Introduction (1959)

“So I think we need a new plan. Next time a country wants to take us on, 'stead of sending bombs, let's try this: send everyone in the country a color television and a satellite dish. And give 'em the basic package, not HBO — screw those people. And before the war starts, we make them all sit down. "Okay, we'll go to war with you. You want a piece of us, fine, fine. Before we go, I want you guys to understand us a little better, so you have to sit down and watch ESPN2 for 24 hours. 'Cause you watch ESPN2 for a full day, you're gonna understand America a lot better. 'Hi, we're America! We build monster trucks for fun! We developed the top fuel dragster, zero to three hundred thirty miles an hour in under five seconds, cause, pfft, we were bored. Piss us off, heh, and see what we build! And we may feel bad about it later! Ask Japan. But before we feel bad…we're gonna jack you up! And then we're gonna send you FOOD! 'Cause we're America; we're schizophrenic. Don't mess with a nation that needs medication!'"”

Christopher Titus (1964) actor, writer, podcaster

The Fifth-Annual End-of-the-World Tour (2007)

War, People, Food, Color

“The point is, that the function of the novel seems to be changing; it has become an outpost of journalism; we read novels for information about areas of life we don’t know — Nigeria, South Africa, the American army, a coal-mining village, coteries in Chelsea, etc. We read to find out what is going on. One novel in five hundred or a thousand has the quality a novel should have to make it a novel — the quality of philosophy.”

Doris Lessing book The Golden Notebook

Anna Wulf, in "Free Women: 1"
The Golden Notebook (1962)

Life, Change, Reading

“One of the things I've found in Congress is that most people recognize that failure would be a disaster for the United States. And in that I'm the decision maker, I had to come up with a way forward that precluded disaster. In other words, I had to think about what's likely to work. And so I worked with our military and I worked with Secretary Gates to come up with a plan that is likely to succeed. And the implementor of that plan is going to be General Petraeus. And my call to the Congress is, is that I know there is skepticism and pessimism, and that they are -- some are condemning a plan before it's even had a chance to work. And they have an obligation and a serious responsibility, therefore, to put up their own plan as to what would work. I've listened a lot to members of Congress. I've listened carefully to their suggestions. I have picked the plan that I think is most likely to succeed, because I understand, like many in Congress understand, success is very important for the security of the country.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Press Conference http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070126.html introducing General David Petraeus as the new commander of the Multinational Force Iraq (January 26, 2007) 2000s, 2007

People, Way, Failure, Understanding

“I think half the point of painting a picture is that you don't know what will happen … that if painters did know what was going to happen they wouldn't bother to do it.”

Lucian Freud (1922–2011) British painter and engraver

Interview with Martin Gayford, Independent on Sunday 26 May 2002
Other

Thinking, Painting

“Did anyone honestly think we were going to walk into a room with the European Union, shake hands, and do a deal in half an hour? These are going to be lengthy negotiations, they're going to challenging negotiations.”

Chris Grayling (1962) British politician

2017

Thinking

“The presidency is not an office job. If I only sit in the office in Dar es Salaam I’m not running the country. I visit the country to inspect development programmes, to inspect activities, to see how things are going, how the government agenda is being implemented, what are the teething issues. And some of these problems simply need my simple word. My simple word of do it, then it is done.”

Jakaya Kikwete (1950) Tanzanian politician and president

About his frequent travelling around the country. Interviews, Interview with Financial Times, 2007-10-04 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d8a07e28-72a3-11dc-b7ff-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check1/

Problem, Country

“I am also grateful that I live in a country whose people have learned how to go on living in a sea of hatred without hating those who want to destroy them and without abandoning their own vision of peace. To have learned this is a great art, the prescription for which is not written down anywhere. It is part of our way of life in Israel. Finally, I wish to say that from the time I came to Palestine as a young woman, we have been forced to choose between what is more dangerous and what is less dangerous for us. At times we have all been tempted to give in to various pressures and to accept proposals that might guarantee us a little quiet for a few months, or maybe even for a few years, but that could only lead us eventually into even greater peril.”

Golda Meir book My Life

My Life (1975), p. 459

Life, Hate, People, Peace

“No, you go to the hospital, you get treated, you get care, and it's paid for, either by charity, the government or by the hospital. We don't have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don't have insurance.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2012-10-11
Romney in Central Ohio
Health care called ‘choice’
The Columbus Dispatch
Joe Vardon, Darrel Rowland and Joe Hallett
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/10/11/health-care-called-choice.html
2012-10-12
2012

People

“If I should go before the rest of you,
Break not a flower, nor inscribe a stone,
Nor, when I’m gone, speak in a Sunday voice,
But be the usual selves That I have known.”

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

Poem If I should go before the rest of you

Flowers

“No one thinks he will escape death, so there is no disappointment and, as long as we know neither the when nor the how, the mere fact that we shall one day have to go does not much affect us; we do not care, even though we know vaguely that we have not long to live. The serious trouble begins when death becomes definite in time and shape. It is in precise fore-knowledge, rather than in sin, that the sting of death is to be found; and such fore-knowledge is generally withheld; though, strangely enough, many would have it if they could.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Fore-knowledge of Death
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XXIII - Death

Death, Disappointment, Knowledge, Thinking

“On protests against going to war with Iraq: "One woman bore a picture of some female genitalia – possibly hers, the provenance was obscure – over the caption 'This Bush Is For Peace.' Another waxed eloquent: 'Trim Bush.' Out in Marin County somewhere, other bushes for peace disrobed, lay down on a hillside, and formed the words 'No War.' I wonder if there are any conflicted nudists, with a bush for Iraq and a rack for Bush.”

Mark Steyn (1959) Canadian writer

The Spectator, 25 January 2003

War, Peace

“You know, we live in a country where if you want to go bomb somebody, there's remarkably little discussion about how much it might cost, even though the costs almost inevitably end up being orders of magnitude larger than anybody projected at the outcome.”

Andrew Bacevich (1947) United States Army officer

Conversation with Bill Moyers, 2014 June 20.

Country

“If people want go-along, get-along politics, I am not their guy.”

Bill Sali (1954) American politician

While fighting a tax increase in the Idaho legislature. Club For Growth - Bill Sali Idaho's 1st District http://www.clubforgrowth.org/bsali.php Retrieved May 10, 2007

People, Guy

“Self-government, and not imposed government, implies that society, and not The State, is to develop value systems. The State's role is to protect citizens as they go about their business peacefully, living in accordance with their peaceful values.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Beware The Values Cudgel," http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/03/beware-the-values-cudgel/ The Daily Caller, February 2, 2017 2010s, 2017

Peace, Business

“There’s going to be reversals. You have to be ready, to be philosophical about that.”

Paul Allen (1953–2018) American inventor, investor and philanthropist

Success: "Paul Allen is No Second Act" https://www.success.com/article/paul-allen-is-no-second-act (27 January 2009)

“Sex and politics - sex and politicians. I never understand how any politician gets a shag, really. Can you? A classic example: the David Mellor sex scandal. I bet you're the same as me. We're not shocked by these scandals involving politicians. I bet when that happened, your response was not 'Good God, that's outrageous! A man in his job, he should be running the country, not messing about like this; no wonder we're in a state; terrible!' No, that wasn't the response. You open the paper, you read about that, and you go 'Ha ha ha ha - I don't think so, Dave! I don't think so. In your dreams, perhaps.' The interesting person in that relationship is not him; it's her - Antonia. A woman of mystery; a mystery woman. Antonia de Sancha, always described as an 'unemployed actress'. Unemployed actress? How's she an unemployed actress? God! if you can feign sexual interest in David Mellor, I should think Chekhov's a piece of piss. So, she thinks 'I'm an actress. It's a role. I'll prepare'. She gets to the bedroom situation. He's in a kit-off situation, and there's Antonia giving it 'Red lorry, yellow lorry - Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper'. But the hair - that's the main unattractive thing. What barber told him that suited him? Someone winding him up there. 'Yes, David, that'll suit you, mate: a greasy, oily flap of dirty-looking patent leather, wafting about down one side of your moosh; that'll drive those unemployed actresses mental!' (Linda Live, 1993)”

Linda Smith (1958–2006) comedian

Stand-up

God, Dreams, Sex, Understanding

“How suburban!' cried Elvira. I was in Hampstead the other day: in front of one of the richest houses was a crazy pavement: they paid about £35 for it, doubtless. The man who would have done it best was in an asylum : he would have done it for nothing, happy to do it, and the more there is of it, the more dull and plain it looks, just an expanse of conventional craziness, looking as stupid as a neanderthal skull. That's the suburbs all over. That's what we are, you see: suburban, however wild we run. You know quite well, in yourself, don't you, two people like us can't go wild? Still, it's nice to pretend to, for a while.”

Christina Stead book The Beauties and Furies

The Beauties and Furies (1936)

People, Stupidity, Housing, Happiness

“I don't believe you on the 'Jimmy' story. No, I don't, and I'm going to prove it if it's the last thing I do.”

Bob Woodward (1943) American journalist

Post Reporter's Pulitzer Prize Is Withdrawn; Pulitzer Board Withdraws Post Reporter's Prize (19 April 1981)

“I thought, wow, those people are showing off like me, that’s what I do at home. I can do that and get paid. That was my first realisation that maybe I wasn’t going to be a secretary or a postwoman or a lollipop woman. I did have a moment of thinking I liked the lollipop woman idea. But can you imagine? I would be like, ‘F**king move your car!’ I don’t think that would work.”

Michelle Gomez (1966) Scottish actress

An interview with the Sunday Herald talking about when she went to see Kiss Me Kate when she was seven.

People, Cars, Home, Imagination

“I had started to become interested in the punk scene and started to dress differently than a lot of the kids in Grand Rapids, Michigan were dressing. And I got my nose pierced and I started to shave my head and dye my hair and wear a lot of black. And so I looked like somebody that might be arrested… I was a bit of a class clown, usually the one that people would get to do the things that they were afraid to get in trouble for… On graduation night, I was arrested… I had a boyfriend at the time who was a couple centuries older than I was and I'd convinced him that we should go and glue the locks of the school so that people couldn't get in the morning. And lo and behold, they had a security guard because it was graduation night and they were concerned that idiots like me might try and do something like that.”

Gillian Anderson (1968) American-British film, television and theatre actress, activist and writer

On her teenage punk years and being arrested on graduation night — NPR "Gillian Anderson On 'The Fall' And Getting Arrested In High School" http://www.npr.org/2013/12/07/249240231/gillian-anderson-on-the-fall-and-getting-arrested-in-high-school/ (December 7, 2013) 2010s

People, School, Time, Night

“People do what they do by choice, so I don’t really know it’s a matter of people being comfortable in front of the camera. I think it’s a matter of doing the work that’s available to you and then striving in it. If you realized how hard it is to get a job in the entertainment industry, and you were working prolifically in voice over and you can work doing on camera stuff here and there, it has nothing to do with being worried about how you look on camera. It’s about the work and you do the work that is available to you. These actors are that good that they’re able to do the voiceover stuff. It’s hard. A lot of people think that it’s easy to just go and talk in front of a microphone and that’s not the case. You’re not just talking, you’re acting. You’re acting in front of a microphone as opposed to a camera. It’s a lot more specific of a technique than most people think. It’s not, “Oh, do a silly voice!” Try doing a silly voice for four hours, then take a lunch break, and then do another silly voice for four hours. It’s not easy, especially because it’s about the acting. So I think that mindset is a little off.”

John DiMaggio (1968) American voice actor and comedian

Exclusive Interview: John DiMaggio & Lawrence Shapiro https://diaboliquemagazine.com/exclusive-interview-john-dimaggio-lawrence-shapiro/ (September 6, 2013)

People, Thinking

“Dancin' where the stars go blue”

Ryan Adams (1974) American alt-country/rock singer-songwriter

Where the Stars Go Blue
29 (2005)

Star

“I go where all nature goes,
Where goes the leaf of the rose,
And eke the leaf of the bay.”

Antoine-Vincent Arnault (1766–1834) French dramatist

Volume V., 16. — ""La Feuille"".
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 82.
Fables (1802)

Nature

“It is the resentment of the past, we are told, that is making us ill. In those by now familiar groups in which addicts and their relations go into therapy together, the following belief is invariably expressed. Only when you have forgiven your parents for everything they did to you can you get well. Even if both your parents were alcoholic, even if they mistreated, confused, exploited, beat, and totally overloaded you, you must forgive.”

Alice Miller (1923–2010) Swiss psychologist

Breaking Down the Wall of Silence (Abbruch der Schweigemauer) (1990)

Alcohol, Forgiveness, Parent, Past

“It’s frightening what these Moonies can do to the family unit.. I get letters from parents all over the country telling me the same story.. The kids are swept along by his outfit and then taken away for a few days to a ‘workshop.’ By the time the parents see their kids again – if they can manage to see them – the kids are starry-eyed and ready to take on anyone who disagrees with them. It’s a form of hypnotism. There is something very unhealthy going on.”

Maurice Davis (1921–1993) American rabbi

United States Congressional Record, 94th Congress, United States House of Representatives, 2nd session, January 28, 1976, Congressional Record, Volume 122, Part 2.

Family, Parent, Time, Country

“And I go to my room and stretch out my arms to the West—that it is far away [from here], that I will someday return. Outside those painful sensations—it is horrible to be before these people and their lives. Service and family troubles -a hard beginning, pay raise, promotion - sweet dreams, scandal - daily bread, [This is a figurative reference to Our Lord's Prayer, "give us this day our daily bread.."] and their happiness reminds me sweetly, of those who buy "for the people," and whose food you wouldn't put in your mouth. I think of Munich and of my health. All that is here is suffering and this horror of beauty and this horrible life and this overbearing literature, and the complete superfluousness of art.”

Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938) expressionist painter

1906 - 1911 Source: a letter to Alexej von Jawlensky, between December 1909 and Spring 1910; as quoted in 'Ambiguity of Home: Identity and Reminiscence in Marianne Werefkin's Return Home, c. 1909', Adrienne Kochman http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring06/52-spring06/spring06article/171-ambiguity-of-home-identity-and-reminiscence-in-marianne-werefkins-return-home-c-1909

Life, Pain, People, Health

“Another thing which is about as sure as death and taxes, is that no man can go on bluffing indefinitely without being called.”

E. W. Howe (1853–1937) Novelist, magazine and newspaper editor

Country Town Sayings (1911), p261.

Death

“There is no such thing as a Republican position on Zika or Democrat position on Zika because these mosquitoes bite everyone, and they're not going to ask you what your party registration is or who you plan to vote for in November.”

Marco Rubio (1971) U.S. Senator from state of Florida, United States; politician

Marco Rubio Press Release: VIDEO: Rubio Urges Congress To Put Politics Aside On Zika https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=628288BE-603B-4F10-8867-C3EACDE33E59 (28 April 2016) 2010s, 2016

“Having written all that, I must admit that there is some soul searching going on in the economics profession. As obvious as the financial crisis seems after the fact, few economists saw it coming (with some notable exceptions). Virtually none anticipated how severe it might be. In the fall of 2005, several prominent economists wrote in a prestigious journal, “As of the end of 2004, our analysis reveals little evidence of a housing bubble.”
Wrong. Actually the article was worse than wrong, because it was written explicitly to refute the signs of a bubble that had become obvious to many laypeople—which is kind of like the fire department showing up at a house with smoke wafting from the roof and declaring, “No, that’s not a fire,” only to have flames start leaping from the attic twenty minutes later. There was a bubble. And it can be explained best by incorporating psychology into economics, namely the tendency of individuals to believe that whatever is happening now is what’s most likely to happen in the future.”

Charles Wheelan (1966) American politician

Introduction
Naked Economics (rev. and updated ed., 2010)

Soul, Search, Future, Housing

“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.”

Barry Goldwater (1909–1998) American politician

Said in November 1994, as quoted in John Dean, Conservatives Without Conscience (2006).

God, People, Problem

“If I could give advice to the planet, it would be; don't marry for looks alone, going either way, and I'll tell you why. In a few years, if Barbara's boobs start to sag too much, there's a place you can go where they can just lift 'em right back up to where they were. And they can point the nipple wherever they want 'em. You can actually go to a titty bar, pick out a set of titties and say, "I want those titties on that woman right there." If her belly gets too big and she don't wanna work it off, you can go get a tummy tuck- they'll give you a belly that looks like a cheerleader. You know, if your eyes start to go bad, you can have Lasik surgery and they can give you 20/20 vision at any age. If your hearing starts to fail, they can put a device in your ear that'll make you able to hear as good as you could the day you were born. But let me tell you something, folks… you can't fix stupid. There's not a pill you can take, there's not a class you can go to. Stupid is fo-evah.”

Ron White (1956) American comedian

You Can't Fix Stupid

Age, Stupidity, Way

“I think present-day reason is an analogue of the flat earth of the medieval period. If you go too far beyond it you're presumed to fall off, into insanity. And people are very much afraid of that. I think this fear of insanity is comparable to the fear people once had of falling off the edge of the world. Or the fear of heretics. There's a very close analogue there.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 14

People, World, Fear, Thinking

“I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower. The TV was obviously on. I used to fly myself and I said, "There's one terrible pilot."”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Quoted in Elisabeth Bumiller (2001-12-05) "A Nation Challenged: The President" New York Times. Colloquial English allows Bush's remark to be interpreted as "I saw that an airplane had hit the tower."
2000s, 2001

Waiting, Flying

“I envied him these passions. If you had passions, you were living. Without them, you were watching––the way I was watching desert sand and half-dead creosote go by and wishing I’d stop craving attention from Charles.”

Andrea Lewis (writer) Microsoft employee

"Tierra Blanca" Bryant Literary Review, Vol. 11 http://bryantliteraryreview.org/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=2&cntnt01returnid=56 (2010) 2010-

Way, Passion, Envy, Dead

“After dinner my father asks me into his study…. Then he slams the door so hard that I nearly jump out of the chair. He tells me that he's been ashamed to invite anyone over since I "came back" because of my "long" hair and my clothes…. "That's all right," I say after a tense silence. "I'm leaving for New York tomorrow. And I'm leaving for Canada, as soon as I get my immigrant status!" His expression breaks first. He urges me to "reconsider." I am afraid to say anything at all. He says, "Ever since you left home your life has been a series of blunders, and this is your biggest; your most fatal…. You tried to destroy society and you couldn't. Really, you were trying to destroy me. Now you're going to destroy yourself instead."”

Mark Satin (1946) American political theorist, author, and newsletter publisher

Page 206. Spring of 1967. Satin had flown home to Wichita Falls, Texas, to tell his family he was immigrating to Canada. His father is a college professor.
Confessions of a Young Exile (1976)

Life, Home, Study, Silence

“I come here today…not just because you are doing well and because you are outstanding students, but because we expect something of you. And unless in this free country of ours we are able to demonstrate that we are able to make this society work and progress, unless we can hope that from you we are going to get back all of the talents which society has helped develop in you, then, quite obviously, all the hopes of all of us that freedom will not only endure but prevail, of course, will be disappointed. So we ask the best of you…I congratulate you on what you have done, and most of all I congratulate you on what you are going to do.”

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

Source: "Remarks in New York City to the National Convention of the Catholic Youth Organization (463)," (15 November 1963) http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx

Hope, Disappointment, Freedom, Help

“And for me, it's pretty clear-cut that until we learn some better explanation for how life began, there is a God who always existed and created the heavens and the earth. And until somebody gives me a better explanation, I'll go for it. And it doesn't scare me at all when scientists say, "Oh, but that can't be proved," because neither can any of the Darwinian hypotheses about how life began be proved. Anyway, I couldn't give a [profanity] whether a person calls himself a scientist. It doesn't earn any extra respect from me, because it's not as if science has covered itself with glory, morally, in my time. Scientists were the people in Germany telling Hitler that it was a good idea to kill all the Jews. Scientists were telling Stalin it was a good idea to wipe out the middle-class peasants. Scientists were telling Mao Tse-Tung it was fine to kill 50 million people in order to further the revolution.”

Ben Stein (1944) actor, writer, commentator, lawyer, teacher, humorist

Interviews: Ben Stein is Expelled! Christianity Today Movies, Christianity Today Movies: Interview with Ben Stein, 15 April 2008, 2008-04-18 http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/interviews/benstein.html,

Life, God, People, Idea