Quotes about goodness
page 60

“Nor is it a matter for wonder that the good do not appear herded in great thongs. First because specimens of great goodness are rare, secondly, because they avoid the great crowd of the more thoughtless and keep themselves at leisure for the contemplation of what nature has to show.”

Philo (-15–45 BC) Roman philosopher

63.
Every Good Man is Free

Nature, Appearance

“If you are concerned about netiquette, you are either concerned about your own and follow good netiquette, or you are concerned about others and violate good netiquette by bothering people with your "concern", as the only netiquette you can actually affect is your own.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Usenet signatures

People

“We are not here in this world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with initiative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress. No, we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves. That is our only certain good and great purpose on earth, and if you ask me about those insoluble economic problems that may arise if the top is deprived of their initiative, I would answer 'To hell with them.”

Michael Foot (1913–2010) British politician

The top is greedy and mean and will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always do.
Speech before the 1983 General Election.
1980s

World, Way, Hell, Problem

“God's rarest blessing is, after all, a good woman!”

George Meredith (1828–1909) British novelist and poet of the Victorian era

Source: The Ordeal of Richard Feverel http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4412/4412.txt (1859), Ch. 33.

God

“I want to say to those who are trying to learn to speak and those who are teaching them: Be of good cheer. Do not think of to-day's failures, but of the success that may come to-morrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere, and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles — a delight in climbing rugged paths, which you would perhaps never know if you did not sometime slip backward — if the road was always smooth and pleasant. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost. Sometime, somewhere, somehow we shall find that which we seek. We shall speak, yes, and sing, too, as God intended we should speak and sing.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Address to the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf (8 July 1896)

God, Beauty, Failure, Thinking

“You know, Republicans went to Washington to change the culture, to change the city. Instead, they became changed by Washington. Now, it doesn't do any good for us to look backwards or to fight amongst ourselves. We need to be looking forward.”

Bobby Jindal (1971) American politician; two-term Governor of Louisiana

"Gov Jindal: GOP Must Become the Conservative Party Again http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,451213,00.html", Fox News Channel, November 13, 2008

Change, Fight

“Laying underneath the stars
Can be so much fun
Especially when you're feeling good
When you're with the one you love.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Gypsy
Song lyrics, Saint Dominic's Preview (1972)

Love, Feeling, Star

“The increasing influence of the Bible is marvelously great, penetrating everywhere. It carries with it a tremendous power of freedom and justice guided by a combined force of wisdom and goodness.”

Thomas More (1478–1535) English Renaissance humanist

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 34.

Wisdom, Justice, Freedom

“[Theophile] Gautier's article is very good. I begin to feel a little more contented. His remarks about my thick colours are also very just. The critics who see and judge my pictures are not forced to know that in painting them I am not guided by a definite intention, although I do my utmost to try and attain the aim which I have in sight, independently of methods. People are not even obliged to know why it is that I work in this way, with all its faults.”

Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) French painter

Quote of Millet in his letter of 23 March 1851; as quoted by Julia Cartwright in Jean Francois Millet, his Life and Letters, Swan Sonnenschein en Co, Lim. London / The Macmillian Company, New York; second edition, September 1902, p. 112
the most famous painting of Millet 'The Sower', reviewed in an article then by Gautier, was exhibited for the first time in 'The Salon' of Paris, at the End of 1850
1851 - 1870

People, Way, Feeling, Painting

“Good friends in hard times and hard friends in good times.”

Max Sparber (1968)

Bawd (3/24/03)
A toast.

Time

“I cannot forget that the Nobel Peace Prize was not just something taking place, but it was a commission — a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for the brotherhood of Man. This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances. But even if it were not present, I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me, the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the Good News was meant for all men, for communists and capitalists, for their children and ours, for black and white, for revolutionary and conservative. Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved His enemies so fully that he died for them? What, then, can I say to the Vietcong, or to Castro, or to Mao, as a faithful minister to Jesus Christ? Can I threaten them with death, or must I not share with them my life?”

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

1960s, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam (1967)

Love, Life, Death, Men

“Narrater Abu Hurairah. Allah's Apostle said, "Anybody who believes in Allah and the Last Day should not harm his neighbor, and anybody who believes in Allah and the Last Day should entertain his guest generously and anybody who believes in Allah and the Last Day should talk what is good or keep quiet.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

[8, 73, 47](Previous Reference for link only. Correct Ref: Bukhari Vol.8 Book78 Hadith6018)
Sunni Hadith

“His own power and magic — overwhelmed him for a moment with a feeling of the purest, highest, and most glorious happiness that life can yield — the happiness that is at once the most selfish and the most selfless — the happiness of the artist when he sees that his work has been found good, has for itself a place of honour, glory, and proud esteem in the hearts of men, and has wrought upon their lives the spell of its enchantment. At that instant he saw, in one blaze of light, an image of unutterable conviction, the reason why the artist works and lives and has his being — the reward he seeks — the only reward he really cares about, without which there is nothing. It is to snare the spirits of mankind in nets of magic, to make his life prevail through his creation, to wreak the vision of his life, the rude and painful substance of his own experience, into the congruence of blazing and enchanted images that are themselves the core of life, the essential pattern whence all other things proceed, the kernel of eternity.”

Thomas Wolfe book Of Time and the River

Of Time and the River (1935)

Life, Men, Pain, Feeling

“I wish I could write to you as tenderly as I love you and tell you all the good things that I wish you. You are so infinitely dear to me, dearer than I can say… If things go on much longer as they are at present I shall have sometime to put you under glass or to have you set in gold. If only I could live in the same town with you and my parents… Do write me a nice letter soon. Your letters are like kisses.”

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) German composer and pianist

Letter to Clara Schumann (31 May 1856) as quoted in Letters of Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms, 1853-1896 (1971), edited by Berthold Litzmann

Love, Kiss, Parent

“Good Lord. I’d be lying if I said I’d never Googled myself, but it honestly never occurred to me to add ‘naked’ to my search criteria. Sure enough, there have been five nude ‘episodes’. And I know this is self-destructive but somehow I find myself on a ‘nudescenes’ forum where linus22 is arguing that I have odd-shaped nipples. Do I? Oh God! That thought never occurred to me! One more for the self-esteem list.”

Alice Evans (1971) British actress

Alice Evans' May 2007 Glamour Magazine column "Do I Dare to Bare".

God, Search, Lying

“I take great pride in my literary works. Journalism is much faster. I'm not embarrassed by my journalism. I consider it to be like sketches, like an artist's sketch. I use it later in other writing. But I don't pretend that it has high literary merit either. I can do an essay pretty fast. I do them on airplanes, I do them at hotels, I do them at bus stops sometimes. I've written very good things on the go.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Violating the Boundaries: An Interview with Richard Rodriguez (1999)

“He who has found a good wife has found great happiness, but a quarrelsome woman is like a roof that lets in the rain.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble)

Happiness

“One of the good things about Larkin is that he still has you firmly by the hand as you cross the finishing-line, whereas reading Auden is like doing a parachute-drop: for a while the view is wonderful, but then you end up on your back in the middle of a ploughed field and in the wrong county.”

Alan Bennett (1934) English actor, author

"Instead of a Present", p. 323 (1982).
Writing Home (1994)

Reading

“I've rode o'er hot, dry deserts
And over mountains tall
I believed in the bad land sayin'
"A good gun never falls"”

Hoyt Axton (1938–1999) American country singer

"Strongest of Oak" (1965)

Mountain

“Real economic efficiency implies including all resources that affect sustainable human well-being in the allocation system, not just marketed goods and services. Our current market allocation system excludes most non-marketed natural and social capital assets and services that are critical contributors to human well-being. The current economic model ignores this and therefore does not achieve real economic efficiency. A new, sustainable ecological economic model would measure and include the contributions of natural and social capital and could better approximate real economic efficiency.”

Robert Costanza (1950) American economist

Source: Toward a New Sustainable Economy, 2008, p. 46

Nature

“[Design is] an expression of purpose. It may, if it is good enough, later be judged as art.”

Charles Eames (1907–1978) American designer, half of duo the Eames

In answer of the question: Is Design an expression of art?
Design Q & A with Charles Eames, 1972

Art

“"And everybody praised the Duke
Who this great fight did win."
"But what good came of it at last?"
Quoth little Peterkin.
"Why, that I cannot tell," said he,
"But 'twas a famous victory."”

Robert Southey (1774–1843) British poet

St. 11. The Battle of Blenheim http://www.poetry-archive.com/s/the_battle_of_blenheim.html (1798)

Victory, Fight

“In this world everything that is won to the ideal, is an eternal (or imperishable, - "impérissable", Fr.) good.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 53.

World

“Vlaminck and Utrillo were very good friends, drinking buddies. One day they attend a funeral. They're walking behind the hearse in a procession, and they're having a great time conversing with one another. They are completely engrossed when suddenly one asks the other, 'Say, don't you smell something funny?' They look up and they're walking behind a garbage truck! They'd lost the hearse in the middle of their enthusiastic conversation.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Reflections (1981)

Drink, Time

“We didn't have a feasible business model, let's put it this way, because when we started, the business model is to provide the backend search technology to the portal companies in China. We did that, we came up with very good Chinese search engine technology and we signed up a lot of the Chinese portals in a very short period of time that includes SINA, Sohu, Netease, Yahoo! China and any partol company you can think of in China.”

Robin Li (1968) billionaire businessman and entrepreneur

Source: Opportunities in China at the Age of Innovation https://ecorner.stanford.edu/in-brief/opportunities-in-china-at-the-age-of-innovation/,Stanford eCorner(2009-09-23).

Way, Search, Business, Thinking

“And what is a week? Poof— and like that a week is gone by. Poof— there is a good week, and poof -- there it is gone. But a week doesn't go by, and doesn't go by, when you are waiting for a little black rabbit. Oh, a waiting week is long. It is like eternity.”

Meindert DeJong book Shadrach

Shadrach (1957)

Waiting

“Hugh, I know I shouldn't even be asking you this, but what we really need in order to go in and take out Saddam is a precipitous event—something that would make us look good in the eyes of the world. Could you have one of our U-2s fly low enough—and slow enough—so as to guarantee that Saddam could shoot it down?”

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

See " The Evil of Madeleine Albright http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/10/the-evil-of-madeleine-albright/" by Gary Leupp Disputed

World, Flying

“All women love a good geek, and those who tell you otherwise are lying.”

Evan Schoenberg

"Evan Schoenberg of Adium X" http://web.archive.org/web/20080502060835/http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/000306.html, interview on DrunkenBlog (2004-07-15)

Love, Women, Lying

“Political philosophy seems often to reside at a distance from the world. Principles are one thing, politics another, and even our best efforts to ‘live up’ to our ideals typically founder on the gap between theory and practice.But if political philosophy is unrealizable in one sense, it is unavoidable in another. This is the sense in which philosophy inhabits the world from the start; our practices and institutions are embodiments of theory.... for all our uncertainties about ultimate questions of political philosophy — of justice and value and the nature of the good life — the one thing we know is that we live some answer all the time.”

Michael J. Sandel (1953) American political philosopher

The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self, 1984

Life, World, Justice, Question

“History, geography and future bind us. Let no one separate us. Together, we can create pillars of mutual respect that will support the common good for generations to come.”

Abdullah II of Jordan (1962) King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

Address to the European Parliament (2015)

History, Support, Future

“There is a subtle difference in the way sugar molecules are utilized. Momentarily, the body uses less sugar. However, sugar is important in fueling the consciousness on its journey. It also aids in connecting the consciousness to the body. In other words, there is indeed a connection that is and must be partially physical, between the body and the travelling consciousness, and it is based upon a certain sugar molecule in a form not normally seen. Before conscious projections I would therefore recommend that you take a small amount of starchy or sugar food. A small snack before bed is a good idea from this viewpoint. Alcohol is of some benefit, though not to any great degree. Excellent results can be achieved in a dream-based projection during the day, in a nap.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Seth, Dreams & Projections of Consciousness, (1986), p. 348, quoting from Session 276

Alcohol, Food, Dreams, Way

“One does not leave gold untouched, when one discovers the yellow metal in filth. One is ver ready to pick it up. What is intrinsically good will never change no matter where it is found. A diamond is often spotted amidst black blocks of coal. Lotus blossoms in a swamp and the beautiful rose blooms among thorns. In fact the presence of such invaluable wonders enhances the importance of a place no matter how sullied it is!”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

Source: Soul Curry for You and Me: An Empowering Philosophy that Can Enrich Your Life, P. 21-22.

Beauty, Change

“All things are connected with all things throughout the universe, from the insect to the archangel; from the sand-grain to the mountain and the globe; from the dew-drop to the ocean; from the rain-drop to the rainbow; from the pebble on the shore to 'the sun that blazes in the firmament; from the zephyr that sings among the flowers of the field to the ocean that pours its wild bass in the great anthem of nature. Not only are all things connected with all things, but there is a concatenation of events, so that the character and effects of no one event can terminate in itself. As each event owes some portion of its nature to that which preceded it, so it imparts some of its nature to that which succeeds it, and thus perpetuates the blended good or evil of itself and its predecessors. The single event may thus live on in its influence along the line of all the ages, assuming new shapes, or if clothing itself in the drapery of new events, ever marching onward and upward in the continually growing affairs of time.”

John Lanahan (1815–1903)

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 611.

Age, Mountain, Flowers, Nature

“A lot of folks, they got a little bit of shine to them. They don't even know it. But they always seem to show up with flowers when their wives are feelin blue with the monthlies, they do good on school tests they don't even study for, they got a good idea how people are feelin as soon as they walk into a room.”

Stephen King book The Shining

The Shining (1977)

People, School, Flowers, Idea

“Being fresh out of college, I found myself in the typically feminine dilemma of carving out for myself in a male world a way of life appropriate to a young woman of taste, cultivation and sensitivity. There must be nothing crass—like work. However, a girl must survive. So, after a cool appraisal of the social scene, I finally hit upon an excellent-paying occupation, challenging to the ingenuity, dealing on one's own terms with people and affording independence, flexible hours, great stability and, most important, a large amount of leisure time, an occupation highly appropriate to female sensibilities. I contemplate my good fortune as I begin work for the day: "Pardon me, Sir, do you have fifteen cents?"”

Valerie Solanas (1936–1988) American radical feminist and writer. Attempted to assassinate Andy Warhol.

"A Young Girl's Primer" (1966)

Life, People, World, Way

“The latter-day outcome of this evolution of an archaic institution, the wife, who was at the outset the drudge and chattel of the man… has become the ceremonial consumer of goods which he produces. But she still quite unmistakably remains his chattel in theory; for the habitual rendering of vicarious leisure and consumption is the abiding mark of the unfree servant.”

Thorstein Veblen book The Theory of the Leisure Class

Source: The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), p. 83

“Home influences alone never saved the New England boy from ruin, though sometimes they may have helped to ruin him; and the influences outside of home were negative. If school helped, it was only by reaction. The dislike of school was so strong as to be a positive gain. The passionate hatred of school methods was almost a method in itself. Yet the day-school of that time was respectable, and the boy had nothing to complain of. In fact, he never complained. He hated it because he was here with a crowd of other boys and compelled to learn by memory a quantity of things that did not amuse him. His memory was slow, and the effort painful. For him to conceive that his memory could compete for school prizes with machines of two or three times its power, was to prove himself wanting not only in memory, but flagrantly in mind. He thought his mind a good enough machine, if it were given time to act, but it acted wrong if hurried. Schoolmasters never gave time.

In any and all its forms, the boy detested school, and the prejudice became deeper with years. He always reckoned his school-days, from ten to sixteen years old, as time thrown away.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Pain, Hate, School, Home

“Through the means just specified, aided perhaps by others as yet undiscovered, man has been raised to his present state. But since he attained to the rank of manhood, he has diverged into distinct races, or as they may be more appropriately called sub-species. Some of these, for instance the Negro and European, are so distinct that, if specimens had been brought to a naturalist without any further information, they would undoubtedly have been considered by him as good and true species. Nevertheless all the races agree in so many unimportant details of structure and in so many mental peculiarities, that these can be accounted for only through inheritance from a common progenitor; and a progenitor thus characterised would probably have deserved to rank as man.”

Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

volume II, chapter XXI: "General Summary and Conclusion", page 388 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=405&itemID=F937.2&viewtype=image The Descent of Man (1871)

“Ka me, ka the, one good tourne askth an other.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

Serve me, serve thee, one good turn asks another.
Part I, chapter 11.
Proverbs (1546)
Variant: One good turne asketh another.

“He who believes in goodness has the essence of all faith. He is a man "of cheerful yesterdays and confident to-morrows."”

James Freeman Clarke (1810–1888) American theologian and writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 287.

Faith, Confidence

“Mitch…was the kind of man who added something to everything he touched and everyone he came in contact with. I was envious of his view on life. He saw it all as a big game, where the only way to win was to be good to other people, to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and like what you see.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Taylor McAden, Chapter 25, p. 300
2000s, The Rescue (2000)

Life, People, Way, Game

“he [agent Daly] conducts his office as being a whole Dominion Government, Indian Agent, Indian Cheif and Council, all into one … the Agent appears as taking too much advantage of his powers over the Chief and council and causing a considerable strife an [animosity] amoung the Indians of this Reserve … foiling the labors of the chief and members of the council, discrediting those who assist to maintain good government of the Band.”

Francis Pegahmagabow (1891–1952) World War I sniper

[harv, Brownlie, Robin, A fatherly eye: Indian agents, government power, and Aboriginal resistance in Ontario, 1918-1939, 2003, 2003, University of Toronto Press, 9780195417845], p. 153

Appearance

“I have, all my life long, been lying till noon; yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

September 14, 1773
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)

Life, Men, Lying, Sincerity

“I've had a good life…. I have managed to do all I could wish for --even be a government servant. Now I feel whatever time I have left should be spent doing what I like best -- writing plays.”

Girish Raghunath Karnad (1938–2019) Indian playwright

Renaissance Man, 24 November 2013, India Today http://www.india-today.com/itoday/12041999/arts.html,

Life, Feeling, Time

“Let’s make decisions for the good of all. Let’s really think in a broader way. Let’s think a little past the obvious. And in that regard I’m always shot down, I’m always called a fascist, I’m always called a homophobe, and I’m always called a freak because I’m conservative politically. But how many phony liberals in Hollywood have danced at the Gaiety? I did. And part of me understands when I’m bashed in the media, for the things that I say, because I use loose language and crude descriptions.”

Vincent Gallo (1961) American film director, writer, model, actor and musician

Way, Understanding, Thinking, Decision

“Lancelet said, “And I must believe that man has the power to know the right, to choose between good and evil and know that his choice has made a difference…””

Marion Zimmer Bradley book The Mists of Avalon

The Mists of Avalon (1983)

Evil

“More and more of the flow was diverted from production into the political mechanism. Whatever elements in motion compose a stream of energy, enough must go through to complete the circuit and renew production. Water running in an aqueduct to turn a millwheel is a stream of energy; or electricity going through insulated wires; or goods in process from raw materials to finished product and conveyed by a system of transport. If the water channel is pierced with many small openings en route; or electricity taken off by more and more outlets; or the goods expropiated piecemeal at each stage of the process, finally not enough will go through for maintenance of the system. In the energy system comprised in an exchange of goods, the producers and processors have to get back enough to enable them to keep on producing and working up the raw materials and to provide transport…”

Isabel Paterson (1886–1961) author and editor

Source: The God of the Machine (1943), p. 39

Water

“… stop pretending to be good, and realize that doing good will do you no good on Judgement Day. Instead, repent and trust the Saviour, and then live a good life - not to impress anyone or bribe God, but out of gratitude to Him for His mercy.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)

Life, God, Gratitude

“I adore my life: it is filled with so much true poetry, fine feelings, things many have no idea about. I despise my life, which, being rich, allowed itself to be crammed into the confines of conventions. Between these two opinions pulsates my soul always longing for beauty and good.”

Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938) expressionist painter

1895 - 1905
Source: Lettres à un Inconnu, 1902 (Notebook I, p. 234) - Aux sources de l'expressionnisme. Presentation par Gabrielle Dufour-Kowalska. Klincksieck, 1999. p. 101

Life, Beauty, Feeling, Soul

“The cinema is about other things than storytelling. What you remember from a good film -- and let's only talk about good films -- is not the story, but a particular and hopefully unique experience that is about atmosphere, ambience, performance, style, an emotional attitude, gestures, singular events, a particular audio-visual experience that does not rely on the story.”

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

“Your abuse of our gowns amuses but does not discourage me; I shall take mine to be made up next week, and the more I look at it the better it pleases me. My cloak came on Tuesday, and, though I expected a good deal, the beauty of the lace astonished me. It is too handsome to be worn — almost too handsome to be looked at.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Letter to Cassandra (November 1800) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Beauty

“It is on account neither of God's weakness nor ignorance that evil comes into the world, but rather it is due to the order of his wisdom and the greatness of his goodness that diverse grades of goodness occur in things, many of which would be lacking if no evil were permitted. Indeed, the good of patience would not exist without the evil of persecution; nor the good of preservation of life in a lion if not for the evil of the destruction of the animals on which it lives.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

De Potentia (On Power) q. 3, art. 6, ad 4

Life, Wisdom, God, World

“Broadway has been very good to me. But I've been very good to Broadway, too.”

Ethel Merman (1908–1984) American actress and singer

Quoted in "Funny Ladies: The Best Humor from America's Funniest Women", Bill Adler (2001), page 90.

“There was a time when I should have felt terribly ashamed of not being up-to-date. I lived in a chronic apprehension lest I might, so to speak, miss the last bus, and so find myself stranded and benighted, in a desert of demodedness, while others, more nimble than myself, had already climbed on board, taken their tickets and set out toward those bright but, alas, ever receding goals of Modernity and Sophistication. Now, however, I have grown shameless, I have lost my fears. I can watch unmoved the departure of the last social-cultural bus—the innumerable last buses, which are starting at every instant in all the world’s capitals. I make no effort to board them, and when the noise of each departure has died down, “Thank goodness!” is what I say to myself in the solitude. I find nowadays that I simply don’t want to be up-to-date. I have lost all desire to see and do the things, the seeing and doing of which entitle a man to regard himself as superiorly knowing, sophisticated, unprovincial; I have lost all desire to frequent the places and people that a man simply must frequent, if he is not to be regarded as a poor creature hopelessly out of the swim. “Be up-to-date!” is the categorical imperative of those who scramble for the last bus. But it is an imperative whose cogency I refuse to admit. When it is a question of doing something which I regard as a duty I am as ready as anyone else to put up with discomfort. But being up-to-date and in the swim has ceased, so far as I am concerned, to be a duty. Why should I have my feelings outraged, why should I submit to being bored and disgusted for the sake of somebody else’s categorical imperative? Why? There is no reason. So I simply avoid most of the manifestations of that so-called “life” which my contemporaries seem to be so unaccountably anxious to “see”; I keep out of range of the “art” they think is so vitally necessary to “keep up with”; I flee from those “good times” in the “having” of which they are prepared to spend so lavishly of their energy and cash.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

“Silence is Golden,” p. 55
Do What You Will (1928)

Life, People, World, Fear

“I feel good, like it's party time, don't you know
And it blew my mind when she smiled and said hello
But it broke my heart when she told me it's time to go”

Chuck Berry (1926–2017) American rock-and-roll musician

"Wonderful Woman" (2017)
Song lyrics

Smile, Feeling, Time, Heart

“Bob Marley poet and a prophet
Bob Marley taught me how to off it
Bob Marley walkin' like he talk it
Goodness me
Can't you see I'm gonna cough it.”

Anthony Kiedis (1962) American singer

Give it Away.
Lyrics

“I’ll have to throw it at him, Rebel thought. Swing it up, catch him under the jaw, break a few teeth. Then grab the knife and hold him for the security people. That was a good plan. It ranked right up there with suddenly learning how to teleport.”

Michael Swanwick book Vacuum Flowers

Source: Vacuum Flowers (1987), Chapter 5, “People's Sheraton” (pp. 74-75)

People, Learning

“Just as the number one never can be reduced to zero, once we act or speak, our action or speech is never completely erased. An old oriental saying tells us, "sow good, and the harvest will be good. Sow evil and reap evil". We must understand that everything we do comes back to ourselves. Therefore before wishing for our own happiness and welfare and that of our children, we must do good in secret. To do good in secret means to act without seeking attention and praise, to act without any hope of reward. This is called "intoku."”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

Among the various ways of performing intoku, to walk the way of the universe and to lead others along this way is best.
20. Intoku - good done in secret
Ki Sayings (2003)

Children, Secret, Hope, Way

“Ambition has its disappointments to sour us, but never the good fortune to satisfy us.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

"On True Happiness", Pennsylvania Gazette (20 November 1735).
1730s

Disappointment

“If I die, then I die. And if I don’t, then I don’t. Right now I feel good. I am aware that in some of my recent photos I look somewhat unhealthy, but that’s what illness can do. I’m not going to worry about that, I’ll rest when I’m dead.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

from an interview for El Mundo (2014), regarding the announcement of Morrissey's cancer diagnosis
In interviews etc., About life and death

Feeling, Photo, Dead

“Joe Louis is the hardest puncher that I've ever seen… He's a good man. Anyone who plans on beating him had better know what they're doing.”

Max Schmeling (1905–2005) German boxer

Describing Joe's punching power. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/fight/peopleevents/p_louis.html

“We bow our heads in worship on this day and give thanks to the Almighty for the bounty He has bestowed upon us over the past year. We raise our voices in holy gladness to celebrate the victory of the risen Christ over the terrible forces of death. Easter is a joyful festival! It is a celebration because it is indeed a festival of hope! Easter marks the renewal of life! The triumph of the light of truth over the darkness of falsehood! Easter is a festival of human solidarity, because it celebrates the fulfilment of the Good News! The Good News borne by our risen Messiah who chose not one race, who chose not one country, who chose not one language, who chose not one tribe, who chose all of humankind! Each Easter marks the rebirth of our faith. It marks the victory of our risen Saviour over the torture of the cross and the grave. Our Messiah, who came to us in the form of a mortal man, but who by his suffering and crucifixion attained immortality. Our Messiah, born like an outcast in a stable, and executed like criminal on the cross. Our Messiah, whose life bears testimony to the truth that there is no shame in poverty: Those who should be ashamed are they who impoverish others. Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being persecuted: Those who should be ashamed are they who persecute others. Whose life proclaims the truth that there is no shame in being conquered: Those who should be ashamed are they who conquer others. Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being dispossessed: Those who should be ashamed are they who dispossess others. Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being oppressed: Those who should be ashamed are they who oppress others.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

At his speech in Moria, on 3 April 1994
1990s, Speech at the Zionist Christian Church Easter Conference (1994)

Life, Death, Truth, Faith

“I had wanted to go after her, to explain my part in what had happened. But I knew it would do no good, so why lose face? When a fairy tale blows up and the dream dust settles and you find yourself standing there, knowing that the last line will never be written, why not omit any exercises in futility?”

Roger Zelazny Isle of the Dead

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 8 (p. 187)

Dreams, Exercises, Parting

“Every campus, of course, also has its rabble of young "liberals," who are forever making a din as they "demonstrate" for "world peash," "snivel rights," and the like, and who, if we may judge from their appearance and their yammering, are as afraid of war as they are of soap. I am sure that every student here present fully understands the importance of staying on the good side of the young "intellectuals" -- I mean the windward side, of course.”

Revilo P. Oliver (1908–1994) American philologist

"Can 'Liberals' be Educated?", speech (January 7, 1966) published in National Vanguard http://www.nationalvanguard.org/story.php?id=5442 (July 8, 2005) 1960s

War, World, Understanding, Appearance

“It is good to be unselfish and generous; but don't carry that too far. It will not do to give yourself to be melted down for the benefit of the tallow-trade; you must know where to find yourself.”

George Eliot book Daniel Deronda

This has been paraphrased as: "Be courteous, be obliging, but don't give yourself over to be melted down for the benefit of the tallow trade."
Daniel Deronda (1876)

“Remember Marxism? It used to be a sour sort of fun to tease Marxists about the contradictions in some of their pet ideas. The revolution of the proletariat was inevitable, good Marxists believed, but if so, why were they so eager to enlist us in their cause? If it was going to happen anyway, it was going to happen with or without our help. But of course the inevitability that Marxists believe in is one that depends on the growth of the movement and all its political action. There were Marxists working very hard to bring about the revolution, and it was comforting to them to believe that their success was guaranteed in the long run. And some of them, the only ones that were really dangerous, believed so firmly in the rightness of their cause that they believed it was permissible to lie and deceive in order to further it. They even taught this to their children, from infancy. These are the "red-diaper babies," children of hardline members of the Communist Party of America, and some of them can still be found infecting the atmosphere of political action in left-wing circles, to the extreme frustration and annoyance of honest socialists and others on the left.Today we have a similar phenomenon brewing on the religious right: the inevitability of the End Days, or the Rapture, the coming Armageddon that will separate the blessed from the damned in the final day of Judgment. Cults and prophets proclaiming the imminent end of the world have been with us for several millennia, and it has been another sour sort of fun to ridicule them the morning after, when they discover that their calculations were a little off. But, just as with the Marxists, there are some among them who are working hard to "hasten the inevitable," not merely anticipating the End Days with joy in their hearts, but taking political action to bring about the conditions they think are the prerequisites for that occasion. And these people are not funny at all. They are dangerous, for the same reason that red-diaper babies are dangerous: they put their allegiance to their creed ahead of their commitment to democracy, to peace, to (earthly) justice — and to truth. If push comes to shove, some of the are prepared to lie and even to kill…”

Daniel Dennett book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

Breaking the Spell (2006)

Children, People, Truth, Lie

“The drawings [his watercolors] usually succeed in one day or at most two days or they develop difficult and usually don't finish well, then…. [I hope] the end will be as good as the beginning. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Willem Roelofs (1822–1897) Dutch painter and entomologist (1822-1897)

(original Dutch: citaat van Willem Roelofs, in het Nederlands:) De teekeningen [Roelofs bedoelt zijn aquarellen] lukken mij doorgaans in een dag of hoogstens twee dagen of zij gaan moeijelijk en worden dan meestal niet goed.. ..[ik hoop dat] het eind zoo goed zal zijn als het begin.
In a letter to P. verLoren van Themaat, 30 March, 1867; in Haagsch Gemeentearchief / Municipal Archive of The Hague
1860's

Hope, Drawing

“[…] although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to coöperate with the good, that it may prevail. I try to increase the power God has given me to see the best in everything and every one, and make that Best a part of my life.”

Helen Keller book Optimism

Optimism (1903)

Life, God, World, Optimism

“In other words, it is my view that the brain is preprogrammed to feel good (i. e., to seek a sense of well-being/gratification). This is what I term the gratification principle. This usually occurs as the result of instinctive salient/relevant acts or what we normatively decide are salient/relevant acts.”

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

Source: Emotional amoral egoism (2008), p.110

Feeling, Sense

“Physically plain people are perfectly able to see physical beauty in others, while people who are morally maimed are blind to goodness and decency. They honestly think it doesn't exist.
Oh, they know it exists all right. They just never know which people have it.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Homecoming saga, The Ships Of Earth (1994)

People, Beauty, Thinking

“I didn't speak any English when I arrived here [but] I was very good at drinking. [It was my] third day in the U. S., so I talked to the other students, 'Let's have a drink.' They said, 'How can you get the drinks? We are not allowed?' And I said, 'I can buy it in Chinatown.' So I bought it and we drank in my room and we get crazy all night long and they don't have enough tolerance for that, so they all starting throwing up. Suddenly there came four or five ambulances and they kept asking, 'Hey, why, did you do that?”

Psy (1977) South Korean singer

My English was really horrible, so the only words I had were, 'Not me!
Ibid.

Drink, Night

“Thou sufferest justly: for thou choosest rather to become good to-morrow than to be good to-day.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VIII, 22
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VIII

“You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other.”

Clive Staples Lewis book Perelandra

Perelandra (1943)

Soul, Thinking

“Of two men sharing with a calf the milk of that calf's mother one eyes the calf with the thought that his tender flesh would provide good meat for him and his friends to feast upon at his approaching birthday. The other thinks of the calf as his brother of the teat and is filled with affection for the young beast and his mother. I say to you, the latter is truly nourished by that calf's meat; while the first is poisoned thereby. Aye, many things are put in the belly that should be put in the heart.”

Mikha'il Na'ima book The Book of Mirdad

The Book of Mirdad (1948)

Men, Birthday, Thinking, Heart

“3072. Thou may'st extract an Antidote out of a Viper, and Good out of an Enemy. An Enemy will tell thee more truly of thy Imperfections, than the best of Friends will adventure to do, or ourselves (being partial to ourselves)will be able to discern : And this may be apply'd as precious Balm, to heal the Wounds our Folly, or Oversight have given our Reputation, by guarding our Actions for the future. And this is far better, than to be flattered into Pride, and Carelessness.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727)

Future

“1. The standard neoclassical model the formal articulation of Adam Smith's invisible hand, the contention that market economies will ensure economic efficiency provides little guidance for the choice of economic systems, since once information imperfections (and the fact that markets are incomplete) are brought into the analysis, as surely they must be, there is no presumption that markets are efficient.
2. The Lange-Lerner-Taylor theorem, asserting the equivalence of market and market socialist economies, is based on a misguided view of the market, of the central problems of resource allocation, and (not surprisingly, given the first two failures) of how the market addresses those basic problems.
3. The neoclassical paradigm, through its incorrect characterization of the market economies and the central problems of resource allocation, provides a false sense of belief in the ability of market socialism to solve those resource allocation problems. To put it another way, if the neoclassical paradigm had provided a good description of the resource allocation problem and the market mechanism, then market socialism might well have been a success. The very criticisms of market socialism are themselves, to a large extent, criticisms of the neoclassical paradigm.
4. The central economic issues go beyond the traditional three questions posed at the beginning of every introductory text: What is to be produced? How is it to be produced? And for whom is it to be produced? Among the broader set of questions are: How should these resource allocation decisions be made? Who should make these decisions? How can those who are responsible for making these decisions be induced to make the right decisions? How are they to know what and how much information to acquire before making the decisions? How can the separate decisions of the millions of actors decision makers in the economy be coordinated?
5. At the core of the success of market economies are competition, markets, and decentralization. It is possible to have these, and for the government to still play a large role in the economy; indeed it may be necessary for the government to play a large role if competition is to be preserved. There has recently been extensive confusion over to what to attribute the East Asian miracle, the amazingly rapid growth in countries of this region during the past decade or two. Countries like Korea did make use of markets; they were very export oriented. And because markets played such an important role, some observers concluded that their success was convincing evidence of the power of markets alone. Yet in almost every case, government played a major role in these economies. While Wade may have put it too strongly when he entitled his book on the Taiwan success Governing the Market, there is little doubt that government intervened in the economy through the market.
6. At the core of the failure of the socialist experiment is not just the lack of property rights. Equally important were the problems arising from lack of incentives and competition, not only in the sphere of economics but also in politics. Even more important perhaps were problems of information. Hayek was right, of course, in emphasizing that the information problems facing a central planner were overwhelming. I am not sure that Hayek fully appreciated the range of information problems. If they were limited to the kinds of information problems that are at the center of the Arrow-Debreu model consumers conveying their preferences to firms, and scarcity values being communicated both to firms and consumers then market socialism would have worked. Lange would have been correct that by using prices, the socialist economy could "solve" the information problem just as well as the market could. But problems of information are broader.”

Joseph E. Stiglitz book Whither Socialism?

Source: Whither Socialism? (1994), Ch. 1 : The Theory of Socialism and the Power of Economic Ideas

Books, Way, Communication, Failure

“The means determine the goal. If lies and violence are the means, the results cannot be good…. We have been in Palestine for twelve years [i. e. since the 1917 Balfour Declaration without having even once made a serious attempt at seeking through negotiations the consent of the indigenous people…. I believe that it will be possible for us to hold Palestine and continue to grow for a long time. This will be done first with British aid and then later with the help of our own bayonets -- shamefully called Haganah [defense] -- clearly because we have no faith in our own policy. But by that time we will not be able to do without the bayonets. The means will have determined the goal. Jewish Palestine will no longer have anything of that Zion for which I once put myself on the line.”

Hans Kohn (1891–1971) American historian

Hans Kohn (1929), "Kohn’s letter of farewell to Zionism," as quoted in: Anthony G. Bing. Israeli Pacifist, The Life of Joseph Abileah, 1990.

People, Faith, Time, Help

“Jocelyne clicked her barbell on her teeth. I was watching her closely for signs of collapsing romance. Her tongue was pierced, (a process, she had elaborated, that had taken two weeks of painful healing) and it put me in mind of the tongue-piercing ceremony endured on October 28, 709 AD by the principal wife of Shield Jaguar, Blood Lord of Yaxchilan (Lintel 24); i. e. to my eye, pointless, but if it's good enough for the Mayans …
"Why did you do it?"
"To punish my tongue, for saying things it shouldn't have." Click.
"But surely it was only obeying orders?"
"It has to learn to be warier of its mistress. And it's also a symbol." Click.
"What of?"”

Tibor Fischer book The Thought Gang

"That changes from day to day. It's a multi-purpose symbol."
See wikipedia on Yaxchilan.
The Thought Gang (1994)

Pain, Learning, Change

“It is a great tribute to the good qualities of the strikers, who are our own people, that they showed that sense of discipline and restraint in obedience to their instructions. Many of them obeyed their orders from their sense of loyalty, orders of which they disapproved themselves, but if that strike had been successful it would have meant industrial ruin, not only to the miners, but to the whole country.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Chippenham (12 June 1926) on the General Strike, quoted in Our Inheritance (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), p. 167.
1926

People, Sense, Success, Loyalty

“Now the Faith is old and the Devil is bold,
Exceedingly bold indeed;
And the masses of doubt that are floating about
Would smother a mortal creed.
But we that sit in a sturdy youth,
And still can drink strong ale,
Oh—let us put it away to infallible truth,
That always shall prevail.
[semi-chorus:]
And thank the Lord
For the temporal sword,
And howling heretics too;
And all good things
Our Christendom brings,
But especially barley brew!”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

the "Pelagian" drinking song, p. 50
The Four Men: A Farrago (1911)

Truth, Youth, Faith, Drink

“If I was accused of neglecting my art, or sacrificing my ideas for the sake of stupid ambition, then I would understand the critics; but as that isn't the case, there is nothing to be said. I sent a picture to the Salon for purely commercial reasons. Anyway, it is like some medicines – even if it does no good, it does no harm.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) French painter and sculptor

other impressionist artists then refused to send in their work to the Salon
Source: 1880's, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 128 : in a letter to art-dealer Durand-Ruel, March 1881

Stupidity, Art, Idea, Understanding

“Know the joy of life by piling good deed on good deed until no rift or cranny appears between them.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

τί λοιπὸν ἢ ἀπολαύειν τοῦ ζῆν συνάπτοντα ἄλλο ἐπ ἄλλῳ ἀγαθόν, ὥστε μηδὲ τὸ βραχύτατον διάστημα ἀπολείπειν;
XII, 29
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book XII

Life, Appearance, Joy

“The colour I think of little moment; and am of opinion with our friend Foote, respecting his negro friend, that a good dog, like a good candidate, cannot be of a bad colour.”

Peter Beckford (1643–1710) Governor of Jamaica

Thoughts upon Hare and Fox Hunting (1781), Letter 3

Dogs, Thinking

“It strikes me that mathematical writing is similar to using a language. To be understood you have to follow some grammatical rules. However, in our case, nobody has taken the trouble of writing down the grammar; we get it as a baby does from parents, by imitation of others. Some mathematicians have a good ear; some not (and some prefer the slangy expressions such as 'iff'). That's life.”

Jean-Pierre Serre (1926) French mathematician

Jean-Pierre Serre in letter to David Goss, quoted in: David Goss. " Some Hints on Mathematical Style https://people.math.osu.edu/goss.3/hint.pdf," at people.math.osu.edu, accessed 08.2016

Life, Mathematics, Parent, Baby

“Vials of holy water, blessed knives, steel and silver blades, electrum wire-- not much use at the moment, but it's always good to have a spare--silver bullets, charm of protection, crucifixes, stars of David-"
"Jesus," said Clary.
"I doubt he'd fit.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Jace and Clary, pg. 255
The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Star, Water

“I’m wondering whose side I ought to be on. I’m getting very sorry for the Devil and his disciples such as the good Le Chiffre. The Devil has a rotten time and I always like to be on the side of the underdog. We don’t give the poor chap a chance. There’s a Good Book about goodness and how to be good and so forth, but there’s no Evil Book about evil and how to be bad. The Devil has no prophets to write his Ten Commandments and no team of authors to write his biography. His case has gone completely by default. We know nothing about him but a lot of fairy stories from our parents and schoolmasters. He has no book from which we can learn the nature of evil in all its forms, with parables about evil people, proverbs about evil people, folk-lore about evil people. All we have is the living example of the people who are least good, or our own intuition.
‘So,’ continued Bond, warming to his argument, ‘Le Chiffre was serving a wonderful purpose, a really vital purpose, perhaps the best and highest purpose of all. By his evil existence, which foolishly I have helped to destroy, he was creating a norm of badness by which, and by which alone, an opposite norm of goodness could exist. We were privileged, in our short knowledge of him, to see and estimate his wickedness and we emerge from the acquaintanceship better and more virtuous men.”

Ian Fleming book Casino Royale

Source: Casino Royale (1953), Ch. 20 : The Nature Of Evil

Men, People, Books, Nature

“While I didn't know it at the time, Daniel had suggested to Michael that I play Cora before we had ever met. And prior to our meeting, I was at a restaurant with John Bailey, the director, when I felt this man looking over in our direction and smiling a good deal. I realized, after leaving, that it was Daniel. He later told me that he was having lunch with Michael and had coincidentally asked him earlier that very day about me. It's just a funny thing, isn't it? And I was terribly flattered when he told me this tale. He was also very clear that the decision to cast me as Cora was all Michael's.”

Madeleine Stowe (1958) American actress

Mohican Press interview (2005)

Smile, Decision, Time

“The true object of religion is to bind mankind together, and to bind them all to God. If we see that in the name of religion, men, instead of promoting peace on earth and good-will among men, are trying to show their antagonism and animosity towards each other, then certainly we must stand forward with our voice of protest, and say that religion is defeating its own legitimate object.”

Keshub Chunder Sen (1838–1884) Indian academic

Speech delivered at Freemasons’ Hall, Great Queen Street, London, in a meeting held to constitute a Theistic Association in London on 20th July 1870. See Universal Religion for full speech.

Men, God, Peace, Religion

“Another good thing about gossip is that it is within everybody's reach,
And it is much more interesting than any other form of speech,
Because suppose you eschew gossip and just say
Mr. Smith is in love with his wife.
Why that disposes the Smiths as a topic of conversation for the rest of their life,
But suppose you say with a smile, that poor little Mrs. Smith thinks her husband is in love with her, he must be very clever,
Why then you can enjoyably talk about the Smiths forever.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

I'm a Stranger Here Myself (1938), I Have It On Good Authority

Love, Life, Smile, Thinking

“What I saw generically on the pro-biotech side was the attitude that the technology was good and that it was almost immoral to say that it wasn't good because it was going to solve the problems of the human race and feed the hungry and clothe the naked. And there was a lot of money that had been invested in this, and if you're against it, you're Luddites, you're stupid. There was rhetoric like that even here in this department. You felt like you were almost an alien, disloyal, by trying to present an open-minded view on some of the issues being raised. So I pretty much spouted the rhetoric that everybody else around here spouted; it was written into my speeches.”

Dan Glickman (1944) American businessman and politician

Unidentified speech as outgoing Secretary of Agriculture, c. January 2001
Quoted in [Bill, Lambrecht, http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Dan-Glickman-Outgoing.htm, Outgoing Secretary Says Agency's Top Issue Is Genetically Modified Food, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 25 January 2001, 2007-01-17]

Money, Stupidity, Problem, Clothes

“it came pretty late In a sense it is good. It won’t get over my head.”

Jeet Thayil (1959) Indian writer

After winning the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature-2013 Mohammed Iqbal, in: Jeet Thayil wins DSC Prize for South Asian Literature http://www.thehindu.com/books/jeet-thayil-wins-dsc-prize-for-south-asian-literature/article4348766.ece, The Hindu, 27 January 2013

Sense

“When I was…. in the surroundings of pictures and things of art… I then had a violent passion for them… And I do not repent it, for even now, far from that land, I am often homesick for the land of pictures. Now for more than five years already, I do not know exactly how long, I'm more or less without employment, wandering here and there… But you will ask what is your definite aim? That aim becomes more definite, will stand out slowly and surely, as the rough draft becomes a sketch and the sketch becomes a picture…. my only anxiety is: how can I be of use in the world, cannot I serve some purpose and be of any good, how can I learn more and study profoundly certain subjects?”

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

In his letter to brother Theo, from Cuesmes, Belgium July 1880; 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, (letter 133) p. 19 1880s, 1880

World, Art, Study, Learning

“Probably the toughest time in anyone's life is when you have to murder a loved one because they're the Devil. Other than that, though, it's been a good day.”

Emo Philips (1956) American comedian

Opening line
E=MO² (1985), A Fine How Ya Do

Love, Life, Time

“In fact, Mr. Watson, it's a queer world, and the longer I live in it the queerer I find it. Once I thought it would be a good idea to regulate things myself and run the world as it ought to be run; but I gave it up long ago. The world's a stage, they say; but the show ain't always amusing, by a long chalk, and sometimes I wish I didn't have a reserved seat.”

L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) Children's writer, editor, journalist, screenwriter

Aunt Jane's Nieces (1906)
Novels published under the pseudonym Edith van Dyne

World, Idea

“I think Larry is right to notice that the contradictions are catching the allies up already. It's one of those cases where even before you begin bombing the children, the coalition is falling apart. And that's good news. And I'm very much in favor of it. Some Powell or other is messing up the war.”

Eben Moglen (1959) American law professor and free software advocate

Panel on Public Domain at Duke University Law School, November 10, 2001 http://www.law.duke.edu/pd/mpegcast.html.

War, Children, Thinking

“America does not seek good for Islam, for the Muslims, and for the repressed.”

Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah (1935–2010) Lebanese faqih

The CIA is Behind Terror Attacks in Iraq http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1.htm March 2004.

“I knew that in this 'promised land' of South America I had a few good friends, to whom I could say openly, freely and proudly that I am Adolf Eichmann, former SS Obersturmbannführer.”

Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962) German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer

Meine Flucht, a memoir written by Eichmann in 1961, as quoted in Eichmann Before Jerusalem by Bettina Stangneth (2015).

“With all due respect, many in the entertainment industry are deep into mind-altering substance abuse, and when one’s logic and intellectual calculating powers are replaced with dopey feel-good, fantasy-driven denial, the democratic party serves them well.”

Ted Nugent (1948) American rock musician

On why entertainment celebrities tend to favor the Democratic Party, as quoted in "Ted Nugent blasts Matt Damon on Palin" in The Christian Science Monitor (18 September 2008) http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2008/09/16/ted-nugent-blasts-matt-damon-on-palin/

Feeling

“The average Briton, as well as honorable and right honorable members of the House, had known that England possessed colonies and had understood that colonies, as a matter of course, existed to supply him with sugar and rice, indigo and tobacco, and in return to buy at a good price whatever he might himself wish to sell.”

Carl L. Becker (1873–1945) American historian

The Eve of the Revolution (1918)

Housing

“Doing good,
Disinterested good, is not our trade.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book I, The Sofa, Line 673.

Quotes about goodness page 60

Quotes about goodness
page 60