Quotes about goodness (10000 quotes, page 84)

“What was the good working for freedom all your life and ending up without any freedom at all?”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

“The Day Before the Revolution” p. 272 (originally published in Galaxy, August 1974)
Short fiction, The Wind’s Twelve Quarters (1975)

Life , Freedom

“I'm like a good cheese. I'm just getting mouldy enough to be interesting.”

Paul Newman (1925–2008) American actor and film director

Quoted in "Saint Paul," interview with John Aldridge, The Guardian (2005-04-10)

“To fall into mere unreasoning deliquium of love and admiration, was not good; but such unreasoning, nay irrational supercilious no-love at all is perhaps still worse!—It is a thing forever changing, this of Hero-worship: different in each age, difficult to do well in any age. Indeed, the heart of the whole business of the age, one may say, is to do it well.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet

Love , Age , Business , Change

“If the King's English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for the children of Texas!”

Miriam A. Ferguson (1875–1961) American politician

Attributed, for example, by http://web.archive.org/20090806185021/www.international.ucla.edu/burkle/article.asp?parentid=2198, which contains a common version of the story, where Ferguson says this while holding a bible and defending her objection to the teaching of Spanish in Texas public schools
According to http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003084.html, a variation on this quote is reported in the New York Times on May 23, 1881, but no record of Ferguson having said this, or anything like it, could be found
This quote and variations on it are often frequently attributed to others; one story, usually heard outside the United States, has an unnamed "U.S. congressman" saying it in a television interview; for example, see http://ontrapranur.blogspot.com/2008/05/if-english-was-good-enough-for-jesus.html
Misattributed

Children , Christ

“He who doeth good unto Me, it is as if he doeth good unto God, His angels and the entire company of His loved ones. He who doeth evil unto Me, it is as if he doeth evil unto God and His chosen ones. Nay, too exalted is the station of God and of His loved ones for any person’s good or evil deed to reach their holy threshold. Whatever reacheth Me is ordained to reach Me; and that which hath come unto Me, to him who giveth will it revert. By the One in Whose hand is My soul, he hath cast no one but himself into prison. For assuredly whatsoever God hath decreed for Me shall come to pass and naught else save that which God hath ordained for us shall ever touch us. Woe betide him from whose hands floweth evil, and blessed the man from whose hands floweth good. Unto no one do I take My plaint save to God; for He is the best of judges. Every state of adversity or bliss is from Him alone, and He is the All-Powerful, the Almighty.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

Epistle to Muhammad Sháh

Love , God , Angels , Soul

“The ruthless destruction of wild animals and the abuse of domestic animals is contrary to God’s purpose. Our relationship with the animal world is not one of warfare, but one of dominion. Wild and domestic in terms of God’s purpose. Finally we must say in terms of this text that man was created to live in a perfect world, in a good world, very good God commanded. To till and to keep it, man was formed out of the substance of the dust of the ground we are told in Genesis 2:7. Man is therefore earthbound, psychological and physically, dust thou art and unto dust thou returnest.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, Creationism and Psychology (n. d.)

God , World , Art , Animals

“However, we must not lose sight of the fact that the fundamentals of the economy are still good.”

Brian Cowen (1960) Irish politician

The wise words of Brian Cowen, Irish Independent, 6 December 2007 http://www.independent.ie/national-news/budget2008/the-wise-words--of-brian-cowen-1239048.html,
2007

“In fact, the chief end of a woman in China is not to live for herself, or for society; not to be a reformer or to be president of the woman's natural feet Society; not to live even as a saint or to do good to the world; the chief end of a woman in China is to live as a good daughter a good wife and a good mother.”

Gu Hongming book The Spirit of the Chinese People

page 79
The Spirit of the Chinese People (1915), Chinese Woman

World , Nature , Daughters

“Young players are a little bit like melons. Only when you open and taste the melon are you 100% sure that the melon is good.”

José Mourinho (1963) Portuguese association football player and manager

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/funny_old_game/7004282.stm
Chelsea FC

“A point which I want very much to establish is that the choice of these 'Readymade' was never dictated by aesthetic delectation. This choice was based on a reaction of visual indifference with at the same time a total absence of good or bad taste…. in fact a complete anesthesia. One important characteristic was the short sentence which I occasionally inscribed on the 'readymade'. That sentence instead of describing the object like a title was meant to carry the mind of the spectator towards other regions more verbal.”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

1951 - 1968, Apropos of Ready Mades', 1961

Time , Indifference

“I'd never show up a pitcher by standing in the batters box and watching how far the ball goes like a lot of players do now. But it made me feel good to know I could hit a ball longer than anyone else. It tickled the hell out of me. It was like playing in a golf tournament and hearing all the ohhs and ahhs when you hit a good drive. I mean, every time I swung at it I was trying to hit it longer than the time before. I'm sure that was why I struck out so much, but I'd get a kick out of it. Poor Casey would get so mad. He'd say, "Hey butcher boy, just make contact."”

Mickey Mantle (1931–1995) Professional baseball player

But he couldn't get me to change. In fact, Whitey told me just last year that I'd shut my eyes just before I lunged.
As quoted in "IT'S OUTTA HEEERRE!!!: A New Generation of Sluggers Invites Tape-Measure Comparisons" http://articles.latimes.com/1986-07-21/sports/sp-26487_1_home-run.

Feeling , Boy , Hell , Change

“We live far enough away from those times of test and trial to know that sincerity and honesty did not all lie on either side. We know the conflicts of loyalties, traditions, ancestry, and interest which drew men to one side and the other. I doubt if there ever was another so great and elemental a conflict from which men emerged with so much of mutual respect, with so little of bitterness and lingering hostility. The struggle brought the whole Nation at last to see that its only assurance was in unity. United, it could go its way in all security; divided, both sections becoming the prey of jealousy and intrigue, would have dissipated all the power they now have for good in the world.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Reign of Law (1925)

Men , Hostility , Lie , World

“books—there is a good kind of a book and a bad kind of a book. I am not to assume that you are all ill acquainted with this; but I may remind you that it is a very important consideration at present. It casts aside altogether the idea that people have that if they are reading any book—that if an ignorant man is reading any book, he is doing rather better than nothing at all.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1860s, On The Choice Of Books (1866)

People , Books , Idea , Reading

“We do have to do more infrastructure spending. That will put many Americans to work. It’s a good job that gets you on the ladder to the middle class. We need to improve the conditions for manufacturing in our country and punish those companies that want to export jobs. We need them to be incentivized to create jobs right here in America.”

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

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Democratic Presidential Debate in Miami (March 9, 2016)

Country

“It was the rule of Holt, Chief Justice, to make words actionable whenever they sound to the disreputation of the person of whom they were spoken; and this was also Hale's and Twieden's rule; and I think it a very good rule.”

John Holt (Lord Chief Justice) (1642–1710) English lawyer and Lord Chief Justice of England

Fortescue, J., Button v. Heyward (1722), 8 Mod. 24. This is in reference perhaps to Baker v. Pearce, 6 Mod. 23.
About

Justice , Thinking , Personality

“They proved that if you quit smoking, it will prolong your life. What they haven't proved is that a prolonged life is a good thing. I haven't seen the stats on that yet.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Dark Poet (1991)

Life

“Our first rule is, then,
Know What You Want To Say. The second rule is,
Say It.
That is, do not begin by saying something else, which you think will lead up to what you want to say. I remember, when they tried to teach me to sing, they told me to "think of eight and sing seven." That may be a very good rule for singing, but it is not a good rule for talking, or writing, or any of the other things that I have to do. I advise you to say the thing you want to say. When I began to preach, another of my Nestors said to me, "Edward, I give you one piece of advice. When you have written your sermon, leave off the introduction and leave off the conclusion. The introduction seems to me always written to show that the minister can preach two sermons on one text. Leave that off, then, and it will do for another Sunday. The conclusion is written to apply to the congregation the doctrine of the sermon. But, if your hearers are such fools that they cannot apply the doctrine to themselves, nothing you can say will help them."”

Edward Everett Hale (1822–1909) American author and Unitarian clergyman

In this advice was much wisdom. It consists, you see, in advising to begin, at the beginning, and to stop when you have done.
Thirdly, and always,
Use Your Own Language.
I mean the language you are accustomed to use in daily life.
How To Do It (1871)

Life , Wisdom , Fools , Thinking

“Christianity is not a religion for the masses, let alone for all. Cultivated by few and translated into deeds, it is one of the most splendid blossoms that can grow in the soul of a good man.”

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

Das Christentum ist keine Religion für viele, geschweige denn für alle. Von wenigen gepflegt und in die Tat umgesetzt, ist es eine der köstlichsten Blüten, die eine Kulturseele je getrieben hat.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Religion , Soul

“Why then dost thou choose to act in the same way? and why dost thou not leave these agitations which are foreign to nature, to those who cause them and those who are moved by them? And why art thou not altogether intent upon the right way of making use of things which happen to thee? for then thou wilt use them well, and they will be material for thee. Only attend to thyself, and resolve to be a good man in every act which thou doest; and remember…”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VII, 58
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VII

Art , Way , Nature

“But in a little measure my small voice of individual experience does join in the declaration of philosophy that the good is the only world, and that world is a world of spirit. It is also a universe where order is All, where an unbroken logic holds the parts together, where disorder defines itself as non-existence, where evil, as St. Augustine held, is delusion, and therefore is not.”

Helen Keller book Optimism

Optimism (1903)

World , Universe , Evil , Parting

“Poor devils! Where do these unfortunate creatures come from? On what butcher's block will they meet their end? What reward does municipal munificence allot them for thus cleaning (or dirtying) the pavements of Paris? At what age are they sent to the glue factory? What becomes of their bones (their skin is good for nothing)?”

Hector Berlioz (1803–1869) French Romantic composer

Pauvres diables!... D'où sortent ces malheureux êtres ?... À quel Montfaucon vont-ils mourir ?... Que leur octroie la munificence municipale pour nettoyer (ou salir) ainsi le pavé de Paris ?... À quel âge les envoie-t-on à l'équarrissage ?... Que fait-on de leurs os ? (leur peau n'est bonne à rien.)
Les Grotesques de la Musique (Paris: A. Bourdilliat, 1859) p. 89; Alastair Bruce (trans.) The Musical Madhouse (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2003) pp. 54-56.
Of critics

Age

“At night I wake up and think, What color will make me feel better when I soak in the bathtub for an hour? I want everyone who's dreaming of a glamorous life to know that I'd trade a good bath any day for the heels, the hair, the makeup, the tight dresses, the photographs, the small talk.”

Salma Hayek (1966) Mexican-American actress and producer

O interview (2003)

Life , Dreams , Color , Feeling

“The task is not to win the political centre ground – it is gridlocked and dead – but to transform it. A new social politics of democracy must be capable of creating the conditions for recovery, and setting out a set of principles and a political direction for the future, and it must also address the threat of global warming. The boom is over. In the future there will be less to go round and so let us share it out fairly amongst ourselves and embark on the deep and long transformation that will bring about a good society. It will be the great challenge of our time, and it will shape the lives of generations to come.”

Jon Cruddas (1962) British politician

The Independent, The time has come for a new socialism, 31 March 2009 http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/jon-cruddas-amp-jonathan-rutherford-the-time-has-come-for-a-new-socialism-1658938.html

Democracy , Time , Future , Dead

“I read it for the first time in about 20 years this year–-recently. It wasn't so bad. I get it. I get fan mail now from people who weren't really born yet when the book came out. I don't think it's a perfect book by any means, but it's valid. I get where it comes from. I get what it is. I know that sounds so ambiguous. It's sort of out of my hands and it has its reputation so what can you do about it? There's a lot of it that I wish was slightly more elegantly written. Overall, I was pretty shocked. It was pretty good writing for someone who was 19. I was pretty surprised by the level of writing.”

Bret Easton Ellis (1964) American novelist

On Less Than Zero
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=571852

People , Books , Thinking , Time

“I'm a good friend, but I'm a hell of an enemy. As your enemy, I want your demise. When I feel that in my heart it burns till I die.”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml;jsessionid=CEDUJVE3P05PLQFIQMFSFFOAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/sport/2002/05/01/sotys02.xml&page=2
On himself

Feeling , Hell , Heart

“Greatness is the reward for genius…only a few can be great, the rest are plain good.”

Siddharth Katragadda (1972) Indian writer

page 66
Dark Rooms (2002)

“Only straight discovering in the nearest stone or tree, sound or thought, the shelter of His often desecrated goodness, the treasury of His waiting form man's heart to affiliate with His will — this is the rapture of faith. It is an echo to a pleading voice, a reply to the inconceivable in all beauty.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

"The Holy Dimension", p. 331
Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays (1997)

Faith , Beauty , Tree , Waiting

“Goodness is always an asset. A man who is straight, friendly and useful may never be famous, but he is respected and liked by all who know him. He has laid a sound foundation for success and he will have a worthwhile life.”

Herbert N. Casson (1869–1951) Canadian journalist and writer

Herbert N. Casson in: Forbes (1948). p. 42
1920s-1940s

Life , Success

“"You can't play anything on a horn that Louis hasn't played." and "I love Pops" (Louis' nickname) … Louis has been through all kinds of styles. That's good tuba, by the way. You know you can't play anything on a horn that Louis hasn't played — I mean even modern. I love his approach to the trumpet; he never sounds bad. He plays on the beat — with feeling. That's another phrase for swing. I also love the way he sings.”

Miles Davis (1926–1991) American jazz musician

In the Jazz Review with Nat Hentoff (1958); also in , and in many other books https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=%22play+anything+on+a+horn%22+miles+davis
On Louis Armstrong in a Playboy magazine interview.
1950s

Love , Way , Feeling , Singing

“We may talk of the best means of doing good; but, after all, the greatest difficulty lies in doing it in a proper spirit. Speak- the truth in love, "in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves"”

Asahel Nettleton (1783–1844) American theologian

with the meekness and gentleness of Christ.
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 129.

Love , Truth , Christ

“There's one thing in baseball that always gets my goat and that's the intentional pass. It isn't fair to the batter. It isn't fair to his club. It's a raw deal for the fans and it isn't baseball. By "baseball," I mean good square American sportsmanship because baseball represents America in sport. If we get down to unfair advantages in our national game we are putting out a mighty bad advertisement.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

From "Babe Speaks His Mind Anent the Deliberate Pass," http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1920/08/14/page/7/ by Ruth (as told to Pegler), in The Chicago Tribune (August 14, 1920), p. 7; reprinted as "The Intentional Pass," https://books.google.com/books?id=SAAlxi-0EZYC&pg=PA32 in Playing the Game: My Early Years in Baseball, p. 32

Game , Sport

“It seems to me that if a little flower could speak, it would tell simply what God has done for it without trying to hide its blessings. It would not say, under the pretext of a false humility, it is not beautiful and without perfume, that the sun has taken away its splendor and the storm has broken its stem when it knows that all this is untrue. The flower about to tell her story rejoices at having to publish the totally gratuitous gifts of Jesus. She knows that nothing in herself was capable of attracting the divine glances, and His mercy alone brought about everything that is good in her.”

Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897) French Discalced Carmelite nun

Source: Story of a Soul (1897), Ch. I: Alençon, 1873–1877. As translated by Fr. John Clarke (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1976), p. 15.

God , Beauty , Flowers , Sun

“But now we come upon another objection, which I judge will be the last you can raise. You will say, I suspect, that this world of freedom, self-equipped for sin, is indeed a world which "lieth in wickedness," that in truth there is no real hope of good in it: it is a world of inherent and inexpugnable wrong, and not only damnable, but in fact already damned.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Harmony of Determinism and Freedom, p.372

Truth , World , Hope , Freedom

“"Oh, thank goodness!" he babbled. "I didn't mean it - at least I did, but I don't mean it now, not any more!" He flung one arm around Yam and twisted the other into Mordion's rolled cloak. "They came. They rustled. Don't let them!"”

Diana Wynne Jones book Hexwood

Source: Hexwood (1993), p. 255.

“If we regard Iran as a nation, there is no reason it shouldn’t have correct relations with the United States or any other country. Decades of opinion polls show that a majority of Iranians have a good opinion of America. But Iran today suffers from a split personality: It is both a nation and, as the Islamic Republic, also a messianic cause. And the Islamic Republic of Iran, far from being part of the solution, is at the root of the conflict tearing the Middle East apart. It has built Shiite militias in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, not to mention Afghanistan, with the aim of “exporting” its Khomeinist ideology. The mullahs’ quest for an empire has provoked violent reaction from Sunni Arabs and enabled terrorist outfits such as al Qaeda in its many versions, including ISIS, to find a new audience and a narrative of victimhood. As long as Iran remains a “cause,” it can’t normalize relations with anybody, let alone America. Coexistence among nations is not the same as that among causes.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"Have the Mullah's Abandoned their Dreams of Empire?", Elaph.com, (November 16, 2014).

Tear , Suffering , Parting , Personality

“What song do I hate? I think "Daughters," by John Mayer, would be a good candidate. I don't know why he bugs me so bad."”

Brandon Flowers (1981) American indie rock singer

Brandon Flowers on what song would be playing if he went to hell. (2005) ( Rolling Stone Magazine http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/7235375/thekillers?pageid=rs.Artistcage&pageregion=triple3)

Hate , Thinking , Daughters

““You’ve a good heart,” she told him. “Sometimes that’s enough to see you safe wherever you go.” Then she shook her head. “But mostly, it’s not.””

Neil Gaiman book Neverwhere

Prologue
Neverwhere (1996)

Heart

“Men looke not at the greatnesse of the evill past, but the greatnesse of the good to follow.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The First Part, Chapter 15, p. 76 (Italics as per text)
Leviathan (1651)

Men , Evil , Past

“Born in 1883 and dying in 1946, the bulk of Keynes's professional life was framed by two world wars. At the beginning, he was an Edwardian optimist, convinced that automatic progress was steadily enlarging opportunities for more and more people to live the 'good life', as identified by his mentor, G. E. Moore, and his friends of the Bloomsbury Group. He ended his life bequeathing the world a theory, policies and two international institutions (the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) designed to strengthen the foundations of free economy, so as to make it possible again for people to indulge the hopes with which he had grown up. In between, there was catastrophe and retrogression, starting in Europe and spreading to most of the rest of the world.”

Robert Skidelsky (1939) Economist and author

John Maynard Keynes: 1883-1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman (2003), Introduction

Life , War , People , World

“In Taoist thought, the good life comes spontaneously; but spontaneity is far from simply acting on the impulses that occur to us. In Western traditions such as Romanticism, spontaneity is linked with subjectivity. In Taoism it means acting dispassionately, on the basis of an objective view of the situation at hand. The common man cannot see things objectively, because his mind is clouded by anxiety about achieving his goals. Seeing clearly means not projecting our goals into the world; acting spontaneously means acting according to the needs of the situation. Western moralists will ask what is the purpose of such action, but for Taoists the good life has no purpose. It is like swimming in a whirlpool, responding to the currents as they come and go. 'I enter with the inflow, and emerge with the outflow, follow the Way of the water, and do not impose my selfishness upon it. This is how I stay afloat in it,' says the Chuang-Tzu. In this view, ethics is simply a practical skill, like fishing or swimming. The core of ethics is not choice or conscious awareness, but the knack of knowing what to do. It is a skill that comes with practice and an empty mind.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

The Vices of Morality: Animal virtues (p. 113)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

Life , World , Way , Fish

“Technical criticism in particular is the despair of the artist. No one but an idiot would offer a poet his comments in terms of spondees and trochees; why must the painter daily suffer the indignity? Any picture which makes one conscious first of its technical qualities, good or bad, is not a good picture, whatever else it may be.”

Patrick Swift (1927–1983) British artist

The Artist Speaks (1951)

Suffering , Despair

“We may have an excellent Ear in Musick, without being able to perform in any kind. We may judg well of Poetry, without being Poets, or possessing the least of a Poetick Vein: But we can have no tolerable Notion of Goodness, without being tolerably good.”

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713) English politician and Earl

Vol. 1, p. 26; "A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm".
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711)

“As the twentieth century drew to a close, the connection between hard scientific fact and public policy became increasingly elastic. In part this was possible because of the complacency of the scientific profession; in part because of the lack of good science education among the public; in part, because of the rise of specialized advocacy groups which have been enormously effective in getting publicity and shaping policy; and in great part because of the decline of the media as an independent assessor of fact.”

Michael Crichton (1942–2008) American author, screenwriter, film producer

Aliens Cause Global Warming (2003)

Education , Science , Parting

“A perfectly evil human society is unthinkable: it would be self-destructive. We therefore deny that any society of absolutely evil spirits could be permanent. Evil in short, cannot be a unifying spiritual principle: to put it colloquially, there must be some good in the Devil or he must ultimately destroy himself. It is certain that the Devil cannot be the creative source of evil in the same way that God is the creative source of good.”

Ernest Barnes (1874–1953) English mathematician and clergyman

p, 125
Spiritualism and the Christian Faith (1918)

God , Way , Evil

“I typically find myself wanting to verify every single fact or idea that I hadn't heard of before, and say either "hold on, I need to think about that for a few minutes" or "let me check that on Google/Wikipedia". In actual conversation I'd suppress this because I suspect the other person will quickly find it extremely annoying. I just think to myself "I'll try to remember what he's saying and check it out later", but of course I don't have such a good memory.”

Wei Dai Cryptocurrency pioneer and computer scientist

In a discussion thread https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/d9CcQ24ukbL8WcMpB/how-to-always-have-interesting-conversations#HK9pw3RnReS5x9bPa on LessWrong, June 2010

Idea , Thinking , Memory , Personality

“Looks didn’t last forever and she wasn’t ready for religion yet. Money was kind of a good compromise, staked up somewhere between cosmetics and eternity.”

Edward St. Aubyn (1960) British writer

Some Hope, Chapter 7

Money , Religion

“Up to this time, as I believe, slavery had been let alone, as it claimed to be, in good faith. Up to this time it is clear enough in our history that there was no general perception of the terrible truth that slavery was a system aggressive in its very nature, and necessarily destructive of Constitutional rights and liberties. Up to this time there had been a general blindness to the fact that, under the plea, which was allowed, that it was a local and State institution, slavery had acquired an absolute national supremacy, and if not checked would presently declare itself in national law as the national policy. I think that the eyes of the people were opened rather by the frank statements and legislative action in Congress of the slave party; by the speeches of Mr. Calhoun, filtered through lesser minds and mouths than his; at last by the events in Kansas forcing every man to consider whether, while we had let slavery alone, it had also let us alone; and forcing him to see that its hand was already upon the throat of freedom in this country. I think that by the cuts of the slave party, not by the words of the technical abolitionists, the country was at last aroused. The moral wrong and the political despotism of the system were at last perceived, and a reconstruction of political parties was inevitable. For in human society, while the individual conscience is the steam or motive power, political methods are the engine and the wheels by which progress is effected and secured.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

People , Truth , Faith , Law

“Art thou angry with him whose arm-pits stink? art thou angry with him whose mouth smells foul? What good will this anger do thee?”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book V, 28

Art , Anger

“All Marie was earth before it became marle, it is a kinde of clay ground, and chalke it selfe was marle before it became chalke. And that which is more, that which is yet chalke within the Matrix of the earth, wil in time harden into a white stone, And last of all, wheresoever there bee any stones that be subiect to calcination, they were first marle before they were stones, for otherwise by their calcination they could not possibly amend any barren grounds … Also chalke and lime, after the frostes have taken them, whereby they crumble into powder, do become good marle, and serve in stead thereof.”

Hugh Plat (1552–1608) writer

Source: Diverse new Sorts of Soylenot yet brought into any publique Use, 1594, p. 23-24; Cited in: Malcolm Thick (1994)

Bee , Time

“The battle between Good and Evil is a theme of much of fantasy. But I think the battle between Good and Evil is fought largely within the individual human heart, by the decisions that we make. It’s not like evil dresses up in black clothing and you know, they’re really ugly. These are some of the things that Tolkien did; he made them work fabulously, but in the hands of his imitators, they become total clichés. I mean the orc-like creatures who always do dress in black and… they’re really ugly and they’ve got facial deformities or something. You can tell that if somebody’s ugly, he must be evil. And then Tolkien’s heroes are all very attractive people and all that, of course, again this became cliché in the hands of the Tolkien imitators.”

George Raymond Richard Martin (1948) American writer, screenwriter and television producer

"GRRM Interview Part 2: Fantasy and History", interview with TIME Entertainment http://entertainment.time.com/2011/04/18/grrm-interview-part-2-fantasy-and-history/ (18 April 2011)

People , Thinking , Decision , Evil

“I am upset I am very much disappointed when I see within myself a wrong image of myself…. A man can live without fingers, but he cannot live without self-respect…. That is why I took up leprosy work. Not to help anyone but to overcome that fear in my life. That it worked out good for others is a byproduct. But the fact is I did it to overcome fear.”

Baba Amte (1914–2008) Indian freedom fighter, social worker

On his motivation to treat leprosy patients, Page=9
Baba Amte: A Vision of New India

Life , Fear , Disappointment , Help

“You see life as a contrast between misery and pleasure, Jon; that is not a correct interpretation.”
“It’s a pretty good rule of thumb, I should have thought.”
“Thought and non-thought is the only valid line of comparison.”
“Bit of a bird’s-eye view, isn’t it? That puts us on the same level as the proles.”

Brian W. Aldiss (1925–2017) British science fiction author

“Exactly.”
“Man on Bridge” p. 89
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

Life , Pleasure , Bird

“And the same applies to the spouse. You know you love them, but you need to say it again and again. Like we got to the food, moments ago, and you need to say: "This food is – mashallah – it's really, really great". Even if the salt is a little bit more. Because sometimes, as I was saying, she spent so much time bringing it in front of us – and we are worried about how it's smelling, number one, and number two is we say, as we taste it, "The salt is too much, no?" What are you talking about? She just looks at you and her face flops. «I've been at it for three hours here, four hours I've been busy with this for so many months…» And what does she even say? "Next time I'll try a bit harder" – that's if she's a good woman; if not, she will say: "Never gonna cook this again!" It's typical. And if you have someone who is very witty: "The next time there's salt to be put in, I'll call you to put it." So we need to praise the cooking of our wives, we need to praise their dress code, especially… For example, I can let you know something that has worked, for some people. When you find some women, you know, they don't like to dress appropriately, so the husband sometimes wants to tell them something. There're two, three ways of doing it. You can either say, "This is very bad, I don't want you to wear this." And, you know, you might have a response. But if you want a response from the heart, what you do is, you tell them: "The other dress looked much better than this." You see, so you are praising one thing, and that praise is not there when the other thing is there. So, you have told them, in a way, that «this is what I really love». And go beyond the limits in praise – that's your wife, don't worry, you can say whatever you want, mashallah, in terms of goodness. Like the food, when you eat, even if it is a little bit this way or that way, just praise it, mashallah. See what it is. Praise the effort, at least. Let me tell you what has happened once. They say the imam in the mosque had said: "You need to praise the cooking of your wife". Just like I said now. So the man went home, and he had this meal, and he was looking at it, and looking at his wife, and smiling, all happy, mashallah, excited and everything. And when he finishes, he says: "Oh! It was awesome!" And the wife says, "What? I've been cooking for you for 21 years, you never said that! Today, when the food came from the neighbor, you want to say it was awesome?"”

Ismail ibn Musa Menk (1975) Muslim cleric and Grand Mufti of Zimbabwe.

"The Fortunate Muslim Family: Divine Solution to the Fragmented Family" (20 February 2012), lecture at the University of Malaya ( YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QaeZcV_azE)
Lectures

Love , Women , People , Food

“I beg the reader not to go in search of messages. It is a term that I detest because it distresses me greatly, for it forces on me clothes that are not mine, which in fact belong to a human type that I distrust; the prophet, the soothsayer, the seer. I am none of these; I’m a normal man with a good memory who fell into a maelstrom and got out of it more by luck than by virtue, and who from that time on has preserved a certain curiosity about maelstroms large and small, metaphorical and actual.”

Primo Levi book The Mirror Maker

"The Premise," The Mirror Maker (1986)

Search , Memory , Time , Clothes

“One beginning and one ending for a book was a thing I did not agree with. A good book may have three openings entirely dissimilar and inter-related only in the prescience of the author, or for that matter one hundred times as many endings.”

Flann O'Brien (1911–1966) Irish writer

Source: "At Swim-Two-Birds" (1939), P. 9.

Books , Time

“Plowboy: You truly feel that all the major changes in history have been caused by science and technology?
Asimov: Those that have proved permanent—the ones that affected every facet of life and made certain that mankind could never go back again—were always brought about by science and technology. In fact, the same twin "movers" were even behind the other "solely" historical changes. Why, for instance, did Martin Luther succeed, whereas other important rebels against the medieval church—like John Huss—fail? Well, Luther was successful because printing had been developed by the time he advanced his cause. So his good earthy writings were put into pamphlets and spread so far and wide that the church officials couldn't have stopped the Protestant Reformation even if they had burned Luther at the stake.
Plowboy: Today the world is changing faster than it has at any other time in history. Do you then feel that science—and scientists—are especially important now?
Asimov: I do think so, and as a result it's my opinion that anyone who can possibly introduce science to the nonscientist should do so. After all, we don't want scientists to become a priesthood. We don't want society's technological thinkers to know something that nobody else knows—to "bring down the law from Mt. Sinai"—because such a situation would lead to public fear of science and scientists. And fear, as you know, can be dangerous.
Plowboy: But scientific knowledge is becoming so incredibly vast and specialized these days that it's difficult for any individual to keep up with it all.
Asimov: Well, I don't expect everybody to be a scientist or to understand every new development. After all, there are very few Americans who know enough about football to be a referee or to call the plays … but many, many people understand the sport well enough to follow the game. It's not important that the average citizen understand science so completely that he or she could actually become involved in research, but it is very important that people be able to "follow the game" well enough to have some intelligent opinions on policy.
Every subject of worldwide importance—each question upon which the life and death of humanity depends—involves science, and people are not going to be able to exercise their democratic right to direct government policy in such areas if they don't understand what the decisions are all about.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Mother Earth News interview (1980)

Life , Death , People , World

“A good idea turns every cog in your mind, making you scared of bed in case the whole machine grinds to a halt.”

Trevor Baylis (1937–2018) English inventor

Cited in: Andrew Razeghi (2008), The Riddle: Where Ideas Come From and How to Have Better Ones. p. 104

Idea

“The communications challenge faced by reform movements the world over and illustrated by this incident is this: in the modern communications business, particularly in the case of television, negative is more newsworthy than positive; short term is more newsworthy than long term; disagreement is more newsworthy than agreement; emotion-laden critiques are more newsworthy than well reasoned proposals for constructive change; discord, threats to order, and bad government are much more newsworthy than peace, order, and good government.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Seven, The Vancouver Assembly, p. 137

World , Peace , Communication , Business

“A fresh river in a beautiful meadow
Imagined in his mind
The good Painter, who would some day paint it”

Jeff VanderMeer book City of Saints and Madmen

"The Transformation of Martin Lake", epigram, p. 130
City of Saints and Madmen (2001–2004)

Beauty , Imagination , Painting

“It is rather more noble to help people purely out of concern for their suffering than it is to help them because you think the Creator of the Universe wants you to do it, or will reward you for doing it, or will punish you for not doing it. The problem with this linkage between religion and morality is that it gives people bad reasons to help other human beings when good reasons are available.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris, Beyond Belief 2006 conference
2000s

People , Religion , Problem , Thinking

“Herein is not only a great vanity, but a great contempt of God's gifts, that the sweetness of man's breath, being a good gift of God, should be willfully corrupted by this stinking smoke.”

James I of England (1566–1625) king during union of English and Scottish crowns

A Counterblaste to Tobacco (1604)

God

“The time is come when women must do something more than the "domestic hearth," which means nursing the infants, keeping a pretty house, having a good dinner and an entertaining party.”

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing

Cassandra (1860)

Women , Time , Housing

“Someone finally understood all the “hell” that I’d been through since a child when I’d first tried to understand language. And yet in other forms of communications, like painting, sculpture, music, math, problem-solving, and chess, I’d been very good. In fact, in high school, once I learned how to play chess, I’d play lightning-fast, intuitively seeing all these different possibilities at the same time, and I’d won well over a hundred chess games without losing a single game. And that included beating some of our faculty members who thought that they were very good at chess.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

School , Music , Game , Communication

“In war we are all equal, but among a thousand good men, a bullet hit an irreplaceable one... We painters know well that with the loss of his harmony [ of August Macke ], the color in German art will become many shades paler..”

Franz Marc (1880–1916) German painter

Quote of Franz Marc, in exhibition-text 'Die Blaue Reiter', Gemeentemuseum the Hague, Netherlands 2010
c. 1914/15, on the death of his close friend August Macke, who fell in the first months of World War 1.
1915 - 1916

Men , War , Art , Color

“The Bible is like a wide and beautiful landscape seen afar off, dim and confused; but a good telescope will bring it near, and spread out all its rocks and trees and flowers and v__ulant fields and winding rivers at one's very feet. That telescope is the Spirit's teaching.”

Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847) Scottish mathematician and a leader of the Free Church of Scotland

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 317.

Beauty , Flowers , Tree

“All religions are ultimately cargo cults.
Adherents perform required rituals, follow
specific rules, and expect to be supernaturally
gifted with desired rewards—long life,
honor, wisdom, children, good health, wealth,
victory over opponents, immortality after
death, any desired rewards.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Talents

Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 19 (p. 357)

Life , Death , Wisdom , Children

“When a problem seems intractable, it is often a good idea to try to study "toy" versions of it in the hope that as the toys become increasingly larger and more sophisticated, they would metamorphose, in the limit, to the real thing.”

Doron Zeilberger (1950) Israeli mathematician

Self-Avoiding Walks, the language of science, and Fibonacci numbers. J. Stat. Inference and Planning, 54(1996), 135-138.

Hope , Idea , Problem , Study

“I guess there's some sort of unspoken show business rule, [speaks in British accent] 'You do the theater, and then you move into television, and then, of course, that is your steppingstone to film stardom.' I've done it every which way. I've done theater for many, many years and then had some success in films. I would do television sporadically. I thought this was a good time to try it.”

Nathan Lane (1956) American actor

On his role in the television series Encore! Encore! — reported in Susan King, Los Angeles Times (October 27, 1998) "In Sitcom, Nathan Lane Isn't Taking Steppingstones In Order", St. Louis Post-Dispatch, p. D6.

Way , Business , Time , Success

“God has taught in the Scriptures the lesson of a universal brotherhood, and man must not gainsay the teaching. Shivering in the ice-bound or scorching in the tropical regions; in the lap of luxury or in the wild hardihood of the primeval forest; belting the globe in a tired search for rest, or quieting through life in the heart of ancestral woods; gathering all the decencies around him like a garment, or battling in fierce raid of crime against a world which has disowned him, there is an inner humanness which binds me to that man by a primitive and indissoluble bond. He is my brother, and I cannot dissever the relationship. He is my brother, and I cannot release myself from the obligation to do him good.”

William Morley Punshon (1824–1881) English Nonconformist minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 41.

Life , God , World , Search

“When dictators enslave their own people and seek to impose their anti-democratic ideology upon others, when evil seeks power, men and women of good will must set aside their own differences of opinion and stand together and fight – including those who hate war.”

Friedrich Kellner (1885–1970) German Justice inspector

“German’s war diary goes public,” Washington Times, UPI News, March 25, 2005.
Attributed

Women , Men , Hate , War

“This is my ball park. Every game is played in daylight and I can see the ball good. And I can reach the stands in any direction. I hope I'm never traded but if I am, I wish it would be to the Cubs. I know I do well there in 77 games.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Discussing Wrigley Field (where he was currently hitting .693 for the season, with 9 hits in 13 AB, with 3 home runs and 9 RBI); as quoted in "Feast Then Famine For Pirates: Split Means Lost Ground In Race" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=o2scAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Fk8EAAAAIBAJ&pg=4554%2C1706304 by Lester J. Biederman, in The Pittsburgh Press (Friday, July 7, 1961), p. 26. To access article, drag image from right to left, bringing relevant headline immediately into view, displayed on its side; continue dragging until you reach the fifth paragraph from the end.
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1961</big>

Hope , Game

“Most everybody's got seed to sow
It ain't always easy for a weed to grow, oh no.
So he don't hoe the row for no one.
Oh for sure he's always missing.
And something is never quite right.
Ah, but who would want to listen to you
Kissing his existence good night.”

James Taylor (1948) American singer-songwriter and guitarist

"Walking Man"
Song lyrics, Walking Man (1974)

Kiss , Night

“To hit in, it's okay; for power, it's not. If you get a line drive in this park, you're in good shape. It's best to hit to right field in this park because of the wall." He explained that balls bounding off and around the right field wall produce more extra base hits. He also said that he doesn't try for the home run. "If I tried hard, I might hit 20 to 25 homers a year. But if you hit for a high average, you will help the ball club more.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

On hitting at Forbes Field; as quoted and paraphrased in "Clemente Unorthodox?" Well, He Gets Results"
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>

Home , Help

“To be a poet is to be a visitor on a distant shore until one dies. In the land where I belong, but which I shall never reach, individuals have no cares, and that is because industry runs by itself without anyone trying to steal from others. My land is a land of plenty; it is the world that Nature has given to mankind, where society is not a thieves' society, where the children aren't sickly but healthy and contented, and young men and women can fulfill their aspirations because it is natural to do so. In my world it is possible to fulfill all aspirations, and therefore all aspirations are in themselves good, quite unlike here, where people's aspirations are called wicked because it isn't possible to fulfill them.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Ólafur
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Three: The House of the Poet

Nature , Men , Distant , World

“All of these politicians that I’m running against now, they’re trying to disassociate. I mean, you looked at Bush, it took him five days to answer the question on Iraq. He couldn’t answer the question. He didn’t know. I said, “Is he intelligent?” Then I looked at Rubio. He was unable to answer the question, is Iraq a good thing or bad thing? He didn’t know. He couldn’t answer the question. How are these people gonna lead us? How are we gonna — how are we gonna go back and make it great again? We can’t. They don’t have a clue. They can’t lead us. They can’t. They can’t even answer simple questions. It was terrible.”

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

2010s, 2015, Presidential Bid Announcement (June 16, 2015)

People , Intelligence , Question

“Visson has said, "Today's profits are yesterday's good will ripened," and though friendship is no basis for Business yet Business is an excellent basis for lasting friendship. To cement this friendship the Businessman recalls the fact that the memory of quality remains long after the price is forgotten, and keeps Buskin's dictum in mind that there is nothing in this world that cannot be made a little worse and sold a little cheaper. While it is equally true that men will make a beaten path to your door to acquire a better quality article even if it be a mouse trap. Nevertheless, a man is known by the Company he floats, or the Secretaries he employs, though the latter fluctuate more than the market, especially if of the gentler sex!”

Peter de Noronha (1897–1970) Indian businessman

The Pageant of Life (1964), Businessmen

Men , Friendship , World , Sex

“The woman I'm going to have to marry is going to have to be very, very good to top this day off for me.”

Mark McHugh (1990) Gaelic footballer

After Donegal won the 2012 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final. RTÉ Sport http://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/football/2012/0923/338781-mark-mchugh-savours-deserved-donegal-victory/