Quotes about greatness (10000 quotes, page 94)

“The successful public administrator is curious about everything. Perhaps you don't see just why it is that a public administrator should go about continually asking questions of everything and everybody about him. Well, let us take one functional phase of public administration in a municipal government.
One of the best administrators that I ever knew had a great curiosity about garbage. He was the head of the refuse disposal department of the District of Columbia. He asked all sorts of questions of the garbage cans and the ash cans and trash barrels, because in that city we imposed upon the householders a three way system of refuse removal. You couldn't put your trash and your garbage and your ashes all in one container, you had to have three containers, and also, at that particular time, the collectors were divided into three different crews. So this man with this curiosity made a study of what he found in the rubbish cans, and the results. If that study were plotted on a map, and as the result of the study of that map the routings were rearranged, the whole system of garbage collection was rearranged; not only of collection, but of disposal.”

Louis Brownlow (1879–1963) American mayor

Source: "What Is an Administrator?" 1936, p. 6-7; As cited in Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 658

Way , Question , Study , Time

“The lecture concludes with a demonstration showing that a free body in hyperbolic non Euclidean space may be so fashioned as in real time to carry out the actual motions of the top. The form of such a body and the forces to actuate it are specified. Klein lays great stress on the beauty of this generalization. …The full geometry of this case is not carried out in these lectures, however, and Klein regrets that the development of the automorphic functions has recently fallen into abeyance.”

Carl Barus (1856–1935) U.S. physicist

"The Mathematical Theory of the Top" (April 8, 1898)

Beauty , Fashion , Time

“But although the attractive virtue of the earth extends upwards, as has been said, so very far, yet if any stone should be at a distance great enough to become sensible compared with the earth’s diameter, it is true that on the motion of the earth such a stone would not follow altogether; its own force of resistance would be combined with the attractive force of the earth, and thus it would extricate itself in some degree from the motion of the earth.”

Johannes Kepler book Astronomia nova

As quoted by Bryant, ibid.
Astronomia nova (1609)

“The Lord himself hath led him with his own Almighty hand.
He hath caused him to spring from a trunk without root, and planted him again in a distant and more delightful spot, and caused him to rise up to a considerable tree.
Inspired him with an inclination for science so passionate as to become the most gratifying of all others.
Given him all the means he could either wish for, or enjoy, of attaining the objects he had in view.
Favoured him in such a manner that even the not obtaining of what he wished for, ultimately turned out to his great advantage.
Caused him to be received into favour by the "Mœcenates Scientiarum"; by the greatest men in the kingdom; and by the Royal Family.
Given him an advantageous and honourable post, the very one that, above all others in the world, he had wished for.
Given him the wife for whom he most wished, and who managed his household affairs whilst he was engaged in laborious studies.
Given him children who have turned out good and virtuous.
Given him a son for his successor in office.
Given him the largest collection of plants that ever existed in the world, and his greatest delight.
Given him lands and other property, so that though there has been nothing superfluous, nothing has he wanted.
Honoured him with the titles of Archiater, Knight, Nobleman, and with Distinction in the learned world.
Protected him from fire.
Preserved his life above 60 years.
Permitted him to visit his secret council-chambers.
Permitted him to see more of the creation than any mortal before him. Given him greater knowledge of natural history than any one had hitherto acquired.
The Lord hath been with him whithersoever he hath walked, and hath cut off all his enemies from before him, and hath made him a name, like the name of the great men that are in the earth. 1 Chron. xvn. 8.”

Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist

As quoted in The Annual Review and History of Literature http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=hx0ZAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=es#v=onepage&q=%22The%20Lord%20himself%20hath%20led%20him%20with%20his%20own%20Almighty%20hand%22&f=false (1806), by Arthur Aikin, T. N. Longman and O. Rees, p. 472.
Also found in Life of Linnaeus https://archive.org/stream/lifeoflinnaeus00brigiala#page/176/mode/2up/search/endeavoured (1858), by J. Van Voorst & Cecilia Lucy Brightwell, London. pp. 176-177.
Linnaeus Diary

Life , Men , Children , Secret

“I can imagine no greater disservice to the country than to establish a system of censorship that would deny to the people of a free republic like our own their indisputable right to criticise their own public officials. While exercising the great powers of the office I hold, I would regret in a crisis like the one through which we are now passing to lose the benefit of patriotic and intelligent criticism.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Letter to Arthur Brisbane (April 25, 1917); reported in Ray Stannard Baker, Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters (1946), vol. 6, p. 36
1910s

People , Exercises , Imagination , Intelligence

“This great principle does not deny to the needy nor to the poor the assistance they should have. The wholly incapacitated, the aged, the sickly are cared for with all tenderness, but every able-bodied person is enjoined to do his utmost for himself to avoid dependence, if his own efforts can make such a course possible; to look upon adversity as temporary; to combine his faith in his own ability with honest toil; to rehabilitate himself and his family to a position of independence; in every case to minimize the need for help and to supplement any help given with his own best efforts. We believe [that] seldom [do circumstances arise in which] men of rigorous faith, genuine courage, and unfaltering determination, with the love of independence burning in their hearts, and pride in their own accomplishments, cannot surmount the obstacles that lie in their paths. We know that through humble, prayerful, industrious, God-fearing lives, a faith can be developed within us by the strength of which we can call down the blessings of a kind and merciful Heavenly Father and literally see our handicaps vanish and our independence and freedom established and maintained.”

Henry D. Moyle (1889–1963) Member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

Conference Report, Apr. 1948, p. 5, and quoted in The Celestial Nature of Self-reliance http://lds.org/portal/site/LDSOrg/menuitem.b12f9d18fae655bb69095bd3e44916a0/?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=0b3ac5e8b4b6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1|
Quotes as an apostle

Love , Men , God , Lie

“At this good news, so great
The Devil's pleasure grew,
That, with a joyful swish, he rent
The hole where his tail came through.”

Robert Southey (1774–1843) British poet

St. 31.
The Devil's Walk http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/shelley/devil/devil.rs1860.html (1799)

Pleasure

“Angry white male” is now an acceptable slur in culture and politics. So it is that people of that derided ethnicity, race, and gender see in Donald Trump someone who unapologetically berates and mocks the elites who have dispossessed them, and who despise them. Is it any surprise that militant anti-government groups attract white males? Is it so surprising that the Donald today, like Jess Willard a century ago, is seen by millions as “The Great White Hope?”

Patrick Buchanan (1938) American politician and commentator

"The Great White Hope" http://buchanan.org/blog/great-white-hope-125286 (May 26, 2016), Patrick J. Buchanan
2010s

People , Hope

“No lover in any language, and certainly no poet, has confessed to missing the mark more often than Dafydd ap Gwilym. Uncooperative husbands, quick-triggered alarms, crones and walls, strong locks, floods and fogs and bogs and dogs are for ever interposing themselves between him and golden-haired Morfudd, black-browed Dyddgu, or Gwen the infinitely fair. But a great trier, even in church.”

Dafydd ap Gwilym (1320–1380) Welsh poet

Gwyn Jones, in The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse in English (Oxford: OUP, 1977) p. 289.
Criticism

Dogs , Lovers , Strong

“It is not male hatred of women but male fear of women that is the great universal.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality", p. 79

Women , Fear , Universe

“O Cyrus, great King, King of Kings, Achaemenian King, King of the land of Iran. I, the Shahanshah of Iran, offer thee salutations from myself and from my nation. Rest in peace, for we are awake, and we will always stay awake.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

Opening speech on October 12, 1971, when Iran marked the 2500th anniversary of Cyrus' founding of the Persian Empire
Speeches, 1971

Peace

“With Big Bird we knew we wanted to do a large, a great big character. He should represent a child so he can make the kinds of mistakes that kids make, and talk about it and be out front about that.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

Interview with Associated Press (1986)

Bird

“When we talk of a resurgent Asia, people think of the great changes that have come about in Shanghai. I share this aspiration to transform Mumbai in the next five years in such a manner that people would forget about Shanghai and Mumbai will become a talking point.”

Manmohan Singh (1932) 13th Prime Minister of India

Comparing Mumbai and Shanghai, as quoted in "Mumbai struggles to catch up with Shanghai" http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GC16Df02.html, Asia Times (16 March 2005)
2001-2005

People , Thinking , Change , Forgetting

“The idea of not having a Deity that he could not comprehend had long been one of Roswell Gardiner's favourite rules of faith. He did not understand by this pretending dogma, that he was, in any respect, of capacity equal to comprehend with that of the Divine Being, but simply that he was not to be expected or required to believe in any theory which manifestly conflicted with his knowledge and experience, as both were controlled by the powers of induction he had derived directly from his Creator. In a word, his exception was one of the most obvious of the suggestions of the pride of reason, and just so much in direct opposition to the great law of regeneration, which has its very gist in the converse of this feeling --Faith.”

James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American author

The Sea Lions or The Lost Sealers (1849)

Faith , Law , Feeling , Idea

“Guru Purnimma is also called Vyasa Purnimna. On this day Bhagavan Veda Vyasa was born to sage Parashara and a fisherwoman. On this day Bhagavan Vedavyasa is said to have commenced the great work Brahma Sutra. Hence this day is also dedicated to the study of Brahma Sutra. He represents the entire Guru Parampara and he is worshipped very well.”

Vyasa central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions

Anonymous, in Awakening Indians to India http://books.google.co.in/books?id=AIU4LzftaPAC&pg=PA167, p. 167.

Study

“Bollywood film music composers are under a lot of pressure to add elements of disco or bhangra or any other flavour currently popular with the youth. But when it comes to regional films, composers are given a free hand and they compose music they believe in. I think it's a matter of great pride to be singing such soulful tunes.”

Shreya Ghoshal (1984) Indian playback singer

Theory about composers http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/music/news/National-Award-made-me-conscious-Shreya/articleshow/5501985.cms

Youth , Music , Soul , Thinking

“With experience it seems to be possible to control the flow of paint, to a great extent, and I don't use – I don't use the accident – 'cause I deny the accident.... it's quite different from working, say, from a still life where you set up objects and work directly from them. I do have a general notion of what I'm about and what the results will be. I approach painting in the same sense as one approaches drawing, that is, it's direct.”

Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) American artist

Source: 1950's, Interview by William Wright, Summer 1950, p. 144

Life , Sense , Drawing , Painting

“The common impression regards this scale or chain merely as a "type" of organization, characteristic only of the vaster institutions of government, army, church and industry. This impression is erroneous. It is likewise misleading, for it seems to imply that the scalar chain in organization lacks universality. These great organizations differ from others only in that the chain is longer. The truth is that wherever we find an organization even of two people, related as superior and subordinate, we have the scalar principled.”

James D. Mooney (1884–1957) American businessman

Source: The Principles of Organization, 1947, p. 14-15

People , Truth , Universe

“The Art Perspective is necessary to all Arts… but it is more particularly necessary to the Art Painting… The Greatest Masters have been the most guilty… The great Occasion of this Fault, is certainly the wrong Method that generally is used in the Education of Persons to this Art: For the Young People are generally put immediately to Drawing, and when they have acquired a Facility in that, they are put to Colouring. And these things they learn by rote, and by Practice only; but are not at all instructed in any Rules of Art. By which means when they come to make any Designs of their own, tho' they… don t know how to govern their Inventions with Judgment, and become guilty of so many gross Mistakes, which prevent themselves, as well as others, from finding that Satisfaction, they otherwise would do in their Performances.”

Brook Taylor (1685–1731) English mathematician

New Principles of Linear Perspective (1715, 1749)

People , Education , Art , Learning

“…Upon this, Sher Shah turned again towards Kalinjar… The Raja of Kalinjar, Kirat Sing, did not come out to meet him. So he ordered the fort to be invested, and threw up mounds against it, and in a short time the mounds rose so high that they overtopped the fort. The men who were in the streets and houses were exposed, and the Afghans shot them with their arrows and muskets from off the mounds. The cause of this tedious mode of capturing the fort was this. Among the women of Raja Kirat Sing was a Patar slave-girl, that is a dancing-girl. The king had heard exceeding praise of her, and he considered how to get possession of her, for he feared lest if he stormed the fort, the Raja Kirat Sing would certainly make a jauhar, and would burn the girl…
“On Friday, the 9th of RabI’u-l awwal, 952 A. H., when one watch and two hours of the day was over, Sher Shah called for his breakfast, and ate with his ‘ulama and priests, without whom he never breakfasted. In the midst of breakfast, Shaikh NizAm said, ‘There is nothing equal to a religious war against the infidels. If you be slain you become a martyr, if you live you become a ghazi.’ When Sher Shah had finished eating his breakfast, he ordered Darya Khan to bring loaded shells, and went up to the top of a mound, and with his own hand shot off many arrows, and said, ‘Darya Khan comes not; he delays very long.’ But when they were at last brought, Sher Shah came down from the mound, and stood where they were placed. While the men were employed in discharging them, by the will of Allah Almighty, one shell full of gunpowder struck on the gate of the fort and broke, and came and fell where a great number of other shells were placed. Those which were loaded all began to explode. Shaikh Halil, Shaikh Nizam, and other learned men, and most of the others escaped and were not burnt, but they brought out Sher Shah partially burnt. A young princess who was standing by the rockets was burnt to death. When Sher Shah was carried into his tent, all his nobles assembled in darbAr; and he sent for ‘Isa Khan Hajib and Masnad Khan Kalkapur, the son-in-law of Isa Khan, and the paternal uncle of the author, to come into his tent, and ordered them to take the fort while he was yet alive. When ‘Isa Khan came out and told the chiefs that it was Sher Shah’s order that they should attack on every side and capture the fort, men came and swarmed out instantly on every side like ants and locusts; and by the time of afternoon prayers captured the fort, putting every one to the sword, and sending all the infidels to hell. About the hour of evening prayers, the intelligence of the victory reached Sher Shah, and marks of joy and pleasure appeared on his countenance. Raja Kirat Sing, with seventy men, remained in a house. Kutb Khan the whole night long watched the house in person lest the Raja should escape. Sher Shah said to his sons that none of his nobles need watch the house, so that the Raja escaped out of the house, and the labour and trouble of this long watching was lost. The next day at sunrise, however, they took the Raja alive…””

Sher Shah Suri (1486–1545) founder of Sur Empire in Northern India

Tarikh-i-Sher Shahi of Abbas Khan Sherwani in Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, Volume IV, pp. 407-09. Quoted in S.R.Goel, The Calcutta Quran Petition

Death , Women , Men , War

“Any thing that proves that it is not in the power of Kings and Princes by their great armies to have every thing their own way is of such good example that without any good will to the French one can not help being delighted by it, and you know I have a natural partiality to what some people call rebels.”

Charles James Fox (1749–1806) British Whig statesman

Letter to Mrs. Armitstead (7 October 1792), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 125.
1790s

People , Way , Nature , Help

“This I must tell you, if we are compelled to go into it—your position against us, the resolute banding of the great, and the rich, and the noble, and I know not who against the true genuine sense of the people compels us to unveil the truth; and I tell you this—that, so far as I can judge, and so far as my knowledge goes, I grieve to say in the presence of distinguished Irishmen that I know of no blacker or fouler transaction in the history of man than the making of the Union.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Liverpool (28 June 1886), quoted in The Times (29 June 1886), p. 11.
1880s

People , Truth , History , Knowledge

“This happened in 1912. Cubism was in full force. I made paintings that seemed like prisms compared to the Cubism my fellow artists were producing. I was the heretic of Cubism. I had great arguments with my comrades who banned color from their palette, depriving it of all elemental mobility. I was accused of returning to Impressionism, of making decorative paintings, etc... I felt I had almost reached my goal.”

Robert Delaunay (1885–1941) French painter

6
Quote from Delaunay's 'First Notebook, 1939', as cited in The New Art of Color: The Writings of Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Viking Press, 1978; as quoted on Wikipedia / Delaunay
1915 - 1941

Color , Painting

“The time has come to deal the enemy a terrific blow in Western Europe.
The blow will be struck by the combined sea, land and air forces of the Allies together constituting one great Allied team, under the supreme command of General Eisenhower.
On the eve of this great adventure I send my best wishes to every soldier in the Allied team.
To us is given the honour of striking a blow for freedom which will live in history; and in the better days that lie ahead men will speak with pride of our doings. We have a great and a righteous cause.
Let us pray that " The Lord Mighty in Battle " will go forth with our armies, and that His special providence will aid us in the struggle.
I want every soldier to know that I have complete confidence in the successful outcome of the operations that we are now about to begin.
With stout hearts, and with enthusiasm for the contest, let us go forward to victory.
And, as we enter the battle, let us recall the words of a famous soldier spoken many years ago :
"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dare not put it to the touch,
To win or lose it all. "

Good luck to each one of you. And good hunting on the main land of Europe.”

Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (1887–1976) British Army officer, Commander of Allied forces at the Battle of El Alamein

Personal message to troops of 21st Army Group on the eve of D-Day

Men , Fate , Lie , Fear

“Inside Britain there is a parallel threat from the Marxist collectivist totalitarians too. Small in number, those anti-democratic forces have gained great power through the trades union movement. Just to state that fact is to be accused of 'union-bashing'—often by people who know it to be true. Such people are to be found in the Conservative, Liberal and Labour Parties. Their politics may be different but such people share the morality of Laval and Pétain…they are willing not only to tolerate evil, but to excuse it…and to profit by so doing…Both Jim Prior and Keith Joseph know that George Ward and Grunwick are not perfect, nor was Czechoslovakia perfect in 1938. But if Ward and Grunwick are destroyed by the red fascists, then, as in 1938, we will have to ask, whose turn is it next? Yes, it is like 1938. We can all see the evil, but the doctrine of appeasement is still to be heard.”

Norman Tebbit (1931) English politician

Speech in Chingford on the Grunwick dispute (12 September, 1977).
Tebbit, pp. 194-5.

People , Evil , Perfection

“To my horror I began to cry…a great cloud of black guilt, knowledge of my atrocious selfishness, settled on me. One day she had said “when you love me (and she had not meant ‘make love to me’) it’s as if God forgave me for being the mess I am”; and I took it as chicanery, another emotional blackmail, to make me feel essential and give me a sense of responsibility towards her…My monstrous crime was Adam’s, the oldest and most vicious of all – male selfishness…Something far worse than lèse majesté. Lèse-humanité.”

John Fowles book Daniel Martin

Daniel Martin (1977)

Love , God , Making love , Feeling

“Now, so far as we may ascribe any great historic result to a single cause, it is the cotton-gin which has thwarted the Constitution and defeated the expectation of our fathers. The cotton-gin — which in seven years saw a crop twenty times as large as before; the cotton-gin, which enabled a man to pick a thousand pounds of cotton in a day instead of one pound — has seemed also to pick the moral perceptions out of the minds of a great many sober and kindly people; to pick all the intention, the spirit, the humanity, the meaning, the very soul, out of the Constitution of the United States, making it not the charter of equal freedom to all who are subject to it, but a mere commercial band by which a part of the population are compelled, directly or indirectly, to hold another part in slavery.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

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

People , Soul , Freedom , Time

“You English are like mad bulls — you see red everywhere! What on earth has come over you, that you would heap on us such suspicion as is unworthy of a great nation… I regard this missaprehension as a personal insult… You make it uncommonly difficult for a man to remain friendly to England.”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

To the Daily Telegraph on his attitude towards Britain
The Growth of Nationalism (1992)

Personality , Madness

“Distance is a great promoter of admiration!”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

As quoted in Thesaurus of Epigrams: A New Classified Collection of Witty Remarks, Bon Mots and Toasts (1942) by Edmund Fuller

“Lenin was sent into Russia by the Germans in the same way that you might send a phial containing a culture of typhoid or cholera to be poured into the water supply of a great city, and it worked with amazing accuracy.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

On Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, in the House of Commons, November 5, 1919 as cited in Churchill by Himself (2008), Ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, p. 355 ISBN 1586486381
Early career years (1898–1929)

Way , Water

“I am persuaded there is no triumph equal to one achieved on the stage—it comes so immediate and so home : you have before you the mass of human beings whose sympathies are at your will; you witness the emotions which you raise, you see the tears which you command : the poet has erected the statue, but it is for you to give it life—the words must find their music on your lips—the generous sentiment, the exalted hope, the touches of deep feeling, ask their expression from you : surely such influence is among the triumphs of the mind, ay and a great and noble triumph.”

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

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Life , Hope , Music , Feeling

“Kids are a great excuse for you to stop acting like one.”

Michael Madsen (1957) American actor

Men's Health, March, 2004

“In any group endeavour, there are practical and effective, or impractical and ineffective, ways to manage a complex system. Impractical, frustrating, and time-consuming systems are those governed by large boards, assemblies, or groups (seven or more people). These "meetings" have a chairperson, agendas, proposals, votes, or use consensus, and can go on for hours. Consensus, in particular, is an endless and pointless affair, with coercion of the often silent or incoherent abstainer by a vociferous minority. Thus, decisions reached by boards, parliaments, and consensus groups either oppress some individuals (votes) or are vetoed by dissenters. In either case, we have tyranny of a majority or tyranny of a minority, and a great deal of frustration and wasted time. The way to abolish such systems is to have one meeting where the sole agenda is to vote to abolish decision meetings -- this is usually carried unanimously -- and another where a consensus is reached to abolish consensus -- this too shouldn't take long.”

Bill Mollison (1928–2016) Australian permaculturist

Source: Permaculture: A Designers' Manual (1988), chapter 14.10

People , Way , Decision , Time

“Well, you know, in the first place I'm a pretty private person. But I can assure you that I'm no saint by any means of the imagination. You know, we go to parties and we drink like any other people. But I think the key word is balance. I've been married (to keyboardist Emilio Estefan) for 28 years; we've been together for 30 years. I had my son when I was very young and my priority has always been my family. My husband has been very supportive. We live a very normal life, something that may be boring to some people. But it's a great life! We travel a lot. My son is 26 and my dauther is 11. Family is the center of our lives. We try to stay out of the tabloids.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

answer to question "How do you maintain your clean image, something not every artist can do?"
2007, 2008

Life , People , Family , Travel

“Cunning and deceit will every time serve a man better than force to rise from a base condition to great fortune.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book Discourses on Livy

Book 2, Ch. 13
Discourses on Livy (1517)

Time

“No one can describe the disappointment, I had after losing to Lenda Murray in 2003 Ms Olympia when I clearly know and others knew I beat her by a land slide… Ok Lenda has great delts maybe the best in the business… A wonderful shape to her physique nice round bellies to her muscles "BUT" let the story be told she didn't have all the HARMONY the lines not to mention the definition I display that year..”

Iris Kyle (1974) American bodybuilder

2012-02-05
An Exclusive Interview With the Ms. Olympia Champion Iris Kyle
RX Muscle
Internet
http://www.rxmuscle.com/rx-girl-articles/female-bodybuilding/4986-an-exclusive-interview-with-the-ms-olympia-champion-iris-kyle.html
Sourced quotes, 2012

Disappointment , Business

“True, there are some great passages in Revelation, but the book on the whole is like boarding-school plum pudding, where the plums are scarce and far apart.”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.192

Books , School

“A great and gentle radiance has left our scene with the death of Rabbi Maurice Davis. He was one of the people who first brought me into the circle of those devoted to helping cult victims. His compassion and vision were inspiring. He saw clearly the dangers which awaited those who lost their free will to totalism. I remember vividly one of my early contacts with Rabbi Davis, when an attorney for a destructive group was trying to get him to explain what he had said to a member of that group when she returned briefly to her family and agreed to speak with him. "I prayed with her," he said. "I prayed that she remember the teachings of her youth and her love for her family." The lawyer for the group was taken aback. "Is that all you did?", he said. "Was that all it was.'?…. Yes," Rabbi Davis answered, "the rest was up to her." It was that blend of hope, vision, and respect for the judgment of others that became the cornerstone of the American Family Foundation's ideals. We owe much to Rabbi Davis and we honor him with our continued commitment.”

Maurice Davis (1921–1993) American rabbi

In Memoriam - Rabbi Maurice Davis: Human Rights Champion http://www.whyaretheydead.net/misc/Factnet/CO0194.TXT, The Cult Observer, Vol. 11 No. 1 1994., Herbert L. Rosedale, President, American Family Foundation.
About

Love , Death , People , Youth

“In a time of sickness with the pleurisy, a little upward of two years and a half ago, I was brought so near the gates of death that I forgot my name. Being then desirous to know who I was, I saw a mass of matter of a dull, gloomy color, between the south and the east; and was informed that this mass was human beings in as great misery as they could be and live; and that I was mixed in with them, and that henceforth I might not consider myself as a distinct or separate being. In this state I remained several hours. I then heard a soft, melodious voice, more pure and harmonious than any I had heard with my ears before; I believed it was the voice of an angel, who spake to the other angels. The words were: “John Woolman is dead.””

John Woolman (1720–1772) American Quaker preacher

I soon remembered that I once was John Woolman, and being assured that I was alive in the body, I greatly wondered what that heavenly voice could mean.
Source: The Journal of John Woolman (1774), p. 164 ( online http://books.google.nl/books?id=qPspAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA164)

Death , Angels , Color , Time

“A great cricketer must be an artist and express himself in his strokes.”

Margaret Hughes (1645–1719) British actress

All On A Summer's Day (1953).

“There must be times, in the world of business, when two Peale-powered personalities find themselves in opposition. Number One is determined to achieve success by selling Number Two a great gross of non-molting dust mops; Number Two is equally determined not to have the mops. Both have affirmed an equal number of times that he can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth him. What happens? Theologians will scratch their heads over this, and Immensity itself may feel a tremor.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

World , Feeling , Business , Time

“You will not find a surgeon operating you quite likable. You find a doctor trying to convince you that you are in a great shape, that you do not need an operation that you will get better by drinking teas, much more amiable. I want people to respect my work, not to like me. My goal is to have the Serbian government evaluated for what it benefited for this country using existing chances and own efforts and potentials, rather than by its smooth talk, paying court to the people and talking about its good intentions.”

Zoran Đinđić (1952–2003) Serbian politician

Politika, 25.10.2001.

People , Drink , Effort , Chance

“The sneaking arts of underling tradesmen are thus erected into political maxims for the conduct of a great empire; for it is the most underling tradesmen only who make it a rule to employ chiefly their own customers. A great trader purchases his good always where they are cheapest and best, without regard to any little interest of this kind.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter III, Part II, p. 530.

Art

“Greatness loves itself, and all healthy instincts decline to flagellate themselves daily with the whip of altruism. What is great must will to do more than its mere duty; it must give, make others happy, and, be it at the cost of itself, its own wellbeing, its own money or life, it must will to pour forth its blessing over others, to the extent even of self-sacrifice—but not, as Christianity demands, from unegoistic motives; the impulse must come from a sense of pleasure, from overflowing energy, from need of bloodletting, so as to unburden the full heart. All acts then derived from conscience and duty, or done with a wry countenance out of obedience to the Categorical Imperative, seem to the great man, from his point of view, through this very fact contemptible, even as he has an unsurmountable prejudice against men and nations who are always prating of those words, conscience and duty.”

Oscar Levy (1867–1946) German physician and writer

Source: The Revival of Aristocracy (1906), p. 81.

Love , Life , Men , Money

“Now, I don't want to give you the impression that I'm a great musicologist, but I'm a lot better than what I was described as for a long, long time; you know, people said I only knew three chords when I knew five.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Interview with BBC Radio 1FM (1994)

People , Time

“In most parts of our country men work, not for themselves, not as partners in the old way in which they used to work, but generally as employees,—in a higher or lower grade,—of great corporations. There was a time when corporations played a very minor part in our business affairs, but now they play the chief part, and most men are the servants of corporations.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Section I: “The Old Order Changeth”, p. 5 http://books.google.com/books?id=MW8SAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA5&dq=%22In%20most%20parts%20of%20our%20country%22
1910s, The New Freedom (1913)

Men , Way , Business , Time

“As the trend in the ballots slowly made me realize that — in a manner of speaking the guillotine would fall on me — I started to feel quite dizzy. I thought that I had done my life's work and could now hope to live out my days in peace. I told the Lord with deep conviction, 'Don't do this to me. You have younger and better (candidates) who could take up this great task with a totally different energy and with different strength.”

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

Evidently, this time he didn't listen to me.
Comments on his election during his first audience with German pilgrims, original comments given in German.
2005

Life , Peace , Hope , Feeling

“Ours must be the first age whose great goal, on a nonmaterial plane, is not fulfilment but adjustment; and perhaps just such a goal has served as maladjustment's weapon.”

Louis Kronenberger (1904–1980) American critic and writer

Source: Company Manners: A Cultural Inquiry into American Life (1954), p. 65.

Age

“The purpose of the Collège was the demolition of culture, even of surrealism, which they considered too organized. But make no mistake, these people were graduates of the Ecole Normale Supérieure and highly cultured. Their method was based on puns and practical jokes—le canular. There is a great tradition of puns in Anglo-Saxon literature — Shakespeare, Alice in Wonderland — but not in French. So they adopted it. They believed that the science of sciences is the pataphysique and its dogma, le canular.”

Eugéne Ionesco (1909–1994) Romanian playwright

le canular refers to hoaxes, humorous deceptions. -->
The Paris Review interview (1984)

People , Literature , Science

“Wherever thou seest a great end, be sure of a great beginning. Where a monstrous and painful destruction appals thy mind, console it with the certainty of a large and great creation. God is there not only in the still small voice, but in the fire and in the whirlwind….. The greater the destruction, the freer the chances of creation; but the destruction is often long, slow and oppressive, the creation tardy in its coming or interrupted in its triumph. The night returns again and again and the day lingers or seems even to have been a false dawning. Despair not therefore but watch and work. Those who hope violently, despair swiftly: neither hope nor fear, but be sure of God's purpose and thy will to accomplish.”

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

August, 1917
India's Rebirth

God , Pain , Fear , Hope

“He deliberately rejects the classic beauty of the form for the sake of fragility, transience or simply greater sensitivity to what is present. His work has a mockery and ironic character. He looks critically and with great apprehension at Poland, he does it from the perspective of an emigrant, from culturally and socially different Netherlands, which became a new homeland for him.”

Tomasz Vetulani (1965) Polish artist

Fred Gijbels, Curatorial text accompanying exhibition Multi-Kulti http://dom-norymberski.com/multi-kulti-wystawa/, 2018

Beauty

“Often do the spirits
Of great events stride on before the events,
And in to-day already walks to-morrow.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

The Death of Wallenstein, Act v, scene 1
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“To rule without being felt…is the great mystery of policy.”

John Galt (novelist) (1779–1839) British writer

The Provost (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1822) p. 19.

“My first wife was a great housekeeper. She kept both houses.”

David Feherty (1958) professional golfer, broadcaster, writer

Feherty joking about his first wife while announcing Bo Van Pelt in 2012 Tavistock Cup. ( YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpK7ipARF3o )

Housing

“What a duty it is to cultivate a pleasant manner! how many a meeting does it make cheerful which would otherwise have been stupid and formal! We do not mean by this the mere routine of polite observance, but we mean that general cheerfulness which, like the sunshine lights up whatever it touches, that attention to others which discovers what subject is most likely to interest them, and that information which, ready for use, is easily laid under contribution by the habit of turning all resources to immediate employ. In short, a really pleasant manner grows out of benevolence, which can be as much shown in a small courtesy as in a great service.”

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

Traits and Trials of Early Life (1836)

Stupidity , Light

“The great error of the last 50 years is that conservatives think that they should unthinkingly endorse laissez -faire economics, but as presently conceived the free market destroys most of the things conservatives value; it destroys traditions, family life, societies, cultures, and established ways of doing things. The market place, as understood by contemporary neo-liberalism, is something no genuine conservative should support or endorse.”

Phillip Blond (1966) British philosopher

Source: Den 11. time, Third season, programme 96, 3 March 2008, DR2
Source: Interview with Philip Blond http://www.dr.dk/Forms/Published/PlaylistGen.aspx?qid=616842&odp=true&bitrate=low&location=Lyngby&uri=http://www.dr.dk/Forms/Published/PlaylistGen.aspx, Den 11. time, DR2, 3 March 2008, Windows Media file, 28 min. (in English with Danish subtitles)

Life , Family , Way , Error

“Courage is defined as: the ability to face danger, difficulty, uncertainty, or pain without being overcome by fear or being deflected from a chosen course of action. Many of today’s world leaders have great courage: I wonder… would we be better off with cowardice?”

Joshua Fernandez (1974) Malaysian film director

Courage, www.blogspot.com http://spunkymonky.blogspot.com/2004/09/courage.html,

Pain , World , Fear , Courage

“Dealing with terrorism and the Islamist fanaticism that inspires it is the great challenge of our time. Obviously there needs to be a very strong security response at home and abroad.”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

2015, The religion of Islam must reform (December 9, 2015)

Home , Strong , Time

“Great abilities are rare, and they are often accompanied by qualities which make the abilities useless to him who has them, and even injurious to society.”

George Long (1800–1879) English classical scholar

An Old Man's Thoughts on Many Things, Of Education I

“Things have taken time to get used to, the weather's not great and people seem to drink beer all the time, but there’s nowhere I’d rather be playing.”

Obafemi Martins (1984) Nigerian footballer

Martins on settling in Newcastle. [August 8, 2007, http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2002390000-2007380294,00.html, Obafemi is a real shooting star, The Sun, 2007-08-18]

People , Drink , Beer , Time

“She would have come from Paradise and complained to God that the apple wasn’t a winesap at all, but a great big pulpy Washington Delicious; and after the Ark she would have said that there had not been the animals, the spring rains, and the nice long ocean-voyage the prospectus from the travel agency had led her to expect—and that she had been most disappointed at not finding on Mount Ararat Prometheus.”

Randall Jarrell book Pictures from an Institution

Source: Pictures from an Institution (1954) [novel], Chapter 1, p. 9

God , Disappointment , Travel , Spring

“A great composition to me is.. an incarnation of a genius, of all that was ever in him of the slightest consequence.”

Neville Cardus (1888–1975) English writer

Preface to Ten Composers, August 1944.

“God nodded his approval of as good.
So much those heroes knew and understood,
I mean the great four, Washington,
John Adams, Jefferson, and Madison
So much they saw as consecrated seers
They must have seen ahead what not appears,
They would bring empires down about our ears
And by the example of our Declaration
Make everybody want to be a nation.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

1960s, Dedication (1960)

God , Appearance

“What can be more curious than that the hand of a man, formed for grasping, that of a mole for digging, the leg of the horse, the paddle of the porpoise, and the wing of the bat, should all be constructed on the same pattern, and should include the same bones, in the same relative positions? … Hence the same names can be given to the homologous bones in widely different animals. We see the same great law in the construction of the mouths of insects: what can be more different than the immensely long spiral proboscis of a sphinx-moth, the curious folded one of a bee or bug, and the great jaws of a beetle?—yet all these organs, serving for such different purposes, are formed by infinitely numerous modifications of an upper lip, mandibles, and two pairs of maxillæ. Analogous laws govern the construction of the mouths and limbs of crustaceans. So it is with the flowers of plants. Nothing can be more hopeless than to attempt to explain this similarity of pattern in members of the same class, by utility or by the doctrine of final causes.”

Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)

Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter XIII: "Mutual Affinities of Organic Beings: Morphology: Embryology: Rudimentary Organs", pages 434-435 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=452&itemID=F373&viewtype=image

Law , Flowers , Bee , Animals

“I thank you, fellow-citizens, for this magnificent demonstration. In so far as I represent in my heart and life the great doctrines for which you fought, I accept this demonstration as a tribute to my representative character. [Applause. ] In the strength of your hands, in the fervor of your hearts, in the firmness of your faith, in all that betokens greatness of manhood and nobleness of character, the Republic finds its security and glory. [Applause. ] I do not enter upon controverted questions. The time, the place, the situation forbid it. I respect the traditions that require me to speak only of those themes which elevate us all. Again I thank you for the kindness and enthusiasm of your greeting.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

Tremendous cheering.
1880s, Speech to the 'Boys in Blue' (1880)

Life , Faith , Question , Time

“We are all in the habit of censuring the great, as if we were popular playwrights, when in fact ordinary folk are quite as devious and as willful and as desperate to survive (if not prevail) as are thee great; particularly philosophers.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 11

“Pierre Trudeau was too much of a professional politician to be described as a good man, nor, it can be argued despite much pubilicity to the contrary, was he a particularly clever or even wise one. But he was a great man, perhaps the gratest Canada has produced in this century.”

Peter Brimelow book The Patriot Game

The Patriot Game (1986)

“America’s reign of optimism contributes to a culture in which negative feelings are often unwelcome. […] As I pondered the question Americans often posed to me—Why aren’t Finns more optimistic, despite their supposedly great society?—I began to turn it around into a different question, a question that seemed to me the more relevant one: How have Finns managed to build such a great society, despite all their negativity? Perhaps the answer is that Finns have built a great society because of their pessimism, not in spite of it. The volume of outrage and complaints that pour out of Finns whenever they perceive an injustice in their society can be annoying—especially when that injustice might be considered minor in other countries. Nevertheless, perhaps this capacity for negative response is part of the secret of Finnish success. Finns are quick to demand real changes that improve their external circumstances.”

Anu Partanen (1975) journalist

Source: The Nordic Theory of Everything, Chapter 9

Secret , Feeling , Optimism , Question

“Because half-a-dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that of course they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Volume iii, p. 344
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Imagination

“If Israel falls to the terrorists, the entire free world will tremble. To forsake Israel now would be tantamount to forsaking Great Britain in 1940. It is unthinkable, and it is unthinkable because the world wants to know if we believe freedom is worth fighting for.”

Tom DeLay (1947) American Republican politician

[31 August 2004] [citation needed]
2000s

World , Freedom , Fight

“A man that does not aim at raising to himself a great name, will never perform any great actions. And such as go carelessly on in the road of their professions suffer all the fatigues, without acquiring either the honour or recompense that naturally attend it.”

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert (1647–1733) writer from France

Source: A Mother's Advice to Her Son, 1726, p. 137

Nature , Suffering

“There are a great many ways to commit suicide you know.”

Stephen King book The Stand

The Stand (Uncut), Chapter 55 p. 799
The Stand (1978)

Way , Suicide

“The history of this paper suggests that highly speculative investigations, especially by an unknown author, are best brought before the world through some other channel than a scientific society, which naturally hesitates to admit into its printed records matter of uncertain value. Perhaps one may go further, and say that a young author who believes himself capable of great things would usually do well to secure the favourable recognition of the scientific world by work whose scope is limited, and whose value is easily judged, before embarking upon higher flights.”

John Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh (1842–1919) English physicist

About John James Waterston's rejected paper about ideal gas kinetic energy. [Lord Rayleigh, Introduction to Waterston's Memoir "On the physics of media that are composed of free and perfectly elastic molecules in a state of motion", Philosophical Transactions, 183A, p. 1-5, Royal Society, 1892]

World , History , Nature

“Although he never admitted himself to be an atheist as such, he was clearly and unarguably the most vividly elegant and eloquent skeptic of them all. I'm referring, of course, to the great Scottish philosopher David Hume.”

Jonathan Miller (1934–2019) British theatre director (born 1934)

Episode two: "Noughts and Crosses".
Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief (2004)

“A dark hand had let go its lifelong hold upon her heart. But she did not feel joy, as she had in the mountains. She put her head down in her arms and cried, and her cheeks were salt and wet. She cried for the waste of her years in bondage to a useless evil. She wept in pain, because she was free.
What she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.”

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

Source: Earthsea Books, The Tombs of Atuan (1971), Chapter 12, "Voyage"

Pain , Travel , Feeling , Mountain

“The man is a complete wackadoo, but so is every great actor who ever lived. You gotta separate the artist from his/her art, or you won't be able to enjoy anything.”

Brian K. Vaughan (1976) American screenwriter, comic book creator

Art

“For I can assure you that we love our country, not for what it was, though it has always been great — not for what it is, though of this we are deeply proud — but for what it someday can, and, through the efforts of us all, someday will be.”

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

"Address at a Luncheon Meeting of the National Industrial Conference Board (33)", (13 February 1961) http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx
1961

Love , Effort , Country

“Hitherto our principal difficulty has arose from a want of proper supplies of money, and from the inefficacy of that which we obtained; but now there appears a scene opening which will introduce new embarrassments. The Congress have recommended to the different States to take upon themselves the furnishing certain species of supplies for our department. The recommendation falls far short of the general detail of the business, the difficulty of ad justing which, between the different agents as well as the different authorities from which they derive their appointments, I am very apprehensive will introduce some jarring interests, many improper disputes, as well as dangerous delays. Few persons, who have not a competent knowledge of this employment, can form any tolerable idea of the arrangements necessary to give despatch and success in discharging the duties of the office, or see the necessity for certain relations and dependencies. The great exertions which are frequently necessary to be made, require the whole machine to be moved by one common interest, and directed to one general end. How far the present measures, recommended to the different States, are calculated to promote these desirable purposes, I cannot pretend to say; but there appears to me such a maze, from the mixed modes adopted by some States, and about to be adopted by others, that I cannot see the channels, through which the business may be conducted, free from disorder and confusion.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (January 1780)

Money , Idea , Business , Knowledge

“If this apprehension of the facts be correct, and the documentary evidence would appear to verify it, then certain conclusions are bound to follow. A spring will cease to flow if its source be dried up; a tree will wither if its roots be destroyed. In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man — these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause.”

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

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

People , World , Faith , Spring

“For a long time now there has been a rising tide of rebellion against this Western paramountcy, and a desire to reassert Muslim values and restore Muslim greatness. The Muslim has suffered successive stages of defeat. The first was his loss of domination in the world, to the advancing power of Russia and the West. The second was the undermining of his authority in his own country, through an invasion of foreign ideas and laws and ways of life and sometimes even foreign rulers or settlers, and the enfranchisement of native non-Muslim elements. The third—the last straw—was the challenge to his mastery in his own house, from emancipated women and rebellious children. It was too much to endure, and the outbreak of rage against these alien, infidel, and incomprehensible forces that had subverted his dominance, disrupted his society, and finally violated the sanctuary of his home was inevitable. It was also natural that this rage should be directed primarily against the millennial enemy and should draw its strength from ancient beliefs and loyalties.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Books, The Roots of Muslim Rage (1990)

Life , Women , Children , World

“My favorite composers tend to be great improvisers as well as great players. It doesn't matter whether they're contemporary or classical.”

Joanna MacGregor (1959) British musician

The Independent, 23/06/2003
On Classical Music

“Well they are very frightening for me because their stupidity is so flat. You look into the eyes of a chicken and you lose yourself in a completely flat, frightening stupidity. They are like a great metaphor for me… I kind of love chicken, but they frighten me more than any other animal.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

About chickens, on the Signs of Life (1968) DVD audio commentary (2005).

Love , Stupidity , Animals

“As those persons who despair of ever being rich make little account of small expenses, thinking that little added to a little will never make any great sum.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Of Man's Progress in Virtue
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Thinking , Personality , Despair

“Shame on us if 100 or 200 years from now our grandchildren and great-grandchildren are living on a planet that has been irreparably damaged by global warming, and they ask, 'How could those who came before us, who saw this coming, have let this happen?”

Joe Lieberman (1942) politician from the United States

http://lieberman.senate.gov/newsroom/release.cfm?id=207979&&

“The sun was like a great visiting presence that stimulated and took its due from all animal energy. When it flung wide its cloak and stepped down over the edge of the fields at evening, it left behind it a spent and exhausted world.”

Willa Cather One of Ours

One of Ours (1922), Bk. II, Ch. 6

World , Sun , Animals

“An understandable hunger for … potential clients tempts many [career counseling therapists] to overpromise, like creative writing teachers who, out of greed or sentimentality, sometimes imply that all of their students could one day produce worthwhile literature, rather than frankly acknowledging the troubling truth, anathema to a democratic society, that the great writer, like the contented worker, remains an erratic and anomalous event, … immune to the methods of factory farming.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009), pp. 126-127.

Hunger , Truth , Literature , Understanding

“I don't have to be nice to people who are causing great damage to the nation … I refuse to be nice to people who want to overthrow what the military and the security forces have been doing to maintain law and order in this country in the past five years since the illegal overthrow of the Labour Government … I refuse to be nice to people like Jioji Kotobalavu and Qoriniasi Bale. I don't have to be nice to anyone trying to destabilise what the army has built.”

Frank Bainimarama (1954) Prime Minister of Fiji

(30 May 2005).
2000, 2005

People , Law , Past , Country

“A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.”

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

Attributed to Carlyle in Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends And Influence People (1936), but this quotation is not found in Carlyle's known works. The first mention found in Google Books dates from 1908, where the Rev. John Timothy Stone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Timothy_Stone is quoted as claiming: 'The greatest critics of this world have been appreciators. Carlyle said, "You can discover a great man, or see a great man, by the way he treats little men.'
The quotation is subsequently found in slightly different forms, mostly in religious publications: "A great man shows his greatness by manner in which he treats little men" (1913, unattributed); The exact wording of Carnegie's quote suggests that it was taken from Stone's 1930 publication.
Disputed

Men , Way

“I have just been thinking that the Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) does not really represent my work. I have always been convinced that other things of mine are more important… Narcism, fake heroism, and blindness have a lot to answer for, in the 'Blaue Reiter'. All those high-sounding words about the birth of a great spiritual moment still resounding in my ears. Kandinsky can air his personal opinion about that or any other revolution he cares to mention. But I dislike the whole thing… Take my advice – work, and don't spent so much time thinking about blue riders or blue horses.”

August Macke (1887–1914) German painter of the expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter

In a letter to his friend Franz Marc (Jan. 1912), quoted in 'Meseure 38'; as quoted in Movement, Manifesto, Melee: The Modernist Group, 1910-1914, Milton A. Cohen, Lexington Books, Sep 14, 2004, p. 73, (note 19)

Birth , Thinking , Time , Horse

“Some people say that we ought to audit the Fed. Here's what I do know. The Federal Reserve already has so many internal audits it's ridiculous. I don't know why people think we're gonna learn this great amount of information by auditing the Federal Reserve. I think a lot of people are calling for this audit of the Federal Reserve because they don't know enough about it. There's no hidden secrets going on in the Federal Reserve to my knowledge.”

Herman Cain (1945) American writer, businessman and activist

The Neal Boortz Show
2010-12-29
Radio, quoted in [Herman Cain: Federal Reserve Audit Unnecessary, 2011-10-10, YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q18jMzTWJ9A]

People , Secret , Knowledge , Thinking

“There came a point in time when Michael was under a great deal of pressure to alter the film in a way that was just disturbing to him. I had not seen the movie, yet. He phoned me in July of '92 to look at his version. It was exactly what was released two months later with the exception of a couple of reaction shots which we went back in to get. I liked the movie very much and asked him what the studio's problem was. I felt that he was at a point where they might have worn him down”

Madeleine Stowe (1958) American actress

if that's at all possible
Mohican Press interview (2005)

Way , Problem , Time

“When youth was lord of my unchallenged fate,
And time seemed but the vassal of my will,
I entertained certain guests of state—
The great of older days.”

Silas Weir Mitchell (1829–1914) American physician

On a Boy's first Reading of "King Henry V", reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919); comparable to "I am the master of my fate", William Ernest Henley, Invictus (1875).

Fate , Youth , Time

“The anti‐Semite understands nothing about modern society. He would be incapable of conceiving of a constructive plan; his action cannot reach the level of the methodical; it remains on the ground of passion. To a long‐term enterprise he prefers an explosion of rage analogous to the running amuck of the Malays. His intellectual activity is confined to interpretation; he seeks in historical events the signs of the presence of an evil power. Out of this spring those childish and elaborate fabrications which give him his resemblance to the extreme paranoiacs. In addition, anti‐Semitism channels evolutionary drives toward the destruction of certain men, not of institutions. An anti‐Semitic mob will consider it has done enough when it has massacred some Jews and burned a few synagogues. It represents, therefore, a safety valve for the owning classes, who encourage it and thus substitute for a dangerous hate against their regime a beneficent hate against particular people. Above all this naive dualism is eminently reassuring to he anti‐Semite himself. If all he has to do is to remove Evil, that means that the Good is already given. He has no need to seek it in anguish, to invent it, to scrutinize it patiently when he has found it, to prove it in action, to verify it by its consequences, or, finally, to shoulder he responsibilities of the moral choice be has made. It is not by chance that the great outbursts of anti‐Semitic rage conceal a basic optimism. The anti‐Semite as cast his lot for Evil so as not to have to cast his lot for Good. The more one is absorbed in fighting Evil, he less one is tempted to place the Good in question. One does not need to talk about it, yet it is always understood in the discourse of the anti‐Semite and it remains understood in his thought. When he has fulfilled his mission as holy destroyer, the Lost Paradise will reconstitute itself. For the moment so many tasks confront the anti‐Semite that he does not have time to think about it. He is in the breach, fighting, and each of his outbursts of rage is a pretext to avoid the anguished search for the Good.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Anti-Semite and Jew

Pages 31-32
Anti-Semite and Jew (1945)

Men , Hate , People , Search

“Hidden in the rainforests, deserts, and mountains of Latin America and the Caribbean lay the keys to reversing the impact of global climate change. The region claims the world’s largest single-source of oxygen, most diverse species of flora and fauna, and several Natural Wonders of the World that need our help. The next great challenge for our generation is to join together to save these precious resources that are rapidly disappearing due to the effects of rising sea levels and more extreme weather patterns.”

Geovanny Vicente (1986) Political Strategist, lawyer, international consultant, columnist and university professor

World , Mountain , Nature , Change

“Great people that performed in "Piwnica pod Baranami" often hated each other.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Vetulani, Jerzy: Mózg trzeba ćwiczyć w każdym wieku, interview. Malopolska.docelu.eu (in Polish).

Hate , People

“Something mysterious happened when Barack Obama entered the Oval Office in 2009. Something vanished from that room, and no one could quite explain why. It was a bust of Winston Churchill – the great British war time leader. It was a fine goggle-eyed object, done by the brilliant sculptor Jacob Epstein, and it had sat there for almost ten years. But on day one of the Obama administration it was returned, without ceremony, to the British embassy in Washington. No one was sure whether the President had himself been involved in the decision. Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender. Some said that perhaps Churchill was seen as less important than he once was. Perhaps his ideas were old-fashioned and out of date. Well, if that’s why Churchill was banished from the Oval Office, they could not have been more wrong.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

In a column for The Sun newspaper http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/7095695/UK-and-America-can-better-friends-than-ever-Mr-Obama-if-we-LEAVE-the-EU-says-Boris-Johnson.html, 22 April 2016.
2010s, 2016

War , Idea , Fashion , Decision

“Clarity is of no importance because nobody listens and nobody knows what you mean no matter what you mean, nor how clearly you mean what you mean. But if you have vitality enough of knowing enough of what you mean, somebody and sometime and sometimes a great many will have to realize that you know what you mean and so they will agree that you mean what you know, what you know you mean, which is as near as anybody can come to understanding any one.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

Four in America (1933)

Understanding

“Let me say again that I am not impugning the motives of the men in Wall Street. They may think that that is the best way to create prosperity for the country. When you have got the market in your hand, does honesty oblige you to turn the palm upside down and empty it? If you have got the market in your hand and believe that you understand the interest of the country better than anybody else, is it patriotic to let it go? I can imagine them using this argument to themselves.
The dominating danger in this land is not the existence of great individual combinations, — that is dangerous enough in all conscience, — but the combination of the combinations, — of the railways, the manufacturing enterprises, the great mining projects, the great enterprises for the development of the natural water-powers of the country, threaded together in the personnel of a series of boards of directors into a "community of interest" more formidable than any conceivable single combination that dare appear in the open.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Section VIII: “Monopoly, Or Opportunity?”, p. 186 http://books.google.com/books?id=MW8SAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA186&dq=%22Let+me+say+again%22
1910s, The New Freedom (1913)

Men , Way , Imagination , Communication

“Art begins with resistance — at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

Poétique

Art

“Five score years ago the ground on which we here stand shuddered under the clash of arms and was consecrated for all time by the blood of American manhood. Abraham Lincoln, in dedicating this great battlefield, has expressed, in words too eloquent for paraphrase or summary, why this sacrifice was necessary. Today, we meet not to add to his words nor to amend his sentiment but to recapture the feeling of awe that comes when contemplating a memorial to so many who placed their lives at hazard for right, as God gave them to see right. Among those who fought here were young men who but a short time before were pursuing truth in the peaceful halls of the then new University of Notre Dame. Since that time men of Notre Dame have proven, on a hundred battlefields, that the words, "For God, For Country, and For Notre Dame," are full of meaning. Let us pray that God may grant us the wisdom to find and to follow a path that will enable the men of Notre Dame and all of our young men to seek truth in the halls of study rather than on the field of battle."”

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

"Message from the President on the Occasion of Field Mass at Gettysburg, delivered by John S. Gleason, Jr." (29 June 1963) http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx; Box 10, President's Outgoing Executive Correspondence, White House Central Chronological Files, Papers of John F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library
1963

Wisdom , Men , God , Truth

Quotes about greatness page 94

Quotes about greatness
page 94