Quotes about guess
page 10

“Er, I can’t confirm or deny, but that’s a good guess.”

Source: Iron Sunrise (2004), Chapter 4, “Magical Mystery Tour” (p. 67)

“I guess people used to think Deep Throat was a criminal, but now they think he's a hero.”

W. Mark Felt (1913–2008) Whistleblower who exposed the Watergate scandal

Statement to his daughter, Joan Felt; reported by his grandson, Nick Jones in a public statement of his personal family. (31 May 2005)

People, Thinking

“My guess is that well over eighty per cent of the human race goes through life without ever having a single original thought. That is to say, they never think anything that has not been thought before, and by thousands.
A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable. The pressure of ideas would simply drive it frantic. The normal human society is very little troubled by them. Whenever a new one appears the average man displays signs of dismay and resentment. The only way he can take in such a new idea is by translating it crudely into terms of more familiar ideas. That translation is one of the chief functions of politicians, not to mention journalists. They devote themselves largely to debasing the ideas launched by their betters. This debasement is intellectually reprehensible, but probably necessary to carry on the business of the world.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

13
1940s–present, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)

Life, World, Way, Idea

“I love competition.
I'd rather have to fight and worry than be peaceful and secure, any day.
I've found that I'm a peaceful, easy-going sort of a fellow about all the small things in life. But when a big issue comes along and when I feel I'm right about it—well, I guess I'm pretty stubborn. Even nasty.
I've taken up golf. I'm crazy about it. Doug Fairbanks and I play every day that we can get away from work. I not only like the game a lot, but I want to master it. I'm not satisfied just to play golf. I want to be good at it. That's the way I've come to feel about everything.”

Harold Lloyd (1893–1971) American film actor and producer

"Discoveries About Myself". Motion Picture, October 1930, pg. 90. (Brewster Publications). https://archive.org/stream/motionpicture1923040chic#page/n595/mode/2up

Love, Life, Peace, Way

“I'm a chronic relapser. I guess I always will be.”

Corey Haim (1971–2010) Canadian actor

Of his addiction problems. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20350147,00.html

“I was born in Staten Island, New York. But I call my hometown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, because that's basically where I ended up from age eight on. But right after Staten Island… I've lived everywhere from Texas, to Japan for three years, to New Jersey. I'm this traveling girl. My father was in the Army, so I guess I'm an Army brat.”

Christina Aguilera (1980) American singer

A Christina Aguilera interview to MTV - Compiled by Stephanie McGrath http://www.aclasscelebs.com/christinaa/interview.htm (1999)

Age, Travel, Girl

““Oh. I was beginning to worry.”
“You do that,” Kit laughed. “I like it better when you’re worried. Proves you’re thinking.”
She put out a pink tongue. “You’re mean and horrible. Why does everybody else like you?”
Kit scratched his head. “Search me. Guess it’s my good looks and charm.””

Robert Lynn Asprin (1946–2008) American science fiction and fantasy author

Source: Time Scout (1995), Chapter 9 (p. 173)

Search, Thinking

“Things keep changing and things keep happening. I never really run out of ideas. I guess as long as I'm interested, I'll be interesting.”

Ellen Goodman (1941) American journalist and writer

Attributed

Idea, Change

“I guess my biggest failure was not getting reelected. [The loss taught me] not to ever let American hostages be held for 444 days in a foreign country without extracting them. I did the best I could, but I failed.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Interview with Big Think, in reference to the 1980 presidential election, and the Iran hostage crisis, December 14, 2010.
[Carter: Biggest failure was '80 loss, Politico, Politico, December 14, 2010, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46375.html]
Post-Presidency

Failure, Loss, Country

“The subject matter of today's youth novels has no boundaries. The only taboo seems to be sex discrimination… I can only guess about where we're going, but I think we have come about as far as we can in the direction of 'let-it-all-hang-out' realism. My reader-mail indicates that kids are beginning to feel bogged down with so much depressing slice-of-life. My own most successful books have been those that were high in entertainment value, especially those touching on the supernatural.”

Lois Duncan (1934–2016) American young-adult and children's writer

On literary realism, quoted in The 100 Most Popular Young Adult Authors: Biographical Sketches and Bibliographies (1997), p. 113
1990–2002

Life, Books, Youth, Sex

“So if you happen to bump into a Democrat candidate, you might want to ask this simple question: What's your plan? If they say they want to protect the homeland, but oppose the Patriot Act, ask them this question: What's your plan? If they say they want to uncover terrorist plots, but oppose listening in on terrorist conversations, ask them this question: What's your plan? If they say they want to stop new attacks on our country, but oppose letting the CIA detain and question the terrorists who might know what those plots are, ask them this question: What's your plan? If they say they want to win the war on terror, but call for America to pull out from what al Qaeda says is the central front in this war, ask them this question: What's your plan?…The truth is, the Democrats can't answer that question. Harsh criticism is not a plan for victory. Second-guessing is not a strategy.”

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

Remarks by the President at Missouri Victory 2006 Rally http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/11/20061103-1.html (November 3, 2006) 2000s, 2006

War, Truth, Question, Victory

“"Maybe his characteristics are recessive. Maybe ours will cancel his out."
"I wouldn't lay any money on that," Baines said. "I think I know already which of the two strains is going to turn up dominant." He grinned wryly. "I mean, I'm making a good guess. It won't be us."”

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

The Golden Man (1954)

Money, Thinking

“[mimics someone complaining about second hand smoke] Good theory. But guess what, if I don't smoke there's going to be secondary bullets coming your way, 'cause I'm that tense.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Sane Man (1989)

Way

“No man ever enters into the feelings of a woman, let his kindness be what it may; they are too subtle and too delicate for a hand whose grasp is on "life's rougher things." They require that sorrow should find a voice; now the most soothing sympathy is that which guesses the suffering without a question.”

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

No.7. Rob Roy — DIANA VERNON.
Literary Remains

Life, Feeling, Question, Suffering

“. The central theme of contemporary autonomist Marxism is a shift from giant organizations and insurrectional seizure to gradualism and Exodus. The rapid transformation of the working class, the blurring of the lines between work and the rest of life, and the shift in meeting a growing share of our needs into the informal and social economy, mean that the Old Left’s workerism (and like Harry Cleaver, I include syndicalism and council communism in the Old Left), its focus on the production process as the center of society, and its treatment of the industrial proletariat as the subject of history, have become obsolete. In this regard, read Toni Negri’s contrast of the Multitude to previous Old Left ideas of the proletariat. Mostly, I call it a heroic fantasy because any model that envisions a post-capitalist transition based on the universal adoption of any monolithic, schematized social model is as ridiculous as Socrates and Glaucon discussing what musical instruments and poetic metres will be permitted in the perfect state. The real world version of the post-capitalist transition — just as with the transition to capitalism five centuries earlier — isn’t a matter of any single cohesive social class, as the subject of history, systematically remaking the world guided by some single, comprehensive ideology, and organized around a uniform institutional model. It’s a matter of a wide variety of prefigurative institutions and technological building blocks that already exist in the present society, continuing to grow and coalesce together until they reach sufficient critical mass for a phase transition — a phase transition whose outlines can only be guessed at in the most general terms. This is the model advocated by Michel Bauwens, by Paul Mason, by John Holloway, by Peter Frase, and by a lot of other people who can hardly be fitted into any American individualist ghetto.”

Kevin Carson (1963) American academic

'In Which the Anarcho-Syndicalists Discover C4SS' (2016)
Other Writing

Life, People, World, Music

“Sittin' here guess I didn't make bail,
Got time an' a story to tell.”

Anthony Hamilton (1971) American singer, songwriter, and record producer

Comin' From Where I'm From, written by Anthony Hamilton and Mark Batson
Song lyrics, Comin' from Where I'm From (2003)

Time

“Gays have got to be pro-life. As soon as they find the gay gene, guess who the liberal yuppies are going to start aborting.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

Ann Coulter On A List: Dallas: ‘Liberal Yuppies’ Would Abort Gay Babies (December 8th, 2011) http://www.mediaite.com/tv/ann-coulter-on-a-list-dallas-liberal-yuppies-would-abort-gay-babies/. 2011

Life

“Johnson: What do you think about this Vietnam thing? I’d like to hear you talk a little bit.
Russell: Well, frankly, Mr. President, it’s the damn worse mess that I ever saw, and I don’t like to brag and I never have been right many times in my life, but I knew that we were going to get into this sort of mess when we went in there. And I don’t see how we’re ever going to get out of it without fighting a major war with the Chinese and all of them down there in those rice paddies and jungles. I just don’t see it. I just don’t know what to do.
Johnson: Well, that’s the way I have been feeling for six months.
Russell: Our position is deteriorating and it looks like the more we try to do for them, the less they are willing to do for themselves. It is a mess and it’s going to get worse, and I don’t know how or what to do. I don’t think the American people are quite ready for us to send our troops in there to do the fighting. If I was going to get out, I’d get the same crowd that got rid of old Diem [the Vietnamese prime minister who was overthrown and assassinated in 1963] to get rid of these people and to get some fellow in there that said we wish to hell we would get out. That would give us a good excuse for getting out.
Johnson: How important is it to us?
Russell: It isn’t important a damn bit for all this new missile stuff.
Johnson: I guess it is important.
Russell: From a psychological standpoint. Other than the question of our word and saving face, that’s the reason that I said that I don’t think that anybody would expect us to stay in there. It’s going to be a headache to anybody that tries to fool with it. You’ve got all the brains in the country, Mr. President—you better get ahold of them. I don’t know what to do about this. I saw it all coming on, but that don’t do any good now, that’s water over the dam and under the bridge. And we are there.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Telephone call with Senator Richard Russell (May 27, 1964)

Life, War, People, Fools

“History repeats itself again, I guess. The rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you don't innovate at that speed you can be replaced pretty quickly. The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for what this invention was all about, is now five years old.”

Thorsten Heins (1957) German Canadian businessman

BlackBerry CEO calls Apple's iPhone user interface outdated http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/03/18/blackberry-ceo-calls-apples-iphone-user-interface-outdated in AppleInsider (18 March 2013).

History, Speed

“I guessed he experienced the terrible confusion of a true solipsist when the outer world impinges.”

Michael Moorcock book The City in the Autumn Stars

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 13 (p. 357)

World

“I don't think there's any point in being Irish if you don't know that the world is going to break your heart eventually. I guess that we thought he had a little more time.”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927–2003) American politician

November 22, 1963; upon receiving news that President John F. Kennedy had died. (See A Thousand Days)
Attributed

World, Thinking, Time, Heart

“When the cabin port-holes are dark and green
Because of the seas outside;
When the ship goes wop (with a wiggle between)
And the steward falls into the soup-tureen,
And the trunks begin to slide;
When Nursey lies on the floor in a heap,
And Mummy tells you to let her sleep,
And you aren't waked or washed or dressed,
Why, then you will know (if you haven't guessed)
You're ‘Fifty North and Forty West!”

Rudyard Kipling book Just So Stories

How the Whale Got His Throat.
Just So Stories (1902)

Sleep, Sea

“To quote the words of Timaeus, in Plato, "What is that which always is, and has no birth, and what is that which is always becoming but never is? The one is apprehended by the mental processes, with reasoning, and is ever the same; the other can be guessed at by opinion in company with unreasoning sense, a thing which becomes and passes away, but never really is."
Therefore, if we crave for the goal which is worthy and fitting for man, namely happiness of life—and this is accomplished by philosophy alone and nothing else, and philosophy means… for us desire for wisdom, and wisdom the science of the truth of things… it is reasonable and most necessary to distinguish and systematize the accidental qualities of things.”

Nicomachus (60–120) Ancient Greek mathematician

Nicomachus of Gerasa: Introduction to Arithmetic (1926)

Life, Wisdom, Happiness, Truth

“[about Fruit of the Loom] What does fruit got to do with underbritches? I guess it's to remind us when we take them down we go, "Oh, I should've eaten more fruit today. I guess."”

Larry the Cable Guy (1963) American stand-up comedian, actor, country music artist, voice artist

Morning Constitutions (2007)

“[Magic] can be poorly presented and surrounded by naffness, and often amounts to little more than childish attempts to fool you. I guess it’s largely to escape those associations that I’ve gone the route I have.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV recordings of stage shows, Mind Reader – An Evening of Wonders (2009), Mind Reader – An Evening of Wonders tour brochure

Fools

“$400 million in all cash, anybody know what that looks like? That's a lot of cash. That's a lot of case. And honestly, it's so sad. Think of it, going to Iran, a terrorist state. Now I happen to think they have plenty of money, we've given then $150 billion, so the $400 million is just, you know – I happen to think it goes into their accounts in Switzerland personally. Now, a lot of people say, "no, no, it's used for terror," and they use it for terror because it's the number one terror funder – not even close. But I also think that when you have $400 million in cash, different denominations, do you see the size of this? I guess they did release the pictures after all. They released pictures. … Obama said that he did it because we don't have a working account with Iran. Do you believe that? How long does it take to set up an account? Right? You don't have a working account, you set up an account, right?”

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

2010s, 2016, August, Speech at rally in Wilmington, North Carolina (August 9, 2016)

Money, People, Sadness, Thinking

“Biology is truly a land of unlimited possibilities. We may expect it to give us the most surprising information, and we cannot guess what answers it will return in a few dozen years. …They may be of a kind which will blow away the whole of our artificial structure of hypothesis.”

Sigmund Freud book Beyond the Pleasure Principle

Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920)
1920s

“The famous Lord Hallifax (though so much talked of) was rather a pretender to taste, than really possessed of it.—When I had finished the two or three first books of my translation of the Iliad, that lord, "desired to have the pleasure of hearing them read at his house." Addison, Congreve, and Garth, were there at the reading.—In four or five places, Lord Hallifax stopped me very civilly; and with a speech, each time of much the same kind: "I beg your pardon, Mr. Pope, but there is something in that passage that does not quite please me.—Be so good as to mark the place, and consider it a little at your leisure.—I am sure you can give it a little turn."—I returned from Lord Hallifax's with Dr. Garth, in his chariot; and as we were going along, was saying to the doctor, that my lord had laid me under a good deal of difficulty, by such loose and general observations; that I had been thinking over the passages almost ever since, and could not guess at what it was that offended his lordship in either of them.—Garth laughed heartily at my embarrassment; said, I had not been long enough acquainted with Lord Hallifax, to know his way yet: that I need not puzzle myself in looking those places over and over when I got home. "All you need do, (said he) is to leave them just as they are; call on Lord Hallifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind observations on those passages; and then read them to him as altered. I have known him much longer than you have, and will be answerable for the event."—I followed his advice; waited on Lord Hallifax some time after: said, I hoped he would find his objections to those passages removed[; ] read them to him exactly as they were at first; and his lordship was extremely pleased with them, and cried out, "Ay now, Mr. Pope, they are perfectly right! nothing can be better."”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

As quoted in Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men (1820) by Joseph Spence [published from the original papers; with notes, and a life of the author, by Samuel Weller Singer]; "Spence's Anecdotes", Section IV. pp. 134–136.
Attributed

Pleasure, Books, Hope, Way

“I see kids who are complete cynics. They're not dreaming. They're out there with high-powered weapons, smoking crack behind the 7-Eleven. They've seen it all. These kids are going to take us into 2000 and beyond. That's scary, man. I wouldn't say I'm pessimistic or optimistic. I'm more realistic, I guess. But not cynical. I look. I watch.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Quoted in Anthony Decurtis, "Rolling Stone 30th Anniversary Special: Johnny Depp," http://www.johnnydeppfan.com/interviews/rollingstone.htm Rolling Stone (1998)

Dreams

“Someone gave me a pig heart in a mason jar. It was in the context of art, I believe. It was chained to a gourd and spattered with the expected colors of paint. And it was indeed, really and truly, a pig’s heart. I’m vegan and so it was kind of upsetting and pretty ironic, really, because it was the type of person I would want to guess was infatuated or obsessed.”

Davey Havok (1975) American singer

http://web.archive.org/web/20101014172908/http://rocknrolltales.com/read/afi

Art, Color, Heart, Painting

“"I guess I make things that need energy stronger. I'm like a walking battery." "You're the table everyone wants at Starbucks," Gansey mused as he began to walk again. Blue blinked. "What?" Over his shoulder, Gansey said, "Next to the wall plug."”

Maggie Stiefvater (1981) American writer

Blue and Gansey
The Raven Cycle Series, The Raven Boys (2012)

“You doubt where you're going, you doubt the way you shave in the morning and even the way you talk to people. Looking back on my past, I think that when you are out of form I attribute it to how I am in my life. I guess it was a reflection of the way I was playing my cricket, you know, I was inconsistent.”

Lou Vincent (1978) New Zealand cricketer

When asked about his career and self-doubt. Quoted in [Hanging out with Lou Vincent, Michele Hewitson, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/cricket/news/article.cfm?c_id=29&objectid=10434215&pnum=3, The New Zealand Herald, 2008-06-05, 2008-06-05]

Life, People, Way, Thinking

“Clement Greenberg talked about the ideas or possibilities of painting in his - I think -, 'After Abstract Expressionism' article, and he allows a blank canvas to be an idea for a painting. It might not be a good idea, but it's certainly valid. Yves Klein did the empty gallery. He sold 'air', and that was a conceptualized art, I guess.”

Frank Stella (1936) American artist

Source: Quotes, 1960 - 1970, Questions to Stella and Judd' - September 1966, p. 122

Art, Idea, Thinking, Painting

“The doctor asserted, 'Sure religion is a fine influence—got to have it to keep the lower classes in order—fact, it's the only thing that appeals to a lot of these fellows and makes 'em respect the rights of property. And I guess this theology is O. K.; lot of wise old coots figured it out, and they knew more about it than we do.' He believed in the Christian religion, and never thought about it; he believed in the church, and seldom went near it; he was shocked by Carol's lack of faith, and wasn't quite sure what was the nature of the faith that she lacked. Carol herself was an uneasy and dodging agnostic. When she ventured to Sunday School and heard the teachers droning that the genealogy of Shamsherai was a valuable ethical problem for children to think about; when she experimented with the Wednesday prayer-meeting and listened to store-keeping elders giving unvarying weekly testimony in primitive erotic symbols and such gory Chaldean phrases as 'washed in the blood of the lamb' and 'a vengeful God…' then Carol was dismayed to find the Christian religion, in America, in the twentieth century, as abnormal as Zoroastrianism—without the splendor. But when she went to church suppers a felt the friendliness, saw the gaiety with which the sisters served cold ham and scalloped potatoes; when Mrs. Champ Perry cried to her, on an afternoon call, 'My dear, if you just knew how happy it makes you to come into abiding grace,' then Carol found the humanness behind the sanguinary and alien theology.”

Sinclair Lewis book Main Street

Main Street (1920)

God, Happiness, Children, School

“She says no
When she means yes
And what she wants
You know that I can't guess.
When we want more
You know we ask for less
Such is the language of love…”

Dan Fogelberg (1951–2007) singer-songwriter, musician

The Language of Love.
Song lyrics, Windows and Walls (1984)

Love

“I guess it was the big plane crash picture [why Warhol started his 'Death'-series], the front page of a newspaper: '129 DIED'. I was also painting the Marilyns [the Marylin Monroe portraits, Warhol started after her tragic death in 1962] I realized that everything I was doing must have been death. It was Christmas or Labor Day - a holiday - and very time that you turned on the radio they said something like '4 millions are going to die'. That started it. But when you see I gruesome picture over and over again, it doesn't really have any effect.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Source: 1963 - 1967, What Is Pop Art? Interviews with Eight Painters, Part 1 (1963), pp. 116-19

Death, Time, Holiday, Christmas

“Jagger had gone through there. Harley also went through. Somewhere he did not know, somewhere whose existence he had not guessed.… Somewhere that wasn't the house.…”

Brian W. Aldiss book Outside

Outside (1955)

Housing

“It was pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day. Perhaps I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. I don't think that I mastered anything beyond the date (which I knew) and the signature (which I guessed at).

There's a singular and a perpetual charm in a letter of yours; it never grows old, it never loses its novelty… Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten, but yours are kept forever - unread. One of them will last a reasonable man a lifetime.”

Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) American poet, novelist, editor

letter to Professor E.S. Morse http://books.google.com/books?id=fYQCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&dq=There's+a+singular+and+a+perpetual+charm+in+a+letter+of+yours&source=bl&ots=DDWCA6FHyJ&sig=MyOOelB_Q2Fmd4jNObeyuptofsc&hl=en&ei=CYKiSvfaNof8MbOq3N0P&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=%22There's%20a%20singular%20and%20a%20perpetual%20charm%20in%20a%20letter%20of%20yours%22&f=false, circa 1889.

Thinking, Reading

“You know what you can buy at the supermarket?” Laws inquired acidly. “I’ll tell you. Canned burnt offerings.”
“You know what you can buy at the hardware store?” Hamilton answered. “Scales to weigh your soul on.”
“That’s silly,” the blond said petulantly. “A soul doesn’t have any weight.”
“Then,” Hamilton reflected, “you could put one through the U. S. mail for nothing.”
“How many souls,” Laws conjectured ironically, “can be fitted into one stamped envelope? New religious question. Split mankind in half. Warring factions. Blood running in the gutters.”
“Ten,” Hamilton guessed.
“Fourteen,” Laws contradicted.
“Heretic. Baby-murdering monster.”
“Bestial drinker of unpurified blood.”

Philip K. Dick book Eye in the Sky

“Accursed spawn of filth-devouring evil.”
Source: Eye in the Sky (1957), Chapter 6 (p. 75)

War, Law, Soul, Question

“Well, ABC, NBC, CBS: Bullshit.
They give us fact or fiction?
I guess an even split.”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)

“The noble Nazarene … who raged against "the world," against the philistinism, the halfheartedness, the lack of ideals—if he had guessed that he was forging a weapon for the hands of exactly "this world"—he who sensed the misfortune of humanity so deeply that he didn't find any other solution to its enigma than to entirely reject and turn his back on all that is earthly, would see his name dragged into the service of an intense philistine optimism.”

Vilhelm Ekelund (1880–1949) Swedish poet

Source: The Second Light (1986), p. 21

World, Optimism, Sense, Rage

“This is, uh, from "RedSoxGirl02," um, so that person is four years old, I guess, 'cause their thing is "02."”

Tina Fey (1970) American comedian, writer, producer and actress

"Ask Tina" segment from NBC's 30 Rock website

Personality

“We as consumers have the ability to stop this bullshit for good. And we're the only ones who can do that. Publishers aren't gonna do it. Devs aren't gonna do it. It's up to you: will you be part of that solution? Will you help fix this? Or will you continue to be part of the problem? I guess that's up to you.”

TotalBiscuit (1984–2018) British game commentator

Other videos, Should you preorder video games?

Problem, Help, Parting

“I guess I have an eclectic taste [about (500) Days of Summer, G. I. Joe, and Uncertainty all in one year], I don't just like one thing. Contrast is key. What do they say? Variety is the spice of life. My favorite actors are the chameleons, guys like Daniel Day-Lewis, Billy Bob Thornton, Meryl Streep, people who are always different.”

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (1981) American actor, director, producer, and writer

Salon, November 2009

Life, People, Guy, Summer

“Vietnam vet: We haven't heard why you voted against your colleagues' proposals to increase health care funding in 2004, '05, '06, and '07, when we had troops coming back from two wars.
Madow: Instead of the answer the questioner is looking for, McCain now takes credit for the GI bill and takes a political shot at Jim Webb.
McCain: On the issue of the GI bill, I was disappointed that Senator Webb didn't support making it permanent. Senator Graham, other veterans and I will be looking to extend that to all veterans, not just 2001. I hope you'll urge Senator Webb to agree with that.
McCain: I received every award from every major veterans' organization in America. The reason is I have a perfect voting record from organizations like Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, and all the other veterans service organizations because of my support of them.
Vietnam vet: You do not have a perfect voting record by the DIV and the VFW. That's where these votes [of yours against increasing vet health care] are recorded. The votes were proposals by your colleagues in the Senate to increase health care funding of the VA in 2003, '04, '05, and '06 for troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and you voted against those proposals. I can give you specific Senate votes, the numbers of those Senate votes right now.
McCain: I thank you, and I'll examine your version of what my voting record is, but again, I've been endorsed in every election by all of the veterans' organizations that do that. I've been supported by them, and I've received their highest rewards, from all of those organizations, so I guess they don't know something you know.
Rieckoff: [McCain's] voting record is not very strong. The Disabled American Veterans gave him a 20% rating out of 100. Our organization, the IAVA, gave him a D rating in the last voting session. He does not have a perfect voting record from the VFW. He's consistently voted against increased funding of the VA, and he's been a major opponent of the new GI bill.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

Paul Rieckhoff of Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans for America and author of Chasing Ghosts, on Countdown, discussing a town hall exchange between McCain and another Vietnam vet; 9 July 2008; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnyEMLXvgV8 IAVA ratings: McCain: D; Obama: B+ http://www.iava.org/full-ratings-list; DAV: McCain: 20%; Obama: 80%; the AL and VFW don't perform such voting record ratings http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/does_mccain_have_a_perfect_voting_record.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnyEMLXvgV8 2000s, 2008

War, Health, Hope, Disappointment

“A month passes by and brings another month.
Easy to guess what lies ahead:
all of yesterday’s boredom.
And tomorrow ends up no longer like tomorrow.”

Constantine P. Cavafy (1863–1933) Greek poet

Monotony http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=96&cat=1 Collected Poems (1992)

“Hey, that's not a bug, that's a feature! You know what the most complex piece of engineering known to man in the whole solar system is? Guess what – it's not Linux, it's not Solaris, and it's not your car. It's you. And me. And think about how you and me actually came about – not through any complex design. Right. "Sheer luck". Well, sheer luck, and:
• Free availability and crosspollination through sharing of "source code", although biologists call it DNA.
• A rather unforgiving user environment, that happily replaces bad versions of us with better working versions and thus culls the herd (biologists often call this "survival of the fittest").
• Massive undirected parallel development ("trial and error").
I'm deadly serious: we humans have never been able to replicate something more complicated than what we ourselves are, yet natural selection did it without even thinking. Don't underestimate the power of survival of the fittest. And don't ever make the mistake that you can design something better than what you get from ruthless massively parallel trial-and-error with a feedback cycle. That's giving your intelligence much too much credit. Quite frankly, Sun is doomed. And it has nothing to do with their engineering practices or their coding style.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

2000s, 2000-04

Cars, Error, Intelligence, Nature

“This is what my friend said to me; he said "You know what I like? Mashed potatoes." It's like, "Dude. you gotta give me time to guess. If you're gonna quiz me, you must insert a pause in there."”

Mitch Hedberg (1968–2005) American stand-up comedian

Strategic Grill Locations

Time

“"Lord Arthur, may I present Lady Wednesday's Dawn?"
Arthur bowed. He had already half-guessed the identity of their surprise guest. She had the hauteur that all the chief servants of the Trustees possessed. A kind of look that said, I am superior and you had better admit it.”

Garth Nix (1963) Australian fantasy writer

Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Drowned Wednesday (2005), p. 167.

“For milkmaids and queens and gipsy-princesses
Dream and kiss blindfold or starve upon guesses.”

Thomas Sturge Moore (1870–1944) British playwright, poet and artist

"Reason Enough", line 7; from The Sea is Kind (London: Grant Richards, 1914) p. 75.

Dreams, Kiss, Princess

“Most of the things I write are things that are personal to me. I realized that that's the only way to really be honest. If you go writing about someone else you're just guessing at it.”

Billy Joe Shaver (1939) American singer-songwriter

Billy Joe Shaver Bares 'Tooth,' First Album in Seven Years (2014)

Way, Personality

“I have grown accustomed to the disrespect expressed by some of the participants for their colleagues in the other disciplines. "Why, Dan," ask the people in artificial intelligence, "do you waste your time conferring with those neuroscientists? They wave their hands about 'information processing' and worry about where it happens, and which neurotransmitters are involved, but they haven't a clue about the computational requirements of higher cognitive functions." "Why," ask the neuroscientists, "do you waste your time on the fantasies of artificial intelligence? They just invent whatever machinery they want, and say unpardonably ignorant things about the brain." The cognitive psychologists, meanwhile, are accused of concocting models with neither biological plausibility nor proven computational powers; the anthropologists wouldn't know a model if they saw one, and the philosophers, as we all know, just take in each other's laundry, warning about confusions they themselves have created, in an arena bereft of both data and empirically testable theories. With so many idiots working on the problem, no wonder consciousness is still a mystery. All these charges are true, and more besides, but I have yet to encounter any idiots. Mostly the theorists I have drawn from strike me as very smart people – even brilliant people, with the arrogance and impatience that often comes with brilliance – but with limited perspectives and agendas, trying to make progress on the hard problems by taking whatever shortcuts they can see, while deploring other people's shortcuts. No one can keep all the problems and details clear, including me, and everyone has to mumble, guess and handwave about large parts of the problem.”

Daniel Dennett book Consciousness Explained

Consciousness Explained (1991)

People, Intelligence, Problem, Time

“In the 1930s, Adolf Hitler believed that his great-power rivals would be easy to exploit and isolate because each had little interest in fighting Germany and instead was determined to get someone else to assume the burden. He guessed right.”

John Mearsheimer book The Tragedy of Great Power Politics

Source: The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001), Chapter 2, Anarchy and the Struggle for Power, p. 38

Fight

“Christy Davis: Who do you look up to?
Rachel: You mean, like a hero?
Christy: Yeah, I guess. Someone you admire a lot.
Rachel: A drummer?
Christy: It can be anyone.
Rachel: My mom.”

Rachel Trachtenburg (1993) American musician

Interview for DrummerGirl.com http://www.drummergirl.com/interviews/trachtenburg/trachtenburg.htm

Moms

“Soon enough
you can say we made it up
just for fun I guess
to make a mess
cause what’s more fun
than other people’s hell”

Aimee Mann (1960) American indie rock singer-songwriter (born 1960)

"Soon Enough"
Song lyrics, Charmer (2012)

People, Hell

“Many people wanna make money, make love,
make friends, make peace with death —
But most mainly want to win the game they came to win
they want to come out ahead.
But you, you're a rock, with a heart like a socket I can plug into at will.
And will you guess when I come around next.
I hope your open sign is blinking still.”

St. Vincent (musician) (1982) American singer-songwriter

"Marry Me"
Marry Me (2007)

Love, Death, Money, People

“Floating around the Internet these days, posted and e-mailed back and forth, are a number of writings attributed to me, and I want people to know they're not mine. Don't blame me.Some are essay-length, some are just short lists of one and two-line jokes, but if they're flyin' around the Internet, they're probably not mine. Occasionally, a couple of jokes on a long list might have come from me, but not often. And because most of this stuff is really lame, it's embarrassing to see my name on it.And that's the problem. I want people to know that I take care with my writing, and try to keep my standards high. But most of this "humor" on the Internet is just plain stupid. I guess hard-core fans who follow my stuff closely would be able to spot the fake stuff, because the tone of voice is so different. But a casual fan has no way of knowing, and it bothers me that some people might believe I'd actually be capable of writing some of this stuff.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Don't Blame Me https://web.archive.org/web/20120621054133/http://www.georgecarlin.com/home/dontblame.html Internet, Georgecarlin.com (official website)

People, Stupidity, Way, Problem

“It is not unscientific to make a guess, although many people who are not in science think it is.”

Richard Feynman book The Character of Physical Law

Source: The Character of Physical Law (1965), chapter 7, “Seeking New Laws,” p. 165-166: video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2NnquxdWFk&t=37m21s Context: It is not unscientific to make a guess, although many people who are not in science think it is. Some years ago I had a conversation with a layman about flying saucers — because I am scientific I know all about flying saucers! I said “I don’t think there are flying saucers”. So my antagonist said, “Is it impossible that there are flying saucers? Can you prove that it’s impossible?” “No”, I said, “I can’t prove it’s impossible. It’s just very unlikely”. At that he said, “You are very unscientific. If you can’t prove it impossible then how can you say that it’s unlikely?” But that is the way that is scientific. It is scientific only to say what is more likely and what less likely, and not to be proving all the time the possible and impossible. To define what I mean, I might have said to him, "Listen, I mean that from my knowledge of the world that I see around me, I think that it is much more likely that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence than of the unknown rational efforts of extra-terrestrial intelligence." It is just more likely. That is all.

People, Thinking, Science

“I guess the biggest joke of all was that story that got out about "Say it ain't so, Joe." Charley Owens of the Chicago Daily News was responsible for that, but there wasn't a bit of truth in it.”

Joe Jackson (1887–1951) American baseball player

This is the Truth! (1949)
Context: I guess the biggest joke of all was that story that got out about "Say it ain't so, Joe." Charley Owens of the Chicago Daily News was responsible for that, but there wasn't a bit of truth in it. It was supposed to have happened the day I was arrested in September of 1920, when I came out of the courtroom. There weren't any words passed between anybody except me and a deputy sheriff. When I came out of the building this deputy asked me where I was going, and I told him to the Southside. He asked me for a ride and we got in the car together and left. There was a big crowd hanging around the front of the building, but nobody else said anything to me. It just didn't happen, that's all. Charley Owens just made up a good story and wrote it. Oh, I would have said it ain't so, all right, just like I'm saying it now.

Truth

“If it's total freedom, I guess the ultimate thing you can go into is total silence between the audience and performer, with the performer projecting something he doesn't even have to play.”

Alice Cooper (1948) American rock singer, songwriter and musician

Poppin (1969)
Context: We can only take it so far, because man can only take it so far, lower self can only take it so far, and you have to realize that the public is only at a certain place. We won't see the day when the public accepts what we wanna project, even though they are accepting a lot now. By the time they're accepting it, maybe they'll be too old.... If it's total freedom, I guess the ultimate thing you can go into is total silence between the audience and performer, with the performer projecting something he doesn't even have to play. A total silence trip is the ultimate.... We do antagonize them psychologically. People look at us and react. They either go "Wow! Hey-hey-hey, baby!" and we say that's great. They're reacting and that's wonderful. It's better than them sitting there doing nothing. I say make them react — do whatever's in your power to move the audience, and if that's where it is, and there where it is with America, sex and violence, then I say project it.

Freedom, Silence

“I guess I think I'm writing for people who are smarter than I am, because then I'll be doing something that's worth their time.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

"The Risk Taker" http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,,635799,00.html, profile/interview by Gary Younge, The Guardian (19 January 2002) Context: I guess I think I'm writing for people who are smarter than I am, because then I'll be doing something that's worth their time. I'd be very afraid to write from a position where I consciously thought I was smarter than most of my readers.

People, Thinking, Time

“This is the word tightrope. Now imagine
a man, inching across it in the space
between our thoughts. He holds our breath.There is no word net.You want him to fall, don't you?
I guessed as much; he teeters but succeeds.
The word applause is written all over him.”

Carol Ann Duffy (1955) British writer and professor of contemporary poetry

Talent.
Standing Female Nude (1985)

Imagination

“I guess the one thing I really learned from participating in sports was to just never say "no", never stop trying, and to always believe that you can do better than the next fellow.”

Bruce Bennett (1906–2007) actor

As quoted in an interview with Marc Blau (2004) http://www.celebratestadium.com/blogz/2006/04/stadium-olympics-hollywood.html Context: I guess the one thing I really learned from participating in sports was to just never say "no", never stop trying, and to always believe that you can do better than the next fellow. I tried to follow this throughout my life, but I always tried to be respectful about it.

Sport, Learning

“Yeah, okay, maybe they're not fair and balanced, but CNN used to have the slogan "You Can Depend on CNN". Guess what? I watch it, no you can't.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

C-SPAN interview, October 14, 2004
Context: Everybody wrings their hands about Fox News. You know, "fair and balanced? Why, that's snide!" Yeah, okay, maybe they're not fair and balanced, but CNN used to have the slogan "You Can Depend on CNN". Guess what? I watch it, no you can't. So what's the difference?

Dependency

“In several respects, I consider my father as one of the most interesting men I have known. He was a man of perhaps the very largest natural endowment of any it has been my lot to converse with. None of us will ever forget that bold glowing style of his, flowing free from his untutored soul, full of metaphors (though he knew not what a metaphor was) with, all manner of potent words which he appropriated and applied with a surprising accuracy you often would not guess whence; brief, energetic, and which I should say conveyed the most perfect picture — definite, clear, not in ambitious colors, but in full white sunliglit — of all the dialects I have ever listened to.”

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

1880s, Reminiscences (1881)
Context: In several respects, I consider my father as one of the most interesting men I have known. He was a man of perhaps the very largest natural endowment of any it has been my lot to converse with. None of us will ever forget that bold glowing style of his, flowing free from his untutored soul, full of metaphors (though he knew not what a metaphor was) with, all manner of potent words which he appropriated and applied with a surprising accuracy you often would not guess whence; brief, energetic, and which I should say conveyed the most perfect picture — definite, clear, not in ambitious colors, but in full white sunliglit — of all the dialects I have ever listened to. Nothing did I ever hear him undertake to render visible which, did not become almost ocularly so. Never shall we again hear such speech as that was. The whole district knew of it and laughed joyfully over it, not knowing how other-wise to express the feeling it gave them; emphatic I have heard him beyond all men. In anger he had no need of oaths, his words were like sharp arrows that smote into the very heart. The fault was that he exaggerated (which tendency I also inherit), yet only in description and for the sake chiefly of humorous effect.

Men, Color, Soul, Nature

“I guess you have to try things once in a while… just once”

Katie Melua (1984) British singer-songwriter

About smoking cannabis.

Context: It's so funny because when you do smoke weed and write a song, you're like, 'Yeah, this is brilliant, this is excellent!' - and the next morning you go back and often find that really it's not very good at all... I've never done anything like acid or cocaine and I hope I don't. But I guess you have to try things once in a while... just once. I think you have to be very wary of falling into that trap of getting addicted.

“I was very strong-willed, very stubborn, and fairly dramatic, I guess.”

Michelle Pfeiffer (1958) American actress

Vanity Fair (1993) http://www.pfeiffertheface.com/Mag_1993-09_VanityFair.htm Context: I had a big mouth, and I used to mouth off to my mother all the time. But I'd make sure my father wasn't in earshot, because he'd let me have it. I was very strong-willed, very stubborn, and fairly dramatic, I guess. I remember my mother calling me a drama queen when I would be carrying on: 'Here's my little actress.' And I was a real tomboy. I wasn't a terribly feminine little girl. I never thought I was attractive to boys; I remember when the first boy liked me, I couldn't believe it. All the little girls with ringlets and crinoline dresses were the ones the boys liked. I was always beating them up — why should they like me? I was always the biggest girl in the class, and if somebody wanted someone beaten up, they'd come and get me. I was the school bully. No wonder I played Catwoman. It all comes full circle.

Strong

“I want to move to the point of saying that if this instinct is not harnessed, it becomes a very dangerous, pernicious instinct. For instance, if it isn’t harnessed, it causes one's personality to become distorted. I guess that's the most damaging aspect of it: what it does to the personality. If it isn't harnessed, you will end up day in and day out trying to deal with your ego problem by boasting.”

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

1960s, The Drum Major Instinct (1968)
Context: There comes a time that the drum major instinct can become destructive. And that's where I want to move now. I want to move to the point of saying that if this instinct is not harnessed, it becomes a very dangerous, pernicious instinct. For instance, if it isn’t harnessed, it causes one's personality to become distorted. I guess that's the most damaging aspect of it: what it does to the personality. If it isn't harnessed, you will end up day in and day out trying to deal with your ego problem by boasting. Have you ever heard people that—you know, and I'm sure you've met them—that really become sickening because they just sit up all the time talking about themselves. And they just boast and boast and boast, and that's the person who has not harnessed the drum major instinct. And then it does other things to the personality. It causes you to lie about who you know sometimes. There are some people who are influence peddlers. And in their attempt to deal with the drum major instinct, they have to try to identify with the so-called big-name people. And if you're not careful, they will make you think they know somebody that they don't really know. They know them well, they sip tea with them, and they this-and-that. That happens to people.

Problem, Personality

“I guess right here is a good place for me to get the record straight on how I got to be "Shoeless Joe."”

Joe Jackson (1887–1951) American baseball player

This is the Truth! (1949)
Context: I guess right here is a good place for me to get the record straight on how I got to be "Shoeless Joe." I've read and heard every kind of yarn imaginable about how I got the name, but this is how it really happened:
When I was with Greenville back in 1908, we only had 12 men on the roster. I was first off a pitcher, but when I wasn't pitching I played the outfield. I played in a new pair of shoes one day and they wore big blisters on my feet. The next day we came up short of players, a couple of men hurt and one missing. Tommy Stouch — he was a sportswriter in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the last I heard of him — was the manager, and he told me I'd just have to play, blisters or not.
I tried it with my old shoes on and just couldn't make it. He told me I'd have to play anyway, so I threw away the shoes and went to the outfield in my stockinged feet. I hadn't put out much until along about the seventh inning I hit a long triple and I turned it on. That was in Anderson, and the bleachers were close to the baselines there. As I pulled into third, some big guy stood up and hollered: "You shoeless sonofagun, you!"
They picked it up and started calling me Shoeless Joe all around the league, and it stuck. I never played the outfield barefoot, and that was the only day I ever played in my stockinged feet, but it stuck with me.

“I guess the argument of contextuality is that anything is okay as long as it's done by people who are sufficiently unlike you.”

P. J. O'Rourke (1947) American journalist

All the Trouble in the World (1994)

People

“My guess is that we’ll one day understand consciousness as yet another phase of matter.”

Max Tegmark book Our Mathematical Universe

Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality (2014)
Context: My guess is that we’ll one day understand consciousness as yet another phase of matter. I’d expect there to be many types of consciousness just as there are many types of liquids, but in both cases, they share certain characteristic traits that we can aim to understand.

Understanding

“To say that the universe was here last year, or millions of years ago, does not explain its origin. This is still a mystery. As to the question of the origin of things, man can only wonder and doubt and guess.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

Why I Am An Agnostic (1929)
Context: To say that God made the universe gives us no explanation of the beginnings of things. If we are told that God made the universe, the question immediately arises: Who made God? Did he always exist, or was there some power back of that? Did he create matter out of nothing, or is his existence coextensive with matter? The problem is still there. What is the origin of it all? If, on the other hand, one says that the universe was not made by God, that it always existed, he has the same difficulty to confront. To say that the universe was here last year, or millions of years ago, does not explain its origin. This is still a mystery. As to the question of the origin of things, man can only wonder and doubt and guess.

Question, Universe

“As friends and as musical collaborators we had traveled, toured and written — together and apart — the events of our lives as if they were songs, and I guess they were. When news of Jacques’ death came I stayed locked in my bedroom and drank for a week.”

Rod McKuen (1933–2015) American poet, songwriter, composer, and singer

On Jacques Brel, in liner notes for Greatest Hits - Without a Worry in the World (August 1992)
Context: As friends and as musical collaborators we had traveled, toured and written — together and apart — the events of our lives as if they were songs, and I guess they were. When news of Jacques’ death came I stayed locked in my bedroom and drank for a week. That kind of self pity was something he wouldn’t have approved of, but all I could do was replay our songs (our children) and ruminate over our unfinished life together.

Death, Music, Travel

“By disidentifying with your feelings you break your attachment to them. When that is done sufficiently you're back at the beginning, in pure sensation or unconditioned knowledge. You've been beating your head against the wall to get some feelings and all you've got to do is break the habit and get used to living anew without pain and conflict. But that's a mighty realisation, and a mighty simple one which few are going to accept - they'll be too busy defending their feelings! So, I guess I'll still be demonstrating this the day I die.”

Barry Long (1926–2003) Australian spiritual teacher and writer

Love is not a feeling ~ The Article (1995)

Pain, Feeling, Business, Knowledge

“As long as you're billed as a comedian, I guess you can say anything.”

Tom Lehrer (1928) American singer-songwriter and mathematician

Quotes from interviews, Insider Audio interview (1997)
Context: I remember when Richard Pryor said something about how in South Africa, all the black people should pick up guns and kill all the white people, and they went right on with the interview, and nobody stopped him on that. "Oh good old Richard, what a card." As long as you're billed as a comedian, I guess you can say anything.

“The normal man, he does not care much what he does except that he should eat and sleep and make love. But the scientist is intensely religious—he is so religious that he will not accept quarter-truths, because they are an insult to his faith.
He wants that everything should be subject to inexorable laws. He is equal opposed to the capitalists who t'ink their silly money-grabbing is a system, and to liberals who t'ink man is not a fighting animal; he takes both the American booster and the European aristocrat, and he ignores all their blithering. Ignores it! All of it! He hates the preachers who talk their fables, but he iss not too kindly to the anthropologists and historians who can only make guesses, yet they have the nerf to call themselves scientists! Oh, yes, he is a man that all nice good-natured people should naturally hate!”

Sinclair Lewis book Arrowsmith

Arrowsmith (1925)
Context: Perhaps I am a crank, Martin. There are many who hate me. There are plots against me—oh, you t'ink I imagine it, but you shall see! I make many mistakes. But one thing I keep always pure: the religion of a scientist.
To be a scientist—it is not just a different job, so that a man should choose between being a scientist and being an explorer or a bond-salesman or a physician or a king or a farmer. It is a tangle of ver-y obscure emotions, like mysticism, or wanting to write poetry; it makes its victim all different from the good normal man. The normal man, he does not care much what he does except that he should eat and sleep and make love. But the scientist is intensely religious—he is so religious that he will not accept quarter-truths, because they are an insult to his faith.
He wants that everything should be subject to inexorable laws. He is equal opposed to the capitalists who t'ink their silly money-grabbing is a system, and to liberals who t'ink man is not a fighting animal; he takes both the American booster and the European aristocrat, and he ignores all their blithering. Ignores it! All of it! He hates the preachers who talk their fables, but he iss not too kindly to the anthropologists and historians who can only make guesses, yet they have the nerf to call themselves scientists! Oh, yes, he is a man that all nice good-natured people should naturally hate! ~ Gottlieb, Ch. 26

Love, Money, Hate, People

“The golden guess
Is morning-star to the full round of truth.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) British poet laureate

Columbus, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Truth, Star

“I guess, more than anything else, I'm a pragmatist with strong beliefs in people.”

Wesley Clark (1944) American general and former Democratic Party presidential candidate

Interview with Laura Knoy, New Hampshire Public Radio (5 November 2003)
Context: I don't have labels. I believe in human beings, I believe in a strong national security, I believe in maximizing freedom... I can give you a whole list of things i'm for, but I believe in solving problems. I guess, more than anything else, I'm a pragmatist with strong beliefs in people.

People, Strong

“Our political economy and our high-energy industry run on large, general principles, on ideas — not by day-to-day guess work, expedients and improvisations. Ideas have to go into exchange to become or remain operative; and the medium of such exchange is the printed word.”

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008) American conservative author and commentator

"Publisher's Statement", in the first issue of National Review (19 November 1955).
Context: Radical conservatives in this country have an interesting time of it, for when they are not being suppressed or mutilated by Liberals, they are being ignored or humiliated by a great many of those of the well-fed Right, whose ignorance and amorality have never been exaggerated for the same reason that one cannot exaggerate infinity.
There are, thank Heaven, the exceptions. There are those of generous impulse and a sincere desire to encourage a responsible dissent from the Liberal orthodoxy. And there are those who recognize that when all is said and done, the market place depends for a license to operate freely on the men who issue licenses — on the politicians. They recognize, therefore, that efficient getting and spending is itself impossible except in an atmosphere that encourages efficient getting and spending. And back of all political institutions there are moral and philosophical concepts, implicit or defined. Our political economy and our high-energy industry run on large, general principles, on ideas — not by day-to-day guess work, expedients and improvisations. Ideas have to go into exchange to become or remain operative; and the medium of such exchange is the printed word.

Idea

“We could not guess how different from us they (extraterrestrials) might be.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 3 (p. 48)
Context: We could not guess how different from us they (extraterrestrials) might be. It was hard enough to guess the intentions of our elected representatives in Washington.

“The method of guessing the equation seems to be a pretty effective way of guessing new laws”

Richard Feynman book The Character of Physical Law

The Character of Physical Law (1965)
Context: …Dirac discovered the correct laws for relativity quantum mechanics simply by guessing the equation. The method of guessing the equation seems to be a pretty effective way of guessing new laws. This shows again that mathematics is a deep way of expressing nature, and any attempt to express nature in philosophical principles, or in seat-of-the-pants mechanical feelings, is not an efficient way.

Law, Way

“I guess you could say that I was somewhat withdrawn from my classmates. I spent a good deal of time being a loner. I suppose that had something to do with the way we lived — always on the move, never living in one town very long. It's very hard to make lasting friendships that way.”

Sharon Tate (1943–1969) actress, victim of murder by Charles Manson followers

As quoted in Screen Stories magazine (1967)
Context: I guess you could say that I was somewhat withdrawn from my classmates. I spent a good deal of time being a loner. I suppose that had something to do with the way we lived — always on the move, never living in one town very long. It's very hard to make lasting friendships that way. And my father was rather strict with me and my two younger sisters. He insisted on proper behaviour and very often vetoed our choices of boyfriends. There was always a curfew whenever my sisters or I would go out on a date — we had to be home on time or else. But I never resented his authority. In fact, I'm thankful for my strict upbringing; I feel it has helped me learn discipline — and that's very important in this business.

Friendship, Way, Time

“Each religion is a brave guess at the authorship of Hamlet.”

Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic

Source: My Works and Days (1979), Ch. 2
Context: Each religion is a brave guess at the authorship of Hamlet. Yet, as far as the play goes does it make any difference whether Shakespeare or Bacon wrote it? Would it make any difference to the actors if their parts happened out of nothingness, if they found themselves acting on the stage because of some gross and unpardonable accident? Would it make any difference if the playwright gave them the lines or whether they composed them themselves, so long as the lines were properly spoken? Would it make any difference to the characters if A Midsummer Night's Dream was really a dream?

Religion

“You know, I came just as the Cold War was coming to an end. When you think about the events that we've been through, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to, I guess you'd say, 9/11 being the culmination at the end of that — of that scope — what extraordinary changes there have been.”

Peter Jennings (1938–2005) News anchor

Response to question on what it feels like to have been the ABC News Anchorman for 20 years.
Larry King Interview (8 September 2003)
Context: Seems like yesterday; seems like forever—all at the same time. It's sort of, how do you measure it? Do you measure the fact that I'm 20 years older? No. I think I measure it by the events. You know, I came just as the Cold War was coming to an end. When you think about the events that we've been through, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to, I guess you'd say, 9/11 being the culmination at the end of that — of that scope — what extraordinary changes there have been.

War, Thinking, Change

“When we know clearly, then should we discuss:
To guess is one thing, and to know another.”

Aeschylus Agamemnon

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 1368–1369 (tr. E. H. Plumptre)

“When Andropov became First Secretary of Central Committee of CPSU, he ordered the town renamed Partgrad. It’s hard to guess, how long will that name endure.”

Aleksandr Zinovyev (1922–2006) Russian writer

Katastroika (1988)

“One thing, however, I hope I may without offense affirm of these swamp-dwellers--they were pious. To what deity their veneration was given--whether, like the Egyptians, they worshiped the crocodile, or, like other Americans, adored themselves, I do not presume to guess.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Source: What I Saw At Shiloh (1881), VI
Context: I suppose the country lying between Corinth and Pittsburg Landing could boast a few inhabitants other than alligators. What manner of people they were it is impossible to say, inasmuch as the fighting dispersed, or possibly exterminated them; perhaps in merely classing them as non-saurian I shall describe them with sufficient particularity and at the same time avert from myself the natural suspicion attaching to a writer who points out to persons who do not know him the peculiarities of persons whom he does not know. One thing, however, I hope I may without offense affirm of these swamp-dwellers--they were pious. To what deity their veneration was given--whether, like the Egyptians, they worshiped the crocodile, or, like other Americans, adored themselves, I do not presume to guess. But whoever, or whatever, may have been the divinity whose ends they shaped, unto Him, or It, they had builded a temple. This humble edifice, centrally situated in the heart of a solitude, and conveniently accessible to the supersylvan crow, had been christened Shiloh Chapel, whence the name of the battle.

Hope

“I guess the only way to stop divorce Is to stop marriage. ”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Marriage, Way

“I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is indestructible. ”

Джон Эрнст Стейнбек (1902–1968)

Love, Strong, Heart

“Here is my speech from the Brilliant Minds conference in Stockholm. Since I don't have the video yet, I'm sharing it like this. Around the year 2030, we will be in a position where we probably set off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control, that will most likely lead to the end of our civilization as we know it. That is unless in that time, permanent and unprecedented changes in all aspects of industrialized society have taken place. Including a reduction of our CO2 emissions by at least 50%. And please note that these calculations are depending on inventions that have not yet been invented at scale. Furthermore these scientific calculations do not include most unforeseen tipping points and feed back loops. Nor do these calculations include already locked in warming hidden by toxic air pollution. Nor the aspect of equity, which is absolutely necessary to make the Paris Agreement work on a global scale. And these calculations are not opinions or wild guesses.”

Greta Thunberg (2003) Swedish climate change activist

Greta Thunberg's FB page https://www.facebook.com/732846497083173/posts/853561781678310?s=723487177&sfns=mo, (15 June 2019) 2019

Making love, Change, Time, Dependency

“When I see a headline ‘Guess who’s going out with who?’ I don’t guess, and I don’t click.”

Ricky Gervais (1961) English comedian, actor, director, producer, musician, writer, and former radio presenter

“One of the things my editor and I did fight about…is the idea of how much a reader can take. To me you get nowhere second guessing how much can a reader stand and how much can she not. What a reader can always tell is when you are holding back for fear of offending them. I wanted there to be something too much about the violence in the book, but I also wanted there to be an exaggeration of everything, an exaggeration of love, of empathy, of pity, of horror. I wanted everything turned up a little too high…”

Hanya Yanagihara (1974) American novelist and travel writer

On debating the reactions of her readership in “Hanya Yanagihara: ‘I wanted everything turned up a little too high’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/26/hanya-yanagihara-i-wanted-everything-turned-up-a-little-too-high-interview-a-little-life in The Guardian (2015 Jul 26)

Love, Books, Fear, Making love

“I do have witnesses to one of my journeys in a space craft. Both are scientists who hold high positions. Once they are able to make a statement the picture will change overnight. However, the way things are nowadays with everything classified as security, for the time being they must remain in the shadow. When they believe that they can release the substantiation they have without jeopardizing either the national defense or themselves, they have said that they will do so through the press. How soon that will be, your guess is as good as mine. But because they were with me at the request of the Brothers, some things are moving in behalf of both the Brothers and the general public that otherwise could not have been started. And much as we would like to, we cannot speak of these things yet because good intentions can have bad reactions. Anything acted upon prematurely can ruin the best beginnings.”

George Adamski (1891–1965) American ufologist

Inside the Spaceships

Bad luck, Making love, Way, Change

“I think the main thing I do every show, and I guess most performers do this, is engaging the audience, but I like to engage the audience in a very direct way right off the bat by starting the show with giving them the choice to participate or not because that’s the choice. By choosing to participate or not, you’re participating. Do you know what I mean? And I can figure out what their level of participation’s going to be and where I can go into crowd.”

Dan Deacon (1981) American musician

How Does Dan Deacon Work? http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/working/2017/05/working_in_baltimore_how_does_dan_deacon_work.html (May 9, 2017)

Way, Thinking

“Facts don’t matter to people as much as people think they do. People don’t believe because of facts and evidence—they believe things because it’s a part of a story that they tell themselves. And so, I guess part of what I’m doing is understanding those stories, and understanding psychologically why are these stories being told.”

Natalie Wynn ContraPoints

ContraPoints, Miscellaneous, Contrapoints Is De-Radicalizing Young, Right-Wing Men https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nrz4-FZx6k (Vice News, 2019)

People, Understanding, Thinking, Parting

“I guess I never felt I had an effect on people until I was in Korea.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

As quoted in Marilyn: a biography (1973) by Norman Mailer p. 21

People

“There is I suppose, historically, this seminal moment in the lives of African Americans where one becomes black. Frantz Fanon and everyone talks about it. There is a moment when you go from subject to object and I guess that was my moment…”

Kara Walker (1969) African American artist

On moving to Georgia at a young age and being defined as “Black” in “Kara Walker: ‘There is a moment in life where one becomes black’” https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/sep/27/kara-walker-interview-victoria-miro-gallery-atlanta in The Guardian (2015 Sep 27)

“I guess I was the most unbohemian of all bohemians. My bohemianism consisted of not wanting to get involved with the stupid stuff that I thought people wanted you to get involved with — … namely America…”

Amiri Baraka (1934–2014) African-American writer

On his bohemian status in “Remembering Activist Poet Amiri Baraka” https://www.npr.org/2014/01/10/261379770/fresh-air-remembers-activist-poet-amiri-baraka in NPR (2014 Jan 10)

People, Stupidity

“Only the news concerning Black people made any impact at all on me. And it seemed that each year the news got worse. The first of the really bad news that i remember was Montgomery, Alabama. That was when i first heard of Martin Luther King. Rosa Parks had been arrested for refusing to give her seat to a white woman. The Black people boycotted the buses. It was a nasty struggle. Black people were harassed and attacked and, if i remember correctly, Martin Luther King’s house was bombed. Then came Little Rock. I can still remember those ugly, terrifying white mobs attacking those little children who were close to my own age. When the news about Little Rock came on, you could hear a pin drop at my house. We would all sit there horrified. Sometimes, afterward, somebody would say something, but usually we would just sit there lost in our own thoughts. I guess there was nothing to say. And each year i would sit in front of that box, watching my people being attacked by white mobs, being bitten by dogs, beaten and water-hosed by police, arrested and murdered. Then the news seemed too real.”

Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army

Source: Assata: In Her Own Words, p. 73

Bad luck, Children, People, Age

“I have no choice. I am not in the position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight. I chose Charleston because it is most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet. Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.”

Dylann Roof (1994) American mass murderer

archived 20 June 2015 https://web.archive.org/web/20150620135047/http://lastrhodesian.com/data/documents/rtf88.txt on website registered 9 February 2015, published 21 June 2015 https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/us/dylann-storm-roof-photos-website-charleston-church-shooting.html in NYT, original date of authorship unknown

World, Time, Fight, Country

Quotes about guess page 10

Quotes about guess
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