Quotes about handful (7291 quotes, page 28)

“Later that evening, with exhaustion setting in and nothing left to do but wait for clearance to fly, Cathy and I took the aircrew to dinner; the members of our traveling staff stayed behind, chained to their phones and computers. We walked through the quiet waterfront to the lamp-lit, sandstone-block courtyard of the Mylos Taverna. As we filed to our corner table, the normally-effusive chatter of the Greek patrons dropped to a whisper. I scanned the nearby tables; faces everywhere were drawn with sadness. Yiannis, our usually-smiling waiter, approached silently and shook my hand as if at a funeral. "Everyone is so sorry, General," the man said.”

Tommy Franks (1945) United States Army general

Source: American Soldier (2004), p. 246

Sadness , Smile , Travel , Waiting

“Manufacture is a word, which, in the vicissitude of language, has come to signify the reverse of its intrinsic meaning, for it now denotes every extensive product of art, which is made by machinery, with little or no aid of the human hand; so that the most perfect manufacture is that which dispenses entirely with manual labour.”

Andrew Ure (1778–1857) Scottish doctor and chemist

Source: The Philosophy of Manufactures, 1835, p. 1

Art , Perfection

“It pertains to the very nature of a philosophical question that its answer will not be a "perfectly rounded truth" (as Parmenides said it), grasped in the hand like an apple plucked from a tree.”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), The Philosophical Act, P. 63

Truth , Question , Nature , Tree

“No, you cannot expect people to understand the higher reaches of philosophy. Culture should be taken out of the hands of the dollar chasers. We need a national subsidy for literature. It is disgraceful that artists are treated like peddlers and that art works have to be sold like soap.”

Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) German philosopher, sociologist, and political theorist

Negations: Essays in Critical Theory (1968)

People , Art , Literature , Understanding

“The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!
Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Sonnet, The Day is gone; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Recently, a girl chained herself to me with hand-cuffs after a gig, just because I refused to talk to her. I politely declined, though. I am a well-bred boy. I don't want to be too specific, but… it got pretty ugly.”

Mike Patton (1968) American singer

"Dangerous Jokers" - (Nieuwe Revu, 17-24 May 1995)

Girl , Boy

“Without religion, man is an atheist, woman is a monster. As daughter, sister, wife, and mother, she holds in her hands, under God, the destinies of humanity. In the hours of gloom and sorrow we look to her for sympathy and comfort. Where shall she find strength for trial, comfort for sorrow, save in that gospel which has given a new meaning to the name of "mother", since it rested on the lips of the child Jesus?”

Henry Benjamin Whipple (1822–1901) Bishop of Minnesota

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 618.

God , Religion , Sister , Daughters

“I marvel’d how Man, by his GOD-sent wit,
Thus tam’d the salamander Element
And loos’d the Metal in the mountain pent
To make us Saws, and Shears, and useful Plows,
Swords for our hands, and Helmets for our brows,
The surgeon’s Scalpel, vehicle of Health,
And all our humble Tools for gaining wealth...
”De Arte Munificente,” Seventeenth century”

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

September “MOTHER-RAPERS”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

God , Health , Art , Mountain

“When the Shah departed towards the close of the day, a false rumour was spread through the town that he had been severely wounded by a shot from a matchlock, and thus were sown the seeds from which murder and rapine were to spring. The bad characters within the town collected in great bodies, and, without distinction, commenced the work of plunder and destruction…. On the morning of the 11th an order went forth from the Persian Emperor for the slaughter of the inhabitants. The result may be imagined; one moment seemed to have sufficed for universal destruction. The Chandni chauk, the fruit market, the Daribah bazaar, and the buildings around the Masjid-i Jama’ were set fire to and reduced to ashes. The inhabitants, one and all, were slaughtered. Here and there some opposition was offered, but in most places people were butchered unresistingly. The Persians laid violent hands on everything and everybody; cloth, jewels, dishes of gold and silver, were acceptable spoil…. But to return to the miserable inhabitants. The massacre lasted half the day, when the Persian Emperor ordered Haji Fulad Khan, the kotwal, to proceed through the streets accompanied by a body of Persian nasakchis, and proclaim an order for the soldiers to resist from carnage. By degrees the violence of the flames subsided, but the bloodshed, the devastation, and the ruin of families were irreparable. For a long time the streets remained strewn with corpses, as the walks of a garden with dead flowers and leaves. The town was reduced to ashes, and had the appearance of a plain consumed with fire. All the regal jewels and property and the contents of the treasury were seized by the Persian conqueror in the citadel. He thus became possessed of treasure to the amount of sixty lacs of rupees and several thousand ashrafis… plate of gold to the value of one kror of rupees, and the jewels, many of which were unrivalled in beauty by any in the world, were valued at about fifty krors. The peacock throne alone, constructed at great pains in the reign of Shah Jahan, had cost one kror of rupees. Elephants, horses, and precious stuffs, whatever pleased. the conqueror’s eye, more indeed than can be enumerated, became his spoil. In short, the accumulated wealth of 348 years changed masters in a moment.”

Nader Shah (1688–1747) ruled as Shah of Iran

About Shah’s sack of Delhi, Tazrikha by Anand Ram Mukhlis. A history of Nâdir Shah’s invasion of India. In The History of India as Told by its own Historians. The Posthumous Papers of the Late Sir H. M. Elliot. John Dowson, ed. 1st ed. 1867. 2nd ed., Calcutta: Susil Gupta, 1956, vol. 22, pp. 74-98. https://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/h_es/h_es_tazrikha_frameset.htm

Pain , People , World , Family

“Dogmatic religion any form of mind control actually, has been used, and refined to fantastic effect over thousands of years since the "restart" of Modern civilisation-Sumeria/Sumer according to Official history. To incite and exploit emotions like fear, guilt, frustration, anger, and the feeling of 'Emptiness'. Which has assisted our prison warders, who've encouraged the "masses" to hand over their Responsibilty, and right to think and feel to a politician, book, media presenter, priest, experts because they feel and are encouraged to perpetuate the consensus reality, therefore subconcious belief that we/they don't have the ability or confidence for that matter to establish truth for themselves regardless of any external influences and without fear of being "crucified" for doing so. You and I have the right, to take control of our minds and therefore of lives, which is the first step on the road to infinite, now is a good time as any to start to make your own decisions.”

David Icke (1952) English writer and public speaker

"… and the truth shall set you free", 1995

Truth , Books , Fear , Religion

“Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.”

Robert Hayden (1913–1980) American writer and academic

Those Winter Sundays (lines 1-5), from Collected Poems (1985)

For Father , Weather , Clothes

“The Land is neither of the Dark nor the Light, nor ever was. Its enchantment was of a separate kind, the magic of the mind and the hand and the eye, that owes no allegiance because it is neither good nor bad. It has no more to do with the behaviour of men, or the great absolutes of the Light and the Dark, than does the blossom of a rose or the curving leap of a fish.”

Susan Cooper (1935) English fantasy writer

Source: The Dark Is Rising (1965-1977), Silver on the Tree (1977), Chapter 12 “The Journey” (p. 164)

Men , Fish , Light

“If one adds anything small or great to the queen of virtues, piety, or on the other hand takes something from it, in either case he will change and transform its nature. Addition will beget superstition and subtraction will beget impiety.”

Philo (-15–45 BC) Roman philosopher

99- 101.
On the Special Laws

Nature , Change

“Ralegh's own circle, which turned Christopher Marlowe into a rationalist, was dominated by… Thomas Hariot. For navigation is dependent on astronomy; it went hand in hand with the new speculations about the world and the solar system… in turn, the voyages of the great navigators inspired the literature of Elizabethan England. The worlds of art and science and the physical world unfolded then together. It was not by accident that the first table of logarithms was published within a few years of the First Folio.”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

"Sense and Sensibility"
The Common Sense of Science (1951)

World , Art , Literature , Science

“We lunched in Fregene: grilled sardines sprinkled with parsley and lemon. Federico ate daintily, like someone with no appetite. The beach was deserted, the wind brisk. In the distance stood the abandoned lighthouse he filmed for 8 1/2. Like someone about to propose a toast, he stood up and "recited" from King Lear :
Hark! Have you heard the news? The king fell off a cliff.
O horrible! Were you very close to him?
Indeed, sir. Close enough to push.
We laughed until he brusquely sat down again, scraping the fish scales off his fingers, staring at the age spots that covered his hands. The beautiful adolescent waitress asked for his autograph. He drew himself as a man-lion in a hat and scarf with huge paws chasing her, and signed it "Féfé." We spent the afternoon visiting Ostia and returned to Rome in a sweltering twilight. He asked to be driven home for a change of clothes. We invited Giulietta, who wore a green velvet turban, to join us for dinner. (Had she already lost her hair from chemotherapy?) Graciously, she declined while smoking cigarette after cigarette. At Cesarina's, Federico drew hilarious, pornographic sketches on the table napkin saying, "If you have not made love today then you have lost a day!"”

Damian Pettigrew Canadian filmmaker

The entire restaurant was at his feet. He was twenty years old now and as thin as Kafka. He was Rome. He had adopted us the way Rome adopts everyone, and we loved him.
On Fellini's final years
Federico Fellini: Sou um Grande Mentiroso (2008)

Love , Age , Beauty , Way

“The documents proving the ark existed were given to a Russian soldier to deliver to the Czar. When he reached Moscow, he was captured by the Communists. Rumor has it he was shot, and the documents fell into the hands of Trotsky, the Communist leader. All the documents disappeared!”

Jack T. Chick (1924–2016) Christian comics writer

Chick tracts, " Doom Town http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0272/0272_01.asp" (1991)

“From the point of view of semantics, errors must be accidents: if in the extension of "horse" there are no cows, then it cannot be required for the meaning of "horse" that cows be called horses. On the other hand, if "horse" did not mean that which it means, and if it were an error for horses, it would never be possible for a cow to be called "horse." Putting the two things together, it can be seen that the possibility of falsely saying "this is a horse" presupposes the existence of a semantic basis for saying it truly, but not vice versa. If we put this in terms of the crude causal theory, the fact that cows cause one to say "horse" depends on the fact that horses cause one to say "horse"; but the fact that horses cause one to say "horse" does not depend on the fact that cows cause one to say "horse"…”

Jerry Fodor (1935–2017) American philosopher

Fodor (1990). A Theory of Content and Other Essays. The MIT Press.

Error , Horse , Dependency , Falseness

“All the power's in the hands of people rich enough to buy it.”

Joe Strummer (1952–2002) British musician, singer, actor and songwriter

Joe Strummer / Mick Jones, "White Riot", The Clash (1977).
Lyrics

People

“We don't have the luxury of our own privatized civil rights movements because the crimes - the ignorance, the rage, the hate against the who/what/why of some of us, is a much much larger foe. Together we are more than the sum of our parts. In union, in communion, in joining hands, we conquer all, because we have love on our side.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, RACISM AND CIVIL RIGHTS

Love , Hate , Rage , Parting

“If the Lord has you saved, you're saved, ok? You can't get out of God's hand. Then this 300 degree below zero ice meteor came flying through the solar system. Some of it broke apart. It made craters on Mercury and craters on the Moon. Four of the planets today still have rings around them. And the rings around these planets are made of rock and ice. Very interesting. Now Walt Brown thinks some of the craters on the Moon were formed when the fountains of the deep broke open and rocks went flying up out of Earth's gravitational pull, drifted around for a while, and clobbered into the Moon. He may be right on that. I don't know but it's interesting. He thinks the comets came from Earth, and water on Mars came from Earth, when the fountains of the deep broke upon. You could read about it for yourself if you would like. The super cold snow would land mostly around the north and south poles because super cold ice is not only affected by the magnetic field, it is easily statically charged. […] As this ice meteor came flying towards the earth it broke apart, pieces would settle in around the poles mostly, causing the earth to wobble for a few hundred years. Or maybe even a few thousand years. The canopy of water overhead collapsed, then it rained 40 days, the water underneath the bottom, under the crust came shooting to the surface, and the water kept going up for 150 days. And everybody drowned. It probably took six or eight months to kill everybody during that flood. We all get the idea, "Well it rained and everybody died first day."”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

No, it took a long time for people to die. People would be running and fighting for higher ground. As that got more and more rare as the water keeps coming up, and up, and up, for 150 days, the water increased. By the way, they are still discovering chunks of ice flying around in space.
Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Hovind theory

God , People , Way , Idea

“Kandinsky was an optimist; he had been interested, at first, in fairy tales and legends and chivalrous themes of the past, but he then became increasingly interested, after 1908, in formulating what he called the art of the future rather than indulging in romantic visions of the past. Kubin, on the other hand was a pessimist, always haunted by the past and suspicious of the future. This basic difference in their temperaments made their discussions all the more fruitful, and their friendship was the more intense.”

Gabriele Münter (1877–1962) German painter

Source: Interview by Edouard Roditi (1958), p. 118

Friendship , Art , Past , Future

““Maybe I shouldn’t have told you—about it being electrical.” She put her hand out, touched his arm; she felt guilty, seeing the effect it had on him, the change.
”No,” Rick said. “I’m glad to know. Or rather—” He became silent. “I’d prefer to know.””

Philip K. Dick book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Source: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), Chapter 22 (p. 241)

Change

“Looking at the contemporary world, two things are obvious: democracy is doing rather badly, and democracy is doing very well. New states are born free, yet everywhere they are in chains. Democracy is doing very badly in that democratic institutions have fallen by the wayside in very many of the newly independent 'transitional' societies, and they are precarious elsewhere. Democracy, on the other hand, is doing extremely well in so far as it is almost (though not quite) universally accepted as a valid norm.”

Ernest Gellner (1925–1995) Czech anthropologist, philosopher and sociologist

Contemporary Thought and Politics (1974)

World , Democracy , Universe

“In the interpretation of figurative passages, let the following canon be observed. If the passage be preceptive, either forbidding some flagitious deed and some heinous crime, or commanding something useful and beneficent: then such passage is not figurative. But, if the passage seems, either to command some flagitious deed and some heinous crime, or to forbid something useful and beneficent: then such passage is figurative. Thus, for example, Christ says: Unless ye shall eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood; ye shall have no life in you. Now, in these words, he seems to command a heinous crime or a flagitious deed. Therefore the passage is a figure, enjoining us to communicate in the passion of our Lord, and admonishing us to lay it up sweetly and usefully in our memory because, for us, his flesh was crucified and wounded. On the other hand, Scripture says: If thy enemy shall hunger, give him food; if he shall thirst, give him drink.”

George Stanley Faber (1773–1854) British theologian

Here, without all doubt, an act of beneficence is enjoined.
Source: Christ's Discourse at Capernaum: Fatal to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation (1840), pp. 147-149

Life , Hunger , Food , Communication

“There's no particular complex that I have about acting in a Hollywood movie if offered. Some would say there's a lot here in our industry for us to go there and suck up to them. I don't consider it sucking up. If I am offered a blink and you miss appearance in a Hollywood film starring Brando, De Niro, Pacino or Nicholson, where I just have to go and hand a suitcase to them, I would simply do it out of sheer veneration for these great and renowned artists. And yes, despite all my success and fame in our industry and nation. There's no vanity I harbour in my mind in order to do that.”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

Quotable quotes by Amitabh Bachchan.

Star , Appearance , Success

“Let no one who loves be called altogether unhappy. Even love unreturned has its rainbow, and Babbie knew that Gavin loved her. Yet she stood in woe among the stiff berry bushes, as one who stretches forth her hands to Love and sees him looking for her, and knows she must shrink from the arms she would lie in, and only call to him in a voice he cannot hear. This is not a love that is always bitter. It grows sweet with age.”

J. M. Barrie (1860–1937) Scottish writer

Source: The Little Minister (1891), Ch. 24 : The New World, and the Woman Who May Not Dwell Therein

Love , Lie , Age

“We want to be good, but it’s difficult to know a safe place to start. We want to reach out our hand in friendship, but we don’t want it bitten off.”

Michael Elmore-Meegan (1959) British humanitarian

All shall be well (2014)

Friendship

“Assuredly men of merit are never lacking at any time, for those are the men who manage affairs, and it is affairs that produce the men. I have never searched, and I have always found under my hand the men who have served me, and for the most part I have been well served.”

Catherine the Great (1729–1796) Empress of Russia

As quoted in Woman Through the Ages;; (1908) by Emil Reich, p. 155

Men , Search , Time , Parting

“Hand gettin the mic. Forgettin all I ever knew, convenient amnesia. I suggest you call my lawyer, I know the procedure
Lock my body, can't trap my mind
easily, explains why we adapt to crime
I'd rather die enormous than live dormant, that's how we on it.”

Jay-Z (1969) American rapper, businessman, entrepreneur, record executive, songwriter, record producer and investor

Can I Live
Reasonable Doubt (1996)

“America’s Christian conservative movement is confronted with this divide: small-government advocates who want to practice their faith independent of heavy-handed government versus big-government sympathizers who want to impose their version of 'righteousness' on others through the hammer of law…. Our movement must avoid the temptations of power and those who would twist the good intentions of Christian voters to support policies that undermine freedom and grow government.”

Dick Armey (1940) American politician

Christians and Big Government - Why faith requires freedom http://www.freedomworks.org/processor/printer.php?issue_id=2731|, 12 October 2006

Faith , Law , Support , Freedom

“We have to harmonize the two facts, that wealth is good and necessary, and that wealth is a danger to its possessor and to society. On the one hand property is indispensable to personal freedom, to all higher individuality, and to self-realization; the right to property is a corollary of the right to life; without property men are at the mercy of nature and in bondage to those who have property. On the other hand property is used as a means of collecting tribute and private taxes, as a club with which to extort unearned gain from laborers and consumers, and as the fundamental tool of oppression.”

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) United States Baptist theologian

Source: The Social Principles of Jesus (1918), p. 127

Life , Men , Nature , Freedom

“A simple fact entered my head one day and put an end to my revolt against the Deity. It occurred to me that God was not engaged in corrupting the mind of man but in creating it. This may sound like no fact at all, or like the most childish of quibbles. But whatever it is, it brought me a sigh of relief, a slightly bitter sigh. I was relieved because instead of beholding a man as a finished and obviously worthless product, unable to bring sanity into human affairs, I looked on him (in my conversion) as a creature in the making. And lo, I was aware that like my stooped and furry brothers, the apes, I am God's incomplete child. My groping brain, no less than my little toe, is a mechanism in His evolution-busy hands.”

Ben Hecht (1894–1964) American screenwriter

Books

God , Business

“If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvellous fight in the world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”

Mark Twain book Concerning the Jews

Concerning the Jews (Harper's Magazine, Sept. 1899)

People , Secret , Age , World

“And you're standing on our streets
where Hector was the first of the gang
with a gun in his hand
and the first to do time
The first of the gang to die / oh my”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

From the 2002 song "First of the gang to die"
From songs

Time

“Only after Southwest Airlines became the most profitable airline in America did United and American challenge their long-held assumptions about how to compete. At worst, laggards follow the path of greatest familiarity. Challengers, on the other hand, follow the path of greatest opportunity, wherever it leads.”

Gary Hamel (1954) American management expert

Source: Competing for the Future, 1996, p. 19

“I guess the other thing I find a little bit on the downside is that all the papers can now be downloaded off the web. That bothers me a little because I think in the old days, when you picked up the journal, you kind of looked at everything on the back of it, the titles, and there were things you didn’t know that much about or that you had a faint connection with, and maybe you looked at the paper; maybe you read the abstract at least. Nowadays, you just dial up what you’re interested in; you don’t see any of the rest of the literature. I do worry over this kind of compartmentalization of astronomy, which I think has gotten to be a bit out of hand…”

Robert Kraft (astronomer) (1927–2015) American astronomer

Interview of Robert Kraft by Patrick McCray on August 1-2, 2002, Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics.

Literature , Thinking , Reading

“Dear brothers and sisters … we cannot but recall the crimes of these criminal [Jews] throughout history. … Why did France, in 1253, expel and uproot the Jewish entity which was represented by the ghetto? Why did they expel them? Because they sucked the blood of the French, because they shed the blood of the French, slaughtered them, stole their money, and conspired against them. At the end of the day, the French had no choice but to expel them in 1253. … The series of expulsions continues to this day, … and Allah willing, their expulsion from Palestine in its entirety is certain to come. We are no weaker or less honourable than the peoples that expelled and annihilated the Jews. The day we expel them is drawing near. … We extend our hands to feed these hungry dogs and wild beasts, and they devoured our fingers. We have learned the lesson: there is no place for you among us, and you have no future among the nations of the world. You are headed to annihilation.”

Mahmoud al-Zahar (1945) Co-founder of Hamas

Speech on Al-Aqsa TV, Video with English captions http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UT6grrx8do (5th November 2012)

Money , People , World , Dogs

“Slip inside the eye of your mind / don't you know you might find / A better place to play
So I'll start a revolution from my bed / Because you said the brains I had went to my head.
Please don't put you're life in the hands / Of a rock 'n' roll band / Who'll throw it all away”

Noel Gallagher (1967) British musician

Don't Look Back In Anger
(What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995)

Life

“And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Thoughts and Details on Scarcity (1795)
Thoughts and Details on Scarcity (1795)

“It was not for nothing that the raven was just now croaking on my left hand.”

Plautus Aulularia

Aulularia, Act iv, sc. 3, 1; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Referenced in "That raven on yon left-hand oak/(Curse on his ill-betiding croak!)/Bodes me no good", John Gay, 'Fables, Part I, The Farmer’s Wife and the Raven.
Aulularia (The Pot of Gold)

“Pure mathematics is much more than an armoury of tools and techniques for the applied mathematician. On the other hand, the pure mathematician has ever been grateful to applied mathematics for stimulus and inspiration. From the vibrations of the violin string they have drawn enchanting harmonies of Fourier Series, and to study the triode valve they have invented a whole theory of non-linear oscillations.”

George Frederick James Temple (1901–1992) British mathematician

100 Years of Mathematics: a Personal Viewpoint (1981)

Mathematics , Study

“Entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine. Some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything's okay. I don't make those kinds of movies. That, to me, is a lie. Everything's not okay.”

David Fincher (1962) American film director

The Curious Case of David Fincher (2007)

People , Lie

“It has been a mystery ever since it was discovered more than fifty years ago, and all good theoretical physicists put this number up on their wall and worry about it. Immediately you would like to know where this number for a coupling comes from: is it related to π, or perhaps to the base of natural logarithms? Nobody knows. It's one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man. You might say the "hand of God" wrote that number, and "we don't know how He pushed his pencil." We know what kind of a dance to do experimentally to measure this number very accurately, but we don't know what kind of dance to do on the computer to make this number come out — without putting it in secretly!”

Richard Feynman book QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter

On the numerical value of α, the fine-structure constant, p. 129
QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (1985)

God , Understanding , Nature , Dance

“I have been pretty lucky since I left the big leagues. No man who has done the things they accuse me of doing could have been as successful. Everything I touched seemed to turn to money, and I've made my share down through the years. I've been blessed with a good banker, too — my wife. Handing the money to her was just like putting it in the bank. We were married in 1908 when I was just 19 and she was 15, and she has stood by me through everything. We never had any children of our own, but we raised one of my brother's boys from babyhood.”

Joe Jackson (1887–1951) American baseball player

This is the Truth! (1949)

Money , Children , Boy , Success

“We are forced, in equity, to share the government with the working class…If there is a free contract, in open market, between capital and labour, it cannot be right that one of the two contracting parties should have the making of the laws, the management of the conditions, the keeping of the peace, the administration of justice, the distribution of taxes, the control of expenditure, in its own hands exclusively. It is unjust that all these securities, all these advantages, should be on the same side…Before this argument the ancient dogma, that power attends on property, broke down. Justice required that property should-not abdicate, but-share its political supremacy.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Letter to Mary Gladstone (1881)

Peace , Justice , Law

“It is hardly possible to over-calculate the evils accruing to individuals and to society in general from this custom, gradually increasing, of late and ultra-prudent marriages. Parents bring up their daughters in luxurious homes, expecting and exacting that the home to which they transfer them should be of almost equal ease; forgetting how next to impossible it is for such a home to be offered by any young man of the present generation, who has to work his way like his father before him. Daughters, accustomed to a life of ease and laziness, are early taught to check every tendency towards "a romantic attachment" — the insane folly of loving a man for what he is, rather than for what he has got; of being content to fight the worldly battle hand-in-hand — with a hand that is worth clasping, rather than settle down in comfortable sloth, protected and provided for in all external things. Young men … But words fail to trace the lot of enforced bachelorhood, hardest when its hardship ceases to be consciously felt.”

Dinah Craik (1826–1887) English novelist and poet

Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 10

Love , Life , Men , Marriage

“Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something. How about the time you gave a large contribution to the Red Cross? Yes, that is no exception to the rule. You gave the Red Cross the donation because you wanted to lend a helping hand; you wanted to do a beautiful, unselfish, divine act.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), p. 40 (in 2016 edition)

Beauty , Time , Help

“Although I cannot accuse myself of being remarkably unstable, I do not pretend that I have never altered my opinion both in respect to men and things. Indeed, I have been very much modified both in feeling and opinion within the last fourteen years. When I escaped from slavery, and was introduced to the Garrisonians, I adopted very many of their opinions, and defended them just as long as I deemed them true. I was young, had read but little, and naturally took some things on trust. Subsequent experience and reading have led me to examine for myself. This had brought me to other conclusions. When I was a child, I thought and spoke as a child. But the question is not as to what were my opinions fourteen years ago, but what they are now. If I am right now, it really does not matter what I was fourteen years ago. My position now is one of reform, not of revolution. I would act for the abolition of slavery through the Government — not over its ruins. If slaveholders have ruled the American Government for the last fifty years, let the anti-slavery men rule the nation for the next fifty years. If the South has made the Constitution bend to the purposes of slavery, let the North now make that instrument bend to the cause of freedom and justice. If 350,000 slaveholders have, by devoting their energies to that single end, been able to make slavery the vital and animating spirit of the American Confederacy for the last 72 years, now let the freemen of the North, who have the power in their own hands, and who can make the American Government just what they think fit, resolve to blot out for ever the foul and haggard crime, which is the blight and mildew, the curse and the disgrace of the whole United States.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, The Constitution of the United States: Is It Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slavery? (1860)

Men , Justice , Feeling , Question

“We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, Our Flag will be recognized throughout the World as a symbol of Freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other.”

George Marshall (1880–1959) US military leader, Army Chief of Staff

Statement (29 May 1942); The Papers of George Catlett Marshall Vol 3 (1991) by the George C. Marshall Foundation

World , Freedom , Sun

“The abstract properties of this mapping are defined precisely, and its appropriateness and adequacy for the task at hand are demonstrated.”

David Marr (1945–1980) British neuroscientist and psychologist

p, 24
Vision, 1982

“The fact that he was a Lorrainer, born and brought up in sight of the German eagle waving over the ravished provinces of France, bred in him an implacable enmity for Germany and all Germans. Anti-clericalism was with him a conviction; anti-Germanism was a passion. That gave him a special hold on France that had been ravaged by the German legions in the Great War. It was a disaster to France and to Europe. Where a statesman was needed who realised that if it is to be wisely exploited victory must be utilised with clemency and restraint, Poincaré made it impossible for any French Prime Minister to exert these qualities. He would not tolerate any compromise, concession or conciliation. He was bent on keeping Germany down. He was more responsible than any other man for the refusal of France to implement the disarmament provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. He stimulated and subsidised the armaments of Poland and Czecho-Slovakia which created such a ferment of uneasiness in disarmed Germany. He encouraged insurrection in the Rhineland against the authority of the Reich. He intrigued with the anti-German elements in Britain to thwart every effort in the direction of restoring goodwill in Europe and he completely baffled Briand's endeavour in that direction. He is the true creator of modern Germany with its great and growing armaments, and should this end in another conflict the catastrophe will have been engineered by Poincaré. His dead hand lies heavy on Europe to-day.”

Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic

David Lloyd George, The Truth about the Peace Treaties. Volume I (London: Victor Gollancz, 1938), p. 252.
About

War , Effort , Passion , Victory

“The magic's in my hands
When in doubt I whip it out
I got me a rock 'n' roll band
It's a free-for-all”

Ted Nugent (1948) American rock musician

"Free-for-All" on Free-for-All (1976)
Lyrics

“I ground matter to find the continuous line. And when I realized I could not find it, I stopped, as if an unseen someone had slapped my hands.”

Constantin Brâncuși (1876–1957) French-Romanian artist

Original in Romanian:
Am șlefuit materia pentru a afla linia continuă. Și când am constatat că n‑o pot afla, m‑am oprit; parcă cineva nevăzut mi‑a dat peste mâini.
Jurnal American - 21 Septembrie, altă zi la New York, Centrul Cultural Pitești, 2008-11-01, Vavila Popovici http://www.centrul-cultural-pitesti.ro/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=406,</ref>

“Count de Monet [consistently mispronounced as "count da money"]: Bearnaise, do we have any of those delicious raisins left?
Bearnaise: You ate yours. These are mine.
Count de Monet: Au contraire, they are mine! I paid for them! Hand them over!
Bearnaise [sotto voce, mimicking]: 'I paid for them! They're mine!'”

Mel Brooks (1926) American director, writer, actor, and producer

[Blows a raspberry]
Count de Monet: Don't be saucy with me, Bearnaise.
History of the World, Part I

Money

“From the point of view of the development of Marx’ s theories, his early journalistic writings are important for two main reasons. In his sharp attacks on the censorship law he spoke out unequivocally for the freedom of the Press, against the levelling effect of government restriction (‘ You don’ t expect a rose to smell like a violet; why then should the human spirit, the richest thing we have, exist only in a single form?’), and also expressed views concerning the whole nature of the state and the essence of freedom. Pointing out that the vagueness and ambiguity of the Press law placed arbitrary power in the hands of officials, Marx went on to argue that censorship was contrary not only to the purposes of the Press, but to tbe nature of the state as such.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

Source: Main Currents Of Marxism (1978), Three Volume edition, Volume I, The Founders, pp. 120-1

Law , Nature , Freedom

“Many times I recall my father, with my mother and us children in tow, going up to the pastor after a service. With Bible in hand he would challenge the pastor about some of the things he said in his sermon, quoting Scriptures that resounded with the words "Thus said the Lord," or "It is written…"… (To this day, when I quote verses that contain these phrases, an image of my father confronting the liberal pastors pops into my mind!)”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

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

Children , Quotes , Time

“If [Apple] is smart it will call the iPhone a "reference design" and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else's marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures. It should do that immediately before it's too late.”

John C. Dvorak (1952) US journalist and radio broadcaster

"Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone" in MarketWatch (28 March 2007) http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-should-pull-the-plug-on-the-iphone
2000s

Failure

“Now, at present Britain has no V. A. T., and the questions whether this new tax should be introduced, how it should be levied, and what should be its scope, would be matters of debate in the country and in Parliament. The essence of parliamentary democracy lies in the power to debate and impose taxation: it is the vital principle of the British House of Commons, from which all other aspects of its sovereignty ultimately derive. With Britain in the community, one important element of taxation would be taken automatically, necessarily and permanently out of the hands of the House of Commons…Those matters which sovereign parliaments debate and decide must be debated and decided not by the British House of Commons but in some other place, and by some other body, and debated and decided once for the whole Community…it is a fact that the British Parliament and its paramount authority occupies a position in relation to the British nation which no other elective assembly in Europe possesses. Take parliament out of the history of England and that history itself becomes meaningless. Whole lifetimes of study cannot exhaust the reasons why this fact has come to be, but fact it is, so that the British nation could not imagine itself except with and through its parliament. Consequently the sovereignty of our parliament is something other for us than what your assemblies are for you. What is equally significant, your assemblies, unlike the British Parliament, are the creation of deliberate political acts, and most of recent political acts. The notion that a new sovereign body can be created is therefore as familiar to you as it is repugnant, not to say unimaginable, to us. This deliberate, and recent, creation of sovereign assemblies on the continent is in turn an aspect of the fact that the continent is familiar, and familiar in the recent past, with the creation of nation states themselves. Four of the six members of the Community came into existence as such no more than a century or a century and a half ago – within the memory of two lifetimes.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech in Lyons (12 February 1971), from The Common Market: The Case Against (Elliot Right Way Books, 1971), pp. 65-68.
1970s

Democracy , Imagination , History , Communication

“Some men abuse women, but you should never raise your hand against them. You do not know how much they bear—they are forbearance itself. If you abuse them, where shall they turn? They are aspects of the Divine Mother, and if the Mother is insulted, the Lord is displeased. Thus your well-being lies in making them happy.”

Swami Adbhutananda Disciple

Source: God Lived with Them, p.433

Women , Men , Happiness

“Compeyson's business was the swindling, hand writing forging, stolen bank-note passing, and such-like. All sorts of traps as Compeyson could set with his head, and keep his own legs out of and get the profits from and let another man in for, was Compeyson's business. He'd no more heart than a iron file he was as cold as death, and he had the head of the Devil afore mentioned.”

Charles Dickens book Great Expectations

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 42

Death , Business , Heart

“You Hollanders are conceited and senseless people; you will make yourselves unworthy of the mercy which I now offer; you will subject yourselves to the highest punishment by proudly opposing the great force I have brought with the mere handful of men which I am told you have in your Castle; you will obstinately persevere in this. Do you not wish to be wiser? Let your losses at least teach you, that your power here cannot be compared to a thousandth part of mine.”

Koxinga (1624–1662) Chinese military leader

Formosa under the Dutch: described from contemporary records, with explanatory notes and a bibliography of the island, 1903, William Campbell, Kegan Paul, 423, Dec. 20 2011 http://books.google.com/books?id=OpdMq-YJoeoC&pg=PA423&dq=koxinga+formosa+always+belonged+to+china&hl=en&ei=vsjiTergDM3TgAekqbzKBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=koxinga%20formosa%20always%20belonged%20to%20china&f=false, Original from the University of Michigan(LONDON : KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. LTD DRYDEN HOUSE, 43 GERRARD STREET, SOHO MDCCCCIII Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty)

Men , People , Loss , Parting

“Where such a separation is complete one group of individuals, the security holders and in particular the stockholders, performs the function of risk-takers and suppliers of capital, while a separate group exercises control and ultimate management. In such a case, if profits are to be received only by the security holders, as the traditional logic of property would require, how can they perform both of their traditional economic roles? Are no profits to go to those who exercise control and in whose hands the efficient operation of enterprise ultimately rests? …Furthermore, if all profits are earmarked for the security holder, where is the inducement for those in control to manage the enterprise efficiently? When none of the profits are to be received by them, why should they exert themselves beyond the amount necessary to maintain a reasonably satisfied group of stockholders.”

Adolf A. Berle (1895–1971) American diplomat

1967, p. 303
The Modern Corporation and Private Property. 1932/1967

Exercises

“As to religion what is my belief? What is my insanity about that? My insanity, Your Honors, Gentlemen of the Jury, is that I wish to leave Rome aside inasmuch as it is the cause of division between the Catholics and Protestants. I did not wish to force my views because, in Batoche, to the Half-breeds that followed me I used the word Carte blanche. If I have any influence in the New World it is to help in that way and even if it takes two hundred years to become practical, then after my death that will bring out practical results, and then my children will shake hands with the Protestants of the New World in a friendly manner. I do not wish those evils which exist in Europe to be continued as much as I can influence it, among the Half-breeds. I do not wish that to be repeated in America, that work is not the work of some days or some years it is the work of hundreds of years.”

Louis Riel (1844–1885) Canadian politician

Address to Grand Jury (1885)

Death , Children , World , Religion

“It is from this viewpoint that he writes in this unconventional book. He makes a strong case for his contention that loyalty to Christ and to his spirit can go hand in hand with the rejection of unlikely theological dogma and creed.”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

The Christian Agnostic (1965)

Books , Strong , Christ , Loyalty

“There’s a part of you that insists reality follow the same parameters it always has, even here. That attachment to the way things work in the living world precludes this kind of manipulation. I, on the other hand, had the privilege of spending a good portion of time, when I was alive, in the paroxysms of my own insanity. Rather liberating, in its own way.”

Lawrence M. Schoen (1959) American writer and klingonist

Source: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard (2015), Chapter 8, “Venue and Vision” (p. 98)

World , Way , Reality , Time

“In a few weeks, or at most a few months, thanks to the skill of the Allied Commanders and the bravery of their men, the objects for which we and they have endured more than four years of sacrifice and suffering have been attained. The lands upon which the enemy had laid his cruel and predatory hand are in course of being evacuated. The exiled peoples are returning in joyous crowds across the war frontiers to their homes. The military power of the enemy is broken. His resources are spent. His armaments are in course of being surrendered. Hope breathes again in the souls of the unhappy peoples whom he has trampled in the mire. The impious spirit that claimed that Might was superior to Right and that there was no law but that of successful violence in the world has been exorcised, let us hope for ever. The conflict for international honour, righteousness, and freedom has been won, and the authors of this vast and wicked conspiracy against the liberties of mankind are fugitives on the face of the earth. My Lords, this is a great hour. It has been a wonderful victory. Are we presumptuous if we see in it the judgment of a Higher Power upon panoplied arrogance and enthroned wrong?”

George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1918/nov/18/the-armistice-address-to-his-majesty in the House of Lords (18 November 1918).

Men , War , People , World

“It must be the key idea of all hands that we will make the best of what we have.”

Ernest King (1878–1956) United States Navy admiral, Chief of Naval Operations

Excerpt from Atlantic Fleet Confidential Memorandum 2CM-41, sent on 24 March 1941. As quoted in History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Volume One: The Battle of the Atlantic, September 1939-May 1943 (1948) by Samuel Eliot Morison, p. 52

Idea

“so you think there’s no validity at all in the subjective?
there may be, there may not. in either case, it should not be used as a basis for an objective truth, which is after all what we are seeking. i have no doubt that many of those who claim to have found god have indeed felt something, but i suspect that the “something” they felt was merely a self-induced mystic experience—akin to a drug trip. witness the great numbers of drug users who claim spiritual insights as a result of their experiences. witness also the evangelists and faith-healers who induce hysteria and frenzy into their audiences so that they might feel “the hand of god” upon them. to them, god is little more than a meaningful “high.””

David Gerrold book When HARLIE Was One

Section 15 (p. 75; Dr. Auberson, then HARLIE)
When HARLIE Was One (1972)

God , Truth , Faith , Feeling

“The Amír marched out towards Lamghan, which is a city celebrated for its great strength and abounding in wealth. He conquered it and set fire to the places in its vicinity which were inhabited by infidels, and demolishing the idol-temples, he established Islam in them. He marched and captured other cities and killed the polluted wretches, destroying the idolatrous and gratifying the Musulmans. After wounding and killing beyond all measure, his hands and those of his friends became cold in counting the value of the plundered property. On the completion of his conquest he returned and promulgated accounts of the victories obtained for Islam, and every one, great and small, concurred in rejoicing over this result and thanking Allah.”

Sabuktigin (942–997) Founder of the Ghaznavid Empire

Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, Volume II, p. 22. Translation of Tarikh-i-Yamini of al-Utbi.

Victory , Wealth

“The slavery debate has been really a death-struggle from that moment. Mr. Clay thought not. Mr. Clay was a shrewd politician, but the difference between him and Calhoun was the difference between principle and expediency. Calhoun's sharp, incisive genius has engraved his name, narrow but deep, upon our annals. The fluent and facile talents of Clay in a bold, large hand wrote his name in honey upon many pages. But time is already licking it away. Henry Clay was our great compromiser. That was known, and that was the reason why Mr. Buchanan's story of a bargain with J. Q. Adams always clung to Mr. Clay. He had compromised political policies so long that he had forgotten there is such a thing as political principle, which is simply a name for the moral instincts applied to government. He did not see that when Mr. Calhoun said he should return to the Constitution he took the question with him, and shifted the battle-ground from the low, poisonous marsh of compromise, where the soldiers never know whether they are standing on land or water, to the clear, hard height of principle. Mr. Clay had his omnibus at the door to roll us out of the mire. The Whig party was all right and ready to jump in. The Democratic party was all right. The great slavery question was going to be settled forever. The bushel-basket of national peace and plenty and prosperity was to be heaped up and run over. Mr. Pierce came all the way from the granite hills of New Hampshire, where people are supposed to tell the truth, to an- nounce to a happy country that it was at peace — that its bushel-basket was never so overflowingly full before. And then what? Then the bottom fell out. Then the gentlemen in the national rope -walk at Washington found they had been busily twining a rope of sand to hold the country together. They had been trying to compromise the principles of human justice, not the percentage of a tariff; the instincts of human nature and consequently of all permanent government, and the conscience of the country saw it. Compromises are the sheet-anchor of the Union — are they? As the English said of the battle of Bunker Hill, that two such victories would ruin their army, so two such sheet- anchors as the Compromise of 1850 would drag the Union down out of sight forever.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

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

Death , People , Truth , Peace

“It is no coincidence, I am sure, that those who have the most to say about the Project are the ones who have had no direct contact with it. Which is similar to the attitude physicists have regarding gravitation or electrons — as opposed to that of the "well-informed" who read popular science. The "well-informed" think they know something about matters that the experts are reluctant to even to speak of. Information at second hand always gives an impression of tidiness, in contrast with the data at the scientist's disposal, full of gaps and uncertainties.”

Stanisław Lem book His Master's Voice

Source: His Master's Voice (1968), Ch. 1

Thinking , Science , Reading

“It is presumed, that juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that courts are the best judges of law. But still both objects are within your power of decision … You have a right to take it upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy.”

John Jay (1745–1829) American politician and a founding father of the United States

Georgia vs. Brailsford http://www.friesian.com/jury.htm (1794)
1790s

Law , Decision

“This breakdown of social order — rules of dress, sexual controls, speech patterns, family structures — has been seen as a great victory for the individual. On the other hand, it may simply be a reflection of the individual's frustration at being locked up inside a specialization. These acts of personal freedom are irrelevant to the exercise of power. So in lieu of taking a real part in the evolution of society, the individual struggles to appear as if no one has power over his personal evolution. Thus victories won for these individual liberties may actually be an acceptance of defeat by the individual.”

John Ralston Saul (1947) Canadian author and essayist

Voltaire's Bastards (1992)

Family , Exercises , Freedom , Appearance

“Emails in general are terrible. There's no security. It happens so often. I'm old-fashioned. I put a letter in an envelope and have it hand delivered. My son is 10 years old, and he has grown up computer literate. They start using computers before they can walk. His computer was locked and he unlocked it. And I said, ‘Barron, how did you do that?”

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

And he said, ‘I won't tell you, Dad.
At an interview with The New York Times'<nowiki/> Maureen Dowd. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/opinion/trumps-thunderbolts.html (July 29, 2016)
2010s, 2016, July

Fashion

“There are documents showing close collaboration of the Zionists with the Nazi Germany, and exaggerated numbers relating to the Jewish holocaust were fabricated to solicit sympathy of the world public opinion, lay the ground for the occupation of Palestine and to justify the atrocities of the Zionists. There is even evidence on hand that a large number of non-Jewish hooligans and thugs of Eastern Europe were forced to migrate to Palestine as Jews. The purpose was to install in the heart of the Islamic world an anti-Islamic state under the guise of supporting the victims of racism and to create a rift between the East and the West of the Islamic world after 1400 years of unity between those two parts.”

Ali Khamenei (1939) Iranian Shiite faqih, Marja' and official independent islamic leader

IRNA (April 24, 2001)
2001

World , Support , Heart , Parting

“As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself; because only through ordering what you know by comparing every truth with every other truth can you take complete possession of your knowledge and get it into your power. You can think about only what you know, so you ought to learn something; on the other hand, you can know only what you have thought about.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

Vol. 2, Ch. 22, § 257 "On Thinking for Yourself" as translated in Essays and Aphorisms(1970) as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
Variant translation: Just as the largest library, badly arranged, is not so useful as a very moderate one that is well arranged, so the greatest amount of knowledge, if not elaborated by our own thoughts, is worth much less than a far smaller volume that has been abundantly and repeatedly thought over.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims

Truth , Knowledge , Thinking , Learning

“A man who works under orders with other men must be without vanity. If he has too strong a will of his own and if his ideas are in conflict with those of his chief, the execution of orders will always be uncertain because of his efforts to interpret them in his own way. Faith in the chief must keep the gang together. Obviously deference must not turn into servility. A chief of staff or a departmental head should be able, if it seems to him (rightly or wrongly) that his superior is making a serious mistake, to tell him so courageously. But this sort of collaboration is really effective only if such frankness has true admiration and devotion behind it. If the lieutenant does not admit that his chief is more experienced and has better judgment than he himself, he will serve him badly. Criticism of the chief by a subordinate must be accidental and not habitual. What must an assistant do if he is sure he is right and if his chief refuses to accept his criticisms? He must obey the order after offering his objections. No collective work is possible without discipline. If the matter is so serious that it can have a permanent effect upon the future of a country, an army, or a commercial enterprise, the critic may hand in his resignation. But this must be done only as a last resort; as long as a man thinks he can be useful he must remain at his post.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Working

Men , Faith , Way , Idea

“Cooking professionally is a dominant act, at all times about control. Eating well, on the other hand, is about submission. It’s about giving up all vestiges of control, about entrusting your fate entirely to someone else. It’s about turning off the mean, manipulative, calculating, and shrewd person inside you, and slipping heedlessly into a new experience as if it were a warm bath. It’s about shutting down the radar and letting good things happen. Let it happen to you.”

Anthony Bourdain book The Nasty Bits

The Nasty Bits (2006)

Fate , Time , Personality , Cooking

“I sat there as if I were paralyzed; for a second totally immobilized, a suddenly frozen mind and body that had solidified into one great silent scream at the mention of a name I had long ago consigned to a grave somewhere. Then the terrible cold was drenched with an even more terrible wash of heat and I sat there with my hands bunched into fists to keep them from shaking.”

Mickey Spillane book The Girl Hunters

The Girl Hunters (1962)

“She was very fair and there was an expression of weariness in the lovely liquid dark eyes. Her little finely curved and red hued lips seemed like drooping rosebuds and were sealed as if it were in silence eternal…. she seemed as if she guessed the cruel fate which had been meted out for her by the Rani and Rajah and her other rich but distant relations in whose hands she seemed a helpless toy.”

Amrita Sher-Gil (1913–1941) Hungarian Indian artist

At the age of 12, her description of a bride at an Indian wedding.
Sikh Heritage,Amrita Shergil

Love , Fate , Silence , Distant

“Nature is vast, deep, high, intelligent, infinite and eternal. The heaven appearing before us is only this bright, shining mass; but in its immeasurable extent, the sun, the moon, stars and constellations are suspended in it, and all things are embraced under it. The earth, appearing before us, is but a handful of soil; but in all its breadth and depth, it sustains mighty mountains without feeling their weight; rivers and seas dash against it without causing it to leak. The mountain appearing before us is only a mass of rock; but in all the vastness of its size, grass and vegetation grow upon it, birds and beasts dwell on it, and treasures of precious minerals are found in it. The water appearing before us is but a ladleful of liquid; but in all its unfathomable depths, the largest crustaceans, dragons, fishes, and turtles are produced in them, and all useful products abound in them.
In the Book of Songs it is said: "The ordinance of God, / How inscrutable it is and goes on for ever."”

Zisi (-481–-402 BC) Chinese philosopher

That is to say, this is the essence of God.
Source: The Doctrine of the Mean, pp. 125–126

God , Books , Feeling , Mountain

“The truth is, the power to change this country is in your hands, not mine.”

Howard Dean (1948) American political activist

January 27, 2004 http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/27/elec04.prez.dean.transcript/

Truth , Change , Country

“Have no fear for giving in,
Have no fear for giving over.
You'd better know that in the end
It's better to say too much
Than never say what you need to say again.Even if your hands are shaking
And your faith is broken,
Even as the eyes are closing,
Do it with a heart wide open.”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

Say
Song lyrics, From the film The Bucket List (2007)

Fear , Faith , Heart

“It's because it's very European. And I'm Italian and it's very close to my culture and all the steppings for where all these legends took place, some places I'm very familiar with. And on the other hand, there's also something that's really special about Dracula & Array; which is the constant search for blood, which is enticing and sensual. And which is why The Count has three Brides.”

Silvia Colloca (1977) Singer, actress, author and TV cooking personality

An Interview with Dracula and his Brides (2004)

Search

“As a proud American, a father who lost his own dad in a senseless act of violence, and a black man, I have been deeply troubled by the deaths of African-Americans at the hands of law enforcement and angered by the cowardly and hateful targeting and killing of police officers. I grieve with the families who have lost loved ones, as I know their pain all too well.”

Michael Jordan (1963) American retired professional basketball player and businessman

Love , Death , Pain , Hate

“Our feeling of ignorance, vanity, want, weakness, in short, depravity and corruption, reminds us … that in the Lord, and none but He, dwell the true light of wisdom, solid virtue, exuberant goodness. We are accordingly urged by our own evil things to consider the good things of God; and, indeed, we cannot aspire to Him in earnest until we have begun to be displeased with ourselves. For what man is not disposed to rest in himself? Who, in fact, does not thus rest, so long as he is unknown to himself; that is, so long as he is contented with his own endowments, and unconscious or unmindful of his misery? Every person, therefore, on coming to the knowledge of himself, is not only urged to seek God, but is also led as by the hand to find him.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book 1, Chapter 1, p. 44
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

Wisdom , God , Feeling , Knowledge

“In my opinion, the national anthem is a symbolic song about our country. It represents honoring the many brave men and women who sacrifice and have sacrificed their lives each and every single day to protect our freedom. Sitting or kneeling down during the national anthem is a disgrace to those people who have served and currently serve our country. Sitting down during the national anthem on September 11th is even more horrific. Protest all you want and use social media all you want. However, during the nearly two minutes when that song is playing, I believe everyone should put their hands on their heart and be proud of our country for we are all truly blessed. Recent history has shown that it is a place where anyone no matter what race or gender has the potential to become President of the United States. We live in the most special place in the world and should be thankful. After the song is over, I would encourage everyone to please use the podium they have, stand up for their beliefs, and make America a better place. The rebuilding of battery park and the freedom tower demonstrates that amazing things can be done in this country when we work together towards a common goal. It is a shame how quickly we have forgotten this as a society. Today we are more divided then ever before. I could never imagine multiple people sitting down during the national anthem on the September 11th anniversary. The lessons of 911 should teach us that if we come together, the world can be a better and more peaceful place #neverforget.”

Kate Upton (1992) American model and actress

Kate Upton on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/BKO8_ZGA87r/?taken-by=kateupton&hl=en (September 11, 2016)

Women , Men , People , World

“Suddenly they asked me, as only the French would, ‘Madame, what is your philosophy of life?’ What a cosmic question, but I had to answer, and answer quickly, because it was live. So I said, in French, ‘I think that you’ve got to play the hand that you’re dealt and stop wishing for another hand.”

Maeve Binchy (1940–2012) Irish novelist

Recalling being invited to appear on French TV on what she described as “a terrifying serious program about books”. nydailynews.com http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/popular-irish-author-maeve-binchy-dies-72-article-1.1125516?localLinksEnabled=false

Life , Question , Thinking

“I have often thought, with reference to the late War…that it has shown the whole world how thin is the crust of civilisation on which this generation is walking. The realisation of that must have come with an appalling shock to most of us here. But more than that. There is not a man in this House who does not remember the first air raids and the first use of poisoned gas, and the cry that went up from this country. We know how, before the War ended, we were all using both those means of imposing our will upon our enemy. We realise that when men have their backs to the wall they will adopt any means for self-preservation. But there was left behind an uncomfortable feeling in the hearts of millions of men throughout Europe that, whatever had been the result of the War, we had all of us slipped down in our views of what constituted civilisation. We could not help feeling that future wars might provide, with further discoveries in science, a more rapid descent for the human race. There came a feeling, which I know is felt in all quarters of this House, that if our civilisation is to be saved, even at its present level, it behoves all people in all nations to do what they can by joining hands to save what we have, that we may use it as the vantage ground for further progress, rather than run the risk of all of us sliding in the abyss together.”

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

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1923/jul/23/military-expenditure-and-disarmament in the House of Commons (23 July 1923).
1923

Men , War , People , World

“[F]reedom depended ultimately on the outcome struggle between private property, voluntary production, and voluntary exchange on the one hand, and central planning on the other.”

Alan Charles Kors (1943) American academic

2010s, Socialism's Legacy (2011)

Dependency

“We wish to continue in following up the legacy of the Second Vatican Council whose wise regulations have still to be led to their fulfilment, being careful that a push, generous perhaps, but unduly timed, does not detract from the content and meaning of the council, and on the other hand being careful and reined and timid efforts do not slow up the magnificent drive of renewal and of life.”

Pope John Paul I (1912–1978) 263rd Pope of the Catholic Church

Address to the crowd in St Peter's Square (27 August 1978), as quoted in "Pope John Paul will continue policy of reform" by Peter Nichols, in The Times (28 August 1978), p. 1

Life , Effort , Time

“If we can't bring ourselves to say what's in our hearts when it truly matters, then we've already given up our freedom and with it the freedom of future generations, which is something that we've got no right to do. We didn't earn this freedom; it was handed to us on a plate by people who did earn it with their lives. We don't own it; we're custodians of it: it's not ours to give away.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"Appeasing Islam" (8 March 2008)
2008

People , Freedom , Future , Heart

“I said, I like my life. If I
have to give it back, if they
take it from me, let me only
not feel I wasted any, let me
not feel I forgot to love anyone
I meant to love, that I forgot
to give what I held in my hands,
that I forgot to do some little
piece of the work that wanted
to come through.”

Marge Piercy (1936) American novelist and poet

"If they come in the night", in The Twelve-Spoked Wheel Flashing (1978); reprinted in Sleeping with Cats: A Memoir (2002).

Love , Life , Feeling

“When the ghost comes round at midnight
Well you both can have some fun
He can drive you mad, he can make you sad
He can keep you from the sun
When they take him down, he'll be both safe and sound
And the hand does fit the glove
And no matter what they tell you,
There's good and evil in everyone.”

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

Who Was That Masked Man
Song lyrics, Veedon Fleece (1974)

Sadness , Evil , Sun , Madness

“In this essay on econometrics in its conception and its use in economic planning for the betterment of man’s fate, I will try to cover a very broad field.
When talking about the methodology in the particular fields mentioned - about which I am supposed to have a little more than second hand knowledge - I have always found it utterly inadequate to focus attention only on these special fields without seeing them in a much broader perspective.
Therefore it was inevitable that I should have to include in the field of vision of this paper also some branches of science where I can only speak as a layman, hopefully as a somewhat informed layman. For whatever blunders I may have made in these fields I must ask for the reader’s forgiveness”

Ragnar Frisch (1895–1973) Norwegian economist

Source: 1970s and later, From Utopian Theory to Practical Applications, 1970, p. 9 : Lead paragraph

Fate , Forgiveness , Knowledge , Science

“Our Christian conviction is that Christ is also the messiah of Israel. Certainly it is in the hands of God how and when the unification of Jews and Christians into the people of God will take place.”

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

God and the World, published October 2000, as reported by National Catholic Reporter
2000

God , People , Christ

“Each colored voter of the state should say in scripture phrase, 'may my hand forget its cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth' if ever I raise my voice or give my vote to the nominee of the Democratic Party.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

"The Lesson of Emancipation to the New York Generation: An Address Delivered in Elmira, New York" (3 August 1880), as quoted in The Frederick Douglass Papers http://tfdf.org/blog/2012/05/15/why-i-am-a-republican-by-dr-james-taylor/, Volume 4, p. 581. Douglass is referring to Psalm 137:5-6.
1880s, The Lesson of Emancipation to the New York Generation (1880)

Color , Forgetting