Quotes about happening
page 42

Alicia Silverstone photo
James Burke (science historian) photo

“Following the trail of events from some point in the past to a piece of modern technology is rather like a detective story, with you as the detective, knowing only as much as the people in the past do, and like them having to guess at what was likely to happen next.”

James Burke (science historian) (1936) British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer

Connections (1979), 1 - The Trigger Effect
Context: And that's why following the trail from the past up to the emergence of the modern technology that surrounds us in our daily lives, and affects our lives, is rather like a detective story. Because, at no time in the past, did anybody have anything to do with the business of inventing or changing things, ever know what the full effect of his actions would be. He just went ahead and did what he did for his own reasons, like we do. That's how change comes about. And it's like a detective story because if you follow the trail from the past up to a modern man-made object, the story is full of sudden twists and false clues and guesswork, and you never know where the story is heading until the very last minute.
Context: I would say it was a pretty safe bet, that the one magic wish most people would like to be granted would be to be able to see into the future. Think what it would mean. And backing the right horse! But we can't. We have to guess about tomorrow and we have to act on that guess, and it's never been any different. And that's why following the trail from the past up to the emergence of the modern technology that surrounds us in our daily lives, and affects our lives, is rather like a detective story. Because, at no time in the past, did anybody have anything to do with the business of inventing or changing things, ever know what the full effect of his actions would be. He just went ahead and did what he did for his own reasons, like we do. That's how change comes about. And it's like a detective story because if you follow the trail from the past up to a modern man-made object, the story is full of sudden twists and false clues and guesswork, and you never know where the story is heading until the very last minute.

Paul Klee photo

“Formerly it frequently happened to me that when questioned regarding a picture I simply did not know what it represented. I had not seen the subject, so to say. Now I have also included the content so that I know most of the time what is represented. But this only supports my experience that what matters in the ultimate end is the abstract meaning of harmonization”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

note from a letter, 1903
Quote from a letter (1903), as cited in Artists on Art, from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 443
1903 - 1910

Linus Torvalds photo

“I'd like to say that I knew this would happen, that it's all part of the plan for world domination.”

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

[Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution, The Linux Edge, http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/linus.html, 2006-08-28, 1-56592-582-3, 1999, O'Reilly & Associates, DiBona, C]
1990s, 1995-99

Hillary Clinton photo

“What’s happening to families at the border right now is a humanitarian crisis. Every parent who has ever held a child in their arms, every human being with a sense of compassion and decency, should be outraged.”

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

18 June 2018 Tweet https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1008806858176585730 affirmed by Vox article https://www.vox.com/2018/6/18/17476268/hillary-clinton-family-separation-border-immigration
Post Presidential Election, Separation of illegally immigrating adults and children (2018)

Arthur Schopenhauer photo
William Pfaff photo

“One cannot say that it will never happen again, or that it cannot happen.”

William Pfaff (1928–2015) American journalist

Source: Barbarian Sentiments - How The American Century Ends (1989), Chapter 4, The Soviet Union, p. 107.

Jeanette Winterson photo
James MacDonald photo
Willie Nelson photo
Jacoba van Heemskerck photo

“Nothing special is happening here in the paintersworld [of the Netherlands]; everything stays firmly the same.”

Jacoba van Heemskerck (1876–1923) Dutch painter

translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018, version in original Dutch / citaat van Jacoba van Heemskerck, in het Nederlands: Hier valt in de schilderswereld weinig bizonders voor; alles blijft soliede bij het oude.
Quote of Jacoba in her letter to , 9 March 1913; RKD-Archive, The Hague; as cited by Arend H. Huussen Jr. in Jacoba van Heemskerck, kunstenares van het Expressionisme (= Woman-artist in Expressionism), Haags Gemeentemuseum The Hague, 1982, p. 7
1910's

Susan Sontag photo
Mark Rowlands photo
John Danforth photo
Muhammad photo
P. W. Botha photo

“The separation of races happened long before the Nationalist Government. God separated the races.”

P. W. Botha (1916–2006) South African prime minister

As prime minister to an Austrian journalist during a European tour, 3 September 1984, as cited in The Star, and Pieter-Dirk Uys, 1987, PW Botha in his own words, p. 24

Sylvia Earle photo
George Boole photo
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne photo

“What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.”

William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (1779–1848) British Whig statesman

W. M. Torrens Memoirs of William Lamb, Second Viscount Melbourne (1890), p. 234
Attributed

“Magic doesn't happen often — not once in a blue moon … I expect there isn't another magic ship like this one in the whole world.”

Hilda Lewis (1896–1974) British writer

Source: The Ship that Flew (1939), Ch. 2 : And Continues

Francis Escudero photo
Eric Holder photo

“When you compare what people endured in the South in the 60s to try to get the right to vote for African Americans, and to compare what people were subjected to there to what happened in Philadelphia—which was inappropriate, certainly that…to describe it in those terms I think does a great disservice to people who put their lives on the line, who risked all, for my people.”

Eric Holder (1951) 82nd Attorney General of the United States

March 1, 2011.
Remarks at House Appropriations subcommittee to Rep. John Culberson, who was questioning him about voter intimidation by the Black Panthers. http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0311/Eric_Holder_Black_Panther_case_focus_demeans_my_people.html
2010s

Donald J. Trump photo
Ai Weiwei photo
Cormac McCarthy photo
Karen Blixen photo
Basil Rathbone photo

“I don’t know the why of anything, even when I pretend most diligently I do. The truth is the last time I had any idea why or what I was supposed to do I was lying in a shell hole, looking up at the sky. My mind was filled with a Bach keyboard sonata, which was one of the last I’d learned, I forget which one now. I absolutely knew I was about to die and I was completely happy and at peace, in a way I never was before or since, not even with you, in our best moments. It was so easy, you see, a kind of absolute joy and peace, because I knew it was all done and I was all square with life. Nothing left to do but let things take their course. And when I didn’t die, I didn’t know what to do. So I thought, I’ll take my revolver, go out and blow a hole through my head. Only I knew it wouldn’t work. I knew, I just knew you couldn’t do it that way. You couldn’t make it happen, not if you wanted to find peace. So, I thought, then, a sniper can do it for me. But no matter how I tried to let them no sniper ever found me. And all the other times I went out and lay in shell holes in No Man’s Land it wasn’t the same, and I knew I wouldn’t die this time, and of course I never did. I had this mad feeling I’d become some sort of Wandering Jew. And everything for so long afterwards was about dragging this living corpse of myself around, giving it things to do, because here it was, alive. And nothing made any sense and I didn’t even hope it would. I followed paths that were there to be followed, I did what others said to do.”

Basil Rathbone (1892–1967) British actor

Letter https://thegreatbaz.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/fuller-text-of-letter-quoted-in-a-life-divided/

Stephen Baxter photo
George Steiner photo
Jayant Narlikar photo
Jesse Ventura photo
Glenn Beck photo
Ron Paul photo

“Most often, our messing around and meddling in the affairs of other countries have unintended consequences. Sometimes just over in those countries that we mess with. We might support one faction, and it doesn't work, and it's used against us. But there's the blowback effect, that the CIA talks about, that it comes back to haunt us later on. For instance, a good example of this is what happened in 1953 when our government overthrew the Mossadegh government and we installed the Shah, in Iran. And for 25 years we had an authoritarian friend over there, and the people hated him, they finally overthrew him, and they've resented us ever since. That had a lot to do with the taking of the hostages in 1979, and for us to ignore that is to ignore history… Also we've antagonized the Iranians by supporting Saddam Hussein, encouraging him to invade Iran. Why wouldn't they be angry at us? But the on again off again thing is what bothers me the most. First we're an ally with Osama bin Laden, then he's our archenemy. Our CIA set up the madrasah schools, and paid money, to train radical Islamists, in Saudi Arabia, to fight communism… But now they've turned on us… Muslims and Arabs have long memories, Americans, unfortunately, have very short memories, and they don't remember our foreign policy that may have antagonized… The founders were absolutely right: stay out of the internal affairs of foreign nations, mind our own business, bring our troops home, and have a strong defense. I think our defense is weaker now than ever.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Interview by Laura Knoy on NHPR, June 5, 2007 http://info.nhpr.org/node/13016
2000s, 2006-2009

Christopher Walken photo
Carl Sagan photo
Samuel Butler photo
Francis Escudero photo
Jeremy Taylor photo

“…for there is some virtue or other to be exercised, whatever happens…”

Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) English clergyman

"Holy Living" (1650) ch. 2, section 6. "Of Contentedness in all Estates".

Madeleine Stowe photo
N. K. Jemisin photo

“What happened when people who’d once possessed absolute power suddenly lost it?”

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 8 “Light Reveals” (encaustic on canvas) (p. 170)

Elia M. Ramollah photo
Nicky Case photo

“No medium is particularly better than any other medium for tackling pressing social issues. But, yeah, it really depends on what options I can do. Games happen to be the medium I'm most familiar with.”

Nicky Case indie game developer

"Indie Game Developer Nicky Case Discusses "Coming Out Simulator" and the LGBTQ Community's Relationship With Gaming" http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2014/07/indie-game-developer-nicky-case-discusses-coming-out-simulator-lgbtq-gaming-and-the-walking-dead

Enoch Powell photo

“It so happens that I never talk about race. I do not know what race is.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

The Guardian (6 June 1970).
1970s

Amanda Lear photo
Sam Harris photo

“This is a common criticism: the idea that the atheist is guilty of a literalist reading of scripture, and that it’s a very naive way of approaching religion, and there’s a far more sophisticated and nuanced view of religion on offer and the atheist is disregarding that. A few problems with this: anyone making that argument is failing to acknowledge just how many people really do approach these texts literally or functionally - whether they’re selective literalists, or literal all the way down the line. There are certain passages in scripture that just cannot be read figuratively. And people really do live by the lights of what is literally laid out in these books. So, the Koran says “hate the infidel” and Muslims hate the infidel because the Koran spells it out ad nauseam. Now, it’s true that you can cherry-pick scripture, and you can look for all the good parts. You can ignore where it says in Leviticus that if a woman is not a virgin on her wedding night you’re supposed to stone her to death on her father’s doorstep. Most religious people ignore those passages, which really can only be read literally, and say that “they were only appropriate for the time” and “they don’t apply now”. And likewise, Muslims try to have the same reading of passages that advocate holy war. They say “well, these were appropriate to those battles that Mohammed was fighting, but now we don’t have to fight those battles”. This is all a good thing, but we should recognize what’s happening here: people are feeling pressure from a host of all-too-human concerns that have nothing, in principle, to do with God: secularism, and human rights, and democracy, and scientific progress. These have made certain passages in scripture untenable. This is coming from outside religion, and religion is now making a great show of its sophistication in grappling with these pressures. This is an example of religion losing the argument with modernity.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris in interview by Big Think (04/07/2007) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zV3vIXZ-1Y&t=6s
2000s

Leo Tolstoy photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“It needs but very little consideration to reach the conclusion that all of these terms are relative, not absolute, in their application to the affairs of this earth. There is no absolute and complete sovereignty for a State, nor absolute and complete independence and freedom for an individual. It happened in 1861 that the States of the North and the South were so fully agreed among themselves that they were able to combine against each other. But supposing each State of the Union should undertake to make its own decisions upon all questions, and that all held divergent views. If such a condition were carried to its logical conclusion, each would come into conflict with all the others, and a condition would arise which could only result in mutual destruction. It is evident that this would be the antithesis of State sovereignty. Or suppose that each individual in the assertion of his own independence and freedom undertook to act in entire disregard of the rights of others. The end would be likewise mutual destruction, and no one would be independent and no one would be free. Yet these are conflicts which have gone on ever since the organization of society into government, and they are going on now. To my mind this was fundamental of the conflict which broke out in 1861.”

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

1920s, Freedom and its Obligations (1924)

John F. Kerry photo

“We have an electorate that doesn't always pay that much attention to what's going on so people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or truth or what's happening.”

John F. Kerry (1943) politician from the United States

September 27, 2010. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/09/28/democrats_in_denial_about_unpopular_policies.html

Alastair Reynolds photo

“Whatever has happened, the land always lives within us… We are the people and we will endure.”

Nguyễn Duy (1948)

"Our Nation from a Distance" (1988)
Distant Road (1999)

Roger Ebert photo

“[D]oes the real world have any more substance than visions and hallucinations — when we're having them? At any given moment, what's happening in our minds is all and everything that happens.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/uncle-boonmee-who-can-recall-his-past-lives-2011 of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (14 April 2011)
Reviews, Three-and-a-half star reviews

Warren Farrell photo
Rudolph Rummel photo
Revilo P. Oliver photo
Paul Blobel photo
Craig Ferguson photo
Asger Jorn photo

“Even here, nothing ever happens; and nothing ever happens to it.”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

1949 - 1958, Speech to the Penguins' (1949)

Thomas Szasz photo
Ervin László photo
Miguel de Unamuno photo
John Fante photo
William Shenstone photo
Arthur Travers Harris photo

“In spite of all that happened at Hamburg, bombing proved a relatively humane method.”

Arthur Travers Harris (1892–1984) Royal Air Force air marshal

Statement on the July 1943 bombings of Hamburg, as quoted in The Valour and the Horror : The Untold Story of Canadians in the Second World War (1991)by Merrily Weisbord and ‎Merilyn Simonds Mohr, p. 107

African Spir photo
Christopher Hitchens photo

“The best case scenario is a rapid attack by precision-guided weapons, striking Saddam's communications in the first hours and preventing his deranged orders from being obeyed. Then a massive landing will bring food, medicine and laptop computers to a surging crowd of thankful and relieved Iraqis and Kurds. This could, in theory, all happen.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

"What Happens Next to Iraq" http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/tm_objectid=12677144&method=full&siteid=94762-name_page.html, Daily Mirror (2003-02-26): On the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2000s, 2003

Roger Manganelli photo
Maimónides photo
Horace Mann photo

“Let us not be content to wait and see what will happen, but give us the determination to make the right things happen.”

Horace Mann (1796–1859) American politician

Peter Marshall, US Senate prayer (10 March 1948)
Misattributed

Max Frisch photo

“Does not everyone who describes something he has experienced believe basically that whatever happens to him has some sort of relevance.”

Max Frisch (1911–1991) Swiss playwright and novelist

Sketchbook 1946-1949

George Carlin photo

“The planet is fine. The people are [bleeped out]. Because everyone is trying to save the planet. The planet doesn’t need that. The planet will take care of itself. People are selfish. And that's what they're doing is trying to save the planet for themselves to have a nicer place to live. They don't care about the planet in theory. They just care about having a comfortable place. And these people with the fires and the floods and everything, they overbuild, they put nature to the test and they get what's coming to them. That's what I say. That's what's happening, and I can't wait for the sea levels to rise. I can't wait for some of these cities to disappear. There are places that are going to go away. The map is going to change and that's because -- people think nature is outside of them. They don't take into them the idea that we are part of it. They say, "oh, we're going for a nature walk. We're going to the country because we like nature." Nature is in here. [points to chest] And if you're in tune with it, like the Indians, the Hopis, especially, the balance of life, the balance, the harmony of nature, if you understand that, you don't overbuild. You don’t do all this moron stuff.”

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

The View, 24 October 2007 http://newsbusters.org/blogs/justin-mccarthy/2007/10/24/george-carlins-view-wildfire-victims-get-whats-coming-them
Interviews, Television Appearances

“Nothings gonna happen it's simply an airplane.”

Jessica Dubroff (1988–1996) American child pilot trainee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wQ57od6lcY

Paul Krugman photo
Thomas Aquinas photo

“Whether God can make the past not to have been?
Objection 1: It seems that God can make the past not to have been. For what is impossible in itself is much more impossible than that which is only impossible accidentally. But God can do what is impossible in itself, as to give sight to the blind, or to raise the dead. Therefore, and much more can He do what is only impossible accidentally. Now for the past not to have been is impossible accidentally: thus for Socrates not to be running is accidentally impossible, from the fact that his running is a thing of the past. Therefore God can make the past not to have been.
Objection 2: Further, what God could do, He can do now, since His power is not lessened. But God could have effected, before Socrates ran, that he should not run. Therefore, when he has run, God could effect that he did not run.
Objection 3: Further, charity is a more excellent virtue than virginity. But God can supply charity that is lost; therefore also lost virginity. Therefore He can so effect that what was corrupt should not have been corrupt. On the contrary, Jerome says (Ep. 22 ad Eustoch.): "Although God can do all things, He cannot make a thing that is corrupt not to have been corrupted." Therefore, for the same reason, He cannot effect that anything else which is past should not have been.
I answer that, As was said above (Q[7], A[2]), there does not fall under the scope of God's omnipotence anything that implies a contradiction. Now that the past should not have been implies a contradiction. For as it implies a contradiction to say that Socrates is sitting, and is not sitting, so does it to say that he sat, and did not sit. But to say that he did sit is to say that it happened in the past. To say that he did not sit, is to say that it did not happen. Whence, that the past should not have been, does not come under the scope of divine power. This is what Augustine means when he says (Contra Faust. xxix, 5): "Whosoever says, If God is almighty, let Him make what is done as if it were not done, does not see that this is to say: If God is almighty let Him effect that what is true, by the very fact that it is true, be false": and the Philosopher says (Ethic. vi, 2): "Of this one thing alone is God deprived---namely, to make undone the things that have been done."
Reply to Objection 1: Although it is impossible accidentally for the past not to have been, if one considers the past thing itself, as, for instance, the running of Socrates; nevertheless, if the past thing is considered as past, that it should not have been is impossible, not only in itself, but absolutely since it implies a contradiction. Thus, it is more impossible than the raising of the dead; in which there is nothing contradictory, because this is reckoned impossible in reference to some power, that is to say, some natural power; for such impossible things do come beneath the scope of divine power.
Reply to Objection 2: As God, in accordance with the perfection of the divine power, can do all things, and yet some things are not subject to His power, because they fall short of being possible; so, also, if we regard the immutability of the divine power, whatever God could do, He can do now. Some things, however, at one time were in the nature of possibility, whilst they were yet to be done, which now fall short of the nature of possibility, when they have been done. So is God said not to be able to do them, because they themselves cannot be done.
Reply to Objection 3: God can remove all corruption of the mind and body from a woman who has fallen; but the fact that she had been corrupt cannot be removed from her; as also is it impossible that the fact of having sinned or having lost charity thereby can be removed from the sinner.”

Summa Theologica Question 25 Article 6 http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.FP_Q25_A4.html
Summa Theologica (1265–1274), Unplaced by chapter

Haruki Murakami photo
Theodore Kaczynski photo
Bill Clinton photo

“History has shown us, that you can't allow the mass extermination of people, and just sit by and watch it happen.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

On the Bosnian war Time Magazine http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,981548-1,00.html
2000s

Britney Spears photo

“Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that, you know, and, um, be faithful in what happens.”

Britney Spears (1981) American singer, dancer and actress

CNN interview with Tucker Carlson (3 September 2003); later used in Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) by Michael Moore.
CNN interview with Tucker Carlson http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/03/cnna.spears/ (3 September 2003)

John Banville photo

“I'm a little surprised that commercial success has arrived. I used to think that it was hopeless, that it would never happen.”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

Once More Admired Than Bought, A Writer Finally Basks in Success (1990)

Sam Harris photo
Cesare Pavese photo

“It had to happen to you, to concentrate your whole life on one point, and then discover that you can do anything except live at that point.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Winston S. Churchill photo
Martina Hingis photo

“They always have big mouths. They always talk a lot. It's happened before, so it's gonna happen again. I don't really worry about that.”

Martina Hingis (1980) Swiss tennis player

About Serena and Venus Williams, U.S. OPEN; Serena Williams Wins Match, Then Takes a Shot at Hingis http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9400E4D8153AF930A3575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

Philip Plait photo

“What I have discovered in 20 years of studying the universe, from here to there to everywhere, is that the universe is complicated, and when things happen, it is almost never like ‘A happened and therefore B’. No, A happened and therefore B, C, D and E, but then there is this thing F, and that had a 10% effect, and that prompted G to go back and tip over A, and it is always like this – everything is interconnected. And so a lot of these far-right fundamentalist religion people, and a lot of these people who are anti-global warming, anti-evolution, anti-science, what they do is they take advantage of the fact that things are complicated, and their lives are based on things being simple – if we do this, then this will happen – if we invade Iraq, we will be treated as liberators, if we pray, then good things will happen, and this stuff is wrong. But we have a culture where people are brought up to believe in simplicity, and if A then B. And so when you point out that scientists say the earth is warming, but we had a really devastating winter this year, then these people will say “oh, obviously global warming is wrong.””

Philip Plait (1964) astronomer, skeptic

No, global warming can cause worse winters locally. It’s complicated. But people don’t want to hear “it’s complicated”, and boy, the conspiracy theorists and anti-scientists take full advantage of that.
Skepticality http://www.skepticality.com/index.php ep. 52 http://www.skepticality.com/notes/sn_Ep52.php (15 May 2007) 23:11 - 24:46
Interviews

Birju Maharaj photo

“[man leans into doorway of WTC bathroom]
"Hey, you gotta finish up in there. 9/11 is happening."
"Alright. Just a sec."”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/457675646970634240]
Tweets by year, 2014

Merrick Garland photo

“They tell you in Washington, that if you want a friend get a dog. Harry Truman said that. That is not true. Get a family. This is a hard place to be. No matter how much honor you have, people will attack you one way or the other. And the principle solace that you get is from your family. Because they’re behind you no matter what happens. So never forget about that. Whatever interests you have in your career, you have to balance it with a deep relationship with your family.”

Merrick Garland (1952) American judge

[Merrick Garland, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U1a8pYMJDM, March 18, 2016, Life Lessons Learned, DC Circuit Court Judge Panel, JRCLS International Law Conference, February 15, 2013, Georgetown University Law Center]; also excerpted quote in:
[March 18, 2016, The Quotable Merrick Garland: A Collection of Writings and Remarks, http://www.nationallawjournal.com/home/id=1202752327128/The-Quotable-Merrick-Garland-A-Collection-of-Writings-and-Remarks, Zoe Tillman, The National Law Journal, March 16, 2016, 0162-7325]
DC Circuit Court Judge Panel, JRCLS International Law Conference (2013)