Quotes about happening
page 47

Catharine A. MacKinnon photo

“the major distinction between intercourse (normal) and rape (abnormal) is that the normal happens so often that one cannot get anyone to see anything wrong with it.”

Catharine A. MacKinnon (1946) American feminist and legal activist

Sexuality, Pornography, and Method: "Pleasure under Patriarchy" (1989) Ethics, Vol. 99, No. 2 pp. 314-346

Aldous Huxley photo
Christopher Hitchens photo

“Our common speech contains numberless verbs with which to describe the infliction of violence or cruelty or brutality on others. It only really contains one common verb that describes the effect of violence or cruelty or brutality on those who, rather than suffering from it, inflict it. That verb is the verb to brutalize. A slaveholder visits servitude on his slaves, lashes them, degrades them, exploits them, and maltreats them. In the process, he himself becomes brutalized. This is a simple distinction to understand and an easy one to observe. In the recent past, idle usage has threatened to erode it. Last week was an especially bad one for those who think the difference worth preserving…Col. Muammar Qaddafi's conduct [killing his protesters] is far worse than merely brutal—it is homicidal and sadistic…and even if a headline can't convey all that, it can at least try to capture some of it. Observe, then, what happens when the term is misapplied. The error first robs the language of a useful expression and then ends up by gravely understating the revolting reality it seeks to describe…Far from being brutalized by four decades of domination by a theatrical madman, the Libyan people appear fairly determined not to sink to his level and to be done with him and his horrible kin. They also seem, at the time of writing, to want this achievement to represent their own unaided effort. Admirable as this is, it doesn't excuse us from responsibility. The wealth that Qaddafi is squandering is the by-product of decades of collusion with foreign contractors. The weapons that he is employing against civilians were not made in Libya; they were sold to him by sophisticated nations.”

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

2010s, 2011

Murray Leinster photo
Lionel Richie photo

“What is happening here?
Something is going on
That's not quite clear.
Somebody turn on the light,
We're gonna have a party.
It's starting tonight.

Oh, what a feeling!
When we're dancing on the ceiling.”

Lionel Richie (1949) American singer-songwriter, musician, record producer and actor

Dancing on the Ceiling, co-written with Mike Frenchik and Carlos Rios.
Song lyrics, Dancing on the Ceiling (1986)

Nguyen Khanh photo
Roger Manganelli photo
Ben Gibbard photo
Chris Cornell photo
Daniel Tosh photo
Robert Silverberg photo
Kathleen Hanna photo
David Spade photo
Charles Stross photo

““But then—you’re telling me they brought unrestricted communications with them?” he asked.
“Yup.” Rachel looked up from her console. “We’ve been trying for years to tell your leaders, in the nicest possible way: information wants to be free. But they wouldn’t listen. For forty years we tried. Then along comes the Festival, which treats censorship as a malfunction and routes communications around it. The Festival won’t take no for an answer because it doesn’t have an opinion on anything; it just is.”
“But information isn’t free. It can’t be. I mean, some things — if anyone could read anything they wanted, they might read things that would tend to deprave and corrupt them, wouldn’t they? People might give exactly the same consideration to blasphemous pornography that they pay to the Bible! They could plot against the state, or each other, without the police being able to listen in and stop them!”
Martin sighed. “You’re still hooked on the state thing, aren’t you?” he said. “Can you take it from me, there are other ways of organizing your civilization?”
“Well—” Vassily blinked at him in mild confusion. “Are you telling me you let information circulate freely where you come from?”
“It’s not a matter of permitting it,” Rachel pointed out. “We had to admit that we couldn’t prevent it. Trying to prevent it was worse than the disease itself.”
“But, but lunatics could brew up biological weapons in their kitchens, destroy cities! Anarchists would acquire the power to overthrow the state, and nobody would be able to tell who they were or where they belonged anymore. The most foul nonsense would be spread, and nobody could stop it—” Vassily paused. “You don’t believe me,” he said plaintively.
“Oh, we believe you alright,” Martin said grimly. “It’s just—look, change isn’t always bad. Sometimes freedom of speech provides a release valve for social tensions that would lead to revolution. And at other times, well—what you’re protesting about boils down to a dislike for anything that disturbs the status quo. You see your government as a security blanket, a warm fluffy cover that’ll protect everybody from anything bad all the time. There’s a lot of that kind of thinking in the New Republic; the idea that people who aren’t kept firmly in their place will automatically behave badly. But where I come from, most people have enough common sense to avoid things that’d harm them; and those that don’t, need to be taught. Censorship just drives problems underground.”
“But, terrorists!”
“Yes,” Rachel interrupted, “terrorists. There are always people who think they’re doing the right thing by inflicting misery on their enemies, kid. And you’re perfectly right about brewing up biological weapons and spreading rumors. But—” She shrugged. “We can live with a low background rate of that sort of thing more easily than we can live with total surveillance and total censorship of everyone, all the time.” She looked grim. “If you think a lunatic planting a nuclear weapon in a city is bad, you’ve never seen what happens when a planet pushed the idea of ubiquitous surveillance and censorship to the limit. There are places where—” She shuddered.”

Source: Singularity Sky (2003), Chapter 14, “The Telephone Repairman” (pp. 296-297)

Jesse Helms photo

“Compromise, hell! That's what happened to us all down the line -- and that's the very cause of our woes. If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?”

Jesse Helms (1921–2008) American politician

(1959), as quoted in The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/weekinreview/ideas-trends-the-quotations-of-chairman-helms-race-god-aids-and-more.html.
1950s

Muhammad bin Tughluq photo

“All sultans were keen on making slaves, but Muhammad Tughlaq became notorious for enslaving people. He appears to have outstripped even Alauddin Khalji and his reputation in this regard spread far and wide. Shihabuddin Ahmad Abbas writes about him thus:
“The Sultan never ceases to show the greatest zeal in making war upon infidels… Everyday thousands of slaves are sold at a very low price, so great is the number of prisoners”. Muhammad Tughlaq did not only enslave people during campaigns, he was also very fond of purchasing and collecting foreign and Indian slaves. According to Ibn Battuta one of the reasons of estrangement between Muhammad Tughlaq and his father Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq, when Muhammad was still a prince, was his extravagance in purchasing slaves. Even as Sultan, he made extensive conquests. He subjugated the country as far as Dwarsamudra, Malabar, Kampil, Warangal, Lakhnauti, Satgaon, Sonargaon, Nagarkot and Sambhal to give only few prominent place-names. There were sixteen major rebellions in his reign which were ruthlessly suppressed. In all these conquests and rebellions, slaves were taken with great gusto. For example, in the year 1342 Halajun rose in rebellion in Lahore. He was aided by the Khokhar chief Kulchand. They were defeated. “About three hundred women of the rebels were taken captive, and sent to the fort of Gwalior where they were seen by Ibn Battutah.” Such was their influx that Ibn Battutah writes: “At (one) time there arrived in Delhi some female infidel captives, ten of whom the Vazir sent to me. I gave one of them to the man who had brought them to me, but he was not satisfied. My companion took three young girls, and I do not know what happened to the rest.” Iltutmish, Muhammad Tughlaq and Firoz Tughlaq sent gifts of slaves to Khalifas outside India….. Ibn Battutah’s eye-witness account of the Sultan’s gifting captured slave girls to nobles or arranging their marriages with Muslims on a large scale on the occasion of the two Ids, corroborates the statement of Abbas. Ibn Battutah writes that during the celebrations in connection with the two Ids in the court of Muhammad bin Tughlaq, daughters of Hindu Rajas and those of commoners, captured during the course of the year were distributed among nobles, officers and important foreign slaves. “On the fourth day men slaves are married and on the fifth slave-girls. On the sixth day men and women slaves are married off.” This was all in accordance with the Islamic law. According to it, slaves cannot many on their own without the consent of their proprietors. The marriage of an infidel couple is not dissolved by their jointly embracing the faith. In the present case the slaves were probably already converted and their marriages performed with the initiative and permission the Sultan himself were valid. Thousands of non-Muslim women were captured by the Muslims in the yearly campaigns of Firoz Tughlaq, and under him the id celebrations were held on lines similar to those of his predecessor. In short, under the Tughlaqs the inflow of women captives never ceased.”

Muhammad bin Tughluq (1290–1351) Turkic Sultan of Delhi

Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 5 (quoting Masalik-ul-Absar, E.D., III, 580., Battutah)

Kent Hovind photo
Albert Camus photo
Neil Gaiman photo
James Howard Kunstler photo
Arthur C. Clarke photo
Michelle Phillips photo
Frank Wilczek photo
Muhammad photo
Alastair Reynolds photo
Paula Modersohn-Becker photo
Tony Blair photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Steve Jobs photo

“The HD revolution is over, it happened. HD won. Everybody wants HD.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

Apple Special Event Keynote (1 September 2010)
2010s

Orson Pratt photo
Gordon Brown photo

“I take full responsibility for what happened. That's why the person who was responsible went immediately.”

Gordon Brown (1951) British Labour Party politician

On the Damian McBride email scandal reported by The Daily Telegraph
" Brown 'sorry' over e-mail slurs http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8002085.stm", BBC News, 16 April 2009
Prime Minister

Lauren Duca photo
Werner Herzog photo
Norodom Sihanouk photo
Hakeem Olajuwon photo
Kimberly Elise photo
Jay Samit photo

“Disruption isn't about what happens to you, it's about how you respond to what happens to you.”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Source: Disrupt You! (2015), p. 27

Miley Cyrus photo
Peter Akinola photo

“The victimisation or diminishment of human beings whose affections happen to be ordered towards people of the same sex is anathema to us.”

Peter Akinola (1944) Anglican Primate of the Church of Nigeria

Statement of the Primates of the Anglican Communion at Dromantine, February 2005
Associated quotations

Wolfram von Eschenbach photo

“All that was ever told of Arthur, the man of the merry month of May, happened at Whitsun or at blossom-time in Spring.”

Artûs der meienbære man,
swaz man ie von dem gesprach,
zeinen pfinxten daz geschach,
odr in des meien bluomenzît.
Bk. 6, st. 281, line 16; p. 147.
Parzival

Tom Clancy photo
Craig Ferguson photo

“[The Secretariat horse character reveals his true identity, and it happens to be Bob Newhart. ]
Craig: Bob Newhart! What are you doing here?
Bob Newhart: Hey, Craig; it's your dream!”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

During the final episode, the ending of the classic sitcom Newhart was spoofed here; Craig, in his role as Nigel Wick from The Drew Carey Show, wakes up next to Drew and discovers his entire stint as host of the Late Late Show was all a bad dream.
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014)

“The scientistic sociologist wishes people to feel that he is just as empirical and thoroughgoing as the natural scientist, and that his conclusions are based just as relentlessly on observed data. The desire to present this kind of façade accounts, one may suspect, for the many examples and the extensive use of statistical tables found in the works of some of them. It has been said of certain novelists that they create settings having such a wealth of realistic detail that the reader assumes that the plot which is to follow will be equally realistic, when this may be far from the case. What happens is that the novelist disarms the reader with the realism of his setting in order that he may “get away with murder” in his plot. The persuasiveness of the scene is thus counted on to spill over into the action of the story. In like manner, when a treatise on social science is filled with this kind of data, the realism of the latter can influence our acceptance of the thesis, which may, on scrutiny, rest on very dubious constructs, such as definitions of units. Along with this there is sometimes a great display of scientific preciseness in formulations. But my reading suggests that some of these writers are often very precise about matters which are not very important and rather imprecise about matters which are. Most likely this is an offsetting process. If there are subjects one cannot afford to be precise about because they are too little understood or because one’s views of them are too contrary to traditional beliefs about society, one may be able to maintain an appearance of scientific correctness by taking great pains in the expressing of matters of little consequence. These will afford scope for a display of scholarly meticulousness and of one’s command of the scientific terminology.”

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

“Concealed Rhetoric in Scientistic Sociology,” pp. 148-149.
Language is Sermonic (1970)

Viswanathan Anand photo

“What happens to you at the board begins to feel like it's happening to you in person.”

Viswanathan Anand (1969) Indian chess player

Game of thrones with world chess champion Viswanathan Anand

Donald J. Trump photo
Michael Moore photo

“No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing — NOTHING — to do with this!”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

[Vacation is Over... an open letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush, MichaelMoore.com, 2 September 2005, http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikes-letter/vacation-is-over-an-open-letter-from-michael-moore-to-george-w-bush]
2005

Joel Spolsky photo

“If something seems possible, that's probably because someone is already doing it. When something seems that it can't possibly work, nobody tries it. Real innovation happens when someone tries anyway, overlooking an obvious flaw, and finds a way to make an idea work.”

Joel Spolsky (1965) American blogger

"How Hard Could It Be? Inspired Misfires, Personal Development Article" http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080201/how-hard-could-it-be-inspired-misfires_pagen_2.html

Cass Elliot photo
Donald J. Trump photo
David Attenborough photo
Barbara Kingsolver photo
Hermann Rauschning photo
David Draiman photo
Roger Ebert photo
John Gay photo

“Death is meaningless unless it happens to someone you know.”

Bradley Denton (1958) American science fiction author

Source: Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede (1991), p. 107

Donald Barthelme photo
Megyn Kelly photo

“Hold on. I realize — can, just, just — I realize something's happening in Ferguson, but we're talking about something important here, so can you at least split-screen the video? I realize — look, the protesters and the police are clashing again, alright? They’re clashing again. But we're talking about the dead— the death of an American”

Megyn Kelly (1970) American reporter

of an American who was beheaded, and Pete deserves his say.
After footage of Ferguson, Missouri police chasing protesters over the shooting of Michael Brown was aired while contributor Pete Hegseth spoke to her about ISIS beheading journalist James Foley.
2014-08-19
The Kelly File
Fox News, quoted in * 2014-08-21
Megyn Kelly Scolds Producers for Interrupting ISIS Discussion with Ferguson Video
Andrew Kirell
Media Matters for America
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/megyn-kelly-scolds-producers-for-interrupting-isis-discussion-with-ferguson-video/
2014-08-27

Daniel Levitin photo
Hans Freudenthal photo
Nina Shatskaya photo
M. K. Hobson photo

““I’m sorry Mr. Stanton, really I am. I didn’t mean to miss it. Things… happened.”
“Oh, well. Things happened. How nice to have that cleared up.””

M. K. Hobson (1969) American writer

Source: The Hidden Goddess (2011), Chapter 5, “Dreadnought” (p. 65)

William Ellery Channing photo
Michael Foot photo
Morarji Desai photo
Antonio Negri photo
Neal Stephenson photo
Farah Pahlavi photo
Claire Danes photo
George Hendrik Breitner photo

“.. but also for the person who is visiting Paris later in his life for the very first time, something unusual will happen.... then there appears for the man of age a light - a light in which he sees the dreamy images of his life transforming into more tangible and more solid forms. Because that city has created our modern culture, and the movements of life in most countries are just a reflex of those which are starting in France's capital.”

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) Dutch painter and photographer

translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (citaat van Breitner's brief, in het Nederlands:) Maar ook voor hem die Parijs op latere leeftijd voor het eerst betreedt, gebeurt er iets ongewoons in zijn leven.. ..er gaat voor de mensch van leeftijd een licht op, een licht waarin hij de droomgestalten van zijn leven tot meer tastbare vastere vormen ziet verwezenlijkt. Want die stad heeft onze moderne cultuur geschapen en de bewegingen van het leven in de meeste landen een reflex van die, welke in Frankrijks hoofdstad een aanvang nemen.
Quote of Breitner, after 1884 (when he visited Paris); as cited by Frans Erens, in Vervlogen jaren; De Arbeiderspers, Zwolle 1958, p. 98
undated quotes

Suzanne Collins photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Sri Aurobindo photo

“Live within; be not shaken by outward happenings.”

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

Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Jnana

Liam Hemsworth photo

“The thought definitely crosses my mind, but for me, it has always been about reading great scripts and finding things I relate to, and this was one of those. As an actor, I think you always want your work to do well, and I think that’s hopefully what’s going to happen. Hopefully this movie does turn out as great as everyone wants it to be, and hopefully we don’t disappoint anyone.”

Liam Hemsworth (1990) Australian actor

On risks of becoming famous after The Hunger Games. — November 1, 2012, Q&A: Liam Hemsworth on The Hunger Games and Losing Weight for His Role, Krista Smith, November 8, 2011, Vanity Fair, Conde Nast http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/11/Liam-Hunger-Games-Post,

Chris Cornell photo
Willa Cather photo
Cyrano de Bergerac photo
Robert Todd Carroll photo
Miles Davis photo
S. H. Raza photo
Ellsworth Kelly photo

“I'm interested in the mass and color, the black and the white, the edges happen because the forms get as quiet as they can be.”

Ellsworth Kelly (1923–2015) American painter, sculptor, and printmaker

Early 1960s : "Ellsworth Kelly, a Retrospective", ed. Diane Waldman, Guggenheim Museum, New York 1997, p. 11
1950 - 1968

Raymond Loewy photo

“This book is the story of a young man who came to America to make a living, and simply happened to do so in a profession which he helped to create.”

Raymond Loewy (1893–1986) industrial designer

Introduction
Never Leave Well Enough Alone (1951)

George Carlin photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“And I have to give the FBI credit, that was so bad, what happened, originally, and it took guts for Director Comey to make the move that he made, in light of the kind of opposition he had, with their trying to protect her from criminal prosecution, you know that. It took a lot of guts, I really disagreed with him, I was not his fan, but I'll tell you what, what he did, he brought back his reputation, he brought it back. He's got to hang tough, because there's a lot of, lotta people, want him to do the wrong thing, what he did was the right thing.”

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

At a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan http://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/10/31/donald-trump-james-comey-has-guts-grand-rapids-sot.cnn shortly after Comey announced the FBI would investigate further emails relating to Hillary Clinton, but before his statement that no incriminating information was found within them (31 October 2016)
2010s, 2016, October

George Jean Nathan photo

“One does not go to the theater to see life and nature; one goes to see the particular way in which life and nature happen to look to a cultivated, imaginative and entertaining man who happens, in turn, to be a playwright.”

George Jean Nathan (1882–1958) American drama critic and magazine editor

[Lumley, Frederick, New Trends in 20th Century Drama: A Survey Since Ibsen and Shaw, Barrie and Jenkins, 1972, London, 12, 978-0-19-519680-1]

Michelle Obama photo

“…the biggest, most dramatic change happens incrementally, little by little, through compromises and adjustments over years and decades.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2010s, Commencement speech for Oberlin College Prep graduates (2015)

James MacDonald photo

“It doesn’t matter what has happened, better things are coming. God’s plan produces hope in me.”

James MacDonald (1960) American pastor

Source: Always True (Moody, 2011), p. 89