Quotes about happening
page 49

“Among life’s cruelest truths is this one: Wonderful things are especially wonderful the first time they happen, but their wonderfulness wanes with repetition. Just compare the first and last time your child said "Mama" or your partner said "I love you" and you’ll know exactly what I mean. When we have an experience hearing a particular sonata, making love with a particular person, watching the sunset from a particular window of a particular room—on successive occasions, we quickly begin to adapt to it, and the experience yields less pleasure each time. Psychologists call this habituation, economists call it declining marginal utility, and the rest of us call it marriage. But human beings have discovered two devices that allow them to combat this tendency: variety and time.”

Daniel T. Gilbert book Stumbling on Happiness

Source: Stumbling on Happiness, 2006, p. 30

Love, Life, Marriage, Pleasure

“A lot of people seem to believe in a big-daddy-God or a big-cop-God or a big-king-God. They believe in a kind of superperson. A few believe God is another word for nature. And nature turns out to mean just about anything they happen not to understand or feel in control of.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 2 (p. 15)

God, People, Feeling, Understanding

“Love at first sight is not rare, in fact it is extremely common, it happens to some people a few times a year. The feeling of “what if” when meeting the eyes of a stranger can be love unrecognized.”

Craig Ferguson book Between the Bridge and the River

Between the Bridge and the River (2006)

Love, People, Feeling, Time

“Poisoning rarely happens in a well-managed kitchen.”

C. J. Cherryh book Pretender

Pretender (2005)

“[Crack] used to be called freebase when white rich people did it. Then it got sold in batches, and white rich people were still doing it, and it was still called freebase. And then all of a sudden this guy named Ricky Freeway Ross started making it and he happened to be black, and— everything is political— and, then it turned into "crack."”

Courtney Love (1964) American punk singer-songwriter, musician, actress, and artist

Explaining the racist politics of the history of cocaine; The Howard Stern Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXZ7Wwv1og0 (2005) 1996–2005

People, Guy

“What happened in 1828 is also a very curious fact. 1828 was a crucial moment in the history of the tariff, because the national debt was just being paid off, and so the income from the tariff would produce a surplus in the treasury. And at that time, there was a great fear that a surplus in the federal treasury might be used to buy the freedom of slaves.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), Rebuttal

Fear, History, Freedom, Time

“In retrospect, our triumphs could as easily have happened to someone else; but our defeats are uniquely our own.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

““It happened that Mahmud had long been planning an expedition into Bhardana, and Gujarat, to destroy the idol temple of Somnat, a place of great sanctity to all Hindus. So as soon as he had returned to Ghazni from his Khurasan business, he issued a farman to the General of the army, ordering him to leave a confidential officer in charge of the fort of Kabuliz, and himself to join the court with his son Salar Mas‘ud…
“It is related in the Tarikh-i Mahmudi that the Sultan shortly after reached Ghazni, and laid down the image of Somnat at the threshold of the Mosque of Ghazni, so that the Musulmans might tread upon the breast of the idol on their way to and from their devotions. As soon as the unbelievers heard of this, they sent an embassy to Khwaja Hasan Maimandi, stating that the idol was of stone and useless to the Musulmans, and offered to give twice its weight in gold as a ransom, if it might be returned to them. Khwaja Hasan Maimandi represented to the Sultan that the unbelievers had offered twice the weight of the idol in gold, and had agreed to be subject to him. He added, that the best policy would be to take the gold and restore the image, thereby attaching die people to his Government. The Sultan yielded to the advice of the Khwaja, and the unbelievers paid the gold into the treasury.
“One day, when the Sultan was seated on his throne, the ambassadors of the unbelievers came, and humbly petitioned thus: ‘Oh, Lord of the world! we have paid the gold to your Government in ransom, but have not yet received our purchase, the idol Somnat.’ The Sultan was wroth at their words, and, falling into reflection, broke up the assembly and retired, with his dear Salar Mas‘ud, into his private apartments. He then asked his opinion as to whether the image ought to be restored, or not? Salar Mas‘ud, who was perfect in goodness, said quickly, ‘In the day of the resurrection, when the Almighty shall call for Ãzar, the idol-destroyer, and Mahmud, the idol-seller, Sire! what will you say?’ This speech deeply affected the Sultan, he was full of grief, and answered, ‘I have given my word; it will be a breach of promise.’ Salar Mas‘ud begged him to make over the idol to him, and tell the unbelievers to get it from him. The Sultan agreed; and Salar Mas‘ud took it to his house, and, breaking off its nose and ears, ground them to powder.
“When Khwaja Hasan introduced the unbelievers, and asked the Sultan to give orders to restore the image to them, his majesty replied that Salar Mas‘ud had carried it off to his house, and that he might send them to get it from him. Khwaja Hasan, bowing his head, repeated these words in Arabic, ‘No easy matter is it to recover anything which has fallen into the hands of a lion.’ He then told the unbelievers that the idol was with Salar Mas‘ud, and that they were at liberty to go and fetch it. So they went to Mas‘ud’s door and demanded their god.
“That prince commanded Malik Nekbakht to treat them courteously, and make them be seated; then to mix the dust of the nose and ears of the idol with sandal and the lime eaten with betel-nut, and present it to them. The unbelievers were delighted, and smeared themselves with sandal, and ate the betel-leaf. After a while they asked for the idol, when Salar Mas‘ud said he had given it to them. They inquired, with astonishment, what he meant by saying that they had received the idol? And Malik Nekbakht explained that it was mixed with the sandal and betel-lime. Some began to vomit, while others went weeping and lamenting to Khwaja Hasan Maimandi and told him what had occurred…”
“Afterwards the image of Somnat was divided into four parts, as is described in the Tawarikh-i-Mahmudi. Mahmud’s first exploit is said to have been conquering the Hindu rebels, destroying the forts and the idol temples of the Rai Ajipal (Jaipal), and subduing the country of India. His second, the expedition into Harradawa and Guzerat, the carrying off the idol of Somnat, and dividing it into four pieces, one of which he is reported to have placed on the threshold of the Imperial Palace, while he sent two others to Mecca and Medina respectively. Both these exploits were performed at the suggestion, and by the advice, of the General and Salar Mas‘ud; but India was conquered by the efforts of Salar Mas‘ud alone, and the idol of Somnat was broken in pieces by his sold advice, as has been related. Salar Sahu was Sultan of the army and General of the forces in Iran…”

Ghazi Saiyyad Salar Masud (1014) semi-legendary Muslim figure from India

Somnath (Gujarat), Mir‘at-i-Mas‘udi Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own historians, Vol. II. p. 524-547

God, People, World, Way

“Since ev’ry man who lives is born to die,
And none can boast sincere felicity,
With equal mind, what happens, let us bear,
Nor joy nor grieve too much for things beyond our care.
Like pilgrims, to th' appointed place we tend;
The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.”

John Dryden book Fables, Ancient and Modern

Palamon and Arcite.
Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700)

Death, World, Joy, Sincerity

“The majority of men … never turn their attention from the outside world to examine themselves. … They go through life drawn hither and thither by outside happenings, with scarcely any originality, or without any more control of their direction than have the leaves which are whirled about by the autumn wind.”

Jules Payot (1859–1940) French educationist

Source: The Education of the Will (1920), pp. 146-147

Life, Men, World, Autumn

“As you see [filmmaking] makes me into a clown. And that happens to everyone — just look at Orson Welles or look at even people like Truffaut. They have become clowns.”

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

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980)

People

“My beloved brothers and sisters. On the globe, several incidents have occurred that make it necessary for us to speak about them, and guide the Muslims in their regard… It's important for us to know that as Muslims, we don't understand what part of Islam these people [terrorists] are following. In fact, we don't even understand what Islam they are following, because Islam is a totally different religion from what these people are practicing… As frustrated as we might be because of what might be happening on Muslim lands, it does not give us the right to go out and hurt people who are not at all involved… If you have a problem with someone, you may report them to the authorities. And then it will handled by the courts. You will either get justice at the courts or sometimes maybe the courts may find someone that you believe is guilty, innocent. In that case, you leave it for the day of judgment, when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will be judge. But you do not take it into your own hands, to say now because the court has found this person innocent, and according to me the person is guilty, "Let me harm them, let me kill them, let me hurt them, let me rob from them". That is absolutely incorrect and it is un-Islamic… Two wrongs do not make a right, remember this… If someone has murdered someone else, Subhan Allah, it does not give us the right to murder a third party altogether. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us, and may Allah grant us guidance and ease. It's important we understand this. The world is bleeding today, and people are blaming the Muslims! Because from amongst us, some are being brainwashed. Brainwashed by what? They do not understand verses of the Quran. They don't understand the Asbab al-Nuzul, or reasons of the revelation of the verses of the Quran. They don't understand how to extract rules and regulations from verses of the Quran. They read something, someone shows them something and next thing they are prepared to give up their lives. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala grant us an understanding. We should be giving up our lives striving to earn the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala through obedience, through Salah. Look at Muhammad sallā llāhu 'alay-hi wa-sallam when he went to Ta'if, look at his example. They beat him up personally, physically, he was bleeding and the angels came to him to say "If you want, we can crush these people between the mountains". What did he say? He said "I am sent as a mercy. We don't want that to happen. If they don't accept, perhaps their children will accept."”

Ismail ibn Musa Menk (1975) Muslim cleric and Grand Mufti of Zimbabwe.

Patience, Sabr... And we think that the non-Muslims are our enemies – the minute we think that, automatically we will not be able to call them towards Islam. And they will get the wrong image of Islam. My brothers and sisters, Islam, it means peace, it stands for peace, it promotes peace, it teaches peace, and everything that you will achieve is peace. In this world peace, in the next peace, in your grave peace, with your children peace, in your environment peace. That is Islam. Anything that destroys that in any way is not Islam. Remember this. "Islam Condemns Terrorism - Powerful Reminder - Mufti Ismail Menk" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6O2anxz7CM, YouTube (2015) Lectures

Children, People, Pleasure, World

“I don't have the facts to back this up, but I happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama Administration. Don't blame Wall Street. Don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself!”

Herman Cain (1945) American writer, businessman and activist

Herman Cain: I’m More Than the ‘Anti-Romney’
2011-10-05
Wall Street Journal
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/10/05/herman-cain-im-more-than-the-anti-romney/
2011-10-07
Regarding the 2011 Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.

“The briefing was over, there were lots of questions that Teller handled with aplomb, knowing far more about the subject than most in the audience. Finally there came a question that had nothing to do with whether or not his bomb was feasible. Instead, it was whether it would destroy the world by causing uncontrollable thermonuclear reactions in the earth’s atmosphere that would cause it to burn up, plus you and me and everyone else. Teller was on his game, as he always was, and replied that he had estimated this terrible possibility and we were quite safe — by about a factor of ten. Now there aren’t too many people who rest comfortably with assurances that mankind’s fate, let alone their own, is on the safe side by a factor of ten, although there are millions of smokers, including myself, drug addicts, sex addicts, who take much greater chances than that with their lives, and they know it. Except that they know it won’t happen to them, which is why many soldiers, at least as stupid as they’re brave, get Congressional Medals of Honor.”

Samuel T. Cohen (1921–2010) American physicist

F*** You! Mr. President: Confessions of the Father of the Neutron Bomb (2006)

Fate, People, Stupidity, World

“I woke up this morning with a bad hangover and my penis was missing again. This happens all the time; it's detachable.”

John S. Hall (1960) Poet, author, singer, lawyer

Lyrics, Happy Hour (1992)

Time

“The entire world has been upset. The entire world, it's a different place. During Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's term, she's done a horrible job.
She has caused death. She has caused tremendous death with incompetent decisions. I was against the war in Iraq. I wasn't a politician, but I was against the war in Iraq. She voted for the war in Iraq.
Look at Libya. That was her baby. Look. I mean, I'm not even talking about the ambassador and the people with the ambassador. Young, wonderful people. With messages coming in by the hundreds, and she's not even responding. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about all of the death that's been caused and not only our side.
There was nothing saved. If we would have never done anything in the Middle East, we would have a much safer world right now. … All of this has led to the migration. All of this has led to tremendous death and destruction. And she for the most part was in charge of it along with Obama.
She's constantly playing the woman card. It's the only way she may get elected. I mean frankly… Personally, I'm not sure that anybody else other than me is going to beat her. And I think she's a flawed candidate. And you see what's happened recently. And it hasn't been a very pretty picture for her or for Bill. Because I'm the only one that's willing to talk about his problems. I mean, what he did and what he has gone through I think is frankly terrible, especially if she wants to play the woman card.
I have more respect for women by far than Hillary Clinton has. And I will do more for women than Hillary Clinton will. I will do far more including the protection of our country. She caused a lot of the problems that we have right now.”

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

CBS interview with John Dickerson (taped 1 January 2016) for Face the Nation — as quoted in "Trump: Clinton has ruined the world" http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/trump-hillary-clinton-donald-217294 by Nick Gass, Politico (3 January 2016) 2010s, 2016, January

Death, Women, War, People

“For this, he realized, was the future. It was a place without a single feature of the space-time matrix that he knew. It was a place where nothing yet had happened—an utter emptiness. There was neither light nor dark; there was nothing here but emptiness. There had never been anything in this place, nor was anything ever intended to occupy this place—until this very moment when he and his machine had been thrust upon it, intruders who had overstepped their time.”

Clifford D. Simak book Time is the Simplest Thing

Source: Time is the Simplest Thing (1961), Chapter 33 (pp. 174-175)

Light, Time, Future

“Backlash happens to be the title of a 1947 Hollywood movie in which a man frames his wife for a murder he's committed. The backlash against women's rights works in much the same way: its rhetoric charges feminists with all the crimes it perpetrates. The backlash line blames the women's movement for the “feminization of poverty” ñwhile the backlash's own instigators in Washington pushed through the budget cuts that helped impoverish millions of women, fought pay equity proposals, and undermined equal opportunity laws. The backlash line claims the women's movement cares nothing for children's rightsñwhile its own represetatives in the capital and state legislatures have blocked one bill after another to improve child care, slashed billions of dollars in federal aid for children, and relaxed state licensing standards for day care centers. The backlash line accuses the women's movement of creating a generation of unhappy single and childless womenñbut its purveyors in the media are the ones guilty of making single and childless women feel like circus freaks.”

Susan Faludi book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women

Page 17.
Backlash (1992)

Women, Children, Law, Way

“I appreciated the sense of drama he wanted to inject into my existence and I was flattered that he thought I, or at least some essential if somewhat abstract principle within me, was worth saving.I also felt surging within me a fierce need to be independent. Of course I responded to the appeal of divine hydraulics, this system of souls damned or crowned or destroyed or held in suspense, these pulleys and platforms sinking and lifting on the great stage, and I recognized that my view of things seemed by contrast impoverished, lacking in degree and incident. But the charming intricacy of a myth is not sufficient to compel belief. I found no good reason to assume that the ultimate nature of reality happened to resemble the backstage of an opera house.”

Edmund White book A Boy's Own Story

Source: A Boy's Own Story (1982), Chapter Six (p. 203).

Soul, Nature, Reality, Sense

“The song is about knowing the end result of every situation you're in, and being able to play it out in your mind and see it before it happens. It's about addiction, really, about knowing how it's all going to end up. In that sense, you're watching a movie of yourself all the time – and then you want out of that movie.”

Rufus Wainwright (1973) American-Canadian singer-songwriter and composer

About Movies of Myself, [July 28, 2011, http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=376772359546, Want One Bio, December 1, 2009]

Sense, Time

“History is never surprising—after it happens.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Logic of Empire

Logic of Empire (p. 333)
Short fiction, The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

History

“It is not that things happen to each of us according to his fate, but that he interprets what has happened, if he has power to do so, according to his sense of his own destiny.”

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

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Fate, Sense

“Apparently, something happens on the sun. It sends out a burst of gases. The reservoirs above our earth shake like a bowl of jelly. The radiation droozles out at the ends and makes the auroral displays at the North and South Poles.”

James Van Allen (1914–2006) American nuclear physicist

On the aurora, Reach Into Space http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,892531,00.html, Time, 1959-05-04.

Sun

“I want you to connect these dots and see if you see what I see. Picture this. The Circle has been devouring all competitors for years, correct? It only makes the company stronger. Already 90 percent of the world's searches go through the Circle. Without competitors, this will increase. Soon it'll be nearly 100 percent. Now, you and I both know that if you can control the flow of information, you can control everything. You can control most of what anyone sees and knows. If you want to bury some piece of information, permanently, that's two seconds' work. If you want to ruin anyone, that's five minutes' work. How can anyone rise up against the Circle if they control all the information and access to it? They want everyone to have a Circle account, and they're well on their way to making it illegal not to. What happens then? What happens when they control all searches, and have full access to all data about every person? When they know every move everyone makes? When all monetary transactions, all health and DNA information, every piece of one's life, good or bad, when every word uttered flows through one channel?”

Dave Eggers book The Circle

Kalden/Ty, to Mae; pp. 487-488
The Circle (2013)

Life, Health, World, Way

“The House of Lords have only been tolerated all these years because they were thought to be in a comatose condition which preceded dissolution. They have got to dissolution now. That this body, utterly unrepresentative, utterly unreformed, should come forward and claim the right to make and unmake Governments, should lay one greedy paw on the prerogatives of the sovereign and another upon the established and most fundamental privileges of the House of Commons is a spectacle which a year ago no one would have believed could happen; which fifty years ago no Peer would have dared suggest; and which two hundred years ago would not have been discussed in the amiable though active manner of a political campaign, but would have been settled by charges of cavalry and the steady advance of iron-clad pikemen.”

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

The People's Rights [1909] (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970), p. 46
Early career years (1898–1929)

Housing

“Who knows what I want to do? Who knows what anyone wants to do? How can you be sure about something like that? Isn't it all a question of brain chemistry, signals going back and forth, electrical energy in the cortex? How do you know whether something is really what you want to do or just some kind of nerve impulse in the brain? Some minor little activity takes place somewhere in this unimportant place in one of the brain hemispheres and suddenly I want to go to Montana or I don't want to go to Montana. How do I know I really want to go and it isn't just some neurons firing or something? Maybe it's just an accidental flash in the medulla and suddenly there I am in Montana and I find out I really didn't want to go there in the first place. I can't control what happens in my brain, so how can I be sure what I want to do ten seconds from now, much less Montana next summer? It's all this activity in the brain and you don't know what's you as a person and what's some neuron that just happens to fire or just happens to misfire.”

Don DeLillo book White Noise

White Noise (1984)

Question, Summer, Personality

“I was in a slightly befuddled state by this time and the potent combination of watery beer and whiskey was bringing on a severe attack of drawing, as always happens when I start seeing unusual faces through a haze of controlled drinking. My body becomes a protective casing and lets me observe through the two keyholes on the front of my head.”

Ralph Steadman book The Joke's Over

The Kentucky Derby, p. 14
The Joke's Over (2006)

Drink, Beer, Time, Drawing

“How can we address concerns about 'use of force', how can we address concerns about officer-involved shootings if we do not have a reliable grasp on the demographics and circumstances of those incidents? We simply must improve the way we collect and analyze data to see the true nature of what’s happening in all of our communities.”

James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

Way, Communication, Nature

“What is happening to human resources in Punjab. 7 out of 10 youth have the problem of drugs.”

Rahul Gandhi (1970) Indian politician

Quoted from Rediff News 7 out of 10 youths in Punjab have drug problem: Rahul http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-seven-out-of-10-youths-in-punjab-have-drug-problem-rahul/20121011.htm

Youth, Problem

“If you happen into company where the talk runs into party, obscemty, scandal, folly, or vice of any kind, you had better pass for morose or unsocial, among people whose good opinion is not worth having, than shock your own conscience by joining in conversation which you must disapprove of.”

James Burgh (1714–1775) British politician

The Dignity of Human Nature (1754)

People

“But I do nothing that I don't like, such as "inventing" up to the arty or "down" to the corny. I happen to relish a certain type of corn. What I think is the really dangerous approach is the "let's be artistic" attitude. I know that artistry just happens.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

op. cit., pp. 6-7.

Thinking

“When 9-11 happened, Pat Tillman quit the NFL. He gave up his million-dollar career, and humbled himself as a U. S. Army [sic] Soldier. And not just a Soldier, but as a U. S. Army Infantryman, a Ranger. Who can ever forget that picture of Tillman, an Army Private, marching in his graduation carrying his platoon guidon, that look of purpose, discipline, Americanism.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, Folks, you’re missing the point about the NFL protests (19 October 2017)

Forgetting

“[The Taoist priest] said to Chia Jui, "This mirror was made by the Goddess of Disillusionment and is designed to cure diseases resulting from impure thoughts and self-destructive habits. It is intended for youths such as you. But do not look into the right side. Use only the reverse side of the mirror. I shall be back for it in three days and congratulate you on your recovery." He went away, refusing to accept any money.
Chia Jui took the mirror and looked into the reverse side as the Taoist had directed. He threw it down in horror, for he saw a gruesome skeleton staring at him through its hollow eyes. He cursed the Taoist for playing such a crude joke upon him. Then he thought he would see what was on the right side. When he did so, he saw Phoenix standing there and beckoning to him. Chia Jui felt himself wafted into a mirror world, wherein he fulfilled his desire. He woke up from his trance and found the mirror lying wrong side up, revealing the horrible skeleton. He felt exhausted from the experience that the more deceptive side of the mirror gave him, but it was so delicious that he could not resist the temptation of looking into the right side again. Again he saw Phoenix beckoning to him and again he yielded to the temptation. This happened three or four times. When he was about to leave the mirror on his last visit, he was seized by two men and put in chains.
"Just a moment, officers," Chia Jui pleaded. "Let me take my mirror with me."”

Wang Chi-chen (1899–2001)

These were his last words.
Source: Dream of the Red Chamber (1958), pp. 89–90

Men, Money, Youth, World

“I don’t want there to be a catastrophe, I hope there never is another one, there probably will be, but it is really terrible that we need, we seem to rely on very bad things happening in order to come together. We’ve got to do better than that.”

Russ Feingold (1953) Wisconsin politician; three-term U.S. Senator

[Rivera, Adrian, An Interview with Democratic Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, http://thepolitic.org/an-interview-with-democratic-wisconsin-senator-russ-feingold/, 20 August 2018, The Politic, January 10, 2018]
2018

Hope

“Within the next ten years Rossum's Universal Robots will produce so much wheat, so much cloth, so much everything that things will no longer have any value. Everyone will be able to take as much as he needs. There'll be no more poverty. Yes, people will be out of work, but by then there'll be no work left to be done. Everything will be done by living machines. People will do only what they enjoy. They will live only to perfect themselves… But before that some awful things may happen, Miss Glory. That just can't be avoided. But then the subjugation of man by man and the slavery of man to matter will cease. Never again will anyone pay for his bread with hatred and his life. There'll be no more laborers, no more secretaries. No one will have to mine coal or slave over someone else's machines. No longer will man need to destroy his soul doing work that he hates.”

Karel Čapek R.U.R.

R.U.R. (1920)

Life, Hate, People, Soul

“Where there are large powers with little ambition (which will happen sometimes, though seldom) nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes; for she has given the machinery without the vis motrix.”

Henry Taylor (1800–1886) English playwright and poet

Source: The Statesman (1836), Ch. 19. p. 132

Nature

“Why ‘threep’? Why ‘clank’? Slang happens.”

John Scalzi book Lock In

Source: Lock In (2014), Chapter 2 (p. 28)

“Nerds do not think they are better than you. Nerds are better than you, in their particular fields, unless you happen to be an even more devoted nerd.”

Laura Penny (1975) Canadian journalist

Source: More Money than Brains (2010), Chapter One, Don't Need No Edjumacation, p. 12

Thinking

“I had troubles of my own, and even the most heartening of philosophical vistas is no match for, say, a toothache, if it happens to be your own.”

Roger Zelazny (1937–1995) American speculative fiction writer

Home is the Hangman (1975)

“The more you covet something, the more certain it is that you’ll lose it, and the more devastating the loss will be when it happens—which it will.”

Geoff Dyer (1958) English writer

Source: Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It (1993), p. 216

Loss

“Did Iraq invade Kuwait because of a lack of information? If a hideous war should ensue between Iraq and the U. S., will it happen because of a lack of information? If children die of starvation in Ethiopia, does it occur because of a lack of information? …If you and your spouse are unhappy together, and end your marriage in divorce, will it happen because of a lack of information? If your children misbehave and bring shame to your family, does it happen because of a lack of information? If someone in your family has a mental breakdown, will it happen because of a lack of information?”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985)

Marriage, War, Children, Family

“It’s going too far! My God, look what has already happened. The scientists make fantastic new discoveries which are immediately taken over by a group, almost a breed of men, who always know what’s best for the rest of us. Science learns how to split the atom, and they immediately know that the best thing to do with that new knowledge is to blow up Hiroshima!”

Jack Finney book Time and Again

Source: Time and Again (1970), Chapter 22 (p. 389)

Men, God, Knowledge, Learning

“Nothing is so beautiful as the first few minutes alone with someone who might love one and someone whom one might love. There is nothing so quiet as those minutes, nothing so saturated with sweet expectancy. It is for the sake of those few minutes that one loves, not the many that follow. Never again, they knew, would anything so beautiful happen to them. They would be more joyous perhaps; more ardent too, and immeasurably content with their own bodies, and each other's. But never again would it be so beautiful.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 190

Love, Beauty

“Not, not mine: it's somebody else's wound.
I could never have borne it. So take the thing
that happened, hide it, stick it in the ground.
Whisk the lamps away…
Night.”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

No, it is not I, it is else who is suffering.
I could not have borne it. And this thing, which has happened
Let them cover it with black cloths,
And take away the lanterns...
Night.
Translated by D. M. Thomas
Requiem; 1935-1940 (1963; 1987), Prologue

Night

“Today, near the end of my days, I want to say that I harbor no rancor against anybody, that I love my fatherland above all and that I take political responsibility for everything that was done which had no other goal than making Chile greater and avoiding its disintegration.… I assume full political responsibility for what happened.”

Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006) Former dictator of the republic of Chile

Birthday announcement (25 November 2006); " Pinochet Takes 'Political Responsibility' for Actions of Chilean Dictatorship http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/25/AR2006112500834.html" (26 November 2006) Washington Post 2000s

Love

“Graphic novelist: Excuse me…you’ve got a copy of the “Protocols of Zion” there! …Why?
Student 2: It reveals the jews’ plan to rule us!
Student 3: Yeah!
Student 4: There’s a jew' in every major government postof the western world, see?
Student 5: Jews are behind all the bad things that are happening today!
Student 2: Yeah, their plan is clearly laid out in the “Protocols,” see?
Graphic novelist: Wait a minute!…what if it has been proven that the book is a fake?
It is the invention of a forger working for the old Russian secret service in 1898 to defame Jews
The protocols never existed never!”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), p.123

Secret, Books, World, Waiting

“Since the 1960s, particle theory had been split into two groups: those following the atomism of the quark theory and those who had followed the anti-atomism of that had led from the bootstrap program to the string theory. What happened in 1984 was that it was realised that string theory could combine and satisfy the aspirations of both approaches to fundamental physics. Thus, the community of gauge theorists, driven by the failure of the proton decay experiments to search for new ideas that could unify physics, all of a sudden encountered their old friends, the string theorists, in the middle of what might be called a desert of disappointed expectations.”

Lee Smolin book The Life of the Cosmos

The Life of the Cosmos (1997)

Disappointment, Search, Communication, Idea

“Like I say, the way I write songs is, you know, inspirational. I have to wait for it to happen. And when it happens I get lines, and I just write them down, you know. I'm not sort of a Tin Pan Alley sort of songwriter. I just sort of write down what I get - without censoring or questioning what it is and what it means, you know. Like later on I look at what it means, but not at the time.”

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

"Nights in Copenhagen with Van Morrison" (1985) interview by Al Jones

Way, Question, Time, Waiting

“That, as far as she could tell, was the purpose of the religion she had been brought up in: It made people feel better when really horrible things happened, and it offered a repertoire of ceremonies that were used to add a touch of class to such goings-on as shacking up with someone and throwing dirt on a corpse.”

Neal Stephenson book Reamde

Day 4
Reamde (2011), Part I: Nine Dragons

People, Religion, Feeling

“The break-through moments are unimaginable until they happen.”

Brian Swimme (1950) American cosmologist

Meaningoflife.tv interview, 2013

“So what happens is, I said we've just launched 59 missiles heading to Iraq. [Interviewer interrupts to correct him] Yes, heading toward Syria.”

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

President Trump explaining his decision to launch a missile strike while dining with Chinese President Xi Jinping, "Trump, Xi talked Syria strike over 'beautiful' chocolate cake" http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/12/politics/donald-trump-xi-jingping-syria-chocolate-cake/, 12 April 2017. 2010s, 2017, April

“Freedom of speech is not the property of those who happen to belong to the elites of a country. It is an inalienable right, the birthright of our people. For centuries battles have been fought for it, and now it is being sacrificed to please a totalitarian ideology.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pfEJaI2iS4 (7 February 2011) 2010s

People, Freedom, Country

“My friends are the ones I've had since primary school. They're really cool and such a good bunch of people. They came to every one of my gigs before all of this happened, you know; they were there in the smoky pubs, wherever.”

Leona Lewis (1985) British singer-songwriter

Daily Mail, March 2008

People, School

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

Ellen Goodman (1941) American journalist and writer

Attributed

Idea, Change

“For the Government, it is quite hard for them to find media faces – to find people to head up campaigns – because they are all so weird-looking, aren't they? They all look like Muppets who have been left too close to a radiator. I don't like to mock the afflicted, but how did anyone know that Willie Whitelaw had had a stroke? What genius spotted that? I mean, with most people it's quite a dramatic change, isn't it? But what happened? Someone thought 'Oh, Willie's dribbled an extra pint today. What's going on? We'll run a few tests.”

Linda Smith (1958–2006) comedian

Stand-up

People, Affliction, Change

“…[T]he day that the Japanese captured Nanking. As many as 300,000 civilians were killed.
I would like to understand how such things can happen in a civilized society. It is as though a mantle of evil is periodically draped over the world.”

Virgil John Tangborn (1920–1944)

October 1, 1938

World, Understanding, Evil

“If we can be one of the companies that makes it possible for humans to become a multi-planetary species, that would be the Holy Grail. It sounds a bit crazy but it's going to happen, and only if people build the means to do so. We're making progress toward a greater philosophical goal while building a sound business.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

People, Business

“Whether what you manage is a business, hospital, university department, government agency or even a symphony orchestra or dancing school, we suspect you will find it advisable to try to prepare ahead for what might happen in the future.”

Simon Ramo (1913–2016) Father of the ICBM

Simon Ramo, Ronald Sugar, : A Structured Approach to Shaping the Future of Your Business. (2009), p. 8

School, Business, Universe, Future

“We suffered a tragedy not one of us could have thought would happen in our country. And we picked ourselves up and sorted ourselves out as all good British people do, and I thought, let us stand together for we are British! They were trying to destroy the fundamental freedom that is the birth-right of every British citizen, freedom, justice and democracy.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Finchley Conservatives (20 October 1984) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105769 on the Brighton bombing Second term as Prime Minister

People, Justice, Democracy, Birth

“He told me he was having the time of his life and then fell to the floor unconscious. I didn't take this too personally, although he was not the first person to collapse while talking to me; to tell the truth it has happened quite often.”

Tom Baker (1934) English actor

Life, Truth, Time, Personality

“We were all there when Janco arrived with his masks, and everyone immediately put one on. Then something strange happened. Not only did the mask immediately call for a costume; it also demanded a quite definite, passionate gesture, bordering on madness. Although we could not have imagined it five minutes earlier we were walking around with most bizarre movements, festooned and draped with impossible objects, each one of us trying to outdo the other in inventiveness... What fascinated us all about the masks is that they represent not human characters and passions, but.... passions that are larger than life. The horror of our time [World War 1., a. o. ], the paralyzing background of events, is made visible.”

Hugo Ball (1886–1927) German author, poet and one of the leading Dada artists

Ball's diary entry, 24 May 1916; as quoted in Looking at Dada, eds. Sarah Ganz Blythe & Edward D. Powers - The Museum of Modern Art New York, ISBN: 087070-705-1; p. 4
1916

Life, War, World, Imagination

“One of the few graces of getting old — and God knows there are few graces — is that if you’ve worked hard and kept your nose to the grindstone, something happens: The body gets old but the creative mechanism is refreshed, smoothed and oiled and honed. That is the grace. That is the splendid grace. And I think that is what’s happening to me.”

Maurice Sendak (1928–2012) American illustrator and writer of children's books

As quoted in "Interview: Why Is Maurice Sendak So Incredibly Angry?" by Leonard S. Marcus in Parenting (October 1993); also in Ways of Telling : Conversations on the Art of the Picture Book (2002) by Leonard S. Marcus, p. 181

God, Thinking

“We need an extreme movement because what is happening to animals is so extreme. Some misinformed people claim that animal rights activists are terrorists, but these people are simply ignorant of who the real terrorists are - the companies and industries that torture literally billions of animals each year.”

River Phoenix (1970–1993) American actor, musician, and activist

The Animals Voice Magazine (1989)

People, Animals

“You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job, but it doesn't pay as much. And so that's what's happened to us is that we have put in so much entitlement into our government that we really have spoiled our citizenry and said you don't want the jobs that are available.”

Sharron Angle (1949) Former member of the Nevada Assembly from 1999 to 2007

interview with KRNO, 2010-07-14
Angle: Unemployed are "Spoiled"; It's not my job to fight for Nevadans' jobs
2010-06-18
YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK-YtM52aPE
2010-10-23
on unemployment benefits

Money

“I have often thought, says Sir Roger, it happens very well that Christmas should fall out in the Middle of the Winter”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 269 (8 January 1712).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

Winter, Christmas

“For my second and third pictures I won Academy Awards. Nothing worse could have happened to me.”

Luise Rainer (1910–2014) German-born Austrian and American film actress

Spartacus Schoolnet biography http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USArainer.htm

“Coming to the farm from Worcester, where Coloured people seem to have to beg for whatever they get, he is relieved at how correct and formal relations are between his uncle and the volk. Each morning, his uncle confers with his two men about the day's tasks. He does not give them orders. Instead he proposes the tasks that need to be done, as if dealing cards on a table; his men deal their own cards too. In between, there are pauses, long, reflective silences in which nothing happens.”

J.M. Coetzee (1940) South African writer

Boyhood (1998)

Men, People, Silence

“If nothing happened, then there's nothing to remember," she told herself, trying to sound philosophical. "Of course there's nowhere to start.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Fire and Hemlock

Source: Fire and Hemlock (1985), p. 14.

“Though Richard’s Wikipedia entry had been quiet lately, in the past it had been turbulent with edit wars between mysterious people, known only by their IP addresses, who seemed to want to emphasize aspects of his life that now struck him as, while technically true, completely beside the point. Fortunately this had all happened after Dad had become too infirm to manipulate a mouse, but it didn’t stop younger Forthrasts.”

Neal Stephenson book Reamde

Thanksgiving (prologue)
Reamde (2011), Part I: Nine Dragons

Life, War, People, Past

“What has here happened is that the instinct of cruelty, which has turned inwards, has become self-torture, and all man’s animal instincts have been reinterpreted as guilt towards God. Every Nay man utters to his nature, to his real being, he flings out as a Yea, an affirmation of reality applied to God’s sanctity”

Georg Brandes (1842–1927) Danish literature critic and scholar

Source: An Essay on Aristocratic Radicalism (1889), p. 40

God, Nature, Reality, Animals

“The truth of the matter is — and I'm always a bit reluctant to say this because people think you're a bit unfeeling. The truth of this, on 9/11, people who — myself and others — were so unbelievably focused on what was happening that we were, for many, many hours, I think, spared the agony of loss.”

Peter Jennings (1938–2005) News anchor

Larry King Interview (8 September 2003)

People, Truth, Thinking, Loss

“You messed up with me, birdie. No? You don't know much about history. You don't know much about anything, you know? A great ignorance is what you've got. You are ignorant, Mr. Danger. You are an ignorant. You are a donkey, Mr. Danger … By that I mean, you know, to say it with all its letters, to Mr. George W. Bush. You are a donkey, Mr. Bush. I'm going to tell you something, Mr. Danger. You are a coward, you know? You are a coward. Why don't you go to Iraq and command your army? It's so easy to command an army from afar. If you ever come up with the crazy idea of invading Venezuela, I'll be waiting for you in this savanna, Mr. Danger. Come on here, Mr. Danger. Come on here. Come on here, Mr. Danger. Coward, assassin, genocidal… Genocidal, you are a genocidal. You are an alcoholic, a drunk.. A drunk, Mr. Danger. You are immoral, Mr. Danger… You are the worst ever, Mr. Danger … The worst of this planet, the very worst is called George W. Bush. God save the world from this menace. Because he is an assassin. A sick man, a psychologically ill man, I know it. Personally, he is a coward. But he has a lot of power. He has a lot of power. And look at what's happening in Iraq. Yesterday the world marched against the war… 70%, according to the surveys I've seen, of your own people, Mr. Danger, are against you, against the war. You are a liar, Mr. Danger. You are killing children, Mr. Danger, who aren't responsible for your illnesses, of your complexes. Your soldiers in Iraq are bombing cities. Just yesterday we were watching images of five children who were murdered by you soldiers. They're not the murderers. You are the murderer, coward!”

Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela

Message to George W. Bush, in a nationally televised speech http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2_lJbIyzT64 in March 2006. 2006

God, War, Children, People

“there is bound to be a certain amount of
trouble running any country
if you are president the trouble happens to you
but if you are a tyrant you can arrange things so
that most of the trouble happens to other people”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

archy's newest deal
archy does his part (1935)

People, Country

“There are three main ways of dealing with conflict; domination, compromise and integration. Domination, obviously, is a victory of one side over the other. This is the easiest way of dealing with conflict, the easiest for the moment but not usually successful in the long run, as we can see from what has happened since the War.
The second way of dealing with conflict, that of compromise, we understand well, for it is the way we settle most of our controversies; each side gives up a little in order to have peace, or, to speak more accurately, in order that the activity which has been interrupted by the conflict may go on. Compromise is the basis of trade union tactics.”

Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) American academic

Source: Dynamic administration, 1942, p. 2

War, Peace, Way, Understanding

“I believe that the ancient knowledge that stands behind Hinduism is a truth the world needs: why life? What happens after death? What is karma, what is dharma? How the divine manifests himself or herself, at different times under different names, with different scriptures…. That knowledge which once roamed the world, from Mesopotamia to Greece, only survives today in India.”

François Gautier (1959) French journalist

Quoted from "Why I Love To Hate Outlook" http://www.outlookindia.com/article/why-i-love-to-hate-outlook/292495, Outlook (17 November 2014)

Life, Death, Truth, World

“I sincerely wish that every member of Congress could visit the displaced person's camp in Germany and Austria and see just what is happening to 500,000 human beings through no fault of their own.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Letter to Walter F. George (October 1946); as quoted in Great Jewish Quotations (1996) by Alfred J. Kolatch, p. 463

Personality, Sincerity

“Nothin wounded goes uphill, he said. It just dont happen.”

Cormac McCarthy book No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men (2005)

“Nothing has happened since two or three days.... nothing special, only the Ladies van Loon have visited me this morning, I have shown them a few of my studies, and talked a lot about [Huis] 't Velde and {[w|nl:Vorden|Vorden}}. Now I could tell you further, how little I still feel at home, how a certain nostalgia or quiet sorrow plunges me down, and how an indefinite hurry for an even more uncertain future dominates my whole [being? ]; but why should I bother You by telling You my inner life..”

Johannes Warnardus Bilders (1811–1890) painter from the Northern Netherlands

translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek version in original Dutch (citaat van Johannes Warnardus Bilders' brief, in het Nederlands): Er is sedert de twee of drie dagen.. ..niets bijzonders voorgevallen, alleen de freules van Loon zijn heden morgen bij mij geweest, ik heb paar mijn studies laten zien, en verder veel over 't Velde en Vorden met hen gesproken; nu zou ik UE nog verder kunnen zeggen, hoe weinig ik mij nog te huis gevoel, hoe een zeker heimwee, of stil verdriet mij ter nederdrukt, en, hoe een onbestemd jagen, naar een nog onbestemder toekomst mijn gehele [aanschijn[?] beheerst; maar waar om zou ik UE vermoeijen; door UE mijn innerlijk leven mede te delen.. J.W. Bilders, in his letter [including a pencil-sketch of trees along a water] to Georgina van Dijk van 't Velde, from Castle Voorst in Warnsveld, 22 Oct. 1868; from an excerpt of the letter https://rkd.nl/nl/explore/excerpts/751208 in the RKD-Archive, The Hague In 1868 Bilders traveled to the North of The Netherlands, to make sketches 1860's + 1870's

Life, Feeling, Home, Nostalgia

“What happens to one man may happen to all.”

Publilio Siro Latin writer

Maxim 171
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave

“In the age of pseudo‑events it is less the artificial simplification than the artificial complication of experience that confuses us. Whenever in the public mind a pseudo‑event competes for attention with a spontaneous event in the same field, the pseudo‑event will tend to dominate. What happens on television will overshadow what happens off television.”

Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American historian

Source: The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961), p. 39.

Age

“What happens if that big [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_wall_(politics)#Red_wall red wall] is ever breached? If it is, our state and our country will fundamentally change and we can never, ever let that happen. The Republican Party must remain a bulwark against European democratic socialism which unfortunately the Democratic Party has become. In order top do that we have to grow our party, and we have to grow it among young people and among minorities, we have to become more inclusive, but what I mean by that is we do not abandon our ideas, we need to stand even more firm.”

Glenn Jacobs (1967) American professional wrestler and actor

3:16&#8211;4:13. Glenn Jacobs's victory speech after winning race for Knox County Mayor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC68lyf3-vw (2018)

People, Idea, Change, Country

“Natural science is the attempt to comprehend nature by precise concepts.
According to the concepts by which we comprehend nature not only are observations completed at every instant but also future observations are pre-determined as necessary, or, in so far as the concept-system is not quite adequate therefor, they are predetermined as probable; these concepts determine what is "possible" (accordingly also what is "necessary," or the opposite of which is impossible), and the degree of the possibility (the "probability") of every separate event that is possible according to them, can be mathematically determined, if the event is sufficiently precise.
If what is necessary or probable according to these concepts occurs, then the latter are thereby confirmed and upon this confirmation by experience rests our confidence in them. If, however, something happens which according to them is not expected and which is therefore according to them impossible or improbable, then arises the problem so to complete them, or if necessary, to transform them, that according to the completed or ameliorated concept-system, what is observed ceases to be impossible or improbable. The completion or amelioration of the concept-system forms the "explanation" of the unexpected observation. By this process our comprehension of nature becomes gradually always more complete and assured, but at the same time recedes even farther behind the surface of phenomena.”

Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) German mathematician

Theory of Knowledge
Gesammelte Mathematische Werke (1876)

Confidence, Mathematics, Nature, Problem

““Very evocative. He seems to be confirming what I said last year—that the universe really has no underpinnings, that when a good hypothesis comes along, one that explains the prior events, the underpinnings shape themselves to accommodate and a powerful theory is born.”
“Then there is no ultimate reality?”
“Apparently not. Bad hypotheses, those that don’t fit what happen on our level, are rejected by the universe. Good ones, powerful ones, are incorporated.””

Greg Bear (1951) American writer best known for science fiction

Source: Blood Music (1985), Chapter 45 (p. 239)

Reality, Universe

“In the east the moon was rising, a full moon that lighted the landscape so that he could see every little clump of bushes, every grove of trees. And as he stood there, he realized with a sudden start that the moon was full again, that it was always full, it rose with the setting of the sun and set just before the sun came up, and it was always a great pumpkin of a moon, an eternal harvest moon shining on an eternal autumn world.
The realization that this was so all at once seemed shocking. How was it that he had never noticed this before? Certainly he had been here long enough, had watched the moon often enough to have noticed it. He had been here long enough — and how long had that been, a few weeks, a few months, a year? He found he did not know. He tried to figure back and there was no way to figure back. There were no temporal landmarks. Nothing ever happened to mark one day from the next. Time flowed so smoothly and so uneventfully that it might as well stand still.”

Clifford D. Simak (1904–1988) American writer, journalist

“The Autumn Land” (p. 251)
Short Fiction, Skirmish (1977)

World, Way, Autumn, Tree

“The Big Bang, the formation of stars and planets, the origin and evolution of life on this planet, the advent of human consciousness and the resultant evolution of cultures — this is the story, the one story, that has the potential to unite us, because it happens to be true.”

Ursula Goodenough book The Sacred Depths of Nature

Source: The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998), p. xv

Life, Star

“But we are not just witnessing a relativisation of time according to social contexts or alternatively the return to time reversibility as if reality could become entirely captured in cyclical myths. The transformation is more profound: it is the mixing of tenses to create a forever universe, not self-expanding but self-maintaining, not cyclical but random, not recursive but incursive: timeless time, using technology to escape the contexts of its existence, and to appropriate selectively any value each context could offer to the ever-present. I argue that this is happening now not only because capitalism strives to free itself from all constraints, since this has been the capitalist system’s tendency all along, without being able fully to materialize it. Neither is it sufficient to refer to the cultural and social revolts against clock time, since they have characterized the history of the last century without actually reversing its domination, indeed furthering its logic by including clock time distribution of life in the social contract. Capital’s freedom from time and culture’s escape from the clock are decisively facilitated by new information technologies, and embedded in the structure of the network society.
The transformation of time as surveyed in this chapter does not concern all processes, social groupings, and territories in our societies, although it does affect the entire planet. What I call timeless time is only the emerging, dominant form of social time in the network society, as the space of flows does not negate the existence of places. It is precisely my argument that social domination is exercised through the selective inclusion and exclusion of functions and people in different temporal and spatial frames.”

Manuel Castells (1942) Spanish sociologist (b.1942)

Source: The Rise of the Network Society, 1996, p. 433–434 as quoted in: Wayne Hope (2006) Global Capitalism and the Critique of Real Time http://www.sagepub.com/dicken6/Sociology%20Online%20readings/CH%202%20-%20HOPE.pdf. Sage publications. p. 289

Life, People, Exercises, History

“They are the working class ‘sublated’ – improved upon and replaced. They may be as clueless as to strategy as the workers of the early nineteenth century were, but they are no longer in thrall to the system. They are enormously dissatisfied with it. They are a group whose diverse interests converge on the need to make postcapitalism happen, to force the info-tech revolution to create a new kind of economy, where as much as possible is produced free, for collaborative common use, reversing the tide of inequality. Neoliberalism can offer them only a world of stagnant growth and state-level bankruptcy: austerity until death, but with an upgraded version of the iPhone every few years. And the freedom they cherish is perennially hemmed in by the neoliberal state – from the NSA’s mass surveillance techniques to those of the Chinese internet police. Above their heads, politics in many countries has become infested by a kleptocratic mafia, whose strategy is to deliver growth at the price of suppressing freedom and expanding inequality.”

Paul Mason (journalist) book PostCapitalism: A Guide to our Future

PostCapitalism: A Guide to our Future (2015)

Death, World, Freedom, Country

“The peak of the [Presidential] campaign happened in Albuquerque, where a local reporter said to me, "Dr. Commoner, are you a serious candidate or are you just running on the issues?"”

Barry Commoner (1917–2012) American biologist, college professor and eco-socialist

Quoted in Thomas Vinciguerra, "At 90, an Environmentalist From the ’70s Still Has Hope," http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/science/earth/19conv.html?ei=5124&en=37f1d07ebf1f8512&ex=1339992000&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&pagewanted=print The New York Times (2007-06-19}

“…if you truly wish to carry on the Oberlin legacy of service and social justice, then you need to run to, and not away from, the noise. Today, I want to urge you to actively seek out the most contentious, polarized, gridlocked places you can find. Because so often, throughout our history, those have been the places where progress really happens—the places where minds are changed, lives transformed, where our great American story unfolds.”

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)

Justice, History, Change

“Our ethnicity is part of us, however, it should not isolate or distance us from the community in which we live. People of different cultures cannot not live peacefully together unless they have respect for each other. I accept that seeking further integration is a challenge and it cannot be imposed or done under duress; the feeling has to come from within ourselves. To create an environment for that to happen, we have to develop situations and opportunities that place people in a position to make choices and this is one of them. And unless we begin to see our neighbours as people, as human beings rather than by ethnicity, it is difficult to shed our stereotypes of each other.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Opening address to the Leadership Fiji 2006 program, 9 March 2006.

People, Feeling, Communication, Parting

“You wait and you wait, you try to see things through the eyes of the enemy, and when it eventually happens it is all suddenly different. Many people at home believe their sailors fight for Kings and country, to protect their loved ones, and so they do. But when the guns begin to thunder, and the enemy is right there alongside rising above the smoke like the devil's fury, it is John who calls for Bill, one messmate seeking another, as the bonds of sailormen are stronger than symbols beyond their ship.”

Douglas Reeman (1924–2017) British author

A Tradition of Victory, Cap 11 "So Little Time"

Love, People, Home, Waiting

“I knew it. I knew this would happen to me… They were never going to let me be president.”

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

On election night, as reported in Amy Chozick's book Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling (2018) and quoted in "Hillary Clinton On Election Night: ‘They Were Never Going to Let Me Be President’" https://www.thedailybeast.com/hillary-clinton-they-were-never-going-to-let-me-be-president by Gideon Resnick, The Daily Beast (20 April 2018) Attributed

“From the top of the campanile, or Giotto's bell tower, in Florence, one can look out over the city in all directions, past the stone banking houses where the rich Medici lived, past the art galleries they patronized, past the magnificent cathedral and churches their money helped to build, and on to the Tuscan vineyards where the contadino works the soil as hard and efficiently as he probably ever did. The city below is busy with life. The university halls, the shops, the restaurants are crowded. The sound of Vespas, the "wasps" of the machine age, fills the air, but Florence is not today what it once was, the center in the 15th century of a great civilization, one of the most extraordinary the world has ever known. Why? What produced the Renaissance in Italy, of which Florence was the center? How did it happen that such a small population base could produce, in the short span of a few generations, great historical figures first in commerce and literature, then in architecture, sculpture and painting, and finally in science and music? Why subsequently did Northern Italy decline in importance both commercially and artistically until at the present time it is not particularly distinguished as compared with many other regions of the world? Certainly the people appear to be working as hard and energetically as ever. Was it just luck or a peculiar combination of circumstances? Historians have been fascinated by such questions ever since they began writing history, because the rise and fall of Florence or the whole of Northern Italy is by no means an isolated phenomenon.”

David C. McClelland (1917–1998) American psychological theorist

Source: The Archiving Society, 1961, p. 1; lead paragraph, about the problem

Life, Money, People, Age

“The process of aging can only be fruitful and satisfactory if the important transitions are accompanied by free resignation, by the renunciation of the values proper to the preceding stage of life. Those spiritual and intellectual values which remain untouched by the process of aging, together with the values of the next stage of life, must compensate for what has been lost. Only if this happens can we cheerfully relive the values of our past in memory, without envy for the young to whom they are still accessible. If we cannot compensate, we avoid and flee the “tormenting” recollection of youth, thus blocking our possibilities of understanding younger people. At the same time we tend to negate the specific values of earlier stages. No wonder that youth always has a hard fight to sustain against the ressentiment of the older generation”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1973), pp. 62-63

Life, People, Youth, Age

“Despite our profound differences, Americans on both or all sides of the great cultural struggles of our day must recognize their opponents (or most, or at least many, of their opponents) as reasonable people of goodwill who, doing their best, have arrived at different conclusions about fundamental moral questions — including basic questions of justice and human rights. If that is to happen, political and intellectual leaders, as well as people in the media, are going to have to model treating their adversaries with respect — and not demonizing them.”

Robert P. George (1955) American legal scholar

2017, Interview with Matthew Bunson (2017)

People, Justice, Question

“I am not interested in statistics that tell me things are not as bad as they seem. Things are horrible. I have met people crying about what is happening, but there is no solution yet. Our children are trying to tell us something, and we are not listening. I don't care what the statistics say.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

"Paths to Success: A Forum on African American Men" panel discussion (July 18, 2006), quoted in [Fulbright, Leslie, http://www.nospank.net/n-q19r.htm, Cosby, Others Say Black Men Still in Crisis, San Francisco Chronicle, (July 19, 2006)]

Children, People, Cry

“Maybe knowledge doesn't accrue, maybe it doesn't happen sequentially. Maybe I need to go back and read Hunger of Memory again. Maybe there's a wisdom that I had in those years that I need to learn from now. And maybe there will be a year when I will have the courage to read that book. When I think about it or when I hear other people talk about it, it strikes me as very naked prose, and I'm embarrassed by it. I'm embarrassed by how much I told you. And people say, "Well you didn't tell us you were gay." Or "You didn't tell us you had all these friends or that you were student body president. You never said that."”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

I think to myself, "My God, but what I told you I've never told anybody. And I'll never tell anybody again."
Violating the Boundaries: An Interview with Richard Rodriguez (1999)

Wisdom, Hunger, God, People

“Faith is more basic than language or theology. Faith is the response to something which is calling us from the timeless part of our reality. Faith may be encouraged by what has happened in the past, or what is thought to have happened in the past, but the only proof of it is in the future. Scriptures and creeds may come to seem incredible, but faith will still go dancing on. Even though (because it rejects a doctrine) it is now described as "doubt."”

Sydney Carter (1915–2004) British musician and poet

This, I believe, is the kind of faith that Christ commended.
Obituary in The Independent (17 March 2001)

Faith, Reality, Past, Future