Quotes about happening
page 52

“John Cage and I became interested in the use of chance in the 50's. I think one of the very primary things that happened then was the publication of the "I Ching," the Chinese book of changes, from which you can cast your fortune: the hexagrams.”

Merce Cunningham (1919–2009) American dancer

Merce Cunningham, A Lifetime of Dance, 2000

Books, Thinking, Change, Chance

“One of our most important tasks will be to save future generations from a similar political fate and to maintain for ever watchful in them a knowledge of the menace of Jewry. For this reason alone it is vital that the Passion play be continued at Oberammergau; for never has the menace of Jewry been so convincingly portrayed as in this presentation of what happened in the times of the Romans. There one sees in Pontius Pilate a Roman racially and intellectually so superior, that he stands like a firm, clean rock in the middle of the whole muck and mire of Jewry.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

on the Passion Play at Oberammergau, 5 July 1942.
Disputed, (1941-1944) (published 1953)

Fate, Knowledge, Passion, Time

“I don't want to offend people right out of the gate. I know that some of you believe and I certainly don’t want to mock the myths that define some of you, but um. I choose not to believe in god. That's ok still, i can do that, right? It's my choice to go through life filled with dread, panic and fear... because I think that's a more objective and real way to live. Just be like…"Aaaaahh' what's gonna happen?!" I think that's needed, honestly. And again I don't want to make fun of what you believe in. I think the reason Jesus is so popular, just on a celebrity level, is that he died at the peak of his career, ok. He was…hear me out…. he was young, he was hot. He was well spoken from all accounts. I really think it would have been different had he lived longer, alright. Say had he gotten old enough to get bitter. Alright, just hear me out. Picture there's a third testament to the bible' alright. This point Jesus is in his 50's. He's got one apostle left. And the book opens with him knee deep in water saying, "I used to be able to do this!" The apostle's saying, "Come on…don't yell at the water, Jesus. Come on in. It's not your day, buddy. Come on. People are gathering for the wrong reason. Can we just go, please. Let's go to the deli…we'll have a sandwich. We'll try again tomorrow. Come on, yes you are god, come on. And again, you know, if you're a religious person, I understand why you believe. It makes you feel better, you know. But a lot of us do not have the patience or disposition to have faith or belief. Thank god there's medication for those people because if you're properly medicated, it will provide roughly the same effect as religion, you know. If you're on the right combination of anti-depressants, it will alleviate your ability to see the truth clearly and provide a false sense of hope.”

Marc Maron (1963) Comedian

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/zt2b7c/comedy-central-presents-faith-medication
Comedy Central Presents (2007)

Life, God, People, Truth

“[T]here is always the possibility of change. If it happened in South Africa, why can't it happen anywhere?”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

As quoted in "Archbishop urges battle with racism" http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2002-02-18/news/0202180155_1_racism-archbishop-desmond-tutu-st-sabina (18 February 2002), by Sabrina L. Miller, Chicago Tribune, Illinois

Change

“Azerbaijan has exhausted the resources of trust in terms of autonomous status for minorities within its boundaries. It was not and is not capable of providing guarantees of even internal security to such autonomies. There was once another Armenian autonomy in Azerbaijan: Nakhijevan. What happened to it? Not a single Armenian is left in Nakhijevan.”

Serzh Sargsyan (1954) Armenian politician, 3rd President of Armenia

Speech by President Serzh Sargsyan in the Chatham House British Royal Institute of International Affairs http://www.president.am/events/news/eng/?search=Chatham+House&id=898 (February 10, 2010)

“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.”

Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) Novelist, screenwriter

"Red Wind" (short story, 1938), published in Trouble Is My Business (1939)

Feeling, Mountain, Beer, Study

“I suppose Abraham Lincoln knew that was what would happen. He was very wise in the ways of men. He knew how people think and feel. Doubtless he knew that deeper than anything else in the hearts of men everywhere is the wish for simple freedom- freedom without any promises even of protection, of food, of security- just freedom. He knew that those people, so long bond, would leave even comfortable sheltered places where masters were kind, if they could only be free.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Source: What America Means to Me (1943), p. 194

Men, People, Food, Way

“Yet those who govern us as if were infants expect us to be grateful that at least we live in 'a family'; a family, moreover, patterned on the ideal by the example of the Windsors. A beaming gran, a dutiful mum, a stern and disciplined father, and children who are … well, all analogies based upon family break down somewhere. The analogy between family and society, as it happens, breaks down as soon as it is applied. The 'United Kingdom' is not a family and never was one. (Not even Orwell, with his image of poor relations, rich relations and 'the wrong members in control', could make it stick.) It is is a painfully evolved society, at once highly stratified and uniform and very fluid and diverse, which is the site of a multitude of competing interests.”

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

1990s, The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish

Children, Family

“Our strategy is also shaped by a deeper understanding of al-Qa’ida’s goals, strategy, and tactics. I’m not talking about al-Qa’ida’s grandiose vision of global domination through a violent Islamic caliphate. That vision is absurd, and we are not going to organize our counterterrorism policies against a feckless delusion that is never going to happen. We are not going to elevate these thugs and their murderous aspirations into something larger than they are.”

John O. Brennan (1955) 7th Director of the Central Intelligence Agency

[Remarks of John O. Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, on Ensuring al-Qa'ida's Demise -- As Prepared for Delivery, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/06/29/remarks-john-o-brennan-assistant-president-homeland-security-and-counter, whitehouse.gov, 2015-10-07]

Understanding

“[It is a] killing field of the like of which I thought we would never see in Europe again [and is] not worthy of Europe, not worthy of the west and not worthy of the United States… This is happening in the heart of Europe and we have not done more to stop it. It is in Europe's sphere of influence. It should be in Europe's sphere of conscience… We are little more than an accomplice to massacre.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

After UK Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd claimed lifting the arms embargo to Bosnians would create a "level killing field", as reported in 'Thatcher says massacre brings shame on west' by Philip Webster and Robert Morgan in The Times (14 April 1993)
Post-Prime Ministerial

Heart

“Just because something didn't happen doesn't mean it isn't true.”

Tom Robbins (1932) American writer

Appears in the book The Syntax of Sorcery (2012).

“I started reading about people of great accomplishment … and it dawned on me suddenly that the person who has the most to do with what happens in your life is you.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

As quoted in "World-Renowned Pediatric Neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin Carson Attributes His Success to Confidence Gained Through Reading and Education" http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/world-renowned-pediatric-neurosurgeon-dr-benjamin-carson-attributes-his-success-to-confidence-gained-through-reading-and-education-132129383.html, PR Newswire (October 19, 2011)

Life, People, Reading, Personality

“I don’t know. You have to ask them. I’m not a hater, and so sometimes it’s hard for me to understand why somebody hates somebody. It could have been because of my policies, maybe they didn’t like my religion. I don’t know. I’m sure there’s a myriad of reasons. That’s what happens when you’re the president. It can either bother you or not bother you. I chose… I really am. I’m honored to have served. I’m glad I served, and I gave it my all, and that’s all you can do at life. I got back; and this sounds corny to some, I understand, but when I looked in the mirror, I know I didn’t sell my soul for the sake of any short-term politics or popularity. I think that’s important.”

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

Interview with Bill O'Reilly http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/feb/08/bill-oreilly/bill-oreilly-tells-obama-he-also-asked-bush-about-/ (November 2010), Fox News. 2010s, 2010

Life, Hate, Religion, Soul

“I don't think we're politically correct when we're private. I don't know what politically correct means. I'm just watching this thing going down in Baltimore, all the officers charged in the Freddie Gray death and I just think it's wonderful and sad at the time because this has been happening since the beginning of time in America and if it wasn't for cell phones these cops would be getting off.”

Brad Garrett (1960) actor, comedian, voice actor

Interviewed by Nicki Gostin, " 'Everybody Loves Raymond' star Brad Garrett talks costars, religion and politics http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2015/05/05/everybody-loves-raymond-star-brad-garrett-talks-costars-religion-and-politics/," (5 May 2015).

Death, Sadness, Thinking, Time

“Japan lives with drastic segregation between the sublime, the ugly, and the utterly without qualities. Dominance of the last 2 categories makes mere presence of the first stunning: when beauty 'happens', it is absolutely surprising.”

Rem Koolhaas (1944) Dutch architect (b.1944)

From "Learning Japanese", published in S,M,L,XL, New York: The Monacelli Press, 1995

Beauty

“I can’t tell you if the stories are true. Men lie without meaning to. They talk as if they had been part of a thing that happened to someone they never knew and only heard of by sixth remove.”

Leigh Brackett (1915–1978) American novelist and screenwriter

Source: The Ginger Star (1974), Chapter 10 (p. 65)

Men, Lie, Parting

“I think so much depends on what happens in the next six months. If the president is determined to go ahead with this plan, and he appears to be determined, I hope it works—for our country, for Iraq, for our soldiers. I hope that I prove to be as wrong as I’ve ever been in my life.”

Susan Collins (1952) United States Senator from Maine

Answering: "How will his [John McCain's] support for the war affect his presidential chances?" Feb. 5, 2007 ‘I Hope I’m Wrong’, Newsweek, February 5, 2007 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16993944/site/newsweek/,

Life, Hope, Thinking, Appearance

“You think that you exist because you’re unhappy. Other people exist merely as a function of their problems and spend all their time talking compulsively about their children, their wives and husbands, school, work, friends. They never stop to think: I’m here. I am the result of everything that happened and will happen, but I’m here. If I did something wrong, I can put it right or at least ask forgiveness. If I did something right, that leaves me happier and more connected with the now.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Aleph (2011)

Children, People, School, Forgiveness

“A CIA officer's name was blown and there was a leak and we needed to figure out how that happened, who did it, why, whether a crime was committed, whether we could prove it, whether we should prove it. Given national security was at stake, it was especially important that we find out accurate facts.”

Patrick Fitzgerald (1960) American lawyer

CIA probe 'not over' after Cheney's top aide indicted on CNN.com (October 28, 2005) http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/28/leak.probe/index.html

“"Another situation generally exposed to ressentiment danger is the older generation's relation with the younger. 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. Yet this source of ressentiment is also subject to an important historical variation. In the earliest stages of civilization, old age as such is so highly honored and respected for its experience that ressentiment has hardly any chance to develop. But education spreads through printing and other modern media and increasingly replaces the advantage of experience. Younger people displace the old from their positions and professions and push them into the defensive. As the pace of “progress” increases in all fields, and as the changes of fashion tend to affect even the higher domains (such as art and science), the old can no longer keep up with their juniors. “Novelty‟ becomes an ever greater value. This is doubly true when the generation as such is seized by an intense lust for life, and when the generations compete with each other instead of cooperating for the creation of works which outlast them. “Every cathedral,” Werner Sombart writes, “every monastery, every town hall, every castle of the Middle Ages bears testimony to the transcendence of the individual's span of life: its completion spans generations which thought that they lived for ever. Only when the individual cut himself loose from the community which outlasted him, did the duration of his personal life become his standard of happiness.” Therefore buildings are constructed ever more hastily—Sombart cites a number of examples. A corresponding phenomenon is the ever more rapid alternation of political regimes which goes hand in hand with the progression of the democratic movement. But every change of government, every parliamentary change of party domination leaves a remnant of absolute opposition against the values of the new ruling group. This opposition is spent in ressentiment the more the losing group feels unable to return to power. The “retired official” with his followers is a typical ressentiment figure. Even a man like Bismarck did not entirely escape from this danger."”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

Life, People, Youth, Age

“And a lot of these things are happening around us, and somebody is going to get mad at me for saying what I am about to say right now, but I am going to give you my honest opinion: I think we have turned our back on the Scripture and on God Almighty and I think he has allowed judgment to fall upon us. I think that's what's going on.”

James Dobson (1936) Evangelical Christian psychologist, author, and radio broadcaster.

regarding the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting
2012-12-17
Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk
Radio
http://www.drjamesdobson.org/Broadcasts/Broadcast?i=32d0ea7c-eeb2-41fb-9c05-f6e0c733d58a, quoted in * 2012-12-17
Dobson: Connecticut Shooting was God Allowing 'Judgment to Fall Upon Us' for Turning Our Back on Him
Kyle Mantyla
Right Wing Watch
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/dobson-connecticut-shooting-was-god-allowing-judgment-fall-upon-us-turning-our-back-him
2012

God, Thinking, Madness

“The basic thesis of gestalt theory might be formulated thus: there are contexts in which what is happening in the whole cannot be deduced from the characteristics of the separate pieces, but conversely; what happens to a part of the whole is, in clear-cut cases, determined by the laws of the inner structure of its whole.”

Max Wertheimer (1880–1943) Co-founder of Gestalt psychology

Source: Productive thinking, 1945, p. 84

Law, Parting

“I feel like I'm really just getting started. I don't know what's going to happen in the next five or ten years.”

Aaliyah (1979–2001) American singer, actress and model

Said to Honey magazine, as claimed in Aaliyah: More Than a Woman, p. 178.
Attributed

Feeling

“I think the Canadian people have a right to know: Why, when your primary objective was to get unfettered and secure access into the American Market we didn't get it. Why you didn't put clauses in to protect our social programs in this negotiation we'll have on the definition of subsidies where the heavy weight of the American Republic will be put in against us. Why did that not happen? Why also, did we get a situation where we surrendered our Energy policy to the United States, something which they'd been trying to achieve since 1956? Why did we abandon our farmers? Why did we open our Capital Markets so that a Canadian Bank can be bought up and we don't have reciprocal rights into the American Market at all? And why did you remove any ability to control the Canadian ownership of our businesses? These are questions that Canadians deserve to have an answer to, and we have not had an opportunity in six hours to deal with them in a way that would make you come out of your shell!”

John Turner (1929) 17th Prime Minister of Canada

People, Way, Question, Business

“The binding power of custom is its security of expectations. What has happened before may be expected to happen again, and he who arbitrarily disappoints expectations must be restrained or punished.”

John R. Commons (1862–1945) United States institutional economist and labor historian

Source: Legal foundations of capitalism. 1924, p. 301

Disappointment

“It's a bit like being a mad scientist. You mix a bit of this with some of that. You're never sure what's going to happen. But I'd rather blow up the laboratory than keep reinventing the wheel.”

Tod A (1965) American musician

NPR World Cafe (June 18, 2008).

Madness

“She called me "Herm", but I'm going to forgive her. She doesn't know that only my enemies call me "Herm", so I'm going to forgive her this time. But the fact that she called me "flavor of the week", if you look at what has happened — That might be true with some people, but I happen to believe that there's iced milk, and there's Häagen-Dazs black walnut. Substance, that’s the difference. I got some substance here. Okay? I'm Häagen-Dazs black walnut. It lasts longer than a week.”

Herman Cain (1945) American writer, businessman and activist

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
2011-09-30
Television
http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show/video/herman-cain-on-palin-comment-9-30-11/1359495
2011-10-08
referring to Sarah Palin calling him the "flavor of the week" on 2011-09-27, after Cain won a Florida straw poll

People, Forgiveness, Time

“What the Democrats are suggesting, basically, about a withdrawal — you can call it redeployment, whatever you want to call it. Basically, it in effect validates the terrorists' strategy. You've got to remember that the Osama bin Laden-types, the al Qaeda-types, the Zarqawi-types that have been active in Iraq are betting that ultimately they can break the United States' will. There's no way they can defeat us militarily. Their whole strategy, if you look at what bin Laden's been saying for 10 years, is they believe they can, in fact, force us to quit, that ultimately we'll get tired of the fight, that we don't have the stomach for a long, tough battle and that we'll pack it in and go home. If we were to do that it would be devastating from the standpoint of the global war on terror. It would affect what happens in Afghanistan. It would make it difficult for us to persuade the Iranians to give up their aspirations for nuclear weapons. It would threaten the stability of regimes like Musharraf in Pakistan and the Saudis in Saudi Arabia. It is absolutely the worst possible thing we could do at this point. It would be to validate and encourage the terrorists by doing exactly what they want us to do.”

Dick Cheney (1941) American politician and businessman

2000s, 2006

War, Way, Home, Fight

“The Calcutta carnage was followed by the 'Noakhali Riot' in October 1946. There, Hindus including Scheduled Castes were killed and hundreds were converted to Islam. Hindu women were raped and abducted. Members of my community also suffered loss of life and property. Immediately after these happenings, I visited Tipperah and Feni and saw some riot-affected areas. The terrible sufferings of Hindus overwhelmed me with grief, but still I continued the policy of co-operation with the Muslim League.”

Jogendra Nath Mandal (1904–1968) Pakistani politician

Excerpted from the resignation letter of J. N. Mandal, Minister for Law and Labour, Government of Pakistan, October 8, 1950. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Resignation_letter_of_Jogendra_Nath_Mandal https://biblio.wiki/wiki/Resignation_letter_of_Jogendra_Nath_Mandal

Life, Women, Communication, Suffering

“Leslie White spoke of culture as an "organism" with life and death cycles of its own. But the cultural effect, by which we are conditioned, blinds us to a primary process that is our true source of communion and social being. Each of us is born with a "life scheme" that is masked, inhibited, and finally dominated by the process of acculturation. For all intents and purposes, this primary program, which is our birthright, becomes nonexistent through acculturation. Once our primary program is masked into noncognizance, culture emerges as the dominant meta program in our organism. Once this meta program of culture becomes dominant, it shapes our experience into an arbitrary and parallel counterfeit of that which is real. Once this meta program takes over our perceptual apparatus, it is the only mode we have for interacting with reality. Once that happens we can't question our culturally conditioned state, since that is our only reality experience.”

Joseph Chilton Pearce (1926–2016) American writer

Source: Exploring the Crack In the Cosmic Egg (1974), p. 9-10

Life, Death, Question, Reality

“"Someday," I told Jan, "when they demonstrate that the world has four dimensions instead of just three, a man will be able to go for a walk and just disappear. No burial, no tears, no illusions, no heaven or hell. People will be sitting around and they'll say, 'What happened to George?' And somebody will say, 'Well, I don't know. He said he was going out for a pack of cigarettes.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 42

People, World, Hell, Tear

“It's evident that Darwin saw evolution not as progressive or improving, but as an activity that happens moment by moment. From this it is clear that evolution has no plan. It has neither memory nor foresight. No vestige of cosmic strivings from some remote beginning; no prospect of revelatory culmination in some transcendent end.”

Henry Gee (1962) British paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and editor

The Accidental Species: Misunderstandings of Human Evolution, by Henry Gee, p. 12

Memory

“For me it is not dubious that our thinking goes on for the most part without use of signs (words) and beyond that to a considerable degree unconsciously. For how, otherwise, should it happen that sometimes we "wonder" quite spontaneously about some experience? This "wondering" seems to occur when an experience comes into conflict with a world of concepts which is already sufficiently fixed in us. Whenever such a conflict is experienced hard and intensively it reacts back upon our thought world in a decisive way. The development of this thought world is in a certain sense a continuous flight from "wonder."”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1940s, "Autobiographical Notes" (1949)

World, Way, Thinking, Decision

“People are telling you that Tuesday will be the most important election of your lives. That is not true. The most important election of your lives was held on Tuesday, November 7th, 2000. You just didn't know it. Neither did I. What happened on that day led to one man being in the White House these past four years, rather than the other one. Whether he has done enough to keep us safe, even if he should lose on Tuesday, remains to be seen. But the fact remains that George W. Bush was Commander in Chief and President when we needed him the most.”

Bill Whittle (1959) author, director, screenwriter, editor

A FINAL THOUGHT BEFORE THE SHOW https://web.archive.org/web/20041103063054/http://www.ejectejecteject.com:80/archives/000111.html (31 October 2004) 2000s

People, Past, Housing

“The Bush Administration do have moral values. Their moral values are very explicit: shine the boots of the rich and the powerful, kick everybody else in the face, and let your grandchildren pay for it. That simple principle predicts almost everything that's happening.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 2000s, 2005, Interview by Steve Scher on KUOW, 2004

“"I can't believe you recently had a baby. How do you do it?"
[pause]
The baby starts to come down… and once that happens you can't-it comes out. Whether you let it or not, the baby comes out. So that's how I did it.”

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

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

Baby

“As soon as men live entirely in accord with the law of love natural to their hearts and now revealed to them, which excludes all resistance by violence, and therefore hold aloof from all participation in violence — as soon as this happens, not only will hundreds be unable to enslave millions, but not even millions will be able to enslave a single individual.”

Leo Tolstoy A Letter to a Hindu

Source: A Letter to a Hindu (1908), V

Love, Men, Law, Nature

“Geraldine Doogue: I'm intrigued by Anita saying she had to learn about systems. You had to learn about the sociology of systems and structural change, and that was obviously quite a journey for you.Anita Sarkeesian: Yeah, absolutely. I sort of joke about how it was the most liberating thing that ever happened to me, and also the most frustrating for everyone around me. Cause, like, when you start learning about systems, everything is sexist, everything is racist, everything is homophobic, and you have to point it all out to everyone all the time. So there's a good year of my life where I was the most obnoxious person to be around. And then you settle into it, you start to understand, like, oh people have been living within these systems, and it was just sort of a liberating moment for me. You learn how to pick and choose your battles and that sort of thing.”

Anita Sarkeesian (1983) American blogger

"How to Be a Feminist" panel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzcs4ti_bdI?t=32m12s (March 8, 2015), All About Women Festival 2015, Sydney, Australia, @32:12

Life, People, Understanding, Learning

“It didn’t happen that way,” Roger Stone cut in, “so there is no use talking about other possibilities. They probably aren’t really possibilities at all, if only we understood it.”
Pollux: “Predestination.”
Castor: “Very shaky theory.”
Roger grinned. “I’m not a determinist and you can’t get my goat. I believe in free will.”
Pollux: “Another very shaky theory.”
“Make up your minds,” their father told them. “You can’t have it both ways.”
“Why not?” asked Hazel. “Free will is a golden thread running through the frozen matrix of fixed events.”
“Not mathematical,” objected Pollux.
Castor nodded. “Just poetry.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Rolling Stones

“And not very good poetry.”
Source: The Rolling Stones (1952), Chapter 14, “Flat Cats Factorial” (p. 182)

Way, Mathematics

“Now, at this very minute, another thing is happening which we cannot hear because most paintings do not have a sound-track. Peter is inventing the word "simony" to explain ecclesiastical purchase-power, for which, since his Church later exercised it so expertly, Simon Magus ought to be revered as a patron not a rogue.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Flying Out of This World

Exercises, Painting

“I don't care about weight things, but it's more important to me that I'm happy and I feel good. What happens to my body is going to happen and people have to live with that or I'll quit this job.”

Suvi Koponen (1988) Finnish model

As quoted in Missä he ovat nyt? Mallikoulun Suvi - documentary (January 2008)

People, Feeling, Happiness

“I happen to think that the world kind of looks down on Republicans for their social conservative views which include religion in government. I think that that should not play a role in any of this.”

Gary Johnson (1953) American politician, businessman, and 29th Governor of New Mexico

Statement made to representatives of the Pagan Newswire Collective (PNC)
2011-10-16
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/paganswithdisabilities/2011/10/full-transcript-of-qa-with-presidential-candidate-gary-johnson/
2012-02-24
2011

World, Religion, Thinking

“It wasn’t the best choice. I made a mistake. It was not prohibited. It was not in any way disallowed. And as I have said and as now has come out, my predecessors did the same thing and many other people in the government. But here’s the cut to the chase facts. I did not send or receive any emails marked classified at the time. What you are talking about is retroactive classification. And the reason that happens is when somebody asks or when you are asked to make information public, I asked all my emails to be made public. Then all the rest of the government gets to weigh in. … I think that what we have got here is a case of overclassification. …”

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

When asked about the email controversy.
Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Democratic Presidential Debate in Miami (March 9, 2016)

People, Way, Thinking, Time

“We need to understand a couple of things. The original creation was very different. The Bible says that there was not only the earth but that there was water inside the crust of the earth. It was under the top crust of the earth actually. Psalm 24 says, "The earth is the Lord's, he hath founded it upon the seas." That's an interesting verse. The earth was built on top of the water. […] And then the "fountains of the deep" broke open. The water which used to be in the crust went shooting to the surface when the fountains of the deep broke open. […] And God is telling us here in the book of Job, God is talking here in chapter 38, that when the water issued out of the earth, it just burst out of the earth. It goes on and says, "And brake up for it my decreed place, and put bars and doors, and said,… Hitherto shalt thou come but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." I believe the earth broke up at the time of the Flood and we still have the scars all over the planet where this happened. They are called fault lines.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Hovind theory

God, Books, Understanding, Water

“Today we are coming to realise that an epoch in history is over…For more than forty years that Iron Curtain remained in place. Few of us expected to see it lifted in our life-time. Yet with great suddenness the impossible has happened. Communism is broken, utterly broken…We do not see this new Soviet Union as an enemy, but as a country groping its way towards freedom. We no longer have to view the world through a prism of East-West relations. The Cold War is over.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to the Aspen Institute ("Shaping a New Global Community") (5 August 1990) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108174 Third term as Prime Minister

Life, War, World, Way

“My advice to prospective PhD students is to follow your passion and pick a topic that interests you — don't do a PhD topic that you hate, but you think will be lucrative. Because the big picture is that it is the fundamentals learned and problem solving skills gained from your PhD that will open the real career doors. Topics come in and out of fashion — it is the investment in yourself and the person you become through your PhD experience that really matters in the end. Of course, if you happen to love a topic that turns out lucrative then great — but this is hard to predict.”

Derek Abbott (1960) Physicist, engineer

Introductory profile at The University of Adelaide

Love, Hate, Fashion, Problem

“After he saw what happened to Saddam Hussein, he (Gaddafi) did not want to be Saddam Hussein. He gave up his nuclear program.”

Donald Rumsfeld (1932) U.S. Secretary of Defense

Rumsfeld doesn't support sending U.S. troops into Libya http://edition.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/03/08/rumsfeld.interview/index.html March 9, 2011. 2010s

“It seems that neither the Keynesian nor the Marxian prognosis of the future of capitalism is being fulfilled and we are left without any particular theory as to what will happen next.”

Joan Robinson (1903–1983) English economist

Source: Contributions to Modern Economics (1978), Chapter 20, Has Capitalism Changed?, p. 227

Future

“You probably know that this week Britain has been terrorized by an underclass of welfare-dependent, drug-addled criminal scum who have been allowed to run riot in the streets because the police haven't been allowed to do their job and protect the public. The media is full of speculation about why it happened and what is the root cause. Well, that's easy. The root cause is stupidity. A complete lack of imagination. A stunted, feral view of the world that amounts to self-inflicted moral and mental disablement. And it's the direct product of an entitlement culture that rewards idleness, encourages victimhood, and compensates criminals.”

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

"Britain is a riot" (11 August 2011) http://youtube.com/watch?v=9pAC0YSmK0g 2011

Stupidity, World, Imagination, Dependency

“Today, I would like to provide the American people with an update on the White House transition and our policy plans for the first 100 days. Our transition team is working very smoothly, efficiently, and effectively. Truly great and talented men and women, patriots indeed are being brought in and many will soon be a part of our government, helping us to Make America Great Again. My agenda will be based on a simple core principle: putting America First. Whether it's producing steel, building cars, or curing disease, I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here, in our great homeland: America – creating wealth and jobs for American workers. As part of this plan, I've asked my transition team to develop a list of executive actions we can take on day one to restore our laws and bring back our jobs. It's about time. These include the following: On trade, I am going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country. Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores. On energy, I will cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy – including shale energy and clean coal – creating many millions of high-paying jobs. That's what we want, that's what we've been waiting for. On regulation, I will formulate a rule which says that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated, it's so important. On national security, I will ask the Department of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a comprehensive plan to protect America's vital infrastructure from cyber-attacks, and all other form of attacks. On immigration, I will direct the Department of Labor to investigate all abuses of visa programs that undercut the American worker. On ethics reform, as part of our plan to Drain the Swamp, we will impose a five-year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists after they leave the Administration – and a lifetime ban on executive officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government. These are just a few of the steps we will take to reform Washington and rebuild our middle class. I will provide more updates in the coming days, as we work together to Make America Great Again for everyone.”

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

A Message from President-Elect Donald J. Trump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xX_KaStFT8 (21 November 2016) 2010s, 2016, November

Women, Men, People, Disease

“The real plot in fiction parallels life in that it happens within the characters.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Vanna Bonta Talks About Quantum fiction: Author Interview (2007)

Life

“Some have said that what is happening now is the beginning of World War III. Fundamentalists take over countries with population flows across borders. After some time riots occur, as we see now in France. There is talk about 30,000 recruited suicide bombers.”

Carl I. Hagen (1944) Norwegian politician

After the 2005 civil unrest in France, interviewed in Aftenposten (13 November 2005) http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/politikk/article1155154.ece

War, World, Suicide, Time

“[T]he thought is somewhat repugnant to us that we should slowly sink into barbarism, into the sub-human, into blind and whimpering agony, that the last of Man should be a whine. This may well happen, but even by such a prospect we are not seriously dismayed. If it does occur, it will doubtless seem intolerable to our degraded spirits. But today, we are fully possessed of ourselves. (…) [T]o the spirit that has drunk deeply of the grave beauty of the cosmos, even the ultimate horror is acceptable.”

Olaf Stapledon book Last Men in London

Last Men in London (1932)

Beauty

“I like the fact that every stone is different, one from another, in the same way all fingerprints, or snowflakes (or places) are unique, so no two circles can be alike. In the landscape works, the stones are of the place and remain there. With an indoor sculpture there is a different working rationale. The work is usually first made to fit its first venue in terms of scale, but it is not site-specific; the work is autonomous in that it can be re-made in another space and place. When this happens, there is a specific written procedure to follow. The selection of the stones is usually random; also individual stones will be in different places within the work each time. Nevertheless, it is the 'same' work whenever it is re-made.”

Richard Long (1945) artist

Richard Long, ‎British Council (1994). Richard Long: São Paulo Bienal 1994.
1990s

Way, Time

“This is what happens when you get old. You start thinking. Worse, you start telling everybody what you think.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 10, “An Abode of Ravens: Recovery” (p. 397)

Thinking

“The Internet is the best thing that could have happened to China.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

Ai Weiwei. “ The Olympics Are a Propaganda Show http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,531883,00.html.” Spiegel, January 29, 2008. 2000-09, 2008

“Multilateral organizations have responsibilities. For 8 years, the nations in this assembly have worked together to confront the extremist threat. We've witnessed successes and setbacks, and through it all a clear lesson has emerged: The United Nations and other multilateral organizations are needed more urgently than ever. To be successful, we must be focused and resolute and effective. Instead of only passing resolutions decrying terrorist attacks after they occur, we must cooperate more closely to keep terrorist attacks from happening in the first place. Instead of treating all forms of government as equally tolerable, we must actively challenge the conditions of tyranny and despair that allow terror and extremism to thrive. By acting together to meet the fundamental challenge of our time, we can lead toward a world that is more secure and more prosperous and more hopeful.”

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

2000s, 2008, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (September 2008)

World, Hope, Time, Success

“I trust those conversions when they happen on the road to Damascus and not on the road to Des Moines.”

Tom Tancredo (1945) American politician

On Republican candidates' changes in position during the campaign for the 2008 U.S. Presidency, alluding to political bellwether state Iowa
[Liz, Sidoti, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/16/ap/politics/main2812292.shtml, Analysis: Second GOP debate contentious, CBSNews.com, 16 May 2007, 2007-05-16]

“I wish I could do it again, only I wish I could take all of the animals out of the environmental fur farm … I have absolutely no regrets, and I hope the same thing continues to happen at MSU and every other college campus that does animal research.”

Rod Coronado (1966) Native American eco-anarchist and animal rights activist

Activists Uncaged http://www.statenews.com/article.phtml?pk=23918

Hope, Animals

“When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.”

David Hume book An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Section 10 : Of Miracles Pt. 1
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)

Life, Decision, Personality, Dead

“We must overcome difficulty by constant practice. We must learn that nothing can happen to us unless we make ourselves susceptible to it.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Learning

“This [article] doesn't mean that I actually want to be Lara Croft. In writing this I'm not admitting that I occasionally dress up in a tight top and khaki hotpants and prance around pointing two hairdryers at my dog. In this little article I am pointing out why, if you happen to be Lara Croft, that you should be very pleased with yourself.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

Why it would kick arse to be Lara Croft http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/essays/lara.htm Fully Ramblomatic, Essays

Dogs

“But not to be acquainted with what is happening in literary France is to feel disgraced, and in the pecking order of literary criticism a Frenchman can humiliate an Englishman just as readily as an Englishman can humiliate an American, and an American a Canadian. One of Canada's most serious literary needs at present is some lesser nation to domineer over and shame by displays of superior taste.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

Feeling

“In return for the costliness and inconvenience, the squalor and discomfort of our lives, we get to participate in whatever is the latest. We are never left out of anything: we know what's happening, especially since so many of us practice what Paul Valéry called the "delirious professions." As Valéry wrote, "This is the name I give to all those trades whose main tool is one's opinion of oneself, and whose raw material is the opinion others have of you." Although Valéry was writing eighty years ago of Paris, he anticipated the excruciating position of those gay (and straight) New York "creative people" who must be perpetually original in a "population of uniques." The cruel contradiction of such a position is that the creative "live for nothing but to have, and make durable, the illusion of being the only one — for superiority is only a solitude situated at the present limits of a species."”

Edmund White (1940) American novelist and LGBT essayist

The exigencies of the drive to originality can, as Valéry understood, promote a deep uncertainty about one's personal value. If one is a product, is it new enough? Perfect? One of a kind?
New York City (p. 259).
States of Desire: Travels in Gay America (1980)

People, Solitude, Personality, Perfection

“Alas, producers of commercial dinosaur products continue to churn out low quality product that is either obsolete or improperly derivative. Dino documentaries and books have become so plentiful that they are no longer special and I do not try to keep up with them. There are also serious problems with quality and accuracy which often fail to meet the expectations of scientists. More about those problems here. I about kicked in the TV screen when one dino doc claimed that the brain of Tyrannosaurus was as large as that of a gorilla when its IQ was not all that much better than a croc’s. And why are the theropods shown pausing to challenge their prey before they charge, when the actual focus of predators is to hit and overwhelm the victim before it knows what is happening? The low standards are not surprising considering how the media and press frequently carry product that promotes belief in the paranormal. But these are quibbles. Dinosaur science has almost completely transformed over the half century that my neural network has been aware of it. The old stand-bys from Allosaurus to the always strange Stegosaurus are still fascinating, but we now know about armored sauropods, fat-bellied therizinosaurs and multi-winged, near avian, sickle claws. The reptile model is out and the avian-mammalian is dominant.”

Gregory Scott Paul (1954) U.S. researcher, author, paleontologist, and illustrator

Autobiography, part V http://gspauldino.com/part5.html, gspauldino.com

Books, Problem, Science

“Yes, this is Europe. The Europe that did not respond to the Serb shelling of Dubrovnik. Or the three-year siege of Sarajevo. The Europe that let Bosnia die.
A new definition of Europe: the place where tragedies don't take place. Wars, genocides — that happened here once, but no longer. It's something that happens in Africa. (Or places in Europe that are not "really" Europe. That is, the Balkans.) Again, perhaps I exaggerate. But having spent a good part of three years, from 1993 to 1996, in Sarajevo, it does not seem to me like an exaggeration at all.”

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

"Why Are We In Kosovo?" inThe New York Times Magazine http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07E1DA163DF931A35756C0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all (2 May 1999)

War, Parting

“It could never happen in Denmark, Danish people are much more calm than those further south.”

Anders Fogh Rasmussen (1953) former Prime Minister of Denmark and NATO secretary general

Asked about the killing of 4 protestors by the police in Albania during anti-government protests http://blogs.euobserver.com/waterfield/2011/02/07/time-to-get-shot-of-nato/ (7 February 2011)

People

“Vollard, please do not say anything against fashions. Have you ever asked yourself what would happen if there were no fashions? How would women spent their time? What would they have to talk about? Life would become unbearable for us men. Why, if women were to break away from the rules of fashion - fortunately there is no danger - the government would have to step in and take a hand.”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

"Early Encounters" (p. 26)
posthumous quotes, Degas: An Intimate Portrait' (1927)

Life, Women, Men, Fashion

“People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.”

Charles Portis book True Grit

Source: True Grit (1968), Chapter 1, p. 9 : thoughts of 'Mattie Ross'

Life, Money, People, Age

“Disciple: The truth be praised! Dear Lord, tell me, does anything (of this self) still remain in the happy, detached person?
Truth: Without a doubt it happens that, when the good and loyal servant is led into the joy of his Lord, he becomes drunk from the limitless overabundance of God's house. What happens to a drunken man happens to him, though it cannot really be described, that he so forgets his self that he is not at all his self and consequently has got rid of his self completely and lost himself entirely in God, becoming one spirit in all ways with him, just as a small drop of water does which has been dropped into a large amount of wine. Just as the drop of water loses itself, drawing the taste and colour of the wine to and into itself, so it happens that those who are in full possession of blessedness lose all human desires in an inexpressible manner, and they ebb away from themselves and are immersed completely in the divine will. Otherwise, if something of the individual were to remain of which he or she were not completely emptied, scripture could not be true in stating that God shall When the good and loyal servant is led into the joy of his Lord, he becomes drunk from the limitless overabundance of God's house. What happens to a drunken man happens to him, though it cannot really be described, that he so forgets his self that he is not at all his self become all things in all things. Certainly one's being remains, but in a different form, in a different resplendence, and in a different power. This is all the result of total detachment from self.”

Henry Suso (1295–1366) Dominican friar and mystic

The Exemplar, The Little Book of Truth

God, Truth, Way, Water

“See? That's what happens when you keep people from doing what they do best: It makes them insane.”

Rene Balcer (1954) screenwriter, producer and director

Det. Robert Goren in Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
Law & Order: Criminal Intent

People

“Do bad things happen in war? You bet. Do our troops sometimes misbehave? Sure. Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years—and still are? Not even close.”

Robert A. Hall (1946) American politician

I'm Tired (February 19, 2009)

War

“I just want them to know that it happened for a reason.”
“Look, Tyler, some things just happen.” This close, the stillness of the ghost plane was overwhelming.
“But why did they die instead of us?” the boy asked, with an air of patiently reciting a well-rehearsed argument. His gaze was unblinking.
“Because they were exposed to a certain virus, and we weren’t. You can look for reasons, and god knows a few people here have driven themselves half-crazy trying, but Tyler, that’s all there is.”
“What if we were saved for a different reason?”
“Saved?” Clark was remembering why he didn’t talk to Tyler very often.
“Some people were saved. People like us.”
“What do you mean, ‘people like us’?”
“People who were good,” Tyler said.”People who weren’t weak.”

Emily St. John Mandel book Station Eleven

“Look, it’s not a question of having been bad or...the people in there, in the Air Gradia jet, they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Source: Station Eleven (2014), Chapter 44 (pp. 259-260)

God, People, Boy, Question

“We can do better in Washington, D. C. We can have new leadership in Washington, D. C., leadership that will lift this country's spirits and raise our sights. George P. knows what thousands of other youngsters know, that just because the White House has let us down in the past, that doesn't mean it's going to happen in the future. George P. joins us in a campaign that's going to restore honor and dignity to the White House.”

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

Interview http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0009/23/se.02.html with CNN Anchor Kyra Phillips (September 23, 2000) 2000s, 2000

Past, Future, Housing, Country

“The point is professionalization. Academics-in-training worry about whether they are yet, can ever be, or even want to be professional intellectuals of the kind they are changing themselves into. Second or third or fourth year graduate students have not taken binding vows. They may have second thoughts. Nor have they been finally chosen. They might flunk out. Their committee might turn their theses down. Who knows what might happen?”

Howard S. Becker (1928) American sociologist

Source: Writing for Social Scientists (1986), p. 52.

Change, Training

“Around 16 or 17 years old, I started finding out about some of the animal cruelty things, and ethically it just didn't make sense to me to keep eating meat, so eventually I stopped. … I was watching an HBO special about eating habits and different cultures, and they actually showed in China how people eat cats, and I'm really fond of cats, and I just happened to be sitting on the couch with my cat, and once I saw that, it just put everything in perspective. If I wouldn't eat my cat what's the difference between eating a cat or a cow? If certain animals are considered lesser than, so are certain people and that's not really fair. And the root of that is to consider life on equal terms across the board.”

Ben Kenney (1977) American musician

“ Ben Kenney—Exclusive Interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRVPQc6UmdI,” ad for PETA (10 July 2008).

Life, People, Cats, Sense

“No doubt, hatred and cursing are not the proper attitude. It is true also that to look upon all things and all people with a calm and clear vision, to be uninvolved and impartial in one's judgments is a quite proper yogic attitude. A condition of perfect samata [equanimity] can be established in which one sees all as equal, friends and enemies included, and is not disturbed by what men do or by what happens. The question is whether this is all that is demanded from us. If so, then the general attitude will be of a neutral indifference to everything. But the Gita, which strongly insists on a perfect and absolute samata, goes on to say, 'Fight, destroy the adversary, conquer.' If there is no kind of general action wanted, no loyalty to Truth as against Falsehood except for one's personal sadhana, no will for the Truth to conquer, then the samata of indifference will suffice. But here there is a work to be done, a Truth to be established against which immense forces are arrayed, invisible forces which can use visible things and persons and actions for their instruments. If one is among the disciples, the seekers of this Truth, one has to take sides for the Truth, to stand against the forces that attack it and seek to stifle it. Arjuna wanted not to stand for either side, to refuse any action of hostility even against assailants; Sri Krishna, who insisted so much on samata, strongly rebuked his attitude and insisted equally on his fighting the adversary. 'Have samata,' he said, 'and seeing clearly the Truth, fight.' Therefore to take sides with the Truth and to refuse to concede anything to the Falsehood that attacks, to be unflinchingly loyal and against the hostiles and the attackers, is not inconsistent with equality…. It is a spiritual battle inward and outward; by neutrality and compromise or even passivity one may allow the enemy force to pass and crush down the Truth and its children. If you look at it from this point, you will see that if the inner spiritual equality is right, the active loyalty and firm taking of sides is as right, and the two cannot be incompatible.”

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

September 13, 1936
India's Rebirth

Men, Hostility, Children, People

“I like all styles of climbing for different things. I like the focus and the solitude of solo climbing. … The best jumper is the one who never gets hurt. Find that person and try to be like him/her. … Adventure is when you aren't sure what's going to happen.”

Steph Davis (1973) American rock climber

"10 Questions With Climber and BASE Jumper Steph Davis" https://www.adventure-journal.com/2013/07/10-questions-with-climber-and-base-jumper-steph-davis/, Adventure Journal (July 22, 2013).

Solitude, Hurt, Personality

“I know already that I will return to this day whenever I want to. I can bid it alive. Preserve it. There is a still point where the present, the now, winds around itself, and nothing is tangled. The river is not where it begins or ends, but right in the middle point, anchored by what has happened and what is to arrive. You can close your eyes and there will be a light snow falling in New York, and seconds later you are sunning upon a rock in Zacapa, and seconds later still you are surfing through the Bronx on the strength of your own desire. There is no way to find a word to fit around this feeling. Words resist it. Words give it a pattern it does not own. Words put it in time. They freeze what cannot be stopped. Try to describe the taste of a peach. Try to describe it.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Let the Great World Spin (2009), Book Three: Centavos

Way, Feeling, Light, Time

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

Daniel Dennett book Consciousness Explained

Consciousness Explained (1991)

People, Intelligence, Problem, Time

“In the effort to regain a space of true leisure, to bring about a fundamentally correct attitude and "exercise" of leisure, the real difficulty of this so-often despaired-of project consists in the fact that the ultimate root of leisure lies outside the range of our responsible, voluntary action. The fullest harmony with the world, to be precise, cannot come about on the basis of a voluntary decision. Above all, one cannot simply "make" it happen for some ulterior purpose. There are certain things which one cannot do "in order to …"”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

do something else.
Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), Leisure, the Basis of Culture, p. 58

World, Exercises, Decision, Effort

“True religion, namely a fundamental affirmation of the meaning of life, is something without which no human being can be healthy in personality.. . . What happens to mental health when this meaning which religion gives is absent? In other words, what is the effect of atheism on personality?. . . I have been startled by the fact that practically every genuine atheist with whom I have dealt has exhibited unmistakable neurotic tendencies.”

Rollo May (1909–1994) US psychiatrist

The Ultimate Source of Meaning, Awake! magazine, october 22, 1980.
Others

Life, Health, Religion, Personality

“Nothing happens to anyone that he can't endure. (Hays translation)”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.
Οὐδὲν οὐδενὶ συμβαίνει ὃ οὐχὶ ἐκεῖνο πέφυκε φέρειν.
V, 18
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book V

“At any moment there is certainly not balanced trade between the various areas of the habitable globe that happens to be under separate national governments — there is an ever-changing pattern of deficits and surpluses.”

Joan Robinson (1903–1983) English economist

Source: Contributions to Modern Economics (1978), Chapter 19, The Need For A Reconsideration, p. 218

Change

“The worst that can happen under monarchy is rule by a single imbecile, but democracy often means the rule by an assembly of three or four hundred imbeciles.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

The Historical Illuminatus as spoken by M. Gabriel Sartines

Democracy

“There are certain irregularities which are not the subject of criminal law. But when the criminal law happens to be auxiliary to the law of morality, I do not feel any inclination to explain it away.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

Young and others v. The King (1789), 3 T. R. 102.

Law, Feeling

“Fiction has to be plausible. All history has to do is happen.”

Harry Turtledove (1949) American novelist, short story author, essayist, historian

Interview at the World Science Fiction Convention (25 June 1998) http://www.chicon.org/gohs/turtldov.htm

History

“When discussing the possibility of a complete military takeover in the country after reading the book Seven Days in May, President Kennedy said, "… if there were a third Bay of Pigs, it could happen." He paused and then said "But it won't happen on my watch."”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Related in The Pleasure of His Company, Paul Fay, Jr., New York: Harper & Row, 1966, p. 190. http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx Attributed

Books, Reading, Country

“I did not love her, I did not even know her. And for all that, I was touched and conquered. I wanted to save her, to sacrifice myself for her, to commit a thousand follies! Strange thing! How does it happen that the presence of a woman overwhelms us so? Is it the power of her grace which enfolds us? Is it the seduction of her beauty and youth, which intoxicates one like wine?
Is it not rather the touch of Love, of Love the Mysterious, who seeks constantly to unite two beings, who tries his strength the instant he has put a man and a woman face to face?”

Guy De Maupassant book The Wreck

The Wreck

Love, Youth, Beauty, Wine

“I've always felt that my relationship to the United States is analogous to a marriage. I love this country. I hate it. I get angry at it. I feel close to it. I'm charmed by it. I'm repelled by it. And it's a marriage that's gone on for let's say at least 50 years of my writing life, and in the course of that, what's happened? It's gotten worse. It's not what it used to be.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

Interview for French TV (1998)

Love, Life, Hate, Marriage

“This is not comparing these people to the people in Germany, but this is exactly what happened to the lead-up with Hitler. Hitler opened up the door and said, "Hey, companies, I can help you." They all ran through the door. And then in the end, they all saw, "Uh-oh. I'm in bed with the devil." They started to take their foot out, and Hitler said, "Absolutely not. Sorry, gang. This is good for the country. We've gotta do these things."”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

And it was too late.
Money for Breakfast
Television
Fox Business Channel
Fox Business Channel
2009-04-21
Beck says he's not "comparing" banks who took bailouts to "people of Germany," while comparing TARP to "exactly what happened to the lead-up with Hitler
Media Matters for America
2009-04-21
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200904210004
about the Troubled Asset Relief Program
2000s, 2009

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