Quotes about hearing
page 17

“It was dark. Something had fallen on top of the cabin light, turning the cabin into a black tunnel. I couldn’t hear anything at all. The roll didn’t stop. It continued to port, and for just a few seconds I was sitting on the ceiling in the dark.”

Abby Sunderland (1993) Camera Assistant, Inspirational Speaker and Sailor

Source: Unsinkable: A Young Woman's Courageous Battle on the High Seas (2011), p. 155

Light

“It's that mysterious thing called hype. I've looked under every rock, and I couldn't find out what it means. Certain people hear a certain melody, and they're attracted to it. I'm in love with that feeling. We're looking for fun and adventure and a bit of redemption and somewhere to live. Everything else is a blind venture into the unknown.”

Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

Definitions and objects

Love, People, Feeling

“Our task as image-bearing, God-loving, Christ-shaped, Spirit-filled Christians, following Christ and shaping our world, is to announce redemption to a world that has discovered its fallenness, to announce healing to a world that has discovered its brokenness, to proclaim love and trust to a world that knows only exploitation, fear and suspicion…The gospel of Jesus points us and indeed urges us to be at the leading edge of the whole culture, articulating in story and music and art and philosophy and education and poetry and politics and theology and even--heaven help us--Biblical studies, a worldview that will mount the historically-rooted Christian challenge to both modernity and postmodernity, leading the way…with joy and humor and gentleness and good judgment and true wisdom. I believe if we face the question, "if not now, then when?" if we are grasped by this vision we may also hear the question, "if not us, then who?"”

N.T. Wright (1948) Anglican bishop

And if the gospel of Jesus is not the key to this task, then what is?
The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is (2000)

Love, Wisdom, God, World

“Tillman was from South Carolina, and as I hear the story he was concerned that the corporations, Republican corporations, were favorable toward blacks and he felt that there was a need to regulate them.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

As quoted in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/us/politics/04scotus.html?hp&_r=0 (February 2010). <br class="br">2010s

“I wake up in the morning and seem to hear some one in the house sighing and saying that last night some one died. I immediately ask to find out who it is, and learn that it is the sharpest, most calculating fellow in town. Ah, is this not happiness?”

Jin Shengtan (1610–1661) Chinese writer

"Thirty-three Happy Moments"

Happiness, Learning, Housing, Night

“As a result of scientific man's creativity there arises an ordered, illumined, determined world, imprinted with the stamp of creative intellect, of pure reason and clear cognition. From the midst of the order and lawfulness we hear a new song, the song of the creature to the Creator, the song of the cosmos to its Maker.”

Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903–1993) American theologian

Source: Halakhic Man (1983), pp. 83-84

World, Law

“We had doubts about the Kyoto Protocol, we wanted reasoning from our partners in the European Union, in the IPCC. Formal requests had been sent to these organizations. But we have not received responses yet, which suggests that no coherent answers can be offered. What we hear is 'it is not comprehensive responses that matter, we will not give them anyway; what is important is whether you believe us or not”

Andrey Illarionov (1961) Russian politician

"Q&A: Putin's Critical Adviser," 2005

“A religion that teaches you God is something outside the world--something separate from everything you see, smell, taste, touch, and hear--is nothing but a cheap hustle.”

Matthew Stover book Blade of Tyshalle

(VIII.4) Del Rey, p. 282
Blade of Tyshalle (2001)

God, World, Religion

“For tonight, as so many nights before, young Americans struggle and young Americans die in a distant land. Tonight, as so many nights before, the American Nation is asked to sacrifice the blood of its children and the fruits of its labor for the love of its freedom. How many times—in my lifetime and in yours—have the American people gathered, as they do now, to hear their President tell them of conflict and tell them of danger? Each time they have answered. They have answered with all the effort that the security and the freedom of this nation required. And they do again tonight in Vietnam. Not too many years ago Vietnam was a peaceful, if troubled, land. In the North was an independent Communist government. In the South a people struggled to build a nation, with the friendly help of the United States. There were some in South Vietnam who wished to force Communist rule on their own people. But their progress was slight. Their hope of success was dim. Then, little more than six years ago, North Vietnam decided on conquest. And from that day to this, soldiers and supplies have moved from North to South in a swelling stream that is swallowing the remnants of revolution in aggression. As the assault mounted, our choice gradually became clear. We could leave, abandoning South Vietnam to its attackers and to certain conquest, or we could stay and fight beside the people of South Vietnam. We stayed. And we will stay until aggression has stopped.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Love, Children, People, Peace

“So one time for my disillusioned artists, I hear ya
Two times for the kid that air-guitars in the mirror
Three times for the 9-to-5-in' bus ridin' dudes
And four times for my dreamers, yo I'm just like you
That's why I sing for my queens with their own pair of wings
My brothers flyin' beside me, drama behind me
Mama tried to find me, she inquired emphatically
I was in the sky with all these other ghetto kids, defying gravity, uh”

Danny! (1983) American rapper

"Fly, Pt. 2"
Albums, Danny Is Dead (2007)

Singing, Time

“You should hear me on my own. It’s horrendous.
I saw Deep Purple live once and I paid money for it and I thought, Geez, this is ridiculous.”

Angus Young (1955) Scottish Australian guitarist

1983 Interview in West Hollywood, California (Sunset Marquis Hotel)

Money

“It's always a tendency to compare our country in my time to the most perfect democracies of the world. I don't mind that. But now, what we hear is "oh let's try to understand these people. After all, Islam is something special," when what they are doing is absolutely contrary to Islam. Now, everybody is trying to say "well, let's try to understand these people", these people who are killing, massacring others, the people they don't like just like flies. But in my case, it is to compare it to the most perfect government of the world.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

David Frost (January 1980), The Shah Speaks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKUQUDf5IBo&feature=related (video) <br class="br">Interviews

People, World, Democracy, Understanding

“The fine art world and the commercial art industry are both all about money. It's hard to say which is more contemptible: the fine art world with its double talk and pretensions to the cultural high ground, or the world of commercial art trying to sell to the largest mass market it can reach. A serious artist really shouldn't be too deeply involved in either of these worlds. It's best to be on the fringe of them. In general, if you want to be a success and make the money, you have to play the game. It's no different in the fine art world, it's just a slightly different game. Essentially, you're marketing an illusion. It's much easier to lie to humans and trick them than to tell them the truth. They'd much rather be bamboozled than be told the truth, because the way to trick them is to flatter them and tell them what they want to hear, to reinforce their existing illusions. They don't want to know the truth. Truth is a bring-down, a bummer, or it's just too complicated, too much mental work to grasp.”

Robert Crumb (1943) American cartoonist

The R. Crumb Handbook by Robert Crumb and Peter Poplaski (2005), p. 297

Money, Truth, Lie, World

“The truth was that we still spoke Spanish every chance we got. And why, because, simply, it felt good to hear in the sound of the language with which our mothers had rocked us to sleep when we’d been little.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

Truth, Sleep, Chance

“I. But he hears not. Now, my warrior guests,
I drink to the onward passage of his soul
Death. Had my hand turned coward or played me false,
This man that is my hand, and less than I
And less than he bloodguilty, this my death
Had been my husband's: now he has left it me.
[Drinks]
How innocent are all but he and I
No time is mine to tell you. Truth shall tell.
I pardon thee, my husband: pardon me. [Dies]”

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic

Rosamund, Act 5, Scene 1.
Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards (1899)

Death, Truth, Soul, Drink

“The mingling of object and image in collage, of given fact and conscious artifice, corresponds to the illusion-producing processes of contemporary civilization. In advertisements, news stories, films, and political campaigns, lumps of unassailable data are implanted in preconceived formats in order to make the entire fabrication credible. Documents waved at hearings by Joseph McCarthy to substantiate his fictive accusations were a version of collage, as is the corpse of Lenin, inserted by Stalin into the Moscow mausoleum to authenticate his own contrived ideology. Twentieth-century fictions are rarely made up of the whole cloth, perhaps because the public has been trained to have faith in "information."”

Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978) American writer and art critic

Collage is the primary formula of the aesthetics of mystification developed in our time.
Source: Art on the Edge, (1975), p. 178, "Collage: Philosophy of Put-Togethers"

Faith, Time, Training, Clothes

“An oratorical style often has the same drawbacks as those operas in which the music prevents you from hearing the words. Here the words prevent you from seeing the thoughts.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

Music

“A scene that has often come into my mind, both sleeping and waking — I am standing in the wings of a theatre waiting for my cue to go onstage. As I stand there I can hear the play proceeding, and suddenly it dawns on me that the lines I have learnt are not in this play at all, but belong to quite a different one. Panic seizes me; I wonder frenziedly what should I do. Then I get my cue. Stumbling, falling over the unfamiliar scenery, I make my way onto the stage, and then look for guidance to the prompter, whose head I can just see rising out of the floor-boards. Alas he only signals helplessly to me and I realise of course that his script is different from mine. I begin to speak my lines, but they are incomprehensible to the other actors and abhorrent to the audience, who begin to hiss and shout: “Get off the stage!”, “Let the play go on!”, “You’re interrupting!””

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist

I am paralysed and can think of nothing to do but to go on standing there and speaking my lines that don’t fit. The only lines I know.
Chronicles of Wasted Time: The Green Stick (1972)

Way, Thinking, Sleep, Waiting

“The very saddest sound in all my memory was burned into my awareness at age five on my uncle's dairy farm in Wisconsin. A cow had given birth to a beautiful male calf. The mother was allowed to nurse her calf but for a single night. On the second day after birth, my uncle took the calf from the mother and placed him in the veal pen in the barn—only ten yards away, in plain view of the mother. The mother cow could see her infant, smell him, hear him, but could not touch him, comfort him, or nurse him. The heartrending bellows that she poured forth—minute after minute, hour after hour, for five long days—were excruciating to listen to. They are the most poignant and painful auditory memories I carry in my brain. Since that age, whenever I hear anyone postulate that animals cannot really feel emotions, I need only to replay that torturous sound in my memory of that mother cow crying her bovine heart out to her infant. Mother's love knows no species barriers, and I believe that all people who are vegans in their hearts and souls know that to be true.”

Michael Klaper (1947) American physician

Quoted in Joanne Stepaniak, The Vegan Sourcebook (Lowell House, 1998), pp. 39-40.

Love, Pain, People, Age

“Isn't Scientology one of those things where you really like someone and once you hear they're a Scientologist, you're like "I'm out?"”

Kathy Griffin (1960) American actress and comedian

Allegedly (2004)

“Several days later, I tell a neighbor, a man I know well, that my mother died and that the floor lamp in my bedroom came on during the night. My neighbor is sincerely sorry to hear of my mother’s death; he supposes there must have been some kind of surge in the electrical grid. Our lives are so similar, my friends’ and mine. The difference between us briefly flares—like the lamp in my bedroom—only when I publish a religious opinion.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography (2013)

Death, Sincerity, Night

“Yes?... Oh, I’m very sorry to hear that. Please convey him our best wishes for a speedy recovery. But the president did ask me to pass this message informally as soon as possible; I may say he feels very strongly about the matter. Of course, not knowing if the rumor is well founded, we didn’t want to handle it on an official level... Yes, I would be obliged if you could make sure the ambassador is told at the earliest opportunity. Tell him, please, that any attempt to nominate Austin Train for the Nobel Peace Prize would be regarded as a grave and—I quote the president’s actual word—calculated affront to the United States.”

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

July “SCRATCHED”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

Peace, Feeling, Quotes, Training

“There are lots of gun rights groups, but the one that you hear about and the one that is feared is the NRA. I'd rather be loved -- and feared.”

Wayne Pacelle (1965) American activist

"Wayne Pacelle works for the winged, finned and furry," 2008

Love, Fear

“After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and other terrorist incidents, "The United States government, then President Clinton, did not respond. Bin Laden declared war on us. We didn't hear it.”

Rudy Giuliani (1944–2001) American businessperson and politician, former mayor of New York City

As quoted in "Giuliani Faults Bill Clinton for Terror Response in 1990s" (26 June 2007) http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,286849,00.html

War, World

“VII. Let me call your attention to the recent tragedy in New Orleans, whereof the facts are obtained entirely through Pro-Slavery channels. A considerable body of resolute, able-bodied men, held in Slavery by two Rebel sugar-planters in defiance of the Confiscation Act which you have approved, left plantations thirty miles distant and made their way to the great mart of the South-West, which they knew to be the indisputed possession of the Union forces. They made their way safely and quietly through thirty miles of Rebel territory, expecting to find freedom under the protection of our flag. Whether they had or had not heard of the passage of the Confiscation Act, they reasoned logically that we could not kill them for deserting the service of their lifelong oppressors, who had through treason become our implacable enemies. They came to us for liberty and protection, for which they were willing render their best service: they met with hostility, captivity, and murder. The barking of the base curs of Slavery in this quarter deceives no one--not even themselves. They say, indeed, that the negroes had no right to appear in New Orleans armed (with their implements of daily labor in the cane-field); but no one doubts that they would gladly have laid these down if assured that they should be free. They were set upon and maimed, captured and killed, because they sought the benefit of that act of Congress which they may not specifically have heard of, but which was none the less the law of the land which they had a clear right to the benefit of--which it was somebody's duty to publish far and wide, in order that so many as possible should be impelled to desist from serving Rebels and the Rebellion and come over to the side of the Union, They sought their liberty in strict accordance with the law of the land--they were butchered or re-enslaved for so doing by the help of Union soldiers enlisted to fight against slaveholding Treason. It was somebody's fault that they were so murdered--if others shall hereafter stuffer in like manner, in default of explicit and public directions to your generals that they are to recognize and obey the Confiscation Act, the world will lay the blame on you. Whether you will choose to hear it through future History and 'at the bar of God, I will not judge. I can only hope.”

Horace Greeley (1811–1872) American politician and publisher

1860s, The Prayer of the Twenty Millions (1862)

Men, God, Hostility, World

“Patience, to hear frivolous, impertinent, and unreasonable applications: with address enough to refuse, without offending; or, by your manner of granting, to double the obligation: dexterity enough to conceal a truth, without telling a lie: sagacity enough to read other people’s countenances: and serenity enough not to let them discover anything by yours; a seeming frankness, with a real reserve. These are the rudiments of a politician; the world must be your grammar.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters

15 January 1748
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)

People, Truth, Lie, World

“I intend to make this day forward the first day of the rest of my life. We can change our lives. You say, 'Well, what's wrong with your life, Michael?' Well, it's not that there's anything wrong with my life, but it's not what I want it to be. I don't feel that I'm inspiring people in the way I want to inspire them. You see, you can inspire through hate; you can inspire through love, hope, humor – the positives. I look at the history of the world, and I look at the world today, and I realize that if we don't inspire each other through positive attributes – love, hope and humor – we're gonna descend into the barbarism of the Left and the barbarism of ISIS. You like me to be hard, you like me to be tough, you like me to give you the breaking news, you like me to be cynical, you like me to analytical, you like me to give you stuff that you don't hear anywhere else – I get that. But there's a limit to that. There's a lot of area beyond all that.I think of Christmas. Christianity is the religion of peace. Christianity is the true religion of peace. 'Turn the other cheek.' 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' These are messages that come from Christianity. What can you do in an age of deceit and lies and terror? You can go to church again. However un-needing you think you really are, you know in your heart that there's something missing in you. You know that you crave something greater. Because the human being is not a dog. We are unique creatures. And we need something different than the bear, the dog, the snake and the eagle. What is that thing that we need? It's that 'thing' called God.The media has promulgated the idea, and promoted the idea, that we only need food and fornication. And so when people are empty that's what they seek. And when they are really empty, what happens? They become drug addicts. They start with marijuana, they end up with heroin, crack, you name it. As God has been driven out of America, drugs have entered America. What does an empty soul look to do? An empty soul looks to fill itself. Just as an empty vessel needs to be filled with a liquid to be complete, an empty human being needs to fill itself to be complete. And how does it fill itself? I know, again, many of you will laugh because you're cynical; it's through those things I'm talking about – inspiration. Do you think a musician can play one day without inspiration from somewhere? The greatest artists in the history of the world were not drug-addicts. They were usually God-addicts. Look at the greatest art in history, you'll find most of them were super religious people, who literally saw God in their living room, and they took the power of God and that was transmitted through the paintbrush, or through that piece of marble. How could a man like Rodin take a piece of inert stone, and inside that stone see the essence of the human form, and sculpt from that block of inert stone, a marble, the portrait of a human being that looks so real – a hundred years later I go and look at them in the museum, and literally inside that carved eye I can see the person; how is that possible? How? It's a different show than I've ever done in my 21 years, because each day to me – I must tell you – I see as my last day, my last day on Earth.”

Michael Savage (1942) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, and Author

The Savage Nation (1995- ), 2015

Love, Life, God, Hate

“I discovered then that religion had to become real to me and I had to know God for myself. And I bowed down over that cup of coffee — I never will forget it. And oh yes, I prayed a prayer and I prayed out loud that night. I said, "Lord, I'm down here trying to do what's right. I think I'm right; I think the cause that we represent is right. But Lord, I must confess that I'm weak now; I'm faltering; I'm losing my courage. And I can't let the people see me like this because if they see me weak and losing my courage, they will begin to get weak." I wanted tomorrow morning to be able to go before the executive board with a smile on my face. And it seemed at that moment that I could hear an inner voice saying to me, "Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness, stand up for justice, stand up for truth. And lo I will be with you, even until the end of the world." And I'll tell you, I've seen the lightning flash. I've heard the thunder roll. I felt sin-breakers dashing, trying to conquer my soul. But I heard the voice of Jesus saying still to fight on. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone. No, never alone. No, never alone. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Why Jesus Called A Man A Fool (1967)

God, People, Truth, World

“I'm frustrated by what I hear. Maybe it's not meant for me. Personally, I'm way too bright for a lot of the hip-hop lyrics to affect. I'm much too smart to think that jewelry or how cool I am is really going to change much about my personality. If you're dumb enough that it entertains you, have a great time. But I am seeking more than that.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Rolling Stone interview (2002)

Way, Thinking, Change, Time

“.. the owner [of the painting 'When one grows old', 1883].... had to hear a lot of comments about it, they called it the apotheosis of a cape, the figure much too big for the frame, etc. etc. [deleted by Israëls:] so they advised him to exchange it for one of my other works.”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
version in Dutch (citaat van Jozef Israëls, in het Nederlands): ..de eigenaar [van het schilderij 'Als men oud wordt', 1883].. ..moest er veel over hooren, men noemde het de apotheose van een schoudermantel, de figuur veel te groot voor het kader, enz. enz. [doorgestreept door Israëls:] zoodat men hem aanried het liever tegen wat anders bij mij te ruilen.
Quote of Israëls in his manuscript he wrote in 1904 for Jan Veth; HGA (Haagsch Gemeente Archief), input No. OV2, (painter-letters)
Quotes of Jozef Israels, after 1900

Painting

“The promoters of every private bill have to satisfy the [Parliamentary] Committee that their proposals are sufficiently beneficial to the public to justify the Committee in entrusting them with the special powers necessary to carry them out; it is only on this condition that private rights and interests can be required to give way to public necessity. The task of the Committee is to examine the proposals from this point of view and for this purpose to hear the arguments and evidence both of the promoters and of thhe opponents, being specially vigilant to see that justice is done by way of compensation and protection to those who may be called upon to make sacrifices for the public benefit. The range of the subjects which may come before Parliament by way of private bill is immensely varied, including such matters as the construction of railways, the building of harbours and bridges, the extension of city boundaries, the development of water power and electricity, the provision of water supplies, and the alteration of the constitution and objects of charitable and educational institutions.”

Hugh Macmillan, Baron Macmillan (1873–1952) British judge

Source: A Man of Law's Tale (1952), In London, p. 58

Education, Justice, Way, Water

“Let us say that those who do insist on a hearing will be silenced soon enough. There is a monotonous pattern to the rise of tyrants which, I suppose, is reflected in the general pattern of human folly. Depressing though it is, we must accept the fact.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 2, Chapter 5 (p. 568)
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)

Silence

“The prejudice against color, of which we hear so much, is no stronger than that against sex. It is produced by the same cause, and manifested very much in the same way. The negro's skin and the woman's sex are both prima facie evidence that they were intended to be in subjection to the white Saxon man.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist

Speech before the New York Legislature (1860-02-18).

Sex, Color, Way

“The Republicans, the opponents no longer have an argument. And certainly, we hear a lot coming from the Republican side that is absolutely out of touch with reality. We raised money through the congressional appropriations process. We enhanced the border security. That part of the work is done. Everybody that I know has looked at it said, okay, we have a secure border. There’s no need for this rhetoric and demagoguery that’s still —is carried out on the Republican side. You’ve run out of excuses. … I understand him, he’s (Donald Trump) talking about a very tall wall. Right? A beautiful tall wall. The most beautiful tall wall, better than the Great Wall of China, that would run the entire border. That he would somehow magically get the Mexican government to pay for. And, you know, it’s just fantasy. And in fact, if he cared to know anything about what members of Congress, like the senator and I have done, where it was necessary, we did support some fencing. Where it was necessary, we did add border patrol agents. We have done what by any fair estimate would have to conclude is a good job, quote, “securing the border.””

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

So let’s get about the business of comprehensive immigration reform.
Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Democratic Presidential Debate in Miami (March 9, 2016)

Money, Beauty, Quotes, Understanding

“In the course of General Westmoreland's testimony, he made the statement that he did not want to command an army of mercenaries. I stopped him and said, 'General, would you rather command an army of slaves?' He drew himself up and said, 'I don't like to hear our patriotic draftees referred to as slaves.' I replied, 'I don't like to hear our patriotic volunteers referred to as mercenaries.' But I went on to say, 'If they are mercenaries, then I, sir, am a mercenary professor, and you, sir, are a mercenary general; we are served by mercenary physicians, we use a mercenary lawyer, and we get our meat from a mercenary butcher.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

That was the last that we heard from the general about mercenaries.
Two Lucky People: Memoirs, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1998) p. 380.

“One of the flabby lines you hear sometimes is, 'Speak truth to power'. Power knows the truth. It's speaking the truth to yourself that's the challenge.”

Barry Sanders (1938) American academic, author

Oregon Live Saturday, April 16, 2011

Truth

“Every time the Secretary of Defense tries to get a hand on his many intelligence programs, we hear warnings about the dire consequences to liberty. When you look behind those warnings, what you really see is the CIA trying to preserve its perks.”

Mark Riebling (1963) American writer

Rumsfeld’s New Spy Unit (2002)

Intelligence, Time

“Now one of the interesting facts here with respect to intermarriage, and our time is just about up and we will conclude in a moment, is this; that historically, whenever you have had two peoples close together, and one in a position of power and the other in a position of either slavery or inferiority, it takes only a very short time for the two races to merge, no matter how great the hatred between them. Thus, when the Normans took England, there was nothing more hateful to the Anglo Saxon peoples of England than a Norman. And yet, because they were of comparable ability, in spite of that intense hatred, they did merge, ultimately. But when you find two peoples of very different intellectual and cultural levels close together, they can be together generation after generation, and the amount of merging is very slight. So that there is no disappearing of one as against the other. This is why the Negro did not disappear in the South. Had the slaves been, say of another racial group, it would not have taken more than a hundred years of slavery for the two groups to have merged. But you had a couple of hundred years of slavery in the south, and the Negro did not disappear. So this is the remarkable fact. As a result, when you hear stories told about how the Negro women were exploited and so on, these stories tend to be exaggerations. As a matter of fact, the truth was usually the other way, it was very difficult to raise children in the south, or to rear children in the south, because one way of promotion was to capture the interest of a white boy or a white man. Now this goes counter to the Marxist thesis, but when you study the history of the west you discover that one of the best things that ever happened incidentally to the morality of the upper classes was modern inventions which abolished the need for servants in the home. Because one of the major problems that existed was the seduction of the boys and the men in a household by servant girls.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, The Law of Divorce (n.d.)

Women, Men, Hate, Children

“Sweet in her green dell the flower of beauty slumbers,
Lull'd by the faint breezes sighing through her hair;
Sleeps she and hears not the melancholy numbers
Breathed to my sad lute 'mid the lonely air.”

George Darley (1795–1846) Irish poet, novelist, and critic

Poem Sweet in her green dell http://www.bartleby.com/101/640.html

Sadness, Beauty, Flowers, Sleep

“The Golden Notebook for some reason surprised people but it was no more than you would hear women say in their kitchens every day in any country. … I was really astounded that some people were shocked.”

Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer

As quoted in an undated profile at the BBC World Service http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/arts/features/womenwriters/lessing_being.shtml

Women, People, Country

“Ozzy Osbourne has his bats, and I have that darn "convert them to Christianity" quote. Some may not like what I said, but I'm still waiting to hear a better suggestion.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2003, Treason : Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (2003)

Quotes, Waiting

“If he could read a line, just understand one sign. Close his mouth and hear the peace of hope and fear, if he could read a line. If he could keep in time.”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

"The Poets"
The Poets And The Prophet (2006)

Fear, Peace, Hope, Understanding

“I see the clouds part slowly, and I hear a cry of protest against the bigot. The restraining hand of tolerance is laid upon the inquisitor, and the humanist utters a message of peace to the persecuted. Instead of the cry, "Burn the heretic!" men study the human soul with sympathy, and there enters into their hearts a new reverence for that which is unseen.”

Helen Keller book Optimism

Optimism (1903)

Men, Peace, Soul, Study

“I have to mime at parties when everyone sings Happy Birthday... mime or mumble and rumble and growl and grunt so deep that only moles, manta rays and mushrooms can hear me.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

on his frustrating inability to sing
1990s, Moab is My Washpot (autobiography, 1997)

Happiness, Birthday, Singing

“How abundantly do spiritual beings display the powers that belong to them! We look for them, but do not see them; we listen to, but do not hear them; yet they enter into all things, and there is nothing without them.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Source: The Doctrine of the Mean

“When I go to the house of God I do not want amusement; I want the doctrine which is according to godliness. I want to hear the remedy against the harassing of my guilt and the disorder of my affections. I want to be led from weariness and disappointment to that goodness which filleth the hungry soul. I want to have light upon the mystery of Providence; to be taught how the judgments of the Lord are right; how I shall be prepared for duty and for trial; how I may fear God all the days of my life, and close them in peace.”

John M. Mason (1770–1829) American Doctor of Divinity

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, P. 150.

Life, God, Fear, Peace

“[Brahmans] surpass other learned men in their treatises on morals…. His Majesty, on hearing… how much the people of the country prized their institutions, commenced to look upon them with affection.”

Akbar (1542–1605) 3rd Mughal Emperor

Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh by Abdul Qadir Badaoni, vol. II, quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

Men, People, Learning, Country

“We're going to protect Christianity, and I can say that. I don't have to be politically correct. We're going to protect it. I hear this is a major theme right here, but two Corinthians, 3:17, that's the whole ball game. "Where the Spirit of the Lord", right, "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty", and here there is Liberty College, but Liberty University, but it is so true. You know, when you think -- and that's really -- is that the one? Is that the one you like? I think that's the one you like because I loved it, and it's so representative of what's taken place. But we are going to protect Christianity. And if you look what's going on throughout the world, you look at Syria where if you're Christian, they're chopping off heads. You look at the different places, and Christianity, it's under siege.”

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

2010s, 2016, January, Speech at Liberty University (18 January 2016)

Love, World, Game, Thinking

“To-night she will spread her brown hair on his pillow,
But I shall be hearing the harsh cries of wild fowl.”

Patrick MacDonogh (1902–1961) Irish poet

She Walked Unaware (1975)

Night

“Mr President," I said, " I have to tell you something. I don't want to get too close to you." He looked startled. I imagine it was a rare thing for a U. S. Commander-in-chief to hear. "Canada is your best friend, largest trading partner, and closest ally, but we are also an independent country. Keeping some distance will be good for both of us. If we look as though we're the fifty-first state of the United States, there is nothing we can do for you internationally, just as the governor of a state can't do anything for you internationally. But if we look independent enough, we can do things for you that even the CIA cannot do.”

Jean Chrétien (1934) 20th Prime Minister of Canada

Source: My Years As Prime Minister (2007), Chapter Three, Yankee Traders, p. 87

Imagination, Country

“Of all the ridiculous expressions people use--and people use a great many ridiculous expressions--one of the most ridiculous is "No news is good news." "No news is good news" simply means that if you don't hear from someone, everything is probably fine, and you can see at once why this expression makes such little sense, because everything being fine is only one of many, many reasons why someone may not contact you. Perhaps they are tied up. Maybe they are surrounded by fierce weasels, or perhaps they are wedged tightly between two refrigerators and cannot get themselves out. The expression might as well be changed to "no news is bad news," except that people may not be able to contact you because they have just been crowned king or are competing in a gymnastics tournament. The point is that there is no way to know why someone has not contacted you, until they contact you and explain themselves. For this reason, the sensible expression would be "no news is no news," except that it is so obvious that it is hardly an expression at all.”

Daniel Handler book The Hostile Hospital

Lemony Snicket
The Hostile Hospital (2001)

People, Way, Sense, Change

“Guruji did not teach me more than four Ragas. He often drew an analogy between swaras and money and said that one must spend only as much as is required of both. My practice would follow this method. I was given a certain palta and would have to keep repeating it for days on end. It seemed boring and monotonous then, but later I thanked him for this rigorous training. The entire relationship with a guru was different in those days. Our respect for him was so great that there was no question of us asking him to teach us something particular, not because of our blind devotion, but because of our innate belief that he knew what was best for us. I remember getting caught by him invariably, whenever I tried something new. For instance, on radio, I sang Raga Bhinbhas, working it out on my own, quite confident that guruji would not hear me, as there was no electricity in Kundgol. But as luck would have it, he happened to be in Belgaum that evening. I was subsequently taken to task for using a komal dhaivat in Bibhas. This was followed by comprehensive training of the Raga. There are so many Ragas with which I associate a strange incident with guruji--Suha, Marwa … the list is endless.”

Gangubai Hangal (1913–2009) Indian singer

In "On Gangubai Hangal by Sabina Sehgal Computer Science & Engineering - University of Washington".

Money, Confidence, Question, Training

“Now, you might think that when the old majority becomes a minority, it would then get minority rights. But that’s not how it works. Whites can’t become a certified minority; they will always be the legacy majority. The closer we get to the future when whites are a minority, the more we hear about their ancestors’ sins, their ineradicable hereditary guilt, their corruption of blood.”

Steve Sailer (1958) American journalist and movie critic

The Ultimate Minority Right http://takimag.com/article/the_ultimate_minority_right_steve_sailer/print#axzz4A9Spob5l, Taki's Magazine, February 10, 2016

Thinking, Future

“The capacity for self-deception, rarely acknowledged or understood by those who offer us supernatural answers to our problems, is huge: as easy as it is to make a medium’s cold-reading statements ‘fit’ our own situation and come to believe that he must have some paranormal insight, it is hardly any more difficult for a would-be psychic with an average ego, upon hearing frequently positive feedback, to believe over time that he must be blessed with a special gift. It’s harder to think you’re doing it for real when you’re tossing tambourines in the dark or have ready-made ectoplasm stuffed into your mouth or bottom.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

Books, Harry Houdini on Deception (foreword) (2009)

Problem, Thinking, Time, Reading

“My voice is not for me. Every time I make a sentence I think how many people for how many generations had a voice that no one could hear. At most they will be remembered as numbers; in many cases, even numbers don’t exist.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, Ai Weiwei: 'Every day I think, this will be the day I get taken in again...', 2011

People, Thinking, Time

“"What does she want?"
"Constant meetings. Depositions. The Clave keeps wanting to hear what happened when we fought Sebastian at the Burren. We've all had to give accounts, like, fifty times. How Jace absorbed the heavenly fire from Glorious. Descriptions of the Dark Shadowhunters, the Infernal Cup, the weapons they used, the runes that were on them. What we were wearing, what Sebastian was wearing, what everyone was wearing… like phone sex but boring."”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Simon Lewis and Isabelle Lightwood, pg. 34-35
The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)

Sex, Time

“[After discovering Soren's former home is abandoned] Then Twilight spoke, "Soren, they're gone. Maybe something happened to them. You shouldn't take it personally. Buck up now, old buddy."
"Personally? What do you know, Twilight, that is personal about any family? You've never had a family. Remember, you're always telling us about how much you learned in your own orphan school of tough learning. You don't know the feel of a mother's down. You don't know what it's like to hear stories from a father, or to hear him sing. Do you know what a psalm is, Twilight? I bet you don't. Well, we Barn Owls know about psalms and books and the feeling of down."
Twilight's feathers had ruffled up, spiky with ice crystals. He looked fearsome. "I'll tell you what I know, you miserable little owl. The whole world is my family. I know the softness of a fox's fur, and the strange green light that comes into their eyes during the spring moons. I know how to fish because I learned from an eagle. And when meat is scarce I know how to find the ripest part of a rotten tree and peck the juiciest bugs from it. I know plenty."”

Kathryn Lasky (1944) American children's writer

Source: The Capture (2003), Chapter Twenty-four: "Empty Hollows", p. 181

Books, World, School, Family

“If you have any helpful suggestions I’d be pleased to hear them. If all you can do is make snide insinuations then it would probably benefit all concerned if you bestowed the fruits of your prodigious wit on someone with the spare time to give them the consideration they doubtless deserve.”

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, Excession (1996), Chapter 7 “Tier” section III (p. 219).

Time, Help

“The listener with no preconceptions hears massive waves of sound breaking over him and forms from them the image of a passionate soul seeking and finding the path to faith and peace in God through a life of struggle and a vigorous pursuit of ideals. It is impossible not to hear the confessional tone of this musical language; Liszt’s sonata becomes - perhaps involuntarily on the part of the composer - an autobiographical document and one which reveals an artist in the Faustian mold in the person of its author. As in the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, the underlying religious concept which dominates and permeates the whole work demands a special kind of approach. Whereas representations of human passions and conflicts force themselves on our understanding with their powerfully suggestive coloring, this concept only becomes manifest to those souls who are prepared to soar to the same heights. The equilibrium of the sonata’s hymnic chordal motif, the transformation of its defiant battle motif (first theme) into a triumphant fanfare, and its appearance in bright, high notes on the harp, together with the devotional atmosphere of the Andante, represent a particular challenge to the listener; he is, after all, also expected to grasp the wide-spanned arcs of sound which, from the first hesitant descending octaves to the radiant final chords, build up a graphic panorama of the various stages of progress of a human spirit filled with faith and hope. As the reflection of a remarkable artistic personality worthy of deep admiration and, by extension, of the whole Romantic period, Liszt’s B minor Sonata deserves lasting recognition.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

About the Liszt Sonata in B minor

Life, God, Peace, Faith

“It's not a handicap, because when you go to bed, I take [the hearing aid] off, and the phones ring, the maids vacuum, people knock on doors, and I don't hear any of that.”

Johnnie Ray (1927–1990) American singer, actor, songwriter and composer

On his partial deafness, interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzylptCm7Dk with Hugh Downs (1977)

People

“I want to know but I can't see are you up there. I don't have a lot of strength now. The sky is stripped. I am too weak to write much. But I still hear them walking in the trees; not speaking. Waiting here, away from the terrifying weaponry, out of the halls of vapor and light, beyond holland and into the hills, I have come to”

Samuel R. Delany book Dhalgren

Part VII, "The Anathēmata" (p. 801)
Dhalgren (1975)

Tree, Light, Waiting

“These were great fans when I first play here, and they are still great. These fans never boo. They become frustrated because the Dodgers used to bring up some of the better minor-league players from here, but they never boo. Now, they are happy to have a big league team, and they are willing to wait five years, like the Mets' fans did, for the team to begin winning. But the thing that amazes me more than the players not being booed is the umpires. They never hear it from the fans, either, no matter if it does seem to be a bad call.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

On revisiting Montreal, 15 years later; as quoted in "Sports Beat: Expo Fans OK -- Clemente" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Mc8yAAAAIBAJ&sjid=DZYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7275%2C865101 by Bill Christine, in The Pittsburgh Press (Friday, July 18, 1969), p. 22 <br class="br">Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1969</big>

Happiness, Waiting

“The Man in the Moon is like a great short story, one of those masterpieces of language and mood where not one word is wrong, or unnecessary. It flows so smoothly from start to finish that it hardly even seems like an ordinary film. Usually I am aware of the screenwriter putting in obligatory scenes. I can hear the machinery grinding. Not this time. Although, in retrospect, I can see how carefully the plot was put together, how meticulously each event was prepared for, as I watched the film I was only aware of life passing by.”

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

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-man-in-the-moon-1991 of The Man in the Moon (4 October 1991) <br class="br">Reviews, Four star reviews

Life, Mood, Time

“When the minister leaves the seminary, he is not seeking the truth. He has it. He has a revelation from God, and he has a creed in exact accordance with that revelation. His business is to stand by that revelation and to defend that creed. Arguments against the revelation and the creed he will not read, he will not hear. All facts that are against his religion he will deny.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The Truth (1896)

God, Truth, Religion, Business

“All things that are in the world are linked together, one way or the other. Not a single thing comes into being without some relationship to every other thing. Scientific intellect thinks here in terms of natural laws of necessary causality; mythico-poetic imagination perceives an organic, living connection; philosophic reason contemplates an absolute One. But on a more essential level, a system of circuminsession has to be seen here, according to which, on the field of Śūnyatā, all things are in a process of becoming master and servant to one another. In this system, each thing is itself in not being itself, and is not itself in being itself. Its being is illusion in its truth and truth in its illusion. This may sound strange the first time one hears it, but in fact it enables us for the first time to conceive of a force by virtue of which all things are gathered together and brought into relationship with one another, a force which, since ancient times, has gone by the name of "nature"”

Keiji Nishitani book Religion and Nothingness

physis
Source: Religion and Nothingness (1983), p. 149

Truth, World, Law, Way

“I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
and you hear me from far away and my voice does not touch you.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente,
y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te toca.
"I Like for You to be Still" (Me Gustas Cuando Callas), p. 37.
Veinte Poemas de Amor y una Canción Desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair) (1924)

“Prediction of the fall of Russian communism: "Russia enveloped with communism—a new religious freedom must come. God will overrule it, for that people must hear the truth, and truth in simplicity. Truly there is much for the church to do in the coming century."”

David O. McKay (1873–1970) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

At Brigham Young University, reported in Church News, May 28, 1960.

God, People, Truth, Communication

“What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they [the Hurricane Katrina refugees in the Houston Astrodome] all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.”

Barbara Bush (1925–2018) former First Lady of the United States

Marketplace (6 March 2005)

People

“Chesterton was important — as important to me in his way as C. S. Lewis had been.
You see, while I loved Tolkien and while I wished to have written his book, I had no desire at all to write like him. Tolkien’s words and sentences seemed like natural things, like rock formations or waterfalls, and wanting to write like Tolkien would have been, for me, like wanting to blossom like a cherry tree or climb a tree like a squirrel or rain like a thunderstorm. Chesterton was the complete opposite. I was always aware, reading Chesterton, that there was someone writing this who rejoiced in words, who deployed them on the page as an artist deploys his paints upon his palette. Behind every Chesterton sentence there was someone painting with words, and it seemed to me that at the end of any particularly good sentence or any perfectly-put paradox, you could hear the author, somewhere behind the scenes, giggling with delight.”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

"Mythcon 35 Guest of Honor Speech", in Mythprint (October 2004) http://www.mythsoc.org.nyud.net:8090/mythcon/35/speech/

Love, Books, Way, Nature

“Rather than reacting to every risk we hear and see, we should make an effort to discern which ones we can do something about.”

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

Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 58

Effort

“Let's hear the music first and foremost,
And that means no more one-two-one-twos…
Something more vague instead, something lighter
Dissolving in air, weightless as air.
When you choose your words, no need to search
In strict dictionaries for pinpoint
Definitions. Better the subtle
And heady Songs of Imprecision.”

Paul Verlaine (1844–1896) French poet

De la musique avant toute chose,
Et pour cela préfère l'Impair
Plus vague et plus soluble dans l'air
Sans rien en lui qui pèse ou qui pose.
Il faut aussi que tu n'ailles point
Choisir tes mots sans quelque méprise:
Rien de plus cher que la chanson grise
Où l'Indécis au Précis se joint.
Source: "Art poétique", from Jadis et naguère (1884), Line 1; Sorrell p. 123

Music, Search

“I stood there for a while, holding Nakata tight in my arms, feeling like I wanted to die or disappear. Just over the horizon the violence of war went on, with countless people dying. I no longer had any idea what was right and what was wrong. Was I really seeing the real world? Was the sound of birds I was hearing? I found myself alone in the woods, totally confused, blood flowing from freely from my womb. I was angry, afraid, embarrassed-all of these rolled into one. I cried quietly, without making a sound.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002), Chapter 12

War, People, World, Feeling

“We find statements by religious, polital leaders and the media that incite Islamophobia. I'm going to give you some, otherwise we wind up talking in very true but general statements. And I think we need to hear the actual words, because these are the words that people, who are in churches, people who are watching the media, hear. And if they don't have a context within which to place them, they will draw us out of conclusions. While George Bush and Tony Blair may distinguish between Islam and extremism, Franklin Graham tells us that "Islam is a very evil religion. All the values that we as a nation hold dear, they don't share those same values at all … these countries that have the majority of Muslims." You might think of Franklin Graham as an individual, but if you are in the Muslim world, you know that Franklin Graham gave the invocation at the first inauguration of president Bush, that Franklin Graham a year and a half later was asked to speak on Good Friday at the Pentagon. That sends a signal. Pat Robertson: "This man [Muhammad] was an absolute wild-eyed fanatic, he was a robber and a brigand. And to say that these terrorists distort Islam … they are carrying out Islam. I mean: This man [Muhammed] was a killer and to think that this is a peaceful religion is fraudulent." Benny Hinn at a pro-Israel rally: "This not a war between Arabs and the Jews, this is between God and the devil."”

John Esposito (1940) writer and professor of Islamic studies

And there are many others.
Speech at the UN seminar on Islamophobia in 2004

God, War, People, World

“I had gone to hear the winner of that year's drum and bugle corps competition. That band played a chord that made every hair on my body stand up. I've been in front of great symphony orchestras, and the greatest bands, but I've never had my hair stand up quite like that. That's when I decided to write for the bugles.”

Clare Fischer (1928–2012) American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

As quoted in "Voicing With a Heart" by Ernie Rideout, in Keyboard (August 2000)

“Words are sublime, and in books we may commune with the dead. Beyond this there is nothing true, no voices we can hear.”

Sofia Samatar book A Stranger in Olondria

Source: A Stranger in Olondria (2013), Chapter 8, “The Tower of Myrrh” (p. 92)

Books, Communication, Dead

“To hear Delly describe it, I had next to no friends because I intimidated people by being so exceptional. Not true. I had next to no friends because I wasn't friendly.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

Katniss (p. 188)
The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay (2010)

People

“The world 'bubble' is in the dictionary, as is the word 'peacock,' the word 'vacation,' and the words 'the,' 'author's,' 'execution,' 'has,' 'been,' 'cancelled,' which make up a sentence that is always pleasant to hear. So, if you were to read the dictionary, rather than this book, you could skip the parts about 'nervous' and 'anxious' and read about things that wouldn't keep you up all night, weeping and tearing your hair out. But this book is not a dictionary, and if you were to skip the parts about 'nervous' and 'anxious' you would be skipping the most pleasant parts of the entire story. Nowhere in this book will you find the words 'bubble,' 'peacock,' 'vacation,' or, unfortunately for me, anything about an execution being cancelled.”

Daniel Handler book The Ersatz Elevator

Lemony Snicket
The Ersatz Elevator (2001)

Books, World, Tear, Reading

“Adolf Hitler, you are our great Führer. Thy name makes the enemy tremble. Thy Third Reich comes, thy will alone is law upon the earth. Let us hear daily thy voice and order us by thy leadership, for we will obey to the end and even with our lives. We praise thee! Heil Hitler!”

Baldur von Schirach (1907–1974) German Nazi leader convicted of crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg trial

A pledge written by Schirach about Hitler. Quoted in "Hitler Youth: The Hitlerjugend in Peace and War, 1933-1945" by Brenda Ralph Lewis - History - 2000 - Page 57

Law

“Why prattle we like children at their play,
Spending thus idle breath, enough to freight
An able vessel of the primer rate?
Our tongues are voluble, and store of words
Invention on all arguments affords,
Scatter'd on fresh occasions here and there,
And what thou say'st thou shalt from others hear.
Let us no longer vainly thus contend,
Like fenceless women, railing to no end.”

John Ogilby (1600–1676) Scottish academic

Book XX
Homer His Iliads Translated (1660)

Women, Children

“He's German so he's Herr Ball. Herr Ball. His movies are so bad, cats choke when they hear his name.”

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

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014)

Cats

“I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be the son of the Living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood. And because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned, especially for His suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come today to speak for them. And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak not now of the soldiers of each side, not of the military government of Saigon, but simply of the people who have been under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them, too, because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution until some attempt is made to know these people and hear their broken cries.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam (1967)

Men, God, War, Children

“The dogma of individual differences. This is one of the basic dogmas of American education. It runs something like this: all men are different; therefore, all men require a different education; therefore, anybody who suggests that education should be in any respect the same has ignored the fact that all men are different; therefore, nobody should suggest that everybody should read some of the same books; some people should read some books, some should read others. This dogma has gained such a hold … that you will often now hear a college president boast that his college has no curriculum. Each student has a course of study framed, or "tailored" … to meet his own individual needs and interests.”

Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899–1977) philosopher and university president

Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

Men, People, Books, Education

“We hear you, Father,” he said surprisingly. “Yet we sense that though what you say is the truth, it is not the whole truth.”

James Blish (1921–1975) American author

Source: Short fiction, Midsummer Century (1972), Chapter 9 (p. 61)

Truth, Sense

“You can't sell anything to the museum nowadays. If one presents something now, one is partly rejected because they have no money in cash. Yes Friend, that's how things are going... It's going very bad here with the old arts in The Hague., I hardly hear of anything. How are things going in Rotterdam? I believe that also there is not much moving.”

Andreas Schelfhout (1787–1870) Dutch painter, etcher and lithographer

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
(original Dutch, citaat van Schelfhout, uit zijn brief:) Aan het museum [ver]koop men tans niets. Als men iets tans presanteert, wort men daar mede afgewezen, daar is geen geld bij kas. Ja Vriend, zo gaat het.. .Het is tans zeer dwaas met de oude kuns bij ons [in Den Haag]., ik hoor bijna van niets. Hoe gaat het te Rott.m? Ik geloof dat daar ook niet veel beweeging er mede is.
Quote from Schelfhout's letter to J. Immerzweel, 8 Jan. 1825; original text from the letter in the collection of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Royal Library), The Hague, no. 133 C12

Money, Art

“Leo Ryan's life and his deeds are about a life that was so much more than Guyana. He was relentless in his search for answers, answers that were not readily available by just asking questions…We remember him today because his story is so much like those of most Americans; we want to believe the best and we sometimes hear the worst.”

Jackie Speier (1950) American politician

"Tribute to congressman Leo Ryan held in Foster City", San Francisco Chronicle, November 18, 2003

Life, Search, Question

“You have to watch your step with women these days, Pops. She could be involved with Yakuza or something. Even some of the girls in my class -- you should hear the stuff they talk about. Fifteen years old, and there's nothing they don't know. We're not in the age of Peace and Love anymore.”

Ryū Murakami book Audition

Source: Audition (1997), Chapter Seven, Shige

Love, Women, Age, Peace

“Once someone gave me a book of the Christians. I asked him to read it to me. It talked about nothing but sin. Sin is the only thing one hears at your Brahmo Samaj too… He who says day and night, ‘I am a sinner, I am a sinner’, verily becomes a sinner… Why should one only talk about sin and hell, and such things?”

Ramakrishna (1836–1886) Indian mystic and religious preacher

October 27, 1882, to Keshub Chunder Sen. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Volume 1, Madras, 1985, p. 138. Quoted from Goel, S. R. (2016). History of Hindu-Christian encounters Ch.13
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1942)

Books, Hell, Reading, Night

“On Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg was in the hot seat. Cameras surrounded him. The energy in the room – and on Twitter – was electric. At last, the reluctant CEO is made to answer some questions! Except it failed. It was designed to fail. It was a show designed to get Zuckerberg off the hook after only a few hours in Washington DC. It was a show that gave the pretense of a hearing without a real hearing. It was designed to deflect and confuse. … The worst moments of the hearing for us, as citizens, were when senators asked if Zuckerberg would support legislation that would regulate Facebook. I don’t care whether Zuckerberg supports Honest Ads or privacy laws or GDPR. By asking him if he would support legislation, the senators elevated him to a kind of co-equal philosopher king whose view on Facebook regulation carried special weight. It shouldn’t. Facebook is a known behemoth corporate monopoly. It has exposed at least 87 million people’s data, enabled foreign propaganda and perpetuated discrimination. We shouldn’t be begging for Facebook’s endorsement of laws, or for Mark Zuckerberg’s promises of self-regulation. We should treat him as a danger to democracy and demand our senators get a real hearing.”

Zephyr Teachout (1971) American academic, political activist and candidate

Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was an utter sham https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/11/mark-zuckerbergs-facebook-hearing-sham?CMP=fb_gu (11 April 2018), The Guardian.

People, Law, Democracy, Question

“Whenever I hear one of these old guard leaders on the other side talking about cutting taxes, when he knows it means weakening the nation, I always think of that story about the tired old capitalist who was driving alone in his car one day, and finally, he said "James, drive over the bluff; I want to commit suicide."”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

"A whistle-stop: Ypsilanti, Michigan," http://books.google.com/books?id=kHt3AAAAMAAJ&q=%22Whenever+I+hear+one+of+these+old+guard+leaders+on+the+other+side+talking+about+cutting+taxes+when+he+knows+it+means+weakening+the+nation+I+always+think+of+that+story+about+the+tired+old+capitalist+who+was+driving+alone+in+his+car+one+day+and+finally+he+said+James+drive+over+the+bluff+I+want+to+commit%22&pg=PA210#v=onpage Major Campaign Speeches of Adlai E. Stevenson, 1952, p. 210 (1953)

Cars, Thinking, Suicide

“What meal is not expensive? That for which no animal is put to death. … one participating of feeling, of seeing, of hearing, of imagination, and of intellection; which each animal hath received from Nature for the acquiring of what is agreeable to it, and the avoiding what is disagreeable.”

Plutarch book Moralia

II, 3
Moralia, Of Eating of Flesh

Death, Feeling, Imagination, Nature

“And women as a group, en masse, do show contempt for men, en masse… as a group, you hear a lot of contempt for men: "Oh look! Look at them, look! There they go! One of them's trying to DO something."”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

What It Is (2009)

Women, Men

“.. I write you from the French front where I'am serving as a soldier in the Russian ambulance Corps. How are you feeling and what are you doing? How are your friends, Lissitsky, Libakov [also former students of Pen], Mazel, Mekler, and Chagall? Please, for God's sake, answer me. I would be so glad to hear how everyone is.
I'm in fine health, but tired of it all – it's utterly disgraceful, makes the soul turn cold. If only it [the war] would just end.
What are you working on, what are you doing? Please write me.”

Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967) French sculptor

Yours Zadkine.
Quote in a letter of Zadkine (in France) to his former art-teacher Yuri Moiseevich Pen in Vitebsk, Russia, 16 Nov. 1916 (transl. into Belorussian E.M. Kichina); as quoted in Vitebsk: The Life of Art, by Aleksandra Semenovna Shatskikh; Yale University Press, 2007, p. 19
1915 - 1940

God, War, Health, Feeling