Quotes about interest
page 33

“In the year 1775, the Paris Academy found it necessary to protect its officials against the waste of time and energy involved in examining the efforts of circle squarers. It passed a resolution… that no more solutions were to be examined of the problem of the duplication of the cube, the trisection of the angle, the quadrature of the circle, and the same resolution should apply to machines for exhibiting perpetual motion. an account… drawn up by Condorcet… is appended. It is interesting to remark that the strength of the conviction of Mathematicians that the solution of the problem is impossible, more than a century before an irrefutable proof of the correctness of that conviction was discovered.”

E. W. Hobson (1856–1933) British mathematician

Source: Squaring the Circle (1913), pp. 3-4

Problem, Effort, Time

“I find you interesting, Joe, so nearly everything you say will be interesting too. I love you. I could say I'm lonely but that's not the only reason.”

Daniel Handler book Adverbs

Adverbs (2006), Collectively

Love

“I nonetheless reiterate my commitment, as a member of the majority bloc in the Senate, to exert efforts to ensure the timely passage of the GAB. I likewise pledge to play an active role in initiatives to put in place strong and categorical safeguards in the GAB to guarantee that it complies with the decision of the Supreme Court (i. e. Belgica v. Ochoa and Araullo v. Aquino) and that it will not be used as a tool for partisan political interests.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Letter to Senate President Franklin Drilon (2015 July 28).
2015, Letter to Senate President Franklin Drilon

Decision, Effort, Strong, Time

“The EU violates just about every green principle going. It is the opposite of local; it is destructive to the natural world; it wipes out cultural distinctiveness; it is anti-democratic; it puts the interests of banks and corporations before the interests of its working people. Why – when – how – did the Green Movement abandon its commitment to localism and democracy, and jump into bed with a beast like this?”

Paul Kingsnorth (1972) English writer and environmentalist

"Brexit Reconsidered: a Modern Day Peasants’ Revolt?", Counterpunch http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/21/brexit-reconsidered-a-modern-day-peasants-revolt/ December 21, 2016

People, World, Democracy, Nature

“Screwing things up is a virtue. Being correct is never the point. I have an almost fanatically correct assistant, and by the time she re-spells my words and corrects my punctuation, I can't read what I wrote. Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea.”

Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) American artist

Quoted in: N.M. Kelby (2009) The Constant Art of Being a Writer, p. 102
21st Century

Idea, Time, Reading

“I find OOP methodologically wrong. It starts with classes. It is as if mathematicians would start with axioms. You do not start with axioms - you start with proofs. Only when you have found a bunch of related proofs, can you come up with axioms. You end with axioms. The same thing is true in programming: you have to start with interesting algorithms. Only when you understand them well, can you come up with an interface that will let them work.”

Alexander Stepanov (1950) Russian programmer

An Interview with A. Stepanov by Graziano Lo Russo, 2008-04-25 http://www.stlport.org/resources/StepanovUSA.html,

Understanding

“On visiting India this time, because of my previous visit, I did have a certain amount of knowledge about the country, but I also felt that there was much greater interest in Japan and deeper interaction between the two countries now than the last time I was there.”

Akihito (1933) Emperor of Japan

Knowledge, Time, Country

“Communists must at all times stand up for the truth, because truth is in the interests of the people and Communists must be ready at all times to correct their mistakes, because mistakes are against the interests of the people.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

On Coalition Government (1945)

People, Truth, Time

“If your actions are motivated by selfish interests rather than God, you are mortgaging tomorrow's joy.”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

On the 2007 Nigerian Elections - "Selfless Service" http://www.modernghana.com/newsthread2/219944/1/ Modern Ghana (May 28 2009)

God, Motivation, Joy, Selfishness

“It occurred to him that what had appeared perfectly impossible before, namely that he had not spent his life as he should have done, might after all be true. It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. And his professional duties and the whole arrangement of his life and of his family, and all his social and official interests, might all have been false. He tried to defend all those things to himself and suddenly felt the weakness of what he was defending.”

Leo Tolstoy The Death of Ivan Ilyich

Source: The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), Ch. XI

Life, People, Family, Appearance

“World peace is in the best interests of everyone. Protectionism is not an option in today’s global economy. Nationalism should not outweigh international cooperation.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Google It: Total Information Awareness, 2016

World, Peace

“Shouldness is being flouted here,” said Launcelot. “Shouldness is perhaps self-explanatory, but I have never seen it adequately dealt with, either in print or in the lecture hall. When that huntress got me in the bum with an arrow, it was an offense to shouldness. It shouldn’t have gone that way. I told the story to Sir Roger, and now he never tires of telling it, tells it to everyone who comes down the pike. That a knight of the Round Table could be pierced in that way by a female has a significance quite apart from the ludicrous. It’s in the realm of those things which should not happen—a category which holds much philosophical interest, as anyone who has ever looked into anomaletics will recognize. The insult to my dignity was not nearly so grave as the insult to shouldness.”

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

Source: The King (1990), p. 106.

Way

“Almost half of the bankruptcies in the United States are connected to an illness in the family, whether people had health insurance or not. Middle-class Americans, who had the misfortune of either experiencing a medical emergency themselves or watching a family member suffer, were then forced to face the daunting task of pulling themselves out of debt. Bankruptcy law has allowed them to start over. It has given hope. Now this new law will put people on their own. Illness or emergency creates medical bills. We are telling the people that they themselves are to blame. At the same time, we are removing protections that would stay an eviction, that would keep a roof over the head of a working family. We allow the credit industry to trick consumers into using subprime cards, with exorbitant interest rate hikes and fees. Then we hand those same consumers over to an unforgiving prison of debt, to be put on a rack of insolvency and squeezed dry by the credit card industry. We are protecting the profits of the credit card industry instead of protecting the economic future of the American people. Americans are left on their own. That's what this Administration's "Ownership Society" is all about — you're on your own — and your ship is sinking.”

Dennis Kucinich (1946) Ohio politician

Speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, Congressional Record (14 April, 2005) http://frwebgate5.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate.cgi?WAISdocID=240761331899+3+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve.

People, Health, Family, Law

“Human relationships didn't work anyhow. Only the first two weeks had any zing, then the participants lost their interest. Masks dropped away and real people began to appear: cranks, imbeciles, the demented, the vengeful, sadists, killers. Modern society had created its own kind and they feasted on each other. It was a duel to the death--in a cesspool.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Women (1978)

Death, People, Appearance

“To interest a Frenchman in a boxing match you must tell him that his national honor is at stake. To interest an Englishman in a war you need only suggest that it is a kind of a boxing match. Tell us that the Hun is a barbarian, we agree politely, but tell us that he is a bad sportsman and you rouse the British Empire.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble)

War, Box

“…if peace is to be preserved we must see to it that the causes of war are removed. Freedom and democracy must be based not only on security but also on social justice. Hitlerism flourished on the breakdown of an outworn economic system. The world depression of 1930 was the opportunity of the gangsters. We must have planning for expansion and not restriction. Victory in war could only be achieved by putting the interest of the community before private profit and this was also the key to reconstruction after the war. Socialism had always been something far greater than an economic theory, far greater than the policy of a political party. It was a way of life. They sought to attain an organized society in which every human being would have the opportunity of living the good life—a society in which free men and women would cooperate together for the common good. The workers of the countries which had been under the yoke of tyranny would look to the Labour parties of the British Commonwealth for a lead and would not look in vain.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the conference of representatives of the British and Dominion Labour parties, Westminster, London (12 September 1944), quoted in The Times (13 September 1944), p. 8.
War Cabinet

Life, Women, Men, War

“[Doc Dubois] had been focusing all of his attention in the other direction, on Peach Pit and its iron-rich “children,” PP1, PP2, and PP3, nailing down their exact orbital parameters, taking high-res photographs.
PP3 was especially interesting. It was a congealed glob of mostly iron, similar in composition to Amalthea. It was some fifty kilometers in diameter. And it had a deep cleft on one side, comparable in size to the Grand Canyon, apparently formed by a collision that had rent its outer skin while it was partly congealed. Doob had begun calling PP3 Cleft.”

Neal Stephenson book Seveneves

"Day 700"
Seveneves (2015), Part Two

Children

“No, the artists are in a state of belated Age of Reason. They want to get hold of things, like Mondrian. He was a fantastic artist, but now when we read his ideas and his idea of Neo-Plasticism [= De Stijl ] – pure plasticity – it’s kind of silly, I think. I mean, not for him, but I think one could spend one's life having this desire to be in and outside at the same time. He could see a future life and a future city – not like me, who am absolutely not interested in seeing the future city. I'm perfectly happy to be alive now.”

Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) Dutch painter

Quote of De Kooning from an interview (March 1960) with David Sylvester, edited for broadcasting by the BBC first published in 'Location', Spring 1963; as quoted in Interviews with American Artists, by David Sylvester; Chatto & Windus, London 2001, p. 49
1960's

Life, Happiness, Age, Idea

“[L]oyalty and religion have many meanings, and self-interest is a skilled interpreter.”

John Buchan (1875–1940) British politician

Source: Midwinter (1923), Ch. I

Religion

“It is in 1958 that the discussion becomes, I believe, more complex and starts to get really dangerous. This is the time when Mattei begins, in addition to the attack on U. S. oil interests, an attack on traditional Italian foreign policy. He opens up a foreign policy of greater detachment from NATO, greater opening toward the Third World, and potential neu¬tralism. This was the framework of the neo-Atlanticism in which Mattei, Fanfani, and Gronchi were involved, and oddly, also Christian Democratic right-wingers, for their own reasons, namely Guido Gonella and Giuseppe Pella”

Nico Perrone (1935) Italian historian and writer

Source: The Strategic Stakes in Mattei's Flight, p. 25

World, Time

“I play in a rock and roll band called The Rock Bottom Remainders. It's other authors. It's Stephen King and Amy Tan and Dave Barry and a bunch of others of us. We play to raise money for charities, because we're kind of a freak show, but we're not bad. I play a guitar and a mandocello… And since you don't know what a mandocello sounds like or how it should be played, you can say with some authority I'm the most interesting mandocello player you've ever heard. Anyhow, we're in this hotel and this maid comes in and she keeps looking at me and she smiled and she said, "I know who you are." And I said, "No you don't. Who am I?" And said, "You're Kenny Rogers." And I of course said, "No, no, no." And she said, "If you were Kenny Rogers you wouldn't say you were Kenny Rogers would you? So you must be Kenny Rogers." … So that evening I'm walking along with my guitars going to the elevator and she went up like a skyrocket, "See! I knew you were Kenny Rogers!"”

Robert Fulghum (1937) American writer

So I signed her card, "Love and kisses, Kenny Rogers."
Robert Fulghum : Philosopher King

Love, Money, Smile, Kiss

“If anything I probably gravitate to things with great melodies/harmonies, and interesting/syncopated beats.”

Andrew Sega (1975) musician from America

Connexion Bizarre interview with Iris, 2009

“As indicated by its title "A History of Great Ideas in Abnormal Psychology", this book is not just concerned with the chronology of events or with biographical details of great psychiatrists and psychopathologists. It has as its main interest, a study of the ideas underlying theories about mental illness and mental health in the Western world. These are studied according to their historical development from ancient times to the twentieth century.
The book discusses the history of ideas about the nature of mental illness, its causation, its treatment and also social attitudes towards mental illness. The conceptions of mental illness are discussed in the context of philosophical ideas about the human mind and the medical theories prevailing in different periods of history. Certain perennial controversies are presented such as those between the psychological and organic approaches to the treatment of mental illness, and those between the focus on disease entities (nosology) versus the focus on individual personalities. The beliefs of primitive societies are discussed, and the development of early scientific ideas about mental illness in Greek and Roman times. The study continues through the medieval age to the Renaissance. More emphasis is then placed on the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, the enlightenment of the eighteenth, and the emergence of modern psychological and psychiatric ideas concerning psychopathology in the twentieth century.”

Thaddus E. Weckowicz (1919–2000) Canadian psychologist

Introduction text.
A History of Great Ideas in Abnormal Psychology, (1990)

Health, Books, Age, World

“It was in the year 1843 that I read a paper "On the Calorific Effects of Magneto-Electricity and the Mechanical Value of Heat" to the Chemical Section of the British Association assembled at Cork. With the exception of some eminent men, among whom I recollect with pride Dr. Apjohn, the president of the Section, the Earl of Rosse, Mr. Eaton Hodgkinson, and others, the subject did not excite much general attention; so that when I brought it forward again at the meeting in 1847, the chairman suggested that, as the business of the section pressed, I should not read my paper, but confine myself to a short verbal description of my experiments. This I endeavoured to do, and discussion not being invited, the communication would have passed without comment if a young man had not risen in the section, and by his intelligent observations created a lively interest in the new theory. The young man was William Thomson, who had two years previously passed the University of Cambridge with the highest honour, and is now probably the foremost scientific authority of the age.”

James Prescott Joule (1818–1889) English physicist and brewer

[James Prescott Joule, Joint Scientific Papers, The Physical Society of London, 1887, 215]

Men, Age, Intelligence, Communication

“[T]he direction of society has been taken over by a type of man who is not interested in the principles of civilisation. Not of this or that civilisation but — from what we can judge to-day — of any civilisation. …[T]he type of man dominant to-day is a primitive one, a Naturmensch rising up in the midst of a civilised world.”

José Ortega Y Gasset book The Revolt of the Masses

Chap.IX: The Primitive and the Technical
The Revolt of the Masses (1929)

World

“There's no escaping it-the world is full of lies. It is safest always to accept what one hears as if it were utterly commonplace and devoid of interest.”

Yoshida Kenkō (1283–1350) japanese writer

73
Essays in Idleness (1967 Columbia University Press, Trns: Donald Keene)

World

“Before adolescence, memory is more interested in the future than the past…”

Gabriel García Márquez book Living to Tell the Tale

Living to Tell the Tale (2002)

Memory, Past, Future

“I have never suffered my pleasures to interfere with my duty; and 1 am persuaded I have given too many unequivocal proofs of my attachment to your person and interest, to leave a doubt upon your mind to the contrary. I have always given you my opinion with great candor, and executed your orders with equal fidelity. I do not mean to arrogate to myself more merit than I deserve, or wish to exculpate myself from being chargeable with error, and in some instances negligence. However, I can speak, with a becoming pride, that I have always endeavoured to deserve the public esteem, and your Excellency's approbation.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (July 1778)

Pleasure, Error, Suffering, Personality

“It is precisely the immediate and thorough eradication of the Jews in Italy which is the special interest of the present internal political situation and the general security in Italy.”

Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1903–1946) Austrian-born senior official of Nazi Germany executed for war crimes

To Herbert Kappler, October 11. Quoted in "The Battle for Rome" - Page 77 - by Robert Katz - History - 2003

“More generally, the hidden variable account of a given system becomes entirely different when we remember that it has undoubtedly interacted with numerous other systems in the past and that the total wave function will certainly not be factorable. The same effect complicates the hidden variable account of the theory of measurement, when it is desired to include part of the 'apparatus' in the system. Bohm of course was well aware of these features of his scheme, and has given them much attention. However, it must be stressed that, to the present writer's knowledge, there is no proof that any hidden variable account of quantum mechanics must have this extraordinary character. It would therefore be interesting, perhaps, to pursue some further 'impossibility proofs,' replacing the arbitrary axioms objected to above by some condition of locality, or of separability of distant systems.”

John S. Bell (1928–1990) Northern Irish physicist

On the problem of hidden variables in quantum mechanics (1966)

Knowledge, Distant, Past, Parting

“It is said,—and men seem to think that condemnation can go no further than such a censure—that they brought us within twenty-four hours of revolution…But is it in truth so great an evil, when the dearest interests and the most sincere convictions are at stake, to go within twenty-four hours of revolution?”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

On resistance to the Reform Act 1832. Quarterly Review, 123, 1867, p. 557
1860s

Men, Truth, Thinking, Evil

“Trained in a less severe school than that of geometry and physics, his reasonings are almost always loose and inconclusive. His generalizations seem to have been reached before he had obtained the materials upon which he rests them: His facts, though frequently new and interesting, are often little more than conjectures; and the grand phenomena of the world of life, and instinct, and reason, which other minds have woven into noble and elevating truths, have thus become in Mr. Darwin's hands the basis of a dangerous and degrading speculation.”

David Brewster (1781–1868) British astronomer and mathematician

Referring to Charles Darwin
The facts and fancies of Mr. Darwin (1862)

Life, Truth, World, School

“The Revolution of ’82 (1782) was a revolution which enabled Irishmen to sell at a much higher price their honour, their integrity, and the interests of their country; it was a revolution which while at one stroke it doubled the value of every borough monger in the Kingdom, left three-fourths of our countrymen [Catholics] slaves as it found them, and the Government of Ireland in the base, wicked and contemptible hands who had spent their lives plundering and degrading her … Who of the veteran enemies of the country lost his place, or his pension? Not one. The power remained in the hands of our enemies, again to be exerted for our ruin, with this difference, that, formerly, we had our distresses gratis at the hands of England, but now we pay very dearly to receive the same with aggravations at the hands of Irishmen—yet this we boast of and call a Revolution.”

Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763–1798) Irish politician

Attributed, An Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland by a Northern Whig. (September, 1791)

Country

“Here’s why I would recommend against [selling the U. S. stock markets short]…. Retail brokers normally require investors to hold any short-sale proceeds in U. S. dollars, usually earning no interest. The dollar, seen through my famously jaundiced eye, could lose more purchasing power than the security you sold short lost value…. I’ve got a much better idea, which is to borrow dollars and spend them to acquire foreign income-producing assets, using the income to pay the interest.”

Peter D. Schiff (1963) American entrepreneur, economist and author

Quotes from Crash Proof (2006)

Idea

“I've come to the end of von Hügel's voluminous work on Catherine of Genoa. For such outlay in erudition, it's basically an unrewarding book (for me!), but full of interesting side-lights…Curious, for instance, that Catherine, always universally cited as the recognised authority, the most important and competent witness to the nature of Purgatory, should actually never have had a vision of it - neither as shewing nor as visiting in spirit, as other mystics did.. Her statements are pure conclusions, analogies, based on her own spiritual experiences of suffering and bliss: "So that's what it must be like in Purgatory!"”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

Broken Lights Diaries 1955-57.

Books, Nature, Light, Suffering

“We had many interesting conversations and he introduced me to his young wife. He confided to me that he had married her because she was a fanatical atheist. Atheism was the main topic of their conversations. Such fervid atheism is usually a screen for repressed religion. The truly convinced atheist does not emphasize his atheism. He does not talk about it and is careful to avoid blasphemies.
The man was interested in dreams and each morning he related several of his dreams. They were full of religious symbols. I was cautious not to reveal to him the meaning of his dreams; such off-hand analyses are always dangerous…. The banker did not want to be disturbed in his supposed atheism…. His atheism was a reaction formation established upon an ineradicable religious belief.”

Wilhelm Stekel (1868–1940) Austrian physician and psychologist

American Journal of Psychotherapy Volume II (1948); this has sometimes been quoted as "Fervid atheism is usually a screen for repressed religion." Stekel repeated the anecdote http://benatlas.com/2010/06/wilhelm-stekel-on-atheism-and-telepathy in his Autobiography (1950). The man was the manager of a large New York bank. Stekel met him on the liner on which he was travelling back to Europe.

Religion, Dreams, Confidence

“It wasn't in our interests for the material to be used for labor in the concentration camps to arrive completely useless and needing repair…. Look, how can you make 25,000 Jews, or people, or let's say 25,000 cows, how can you simply let 25,000 animals just disappear en route? Have you ever seen 25,000 people in a pile? … Have you ever seen 10,000 people in a pile? That's five transport trains, and if you pack them in the way the Hungarian police planned, then at best you'll get no more than 3,000 people in one transport train. Loading a train is a tricky business anyway, whether it's with cattle or flour sacks … and so much more difficult to load it with people, especially when you have problems to reckon with.”

Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962) German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)

People, Way, Business, Problem

“Most chess books only sell a few thousand copies, and a book titled something like “Women in Chess” would sell even fewer. The idea with this title was to spread the book outside the competitive chess world. I’m interested in attracting readers who love chess but play only casually, and feminists interested in male dominated fields.”

Jennifer Shahade (1980) chess player

On the title of her book Chess Bitch : Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport
Gothamist interview (2006)

Love, Women, Books, World

“The bourgeois court, which claimed to maintain order, but which, as a matter of fact, was a blind, subtle instrument for the ruthless suppression of the exploited, and an instrument for protecting the interests of the moneybags.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp. 453–482.
Collected Works

“On the morning of January 11th, 1860, I passed, for the eighth time, through the Golden Gate… As the shores of California faded in the distance, and the summits of the Coast Range sank under the blue horizon, I bade farewell — yes, I do not doubt, forever — to those scenes which, however changed or unchanged, must always posses an ineffable interest for me.”

Richard Henry Dana Jr. (1815–1882) United States author and lawyer

Twenty-Four Years After (1869)

Change, Time

“Admittedly America has not fully succeeded. The absence of definition, of principles, and of methods of Americanization shows her success thus far to have been rather a happy accident, an outcome which cannot be expected in a more exacting future. Has it been regarded as a war necessity to be dealt with expeditiously and then dropped, or will it become a science, thereby progressing from emotion to reason, from impulse to logic, and from chaos to order? With the war ended, there is danger that we will turn aside to new interests, unless a foundation of science can be laid and a philosophy evolved.”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)

War, Happiness, Science, Success

“Corporation executives, particularly the more prominent ones, and wealthy individuals generally decry the fact that the "New Deal" has fostered a feeling of class-consciousness among workers and low-income groups. Class-consciousness, however, is not new in this country, and it is most pronounced among those groups who decry it while not recognizing the phenomenon themselves. Common social backgrounds, common business interests, and common fears, prejudices, and loyalties create among those who possess wealth and economic power a strong and clear-cut feeling of membership in an economic and social class.”

Robert Aaron Gordon (1908–1978) American economist

Source: Business Leadership in the Large Corporation (1945), p. 252, footnote 12

Fear, Feeling, Business, Strong

“The only thing that mattered was that the quarter century or so he had remaining would be his life, to live out as he chose and in his own best interests. Nothing took precedence over that: not work, not friendships, not relationships with women. Those were all components of his life, and valuable ones, but they did not define it or control it. That was up to him, and him alone.
The possibilities, Jeff knew, were endless.”

Ken Grimwood book Replay

Source: Replay (1986), Chapter 21 (p. 311)

Life, Women, Friendship

“A life of science struck me as being both interesting and international in character.”

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (1952) Nobel prize winning American and British structural biologist

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

Life, Science

“Mr. Martin Tanner, a baritone, of Dayton, Ohio made his Town Hall debut last night. He came well prepared, but unfortunately his presentation was not up to contemporary professional standards. His voice lacks the range of tonal color necessary to make it consistently interesting.
Full time consideration of another endeavor might be in order.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

Mr. Tanner
Song lyrics, Short Stories (1974)

Color, Time, Night

“One of the most dangerous phases of self-interest in industry has been the part it has played in bringing about wars between nations.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

"The Commercial Motive" ibid.

War, Parting

“How few people, even among the supposedly well educated, can give an intelligent explanation of the qualities of a design! …the essential ones …are necessary in order that the design may be worthy to be classed at all as a work of art. Among the essential qualities are reason, unity, harmony, clarity, and variety. Among the desirable qualities are imagination, interest, refinement, simplicity, dignity, and style.”

Ernest Flagg (1857–1947) American architect

Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)

People, Education, Art, Imagination

“What interested me about Chuck Berry was the way he could step out of the rhythm part with such ease, throwing in a nice, simple riff, and then drop straight into the feel of it again. We used to play a lot more rhythm stuff. We'd do away with the differences between lead and rhythm guitar. You can't go into a shop and ask for a "lead guitar."”

Keith Richards (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

You're a guitar player, and you play a guitar.
[Denyer, Ralph, The Guitar Handbook, 2002, Alfred A. Knopf, 0-679-74275-1].

Way, Feeling, Parting

“There are probably no creatures that require more the protective Divine word against the presumption of man than the animals, which, like man, have sensations and instincts, but whose body and powers are nevertheless subservient to man. In relation to them man so easily forgets that injured animal muscle twitches just like human muscle, that the maltreated nerves of an animal sicken like human nerves, that the animal being is just as sensitive to cuts, blows and beating as man. Thus man becomes the torturer of the animal soul, which has been subjected to him only for the fulfilment of humane and wise purposes; sometimes out of self-interest, at other times in order to satisfy a whim, sometimes out of thoughtlessness—yes, even for the satisfaction of crude satanic desire.”

Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808–1888) Jewish theologian, germany 19th century

Horeb: A Philosophy of Jewish Laws and Observances, translated by Isidor Grunfeld, London: Soncino Press, 1968, vol. II https://books.google.it/books?id=tEIIAAAAIAAJ, p. 292, sec. 415.

Soul, Time, Animals, Forgetting

“It time to declare Salafism outlawed. As sectarian drift, or as affecting the fundamental interests of the Nation, choose the safest way.”

Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet (1973) French politician

Valls: French Muslims to conduct “all over” the fight against Salafism http://www.archyxx.com/valls-french-muslims-to-conduct-all-over-the-fight-against-salafism/, Archyxx. (July 20, 2016)

Way, Time

“Some within the Nazi hierarchy… called for 'blue- and white-collar workers to be put on equal footing’ to give them a preliminary taste of the harmonious future to come, which would be achieve through a ‘generous reform of the social-welfare state in the interest of working people.”

Götz Aly (1947) German journalist, historian and social scientist

Source: Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State (2007), p. 57

People, Future

“Indeed, the "whole bourgeoisie" on whose behalf the government was acting as its "committee" was a composite of a vast multitude of businessmen appearing as a conglomeration of many different and divergent groups and interests.”

Paul A. Baran (1909–1964) American Marxist economist

Source: The Political Economy Of Growth (1957), Chapter Four, Standstill and Movement Under Monopoly Capitalism, II, p. 93

Appearance

“The artist tries to see what there is to be interested in… He has not created something, he has seen something.”

T. E. Hulme (1883–1917) English Imagist poet and critic

Source: Speculations (Essays, 1924)

“Why should I read something someone made up when real events are so interesting?”

Frank Buckles (1901–2011) United States Army soldier and centenarian

On why he does not read fiction books.
Tampa Bay Online.

Reading

“I have often since then asked myself why these five were successful when others, with long records of diplomacy, were unsuccessful, and, in fact, had allowed a bad situation to get worse, so that there was a danger of the conflict spreading.... I think that the answer really lies in the fact that those five Prime Ministers brought a fresh approach to bear on the problem. They were not seeking advantage for their own countries. They had no axe of power-politics to grind. They had but one interest-how to end the fighting in such a way that the chances of continuing peace and stability were enhanced....”

Sukarno (1901–1970) first President of the Republic of Indonesia

Speech at the Opening of the Bandung Conference

Peace, Way, Problem, Thinking

“To all men it is evident that the social interests of one hundred and fifty Millions of us depend on the mysterious industry there carried on; and likewise that the dissatisfaction with it is great, universal, and continually increasing in intensity,—in fact, mounting, we might say, to the pitch of settled despair.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Downing Street (April 1, 1850)

Men, Universe, Dependency, Despair

““Try to be a man about whom nothing is known,” our father said, when we were young. Our father said several other interesting things, but we have forgotten what they were. “Keep quiet,” he said. That we remember. He wished more quiet. One tends to want that, in a National Park. Our father was a man about whom nothing was known. Nothing is known about him still. He gave us the recipes. He was not very interesting. A tree is more interesting. A suitcase is more interesting. A canned good is more interesting. When we sing the father hymn, we notice that he was not very interesting. The words of the hymn notice it. It is explictly commented upon, in the text.”

Donald Barthelme book Snow White

Source: Snow White (1967), pp.18–19.

Tree, Singing

“If you've ever bought drugs before, you understand that for some bizarre reason you have to feign this relationship with your dealer. It's like you're not really going to him to buy drugs. You're going for a social visit. Drugs are the surprise that just happens when you get there. "Oh, hash? I didn't know!" And he's talkin' to you and you're tryin' to be interested, you know, "Oh yeah? No, really…I love Foghat. No, seriously." And inside you're like, "Just fuckin' give it! I hate you. Your house smells like cat pee!"”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

Why do all drug dealers' houses smell like cat pee?
From Her Tours and CDs, The Notorious C.H.O. Tour

Love, Hate, Cats, Understanding

“Does the cycle that goes, interest in something, involvement in it, tiring of it, and rejection of it, looking into something else, get shorter every decade?”

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

Connections (1979), 9 - Countdown

“If you concern yourself with telling or showing people how interesting you are, you will at best provoke a temporary response of polite interest until even that gives way to annoyance. If you let people find it out for themselves, you become a real source of fascination.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

Books, Tricks of the Mind (2006)

People, Way

“I'm not sure sophisticated comedy has a place on television any more … I'd like to think it still does … But I'm not sure the networks are interested, I'm not sure anybody else is interested in sophisticated comedy any more.”

Kelsey Grammer (1955) American actor, comedian, producer, director, writer, voice artist

As quoted in "'Frasier' leaving the building" by Andy Walton at CNN (3 May 2004) http://articles.cnn.com/2004-05-03/entertainment/finale.frasier_1_frasier-niles-and-daphne-frasier-crane/2?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ

Thinking

“Each of us [the Der Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) artists] was interested in the work of the other members of our group, much as each of us was also interested in the health and happiness of the others. But we were still far from considering ourselves as a group or a school of art... I don't think we were ever as programmatic in out theories, as competitive or a self-assertive, as some of the modern [art] schools of Paris.”

Gabriele Münter (1877–1962) German painter

Source: Interview by Edouard Roditi (1958), p. 117

Happiness, Health, School, Art

“Possibly the most interesting first impression of my life came from the world of dreams.”

P. D. Ouspensky (1878–1947) Russian esotericist

Source: A New Model of the Universe (1932), p. 242

Life, World, Dreams

“Nothing of value is free. It is very easy, Mr. Chairman, to convince people that it is in their best interest to give away somebody else's property for nothing, but even the most guileless among us know that this is a cave of illusion where commonsense is lured and then quietly strangled.”

Jack Valenti (1921–2007) President of the MPAA

Testimony to the US House of Representatives (1982)

People

“Both of them mean that Labor has no rights which Capital is bound to respect,—that there is no higher law than human interest and cupidity.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

Referring to John C. Breckenridge and Stephen A. Douglas (Abraham Lincoln's opponents)
The Election in November 1860 (1860)

Law

“The dignity of history consists in reciting events with truth and accuracy, and in presenting human agents and their actions in an interesting and instructive form. The first element in history, therefore, is truthfulness; and this truthfulness must be displayed in a concrete form.”

Daniel Webster (1782–1852) Leading American senator and statesman. January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852. Served as the Secretary of Sta…

The Dignity and Importance of History http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dwebster/speeches/dignity-history.html (23 February 1852)

Truth, History

“An efficient and contented employee has a positive money value to any employer. To hold him and keep him efficient, his personal comfort and needs should be considered in every way not detrimental to the company's interests.”

Walter Dill Scott (1869–1955) President of Northwestern university and psychologist

Walter Dill Scott, "The Psychology of Business - Wages," in: System, (18) (Dec. 1910), p. 610. The first article appeared in XVII

Money, Way, Personality

“We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1930s, Second inaugural address (1937)

“What other book besides the Bible could be heard in public assemblies from year to year, with an attention that never tires, and an interest that never cloys?”

Robert Hall (1764–1831) British Baptist pastor

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 35.

Books

“…girls, women, are not interested in romance but only facts.”

William Faulkner book The Town

Gavin Stevens to Eula Varner Snopes in Ch. 20
The Town (1957)

Women, Girl

“The politics of the unpolitical—these are the politics of those who desire to be pure in heart: the politics of men without personal ambition; of those who have not desires wealth or an unequal share of worldly possessions; of those who have always striven, whatever their race or condition, for human values and not for national or sectional interests. For our Western world, Christ is the supreme example of this unselfish devotion to the good of humanity, and the Sermon on the Mount is the source of all the politics of the unpolitical.”

Herbert Read (1893–1968) English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art

“The Politics of the Unpolitical,” To Hell with Culture (1963), p. 38
Other Quotes

Men, World, Heart, Christ

“All of our tax-legislation is and remains, so long as we do not have liberation from enslavement to interest, only a tribute-obligation to big capital, and not, as we would imagine, a voluntary sacrifice for the accomplishment of labor for the community.”

Gottfried Feder (1883–1941) German economist and politician

"Manifesto for the Abolition of Enslavement to Interest on Money" (1919)

Imagination, Communication

“When credit is expanding, the rising price level and high profits bring about a high rate of interest. When the expansion has reached, the limit permitted by the stock of gold, the rate of interest is put still higher in order to bring about a fall in the price level. When the fall in prices takes effect, a low rate of interest becomes appropriate, and when credit contraction has proceeded so far that a redundant supply of gold has accumulated, the rate of interest is depressed still lower in order to bring about a renewed rise in the price level. Thus a high rate of interest corresponds first with rising, then with falling, prices, and so synchronizes with high prices. A low rate of interest corresponds first with falling, and then with rising, prices, and so synchronizes with low prices.”

Ralph George Hawtrey (1879–1975) British economist

Ralph George Hawtrey, quoted in Irving Fisher, The Theory of Interest (1930), Chapter 19. The Relation of Interest to Money and Prices

“The woodcut is the most graphic of the printmaking techniques. Its practice demands much technical ability and interest. Kirchner's technical skill made woodcutting easy for him. Thus he came in a spontaneous way through the simplification necessary here to a clear style of representation. We see in his woodcuts, which constantly accompanied his creative work, the formal language of the paintings prefigured.”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) German painter, sculptor, engraver and printmaker

de:Louis de Marsalle (pseudonym of Kirchner) Uber Kirchners Graphik, Genius 3, no. 2 (1921), p. 252-53; as quoted in 'The Revival of Printmaking in Germany', I. K. Rigby; in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; published by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California & Prestel-Verlag, Germany, 1986, p. 52
1920's

Way, Painting

“For us Europeans, Africa as a neighboring continent is of prime importance. The development of African countries is in our very own vested interest. We, as Germans, but also we, as members of the European Union, will have to deal with this.”

Angela Merkel (1954) Chancellor of Germany

2016, Joint press conference of 17 November 2016

Country

“Peace is the wish of the French of Italy Spain Germany and all the world, and Great Britain alone the cause of preventing its accomplishment, and this not for any point of honour or even interest, but merely lest there should be an example in the modern world of a great powerful Republic.”

Charles James Fox (1749–1806) British Whig statesman

Letter to Lord Holland (7 August 1795), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), pp. 161-162.
1790s

World, Peace

“Mass communications analysts concentrate on “who sends what information, for what purposes, through what channels, to which people, with what effect”. The information profession is more interested in “who seeks what information, for what purposes, through what channels, from which people and sources, with what success”.”

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

Source: Information history – an introduction (2009), p. 246.

People, Communication, Success

“She had little doubt that whatever happened to her on this drifting ship was of scant interest to a God who could allow her to reach this sorry state in the first place.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 1, Chapter 6, “The Sea-Grave” (p. 185).

God

“I do have the toughest, most comprehensive plan to go after Wall Street. And not just the big banks, all the other financial interests that pose a threat to our economy. And I have said no bank is too big to fail and no executive is too powerful to jail, and I will use the powers that have now been passed by the Congress, by President Obama, who, incidentally, took a lot of money from Wall Street, which didn’t stop him from signing into law the toughest regulations on the financial industry since the Great Depression. There are a lot of different powerful interests in Washington. I’ve taken them on. I took on the drug companies. I took on the insurance companies. Before there was something called Obamacare, there was something called Hillarycare, and I worked really hard to get comprehensive health care reform.”

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

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Democratic Presidential Debate in Miami (March 9, 2016)

Money, Law

“The young tend to be more curious and critical as they seek to understand life and make sense of their experiences. But as they grow older they start questioning less and try to conform. The young people tend to hold liberal positions on issues such as abortion or gay sex because they are not in positions of authority and not necessarily interested in the maintenance of law and order. The youths are not interested in things or in issues as established, but in issues as they think. So, they can afford to challenge existing norms. However, as they grow older and get into positions of authority, the maintenance of law and order becomes paramount — and they become more conservative.”

Leo Igwe (1970) Nigerian human rights activist

An Interview with Dr. Leo Igwe — Founder, Nigerian Humanist Movement (2017)

Life, People, Youth, Law

“I think it's called Arte Povera. But it doesn't mean 'poor art'. It means the art which you would do out there if you were nobody at all. Aspects of this are street art and so forth. Earthworks interest me to the single extent that it means a great extension of the possibilities of materials. Dirt is a wonderful material to make things out of. And mud and rocks and things like this…”

Carl Andre (1935) American artist

Source: Artists talks 1969 – 1977, p. 26

Art, Thinking

“Linear programming is viewed as a revolutionary development giving man the ability to state general objectives and to find, by means of the simplex method, optimal policy decisions for a broad class of practical decision problems of great complexity. In the real world, planning tends to be ad hoc because of the many special-interest groups with their multiple objectives.”

George Dantzig (1914–2005) American mathematician

Dantzig (1983) "Reminiscences about the origins of linear programming". In: Mathematical programming : the state of the art. New York, 1983, p. 78-86.

World, Optimism, Problem, Decision

“As for what l'm making now, perhaps it's art; but if it isn't, at least it's something else equally interesting to me!”

George Rickey (1907–2002) American artist

Source: Selden Rodman (1957) Conversations with Artists, New York, p. 148

Art

“Well, I don't play heroes obviously. I never played the guy who gets the girl. It might be interesting to do a part where I was a father in a functional family.”

Christopher Walken (1943) American actor

Hap Erstein (October 29, 2004) "Walken Doesn't Mind Playing Creepy Type - As Long As He's Cast", The Palm Beach Post, p. 9.

Family, Guy, Girl, Parting

“Question: If you could pick one cause that has gotten us here, what'd you say it is?
Ron Paul: Easy money. The Federal Reserve artificially lowering interest rates, deceiving the people, the investors, the savers, into believing that there's a lot of savings out there, and that we should invest more, build more houses, more cars. It's the malinvestment, which is every bit as dangerous, from the inflation of the money supply, as is the high prices that usually come.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Fox Business Network, March 24, 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkJ1sa9mxCU 2000s, 2006-2009

Money, People, Cars, Question

“Are vital U. S. interests more imperiled by what happens in Iraq where were have 50,000 troops, or Afghanistan where we have 100,000, or South Korea where we have 28,000 — or by what is happening on our border with Mexico? … What does it profit America if we save Anbar and lose Arizona?”

Patrick Buchanan (1938) American politician and commentator

2010s, Suicide of a Superpower (2011)

“I venture on assuring you that I regard the design formed by you and your friends with sincere interest, and in particular wish well to all the efforts you may make on behalf of individual freedom and independence as opposed to what is termed Collectivism.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to F. W. Hirst on being unable to write a preface to Essays in Liberalism by "Six Oxford Men" (2 January 1897), as quoted In the Golden Days (1947) by F. W. Hirst, p. 158
1890s

Effort, Freedom, Sincerity

“I've watched the politicians. I've dealt with them all my life. If you can't make a good deal with a politician, then there's something wrong with you. You're certainly not very good. And that's what we have representing us. They will never make America great again. They don't even have a chance. They're controlled fully — they're controlled fully by the lobbyists, by the donors, and by the special interests, fully.”

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

2010s, 2015, Presidential Bid Announcement (June 16, 2015)

Life, Chance

“To begin again at the beginning in a proper philosophical manner, one person is a unity, and somehow, after the long complex process, a work of art is a similar unity. But the person is fairly unintelligible and the art is intelligible. Primarily what is intelligible is the nature of the artist, either of the past or now. The interests, thought and quality of the artist make the final total quality of the work.”

Donald Judd (1928–1994) artist

Donald Judd (1983) in: Donald Judd (1987) Complete writings, 1975-1986. p. 28 ; Quoted in: " Archives http://www.juddfoundation.org/archives" at juddfoundation.org, 2014 1980

Art, Intelligence, Nature, Past

“Amongst the great and numerous dangers to which this country, and particularly the monarchy, is exposed in consequence of the enormous public debt, the influence, the powerful and widely-extended influence, of the monied interest is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it necessarily aims at measures which directly tend to the subversion of the present order of things…I mean an interest hostile alike to the land-holder and to the stockholder, to the colonies, to the real merchant, and to the manufacturer, to the clergy, to the nobility and to the throne; I mean the numerous and powerful body of loan-jobbers, directors, brokers, contractors and farmers-general, which has been engendered by the excessive amount of the public debt, and the almost boundless extension of the issues of paper-money.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Political Register (8 September 1804), quoted in Karl W. Schweizer and John W. Osborne, Cobbett and His Times (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1990), p. 29.

Money, Hostility, Country

“What interests me about fascism is that it is a black hole of free will. It is a system which isn’t necessarily unique, but it absolves brutality, it absolves the lack of morals and it absolves people of their own decisions. When they tell you ‘you can kill these people because they are Jews, reds or homosexuals, or whatever!’ In this world you can permit a brutal action on the base of collective advice; that is what scares me.”

Guillermo del Toro (1964) Mexican film director

Lo que me interesa del fascismo es justamente que es un hoyo negro de la voluntad. Es un sistema que no necesariamente es único, pero absuelve la brutalidad, absuelve la falta de moral y absuelve la decisión propia. Cuando te dicen “Tú puedes matar a esta gente porque que son judíos, rojos o homosexuales, ¡lo que sea!” En ese mundo puedes permitir una acción brutal en base a un consejo colectivo, eso es lo que me asusta. Interview with Guillermo del Toro on 10/23/2006. http://www.fantasymundo.com/articulo.php?articulo=467

People, World, Decision

“People are very interested in politics, they just don't like it labelled 'politics.”

Douglas Hurd (1930) British Conservative politician and novelist

Interview with Rhian Harris about the Tories then and now http://www.cherwell.org/news/world/2008/05/15/douglas-hurd (15 May 2008)

People

“A good way of finding out who won a war, who lost a war, and what the war was about, is to ask who's cheering and who's depressed after it's over - this can give you interesting answers. So, for example, if you ask that question about the Second World War, you find out that the winners were the Nazis, the German industrialists who had supported Hitler, the Italian Fascists and the war criminals that were sent off to South America - they were all cheering at the end of the war. The losers of the war were the anti-fascist resistance, who were crushed all over the world. Either they were massacred like in Greece or South Korea, or just crushed like in Italy and France. That's the winners and losers. That tells you partly what the war was about. Now let's take the Cold War: Who's cheering and who's depressed? Let's take the East first. The people who are cheering are the former Communist Party bureaucracy who are now the capitalist entrepreneurs, rich beyond their wildest dreams, linked to Western capital, as in the traditional Third World model, and the new Mafia. They won the Cold War. The people of East Europe obviously lost the Cold War; they did succeed in overthrowing Soviet tyranny, which is a gain, but beyond that they've lost - they're in miserable shape and declining further. If you move to the West, who won and who lost? Well, the investors in General Motors certainly won. They now have this new Third World open again to exploitation”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

and they can use it against their own working classes. On the other hand, the workers in GM certainly didn't win, they lost. They lost the Cold War, because now there's another way to exploit them and oppress them and they're suffering from it. Forum with John Pilger and Harold Pinter in Islington, London, May 1994 https://web.archive.org/web/20000823015510/http://www.redpepper.org.uk/cularch/xalmeida.html. Quotes 1990s, 1990-1994

War, People, World, Dreams