Quotes about interest
page 36

Samuel Butler photo
Edward Jenks photo
André Breton photo
Leopoldo Galtieri photo
Andrew Sega photo
James O'Keefe photo
Richard Feynman photo
Henry Adams photo

“As a type for study, or a standard for education, Lodge was the more interesting of the two. Roosevelts are born and never can be taught; but Lodge was a creature of teaching — Boston incarnate — the child of his local parentage; and while his ambition led him to be more, the intent, though virtuous, was — as Adams admitted in his own case — restless. An excellent talker, a voracious reader, a ready wit, an accomplished orator, with a clear mind and a powerful memory, he could never feel perfectly at ease whatever leg he stood on, but shifted, sometimes with painful strain of temper, from one sensitive muscle to another, uncertain whether to pose as an uncompromising Yankee; or a pure American; or a patriot in the still purer atmosphere of Irish, Germans, or Jews; or a scholar and historian of Harvard College. English to the last fibre of his thought — saturated with English literature, English tradition, English taste — revolted by every vice and by most virtues of Frenchmen and Germans, or any other Continental standards, but at home and happy among the vices and extravagances of Shakespeare — standing first on the social, then on the political foot; now worshipping, now banning; shocked by the wanton display of immorality, but practicing the license of political usage; sometimes bitter, often genial, always intelligent — Lodge had the singular merit of interesting. The usual statesmen flocked in swarms like crows, black and monotonous. Lodge's plumage was varied, and, like his flight, harked back to race. He betrayed the consciousness that he and his people had a past, if they dared but avow it, and might have a future, if they could but divine it.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

John Ralston Saul photo
Niklaus Wirth photo

“Reliable and transparent programs are usually not in the interest of the designer.”

Niklaus Wirth (1934) Swiss computer scientist

Niklaus Wirth (1999) " A Digital Contrarian Retires http://www.modulaware.com/mdlt/mdlt79.htm". Beat Gerber eds., June 1999.

Geoffrey Howe photo
African Spir photo
Michael T. Flynn photo

“My guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with the special counsel’s office reflect a decision I made in the best interests of my family and of our country. I accept full responsibility for my actions.”

Michael T. Flynn (1958) 25th United States National Security Advisor

Statement made following his indictment on charges of lying to the FBI https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/us/politics/michael-flynn-guilty-russia-investigation.html, a felony which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison (1 December 2017)
Public Statements

Linda McQuaig photo
Jesper Kyd photo
Heinrich Müller photo

“You are a very interesting case, General. Do you know what fat file of evidence we have against you here?”

Heinrich Müller (1900–1945) German police official and head of the Gestapo

To General Walter Dornberger, 1944. Quoted in "Gestapo: Instrument of Tyranny" - by Edward Crankshaw

Kim Il-sung photo

“What is Juche [the subject] in our Party's ideological work? What are we doing? We are not engaged in any other country's revolution, but precisely in the Korean revolution. This, the Korean revolution, constitutes Juche in the ideological work of our Party. Therefore, all ideological work must be subordinated to the interests of the Korean revolution.”

Kim Il-sung (1912–1994) President of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

Source: " On eliminating dogmatism and formalism and establishing Juche in ideological work http://www.marxists.org/archive/kim-il-sung/1955/12/28.htm" (28 December 1955)

Sarah Gadon photo
Herbert Marcuse photo

“Ascending modern rationalism, in its speculative as well as empirical form, shows a striking contrast between extreme critical radicalism in scientific and philosophic method on the one hand, and an uncritical quietism in the attitude toward established and functioning social institutions. Thus Descartes' ego cogitans was to leave the “great public bodies” untouched, and Hobbes held that “the present ought always to be preferred, maintained, and accounted best.” Kant agreed with Locke in justifying revolution if and when it has succeeded in organizing the whole and in preventing subversion. However, these accommodating concepts of Reason were always contradicted by the evident misery and injustice of the “great public bodies” and the effective, more or less conscious rebellion against them. Societal conditions existed which provoked and permitted real dissociation. from the established state of affairs; a private as well as political dimension was present in which dissociation could develop into effective opposition, testing its strength and the validity of its objectives. With the gradual closing of this dimension by the society, the self-limitation of thought assumes a larger significance. The interrelation between scientific-philosophical and societal processes, between theoretical and practical Reason, asserts itself "behind the back” of the scientists and philosophers. The society bars a whole type of oppositional operations and behavior; consequently, the concepts pertaining to them are rendered illusory or meaningless. Historical transcendence appears as metaphysical transcendence, not acceptable to science and scientific thought. The operational and behavioral point of view, practiced as a “habit of thought” at large, becomes the view of the established universe of discourse and action, needs and aspirations. The “cunning of Reason” works, as it so often did, in the interest of the powers that be. The insistence on operational and behavioral concepts turns against the efforts to free thought and behavior from the given reality and for the suppressed alternatives.”

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), pp. 15-16

Alfred de Zayas photo
Karen Horney photo
Bernard Harcourt photo
John Steinbeck photo
Peter F. Drucker photo

“That people even in well paid jobs choose ever earlier retirement is a severe indictment of our organizations -- not just business, but government service, the universities. These people don't find their jobs interesting.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

The Shape of Things to Come: An Interview with Peter F. Drucker Leader to Leader, No. 1 (Summer 1996)
1990s and later

Newton Lee photo
Henry L. Benning photo

“My next proposition is that the North is in the course of acquiring this power to abolish slavery. Is that true? I say, gentlemen, the North is acquiring that power by two processes, one of which is operating with great rapidity-that is by the admission of new States. The public territory is capable of forming from twenty to thirty States of larger size than the average of the States now in the Union. The public territory is peculiarly Northern territory, and every State that comes into the Union will be a free State. We may rest assured, sit, that that is a fixed fact. The events in Kansas should satisfy every one of the truth of that. If causes now in operation are allowed to continue, the admission of new States will go on until a sufficient number shall have been secured to give the necessary preponderance to change the Constitution. There is a process going on by which some of our own slave States are becoming free States already. It is true, that in some of the slave States the slave population is actually on the decrease, and, I believe it is true of all of them that it is relatively to the white population on the decrease. The census shows that slaves are decreasing in Delaware and Maryland; and it shows that in the other States in the same parallel, the relative state of the decrease and increase is against the slave population. It is not wonderful that this should be so. The anti-slavery feeling has got to be so great at the North that the owners of slave property in these States have a presentiment that it is a doomed institution, and the instincts of self-interest impels them to get rid of that property which is doomed. The consequence is, that it will go down lower and. lower, until it all gets to the Cotton States-until it gets to the bottom. There is the weight of a continent upon it forcing it down. Now, I say, sir, that under this weight it is bound to go down unto the Cotton States, one of which I have the honor to represent here. When that time comes, sir, the free States in consequence of the manifest decrease, will urge the process with additional vigor, and I fear that the day is not distant when the Cotton States, as they are called, will be the only slave States. When that time comes, the time will have arrived when the North will have the power to amend the Constitution, and say that slavery shall be abolished, and if the master refuses to yield to this policy, he shall doubtless be hung for his disobedience.”

Henry L. Benning (1814–1875) Confederate Army general

Speech to the Virginia Convention (1861)

Jacques Derrida photo
Frank Stella photo
William Hague photo
André Maurois photo
Charles Dupin photo
Friedrich Engels photo
Gottfried Feder photo

“This [mammonist] mindset is embodied and reaches its acme in international plutocracy. The chief source of power for Mammonism is the effortless and endless income that is produced through interest.”

Gottfried Feder (1883–1941) German economist and politician

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

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson photo
Immanuel Kant photo
George Washington Plunkitt photo
Mobutu Sésé Seko photo
Orson Scott Card photo

“Once he had been so formidable that he was surrounded by enemies. Now even his enemies has lost interest in him. What clearer sign of failure could you find than that?”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, The Crystal City (2003), Chapter 1 “Nueva Barcelona” (p. 19).

Freeman Dyson photo

“The laws of nature are constructed in such a way as to make the universe as interesting as possible.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

Imagined Worlds (1997)

Gancho Tsenov photo

“In his present volume, Tsenov gives a careful and interesting account of the complicated historical events in the second half of the first century, which preserves its value, even when one would disagree with some of his claims”

Gancho Tsenov (1870–1949) Bulgarian historian

quotations for him
Source: Dr. Victor Lebezelter, „Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft”, Wien, 1936

Slavoj Žižek photo
Paulo Freire photo

“Indeed, the interests of the oppressors lie in 'changing the consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them';”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 1, The Banking Concept of Education

Margaret Hughes photo

“The Australia of her book is not merely a setting for cricket but a place of interest, of fun and of new impressions”

Margaret Hughes (1645–1719) British actress

John Arlott, review of The Long Hop; quoted in Times obituary http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article516103.ece
About

Vladimir Lenin photo
Alicia Silverstone photo
Derren Brown photo

“Do-gooders fail to realize that most good is not done in the name of good but done in the name of self-interest.”

Walter E. Williams (1936) American economist, commentator, and academic

2010s, American Contempt for Liberty (2015)

Richard Rodríguez photo
Anne of Great Britain photo

“I shall be very careful to preserve and maintain the Act of Toleration, and to set the minds of all my people at quiet; my own principles must always keep me entirely firm to the interests and religion of the Church of England, and will incline me to countenance those who have the truest zeal to support it.”

Anne of Great Britain (1665–1714) queen of England, queen of Scotland and queen of Ireland (1702–07); queen of Great Britain (1707–14)

Speech from the Throne (25 May 1702), from Cobbett's parliamentary history of England. Volume VI (London: R. Bagshaw, 1810), p. 1671.

Mohammad Hidayatullah photo
Garry Kasparov photo
Roberto Saviano photo
Arthur Schopenhauer photo
Vladimir Lenin photo

“There are times when the interests of the proletariat call for ruthless extermination of its enemies in open armed clashes.”

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

As quoted in Lessons of the Commune, Collected Works, Vol. 13, page 478.
Attributions

Maurice Ashley photo
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi photo
Alexandre Vinet photo
François Asselineau photo

“All strategical decisions in France are made by a non-French unelected oligarchy. The French political stage is a puppet theater, which explains the growing lack of interest for politics, among the French people.”

François Asselineau (1957) French politician

Un petit candidat contre la grande Europe, Nord-Eclair (February 2012) http://www.nordeclair.fr/Locales/Villeneuve-d-Ascq/2012/02/29/un-petit-candidat-contre-la-grande-europ.shtml
French politics

Rajiv Gandhi photo

“Nothing is more important than the unity and integrity of our nation. India is indivisible. Secularism is the bedrock of our nationhood. It implies more than tolerance. It involves an active effort for harmony. No religion preaches hatred and intolerance. Vested interests, both external and internal, are inciting and exploiting communal passions and violence to divide India.”

Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991) sixth Prime Minister of India

Broadcast to the Nation, 12 November 1984 note: Nothing is more important than the unity and integrity of our nation. India is indivisible. Secularism is the bedrock of our nationhood. It implies more than tolerance. It involves an active effort for harmony. No religion preaches hatred and intolerance. Vested interests, both external and internal, are inciting and exploiting communal passions and violence to divide India.
Source: en.wikiquote.org - Rajiv Gandhi / Nothing is more important than the unity and integrity of our nation. India is indivisible. Secularism is the bedrock of our nationhood. It implies more than tolerance. It involves an active effort for harmony. No religion preaches hatred and intolerance. Vested interests, both external and internal, are inciting and exploiting communal passions and violence to divide India.

Ron Paul photo

“There is but one special interest that we should be working for, and that would solve just about all of our problems, and that is our liberty.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Speech on the Patriot Act, 2003 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O7D7nDF0U8
2000s, 2001-2005

Isaac D'Israeli photo

“An excessive indulgence in the pleasures of social life constitutes the great interests of a luxuriant and opulent age”

Isaac D'Israeli (1766–1848) British writer

Source: The Literary Character, Illustrated by the History of Men of Genius (1795–1822), Ch. VIII.

Anthony Eden photo
Tony Abbott photo

“Climate change is by no means the sole or even the most significant symptom of the changing interests and values of the West. Still, only societies with high levels of cultural amnesia – that have forgotten the scriptures about man created 'in the image and likeness of God' and charged with 'subduing the earth and all its creatures”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

could have made such a religion out of it.
Quoted in "'I've learnt to speak my mind': 10 excerpts from Tony Abbott's climate change speech in London'" http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/ive-learnt-to-speak-my-mind-ten-excerpts-from-tony-abbotts-climate-change-speech-in-london-20171009-gyxk92.html, Sydney Morning Herald, October 10, 2017
2017

Lewis Mumford photo
Sharon Gannon photo

“Some people, many who profess to be yogis, argue that vegetarianism is not a healthful diet for everyone. We agree that vegetarianism is not for everybody; it is only for those who desire happiness and peace. It is definitely a must for those who are interested in enlightenment.”

Sharon Gannon (1951) American yoga teacher

Jivamukti Yoga: Practices for Liberating Body and Soul, coauthored with David Life (New York: Ballantine Books, 2002), p. 65 https://books.google.it/books?id=D_9oFtc1ZLMC&pg=PA65.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon photo
Monte Melkonian photo
Henry Adams photo
George Mason photo
Jackson Pollock photo
Ulysses S. Grant photo
Ernst Bloch photo
Abd al-Karim Qasim photo
John F. Kennedy photo
John Kenneth Galbraith photo
Bernard Cornwell photo
John Bright photo
Ron DeSantis photo
Hans Haacke photo

“A liberal public is interesting to have as an audience. It is for that very reason that corporations make such an effort to ally themselves with cultural institutions.”

Hans Haacke (1936) conceptual political artist

Deborah Solomon " The Way We Live Now: 3-26-00: Questions for Hans Haacke; School for Scandal http://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/26/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-3-26-00-questions-for-hans-haacke-school-for-scandal.html," in: The New York Times Biographical Service, Vol. 31 (2000), p. 588
2000s

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi photo
John Gray photo
Charles Babbage photo
Ben Bernanke photo
Hilaire Belloc photo

“Any subject can be made interesting, and therefore any subject can be made boring.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

XIII. A Guide to Boring
A Conversation with a Cat, and Others (1931)