Quotes about keep
page 55

C. J. Cherryh photo

“Save one, whose patience or whose pride was more than all the rest.
So one place, one untouched place in all the world remained, a rather smallish forest near the sea and near humankind, keeping a time different than elsewhere.”

The Dreamstone, Book One : The Gruagach, Ch. 1 : Of Fish and Fire
Arafel's Saga (1983)
Context: Men changed whatever they set hand to. They wrought their magic on beasts, to make them dull and patient. They brought fire and the reek of smoke to the dales. They brought lines and order to the curve of the hills. Most of all they brought the chill of iron, to sweep away the ancient shadows.
But they took the brightness too. It was inevitable, because that brightness was measured against that dark. Men piled stone on stone and made warm homes, and tamed some humbler, quieter things, but the darkest burrowed deep and the brightest went away, heartbroken.
Save one, whose patience or whose pride was more than all the rest.
So one place, one untouched place in all the world remained, a rather smallish forest near the sea and near humankind, keeping a time different than elsewhere.

Nikos Kazantzakis photo

“I put my body through its paces like a war horse; I keep it lean, sturdy, prepared.”

The Saviors of God (1923)
Context: I put my body through its paces like a war horse; I keep it lean, sturdy, prepared. I harden it and I pity it. I have no other steed.
I keep my brain wide awake, lucid, unmerciful. I unleash it to battle relentlessly so that, all light, it may devour the darkness of the flesh. I have no other workshop where I may transform darkness into light.
I keep my heart flaming, courageous, restless. I feel in my heart all commotions and all contradictions, the joys and sorrows of life. But I struggle to subdue them to a rhythm superior to that of the mind, harsher than that of my heart — to the ascending rhythm of the Universe.

Richard Wright photo
Kenneth Grahame photo

“Reserved, shy, but full of significance, it hid whatever it might hold behind a veil, keeping it till the hour should come, and, with the hour, those who were called and chosen.”

Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908), Ch. 7
Context: In midmost of the stream, embraced in the weir's shimmering arm-spread, a small island lay anchored, fringed close with willow and silver birch and alder. Reserved, shy, but full of significance, it hid whatever it might hold behind a veil, keeping it till the hour should come, and, with the hour, those who were called and chosen.

Helen Thomas photo
Epictetus photo
Rutherford B. Hayes photo

“I have a talent for silence and brevity. I can keep silent when it seems best to do so, and when I speak I can, and do usually, quit when I am done.”

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881)

Diary (20 November 1872)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)
Context: I have a talent for silence and brevity. I can keep silent when it seems best to do so, and when I speak I can, and do usually, quit when I am done. This talent, or these two talents, I have cultivated. Silence and concise, brief speaking have got me some laurels, and, I suspect, lost me some. No odds. Do what is natural to you, and you are sure to get all the recognition you are entitled to.

Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“I do not believe that the tendency is to make men and women brave and glorious when you tell them that there are certain ideas upon certain subjects that they must never express; that they must go through life with a pretence as a shield; that their neighbors will think much more of them if they will only keep still; and that above all is a God who despises one who honestly expresses what he believes.”

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

The Great Infidels (1881)
Context: I do not believe that the tendency is to make men and women brave and glorious when you tell them that there are certain ideas upon certain subjects that they must never express; that they must go through life with a pretence as a shield; that their neighbors will think much more of them if they will only keep still; and that above all is a God who despises one who honestly expresses what he believes. For my part, I believe men will be nearer honest in business, in politics, grander in art — in everything that is good and grand and beautiful, if they are taught from the cradle to the coffin to tell their honest opinion.

Frans de Waal photo

“Don’t believe anyone who says that since nature is based on a struggle for life, we need to live like this as well. Many animals survive not by eliminating each other or by keeping everything for themselves, but by cooperating and sharing.”

Frans de Waal (1948) Dutch primatologist and ethologist

The Age of Empathy (2009), p. 6
Context: Don’t believe anyone who says that since nature is based on a struggle for life, we need to live like this as well. Many animals survive not by eliminating each other or by keeping everything for themselves, but by cooperating and sharing. This applies most definitely to pack hunters, such as wolves or killer whales, but also our closest relatives, the primates. In a study in Taï National Park, in Ivory Coast, chimpanzees took care of group mates wounded by leopards, licking their blood, carefully removing dirt, and waving away flies that came near the wounds. They protected injured companions, and slowed down during travel in order to accommodate them. All of this makes perfect sense given that chimpanzees live in groups for a reason, the same way wolves and humans are group animals for a reason. If man is wolf to man, he is so in every sense, not just the negative one. We would not be where we are today had our ancestors been socially aloof. What we need is a complete overhaul of assumptions about human nature. Too many economists and politicians model human society on the perpetual struggle they believe exists in nature, but which is a mere projection. Like magicians, they first throw their ideological prejudices into the hat of nature, then pull them out by their very ears to show how much nature agrees with them. It’s a trick for which we have fallen for too long. Obviously, competition is part of the picture, but humans can’t live by competition alone.

John Dryden photo

“Content with poverty, my soul I arm;
And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

On Fortune; Book III, Ode 29, lines 81–87.
Imitation of Horace (1685)
Context: I can enjoy her while she's kind;
But when she dances in the wind,
And shakes the wings and will not stay,
I puff the prostitute away:
The little or the much she gave is quietly resign'd:
Content with poverty, my soul I arm;
And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty photo

“Machiavelli is the complete contrary of a machiavellian, since he describes the tricks of power and “gives the whole show away.” The seducer and the politician, who live in the dialectic and have a feeling and instinct for it, try their best to keep it hidden.”

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) French phenomenological philosopher

Source: In Praise of Philosophy (1963), p. 59
Context: Machiavelli is the complete contrary of a machiavellian, since he describes the tricks of power and “gives the whole show away.” The seducer and the politician, who live in the dialectic and have a feeling and instinct for it, try their best to keep it hidden.

Neville Chamberlain photo

“We are not sufficiently advanced to reveal our ideas to the public, but of course we cannot deny the general charge of rearmament and no doubt if we try to keep our ideas secret till after the election, we should either fail, or if we succeeded, lay ourselves open to the far more damaging accusation that we had deliberately deceived the people…I have therefore suggested that we should take the bold course of actually appealing to the country on a defence programme, thus turning the Labour party's dishonest weapon into a boomerang.”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Diary entry (2 August 1935), quoted in Maurice Cowling, The Impact of Hitler. British Politics and British Policy. 1933-1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 92.
Chancellor of the Exchequer
Context: The Labour Party, obviously intends to fasten upon our backs the accusation of being 'warmongers' and they are suggesting that we have 'hush hush' plans for rearmament which we are concealing from the people. As a matter of fact we are working on plans for rearmament at an early date for the situation in Europe is most alarming... We are not sufficiently advanced to reveal our ideas to the public, but of course we cannot deny the general charge of rearmament and no doubt if we try to keep our ideas secret till after the election, we should either fail, or if we succeeded, lay ourselves open to the far more damaging accusation that we had deliberately deceived the people... I have therefore suggested that we should take the bold course of actually appealing to the country on a defence programme, thus turning the Labour party's dishonest weapon into a boomerang.

Saki photo

“The cat of the slums and alleys, starved, outcast, harried, still keeps amid the prowlings of its adversity the bold, free, panther-tread with which it paced of yore the temple courts of Thebes, still displays the self-reliant watchfulness which man has never taught it to lay aside.”

Saki (1870–1916) British writer

"The Achievement of the Cat"
The Square Egg (1924)
Context: The animal which the Egyptians worshipped as divine, which the Romans venerated as a symbol of liberty, which Europeans in the ignorant Middle Ages anathematised as an agent of demonology, has displayed to all ages two closely blended characteristics — courage and self-respect. No matter how unfavourable the circumstances, both qualities are always to the fore. Confront a child, a puppy, and a kitten with a sudden danger; the child will turn instinctively for assistance, the puppy will grovel in abject submission to the impending visitation, the kitten will brace its tiny body for a frantic resistance. And disassociate the luxury-loving cat from the atmosphere of social comfort in which it usually contrives to move, and observe it critically under the adverse conditions of civilisation — that civilisation which can impel a man to the degradation of clothing himself in tawdry ribald garments and capering mountebank dances in the streets for the earning of the few coins that keep him on the respectable, or non-criminal, side of society. The cat of the slums and alleys, starved, outcast, harried, still keeps amid the prowlings of its adversity the bold, free, panther-tread with which it paced of yore the temple courts of Thebes, still displays the self-reliant watchfulness which man has never taught it to lay aside.

Hunter S. Thompson photo

“My face looked like it had been jammed into the spokes of a speeding Harley, and the only thing keeping me awake was the spastic pain of a broken rib.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

1960s, Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (1966)
Context: My face looked like it had been jammed into the spokes of a speeding Harley, and the only thing keeping me awake was the spastic pain of a broken rib. It had been a bad trip... fast and wild in some moments, slow and dirty in others, but on balance it looked like a bummer. On my way back to San Francisco, I tried to compose a fitting epitaph. I wanted something original, but there was no escaping the echo of Mistah Kurtz' final words from the heart of darkness: "The horror! The horror!... Exterminate all the brutes!"

Stanley Baldwin photo

“But our race is not a raw and untried race. The country, true to its finest traditions, kept its head, and by keeping its head won the admiration, the reluctant admiration, of the world.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Chippenham (12 June 1926) on the General Strike, quoted in Our Inheritance (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), p. 159.
1926
Context: The Government took emergency measures to control food supplies, to commandeer all forms of transport, to preserve order, and to stop the export of such coal as might be in the ports. Now into those few hours there were thus crowded events of a staggering character, and, had they taken place among a less disciplined people than our own people, riot and revolution would have quickly followed. But our race is not a raw and untried race. The country, true to its finest traditions, kept its head, and by keeping its head won the admiration, the reluctant admiration, of the world.

Robert Benchley photo

“Nine-tenths of the value of a sense of humor in writing is not in the things it makes one write but in the things it keeps one from writing.”

Robert Benchley (1889–1945) American comedian

LIFE magazine (8 March 1929)
Context: Nine-tenths of the value of a sense of humor in writing is not in the things it makes one write but in the things it keeps one from writing. It is especially valuable in this respect in serious writing, and no one without a sense of humor should ever write seriously. For without knowing what is funny, one is constantly in danger of being funny without knowing it.

Stanley Baldwin photo

“I am quite content in these circumstances to be called a coward if I have done what I could, in accordance with the views of every country in Europe, to keep my own people out of war.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the centenary dinner of the City of London Conservative and Unionist Association (2 July 1936) on the Italo-Abyssinian War, quoted in Service of Our Lives (1937), pp. 41-42.
1936
Context: War is a very terrible thing, and, when once let loose in Europe, no man can tell how far it will spread, and no man can tell when or how it will stop. I am quite content in these circumstances to be called a coward if I have done what I could, in accordance with the views of every country in Europe, to keep my own people out of war.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo

“Meanwhile, in their solitude, they keep the image of Christ fair and undefiled, in the purity of God's truth, from the times of the Fathers of old, the Apostles and the martyrs. And when the time comes they will show it to the tottering creeds of the world.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author

Book VI, chapter 3: "Conversations and Exhortations of Father Zossima; The Russian Monk and his possible Significance" (translated by Constance Garnett)
The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)
Context: Fathers and teachers, what is the monk? In the cultivated world the word is nowadays pronounced by some people with a jeer, and by others it is used as a term of abuse, and this contempt for the monk is growing. It is true, alas, it is true, that there are many sluggards, gluttons, profligates and insolent beggars among monks. Educated people point to these: “You are idlers, useless members of society, you live on the labor of others, you are shameless beggars.” And yet how many meek and humble monks there are, yearning for solitude and fervent prayer in peace! These are less noticed, or passed over in silence. And how surprised men would be if I were to say that from these meek monks, who yearn for solitary prayer, the salvation of Russia will come perhaps once more! For they are in truth made ready in peace and quiet “for the day and the hour, the month and the year.” Meanwhile, in their solitude, they keep the image of Christ fair and undefiled, in the purity of God's truth, from the times of the Fathers of old, the Apostles and the martyrs. And when the time comes they will show it to the tottering creeds of the world. That is a great thought. That star will rise out of the East.

William S. Burroughs photo

“The middle class is getting the squeeze, and only one in a thousand will go up. The Big Holders are the house, and the small farmers are the players. The player goes broke if he keeps on playing, and the farmer has to play or lose to the Government by default.”

Junkie (1953)
Context: A lot of people made quick easy money during the War and for several years after. Any business was good, just as any stock is good on a rising market. People thought they were sharp operators, when actually they were just riding a lucky streak. Now the Valley is in a losing streak and only the big operators can ride it out. In the Valley economic laws work out like a formula in high school algebra, since there is no human element to interfere. The very rich are getting richer and all the others are going broke. The big holders are not shrewd or ruthless or enterprising. They don't have to say or think anything. All they have to do is sit and the money comes pouring in. You have to get up with the Big Holders or drop out and take any job they hand you. The middle class is getting the squeeze, and only one in a thousand will go up. The Big Holders are the house, and the small farmers are the players. The player goes broke if he keeps on playing, and the farmer has to play or lose to the Government by default.

Milla Jovovich photo

“Music for me is something I prefer to keep away form the whole business part of my life.”

Milla Jovovich (1975) Ukrainian-born american model and actress

Interview 2
Context: Music for me is something I prefer to keep away form the whole business part of my life. I feel like everything I do, in a way, has some sort of business around it. So with my music I can have my privacy. If people don’t have to pay for it then I think they can be a little more open to new ideas.

George William Curtis photo

“You say you are tired of the eternal Negro. Very well, stop trying to turn a man into a thing because he happens to be black, and you'll stop our mouths at the same time. But while you keep at your work, be perfectly sure that we shall keep at ours. If you are up at five o'clock, we shall be up at four. We shall agitate, agitate, agitate, until the Supreme Court, obeying the popular will, proclaims that all men have original equal rights which government did not give and cannot justly take away”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)
Context: This negative doctrine of Mr. Douglas that there are no rights anterior to governments is the end of free society. If the majority of a political community have a right to establish slavery if they think it for their interest, they have the same right to declare who shall be enslaved. The doctrine simply substitutes the despotic, irresponsible tyranny of many for that of one. If the majority shall choose that the interest of the State requires the slaughter of all infants born lame, of all persons more than seventy years of age, they have the right to slaughter them, according to what is called the Democratic doctrine. Do you think this a ludicrous and extreme case? But if the majority have a right to deprive a man of his liberty at their pleasure, they have an equal right to take his life. For life is no more a natural right than liberty. The individual citizen, according to Mr. Douglas, is not secure in his person, in his property, in his family, for a single moment from the whim or the passion or the deliberate will of the majority, if expressed as law. Might is not right. I have the power to hold a child by the throat until he turns purple and dies. But I have not the right to do it. A State or a Territory has the power to steal a man's liberty or labor, and to hold him and his children's children forever in slavery. It has the power to do this to any man of any color, of any age, of any country, who is not strong enough to protect himself. But it has no more right to do it to an African than to an American or an Irishman, no more right to do it to the most ignorant and forsaken foreigner than to the prosperous and honored citizen of its own country. We are going to do what Patrick Henry did in Virginia, what James Otis and Samuel Adams did in Massachusetts, what the Sons of Liberty did in New York, ninety years ago. We are going to agitate, agitate, agitate. You say you want to rest. Very well, so do we — and don't blame us if you stuff your pillow with thorns. You say you are tired of the eternal Negro. Very well, stop trying to turn a man into a thing because he happens to be black, and you'll stop our mouths at the same time. But while you keep at your work, be perfectly sure that we shall keep at ours. If you are up at five o'clock, we shall be up at four. We shall agitate, agitate, agitate, until the Supreme Court, obeying the popular will, proclaims that all men have original equal rights which government did not give and cannot justly take away.

Robert Hunter (author) photo

“To be above the poverty line, means no more than to have a sanitary dwelling and sufficient food and clothing to keep the body in working order. It is precisely the same standard that a man would demand for his horses or slaves.”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Source: Poverty (1912), p. 7
Context: To be above the poverty line, means no more than to have a sanitary dwelling and sufficient food and clothing to keep the body in working order. It is precisely the same standard that a man would demand for his horses or slaves. Treating man merely as the "repository of a certain sort of labor power," it makes possible the utilization of that power to the fullest extent. No one will fail to realize how low such a standard is. It does not necessarily include any of the intellectual, aesthetic, moral, or social necessities; it is a purely physical standard...

Alexander Hamilton photo

“Courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the People and the Legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority. The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the Courts. A Constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the Judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular Act proceeding from the Legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two”

No. 78
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)
Context: There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No Legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the Representatives of the People are superior to the People themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid. If it be said that the Legislative body are themselves the constitutional judges of their own powers, and that the construction they put upon them is conclusive upon the other departments, it may be answered, that this cannot be the natural presumption, where it is not to be collected from any particular provisions in the Constitution. It is not otherwise to be supposed, that the Constitution could intend to enable the Representatives of the People to substitute their will to that of their constituents. It is far more rational to suppose, that the Courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the People and the Legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority. The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the Courts. A Constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the Judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular Act proceeding from the Legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the People to the intention of their agents. Nor does this conclusion by any means suppose a superiority of the Judicial to the Legislative power. It only supposes that the power of the People is superior to both; and that where the will of the Legislature, declared in its statutes, stands in opposition to that of the People, declared in the Constitution, the Judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former. They ought to regulate their decisions by the fundamental laws, rather than by those which are not fundamental. [... ] whenever a particular statute contravenes the Constitution, it will be the duty of the Judicial tribunals to adhere to the latter and disregard the former.

Salma Hayek photo

“I've learned from others' lives… What works in a relationship of very public people is not making the relationship public — keeping it as personal as it can be.”

Salma Hayek (1966) Mexican-American actress and producer

O interview (2003)
Context: I've learned from others' lives... What works in a relationship of very public people is not making the relationship public — keeping it as personal as it can be. It's the only way it is real. I am suspicious of those who have to let the world know how much they love each other. It's a little sad when you have to brag about how much you love someone. That kind of declaration doesn't always reflect the moment of truth between two people who care deeply for each other. When that truth is there, you don't need others to know it. And when somebody truly loves you, you don't even need him or her to be affectionate. Affection is fantastic, but it doesn't necessarily mean there's love — and the public display of affection is often just a show.

Clifford D. Simak photo

“All the years of keeping out of people's way, all the years of being unobtrusive would be for nothing then. This strange house upon a lonely ridge would become a mystery for the world, and a challenge and a target for all the crackpots of the world.”

Source: Way Station (1963), Ch. 18
Context: Hank Fisher would tell how he'd tried to break into the house and couldn't and there'd be others who would try to break into the house and there'd be hell to pay.
Enoch sweated, thinking of it.
All the years of keeping out of people's way, all the years of being unobtrusive would be for nothing then. This strange house upon a lonely ridge would become a mystery for the world, and a challenge and a target for all the crackpots of the world.

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“If we blow ourselves up we will do it by misapplication of science; if we manage to keep from blowing ourselves up, it will be through intelligent application of science.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

The Pragmatics of Patriotism (1973)
Context: In this complex world, science, the scientific method, and the consequences of the scientific method are central to everything the human race is doing and to wherever we are going. If we blow ourselves up we will do it by misapplication of science; if we manage to keep from blowing ourselves up, it will be through intelligent application of science.

“The reason why we know so little of Jesus Christ, as our savior, atonement, and justification, why we are so destitute of that faith in him, which alone can change, rectify, and redeem our souls, why we live starving in the coldness and deadness of a formal, historical, hearsay-religion, is this; we are strangers to our own inward misery and wants, we know not that we lie in the jaws of death and hell; we keep all things quiet within us, partly by outward forms, and modes of religion and morality, and partly by the comforts, cares and delights of this world.”

William Law (1686–1761) English cleric, nonjuror and theological writer

The Grounds and Reasons of Christian Regeneration (1739)
Context: The reason why we know so little of Jesus Christ, as our savior, atonement, and justification, why we are so destitute of that faith in him, which alone can change, rectify, and redeem our souls, why we live starving in the coldness and deadness of a formal, historical, hearsay-religion, is this; we are strangers to our own inward misery and wants, we know not that we lie in the jaws of death and hell; we keep all things quiet within us, partly by outward forms, and modes of religion and morality, and partly by the comforts, cares and delights of this world. Hence it is that we consent to receive a savior, as we consent to admit of the four gospels, because only four are received by the church. We believe in a savior, not because we feel an absolute want of one, but because we have been told there is one, and that it would be a rebellion against God to reject him. We believe in Christ as our atonement, just as we believe, that he cast seven devils out of Mary Magdalene, and so are no more helped, delivered, and justified by believing that he is our atonement, than by believing that he cured Mary Magdalene.

Kate Bush photo

“The civilised keep alive
The territorial war…
Erase the race that claim the place
And say we dig for ore,
Or dangle devils in a bottle
And push them from the pull of the Bush.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Source: Song lyrics, The Dreaming (1982)

P. J. O'Rourke photo

“In plain, what passes for a curriculum in today's schools is little else than a strategy of distraction… It is largely defined to keep students from knowing themselves and their environment in any realistic sense”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Teaching as a Subversive Activity (1969)
Context: In plain, what passes for a curriculum in today's schools is little else than a strategy of distraction... It is largely defined to keep students from knowing themselves and their environment in any realistic sense; which is to say, it does not allow inquiry into most of the critical problems that comprise the content of the world outside the school (... one of the main differences between the "advantaged" student and the "disadvantaged" is that the former has an economic stake in giving his attention to the curriculum while the latter does not. In other words, the only relevance of the curriculum for the "advantaged" student is that, if he does what he is told, there will be a tangible payoff.)

Toni Morrison photo

“There is and will be rousing language to keep citizens armed and arming; slaughtered and slaughtering in the malls, courthouses, post offices, playgrounds, bedrooms and boulevards; stirring, memorializing language to mask the pity and waste of needless death. There will be more diplomatic language to countenance rape, torture, assassination.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

Nobel Prize Lecture (1993)
Context: There is and will be rousing language to keep citizens armed and arming; slaughtered and slaughtering in the malls, courthouses, post offices, playgrounds, bedrooms and boulevards; stirring, memorializing language to mask the pity and waste of needless death. There will be more diplomatic language to countenance rape, torture, assassination. There is and will be more seductive, mutant language designed to throttle women, to pack their throats like paté-producing geese with their own unsayable, transgressive words; there will be more of the language of surveillance disguised as research; of politics and history calculated to render the suffering of millions mute; language glamorized to thrill the dissatisfied and bereft into assaulting their neighbors; arrogant pseudo-empirical language crafted to lock creative people into cages of inferiority and hopelessness.

Niccolo Machiavelli photo

“How laudable it is for a prince to keep good faith and live with integrity, and not with astuteness, every one knows.”

Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 18
Variant translations of portions of this passage:
Every one admits how praiseworthy it is in a prince to keep faith, and to live with integrity and not with craft. Nevertheless our experience has been that those princes who have done great things have held good faith of little account, and have known how to circumvent the intellect of men by craft, and in the end have overcome those who have relied on their word.
Ch. 18. Concerning the Way in which Princes should keep Faith (as translated by W. K. Marriott)
A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.
You must know there are two ways of contesting, the one by the law, the other by force; the first method is proper to men, the second to beasts; but because the first is frequently not sufficient, it is necessary to have recourse to the second.
Context: How laudable it is for a prince to keep good faith and live with integrity, and not with astuteness, every one knows. Still the experience of our times shows those princes to have done great things who have had little regard for good faith, and have been able by astuteness to confuse men's brains, and who have ultimately overcome those who have made loyalty their foundation. You must know, then, that there are two methods of fighting, the one by law, the other by force: the first method is that of men, the second of beasts; but as the first method is often insufficient, one must have recourse to the second. It is therefore necessary to know well how to use both the beast and the man. This was covertly taught to princes by ancient writers, who relate how Achilles and many others of those princes were given to Chiron the centaur to be brought up, who kept them under his discipline; this system of having for teacher one who was half beast and half man is meant to indicate that a prince must know how to use both natures, and that the one without the other is not durable. A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from snares, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognise snares, and a lion to frighten wolves. Those that wish to be only lions do not understand this. Therefore, a prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when by so doing it would be against his interest, and when the reasons which made him bind himself no longer exist. If men were all good, this precept would not be a good one; but as they are bad, and would not observe their faith with you, so you are not bound to keep faith with them.... those that have been best able to imitate the fox have succeeded best. But it is necessary to be able to disguise this character well, and to be a great feigner and dissembler.

Gottfried Leibniz photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Colonel Edward Carrington (16 January 1787) Lipscomb & Bergh ed. 6:57
1780s
Context: The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.

Eric Hoffer photo

“The momentous statements I come across are at best a storm in a teacup. There are quite a number of people who have a vested interest in the stuff, make a noble living out of it, and they conspire with one another to keep it alive.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Entry (1977)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)
Context: I could never figure out — or probably did not take the trouble to figure out — what the great philosophical problems are about. The momentous statements I come across are at best a storm in a teacup. There are quite a number of people who have a vested interest in the stuff, make a noble living out of it, and they conspire with one another to keep it alive.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton photo

“A fresh mind keeps the body fresh. Take in the ideas of the day, drain off those of yesterday. As to the morrow, time enough to consider it when it becomes to-day.”

Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873) English novelist, poet, playwright, and politician

Kenelm Chillingly : His Adventures and Opinions (1873), Book I, Ch. 8.

Julia Ward Howe photo

“I feel that I must attack this creed of blood, which does much to keep up the cruel and sanguinary views of barbarous ages about God and man.”

Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910) American abolitionist, social activist, and poet

13 June 1875.
The Walk With God (1919)
Context: I feel that I must attack this creed of blood, which does much to keep up the cruel and sanguinary views of barbarous ages about God and man. Will take text, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven." Show that Christ brought a new interest into the world; a new vision of God, the loving one; a new view of man, the hopeful and universal one; his death in its character the seal to his perfect life. But we are saved by his doctrine, by the same spirit which animated his life, — we are saved by his life, not by his death, except as it was the necessary moral sequence of his life.

Bill Bailey photo
James Branch Cabell photo

“I have modeled and remodeled, and cannot get exactly to my liking. So it is necessary that I keep laboring at it, until the figure is to my thinking and my desire.”

Source: Figures of Earth (1921), Ch. XL : Colophon: Da Capo
Context: The stranger pointed at the unfinished, unsatisfying image which stood beside the pool of Haranton, wherein, they say, strange dreams engender....
"What is that thing?" the stranger was asking, yet again...
"It is the figure of a man," said Manuel, "which I have modeled and remodeled, and cannot get exactly to my liking. So it is necessary that I keep laboring at it, until the figure is to my thinking and my desire."

Teresa Nielsen Hayden photo

“I like this idea. It encourages us to be earnest and ingenious and brave, as befits ancestral peoples; but keeps us from deciding that because we don't know all the answers, they must be unknowable and thus unprofitable to pursue.”

Teresa Nielsen Hayden (1956) American editor and writer

On Time (1995) http://nielsenhayden.com/ontime.html at nielsenhayden.com, accessed May 9, 2014.
Context: My own personal theory is that this is the very dawn of the world. We're hardly more than an eyeblink away from the fall of Troy, and scarcely an interglaciation removed from the Altamira cave painters. We live in extremely interesting ancient times.
I like this idea. It encourages us to be earnest and ingenious and brave, as befits ancestral peoples; but keeps us from deciding that because we don't know all the answers, they must be unknowable and thus unprofitable to pursue.

Carl Sagan photo

“If we keep on with business as usual, the Earth will be warmed more every year”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millenium (1997), Chapter 11, "Ambush: The Warming of the World"
Context: If we keep on with business as usual, the Earth will be warmed more every year; drought and floods will be endemic; many more cities, provinces, and whole nations will be submerged beneath the waves — unless heroic worldwide engineering countermeasures are taken. In the longer run, still more dire consequences may follow, including the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, and the inundation of almost all the coastal cities on the planet.

Robinson Jeffers photo

“Keep clear of the dupes that talk democracy
And the dogs that talk revolution”

Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962) American poet

"The Stars Go Over The Lonely Ocean" (1940)
Context: Keep clear of the dupes that talk democracy
And the dogs that talk revolution,
Drunk with talk, liars and believers.
I believe in my tusks.
Long live freedom and damn the ideologies.

Billy Graham photo

“In my travels, I have found that those who keep heaven in view remain serene and cheerful in the darkest day.”

Billy Graham (1918–2018) American Christian evangelist

Hope for the Troubled Heart: Finding God in the Midst of Pain (1991); the last statement of this anecdote has often become quoted as if it originated with Graham: "My home is in Heaven. I'm just traveling through this world."
Context: In my travels, I have found that those who keep heaven in view remain serene and cheerful in the darkest day. If the glories of Heaven were more real to us, if we lived less for material things and more for things eternal and spiritual, we would be less easily disturbed by this present life.
A friend told me about stopping on a street corner in London and listening to a man play the bagpipes. He was playing "Amazing Grace" and smiling from ear to ear. My friend asked him if he was from Scotland, and he answered, “No sir, my home is in Heaven. I'm just traveling through this world.”

John F. Kennedy photo

“Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use them is essential to keeping the peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles — which can only destroy and never create — is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace. I speak of peace”

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

1963, American University speech
Context: I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn. Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use them is essential to keeping the peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles — which can only destroy and never create — is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace. I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war — and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.

Stanley Baldwin photo

“There is no country…where there are not somewhere lovers of freedom who look to this country to carry the torch and keep it burning bright until such time as they may again be able to light their extinguished torches at our flame. We owe it not only to our own people but to the world to preserve our soul for that.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at University of Durham to the Ashridge Fellowship, as quoted in The Times (3 December 1934); also in Christian Conservatives and the Totalitarian Challenge, 1933-40 by Philip Williamson, in The English Historical Review, Vol. 115, No. 462 (June 2000)
1934

Saint Patrick photo

“I cannot keep silent, nor would it be proper, so many favours and graces has the Lord deigned to bestow on me in the land of my captivity.”

Saint Patrick (385–461) 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland

The Confession (c. 452?)
Context: I cannot keep silent, nor would it be proper, so many favours and graces has the Lord deigned to bestow on me in the land of my captivity. For after chastisement from God, and recognizing him, our way to repay him is to exalt him and confess his wonders before every nation under heaven.

“She needs rather to be tended lovingly and honorably by fabulists and counterfeiters, Ballad-Mongers and Cranks of ev'ry Radius, Masters of Disguise to provide her the Costume, Toilette, and Bearing, and Speech nimble enough to keep her beyond the Desires, or even the Curiosity, of Government.”

Source: Mason & Dixon (1997), Ch. 35
Context: Who claims Truth, Truth abandons. History is hir'd, or coerc'd, only in Interests that must ever prove base. She is too innocent, to be left within the reach of anyone in Power, — who need but touch her, and all her Credit is in the instant vanish'd, as if it had never been. She needs rather to be tended lovingly and honorably by fabulists and counterfeiters, Ballad-Mongers and Cranks of ev'ry Radius, Masters of Disguise to provide her the Costume, Toilette, and Bearing, and Speech nimble enough to keep her beyond the Desires, or even the Curiosity, of Government.

Ted Hughes photo

“I’ve sometimes wondered if it wouldn’t be a good idea to write under a few pseudonyms. Keep several quite different lines of writing going. Like Fernando Pessoa, the Portuguese poet who tried four different poetic personalities.”

Ted Hughes (1930–1998) English poet and children's writer

The Paris Review interview
Context: I’ve sometimes wondered if it wouldn’t be a good idea to write under a few pseudonyms. Keep several quite different lines of writing going. Like Fernando Pessoa, the Portuguese poet who tried four different poetic personalities. They all worked simultaneously. He simply lived with the four. What does Eliot say? “Dance, dance, / Like a dancing bear, / Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape, / To find expression.” It’s certainly limiting to confine your writing to one public persona, because the moment you publish your own name you lose freedom.

Jennifer Shahade photo

“My first goal is to create an attractive, interactive website that forms a community of chess lovers. I want to keep it light and keep people coming back ⎯ heavy on photos, humor, and simple chess tactics and strategies.”

Jennifer Shahade (1980) chess player

Gothamist interview (2006)
Context: My first goal is to create an attractive, interactive website that forms a community of chess lovers. I want to keep it light and keep people coming back ⎯ heavy on photos, humor, and simple chess tactics and strategies. I want to promote our top players to increase their visibility and their chances to make a living at chess.

Richard Nixon photo

“And our little girl — Tricia, the 6-year old — named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it.”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

1950s, Checkers speech (1952)
Context: p>That's what we have and that's what we owe. It isn't very much but Pat and I have the satisfaction that every dime that we've got is honestly ours. I should say this — that Pat doesn't have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat. And I always tell her that she'd look good in anything.One other thing I probably should tell you because if we don't they'll probably be saying this about me too, we did get something — a gift — after the election. A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog. And, believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was. It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he'd sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl — Tricia, the 6-year old — named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it.</p

P. J. O'Rourke photo

“All of us are responding to the fact there is no system that can keep any promises. Everybody is fighting each other under the illusion that it is the "other people" that are causing the problem.”

Charles A. Reich (1928–2019) American lawyer

The Liberals' Mistake (1987)
Context: All of us are responding to the fact there is no system that can keep any promises. Everybody is fighting each other under the illusion that it is the "other people" that are causing the problem. We don't realize that we are all in the same boat. We are all suffering from the absence of a system that can pull us together and assure us that the results of each person's work will come back to him and enhance his life in some way.
Neither Democrats nor Republicans today offer any vision of how we can overcome our present difficulties and build a more satisfying life. Both offer merely palliatives and, at best, a holding pattern. We have to look beyond the politicians to see a different future.

Al Gore photo

“Global warming pollution, indeed all pollution, is now described by economists as an "externality." This absurd label means, in essence: we don't need to keep track of this stuff so let's pretend it doesn't exist.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, NYU Law School speech (2006)
Context: For the last fourteen years, I have advocated the elimination of all payroll taxes — including those for social security and unemployment compensation — and the replacement of that revenue in the form of pollution taxes — principally on CO2. The overall level of taxation would remain exactly the same. It would be, in other words, a revenue neutral tax swap. But, instead of discouraging businesses from hiring more employees, it would discourage business from producing more pollution.
Global warming pollution, indeed all pollution, is now described by economists as an "externality." This absurd label means, in essence: we don't need to keep track of this stuff so let's pretend it doesn't exist.
And sure enough, when it's not recognized in the marketplace, it does make it much easier for government, business, and all the rest of us to pretend that it doesn't exist. But what we're pretending doesn't exist is the stuff that is destroying the habitability of the planet.

Eugene Field photo

“Human thought is like a monstrous pendulum: it keeps swinging from one extreme to the other.”

Eugene Field (1850–1895) American writer

The Writings in Prose and Verse of Eugene Field: The love affairs of a Bibliomaniac (1896), Ch. IV : The Mania of Collecting Seizes Me, p. 44
Context: Human thought is like a monstrous pendulum: it keeps swinging from one extreme to the other. Within the compass of five generations we find the Puritan first an uncompromising believer in demonology and magic, and then a scoffer at everything involving the play of fancy.

Albert Jay Nock photo

“Don't mince matters. Make it clear that they are positively down to their last chance. Give it to them good and strong and keep on giving it to them. I suppose perhaps I ought to tell you," He added, "that it won't do any good.”

Albert Jay Nock (1870–1945) American journalist

Source: Isaiah's Job (1936), I
Context: In the year of Uzziah's death, the Lord commissioned the prophet to go out and warn the people of the wrath to come. "Tell them what a worthless lot they are." He said, "Tell them what is wrong, and why and what is going to happen unless they have a change of heart and straighten up. Don't mince matters. Make it clear that they are positively down to their last chance. Give it to them good and strong and keep on giving it to them. I suppose perhaps I ought to tell you," He added, "that it won't do any good. The official class and their intelligentsia will turn up their noses at you and the masses will not even listen. They will all keep on in their own ways until they carry everything down to destruction, and you will probably be lucky if you get out with your life."

Mahatma Gandhi photo

“To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Farewell, p. 454
1920s, An Autobiography (1927)
Context: To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. That is why my devotion to Truth has drawn me into the field of politics; and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means.
Identification with everything that lives is impossible without self-purification; without self-purification the observance of the law of Ahimsa must remain an empty dream; God can never be realized by one who is not pure of heart. Self-purification therefore must mean purification in all the walks of life. And purification being highly infectious, purification of oneself necessarily leads to the purification of one's surroundings.
But the path of self-purification is hard and steep. To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. I know that I have not in me as yet that triple purity, in spite of constant ceaseless striving for it. That is why the world's praise fails to move me, indeed it very often stings me. To conquer the subtle passions seems to me to be far harder than the physical conquest of the world by the force of arms. Ever since my return to India I have had experiences of the dormant passions lying hidden within me. The knowledge of them has made me feel humiliated though not defeated. The experiences and experiments have sustained me and given me great joy. But I know that I have still before me a difficult path to traverse. I must reduce myself to zero. So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him. Ahimsa is the farthest limit of humility.

Angela Merkel photo

“Neither the chains of dictatorship nor the fetters of oppression can keep down the forces of freedom for long.”

Angela Merkel (1954) Chancellor of Germany

Remarks by President Obama and Chancellor Merkel in an Exchange of Toasts on June 07, 2011. http://www.newsroomamerica.com/story/137358/remarks_by_president_obama_and_chancellor_merkel_in_an_exchange_of_toasts.html
Context: We see that living in freedom and defending freedom are two sides of one and the same coin, for the precious gift of freedom doesn’t come naturally, but has to be fought for, nurtured, and defended time and time again. Sometimes this may seem like an endless fight against windmills. But you see, my personal experience is a quite different one. What we dare not dream of today may well become reality tomorrow. Neither the chains of dictatorship nor the fetters of oppression can keep down the forces of freedom for long.

“If FDA officials err on the side of over-caution, keeping a safe and effective drug off the market, who's to know? The victims are invisible. For example, neither the Americans who get sick or die from meningitis C this year, nor their loved ones, will know that their illness or death could have been prevented had it not been for errors by FDA officials”

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

FDA: Friend of Foe?
Context: If FDA officials err on the side of under-caution in approving an unsafe drug, they are attacked by the media and patient groups, and investigated by Congress. Their victims, sick and dead people, are highly visible. If FDA officials err on the side of over-caution, keeping a safe and effective drug off the market, who's to know? The victims are invisible. For example, neither the Americans who get sick or die from meningitis C this year, nor their loved ones, will know that their illness or death could have been prevented had it not been for errors by FDA officials. It's a no-brainer to figure out which error FDA officials prefer to make.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning photo

“Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,
And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.”

No. LXIV
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
Context: Here's ivy! — take them, as I used to do
Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.
Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,
And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.

Richard Francis Burton photo

“Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause;
He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws.”

Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, lin…

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)
Context: Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause;
He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws.
All other Life is living Death, a world where none but Phantoms dwell,
A breath, a wind, a sound, a voice, a tinkling of the camel-bell.

Robert Frost photo

“Read it a hundred times; it will forever keep its freshness as a metal keeps its fragrance.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

The Figure a Poem Makes (1939)
Context: Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting … Read it a hundred times; it will forever keep its freshness as a metal keeps its fragrance. It can never lose its sense of a meaning that once unfolded by surprise as it went.

“Conventional "requirements" …are systems of prescriptions and proscriptions intended solely to limit the physical and intellectual movements of students — to "keep them in line, in sequence, in order," etc.”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Teaching as a Subversive Activity (1969)
Context: Conventional "requirements" …are systems of prescriptions and proscriptions intended solely to limit the physical and intellectual movements of students — to "keep them in line, in sequence, in order," etc. They shift focus of attention from the learner (check [Goodwin] Watson again) to the "course." In the process, "requirements" violate virtually everything we know about learning because they comprise the matrix of an elaborate system of punishment, that in turn, comprise a threatening atmosphere in which positive learning cannot occur. The "requirements," indeed, force the teacher — and administrator — into the role of an authoritarian functionary whose primary task becomes that of enforcing the requirements rather than helping the learner to learn. The whole authority of the system is contingent upon the "requirements."

Robert Frost photo

“I own any form of humor shows fear and inferiority. Irony is simply a kind of guardedness. So is a twinkle. It keeps the reader from criticism.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Letter http://books.google.com/books?id=R8ksAAAAIAAJ&q=%22I+own+any+form+of+humor+shows+fear+and+inferiority+Irony+is+simply+a+kind+of+guardedness+So+is+a+twinkle+It+keeps+the+reader+from+criticism%22+%22Humor+is+the+most+engaging+cowardice%22&pg=PA166#v=onepage to Louis Untermeyer (10 March 1924)
General sources
Context: I own any form of humor shows fear and inferiority. Irony is simply a kind of guardedness. So is a twinkle. It keeps the reader from criticism. Whittier, when he shows any style at all is probably a greater person than Longfellow as he is lifted priestlike above consideration of the scornful. Belief is better than anything else, and it is best when rapt, above paying its respects to anybody's doubt whatsoever. At bottom the world isn't a joke. We only joke about it to avoid an issue with someone to let someone know that we know he's there with his questions: to disarm him by seeming to have heard and done justice to this side of the standing argument. Humor is the most engaging cowardice.

Wilbur Wright photo

“The person who merely watches the flight of a bird gathers the impression that the bird has nothing to think of but the flapping of its wings. As a matter of fact this is a very small part of its mental labor. To even mention all the things the bird must constantly keep in mind in order to fly securely through the air would take a considerable part of the evening.”

Wilbur Wright (1867–1912) American aviation pioneer

Speech to the Western Society of Engineers (18 September 1901); published in the Journal of the Western Society of Engineers (December 1901); republished with revisions by the author for the Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution (1902) http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu/i/Wrights/library/Aeronautical.html
Context: The person who merely watches the flight of a bird gathers the impression that the bird has nothing to think of but the flapping of its wings. As a matter of fact this is a very small part of its mental labor. To even mention all the things the bird must constantly keep in mind in order to fly securely through the air would take a considerable part of the evening. If I take this piece of paper, and after placing it parallel with the ground, quickly let it fall, it will not settle steadily down as a staid, sensible piece of paper ought to do, but it insists on contravening every recognized rule of decorum, turning over and darting hither and thither in the most erratic manner, much after the style of an untrained horse. Yet this is the style of steed that men must learn to manage before flying can become an everyday sport. The bird has learned this art of equilibrium, and learned it so thoroughly that its skill is not apparent to our sight. We only learn to appreciate it when we try to imitate it.

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“How can we live in this universe with a balance and with a type of perspective that keeps us going smoothly and we are not too absorbed in self?”

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

1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)
Context: Now one will inevitably raise the question: How then do we conquer self-centeredness? How do we get away from this thing that we call self-centeredness? How can we live in this universe with a balance and with a type of perspective that keeps us going smoothly and we are not too absorbed in self? How do we do it?

Albert Jay Nock photo

“In every civilization, however generally prosaic, however addicted to the short-time point of view on human affairs, there are always certain alien spirits who, while outwardly conforming to the requirements of the civilization around them, still keep a disinterested regard for the plain intelligible law of things, irrespective of any practical end.”

Albert Jay Nock (1870–1945) American journalist

Source: Our Enemy, the State (1935), p. 209
Context: In every civilization, however generally prosaic, however addicted to the short-time point of view on human affairs, there are always certain alien spirits who, while outwardly conforming to the requirements of the civilization around them, still keep a disinterested regard for the plain intelligible law of things, irrespective of any practical end. They have an intellectual curiosity, sometimes touched with emotion, concerning the august order of nature; they are impressed by the contemplation of it, and like to know as much about it as they can, even in circumstances where its operation is ever so manifestly unfavourable to their best hopes and wishes.

Elbridge G. Spaulding photo

“All the compacts, resolutions, and agreements, to keep the peace, so recently made, having been broken, confidence was greatly impaired, indeed I may say entirely destroyed, in the Democratic party, and in this state of things a new party was formed, called the Repuulican Party, to resist the Democratic party in its new and alarming attitude of pro-slavery aggression”

Elbridge G. Spaulding (1809–1897) American politician

Remarks on the Republican platform (1860)
Context: Whatever might have been the motive, few acts have ever been so barren of good, and so fruitful of evil. The contest has exasperated the public mind. North and South, and engendered feelings of distrust, and I may say hate, that I fear it will take years to wear away. The lamentable tragedy at Harper's Ferry is clearly traceable to this unfortunate controversy about slavery in Kansas.; and while the chief actor in this invasion has exhibited some traits of character which challenge our admiration, yet his fanatical zeal seems to have blinded his moral perceptions, and hurried him into an unlawful attack upon the lives of a peaceful and unoffending community in a sister State, with the evident intention of raising a servile insurrection, which no one can contemplate without horror; and few, I believe very few, can be found so indifferent to the consequences of his acts, or so blinded by fanatical zeal, as not to believe that he justly suffered the penalty of the law which he had violated.
The Whig party North and South having been completely broken up by the perpetration of this great wrong, and the subsequent attempt of the slave power, backed up by the President of the United States, to force slavery upon an unwilling people in Kansas, and by fraud and violence to make Kansas a slave State, a new phase was given to public affairs and to the parties in the country. The Democratic party became greatly divided and distracted by this outrage, and would also have been entirely demolished, if Southern States had not rallied to the support of that party. All the Southern States, with the exception of Maryland, having gone over to the support of the Democratic party, and the aggressions of the Southern propagandists of slavery in their attempt to send slavery everywhere, the Democratic party became essentially a Southern sectional party, inasmuch as very few public men South, of either party, could be sustained by their constituents in opposing these outrageous measures in Congress, and the frauds and rascalities committed in Kansas. All the compacts, resolutions, and agreements, to keep the peace, so recently made, having been broken, confidence was greatly impaired, indeed I may say entirely destroyed, in the Democratic party, and in this state of things a new party was formed, called the Repuulican Party, to resist the Democratic party in its new and alarming attitude of pro-slavery aggression.

Douglas Adams photo

“They even keep it on at weekends. Someone was bound to notice sooner or later.”

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987)
Context: "Sir Isaac Newton, renowned inventor of the milled-edge coin and the catflap!"
"The what?" said Richard.
"The catflap! A device of the utmost cunning, perspicuity and invention. It is a door within a door, you see, a..."
"Yes," said Richard, "there was also the small matter of gravity."
"Gravity," said Dirk with a slightly dismissive shrug, "yes, there was that as well, I suppose. Though that, of course, was merely a discovery. It was there to be discovered." …
"You see?" he said dropping his cigarette butt, "They even keep it on at weekends. Someone was bound to notice sooner or later. But the catflap … ah, there is a very different matter. Invention, pure creative invention. It is a door within a door, you see."

Grover Cleveland photo

“We are not here today to bow before the representation of a fierce warlike god, filled with wrath and vengeance, but we joyously contemplate instead our own deity keeping watch and ward before the open gates of America and greater than all that have been celebrated in ancient song.”

Grover Cleveland (1837–1908) 22nd and 24th president of the United States

Dedication speech http://www.endex.com/gf/buildings/liberty/nytc/solnytc1943.htm for the Statue of Liberty (28 October 1886).
Context: We are not here today to bow before the representation of a fierce warlike god, filled with wrath and vengeance, but we joyously contemplate instead our own deity keeping watch and ward before the open gates of America and greater than all that have been celebrated in ancient song. Instead of grasping in her hand thunderbolts of terror and of death, she holds aloft the light which illumines the way to man's enfranchisement. We will not forget that Liberty has here made her home, nor shall her chosen altar be neglected. Willing votaries will constantly keep alive its fires and these shall gleam upon the shores of our sister Republic thence, and joined with answering rays a stream of light shall pierce the darkness of ignorance and man's oppression, until Liberty enlightens the world.

E.M. Forster photo

“It looks as if there is a physical as well as a moral break in the orders I send out. I have plenty of interesting thoughts but keep losing them like the post cards I have written, or like my cap.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Source: Commonplace Book (1985), p. 224
Context: Going to Bits. This phrase me to day and is indeed the one I have been looking for; not tragic, not mortal disintegration; only a central weakness which prevents me from concentrating or settling down I have so wanted to write and write ahead. The phrase "obligatory creation" has haunted me. I have so wanted to get out of my morning bath promptly: have decided to do so beforehand, and have then lain in it as usual and watched myself not getting out. It looks as if there is a physical as well as a moral break in the orders I send out. I have plenty of interesting thoughts but keep losing them like the post cards I have written, or like my cap. I can't clear anything up yet interrupt a 'good read' in order to clear up. I hope tomorrow to copy out a piece of someone else's pose: it is the best device known to me for taking one out of inself, Plunge into anothers minutiae.' 31-1-61

William James photo

“By being faithful in my poor measure to this over-belief, I seem to myself to keep more sane and true.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Lecture XX, "Conclusions"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
Context: This thoroughly 'pragmatic' view of religion has usually been taken as a matter of course by common men. They have interpolated divine miracles into the field of nature, they have built a heaven out beyond the grave. It is only transcendentalist metaphysicians who think that, without adding any concrete details to Nature, or subtracting any, but by simply calling it the expression of absolute spirit, you make it more divine just as it stands. I believe the pragmatic way of taking religion to be the deeper way. It gives it body as well as soul, it makes it claim, as everything real must claim, some characteristic realm of fact as its very own. What the more characteristically divine facts are, apart from the actual inflow of energy in the faith-state and the prayer-state, I know not. But the over-belief on which I am ready to make my personal venture is that they exist. The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist, and that those other worlds must contain experiences which have a meaning for our life also; and that although in the main their experiences and those of this world keep discrete, yet the two become continuous at certain points, and higher energies filter in. By being faithful in my poor measure to this over-belief, I seem to myself to keep more sane and true. I can, of course, put myself into the sectarian scientist's attitude, and imagine vividly that the world of sensations and scientific laws and objects may be all. But whenever I do this, I hear that inward monitor of which W. K. Clifford once wrote, whispering the word 'bosh!' Humbug is humbug, even though it bear the scientific name, and the total expression of human experience, as I view it objectively, invincibly urges me beyond the narrow 'scientific' bounds. Assuredly, the real world is of a different temperament — more intricately built than physical science allows. So my objective and my subjective conscience both hold me to the over-belief which I express. Who knows whether the faithfulness of individuals here below to their own poor over-beliefs may not actually help God in turn to be more effectively faithful to his own greater tasks?

Noam Chomsky photo

“Sectors of the doctrinal system serve to divert the unwashed masses and reinforce the basic social values: passivity, submissiveness to authority, the overriding virtue of greed and personal gain, lack of concern for others, fear of real or imagined enemies, etc. The goal is to keep the bewildered herd bewildered.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Source: Quotes 1990s, 1990-1994, What Uncle Sam Really Wants, 1993, p. 69
Context: Sectors of the doctrinal system serve to divert the unwashed masses and reinforce the basic social values: passivity, submissiveness to authority, the overriding virtue of greed and personal gain, lack of concern for others, fear of real or imagined enemies, etc. The goal is to keep the bewildered herd bewildered. It's unnecessary for them to trouble themselves with what's happening in the world. In fact, it's undesirable -- if they see too much of reality they may set themselves to change it.

Richard Sherman (American football) photo

“If black lives matter, then it should matter all the time. You should never let somebody get killed. That's somebody's son, That's somebody's brother; that's somebody's friend. So you should always keep that in mind”

Richard Sherman (American football) (1988) American football player

Press conference (16 September 2015), as quoted in "Video: Richard Sherman speaks passionately on Black Lives Matter" https://web.archive.org/web/20150917000340/http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/seahawks/video-richard-sherman-speaks-passionately-on-black-lives-matter/ (16 September 2015), by Bob Condotta, The Seattle Times, Seattle, Washington
Press conference (16 September 2015)
Context: And I think that's the point we need to get to is that we need to deal with our own internal issues before we move forward and start pointing fingers and start attacking other people. We need to solidify ourselves as people and deal with our issues, because I think as long as we have black-on-black crime and, you know, one black man killing another. If black lives matter, then it should matter all the time. You should never let somebody get killed. That's somebody's son, That's somebody's brother; that's somebody's friend. So you should always keep that in mind.

Mark W. Clark photo
Robert Hunter (author) photo

“From the dawn of the world the chief duty of a parent has been to keep his family secure from want.”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Source: Why We Fail as Christians (1919), p. 60
Context: The greatest obstacle that confronted Tolstoy lies rooted deep in the soul of man. It is the fear of poverty and the dread of want which ages of struggle with man and beast and with all the adverse elements of nature has bred in us. Surely history teaches us too well the nature and character of man for us to believe readily that there are many fathers and mothers who would ever consent to become Christians on the conditions set forth by Tolstoy.... who to day would fail to condemn unreservedly any father who would take his babies from a comfortable home to live hungry and shelterless in the forests and fields. From the dawn of the world the chief duty of a parent has been to keep his family secure from want.

P. J. O'Rourke photo
Alan Moore photo
Peter Jennings photo

“You can't cover the Middle East — you can't cover American politics — you can't cover America these days without finding people in one place or another taking exception to what we do. I think it goes with the territory. Keeps me, at least I hope, mindful, always that there's at least one other opinion and sometimes a dozen other opinions. And they all bear accounting for.”

Peter Jennings (1938–2005) News anchor

Larry King Interview (8 September 2003)
Context: I think no matter what we cover, people tend to see what we cover through their own particular political or personal prisms. I always ask people to be specific what they're talking about. You can't cover the Middle East — you can't cover American politics — you can't cover America these days without finding people in one place or another taking exception to what we do. I think it goes with the territory. Keeps me, at least I hope, mindful, always that there's at least one other opinion and sometimes a dozen other opinions. And they all bear accounting for. But not everybody is right you know because somebody says, "well you did X", and you say "well, maybe X is right in some cases".

Black Kettle photo

“I have always done my best to keep my young men quiet, but some of them will not listen.”

Black Kettle (1803–1868) Leader of the Southern Cheyenne

As quoted in "Notes Among the Indians", Putnam's Magazine (October 1869), p. 476
Context: I always feel well while I am among these friends of mine, the Witchitas, Wacoes, and affiliated bands, and I never feel afraid to go among the white men here, because I know them to be my friends also. … I come from a point on the Washita River, about one day's ride from Antelope Hills. Near me there are over one hundred lodges of my tribe, only a part of them are my followers. I have always done my best to keep my young men quiet, but some of them will not listen. When recently north of the Arkansas, some of them were fired upon, and then the war began. I have not since been able to keep my young men at home.

P. J. O'Rourke photo
Voltairine de Cleyre photo

“For the way is not strown with petal soft,
It is covered with hearts that weep,
And the wounds I tread touch a deeper source
Than you think it mine to keep.”

Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) American anarchist writer and feminist

And Thou Too (1888)
Context: For the way is not strown with petal soft,
It is covered with hearts that weep,
And the wounds I tread touch a deeper source
Than you think it mine to keep. Down the years I shall move without you,
Yet ever must feel the blow
That caused me a deeper pain to give
Than you will ever know.

Ron Paul photo

“The racist effects of Davis-Bacon are no mere coincidence. In fact, many original supporters of Davis-Bacon, such as Representative Clayton Allgood, bragged about supporting Davis-Bacon as a means of keeping cheap colored labor out of the construction industry.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Repeal Of The Davis-Bacon Law https://web.archive.org/web/20120119214747/http://www.ronpaularchive.com/1997/10/repeal-of-the-davis-bacon-law/ (23 October 1997).
1990s
Context: Because most minority-owned construction firms are small companies, Davis-Bacon keeps minority-owned firms from competing for Federal construction contracts. The resulting disparities in employment create a demand for affirmative action, another ill-suited and ill-advised Big Government program. The racist effects of Davis-Bacon are no mere coincidence. In fact, many original supporters of Davis-Bacon, such as Representative Clayton Allgood, bragged about supporting Davis-Bacon as a means of keeping cheap colored labor out of the construction industry.

Paul Erdős photo

“And the aim is to keep the SF's score low.”

Paul Erdős (1913–1996) Hungarian mathematician and freelancer

Paul Erdős - SF means Supreme Fascist http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qeWugmiGt4
Context: SF means Supreme Fascist — this would show that God is bad. I don't claim that this is correct, or that God exists, but it is just sort of half a joke. … As a joke I said, "What is the purpose of Life?" "Proof and conjecture, and keep the SF's score low."
Now, the game with the SF is defined as follows:
If you do something bad the SF gets at least two points.
If you don't do something good which you could have done, the SF gets at least one point.
And if nothing — if you are okay, then no one gets any point.
And the aim is to keep the SF's score low.

Virgil photo

“Endure, and keep yourselves for days of happiness.”
Durate, et vosmet rebus servate secundis.

John Dryden's translation:
: Endure the hardships of your present state,
Live, and reserve yourselves for better fate.
Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book I, Line 207 (tr. Fairclough); spoken by Aeneas.

Stanley Baldwin photo

“Let us resolve once more that we can best keep his memory bright by confirming our own resolution that government of the people by the people shall never perish on this earth.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1937/mar/17/the-late-sir-austen-chamberlain in the House of Commons upon the death of Sir Austen Chamberlain (17 March 1937).
1937
Context: In the remote parts of that countryside where I was born and where old English phrases linger, though they may now be dying, even now I hear among those old people this phrase about those who die "He has gone home." It was a universal phrase among the old agricultural labourers, whose life was one toil from their earliest days to their last, and I think that that phrase must have arisen from the sense that one day the toil would be over and the rest would come, and that rest, the cessation of toil, wherever that occurred would be home. So they say, "He has gone home." When our long days of work are over here there is nothing in our oldest customs which so stirs the imagination of the young Member as the cry which goes down the Lobbies, "Who goes home?" Sometimes when I hear it I think of the language of my own countryside and my feeling that for those who have borne the almost insupportable burden of public life there may well be a day when they will be glad to go home. So Austen Chamberlain has gone home.... he had an infinite faith in the Parliamentary system of this country. Let us resolve once more that we can best keep his memory bright by confirming our own resolution that government of the people by the people shall never perish on this earth.

Christopher Alexander photo
Omar Khayyám photo

“The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,
The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.”

Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer

The Rubaiyat (1120)
Context: Whether at Naishapur or Babylon,
Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,
The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,
The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.

Steve Jobs photo

“You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don’t settle.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

2005-09, Address at Stanford University (2005)
Context: Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don’t settle.

George Müller photo

“Further, I did not keep in mind, that if the most illiterate persons in the congregation can comprehend the discourse, the most educated will understand it too; but that the reverse does not hold true.”

George Müller (1805–1898) German-English clergyman

A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Müller Written by Himself, First Part.
First Part of Narrative

Yann Martel photo

“Nothing beats reason for keeping tigers away. But be excessively reasonable and you risk throwing out the universe with the bathwater.”

Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 99, pp. 330–331
Context: I applied my reason at every moment. Reason is excellent for getting food, clothing and shelter. Reason is the very best tool kit. Nothing beats reason for keeping tigers away. But be excessively reasonable and you risk throwing out the universe with the bathwater.

Stephen Vincent Benét photo

“I'm your narrator. It's my task to say
Just where and how things happen in our play,
Set the bare stage with words instead of props
And keep on talking till the curtain drops.”

Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943) poet, short story writer, novelist

Narrator
A Child is Born (1942)
Context: I'm your narrator. It's my task to say
Just where and how things happen in our play,
Set the bare stage with words instead of props
And keep on talking till the curtain drops. …
It's an old task — old as the human heart,
Old as those bygone players and their art
Who, in old days when faith was nearer earth,
Played out the mystery of Jesus' birth
In hall or village green or market square
For all who chose to come and see them there,
And, if they knew that King Herod, in his crown,
Was really Wat, the cobbler of the town,
And Tom, the fool, played Abraham the Wise,
They did not care. They saw with other eyes.
The story was their own — not far away,
As real as if it happened yesterday,
Full of all awe and wonder yet so near,
A marvelous thing that could have happened here
In their own town — a star that could have blazed
On their own shepherds, leaving them amazed,
Frightened and questioning and following still
To the bare stable — and the miracle.

J. C. R. Licklider photo

“It is probably dangerous to use this theory of information in fields for which it was not designed, but I think the danger will not keep people from using it.”

J. C. R. Licklider (1915–1990) American psychologist and computer scientist

Licklider (1950) quotes in: Claude E. Shannon " The redundancy of English http://www.uni-due.de/~bj0063/doc/shannon_redundancy.pdf". In: Claus Pias, Heinz von Foerster eds. (2003) Cybernetics: Transactions. p. 270.
Context: It is probably dangerous to use this theory of information in fields for which it was not designed, but I think the danger will not keep people from using it. In psychology, at least in the psychology of communication, it seems to fit with a fair approximation. When it occurs that the learnability of material is roughly proportional to the information content calculated | by the theory, I think it looks interesting. There may have to be modifications, of course. For example, I think that the human receiver of information gets more out of a message that is encoded into a broad vocabulary (an extensive set of symbols) and presented at a slow pace, than from a message, equal in information content, that is encoded into a restricted set of symbols and presented at a faster pace. Nevertheless, the elementary parts of the theory appear to be very useful. I say it may be dangerous to use them, but I don’t think the danger will scare us off.

Charles Sanders Peirce photo
Bob Black photo

“If we play our cards right, we can all get more out of life than we put into it; but only if we play for keeps.
No one should ever work.
Workers of the world. . . relax!”

The Abolition of Work (1985)
Context: No one can say what would result from unleashing the creative power stultified by work. Anything can happen. The tiresome debater's problem of freedom vs. necessity, with its theological overtones, resolves itself practically once the production of use-values is co-extensive with the consumption of delightful play activity. Life will become a game, or rather many games, but not—as it is now — a zero/sum game. An optimal sexual encounter is the paradigm of productive play. The participants potentiate each other's pleasures, nobody keeps score, and everybody wins. The more you give, the more you get. In the ludic life, the best of sex will diffuse into the better part of daily life. Generalized play leads to the libidinization of life. Sex, in turn, can become less urgent and desperate, more playful.
If we play our cards right, we can all get more out of life than we put into it; but only if we play for keeps.
No one should ever work.
Workers of the world... relax! </center

Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

“Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace, to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among peoples and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

1960s, Farewell address (1961)
Context: Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace, to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among peoples and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt, both at home and abroad.

Samuel Butler photo
Steve McManaman photo

“I keep saying appalling. Because, I'm running out words. They've just given in. They've just completely given in, actually trying to run around and play football.”

Steve McManaman (1972) English footballer

2010s, 2014 FIFA World Cup, Brazil v. Germany (2014)
Context: It's hard to decipher this game. It's been a very good German performance, but Ian? You cannot underestimate how bad Brazil have been today, it's like? It's like amateur hour watching them. But, their attitude has just been appalling. I know, I keep saying appalling. Because, I'm running out words. They've just given in. They've just completely given in, actually trying to run around and play football.

James A. Garfield photo

“I must do something to keep my thoughts fresh and growing.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1880s, Garfield's Words (1882)
Context: I must do something to keep my thoughts fresh and growing. I dread nothing so much as falling into a rut and feeling myself becoming a fossil.

Voltairine de Cleyre photo