Quotes about kindness (7474 quotes, page 32)

“It's like seeing someone for the first time, and you look at each other for a few seconds, and there's this kind of recognition like you both know something. Next moment the person's gone, and it's too late to do anything about it.”

Elmore Leonard book Out of Sight

Jack Foley
Out of Sight (1996)

Time , Personality

“In the Middle Ages people built cathedrals, where the whole town would get together and make a thing that's greater than any individual person could do and the society would kind of revel in that. We don't do that as much anymore, but in a sense this is kind of like building a cathedral.”

Hal Abelson (1947) computer scientist

Source: Auditing Classes at M.I.T. http://education.mit.edu/tep/11125/opencourse/ - New York Times Interview, pg. 1

People , Age , Sense , Personality

“I would like to comment briefly on Professor Zadeh's presentation. His proposals could be severely, ferociously, even brutally criticized from a technical point of view. This would be out of place here. But a blunt question remains: Is professor Zadeh presenting important ideas or is he indulging in wishful thinking? No doubt Professor Zadeh's enthusiasm for fuzziness has been reinforced by the prevailing climate in the U. S.-one of unprecedented permissiveness. 'Fuzzification, is a kind of scientific permissiveness; it tends to result in socially appealing slogans unaccompanied by the discipline of hard scientific work and patient observation.”

Rudolf E. Kálmán (1930–2016) Hungarian-born American electrical engineer

Rudolf E. Kálmán (1972), cited in: Lotfi A. Zadeh " My life and work - a retrospective http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~zadeh/papers/Preface%20ACM-My%20Life%20and%20Work--A%20Retrospective%20View.pdf" in: Appl. Comput. Math., V.10, N.1, Special Issue, 2011, p. 4-9

Idea , Question , Thinking

“I hate extremes of any kind. Communism and the National Front both seek the domination of the state over the individual. They both, I believe crush the right of the individual. To me, therefore, they are parties of a similar kind. All my life I have stood against banning Communism or other extremist organisations because, if you do that, they go underground and it gives them an excitement that they don't get if they are allowed to pursue their policies openly. We'll beat them into the ground on argument… The National Front is a Socialist Front.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Interview for Hornsey Journal (21 April 1978) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=103662
Leader of the Opposition

Life , Hate , Communication

“The subject reports itself, it is never looked for. Afterwards a small drawing will follow for the color-planes which are determined immediately. These colors will be printed by large logs and updated and enlivened with the hand-roller. For pressing I use an old hand-press with lever (from c. 1800)... Sometimes it is necessary to press heavily, other times only very light. Sometimes one half of the block is rolled in [with ink] bold, the other half only skimpy. By first printing sometimes the first layer of paint on a piece of paper, a gentle tint appears which is then printed on the original. Another time I print the first print of the paper back on the original... As soon as the color-planes have been applied, the first state is reached, so to say..
.. Of course all kinds of side-steps can be made, while working. In case of enlivening the picture - both in terms of color or decoration - the main goal I always keep in mind.”

Hendrik Werkman (1882–1945) Dutch artist

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van Hendrik Werkman, in het Nederlands): Het onderwerp meldt zichzelf en wordt nooit gezocht, daarna volgt een kleine tekening voor de kleurvlakken die meteen vaststaan. Deze kleuren worden met groote houtblokken gedrukt en met de handrol bijgewerkt en verlevendigt. Als pers gebruik ik een oude handpers met hefboom (c. 1800).. .Soms is het noodig zwaar te drukken, soms heel licht; soms wordt de ene helft van het blok vet ingerold [met inkt], de andere helft schraal, ook wordt door eerst op een stuk papier de eerste laag verf af te drukken een lichte tint gekregen die dan op het origineel afgedrukt wordt, een andere keer druk ik de eerste druk van het papier weer op het origineel af.. Zijn de kleurvlakken aangebracht, dan is als het ware de eerste staat bereikt..
.Het spreekt vanzelf dat onder het werk verschillende zijsprongetjes gemaakt kunnen worden. Ter verlevendiging, zowel wat kleur als wat versiering aangaat: het hoofddoel staat steeds voor oogen.
Quote from Werkman's letter (6.) to August Henkels, 24 Jan. 1941; as cited in H. N. Werkman - Leven & Werk - 1882-1945, ed. A. de Vries, J. van der Spek, D. Sijens, M. Jansen; WBooks, Groninger Museum / Stichting Werkman, 2015 (transl: Fons Heijnsbroek), p. 134
1940's

Color , Light , Appearance , Time

“There are two kinds of laws: man's and God's. A man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God, is a just law. But a man-made code that is inharmonious with the moral law is an unjust law. And an unjust law, as St. Augustine said, is no law at all. Thus a law that is unjust is morally null and void, and must be defied until it is legally null and void as well. Let us not forget, in the memories of 6,000,000 who died, that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’, and that everything the Freedom Fighters in Hungary did was ‘illegal.”

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

Interview in Playboy (January 1965) https://web.archive.org/web/20080706183244/http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/features/mlk/04.html
1960s

God , Law , Freedom , Memory

“Since taking this job things have happened. I've been spending my free time studying the Word. Each night the Lord seemed to get hold of me a little more. Night before last I was reading in Nehemiah. I finished the book, and read it through again. Here was a man who left everything as far as position was concerned to go do a job nobody else could handle. And because he went the whole remnant back in Jerusalem got right with the Lord. Obstacles and hindrances fell away and a great work was done. Jim, I couldn't get away from it. The Lord was dealing with me. On the way home yesterday morning I took a long walk and came to a decision which I know is of the Lord. In all honesty before the Lord I say that no one or nothing beyond Himself and the Word has any bearing upon what I've decided to do. I have one desire now - to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy into it. Maybe He'll send me someplace where the name of Jesus Christ is unknown. Jim, I'm taking the Lord at His word, and I'm trusting Him to prove His Word. It's kind of like putting all your eggs in one basket, but we've already put our trust in Him for salvation, so why not do it as far as our life is concerned? If there's nothing to this business of eternal life we might as well lose everything in one crack and throw our present life away with out life hereafter. But if there is something to it, then everything else the Lord says must hold true likewise. Pray for me, Jim.”

Ed McCully (1927–1956) American Christian missionary

Life , Books , Way , Home

“Mr. Speaker, in the brief time I have let me give you five reasons why I'm opposed to giving the President a blank check to launch a unilateral invasion and occupation of Iraq and why I will vote against this resolution.One: I have not heard any estimates of how many young American men and women might die in such a war, or how many tens of thousands of women and children in Iraq might also be killed. As a caring nation, we should do everything we can to prevent the horrible suffering that a war will cause. War must be the last recourse in international relations, not the first.Second, I am deeply concerned about the precedent that a unilateral invasion of Iraq could establish in terms of international law and the role of the United Nations. If President Bush believes that the US can go to war at any time against any nation, what moral or legal obligation can our government raise if another country chose to do the same thing.Third, the United States in now involved in a very difficult war against international terrorism, as we learned tragically on September eleventh. We are opposed by Osama Bin Ladin and religious fanatics who are prepared to engage in a kind of warfare that we have never experienced before. I agree with Brent Scowcroft, Republican former national security adviser for President George Bush senior, who stated and I quote, "An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize if not destroy the global counter-terrorist campaign we have undertaken."Fourth, at a time when this country has a six-trillion dollar national debt and a growing deficit, we should be clear that a war and a long-term American occupation of Iraq could be extremely expensive.Fifth, I am concerned about the problems with so-called unintended consequences. Who will govern Iraq when Saddam Hussein is removed? And what role will the US play in an ensuing civil war that could develop in that country? Will moderate governments in the regions who have large Islamic fundamentalist populations be overthrown and replaced by extremists? Will the bloody conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Authority be exacerbated? And these are just a few of the questions that remain unanswered.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Speech on Iraq War Resolution in US House of Representatives https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdFw1btbkLM (9 October 2002)
2000s

Women , Men , War , Children

“[In response to using profanity] I think I was just being myself for a moment there…Look, I think people should be kind of light about this. It's something that plenty of people have heard in their lives for sure.”

Eric Garcetti (1971) American politician

quoted by Michael Finnegan of the Los Angeles Times http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-garcetti-kings-swearing-apology-20140617-story.html (July 17, 2014)
2014, Los Angeles Kings Stanley Cup celebration

People , Thinking , Light

“I continued for some time longer to ramble with Strauss and other school-fellows, to visit coffee-houses and billiard-rooms, but had a great antipathy to other debaucheries. The company of comedians of Mr. Seiler came just now to Celle, performing comedies and tragedies. This was a new life for me; I became acquainted with each individual of this company; they all were fond of me; the beautiful Madame Koch gave me lessons in dancing, and I suddenly deserted all my former companions, neglecting them to such a degree, that one Mackphail, considering my conduct as an insult to the whole school, sent me a challenge, which ended in ray wounding him in the hand. My father loved me dearly, but did not much inquire into my conduct; he allowed me a great deal of money, but owing to my attachment to Ferry, whose salary was but small, I provided him with money, and having myself an extravagant taste for dress, I was often in great difficulties to pay my bills, of which my father was ignorant, till my creditors became troublesome, and my good father immediately discharged them, after giving me some kind admonition.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Love , Life , Money , School

“His disposition is kindness. His default action is for your benefit. He’s good! And someday you will taste it!”

James MacDonald (1960) American pastor

Source: Always True (Moody, 2011), p. 85

“It is known to all persons who are conversant in experimental philosophy, that there are many little attentions and precautions necessary to be observed in the conducting of experiments, which cannot well be described in words, but which it is needless to describe, since practice will necessarily suggest them; though, like all other arts in which the hands and fingers are made use of, it is only much practice that can enable a person to go through complex experiments, of this or any kind, with ease and readiness.”

Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) English theologian, chemist, educator, and political theorist

Experiments and Observations of Different Kinds of Air (1775)

Art , Personality

“It's good. You know, it's nice coming out and actually meeting all your fans - you make this thing in your bedroom and you don't really know who is going to get it or relate to it or anything, you know? And you just pour your heart out kind of thing, and then you find out you relate to people and that's the final process of it. You know, to meet people who are actually like you and that you connect with, you know what I mean? That's kind of cool. That's the best thing about touring.”

M.I.A. (1975) British recording artist, songwriter, painter and director

On touring during Interview http://web.archive.org/web/20070926225407/http://www.muchmusic.com/music/artists/transcripts.asp?artist=1213 on MuchMusic's MuchonDemand (September 2005)
Sourced quotes

People , Heart

“They glanced at one another like tigers taking measure of a menacing new rival. But in this kind of jungle you could never be sure where the real danger lurked.”

Erich Segal book The Class

The Class (opening words)

“To philosophize (we have already asked, What empowers the philosophical act to transcend the working-world?) — to philosophize means to take a step outside of the work-a-day world into the vis-à-vis de l'univers. It is a step which leads to a kind of "homeless"-ness: the stars are no roof over the head. It is a step, however, that constantly keeps open its own retreat, for the human being cannot live long in this way.”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), The Philosophical Act, p. 94

World , Way , Star

“Many kinds of processes are at work in the world around us, and they are all superimposed on, and interact with, each other in complicated ways.”

Alan Chalmers book What Is This Thing Called Science?

Source: What Is This Thing Called Science? (Third Edition; 1999), Chapter 3, Experiment, p. 28.

World , Way

“Is this kind of ethics individualistic or not? Yes, if one means by that that it accords to the individual an absolute value and that it recognizes in him alone the power of laying the foundations of his own existence. It is individualism in the sense in which the wisdom of the ancients, the Christian ethics of salvation, and the Kantian ideal of virtue also merit this name; it is opposed to the totalitarian doctrines which raise up beyond man the mirage of Mankind. But it is not solipsistic, since the individual is defined only by his relationship to the world and to other individuals; he exists only by transcending himself, and his freedom can be achieved only through the freedom of others. He justifies his existence by a movement which, like freedom, springs from his heart but which leads outside of him.
This individualism does not lead to the anarchy of personal whim. Man is free; but he finds his law in his very freedom. First, he must assume his freedom and not flee it by a constructive movement: one does not exist without doing something; and also by a negative movement which rejects oppression for oneself and others.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Ethics of Ambiguity

Une telle morale [la morale existentialiste] est-elle ou non un individualisme? Oui, si l’on entend par là qu’elle accorde à l’individu une valeur absolue et qu’elle reconnaît qu’a lui seul le pouvoir de fonder son existence. Elle est individualisme au sens où les sagesses antiques, la morale chrétienne du salut, l’idéal de la vertu kantienne méritent aussi ce nom ; elle s’oppose aux doctrines totalitaires qui dressent par-delà I’homme le mirage de l’Humanité. Mais elle n’est pas un solipsisme, puisque l’individu ne se définit que par sa relation au monde et aux autres individus, il n’existe qu’en se transcendant et sa liberté ne peut s’accomplir qu’à travers la liberté d’autrui. Il justifie son existence par un mouvement qui, comme elle, jaillit du coeur de lui-même, mais qui aboutit hors de lui.
Cet individualisme ne conduit pas à l’anarchie du bon plaisir. L’homme est libre ; mais il trouve sa loi dans sa liberté même. D’abord il doit assumer sa liberté et non la fuir; il l’assume par un mouvement constructif : on n’existe pas sans faire; et aussi par un mouvement négatif qui refuse l’oppression pour soi et pour autrui.
Conclusion http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/ambiguity/ch04.htm
The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947)

Wisdom , World , Law , Spring

“Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.”

Stephen Crane (1871–1900) American novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist

Do Not Weep, Maiden, For War is Kind, st. 3
War Is Kind and Other Lines (1899)

War , Rage

“The way in which the universe expands is determined by the variation of this [radius of curvature] R with the time. There are three types, or families, of non-static universes… the oscillating universes, and the expanding universes of the first and of the second kind. …each of these is a representative of a family, comprising an infinite number of members differing in size and shape. …In the expanding family of the first kind the radius is continually increasing from… zero… In the expanding series of the second type the radius has at the initial time a certain minimum value, different for the different members of the family. [Both kinds of expanding families] become infinite after an infinite time.”

Willem de Sitter (1872–1934) Dutch cosmologist

Kosmos (1932)

Family , Way , Universe , Time

“I am well aware that some very eminent systematists regard the whole problem as solved. They hold as Darwin did that specific diversity has no physiological foundation or causation apart from adaptation, and that species are impermanent groups, the delimitations of which are ultimately determined by environmental exigency or "fitness." The specific diversity of living things is thus regarded as being something quite different in nature from the specific diversity of inorganic substances. In practice those who share these opinions are, as might be anticipated, to be found among the 'lumpers' rather than among the 'splitters.' In their work, certainly, the Darwinian theory is actually followed as a guiding principle; unanalysed intergradations of all kinds are accepted as impugning the integrity of species; the underlying physiological problem is forgotten, and while the product is almost valueless as a contribution to biological research, I can scarcely suppose that it aids greatly in the advances of other branches of our science.”

William Bateson (1861–1926) British geneticist and biologist

Source: Problems In Genetics (1913), p. 12.

Nature , Problem , Science

“It's very simple and it has nothing to do with identifiable goals. It is to keep thinking about what architecture can be, in whatever form. That is an answer, isn't it? I think that S, M, L, XL has one beautiful ambiguity: it used the past to build a future and is very adamant about giving notice that this is not the end. That's how it felt to me, anyway. That is in itself evidence of a kind of discomfort with achievement measured in terms of identifiable entities, and an announcement that continuity of thinking in whatever form, around whatever subject, is the real ambition.”

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

Rem Koolhaas Interview with Jennifer Sigler in Index Magazine http://www.indexmagazine.com/interviews/rem_koolhaas.shtml, (2000)

Beauty , Thinking , Past , Future

“Sometimes when I'm having a boring interview on the telephone, and I'm trying to think about something else because the questions are too boring, and I start looking around the room where I work, you know, full of books piled up to the sky, all different kinds of topics. I start calculating how many centuries would I have to live reading twenty-four hours a day every day of the week to make a dent in what I'd like to learn about things, it's pretty depressing. […] You know, we have little bits of understanding, glimpses, a little bit of light here and there, but there's a tremendous amount of darkness, which is a challenge. I think life would be pretty boring if we understood everything. It's better if we don't understand anything… and know that we don't, that's the important part.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Interview in Cardiff, Wales, UK on March 11, 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93W8II_R75Y
Quotes 2010s, 2011

Life , Books , Understanding , Question

“Ambassador Taylor and, and, and, and me, and I, we had a very bad moment together at that day in the general staff. Ambassador want to see me uh because he uh made what we called a young turk at that time, a young general officer, namely Nguyen Cao Ky, and Nguyen Van Thieu, and other general. And uh… to kind of to insult them uh for, you know, being changing what we call the civilian government at that time.”

Nguyen Khanh (1927–2013) South Vietnamese soldier

Confrontation with Maxwell Taylor in November 1964: On conflict with Maxwell D. Taylor in November 1964
1980s, Interview with Nguyen Khanh (1981)

Change , Time

“[The masses] … must turn their hopes toward a miracle. In the depths of their despair reason cannot be believed, truth must be false, and lies must be truth. "Higher bread prices," "lower bread prices," "unchanged bread prices" have all failed. The only hope lies in a kind of bread price which is none of these, which nobody has ever seen before, and which belies the evidence of one's reason.”

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

Source: 1930s- 1950s, The End of Economic Man (1939), p. 84

Truth , Hope , Falseness , Despair

“If there are words and wrongs like knives, whose deep inflicted lacerations never heal - cutting injuries and insults of serrated and poison-dripping edge - so, too, there are consolations of tone too fine for the ear not fondly and for ever to retain their echo: caressing kindnesses - loved, lingered over through a whole life, recalled with unfaded tenderness, and answering the call with undimmed shine, out of that raven cloud foreshadowing Death himself.”

Charlotte Brontë book Villette

Source: Villette (1853), Ch. XXII: The Letter

Love , Life , Death

“Whatever his views are this morning, they might change this afternoon, and they were different than they were last night, and they’ll be different tomorrow. … They seem to be ever, ever-changing, depending on what crowd he’s in front of. Sounds like a typical politician, by the way, where you get in front of one crowd and say one thing, and then say something else to another crowd that may want to hear a different view. All the things that Donald Trump railed against, he seems to be morphing into — it’s kind of disturbing. … He doesn’t believe in things, this is all a game.”

Jeb Bush (1953) American politician, former Governor of Florida

About Donald Trump's views — Jeb Bush Says He’s Not Buying The Trump Immigration Shift https://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/jeb-bush-says-hes-not-buying-the-trump-immigration-shift?utm_term=.xtWW3bwaw#.iaPobDJKJ, BuzzFeed (August 25, 2016)

Way , Game , Change , Dependency

“Sharpe knew himself to be a tough man, but he had always thought of himself as a reasonable one, yet now, in the mirror of William's nervousness, he saw himself as something far worse; a bullying man who would use the small authority of his rank to frighten men. In fact, the very kind of officer Sharpe had most hated when he himself was under their embittered authority.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Lieutenant Richard Sharpe, p. 81
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Rifles (1988)

Men , Hate

“I do not mind if I lose my soul for all eternity. If the kind of God exists Who would damn me for not working out a deal with Him, then that is unfortunate. I should not care to spend eternity in the company of such a person.”

Mary McCarthy book Memories of a Catholic Girlhood

"To the Reader"
Memories of a Catholic Girlhood (1957)

God , Soul , Personality

“I've made my best notes sitting outside cafes on busy streets, or in murky bars in foreign cities. I sorted out a big series of problems in the novel I'm just finishing while sitting drinking a long line of solitary beers in a bar in a small coastal town. The hangover was pretty brutal, but I'm not sure I'd have found the solutions any other way. Part of the job of being a writer is learning how your head works - when to push it, when to step back. This kind of self-management is actually far harder, I think, than learning how to write decent prose.”

Michael Marshall Smith (1965) British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer

Associated Content Interview (October 23, 2006)

Way , Drink , Beer , Business

“If you examine your thoughts for five minutes at various times during the day for several times a month, you will indeed receive a correct impression of the kind of life you have arranged for yourself in the next existence. If you are not pleased with what you discover, then you had better begin changing the nature of your thoughts and feelings.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Seth Speaks (1972), p. 172

Life , Feeling , Nature , Change

“What was it that made this human love so much more desirable to me than the love of my own kind? Was it because it was exclusive and capricious? The souls offered love and acceptance to all. Did I crave a greater challenge? This love was tricky; it had no hard-and-fast rules — it might be given for free, as with Jamie, or earned through time and hard work, as with Ian, or completely and heartbreakingly unattainable, as with Jared.
Or was it simply better somehow? Because these humans could hate with so much fury, was the other end of the spectrum that they could love with more heart and zeal and fire?”

Stephenie Meyer book The Host

Wanderer, p. 472
The Host (2008)

Love , Hate , Soul , Time

“Christianity is no mere scheme of doctrine or of ethical practice, but is instead a kind of miracle, a power out of nature and above, descending into it; a historically supernatural movement on the world, that is visibly entered into it, and organized to be an institution in the person of Jesus Christ.”

Horace Bushnell (1802–1876) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 133.

World , Nature , Christ , Personality

“…there have been plenty of markers that show that this is a country that is worth the investment because once it emerges as a country that is a stabilizing factor, you'll have a very different kind of Middle East. And I know that from the point of view of not just monetary costs, but the sacrifice of American lives, a lot has been sacrificed for Iraq, a lot has been invested in Iraq.”

Condoleezza Rice (1954) American Republican politician; U.S. Secretary of State; political scientist

Interview by Anne Gearan of the Associated Press http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/78200.htm, December 21, 2006.

Country

“Don’t you remember the days
Of the old schoolyard
When we had imaginings and we had
All kinds of things and we laughed
And needed love … yes, I do
Oh and I remember you”

Cat Stevens (1948) British singer-songwriter

(Remember The Days Of The) Old Schoolyard
Song lyrics, Izitso (1977)

Love , Imagination

“I espouse reproductive libertarianism, because when everyone has the broadest choice, love itself expands. The affection my family have found in one another is not a better love, but it is another love, and just as species diversity is crucial to sustain the planet, this diversity strengthens the ecosphere of kindness. The road less traveled by, as it turns out, leads to pretty much the same place.”

Andrew Solomon (1963) American journalist

Source: Far from the Tree, Ch. 12 Father, p. 700.

Love , Family , Travel

“Hell no, it isn't a fact. Only a damned fool would do a thing like that. You know there was a lot of pretty rough ribbing going on on both benches during that Series. When I swung and missed that first one, those Cubs really gave me a blast. So I grinned at 'em and held out one finger and told 'em it'd only take one to hit it. Then there was that second strike and they let me have it again. So I held up that finger again and I said I still had that one left. Naw, keed, you know damned well I wasn't pointin' anywhere. If I'd have done that, Root would have stuck the ball right in my ear. And besides that, I never knew anybody who could tell you ahead of time where he was going to hit a baseball. When I get to be that kind of fool, they`ll put me in the booby hatch.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

Responding to Chicago sportscaster Hal Totten in the spring of 1933, as to whether Ruth had actually 'called' his 5th-inning home run in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series, as quoted in "Oct. 1, 1932 The Yankees' Babe Ruth Gestures Toward Wrigley Field's Bleachers Then Homers Off The Cubs' Charlie Root, Apparently Calling His Shot In Game 3 Of The World Series" http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-11-01/sports/8703230677_1_babe-ruth-cub-bench-world-series-history/3 by Jerome Holtzman, in The Chicago Tribune (1987)

Fools , Hell , Time

“Jesus knew — knew — that we're carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we're all too goddam stupid and sentimental and unimaginative to look? You have to be a son of God to know that kind of stuff.”

Jerome David Salinger book Franny and Zooey

Franny and Zooey (1961), Zooey (1957)

God , Stupidity

“This kind of internal "telepathic" intercourse, which was to serve me in all my wanderings, was at first difficult, ineffective, and painful. But in time I came to be able to live through the experiences of my host with vividness and accuracy, while yet preserving my own individuality, my own critical intelligence, my own desires and fears. Only when the other had come to realize my presence within him could he, by a special act of volition, keep particular thoughts secret from me.”

Olaf Stapledon book Star Maker

Source: Star Maker (1937), Chapter III: The Other Earth; 1. On the Other Earth (pp. 25-26)

Pain , Secret , Fear , Intelligence

“Existence as entirety remains beyond any one meaning—and it is the conscious presence of humanness in the world inasmuch as this is nonmeaning, having nothing to do other than be what it is, no longer able to go beyond itself or give itself some kind of meaning through action.”

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French intellectual and literary figure

Source: On Nietzsche (1945), p. xxx

World

“For a guest remembers all his days the hospitable man who showed him kindness.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XV. 54–55 (tr. G. H. Palmer).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

“Any decent kind of world, you wouldn't need all these rules.”

John Updike book Rabbit Redux

Rabbit Redux (1969)

World

“There were, indeed, several 'Christs,' several people whose preaching and exploits merged to form the composite figure historically known as Christ. There are all kinds of contradictions in the Bible, and in Christ's own attitudes as depicted, because there were more Christs than one.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (1981), p. 208

People , Christ

“I guess my first pilot was February of '96. I did a pilot with Kevin Pollak and his wife, Lucy Webb, for CBS, that was not picked up. And then I kind of started being more in the process. I kind of hung around, looking for work. Didn't do a pilot the next year, but in that time did this film called Southie that we shot in south Boston with these guys that I knew. But really was more focused on doing dramatic stuff. And then every year or couple of years doing, you know [with forced cheer] sitcom pilot!”

Will Arnett (1970) Canadian actor

"The Will Arnett Interview," Television Without Pity (2005) http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/articles/content/a1005/index-4.html
2005

Guy , Time

“[Writing songs] is no different than explaining to somebody what you dreamed last night: No one ever gives you crap for what you dreamed last night. "I was laying in my bed, and all of a sudden a stallion jumped on my bed and the next thing I know I was in Mars but it looked like my kitchen"... That's kind of what I do with my songs, write them in a dream-like manner. It's up to people to swallow it however they want.”

Jason Mraz (1977) American singer-songwriter

[Christina, Fuoco, http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/7600127/jason_mraz_goes_to_school, Jason Mraz Goes to School, Rolling Stone, 2 September 2007, 2007-09-28]

People , Dreams , Night

“The kind of problem that literature raises is not the kind that you ever 'solve'. Whether my answers are any good or not, they represent a fair amount of thinking about the questions.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

"Quotes", The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 1: The Motive For Metaphor http://northropfrye-theeducatedimagination.blogspot.ca/2009/08/1-motive-for-metaphor.html

Literature , Question , Problem , Thinking

“If you've spent any time trolling the blogosphere, you've probably noticed a peculiar literary trend: the pervasive habit of writers inexplicably placing exclamation points at the end of otherwise unremarkable sentences. Sort of like this! This is done to suggest an ironic detachment from the writing of an expository sentence! It's supposed to signify that the writer is self-aware! And this is idiotic. It's the saddest kind of failure. F. Scott Fitzgerald believed inserting exclamation points was the literary equivalent of an author laughing at his own jokes, but that's not the case in the modern age; now, the exclamation point signifies creative confusion. All it illustrates is that even the writer can't tell if what they're creating is supposed to be meaningful, frivolous, or cruel. It's an attempt to insert humor where none exists, on the off chance that a potential reader will only be pleased if they suspect they're being entertained. Of course, the reader really isn't sure, either. They just want to know when they're supposed to pretend that they're amused. All those extraneous exclamation points are like little splatters of canned laughter: They represent the “form of funny,” which is more easily understood (and more easily constructed) than authentic funniness.”

Chuck Klosterman Eating the Dinosaur

Eating the Dinosaur (2009)

Age , Failure , Laughter , Chance

““To imitate Socrates” meant, in other words, to staunchly refuse imitation; refuse imitation of the person “Socrates”—or any other person, however worthy. The model of life Socrates selected, painstakingly composed and laboriously cultivated for himself might have perfectly suited his kind of person, but it would not necessarily suit all those who made a point of living as Socrates did. A slavish imitation of the specific mode of life that Socrates constructed on his own, and to which he remained unhesitatingly, steadfastly loyal throughout, would amount to a betrayal of his legacy, to the rejection of his message—a message calling people first and foremost to listen to their own reason, and calling thereby for individual autonomy and responsibility. Such an imitation could suit a copier or a scanner, but it will never result in an original artistic creation, which (as Socrates suggested) human life should strive to become.”

Zygmunt Bauman (1925–2017) Polish philosopher and sociologist

Source: The Art of Life (2008), p. 79.

Life , People , Betrayal , Personality

“Yet why should an artist's way of looking at the world have any meaning for us? Why does it give us pleasure? Because, I believe, it increases our awareness of our own potentiality. Not of course our awareness of our potentiality as artists ourselves. But a way of looking at the world implies a certain relationship with the world, and every relationship implies action. The kind of actions implied vary a great deal. … A work of art can, to some extent, increase an awareness of different potentialities in different people. The important point is that a valid work of art promises in some way or another the possibility of an increase, an improvement. Nor need the word be optimistic to achieve this; indeed, its subject may be tragic. For it is not the subject that makes the promise, it is the artist's way of viewing his subject. Goya's way of looking at a massacre amounts to the contention that we ought to be able to do without massacres.”

John Berger (1926–2017) British painter, writer and art critic

Source: Selected Essays of John Berger (2014), P. 18

People , Pleasure , World , Art

“.. At the end of the month I should like to go to the hospital at St. Remy or another institution of this kind. What comforts me a little, is that I am beginning to consider madness as a disease like any other and accept the thing as such, whereas during the crises themselves, I thought that everything I imagined was real... After all... I have perhaps still some almost normal years in front of me.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Arles, France, 21 April 1889; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 585), p 25
1880s, 1889

Disease , Imagination , Madness

“.. there comes a point when something catches on the canvas, something grips on the canvas. I don’t know what it is, you can put your paint on the surface? Most of the time it looks like paint, and who the hell wants paint on a surface? But there does come a time – you take it off, put it on, goes over here, moves over a foot, as you go closer you start moving in inches not feet, half-inches – there comes a point when the paint doesn't feel like paint. I don't know why. Some mysterious thing happens. I think you have all experienced it.... What counts is that the paint should really disappear, otherwise it's craft. That's what I mean by something grips in a canvas. The moment that happens you are then sucked into the whole thing. Like some kind of rhythm.”

Phillip Guston (1913–1980) American artist

Source: 1961 - 1980, transcript of a public forum at Boston university', conducted by Joseph Ablow 1966, p. 67

Feeling , Hell , Thinking , Time

“For almost ninety years I've walked among my kind, and yours … all the time thinking I was complete in myself, not realizing what I was seeking. And not finding anything, because you weren't alive yet.”

Stephenie Meyer (1973) American author

Edward Cullen to Bella Swan, p. 304
Twilight series, Twilight (2005)

Thinking , Time

“What had been drapetomania became depression. … Modern man runs away from a life that seems to him a kind of slavery.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

"The Sane Slave: Social Control and Legal Psychiatry," American Criminal Law Review, vol. 10 (1971), p. 346.

Life

“[W]hen I left you, Bella, I left you bleeding. Jacob was the one to stitch you back up again. That was bound to leave its mark — on both of you. I'm not sure those kinds of stitches dissolve on their own.”

Stephenie Meyer (1973) American author

Edward Cullen, p. 534
Twilight series, Eclipse (2007)

“Reform is a word you always ought to watch out for. Like, when Mao started the Cultural Revolution it wasn't called a reform. Reform is a change that you're supposed to like. So as soon as you hear the word reform you can reach for your wallet and see who's lifting it. […] Subsidy is another interesting word, kind of like reform. It's a subsidy if public funds are used for public purposes. That's called a subsidy. It's not called a subsidy when it goes to private wealth. That's reform or something.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Talk titled "Free Market Fantasies" at Harvard University, April 13, 1996 https://chomsky.info/19960413/.
Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999

Change , Wealth

“Marital sex is kinda like ordering a Civil War chess set through the mail. You get one piece every four to six weeks, you don't know what kind of shape that piece is gonna be in when you get it, but you still gotta pay the handling charges.”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

Blue Collar Comedy Tour, Blue Collar Comedy Tour Rides Again (2004)

War , Sex

“Godzilla 2014 missed the mark primarily because it is not an origins story. Gojira was a monster of our own making. Similarly Gino was supposed to impose nature’s response to our meddling. But G2014 pre-existed genetic modifications and nuclear testing. We have no responsibility for him, nor the mutos either. They come from a time that never was, millions of years ago, “when the world was much more radioactive than it is today”. The story implies that mutos ‘eat radiation’. In the film, they can track it through every kind of protective shielding, and they eat nuclear devices like fruit -metallic peal and all. I guess millions of years ago, nuclear missiles grew on trees, and kaiju were common even though they’re absent from the fossil record -with only one top-secret exception. As an advocate of science education with a deep interest in paleontology, and as someone who would rather see humans held accountable for what they do to their environment, this film was very disappointing. As an atheist, it was even worse. The star of the film not only has impossible dimensions and an inexplicable power, he is also immortal. He’s been alive forever, and spends all his time sleeping. He awakens only he senses submarines or the arrival of other kaiju, because he has a mission to protect humanity. G2014 put the ‘god’ in Godzilla. The director called him a god, and some of the characters in the movie describe him as a god too. So he’s not a lizard, not a dinosaur, but one of the Lovecraftian great old ones like Cthulhu. In a video I made years ago, I too joked about Godzilla being a god. But it was still somewhat disappointing to see him depicted that way.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Patheos, Weighing in on Godzilla http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2014/06/08/weighing-in-on-godzilla/ (June 8, 2014)

God , Secret , World , Education

“America and our allies are fighting a new kind of war against a different kind of enemy. This conflict places great demands on the men and women of our armed forces, including our Guard and Reserve. They've met every test; they've risen to every challenge. The war also places demands on those of us in government. We took an oath to protect our country. We have a solemn responsibility to support the service men and women who defend us in the field of battle.”

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

Remarks During Signing of Defense Bill http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42299-2004Aug5.html (5 August 2004).
2000s, 2004

Women , Men , War , Support

“Sexual speech, not MacKinnon's speech, is the most repressed and disdained kind of expression in our world, and MacKinnon is no rebel or radical to attack it.”

Susie Bright (1958) American writer and feminist

"The Prime of Miss Kitty MacKinnon" http://susiebright.blogs.com/Old_Static_Site_Files/Prime_Of_Kitty_MacKinnon.pdf, by Susie Bright, East Bay Express, October 1993.

World

“There has been an increased but still rather limited response to general systems theory, as variously reflected in the work of Bateson, Vayda, Rappaport, Adams, and an interest in the use of computers, programming, matrices, etc. But the interaction between general systems theory (as represented, for example, by the theoretical work of Von Bertalanffy) has been compromised, partly by the state of field data, extraordinarily incomparable as it inevitably is, as well as historical anthropological methods of dealing with wholes. General systems theory has taken its impetus from the excitement of discovering larger and larger contexts, on the one hand, and a kind of microprobing into fine detail within a system, on the other. Both of these activities are intrinsic to anthropology to the extent that field work in living societies has been the basic disciplinary method. It is no revelation to any field-experienced anthropologist that everything is related to everything else, or that whether the entire sociocultural setting can be studied in detail or not, it has to be known in general outline.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1970s, Changing Styles of Anthropological Work, 1973, p. 8

Study

“I think a producer should be like water, and whatever the shape of the glass is, he or she should fill that. If they need you to be the engineer guy--typically I have an engineer--I work at that stuff. If they need you to be a songwriting help guy, I work on that. If they need you to be a vocal melody guy, I work at that, etc. I kind of look at whatever a band needs out of me then I try to give it to them.”

Patrick Stump (1984) American musician

When asked "Are you very hands on when it comes to production or do you focus more on the larger vision of the song/album - the vibe/etc? "
AbsolutePunk.net, Patrick Stump, Part 2 - 10.13.08

Guy , Thinking , Water , Help

“(Continued) The ironic thing is that my original goal in life was to be in a famous band, tour the world and sell millions of albums. Although that didn't quite happen, I got something else just as gratifying. Instead of being in a famous band, I gained some fame in the industry as a game composer. Instead of touring the world, I receive fan mail from around the world. Instead of selling millions of albums, my music is on millions of games! And I sell enough of my own albums that allows me to keep releasing them. So in a different way, I kind of got what I wanted after all. And I'm more than happy with that. The most fulfilling part of it is that I feel I contributed something that mattered to a significant number of people, and more importantly, I got to be a part of projects that mattered a lot to my life personally, like Star Wars!”

Frank Klepacki (1974) American musician, video game music composer and sound director

Gameplay magazine

Life , War , Happiness , People

“It obliges one to think with a particular kind of logic and severity. If it is nonsense, it will not go into Latin…I regard it as cruelty to the young to deprive them of that insight into language…Who would have thought Thatcher would be responsible for introducing the Prussian system, of dictating from central government the content of education in the supposed interest of the state? Translation into Latin was the great stamp and mark of English classical scholarship…My fatal decision was not to be pedantic and leave it in Latin. I had written Et Tiberim multo spumantem sanguine cerno: from Virgil in the Aeneid.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

And at the last minute I said, 'I can't put that out in Latin, that's pedantic'...In Latin, it would have been lost.
Interview with Valerie Grove, The Times (6 August 1993), p. 15
1990s

Education , Thinking , Decision

“The best way, of course, to understand the animator is to see that he parallels the actor. He has the same responsibility a fine actor has. […] Even the people who write about animation just don't seem to understand that when you have a drawing, you don't have a character. […] "This is the first Bugs Bunny" has no meaning. It's how Bugs came to stand and move and act, and what his feelings were, and his thoughts, and what kind of personality he was. That developed over a period of time. And you need fine animators to do that.”

Chuck Jones (1912–2002) American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films

Adamson, "Witty Birds and Well-Drawn Cats", 61.

People , Way , Feeling , Understanding

“For we seek not the worldwide victory of one nation or system but a worldwide victory of man. The modern globe is too small, its weapons are too destructive, and its disorders are too contagious to permit any other kind of victory.”

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

1963, Third State of the Union Address

Victory

“He found me fascinating, in a wounded-bird kind of way. I found him wonderful, in a lifeline kind of way. It was mutual need that passed for love, and got married.”

Sarah Zettel (1966) American writer

Source: Bitter Angels (2009), Chapter 1 (p. 9)

Love , Way , Bird

“'What do you mean by "a man like me"?' he [Philip Trent] demanded with a sort of fierceness. 'Do you take me for a man without any normal instincts? I don't say you impress people as a simple, transparent sort of character — what Mr Calvin Bunner calls a case of openwork; I don't say a stranger might not think you capable of wickedness, if there was good evidence for it: but I say that a man who, after seeing you and being in your atmosphere, could associate you with the kind of abomination I imagined is a fool — the kind of fool who is afraid to trust his senses.'”

Edmund Clerihew Bentley book Trent's Last Case

Source: Trent's Last Case (1912), Chapter XIII: "Eruption"

People , Fools , Imagination , Thinking

“The kind of people claiming to be in communication with God today … they are enough to drive a real Christian crazy!”

John Irving book A Prayer for Owen Meany

A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989)

God , People , Communication

“Assume responsibility for outcomes as well as for the processes and people you work with. How you achieve results will shape the kind of person you become.”

C.K. Prahalad (1941–2010) Indian academic

C. K. Prahalad, cited in: Simone P. Joyaux (2011), Strategic Fund Development, p. 7

People , Personality

“Orbs are an extension of consciousness. When we are not in the physical form, we often travel in a light sphere. It’s way beyond the nuts and bolts to understand this kind of science. In the universe we live in, we can measure less than one percent [of existing reality], and physicists believe there’s another 99 percent out there we cannot measure. There are other planes, other dimensions, and the orbs are a byproduct of these planes and dimensions.”

James Gilliland (1952) American academic and author

James describing what Orbs are.
Source: Levin, Ken (February/March 2004). "Orbs Come Out to Play", UFO Magazine 19 (1): 39

Way , Travel , Understanding , Reality

“I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

"Her Kind"
To Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960)

Learning

“There are here two assumptions about 'evaluations ', which I will call assumption (1) and assumption (2). Assumption (1) is that some individual may, without logical error, base his beliefs about matters of value entirely on premises which no one else would recognise as giving any evidence at all. Assumption (2) is that, given the kind of statement which other people regard as evidence for an evaluative conclusion, he may refuse to draw the conclusion because this does not count as evidence for him.”

Philippa Foot (1920–2010) British philosopher

"Moral Beliefs"

People , Error , Drawing

“The first step — especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money — the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

Closing remarks made on an eClass forum (Barnes & Noble University) (2004-12-05)

Money , People , Books , World

“Every true thinker for himself is so far like a monarch; he is absolute, and recognises nobody above him. His judgments, like the decrees of a monarch, spring from his own sovereign power and proceed directly from himself. He takes as little notice of authority as a monarch does of a command; nothing is valid unless he has himself authorised it. On the other hand, those of vulgar minds, who are swayed by all kinds of current opinions, authorities, and prejudices, are like the people which in silence obey the law and commands.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

“Thinking for Oneself,” H. Dirks, trans.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)

People , Law , Spring , Silence

“I agree with you likewise in your wishes to keep religion and government independent of each Other. Were it possible for St. Paul to rise from his grave at the present juncture, he would say to the Clergy who are now so active in settling the political Affairs of the World. “Cease from your political labors your kingdom is not of this World. Read my Epistles. In no part of them will you perceive me aiming to depose a pagan Emperor, or to place a Christian upon a throne. Christianity disdains to receive Support from human Governments. From this, it derives its preeminence over all the religions that ever have, or ever Shall exist in the World. Human Governments may receive Support from Christianity but it must be only from the love of justice, and peace which it is calculated to produce in the minds of men. By promoting these, and all the Other Christian Virtues by your precepts, and example, you will much sooner overthrow errors of all kind, and establish our pure and holy religion in the World, than by aiming to produce by your preaching, or pamphlets any change in the political state of mankind.””

Benjamin Rush (1745–1813) American physician, educator, author

Letter to Thomas Jefferson, 6 October 1800 http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-32-02-0120,” Founders Online, National Archives. Source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 32, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005, pp. 204–207

Love , Men , World , Peace

“So there you are – you can see what it is like. The camera's hot, probing eye, these monstrous machines and their attendants – a kind of twentieth century torture chamber, that's what it is. But I must try to forget about that, and imagine that you are sitting here in the room with me.”

Harold Macmillan (1894–1986) British politician

"Call for 'A little extra effort'", The Times, 25 January 1962, p. 6.

Opening to Conservative Party political broadcast (24 January 1962), quoted in "Call for 'A little extra effort'", The Times (25 January 1962), p. 6 Macmillan decided to open by showing the television outside broadcast crew who had set up their equipment.

Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Harold Macmillan / Quotes / Prime Minister
1960s

Imagination , Forgetting

“God does not love that which is already in itself worthy of love, but on the contrary, that which in itself has no worth acquires worth just by becoming the object of God's love. Agape has nothing to do with the kind of love that depends on the recognition of a valuable quality in its object. Agape does not recognize value, but creates it. Agape loves, and imparts value by loving. The man who is loved by God has no value in himself; what gives him value is precisely the fact that God loves him. Agape is a value-creating principle.”

Anders Nygren (1890–1978) Swedish bishop

Source: Agape and Eros (1930), p. 78

Love , God , Dependency

“We can search among the unconscious, emotion-laden learning rules for the kind of behavior most directly influenced by genetic evolution.”

Edward O. Wilson book On Human Nature

On Human Nature (1978), Ch.3 Development

Behavior , Search , Learning

“There are few, however, who devote thought and study to perfection of Divine service—to love, fear, communion and all of the other aspects of saintliness. It is not that they consider this knowledge unessential; if questioned each one will maintain that it is of paramount importance and that one who is not clearly versed in it cannot be deemed truly wise. Their failure to devote more attention to it stems rather from its being so manifest and so obvious to them that they see no need for spending much time upon it. Consequently, this study and the reading of works of this kind have been left to those of a not too sensitive, almost dull intelligence. These you will see immersed in the study of saintliness, not stirring from it. It has reached the stage that when one sees another engaging in saintly conduct, he cannot help but suspect him of dullwittedness.”

Moshe Chaim Luzzatto book Mesillat Yesharim

Mesillat Yesharim (1738), Introduction

Love , Fear , Intelligence , Failure

“Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight
you got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight”

Bruce Cockburn (1945) Canadian folk/rock guitarist and singer-songwriter

Lovers in a Dangerous Time, Track 1
Stealing Fire (1984)

Fight

“For Leopardi evil is integral to the way the world works; but when he talks of evil he does not mean any kind of malign agency of the sort that Gnostics imagined. Evil is the suffering that is built into the scheme of things. ‘What hope is there when evil is ordinary?’ he asks. ‘I mean, in an order where evil is necessary?’ These rhetorical questions show why Leopardi had no interest in projects of revolution and reform. No type of human action – least of all the harlequinade of politics – could fundamentally alter a world in which evil was ordinary.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

The Faith of Puppets: Leopardi and the Souls of Machines (p.35-6)
The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Enquiry into Human Freedom (2015)

World , Hope , Way , Imagination

“Political pornography is not unlike the sexual kind: difficult to define, but you know it when you see it.”

Pat Sajak (1946) American television host

Pat Sajak, cited in: Shastri Ramachandaran. " Sleaze as political biography: The Truth About Hillary by Edward Klein http://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20050904/spectrum/book7.htm," in The Tribune, Sunday, September 4, 2005
2000s

“Intellectual honesty requires that one reflect on the contribution one’s theory makes to the class struggle, and acknowledge it openly. One does not have to accept the specific claim that there are two, and only two, mutually exclusive worldviews, to one of which any theory must commit itself, to accept the general claim that entertaining, developing and propounding a theory are actions, and as such they represent ways of taking a position in the world. This means that any kind of comprehensive understanding of politics will also have to treat the politics of theorization, including the politics of whatever theory is itself at the given time being presented for scrutiny, as a candidate for acceptance.”

Raymond Geuss book Philosophy and Real Politics

Philosophy and Real Politics (2008).
Philosophy and Real Politics (2008)

World , Way , Understanding , Time

“The Southerners understand how to treat the Negro — with firmness and with kindness — and the Negroes are liked below the Mason and Dixon line so long as they keep to their proper relation to the Whites, but in the North the blocks of Negroes in the large cities, migrating from the South, have introduced new complications, which are certain to produce trouble in the future …”

Madison Grant (1865–1937) American lawyer, eugenicist, and conservationist

The Conquest of a Continent (1933)

Understanding , Future

“Nobody wants to be dancing to political songs. Every bit of music out there that’s making it into the mainstream is really about nothing. I wanted to see if I could write songs about something important and make it sound like nothing. And it kind of worked.”

M.I.A. (1975) British recording artist, songwriter, painter and director

Interview http://niralimagazine.com/2004/10/not-so-missing-in-action/ with Nirali magazine (October 2004)
Sourced quotes

Music , Dance

“Much as I admire Tolkien, and I do admire Tolkien — he’s been a huge influence on me, and his Lord of the Rings is the mountain that leans over every other fantasy written since and shaped all of modern fantasy — there are things about it, the whole concept of the Dark Lord, and good guys battling bad guys, Good versus Evil, while brilliantly handled in Tolkien, in the hands of many Tolkien successors, it has become kind of a cartoon. We don’t need any more Dark Lords, we don’t need any more, ‘Here are the good guys, they’re in white, there are the bad guys, they’re in black. And also, they’re really ugly, the bad guys. It is certainly a genuine, legitimate topic as the core of fantasy, but I think the battle between Good and Evil is waged within the individual human hearts. We all have good in us and we all have evil in us, and we may do a wonderful good act on Tuesday and a horrible, selfish, bad act on Wednesday, and to me, that’s the great human drama of fiction. I believe in gray characters, as I’ve said before. We all have good and evil in us and there are very few pure paragons and there are very few orcs. A villain is a hero of the other side, as someone said once, and I think there’s a great deal of truth to that, and that’s the interesting thing. In the case of war, that kind of situation, so I think some of that is definitely what I’m aiming at.”

George Raymond Richard Martin (1948) American writer, screenwriter and television producer

AssignmentX interview (June 2011) http://www.assignmentx.com/2011/interview-game-of-thrones-creator-george-r-r-martin-on-the-future-of-the-franchise-part-2/

War , Truth , Guy , Mountain

“Between religion's "this is" and poetry's "but suppose this is" there must always be some kind of tension, until the possible and the actual meet at infinity.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

"Quotes", Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (1957), Anagogic Phase: Symbol as Monad

Religion

“The destructive work of totalitarian machinery, whether or not this word is used, is usually supported by a special kind of primitive social philosophy. It proclaims not only that the common good of 'society' has priority over the interests of individuals, but that the very existence of individuals as persons is reducible to the existence of the social 'whole'; in other words, personal existence is, in a strange sense, unreal. This is a convenient foundation for any ideology of slavery.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

"Totalitarianism and the Virtue of the Lie", as quoted in Is God Happy? Selected Essays (2013), Basic Books, p. 57

Support , Sense , Personality

“We're fighting on many fronts, and Iraq is now the central front. Saddam holdouts and foreign terrorists are trying desperately to undermine Iraq's progress and to throw that country into chaos. The terrorists in Iraq believe their attacks on innocent people will weaken our resolve. That's what they believe. They believe that America will run from a challenge. They're mistaken. Americans are not the running kind.”

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

Speech in Portsmouth, NH http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/10/20031009-7.html (October 9, 2003) These lines have sometimes been attributed to Paul Wolfowitz, who was reported to have said them the next day, perhaps quoting the President's speech.
2000s, 2003

People , Fight , Country

“Even though I disagree with the tactics and the divisive rhetoric of the Black Lives Matter movement, I do understand that hopelessness and lack of opportunity breeds this type of desperation. And this is true in many of our nation’s ghettos and underprivileged communities, much of the protests in urban city centers are born out of this kind of desperation. But the thing is — the way that we can solve the problem and to eliminate this kind of a desperation is to create good jobs, urban economic revitalization, and opportunities for job training and long-term solutions. That will solve the problem in our troubled cities around this country. And I want to make a loud cry that we as Republicans — we are declaring right now today, that we are determined more than ever to listen to the cries of the disenfranchised, the low-income, the at-risk communities. We are more than ever – we will solve the problems together!”

Mark Burns (televangelist) (1979) Christian pastor and founder of the NOW Television Network

Speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention (July 21, 2016)

Way , Communication , Understanding , Problem

“This could be the beginning of Civil War. There is no kind more distressing, no kind which so rapidly describes the pointlessness of human killing human. I have been fated, for a reason I cannot comprehend or for no reason at all, to witness the worst examples of insane warfare (and all warfare, it seems to me now, is that) and having to listen to the most ridiculous explanations as to its “necessity” from otherwise perfectly rational people, I have long since become weary, Moorcock, of the debate. If I appear to you to be in a more reconciled mood than when your grandfather first met me it is because I have learned that no individual is responsible for War—that we are all, at the same time, individually responsible for the ills of the human condition. In learning this, (and I am about to tell you how I learned it) I also learned a certain tolerance for myself and for others which I had never previously possessed.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 4 “The Black Ships” (p. 359)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

Fate , War , People , Mood

“Nor, perchance,
If I were not thus taught, Should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou, my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! And this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

Stanza 4.
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800), Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey (1798)

Love , Life , Men , Pleasure

“Interviewer: So you weren't surprised by the Dan Rather debacle?
Wolfe: I wasn't surprised it happened. The media have a pretty wild history in this respect. Whenever somebody would make up a story, they would say, 'Oh, that's the influence of the New Journalism.' God, newspapers have been making up stories forever. This kind of trifling and fooling around is not a function of the New Journalism.”

Tom Wolfe (1930–2018) American author and journalist

American Spectator interview (2005)

God , Fools , History , Wolf

“There is a science of Dynamics in man's fortunes and nature, as well as of Mechanics. There is a science which treats of, and practically addresses, the primary, unmodified forces and energies of man, the mysterious springs of Love, and Fear, and Wonder, of Enthusiasm, Poetry, Religion, all which have a truly vital and infinite character; as well as a science which practically addresses the finite, modified developments of these, when they take the shape of immediate “motives,” as hope of reward, or as fear of punishment.
Now it is certain, that in former times the wise men, the enlightened lovers of their kind, who appeared generally as Moralists, Poets or Priests, did, without neglecting the Mechanical province, deal chiefly with the Dynamical; applying themselves chiefly to regulate, increase and purify the inward primary powers of man; and fancying that herein lay the main difficulty, and the best service they could undertake. But a wide difference is manifest in our age. For the wise men, who now appear as Political Philosophers, deal exclusively with the Mechanical province; and occupying themselves in counting-up and estimating men's motives, strive by curious checking and balancing, and other adjustments of Profit and Loss, to guide them to their true advantage”

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

1820s, Signs of the Times (1829)

Love , Men , Age , Fear

“We started out in the middle ages creating music which had certain desirable physical properties (for example, a major chord sounds "nice" because the frequencies are in integer ratios to each other). And then as society evolved, we created these emotional contexts for certain instruments and progressions. Major-chord arpeggios sound "happy", minor chords sound "sad", chromatic scales can sound "scary", et cetera. In the 20th century, film soundtracks reinforced this point as people associated certain kinds of music with certain visual and emotional experiences. It's a giant feedback loop, really; once you grow up in a given culture, it leaves this musical fingerprint on you which colors your experiences.”

Andrew Sega (1975) musician from America

Andrew Sega Shrine interview, 2011

Happiness , People , Age , Sadness

“Maybe there is a single spot, just one, where living organisms are holed up. Maybe so, but if so this would be the strangest thing of all, absolutely incomprehensible. For we are not familiar with this kind of living. We do not have solitary, isolated creatures. It is beyond our imagination to conceive of a single form of life that exists alone and independent, unattached to other forms.”

Lewis Thomas (1913–1993) American physician, poet and educator

"The Youngest and Brightest Thing Around", p. 13
The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (1979)

Life , Imagination

“When a promise is broken, the promise still remains. In one way or another, we are all unfaithful to each other, and physical unfaithfulness is not the worst kind there is.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

The Crosswicks Journal, The Irrational Season (1977)

Unfaithfulness , Way

“I was never the kind of painter or sculptor who kept a shop.”

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet

As quoted in In Our Time : The Artist, BBC Radio 4 (28 March 2002).

“Love isn’t in the category of normal things. Not any worthwhile kind of love, anyway.”

Tim Powers (1952) American writer

A Soul in a Bottle (p. 37)
Short fiction, The Bible Repairman and Other Stories (2011)

Love

“They're a symbol of the whole town, pretending to fight, love, weep, and laugh all the time - and they're phonies, all of them. And I head the list…their phony hearts were dripping with the milk of human kindness.”

Ben Hecht (1894–1964) American screenwriter

Nothing Sacred (1937)
Screenplays

Love , Time , Heart , Fight

“My secret desire is for the whole world to eventually play games and for games to have the kind of influence that books and movies do. Games are a great place for the planet's collective subconscious to grow as we further our understanding of each other.”

Jeremy Soule (1975) American composer

Jeremy Soule Interview https://web.archive.org/web/20021026151734/http://www.stratosgroup.com/features/interviews.php?selected=200206jsbh (June 04, 2002).
Attributed

Secret , Books , World , Game

Quotes about kindness page 32

Quotes about kindness
page 32