Quotes about kindness (7470 quotes, page 54)

“The right seems unable to mount any kind of substantive counterattack to Mr. Piketty’s thesis. Instead, the response has been all about name-calling.”

Thomas Piketty (1971) French economist

Paul Krugman " The Piketty Panic http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/25/opinion/krugman-the-piketty-panic.html" in nytimes.com, 2014/04/25; cited in: " Six Ways Thomas Piketty's 'Capital' Isn't Holding Up to Scrutiny http://www.forbes.com/sites/kylesmith/2014/05/01/six-ways-thomas-pikettys-capital-isnt-holding-up-to-scrutiny/" by Kyle Smith at forbes.com, 2014/04/25.
About

“This great principle does not deny to the needy nor to the poor the assistance they should have. The wholly incapacitated, the aged, the sickly are cared for with all tenderness, but every able-bodied person is enjoined to do his utmost for himself to avoid dependence, if his own efforts can make such a course possible; to look upon adversity as temporary; to combine his faith in his own ability with honest toil; to rehabilitate himself and his family to a position of independence; in every case to minimize the need for help and to supplement any help given with his own best efforts. We believe [that] seldom [do circumstances arise in which] men of rigorous faith, genuine courage, and unfaltering determination, with the love of independence burning in their hearts, and pride in their own accomplishments, cannot surmount the obstacles that lie in their paths. We know that through humble, prayerful, industrious, God-fearing lives, a faith can be developed within us by the strength of which we can call down the blessings of a kind and merciful Heavenly Father and literally see our handicaps vanish and our independence and freedom established and maintained.”

Henry D. Moyle (1889–1963) Member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

Conference Report, Apr. 1948, p. 5, and quoted in The Celestial Nature of Self-reliance http://lds.org/portal/site/LDSOrg/menuitem.b12f9d18fae655bb69095bd3e44916a0/?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=0b3ac5e8b4b6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1|
Quotes as an apostle

Love , Men , God , Lie

“He had a sense that the old man meant to be good-natured and neighbourly; but the kindness fell on him as sunshine falls on the wretched — he had no heart to taste it, and felt that it was very far off him.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Source: Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (1861), Chapter 10 (at page 79)

Nature , Sense , Heart

“But I'm a mainstreamer. I think that, you know, when we start talking about the Tea Party, people want to marginalize that into some kind of organization or party, but it really isn't.”

Sharron Angle (1949) Former member of the Nevada Assembly from 1999 to 2007

The O'Reilly Factor
Fox News
2010-09-15
Sharron Angle in No Spin Zone
The O'Reilly Factor
Fox News
2010-09-15
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/transcript/sharron-angle-no-spin-zone?page=1

People , Thinking , Tea

“With Big Bird we knew we wanted to do a large, a great big character. He should represent a child so he can make the kinds of mistakes that kids make, and talk about it and be out front about that.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

Interview with Associated Press (1986)

Bird

“I fear that in a few years there may be a kind of 'panic', in this form: 'since Millet' we have sunk very low — the word decadence, now whispered or pronounced in veiled terms (see Herkomer), will then sound like an alarm bell. Many, like I myself, now keep quiet, because they already have the reputation of being awkward customers,5 and talking about it doesn't help. That — namely, talking — isn't what one needs to do — one must work, though with sorrow in the heart. Those who later cry out the loudest about decadence will themselves belong to it the most. I repeat: by this shall ye know them, [from: Matt. 7:16. ] by their work, and it won't be the most eloquent who say the truest things. See Millet himself, see Herkomer, they're certainly not orators, and speak almost reluctantly.”

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

In his letter to Theo, from The Hague, 5 Nov. 1882 - original manuscript of letter no. 280 - at Van Gogh Museum, location Amsterdam - inv. b263 a-b V/1962, http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let280/letter.html
1880s, 1882

Fear , Help , Heart , Cry

“Having now finished the observations on this, probably, the last occasion I shall have of communicating with you, all me to express the hope, that whatever errors I may have committed, will be attributed to no want of zeal in the discharge of my official duties, and that they may find a correction in the intelligence and patriotism, of the gentleman who will succeed me. And in my retirement, whatever may be my lot, I shall not cease to invoke that Beneficent Being, to whose providence we are so signally indebted for the general prosperity of the Territory; for the continuance of his blessings upon Oregon—upon you—and upon your constituents, from whom I have received uniform kindness and support in the discharge of my duties.”

Joseph Lane

Joseph Lane (May 7, 1850) " Governor Joseph Lane Legislative Message, 1850 http://records.sos.state.or.us/ORSOSWebDrawer/Recordpdf/6777826", Oregon State Archives, Oregon Secretary of State, Oregon Provisional and Territorial Records, 1850, Calendar No. 10571.

Hope , Error , Intelligence , Communication

“Russia is no longer a military threat. But I do think we have a responsibility to try to enhance stability and democracy. And only a democratic country can be stable … It's reasonable to allow time for the development of democracy … But Putin's Russia is moving in the wrong direction … many seem to think that one should tolerate some 'failures' since 'stability' has gained ground. I believe this kind of realpolitik is dangerous. Stability can only result from a genuine democracy, rule of law and respect of human rights.”

Heidi Hautala (1955) Finnish politician

As quoted in "Putin's shadow falls over Finland" by Simon Tisdall, in The Guardian (14 June 2006)

Law , Democracy , Failure , Thinking

“My Minde to Me a Kindome Is;
Such present joys therein I find,
That it excels all other bliss
That earth affords or grows by kind:
Though much I want which most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.”

Edward Dyer (1543–1607) courtier

MS. Rawl 85 (1588), p. 17. A very similar but anonymous copy is in the British Museum. Additional MS. 15225, p. 85. And there is an imitation in J. Sylvester’s Works, p. 651, Hannah, Courtly Poets. Compare:
My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such perfect joy therein I find,
As far exceeds all earthly bliss
That God and Nature hath assigned.
Though much I want that most
would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.
Byrd: Psalmes, Sonnets, etc. 1588.
My mind to me an empire is,
While grace affordeth health.
Robert Southwell (1560–1595), Loo Home.
"Mens regnum bona possidet" (translated as "A good mind possesses a kingdom"), Seneca, Thyestes, ii. 380.

Joy

“In both the kinds of land we have been considering [i. e., classes of very fertile soil, rich in humus], we have supposed the humus to be mild, or exempt from acidity. J Sour or acid humus totally destroys the fertility of a soil; sometimes, however, the soil contains so very small a portion of acidity that its fertility is very slightly diminished, and only with regard to some few plants. Barley crops become more and more scanty in proportion as the acidity is increased; but oats do not appear to be at all affected by it. Rye grown on such land is peculiarly liable to rust, and is easily laid or lodged. The grains of all the oereals become larger, but contain less farina. Grass which grows on these spots is, both in species and taste, less agreeable, and less suitable for cattle, than any other, although it yields a very considerable produce in hay. In fact, in exact proportion with the increase of acidity, is the decrease of the value of the soil…”

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

p. 345 http://books.google.com/books?id=zAhJAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA345, as cited in Ruffin (1852, p. 85).
The Principles of Agriculture, 1844, Section III: Agronomy

Grass , Appearance

“The kind of plan that Donald has put forth would be trickle-down economics all over again. In fact, it would be the most extreme version, the biggest tax cuts for the top percent of the people in this country than we've ever had. I call it trumped-up trickle-down, because that's exactly what it would be. That is not how we grow the economy.”

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

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

People , Country

“We [at Apple] worry about the humanity being drained out of music, about it becoming a bits-and-bytes kind of world instead of the art and craft.”

Tim Cook (1960) American business executive

TechSpot: "Tim Cook thinks Spotify is 'draining the humanity out of music'" https://www.techspot.com/news/75875-tim-cook-thinks-spotify-draining-humanity-out-music.html (8 August 2018)

World , Art , Music

“The measure of a man's estimate of your strength is the kind of weapons he feels that he must use in order to hold you fast in a prescribed place.”

Howard Thurman (1899–1981) American writer

Explaining Jim Crow laws to his daughters, in The Luminous Darkness : A Personal Interpretation of the Anatomy of Segregation and the Ground of Hope (1989), p. 71

Feeling

“I like the United States in many ways. I like the people, I like the atmosphere. I like to travel around also when I am able to get out of Washington or New York, and I like the food. Especially the meat. The steak is excellent, and I had a very good steak in New York a couple of days ago and you can't get that kind of steak in Europe, so big and so tender, that's one of the reasons I like to come to the United States.”

Jens Stoltenberg (1959) Norwegian politician, 13th Secretary-General of NATO, 27th Prime Minister of Norway

Interview with Aroop Mukharji https://soundcloud.com/belfercenter/office-hours-jens-stoltenberg-on-nato-russia-and-his-favorite-american-meal?in=belfercenter/sets/office-hours
2010s

People , Food , Way , Travel

“I'm thinking that somewhere around the world, I remember after this 9/11 event back home, people didn't feel much like playing, singing, people didn't feel like going out. But then I thought you know, that somewhere in the world, somebody's hiding behind a rock or a tree, or a wall, or something, and somebody else has been shooting at them for quite some time. Somebody's dreaming, somebody's hoping that somewhere, somebody's singing. Somebody's smiling, and laughing, and life is good, and it's fun to be a human being, and it's all right. And I thought man we got to keep that spirit going, you know, and so we got back out on the road. But I think of that every time that we play now. It would be nice to go anywhere in the world to go and do these kind of things and have fun and live right and not be worried about stuff like that. That's my hope, that everywhere in the world that will happen soon.”

Arlo Guthrie (1947) American folk singer

Statements said on "Live in Sydney" before playing "Highway in the Wind"

Life , People , World , Smile

“People will believe in just about any kind of superstitious crap nowadays.”

Michael Swanwick (1950) American science fiction author

Source: In the Drift (1985), Chapter 5, “Marrow Death” (p. 152)

People

“The sneaking arts of underling tradesmen are thus erected into political maxims for the conduct of a great empire; for it is the most underling tradesmen only who make it a rule to employ chiefly their own customers. A great trader purchases his good always where they are cheapest and best, without regard to any little interest of this kind.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter III, Part II, p. 530.

Art

“Any empirical evaluation of the relationship between Trump and the white working class would reveal that one adjective in that phrase is doing more work than the other. In 2016, Trump enjoyed majority or plurality support among every economic branch of whites. It is true that his strongest support among whites came from those making $50,000 to $99,999. This would be something more than working-class in many nonwhite neighborhoods, but even if one accepts that branch as the working class, the difference between how various groups in this income bracket voted is revealing. Sixty-one percent of whites in this "working class" supported Trump. Only 24 percent of Hispanics and 11 percent of blacks did. Indeed, the plurality of all voters making less than $100,000 and the majority making less than $50,000 voted for the Democratic candidate. So when Packer laments [in the New Yorker] the fact that "Democrats can no longer really claim to be the party of working people—not white ones, anyway," he commits a kind of category error. The real problem is that Democrats aren't the party of white people—working or otherwise. White workers are not divided by the fact of labor from other white demographics; they are divided from all other laborers by the fact of their whiteness.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates (1975) writer, journalist, and educator

"The First White President" (October 2017)

People , Error , Support , Problem

“It becomes you to be wise to smell, feel, and have in estimation these fair books, de haulte gresse, light in the pursuit, and bold at the encounter. Then you must, by a curious reading and frequent meditation, break the bone and suck out the substantific marrow, — that is what I mean by these Pythagorean symbols, — with assured hope of becoming well-advised and valiant by the said reading; for in it you shall find another kind of taste, and a doctrine more profound, which will disclose unto you deep doctrines and dreadful mysteries, as well in what concerneth our religion as matters of the public state and life economical.”

Francois Rabelais book Gargantua and Pantagruel

Prologue.
Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Gargantua (1534)

Life , Books , Religion , Hope

“The third and intermediate kind of instruction, which connects the first two… relates to the application of scientific principles to practical purposes. It qualifies the student to plan a structure or a machine for a given purpose, without the necessity of copying some existing example, and to adapt his designs to situations to which no existing example affords a parallel. It enables him to compute the theoretical limit of the strength or stability of a structure, or the efficiency of a machine of a particular kind—to ascertain how far an actual structure or machine fails to attain that limit—to discover the cause of such shortcomings—and to devise improvements for obviating such causes; and it enables him to judge how far an established practical rule is founded on reason, how far on mere custom, and how far on error.”

William John Macquorn Rankine (1820–1872) civil engineer

p, 125
"On the Harmony of Theory and Practice in Mechanics" (Jan. 3, 1856)

Error

“It was the first time many of the bands had met and saw each other perform, so we were all really marveling at each other. It was just one good group of people after another. And different kinds of music — from Jimi Hendrix to Ravi Shankar, The Mamas and the Papas to The Who. They had a backstage area where there was food being served 24 hours a day, so everybody was wandering around meeting each other. It was just amazing.”

Grace Slick (1939) American musician, writer and painter

On the Monterey Pop Festival, quoted in Hippie (2004) by Barry Miles, p. 212

People , Food , Music , Time

“Typically, "progressives" and change agents have demanded more money for social programs. But today it's clear that the way we do things needs to change – and that if things were done more appropriately, more humanely, more intelligently, we might end up spending less on social programs than we do now. Take education …. Over the last 10 years or so, a handful of education reformers have … come up with exciting new ideas for changing the ways our schools are administered, the ways our children are taught, and the kinds of things they're taught. And nearly all their ideas would cost no more than our current practices cost.”

Mark Satin (1946) American political theorist, author, and newsletter publisher

Some would actually save us money!
Source: New Options for America (1991), Chapter 11, "Our Schools Need Imagination More Than They Need Money," pp. 84–85.

Money , Children , Education , School

“In April 1946, when I came to Hughes Aircraft to institute high-technology research and development, it was far from the place it was to become. Howard Hughes, I was informed, rarely came around. When he did show up, it was to take up one or another trivial issue. He would toss off detailed directions, for instance, on what to do next about a few old airplanes decaying out in the yard or what kind of seat covers to buy for the company-owned Chevrolets, or he would say he wanted some pictures of clouds taken from an airplane. An accountant from Hughes Tool Co. ((started by Howard's father)) had the title of general manager but was there only to sign checks. A few of Howard's flying buddies were on the payroll, using assorted fanciful titles like some in Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado, but apparently did next to nothing. A lawyer was on hand to process contracts, but there were practically none. In addition to the Spruce Goose flying freighter, a mammoth eight-engine plywood seaplane that barely managed to fly even once, there was an experimental Navy reconnaissance plane under development (which, with Hughes at the controls, later crashed, almost killing him). The contracts for both planes had been canceled. Perhaps, I said to myself, this is one of those unforeseeable lucky opportunities. Why not use Hughes Aircraft as a base to create a new and needed defense electronics supplier?”

Simon Ramo (1913–2016) Father of the ICBM

MEMOIRS OF AN ICBM PIONEER Simon Ramo broke with Howard Hughes, then built TRW, the company that developed the U.S. missile. He says what went right then would go wrong today. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1988/04/25/70453/index.htm in FORTUNE Magazine, April 25, 1988

Flying

“I have long been baffled as to why people said my preference over Obama was some kind of shift to the ideological left. Nope. Against a radical right, reckless, populist insurgency, Obama is the conservative option, dealing with emergent problems with pragmatic calm and modest innovation. He seeks as a good Oakeshottian would to reform the country's policies in order to regain the country's past virtues. What could possibly be more conservative than that?”

Andrew Sullivan (1963) Journalist, writer, blogger

"America's Tory President", The Daily Dish (24 August 2012) http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2012/08/24/americas-tory-president/

People , Problem , Past , Country

“I started [acting] when I was a young teenager. My mom encouraged me to go to read for some stuff in Toronto, and I ended up doing a couple of crappy commercials and was like, "Oh, yeah, I'd like to do this!" And then kind of put it on the back burner, and then pursued it a little bit when I was in Toronto, like studying a little bit here and there. And I decided to move to New York and go to Lee Strasberg. And I kind of, for the first time ever, really felt like I was doing something that I enjoyed, and that I felt like I could conceivably be good at. And when those two things happen, [ironically] you're off to the races.”

Will Arnett (1970) Canadian actor

"The Will Arnett Interview," Television Without Pity (2005) http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/articles/content/a1005/index-2.html
2005

Moms , Study , Time , Reading

“People in the business always say, "You look fabulous." You get that all the time and it kind of goes in one ear and out the other because most of the time they just say that to make you feel good. It's nice when you hear it from an ordinary person and then I appreciate it.”

Heidi Klum (1973) German model, television host, businesswoman, fashion designer, television producer, and actress

Quoted in Parade Magazine 10 July 2008 http://www.parade.com/celebrity/celebrity-parade/archive/pc_0194.html.

People , Feeling , Business , Time

“Racism rests upon and functions as a kind of seesaw: the persecutor rises by debasing and inferiorizing his victim.”

Albert Memmi (1920) French writer

Racism (1982)

“The rapid establishment of Christianity must therefore have been from the conviction which those who embraced it, had of its "Truth and power unto salvation." Christianity at first spread itself amongst the most enlightened nations of the earth - in those places where human learning was in its greatest perfection; and, by the force of the evidence which attended it, amongst such men it gained an establishment. It has been justly observed, that "it happened very providentially to the honour of the Christian religion, that it did not take its rise in the dark illiterate ages of the world, but at a time when arts and sciences were t their height, and when there were men who made it the business of their lives to search after truth and lift the several opinions of the philosophers and wise men, concerning the duty, the end, and chief happiness of reasonable creatures." Both the learned and the ignorant alike embraced its doctrines; the learned were not likely to be deceived in the proofs which were offered; and the same cause undoubtedly operated to produce the effect upon each. But an immediate conversion of the bulk of mankind, can arise only from some proofs of a ddivine authority offering themselves immediately to the senses; the preaching of any new doctrine, if lest to operate only by its own force, would go but a very little way towards the immediate conversion of the gnorant, who have no principle of action but what arises from habit, and whose powers of reasoning are insufficient to correct their errors. When Mahomet was required by his followers to work a miracle for their conviction, he always declined it; he was too cautious to trust to an experiment, the success of which was scarcely whithin the bounds of probablity; he amused his followers with prtended visions, which with the aid afterwards of the civil and military powr; and as the accomplishment of that event was by a few obscure persons, who founded their pretentions upon authority from heaven, we are next to consider, what kind of proofs of their divine commission they offered to the world; and whether they themselves could have been deceived, or mankind could have been deludded by them.”

Samuel Vince (1749–1821) British mathematician, astronomer and physicist

Source: The Credibility of Christianity Vindicated, p. 20; As quoted in " Book review http://books.google.nl/books?id=52tAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA261," in The British Critic, Volume 12 (1798). F. and C. Rivington. p. 261-262

Men , Truth , Age , World

“No-one in their senses wants nuclear weapons for their own sake, but equally, no responsible prime minister could take the colossal gamble of giving up our nuclear defences while our greatest potential enemy kept their's. Policies which would throw out all American nuclear bases…would wreck NATO and leave us totally isolated from our friends in the United States, and friends they are. No nation in history has ever shouldered a greater burden nor shouldered it more willingly nor more generously than the United States. This Party is pro-American. And we must constantly remind people what the defence policy of the [Labour] Party would mean. Their idea that by giving up our nuclear deterrent, we could somehow escape the result of a nuclear war elsewhere is nonsense, and it is a delusion to assume that conventional weapons are sufficient defence against nuclear attack. And do not let anyone slip into the habit of thinking that conventional war in Europe is some kind of comfortable option. With a huge array of modern weapons held by the Soviet Union, including chemical weapons in large quantities, it would be a cruel and terrible conflict. The truth is that possession of the nuclear deterrent has prevented not only nuclear war but also conventional war and to us, peace is precious beyond price. We are the true peace party.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (12 October 1984) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105763
Second term as Prime Minister

War , People , Truth , Peace

“You have no right whatever to speak on behalf of the Government. Foreign affairs are in the capable hands of Ernest Bevin. His task is quite sufficiently difficult without the irresponsible statements of the kind you are making... I can assure you there is widespread resentment in the Party at your activities and a period of silence on your part would be welcome.”

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

Letter to Harold Laski, Chairman of the Labour Party (1946), quoted in David Butler and Gareth Butler, Twentieth Century British Political Facts (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 289.
Prime Minister

Silence , Parting

“Perhaps our own fin-de-siècle decadence takes the form, not of libertarian excess, but of the kind of over-the-top puritanism we see in political correctness and the assorted moral certainties of physical fitness fanatics, New Agers and animal-rights activists.”

J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) British writer

"Back to the Heady Future", review of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, edited by John Clute and Peter Nicholls, originally published in the [London] Daily Telegraph (1993)
A User's Guide to the Millennium (1996)

Animals

“I thought you meant that religious belief involved the substitution of the ordinances for the moral law. That no doubt came to be true in a degree with certain of the pharisees, may be true in a degree with some Christians. But it is not true with the Xtianity in which I was brought up. To Xtians of that kind God's law and the moral law are and must be identical. Hence if it could be shewn that Pacifism was in accordance with the moral law I should have to hold that all war was prohibited by Xtianity. If on the other hand, it can be shewn as I think it can that there is no such prohibition by the Xtian law I cannot admit that the moral law forbids me to support my country in a just war.”

Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood (1864–1958) lawyer, politician and diplomat in the United Kingdom

Letter to Gilbert Murray (1943), quoted in Gilbert Murray : An Unfinished Autobiography (1960) edited by Jean Smith and Arnold Toynbee, pp. 179-180

God , War , Law , Support

“He looked at her with that kind of painted-on seriousness that comedians shift into when they get their chance to play Hamlet.”

Tom Robbins book Still Life with Woodpecker

Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)

Chance , Painting

“The Republican Party is part of a larger American discussion about the tension between equality of opportunity and protection of property, which is sort of the point of the book, that this is a much larger American discussion, and Republicans began under Lincoln with the attempt to turn the discrepancy between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution into, at the time, a modern-day political solution. The Republican Party would manage, they hoped, to turn the principle of the Declaration of Independence, that everybody should have equality of opportunity, into a political reality. The Declaration of Independence was, of course, a set of principles; it wasn't any kind of law or codification of those principles. The Constitution went ahead and codified that the central idea of America was the protection of property, so the Republicans began with the idea that they would be the political arm of the Declaration of Independence's equality of opportunity. Throughout their history, three times now, they have swung from that pole through a sort of racist and xenophobic backlash against that principle, tied themselves to big business, and come out protecting the other American principle, which is the protection of property. That tension between equality of opportunity and the protection of property, both of which are central tenets of America, played out in the Republican Party.”

Heather Cox Richardson American historian

as quoted in "'Not the true Republican Party': How the party of Lincoln ended up with Ted Cruz" http://www.salon.com/2014/09/29/not_the_true_republican_party_how_the_party_of_lincoln_ended_up_with_ted_cruz/ (29 September 2014), by Elias Isquith, Salon

Books , Law , Hope , History

“I thank you, fellow-citizens, for this magnificent demonstration. In so far as I represent in my heart and life the great doctrines for which you fought, I accept this demonstration as a tribute to my representative character. [Applause. ] In the strength of your hands, in the fervor of your hearts, in the firmness of your faith, in all that betokens greatness of manhood and nobleness of character, the Republic finds its security and glory. [Applause. ] I do not enter upon controverted questions. The time, the place, the situation forbid it. I respect the traditions that require me to speak only of those themes which elevate us all. Again I thank you for the kindness and enthusiasm of your greeting.”

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

Tremendous cheering.
1880s, Speech to the 'Boys in Blue' (1880)

Life , Faith , Question , Time

“Human beings — they go on being born and dying, dying and being born. It's kind of boring, isn't it?”

Yukio Mishima Ken

"Sword" ("Ken"), quoted in 三島由紀夫短編集: Seven Stories, translated by John Bester (2002), p. 67.

“This law, by and large, extends the same kind of crime-fighting tools we apply to gangs and mobsters to terrorists. That's not something that is an infringement of our civil liberties.”

Paul Ryan (1970) American politician

2004-01-20
State delegation split on speech
Craig
Gilbert
Journal Sentinel
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=201475
2012-09-30
http://web.archive.org/web/20080116205008/http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=201475
2008-01-16
discussing the USA PATRIOT Act

Law , Fight

“I am now engaged on the refutation of Luther's book, which refutation you will see about September 1st. I am indeed wholly averse to this kind of fighting; but what do they think is to be done by him who is attacked with edge and point? Do not all believe that in repelling an enemy he is to be kept away, and if this is to be accomplished in no other way, he is to be cut down? And must we not oppose engines to those battering-rams which caus enot theology but faith adn truth to be overthrown, friendship to perish, and whatever is sacred and in moderation to be held in contempt among mortals? That book of Luther's, what else is it than an example of denying what you a little while ago? or a fog through which you cannot see rightly the mystery of Christ? I shall put forth nothing wild against Luther - a thing hehimself ought not to have done. Since he has done it I shall remember piety and Christian decorum.”

Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) leader of the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland, and founder of the Swiss Reformed Churches

Letter, July 21, ibid, p.288

Friendship , Truth , Books , Faith

“We went to a club where singers and stand-up comedians performed in the hope of being discovered. A thin girl with bright red hair and sequined T-shirt reached the end of her passionately murmured song on a sudden shrill, impossible top note. All conversation ceased. Someone, perhaps maliciously, dropped a glass. Halfway through, the note became a warbling vibrato and the singer collapsed on the stage in an abject curtsy, arms held stiffly in front of her, fists clenched. Then she sprang to her tiptoes and held her arms high above her head with the palms flat as if to forestall the sporadic and indifferent applause."They all want to be Barbra Streisand or Liza Minnelli," George explained as he sucked a giant cocktail through a pink plastic straw. "But no one's looking for that kind of stuff anymore."”

Ian McEwan book In Between the Sheets

Page 139. (From the seventh and final short story, 'Psychopolis')
In Between the Sheets (1978)

Hope , Girl , Passion , Indifference

“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached. God is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

Manuel II Palaiologos, in the 7th of the 26 Dialogues Held With A Certain Persian, the Worthy Mouterizes, in Anakara of Galatia (1391), this quote became the subject of controversy when it was used by Benedict XIV in his lecture "Faith, Reason and the University — Memories and Reflections" (12 September 2006)
Misattributed

Death , God , Faith , Soul

“He was keeping track of time. It was nearly two hours since he had last looked at his watch, but he knew what time it was to within about twenty seconds. It was an old skill, born of many long wakeful nights on active service. When you're waiting for something to happen, you close your body down like a beach house in winter and you let your mind lock onto the steady pace of the passing seconds. It's like suspended animation. It saves energy and it lifts the responsibility for your heartbeat away from your unconscious brain and passes it on to some kind of a hidden clock. Makes a huge black space for thinking in. But it keeps you just awake enough to be reach for whatever you need to be ready for. And it means you always know what time it is.”

Lee Child book Die Trying

Die Trying.

Thinking , Winter , Time , Waiting

“Well they are very frightening for me because their stupidity is so flat. You look into the eyes of a chicken and you lose yourself in a completely flat, frightening stupidity. They are like a great metaphor for me… I kind of love chicken, but they frighten me more than any other animal.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

About chickens, on the Signs of Life (1968) DVD audio commentary (2005).

Love , Stupidity , Animals

“George Bush has turned into the playboy of the Western world. He shows up at Chinese restaurants, at movies, at the Kennedy Center. He seems to be a totally relaxed, enjoy-the-moment kind of individual. He has shown a sense of playfulness that is very appealing. It shows he isn't overwhelmed by the overwhelming responsibilities he is taking on.”

Robert Orben (1928) American magician and writer

Kevin Merida (January 15, 1989) "The Bush Inauguration - The 'real George Bush' -- exhibiting confidence and an unpretentious, fun-loving touch -- emerges from Reagan's shadow", The Dallas Morning News, p. 1M.

World , Sense

“I'm a — I'm a, um, a godmother which is just, that's fun to be a godmother, she is so precious, she's the light of my life, she's two… or five or something, and she's, uh… I don't know, I've never seen her — the pictures are precious, she just seems so, y'know… She lives clear across town, I don't have that kind of time, but, um… Well, I send money and stuff, it's not like I don't have a connection….”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Taste This

Life , Money , Light , Time

“I could see the room dividing as I spoke. I could hear the laughter of some and louder still silence of others. I realised that for some people this was regarded as an event with import. The magazine, the sponsors and some of those in attendance saw it as a kind of ceremony that warranted respect. In effect, it is a corporate ritual, an alliance between a media organisation, GQ, and a commercial entity, Hugo Boss. What dawned on me as the night went on is that even in apparently frivolous conditions the establishment asserts control, and won't tolerate having that assertion challenged, even flippantly, by that most beautifully adept tool: comedy.”

Russell Brand (1975) British comedian, actor, and author

Russell Brand - The Guardian (2013)

People , Laughter , Silence , Night

“And yet, I wake up every day to a sensation of pervading disgust and annoyance. I probably ought to carry around some kind of thermometer or other instrument, to keep checking that I am not falling prey to premature curmudgeonhood.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

[Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays, 2004, 1560255803, 2005298401, 56991027, 24964445M]
2000s, 2004

“I was shocked to my marrow the very first time I heard the Church is saying a man can marry a man. What? It is from that shock, that surprise, how is that possible? Is it a kind of experiment or something? They are sick or tired of normal heterosexual relationships? How could that be?”

Peter Akinola (1944) Anglican Primate of the Church of Nigeria

Interview in The Times, 5 July 2007

Time

“I remember thinking of mathematics as a kind of omnipotent protector. You could prove things to people and they would have to believe you whether they liked you or not.”

John Allen Paulos (1945) American mathematician

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 4, “Whence Innumeracy?” (p. 99)

People , Mathematics , Thinking

“There are two kinds of thinkers, scholars and scientists. The first are the 'trail blazers' who propose new revolutionary ideas, point to new directions for scientific and intellectual developments, create new paradigms of science and scholarship, but leave the details to others. The second are those who follow the new trail, carry out careful experimentation and research within the established paradigm, and work out the precise formulations of theories in a particular domain of knowledge.”

Thaddus E. Weckowicz (1919–2000) Canadian psychologist

Source: Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972) (1989), p. 2

Idea , Knowledge , Science

“Summertime, 1950, I recognized Isherwood browsing in a Santa Monica bookstore. My book had just come out, so I grabbed a copy off the shelf, signed it and gave it to him. His face fell and my heart sank, but two days later he called and said, "Do you know what you've done?" I asked, "What?" And he simply told me to read his review in the Times. His rave turned my life around; the book immediately made the best-seller lists and has been in print ever since.
He was very kind in introducing me to various people he thought I should know, like Aldous Huxley, who had been my literary hero since Brave New World came out.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

On the chance meeting with Christopher Isherwood just after publication of The Martian Chronicles which led to fame and acclaim outside of SF fandom.
Playboy interview (1996)

Life , People , Books , World

“Is there no reconciliation of some ancient quarrel, no payment of some long outstanding debt, no courtesy or love or honor to be rendered to those to whom it has long been due; no charitable, humble, kind, useful deed, by which you can promote the glory of God, or good-will among men, or peace upon earth? If there be any such, I beseech you, in God's name, in Christ's name, go and do it.”

Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1815–1881) English churchman, Dean of Westminster

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 204.

Love , Men , God , Peace

“For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are remov’d for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. And were all my perceptions remov’d by death, and cou’d I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate after the dissolution of my body, I shou’d be entirely annihilated, nor do I conceive what is farther requisite to make me a perfect non-entity. If any one upon serious and unprejudic’d reflexion, thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I can reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continu’d, which he calls himself; tho’ I am certain there is no such principle in me… But setting aside some metaphysicians of this kind, I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.”

David Hume book A Treatise of Human Nature

Part 4, Section 6
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 1: Of the understanding

Love , Death , Pain , Hate

“Jihad is a religious means to a religious goal - to elevate the word of Allah. This is what Jihad for the sake of Allah, in the sense of fighting, means, although we accept that there is another meaning to Jihad…. we have two kinds of terrorism - commendable terrorism and reprehensible terrorism. Reprehensible terrorism is an attack on women, children, the peaceful, and the innocent….[Quran says, ] "Do not kill the soul which Allah has forbidden, except when required by justice." In other words, a Muslim carry out certain religious duties, so when he attacks the enemy attacked on its own land, some innocent people might consequently die, but they are not killed intentionally.”

Omar Bakri Muhammad (1958) Islamist militant leader

Islamic Scholars Debate the Meaning of Jihad http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1414.htm March 2007.

Women , Children , People , Peace

“As for my birth month, a detail of much interest to poets, obsessed as they are with symbolic systems of all kinds: I was not pleased, during my childhood, to have been born in November, as there wasn't much inspiration for birthday party motifs. February children got hearts, May ones flowers, but what was there for me? A cake surrounded by withered leaves? November was a drab, dark and wet month, lacking even snow; its only noteworthy festival was Remembrance Day. But in adult life I discovered that November was, astrologically speaking, the month of sex, death and regeneration, and that November First was the Day of the Dead. It still wouldn't have been much good for birthday parties, but it was just fine for poetry, which tends to revolve a good deal around sex and death, with regeneration optional.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

On Writing Poetry (1995)

Life , Death , Children , Sex

“The most important thing we can do is inspire young minds and to advance the kind of science, math and technology education that will help youngsters take us to the next phase of space travel.”

John Glenn (1921–2016) American astronaut and politician

As quoted in "Space All systems go for National Space Day" at CNN (4 May 2000) http://articles.cnn.com/2000-05-03/tech/space.day_1_challenger-center-space-science-education-international-space-station-the?_s=PM:TECH; also at John Glenn Friendship 7 Day http://www.bandmonline.com/john-glenn-friendship-7-day-1.2673727#.TzyskbSt3LQ.

Education , Travel , Science , Help

“Gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original; in fact, it is a kind of imitation that produces the very notion of the original as an effect and consequence of the imitation itself.”

Judith Butler (1956) American philosopher and gender theorist

"Imitation and Gender Insubordination" in Inside/Out (1991) edited by Diana Fuss

“She was moved by a kind of commiseration for Madame Ratignolle — a pity for that colorless existence which never uplifted its possessor beyond the region of blind contentment, in which no moment of anguish ever visited her soul, in which she would never have the taste of life's delirium.”

Kate Chopin book The Awakening

The Awakening (1899)

Life , Soul

“I have a theory, that there is a terrific link between what is funny and what is scary. I think there is a very close connection between what frightens people and what makes them laugh. Laughter is a kind of nervousness. Animals don't laugh. Smiling is, anthropologists agree, directly linked to the baring of the teeth.”

Christopher Walken (1943) American actor

Jan Moir (March 11, 2002) "'You're not scared of me, are you?': Christopher Walken has cornered the market in movie menace. But, as Jan Moir discovers, he is just as unsettling in real life", The Daily Telegraph, p. 18.

People , Smile , Thinking , Laughter

“Ben Stein: What do think is the possibility that intelligent design might turn out to be the answer to some issues in genetics, or in evolution?
Richard Dawkins: Well, it could come about in the following way: it could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved by probably some kind of Darwinian means to a very, very high level of technology, and designed a form of life that they seeded onto, perhaps, this planet. Now that is a possibility, and an intriguing possibility. And I suppose it's possible that you might find evidence for that if you look at the details of our chemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer, and that designer could well be a higher intelligence from elsewhere in the universe. But that higher intelligence would itself have had to have come about by some explicable, or ultimately explicable, process. It couldn't have just jumped into existence spontaneously. That's the point.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed ()

Life , Way , Intelligence , Thinking

“Pagan renaissance is overdue. It is necessary for Europe to heal its psyche. Under Christianity, Europe learned to reject its ancestors, its past, which cannot be good for its future also. Europe became sick because it tore apart from its own heritage, it had to deny its very roots. If Europe is to be healed spiritually, it must recover its spiritual past--at least, it should not hold it in such dishonor…. For self-recovery, these countries have to revive their old gods. But this is a task which cannot be done mechanically. They have to recapture the consciousness which expressed itself in the language of many gods… In my book, The Word as Revelation: Names of Gods, I spoke of a new kind of pilgrimage: a return to the time of the Gods. Meanwhile, European scholars can do a lot. They should write a history of Europe from the Pagan point of view, which would show how profoundly persecuted Paganism was. They should compile a directory of Pagan temples destroyed, Pagan groves and sacred spots desecrated. European Pagans should also revive some of these sites as their places of pilgrimage.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

Interview in the June, 1996, issue of Antaios, http://web.archive.org/web/20080407092807/https://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/1999/7/1999-7-07.shtml

God , Books , History , Learning

“It may be that we have become so feckless as a people that we no longer care how things do work, but only what kind of quick, easy outer impression they give. If so, there is little hope for our cities or probably for much else in our society. But I do not think this is so.”

Jane Jacobs book The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Source: The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), p. 71

People , Hope , Thinking

“The journey here was fraught with all kinds of opposition and venom. Through three courts, right upto the Court of Appeal to defend before three eminent judges my constitutional rights to be registered in the VKB; I struggled and I won.”

James Ah Koy (1936) Fijian politician

Maiden speech in the Senate http://www.parliament.gov.fj/hansard/viewhansard.aspx?hansardID=165&viewtype=full, 8 December 2003 (excerpts)

“Interviewer: As a captain, there are naturally different kinds of challenges… did you find the expectations of yourself change too much?”

Kumar Sangakkara (1977) Sri Lankan cricketer

Nature , Change

“In the discussion we had last year at Siegen, in this regard, emphasis was put on the sort of emptiness that has to be obtained from mind and body by a Japanese warrior-artist when doing calligraphy, by an actor when acting: the kind of suspension of ordinary intentions of mind associated with habitus, or arrangements of the body. It’s at this cost, said Glenn and Andreas, … that a brush encounters the “right” shapes, that a voice and a theatrical gesture are endowed with the “right” tone and look. The soliciting of emptiness, this evacuation—very much the opposite of overweening, selective identificatory activity—doesn’t take place without some suffering. … The body and mind have to be free of burdens for grace to touch us.”

Jean-François Lyotard (1924–1998) French philosopher

Source: Thought Without a Body? (1994), p. 296

Suffering

“With regard to certain other fallacies with which the farmers have been beset, and latterly more so than ever; the farmer has been told that if there was a free trade in corn, wheat would be so cheap, that he would not be able to carry on his farm. He is directed only to look at Dantzic, where corn, he is told, was once selling at 15s. 11d. per quarter, and on this the Essex Protection Society put out their circulars, stating that Dantzic wheat is but 15s. 11d. per quarter, and how would the British farmer contend against this? …As far as I can obtain information from the books of merchants, the cost of transit from Dantzic, during an average of ten years, may be put down at 10s. 6d. a quarter, including in this, freight, landing, loading, insurance, and other items of every kind. This is the natural protection enjoyed by the farmers of this country.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1844/mar/12/protective-duties-the-agricultural in the House of Commons (12 March 1844).
1840s

Books , Nature , Country

“You take after your dad, a high-functioning sociopath with an incurable organic personality disorder. It’s one of the special-sauce variety, the kind with a known genetic cause.
Your uncle Albert was something different, and worse: He was a man of faith.”

Charles Stross book Rule 34

Source: Rule 34 (2011), Chapter 22, “Toymaker: Happy Families” (p. 248)

Faith , Personality

“Only within the 20th Century has biological thought been focused on ecology, or the relation of the living creature to its environment. Awareness of ecological relationships is — or should be — the basis of modern conservation programs, for it is useless to attempt to preserve a living species unless the kind of land or water it requires is also preserved. So delicately interwoven are the relationships that when we disturb one thread of the community fabric we alter it all — perhaps almost imperceptibly, perhaps so drastically that destruction follows.”

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist

"Essay on the Biological Sciences" in Good Reading (1958)

Communication , Water

“We are deeply unified in our support of basic principles: our belief in stability in our financial structure, in our determination we must have fiscal responsibility, in our determination not to establish and operate a paternalistic sort of government where a man's initiative is almost taken away from him by force. Only in the last few weeks, I have been reading quite an article on the experiment of almost complete paternalism in a friendly European country. This country has a tremendous record for socialistic operation, following a socialistic philosophy, and the record shows that their rate of suicide has gone up almost unbelievably and I think they were almost the lowest nation in the world for that. Now, they have more than twice our rate. Drunkenness has gone up. Lack of ambition is discernible on all sides.. Therefore, with that kind of example, let's always remember Lincoln's admonition. Let's do in the federal Government only those things that people themselves cannot do at all, or cannot so well do in their individual capacities. Now, my friends, I know that these words have been repeated to you time and time again until you're tired of them. But I ask you only this, to contemplate them and remember this--Lincoln added another sentence to that statement. He said that in all those things where the individual can solve his own problems the Government ought not to interfere, for all are domestic affairs and this comprehends the things that the individual is normally concerned with, because foreign affairs does belong to the President by the Constitution--and they are things that really require constant governmental action.”

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

July 27, 1960 Remarks at the Republican National Committee Breakfast, Morrison Hotel, Chicago, Illinois http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=11891#ixzz1fU73Watz
1960s

People , World , Support , Problem

“He exists, not only inconceivably as God, but also conceivably as a man; not only above the world, but also in the world, and of the world; not only in a heavenly and invisible, but in an earthly and visible form. He becomes and is, He exists—we cannot avoid this statement; to do so would be the worst kind of Docetism—with objective actuality. Does this mean, then, that He exists as one thing amongst others, and that as such He can be perceived and may be known like other things? Well, we cannot deny that He is a thing like this, and can be perceived and knovra as such, if He was and is a man in the world, with an earthly and visible form. But, of course, a man is not merely a thing or object. As a man among men he is a human Thou, and as such distinct from all mere things.”

Karl Barth book Church Dogmatics

4:2
Church Dogmatics (1932–1968)

Men , God , World

“The ancient Egyptians had a superstitious antipathy to the sea; a superstition nearly of the same kind prevails among the Indians; and the Chinese have never excelled in foreign commerce.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book II, Chapter V, p. 402.

Sea

“And kind as kings upon their coronation day.”

John Dryden book The Hind and the Panther

Pt. I, line 271.
The Hind and the Panther (1687)

““Let’s think hypothetically”, I said to someone, which is another thing the believers can’t really do, because that is kind of what they’re already doing. It destroys the self-made illusion to step in and jack that up with another illusion, even for a moment.”

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

Exclusive Interview with Aron Ra – Public Speaker, Atheist Vlogger, and Activist https://conatusnews.com/interview-aron-ra-past-president-atheist-alliance-america/, Conatus News (May 17, 2017)

Thinking

“In the religious traditions of humankind there are at least four ways in which people have encountered the divine. First of all, there is the experience of God in nature, as the power behind natural phenomena. Such an experience usually leads to belief in nature gods. This is clearly seen in Hinduism. Secondly, there is the experience of God in the depths of one’s being. God-ward movement often takes an inward direction. This leads to the cultivation of interiority. The Upanishads bear witness to this kind of an experience of God. It is also found among the Christian mystics. Thirdly, there is the experience of God mediated through the rites and doctrines of religions. This is probably the most valued form of God-experience in popular Catholicism, in which the frequent reception of the sacraments is highly esteemed. Such an approach to the experience of God is found also among the followers of other religions. Finally, there is the experience of God in inter-human relationships and socio-political involvements. This form of God-experience is, I believe, typical of the biblical tradition.”

Kurien Kunnumpuram (1931–2018) Indian theologian

Kunnumpuram, K. (ed) (2006) Life in Abundance: Indian Christian Reflections on Spirituality. Mumbai: St Pauls
On Spirituality

God , People , Religion , Way

“Postmodernists parade their relativism as a superior kind of humility — the modest acceptance that we cannot claim to have the truth. In fact, the postmodern denial of truth is the worst kind of arrogance. In denying that the natural world exists independently of our beliefs about it, postmodernists are implicitly rejecting any limit on human ambitions. By making human beliefs the final arbiter of reality, they are in effect claiming that nothing exists unless it appears in human consciousness.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

The Deception: Postmodernism (p. 54-55)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

Truth , World , Nature , Reality

“It may seem to be a long way from Blake's innocent talk of love and copulation to De Sade's need to inflict pain. And yet both are the outcome of a sexual mysticism that strives to transcend the everyday world. Simone de Beauvoir said penetratingly of De Sade's work that 'he is trying to communicate an experience whose distinguishing characteristic is, nevertheless its will to remain incommunicable'. De Sade's perversion may have sprung from his dislike of his mother or of other women, but its basis is a kind of distorted religious emotion.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: The Origins of the Sexual Impulse (1963), p. 90

Love , Women , Pain , World

“I was almost annoyed hearing that Putin plays chess and Obama or other leaders of the free world they play checkers. I thought I had to defend the integrity of my game because chess is not a game for dictators for numerous reasons. One, it’s transparent. It’s all information hundred percent available so you know exactly what you have, you know exactly what your opponent has. You don’t know what he or she is thinking, but you definitely know what kind of resources your opponent can use to hurt you, to damage your position.”

Garry Kasparov (1963) former chess world champion

2010s, Interview with Bill Kristol (2016)

World , Game , Thinking , Hurt

“I am not interested in making a picture. Then what the hell I am interested in? I must be interested in that process that I am talking about.. I don't keep the studio very tidy. You have on the floor like cow dung in the field.... and I look down at this stuff on the floor and it's just a lot of inert matter, inert paint. Then what is it? I look back on the canvas, and it's not inert, it's active, moving and living.... Why I need this kind of miracle, I don't know it, but I need it. my conviction is that this is the act of creation to me. That's how I have it.”

Phillip Guston (1913–1980) American artist

Source: 1961 - 1980, transcript of a public forum at Boston university', conducted by Joseph Ablow 1966, pp. 73-75

Hell , Painting

“It was something that came up right from the get-go, but as you know, from the beginning we kind of thought we were going to kill Shiro at one point. And so we’re like, ‘Y’know what? We don’t really want to kill off our gay representation. Maybe we’ll find it somewhere else.’ But then we found out pretty soon after that, Shiro wasn’t allowed to die. Well, all right, we go back to plan one and yeah, it just took us a little while to get to the point in the story where we were able to reveal it. But he was kind of always in the works to be our [gay] representation.
It’s a very normal part of his life and it’s just a very normal part of our story. It wasn’t supposed to be, like, scandalous or surprising or--
It’s just daily life. And I think we kind of try to envision a world where all of those things are just normal and accepted and people don’t freak out about them.
It doesn’t change who he is at all.”

Lauren Montgomery (1980) artist

26 July 2018 article on ScreenRant https://screenrant.com/voltron-shiro-gay-boyfriend-adam/

Life , People , World , Thinking

“Our speech has ceased to speak, it shouts; it says cute, not beautiful, colossal, not great; it cannot find the right word any more, because the word is no longer the designation of an object, but the echo of some kind of gossip about the object.”

Paul de Lagarde (1827–1891) German polymath, biblical scholar and orientalist

“Zum Unterrichtsgesetze,” as cited in The Politics of Cultural Despair (1961), p. 31

Beauty

“The kind of thing which I collect I can always carry back with me to the studio and study at leisure. I am fascinated by the whole problem of the tensions produced by the power of growth.”

Graham Sutherland (1903–1980) English artist

Quoted in Noël Barber, Pierre Jeannerat de Beerski, "Conversations with Painters" (1964), p. 45

Problem , Study

“What does success mean to you? What kind of success would you like in your life?”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

Life , Success

“The old “double standard” gave men a sexual liberty denied to women. Marxist feminists reduced the historical cult of woman’s virginity to her property value, her worth on the male marriage market. I would argue instead that there was and is a biological basis to the double standard. The first medical reports on the disease killing male homosexuals [i. e., AIDS] indicated men most at risk were those with a thousand partners over their lifetime. Incredulity. Who could such people be? Why, it turns out, everyone one knew. Serious, kind, literate men, not bums or thugs.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 27

Women , Men , Marriage , People

“I became aware of Louise Bourgeois in my first or second year at Brighton Art College. One of my teachers, Stuart Morgan, curated a small retrospective of her work at the Serpentine, and both he and another teacher, Edward Allington, saw something in her, and me, and thought I should be aware of her. I thought the work was wonderful. It was her very early pieces, The Blind Leading the Blind, the wooden pieces and some of the later bronze works. Biographically, I don't really think she has influenced me, but I think there are similarities in our work. We have both used the home as a kind of kick-off point, as the space that starts the thoughts of a body of work. I eventually got to meet Louise in New York, soon after I made House. She asked to see me because she had seen a picture of House in the New York Times while she was ironing it one morning, so she said. She was wonderful and slightly kind of nutty; very interested and eccentric. She drew the whole time; it was very much a salon with me there as her audience, watching her. I remember her remarking that I was shorter than she was. I don't know if this was true but she was commenting on the physicality of making such big work and us being relatively small women. When you meet her you don't know what's true, because she makes things up. She has spun her web and drawn people in, and eaten a few people along the way.”

Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) American and French sculptor

Rachel Whiteread, " Kisses for Spiderwoman http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2007/oct/14/art2," The Guardian, 14 Oct. 2007:

Women , People , Art , Way

“Success in the sociologists' aim might lead, in T. S. Eliot's phrase, to "systems so perfect that no one would need to be good." This view forgets that men long ago committed themselves to the endeavor to control their own collective behavior, not only in the ways sanctioned by the churches but in others, by making it to men's interest to do good. And they have increasingly based the endeavor on an understanding of natural laws of human behavior, those of economics, for example. So that the question is not: Shall this kind of control be undertaken? but: Where shall it stop? A sociologist might also argue that his religious critics have more faith in him than in their own doctrine, the doctrine that man is infinitely tough and resourceful and is not easily cheated of his freedom to sin. What God has given no man can take away, certainly no sociologist. More seriously, he might argue that the social sciences are not in train to eliminate morality but to make greater demands of it. A sociology that shows us unsuspected or not hitherto understood ways in which men are bound up with one another invites more refined answers to the question: "Am I my brother's keeper?"”

George C. Homans (1910–1989) American sociologist

George C. Homans (1956), "Giving a dog a bad name." in: The Listener, Vol. 56. p. 233; Reprinted in: George C. Homans (1962), Sentiments & activities; essays in social science https://archive.org/details/sentimentsactivi00homa, p. 117-8

Men , God , Faith , Law

“Votes go by number, not weight; nor can it be otherwise in assemblies of this kind, where nothing is more unequal than that equality which prevails in them.”
Numerantur enim sententiae, non ponderantur; nec aliud in publico consilio potest fieri, in quo nihil est tam inaequale quam aequalitas ipsa.

Pliny the Younger (61–113) Roman writer

Letter 12, 5.
Letters, Book II

“The moment you meet him you're like 'this dude's famous,' whether a million people know it or no one knows it. The first time I met him, when I was like 16, I was like, 'This is a dude I want to know.' He just has a magnetic personality. And I think there's something kind of cool about the front man of our band being the bassist who doesn't sing.”

Joe Trohman (1984) American musician

On Pete Wentz
TV.com

People , Thinking , Singing , Time

“Proudhon was a voluntary hermit in the political world of the nineteenth century. He sought no followers, indignantly rebuffed suggestions that he had created as system of any kind, and almost certainly rejoiced in the fact that he accepted the title anarchist in virtual isolation.”

George Woodcock (1912–1995) Canadian writer of political biography and history, an anarchist thinker, an essayist and literary critic

Prologue
Anarchism : A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (1962)

World

“The word is clear only to the kind who on peak or plain, from dark northern ice-fields to the hot wet jungles, through all wine and want, through lies and unfamiliar truth, dark or light, are governed by the unknown gods, and though each man knows the law, no man may give tongue to it.”

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

"The Clan of No Name" (1899); published in the anthology Wounds in the Rain (1900)

God , Truth , Law , Light

“Through the constant revolution of the fifth element, with all contained therein, the four elements are forced to move and to change their respective positions, so that fire and air are driven into the water, and again these three elements enter the depth of the earth. Thus are the elements mixed together; and when they return to their respective places, parts of the earth, in quitting their places, move together with the water, the air and the fire. In this whole process the elements act and react upon each other. The elements intermixed, are then combined, and form at first various kinds of vapours; afterwards the several kinds of minerals, every species of plants, and many species of living beings, according to the relative proportion of the constituent parts. All transient beings have their origin in the elements, into which again they resolve when their existence comes to an end. The elements themselves are subject to being transformed from one into another; for although one substance is common to all, substance without form is in reality impossible, just as the physical form of these transient beings cannot exist without substance.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part I, pp.294-295 (1881) Tr. Friedlander

Reality , Water , Change , Parting

“As we did without clergy, let us do without soldiers. The joy built upon successful slaughter is not the right kind of joy; it will not do; it is fearful and it is trivial. A boundless and generous contentment, a magnanimous triumph felt not against some outer enemy but in communion with the finest and fairest in the souls of all men everywhere and the splendor of the world’s summer: this is what swells the hearts of the people of Omelas, and the victory they celebrate is that of life.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” p. 255 (originally published in New Dimensions 3, edited by Robert Silverberg)
Short fiction, The Wind’s Twelve Quarters (1975)

Life , Men , People , World

“I've had other kinds of spurts, but 'growth' was not one of them.”

Bill Allred

Radio From Hell (August 24, 2005)

“Two words of such a book, though possessing no peculiar signification, if met with in the dullest sentence, are enough: they call up, what has been finely termed, the "lightning of the mind." We feel an instantaneous kindness and reverence towards an author (together with a high opinion of his discrimination) who cites as it were the very language of our dreams—the secret converse of our own invisible spirit. We are almost startled at its being made public, and fancy that we have been at some time overheard reading. He is forthwith admitted a member of our heart's privy council. His hard words and bad reasoning are forgiven: we shut our ears to his angular periods—remembering only that his habits and desires, his sympathies, perceptions and enjoyments, are under the same master-key as our own—that he has struck into the same path, drank at the same brook, mused upon the same bank, and plucked almost the same leaf with ourselves.”

Samuel Laman Blanchard (1804–1845) British author and journalist

"Quotations".
Sketches from Life (1846)

Secret , Books , Dreams , Feeling

“Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Attributed

Soul , Sense

“Kingsley fell over. And this was no brisk trip or tumble. It was an act of colossal administration. First came a kind of slow-leak effect, giving me the immediate worry that Kingsley, when fully deflated, would spread out into the street on both sides of the island, where there were cars, trucks, sneezing buses. Next, as I grabbed and tugged, he felt like a great ship settling on its side: would it right itself, or go under? Then came an impression of overall dissolution and the loss of basic physical coherence. I groped around him, looking for places to shore him up, but every bit of him was falling, dropping, seeking the lowest level, like a mudslide.”

Martin Amis book Experience

Part II: One Little More Hug
Experience (2000)

Cars , Loss

“The rhetoric of to-day, the rhetoric we have to consider, is the rhetoric of the "Bulging corn bins." I suppose that this gift has been responsible for more bloodshed on this earth than all the guns and explosives that have ever been invented. If we look back only over the last century, was there anything more responsible for the French Revolution than the literary rhetoric of Rousseau, fanned by the verbal rhetoric of Robespierre and others, just as the Russian Revolution was due to the rhetoric of Kerensky— flatulent rhetoric which filled the bellies of his people with the east wind? That appalling twopenny-ha'penny gift of fluency, with the addition of a certain amount of training and of imagination in word-spinning, is the kind of rhetoric which stirs the emotions of the ignorant mob and sets it moving. It is because such forces can be set in motion by rhetoric that I have no regard for it, but a positive horror.”

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

Speech at the Cambridge Union (March 1924), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), pp. 95-96.
1924

People , Imagination , Training

“I shook my head ruefully. Police departments all over the world were identical in two respects: they all have a fondness for breaking your head open for little or no provocation, and they can’t see the simple truth if it’s lying in front of them naked with its legs spread. The police don’t enforce laws; they don’t even get busy until after the laws are broken. They solve crimes at a pitifully low rate of success. What the police are, to be honest, is a kind of secretarial pool that records the names of the victims and the statements of the witnesses. After enough time passes, they can safely shove this information to the back of the filing system to make room for more.”

George Alec Effinger book When Gravity Fails

Source: When Gravity Fails (1986), Chapter 17 (pp. 235-236).

Truth , World , Law , Lying

“We believe America is practicing all kinds of terrorism against Libya. Even the accusation that we are involved in terrorism is in itself an act of terrorism.”

Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist

Time (8 June 1981) " An Interview with Gaddafi http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,922551-2,00.html"
Interviews

“Be kind to my remains; and oh defend,
Against your judgment, your departed friend!”

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

Epistle to Congreve (1693), line 72.

“David Tudor and I went to Hilversum in Holland to make a recording for the Dutch radio. We arrived at the studio early and there was some delay. To pass the time, we chatted with the engineer who was to work with us. He asked me what kind of music he was about to record. Since he was a Dutchman I said, 'It may remind you of the work of Mondrian.' When the session was finished and the three of us were leaving the studio, I asked the engineer what he thought of the music we had played. He said, 'It reminded me of the work of Mondrian.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

Quote from 'Lecture on Nothing', (c. 1949), in 'Silence: lectures and writings by John Cage; Publisher Middletown, Conn. Wesleyan University Press, June 1961, p. 127
this lecture had been prepared some years earlier, but was not printed until 1959, when it appeared in 'It Is', ed. Philip Pavia
1950s

Music , Time

“Even a single missed crucial consideration could vitiate our most valiant efforts or render them as actively harmful as those of a soldier who is fighting on the wrong side. The search for crucial considerations (which must explore normative as well as descriptive issues) will often require crisscrossing the boundaries between different academic disciplines and other fields of knowledge. As there is no established methodology for how to go about this kind of research, difficult original thinking is necessary.”

Nick Bostrom book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies

Source: Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (2014), Ch. 15

Search , Knowledge , Thinking , Effort

Quotes about kindness page 54

Quotes about kindness
page 54