Quotes about know-how
page 11

Themistocles photo

“I never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute; but I know how to raise a small and inconsiderable city to glory and greatness.”

Themistocles (-524–-459 BC) Athenian statesman

As quoted by Plutarch, in Lives as translated by J. Langhorne and W. Langhorne (1836), p. 84 http://books.google.com/books?id=UFROAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA84
Variant translation: 'Tis true, I never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute, but I know how to raise a small and inconsiderate city to glory and greatness.
Plutarch's Themistocles, 2:3 http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0007.tlg010.perseus-eng1:2 "...tuning the lyre and handling the harp were no accomplishments of his, but rather taking in hand a city that was small and inglorious and making it glorious and great" "...λύραν μὲν ἁρμόσασθαι καὶ μεταχειρίσασθαι ψαλτήριον οὐκ ἐπίσταται, πόλιν δὲ μικρὰν καὶ ἄδοξον παραλαβὼν ἔνδοξον καὶ μεγάλην ἀπεργάσασθαι." (at Perseus Project)

Georges Duhamel photo
José Rizal photo
Guy De Maupassant photo

“What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace? Who knows? who knows? How strange and changeful is life! How small a thing is needed to make or ruin us!”

Guy De Maupassant (1850–1893) French writer

Variant translation:
What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace? Who knows? Who knows? How singular life is, how changeable! What a little thing it takes to save you or to lose you.
La Parure (The Necklace) (1884)

El Greco photo

“.. he [= Michelangelo] was a good man, but he did not know how to paint.”

El Greco (1541–1614) Greek painter, sculptor and architect

Marina Lambraki-Plaka, El Greco - The Greek, p. 47–49; as cited on Wikipedia/El Greco
Quote of El Greco's response, when he was later asked what he thought about the Italian artist Michelangelo

Cesare Pavese photo

“The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies. The fearful thing about it is that, not knowing what truth may be, we can still recognize lies.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo

“I am sure every Englishman who has a heart in his breast and a feeling of justice in his mind, sympathizes with those unfortunate Danes (cheers), and wishes that this country could have been able to draw the sword successfully in their defence (continued cheers); but I am satisfied that those who reflect on the season of the year when that war broke out, on the means which this country could have applied for deciding in one sense that issue, I am satisfied that those who make these reflections will think that we acted wisely in not embarking in that dispute. (Cheers.) To have sent a fleet in midwinter to the Baltic every sailor would tell you was an impossibility, but if it could have gone it would have been attended by no effectual result. Ships sailing on the sea cannot stop armies on land, and to have attempted to stop the progress of an army by sending a fleet to the Baltic would have been attempting to do that which it was not possible to accomplish. (Hear, hear.) If England could have sent an army, and although we all know how admirable that army is on the peace establishment, we must acknowledge that we have no means of sending out a force at all equal to cope with the 300,000 or 400,000 men whom the 30,000,000 or 40,000,000 of Germany could have pitted against us, and that such an attempt would only have insured a disgraceful discomfiture—not to the army, indeed, but to the Government which sent out an inferior force and expected it to cope successfully with a force so vastly superior. (Cheers.) … we did not think that the Danish cause would be considered as sufficiently British, and as sufficiently bearing on the interests and the security and the honour of England, as to make it justifiable to ask the country to make those exertions which such a war would render necessary.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech at Tiverton (23 August 1864) on the Second Schleswig War, quoted in ‘Lord Palmerston At Tiverton’, The Times (24 August 1864), p. 9.
1860s

Chris Cornell photo

“I don’t really remember writing it [The Day I Tried To Live]. I vaguely remember the verse. It was based on a tuning that Ben Shepherd had came up with. Lyrically, it was one of those songs that I thought everyone could connect with. ‘Fell On Black Days’ is maybe a sister song to it. It’s this feeling that could come over anyone, and has probably happened to everyone. ‘Fell On Black Days’ is the feeling of waking up one day and realizing you’re not happy with your life. Nothing happened, there was no emergency, no accident, you don’t know what happened. You were happy, and one day you just aren’t, and you have to try to figure that out.
With ‘The Day I Tried To Live,’ the attitude I was trying to convey was that thing that I think everyone goes through where you wake up in the morning and you just don’t know how you are going to get through the day, and you kind of just talk yourself into it. You may go through different moments of hopelessness and wanting to give up, or wanting to just get back into bed and say f— it, but you convince yourself you’re going to do it again. And maybe this is the last time you’re going to do it, but it’s once more around.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

Interview with Entertainment Weekly, June 3, 2014 http://ew.com/article/2014/06/03/soundgarden-superunknown-spoonman-black-hole-sun-stories/,
On depression and suicide

John R. Bolton photo
Kent Hovind photo

“The presence of the kings of Islam is a great blessing from Allah… You should know that the country of Hindustan is a large land. In olden days, the kings of Islam had struggled hard and for long in order to conquer this foreign country. They could do it only in several turns…
Every (Muslim) king got mosques erected in his territory, and created madrasas. Muslims of Arabia and Ajam (non-Arab Muslim lands) migrated from their own lands and arrived in these territories. They became agents for the publicity and spread of Islam here. Uptil now their descendants are firm in the ways of Islam…Among the non-Muslim communities, one is that of the Marhatah (Maratha). They have a chief. For some time past, this community has been raising its head, and has become influential all over Hindustan…
…It is easy to defeat the Marhatah community, provided the ghãzîs of Islam gird up their loins and show courage…
In the countryside between Delhi and Agra, the Jat community used to till the land. In the reign of Shahjahan, this community had been ordered not to ride on horses, or keep muskets with them, or build fortresses for themselves. The kings that came later became careless, and this community has used the opportunity for building many forts, and collecting muskets…
In the reign of Muhammad Shah, the impudence of this community crossed all limits. And Surajmal, the cousin of Churaman, became its leader. He took to rebellion. Therefore, the city of Bayana which was an ancient seat of Islam, and where the Ulama and the Sufis had lived for seven hundred years, has been occupied by force and terror, and Muslims have been turned out of it with humiliation and hurt…
…Whatever influence and prestige is left with the kingship at present, is wielded by the Hindus. For no one except them is there in the ranks of managers and officials. Their houses are full of wealth of all varieties. Muslims live in a state of utter poverty and deprivation. The story is long and cannot be summarised. What I mean to say is that the country of Hindustan has passed under the power of non-Muslims. In this age, except your majesty, there is no other king who is powerful and great, who can defeat the enemies, and who is farsighted and experienced in war. It is your majesty’s bounden duty (farz-i-ain) to invade Hindustan, to destroy the power of the Marhatahs, and to free the down-and-out Muslims from the clutches of non-Muslims. Allah forbid, if the power of the infidels remains in its present position, Muslims will renounce Islam and not even a brief period will pass before Muslims become such a community as will no more know how to distinguish between Islam and non-Islam. This will be a great tragedy. Due to the grace of Allah, no one except your majesty has the capacity for preventing this tragedy from taking place.
We who are the servants of Allah and who recognise the Prophet as our saviour, appeal to you in the name of Allah that you should turn your holy attention to this direction and face the enemies, so that a great merit is added to the roll of your deeds in the house of Allah, and your name is included in the list of mujãhidîn fi Sabîlallah (warriors in the service of Allah). May you acquire plunder beyond measure, and may the Muslims be freed from the stranglehold of the infidels. I seek refuge in Allah when I say that you should not act like Nadir Shah who oppressed and suppressed the Muslims, and went away leaving the Marhatahs and the Jats whole and prosperous.
The enemies have become more powerful after Nadir Shah, the army of Islam has disintegrated, and the empire of Delhi has become childrens’ play. Allah forbid, if the infidels continue as at present, and Muslims get (further) weakened, the very name of Islam will get wiped out.
…When your fearsome army reaches a place where Muslims and non-Muslims live together, your administrators must take particular care. They must be instructed that those weak Muslims who live in the countryside should be taken to towns and cities. Next, some such administrators should be appointed in towns and cities as would see to it that the properties of Muslims are not plundered, and the honour of no Muslim is compromised.”

Shah Waliullah Dehlawi (1703–1762) Indian muslim scholar

Letter to Ahmad Shah Abdali, Ruler of Afghanistan. Translated from the Urdu version of K.A. Nizami, Shãh Walîullah Dehlvî ke Siyãsî Maktûbãt, Second Edition, Delhi, 1969, p.83 ff.
From his letters

David Allen photo

“When you know how, any time, to get to the place where it's all sort of funny, you've mastered GTD.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

8 December 2011 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/145022728494264321
Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

“I've grown up disciplined all my life as a dancer, so I know how to eat and work out. Do I do it? No!”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

Erika Jayne interview to E! News http://www.eonline.com/news/924125/erika-jayne-s-diet-and-fitness-secrets-may-surprise-you (2018)

Carl Friedrich Gauss photo

“I have had my results for a long time: but I do not yet know how I am to arrive at them.”

Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) German mathematician and physical scientist

The Mind and the Eye (1954) by A. Arber

Isadora Duncan photo

“I could not adopt him so I married him. You know how wonderful he is, like all Russians. He starts reciting verse at two o'clock in the morning.”

Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) American dancer and choreographer

Of her husband, the Russian poet Sergei Yesenin, as quoted in A Century of Sundays : 100 years of Breaking News in the Sunday Papers (2006) by Nadine Dreyer, p. 65.

Dita Von Teese photo
Ryan Adams photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“If we did but know how we rush into one evil while seeking to avoid another, we should have no resolution to shun any thing.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Robert Frost photo

“The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You´re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you´re two months back in the middle of March.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

" Two Tramps in Mud-Time http://www.unz.org/Pub/SaturdayRev-1934oct06-00156", first published in The Saturday Review of Literature, 6 October 1934, st. 3 http://books.google.com/books?id=AmggAQAAMAAJ&q=%22The+sun+was+warm+but+the+wind+was+chill+You+know+how+it+is+with+an+April+day+When+the+sun+is+out+and+the+wind+is+still+You're+one+month+on+in+the+middle+of+May+But+if+you+so+much+as+dare+to+speak+A+cloud+comes+over+the+sunlit+arch+A+wind+comes+off+a+frozen+peak+And+you're+two+months+back+in+the+middle+of+March%22&pg=PA156#v=onepage
1930s

Immanuel Kant photo

“Man's greatest concern is to know how he shall properly fill his place in the universe and correctly understand what he must be in order to be a man.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Part III : Selection on Education from Kant's other Writings, Ch. I Pedagogical Fragments, # 53
The Educational Theory of Immanuel Kant (1904)

“Having expelled quality from the field of extension, [idealists] do not know how to account for it when it reappears in thought.”

Étienne Gilson (1884–1978) French historian and philosopher

Methodical Realism

Albert Einstein photo

“I want to know how God created this world. I'm not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

As quoted in "A Talk with Einstein" in The Listener 54 (1955) p. 123
Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and Religion (1999)

Kent Hovind photo
George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax photo

“In this Age, when it is said of a Man, He knows how to live, it may be imply’d he is not very honest.”

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (1633–1695) English politician

Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750), Moral Thoughts and Reflections

Derek Humphry photo
André Maurois photo
Mona Charen photo

“I know how encouraged I feel whenever someone simply states the truth.”

Mona Charen (1957) political writer

2010s, 2018, I'm Glad I Got Booed at CPAC (2018)

Billy Joel photo
James Hudson Taylor photo
Thomas Eakins photo
Michel De Montaigne photo
François de La Rochefoucauld photo

“There is great skill in knowing how to conceal one's skill.”

C'est une grande habileté que de savoir cacher son habileté.
Maxim 245.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

Lyman Hakes Howe photo

“To the World, the World we show
We make the World to laugh
And teach each Hemisphere to know
How lives the Other Half.”

Lyman Hakes Howe (1856–1923) American entertainer and filmmaker

Said in 1909, as quoted in Wondrous Difference: Cinema, Anthropology, and Turn-of-the-Century Visual Culture http://books.google.com/books?id=2NKmvLXbZesC&pg=PA171&dq=%22To+the+World,+the+World+we+show%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=xsDvUsX4F-nNsQTInIHQDQ&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22To%20the%20World%2C%20the%20World%20we%20show%22&f=false.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo

“Is it so big a mystery
what god and man and world are?
No! but nobody knows how to solve it
so the mystery hangs on.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

As translated by Jerome Rothenberg
Venetian Epigrams (1790)

Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau photo
G. K. Chesterton photo
William Moseley (actor) photo

“I don’t feel like a heart-throb. I don’t really know how to get used to it. It’s all quite bizarre.”

William Moseley (actor) (1987) British actor

Interview on Narniafans April 30th, 2006 by Paul Martin http://www.narniafans.com/archives/849

Richard Nixon photo

“If you only knew the dreams in that little boy's head all those years ago. You don't know how lucky I am. I will never retire because even if they retire me, I'll find something else to do.”

Jimmy Magee (1935–2017) Gaelic games commentatot

Magee said he hoped to die live on air. herald.ie http://www.herald.ie/news/irelands-other-big-games-winner-jimmy-magee-3196108.html
Others

Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Stephen Baxter photo

“The fault is all ours. We have become overwhelming. About one in twenty of all the people who have ever existed is alive today, compared to just one in a thousand of other species. As a result we are depleting the earth.
But even now the question is still asked: Does it really matter? So we lose a few cute mammals, and a lot of bugs nobody ever heard of. So what? We’re still here.
Yes, we are. But the ecosystem is like a vast life-support machine. It is built on the interaction of species on all scales of life, from the humblest fungi filaments that sustain the roots of plants to the tremendous global cycles of water, oxygen, and carbon dioxide. Darwin’s entangled bank, indeed. How does the machine stay stable? We don’t know. Which are its most important components? We don’t know. How much of it can we take out safely? We don’t know that either. Even if we could identify and save the species that are critical for our survival, we wouldn’t know which species they depend on in turn. But if we keep on our present course, we will soon find out the limits of robustness.
I may be biased, but I believe it will matter a great deal if we were to die by our own foolishness. Because we bring to the world something that no other creature in all its long history has had, and that is conscious purpose. We can think our way out of this.
So my question is—consciously, purposefully, what are we going to do?”

Source: Evolution (2002), Chapter 16 “An Entangled Bank” section I (pp. 509-510)

Brian Klug photo

“[W]hen anti-Semitism is everywhere, it is nowhere. And when every anti-Zionist is an anti-Semite, we no longer know how to recognize the real thing--the concept of anti-Semitism loses its significance.”

Brian Klug British philosopher

The Myth of the New Anti-Semitism, The Nation, posted January 15, 2004 (February 2, 2004 issue), January 9, 2006 http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040202/klug/5,

Indro Montanelli photo

“This isn't the Right, this is the billy-club. Italians don't know how to go Right without ending up in the billy-club.”

Indro Montanelli (1909–2001) Italian journalist

17 March 2001; cited in Montanelli e il Cavaliere by Marco Travaglio, Garzanti.
2000s - 2010s

Adam Gopnik photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo

“If I tried to imagine the public as a particular person (for although some better individuals momentarily belong to the public they nevertheless have something concrete about them, which holds them in its grip even if they have not attained the supreme religious attitude), I should perhaps think of one of the Roman emperors, a large well-fed figure, suffering from boredom, looking only for the sensual intoxication of laughter, since the divine gift of wit is not earthly enough. And so for a change he wanders about, indolent rather than bad, but with a negative desire to dominate. Every one who has read the classical authors knows how many things a Caesar could try out in order to kill time. In the same way the public keeps a dog to amuse it. That dog is the sum of the literary world. If there is some one superior to the rest, perhaps even a great man, the dog is set on him and the fun begins. The dog goes for him, snapping and tearing at his coat-tails, allowing itself every possible ill-mannered familiarity – until the public tires, and says it may stop. That is an example of how the public levels. Their betters and superiors in strength are mishandled – and the dog remains a dog which even the public despises. The leveling is therefore done by a third party; a non-existent public leveling with the help of a third party which in its significance is less than nothing, being already more than leveled.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

The Present Age 1846 by Søren Kierkegaard, translated by Alexander Dru 1962, p. 65-66
1840s, Two Ages: A Literary Review (1846)

Dorothy Parker photo

“Naturally, you know how you would feel on setting out to see a performance of Aucassin and Nicolette done by a company of little ones; you would strive to hurl yourself beneath the wheels of a friendly truck, on your way to the theatre. p. 233”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Dorothy Parker: Complete Broadway, 1918–1923 (2014) https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25758762M/Dorothy_Parker_Complete_Broadway_1918-1923, Chapter 4: 1921

Philip Roth photo
Harry Chapin photo
F. Anstey photo

““And you suppose that, knowing how I have changed, he will believe that!” she cried. “He will fire long before you can finish one of those fine sentences!””

F. Anstey (1856–1934) English novelist and journalist

Source: Tourmalin's Time Cheques (1885), Chapter 8, “Paid in His Own Coin”

Omarosa photo
Cary Grant photo

“I’m prepared. I have a gun and I know how to shoot, and whoever comes calling without an invitation will get it in the rear end.”

Cary Grant (1904–1986) British-American film and stage actor

Love – That’s All Cary Grant Ever Thinks About (1964)

Gertrude Stein photo
Noel Gallagher photo
Heinrich Böll photo

“One ought to go too far, in order to know how far one can go.”

Heinrich Böll (1917–1985) German author, novelist, and short story writer

Sie muss also zu weit gehen, um herauszufinden, wie weit sie gehen darf.
"Die Freiheit der Kunst", speech delivered at Wuppertal on September 24, 1966; cited from Cultura 21 magazine http://www.cultura21.de/magazin/denkanstosse/d20050930a.html, September 30, 2005. Translation: Walter Laqueur Germany Today: A Personal Report (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1985) p. 130.

“We know how to tell many believable lies,
But also, when we want to, how to speak the plain truth.”

Stanley Lombardo (1943) Philosopher, Classicist

Theogony, lines 28–29
Translations, Works and Days and Theogony (1993)

Felix Adler photo
Colin Wilson photo
Denis Diderot photo

“The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion, and … people whose aim is to disrupt society always know how to make good use of them on occasion.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

Conversations with a Christian Lady (1774)

Orson Scott Card photo

““I want to know how many years I got.”
“Many,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “Or few. All that matters is what you do with however many years you have.””

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Red Prophet (1988), Chapter 17.

Bill Maher photo

“Government — they used to teach it in college. It's actually something you should study and learn and know how to do. The Republicans always run on the idea that government isn't very effective. Well, not the way you do it. But it can be effective.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

As quoted in "Real talk with Bill Maher" by Joan Walsh at Salon.com (16 February 2007) http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/int/2007/02/16/maher/index2.html

Nigella Lawson photo
Alfred Horsley Hinton photo
Thomas Hobbes photo
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor photo

“The glow has gone forever
And our dreams have turned to dust;
I don't know how I can go on,
And yet I know I must.”

Tom Springfield (1934) English musician, songwriter and record producer

Song No Sad Songs for Me.

Rachel Trachtenburg photo

“Interviewer: Rachel, do you think performing is natural?
Rachel: Mmmm.
Tina: See, it's natural for Rachel because she's done it her whole life.
Rachel: I know how to do it.”

Rachel Trachtenburg (1993) American musician

Rachel on how performing in large crowds is natural for her.
Off & On Broadway documentary (2006)

Arthur Helps photo
Rachel Notley photo

“Tonight, I also want to say that I'm also thinking about my mother and father. I know my mother would be completely over the moon about this. I think my dad would too. I'm sorry he couldn't see this. This really was his life’s work but I can say this: I know how proud he'd be of the province we all love.”

Rachel Notley (1964) 17th Premier of Alberta

Rachel Notley during her 2015 victory speech. "Notley's Way: How the Alberta premier became determined." http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/alberta/the-alberta-ndps-rachel-notley-she-is-a-child-of-the-party/article24338069/ May 8, 2015.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo

“Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live.”

Mephistopheles and the Student
Faust, Part 1 (1808)

Daniel J. Boorstin photo

“Our attitude toward our own culture has recently been characterized by two qualities, braggadocio and petulance. Braggadocio —- empty boasting of American power, American virtue, American know-how —- has dominated our foreign relations now for some decades. … Here at home —- within the family, so to speak —- our attitude to our culture expresses a superficially different spirit, the spirit of petulance. Never before, perhaps, has a culture been so fragmented into groups, each full of its own virtue, each annoyed and irritated at the others.”

Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American historian

Foreword to America and the image of Europe: Reflections on American Thought, Meridian Books, 1960, as cited in: Robert Andrews (1993) The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations https://books.google.com/books?id=4cl5c4T9LWkC&lpg=PA207&dq=Our%20attitude%20toward%20our%20own%20culture%20has%20recently%20been%20characterized%20by%20two%20qualities%2C%20braggadocio%20and%20petulance.&pg=PA207#v=onepage&q&f=false, Columbia University Press, p. 207.

Georgia O'Keeffe photo
Earl Warren photo

“The man of character, sensitive to the meaning of what he is doing, will know how to discover the ethical paths in the maze of possible behavior.”

Earl Warren (1891–1974) United States federal judge

Speech at the Louis Marshall Award Dinner of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Americana Hotel, New York City (11 November 1962)
1960s

John Crowe Ransom photo

“And a wandering beauty is a blade out of its scabbard.
You know how dangerous, gentlemen of threescore?
May you know it yet ten more.”

John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974) American poet

"Judith of Bethulia", line 4.
Chills and Fevers (1924)

Steph Davis photo
Dave Eggers photo
Alan Kay photo

“I don't know how many of you have ever met Dijkstra, but you probably know that arrogance in computer science is measured in nano-Dijkstras.”

Alan Kay (1940) computer scientist

The Computer Revolution hasn't happend yet — 1997 OOPSLA Keynote http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKg1hTOQXoY
1990s

Luís de Camões photo

“[Ah, Love…] which formed I don't know where,
That came I don't know how, and hurts I don't know why.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

[Ah o amor...] que nasce não sei onde,
Vem não sei como, e dói não sei porquê.
Poets of Portugal (2006), p. 141
Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças

Derren Brown photo

“For me, the most enjoyable aspect of going out and performing is that I never know how susceptible people will be to my methods.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Mind Control (1999–2000) or Inside Your Mind on DVD

George Santayana photo

“To know how just a cause we have for grieving is already a consolation.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1905-1906), Vol. IV, Reason in Art

Lily Tomlin photo

“I've seen these women all my life, I know how they walk, I know how they talk…”

Lily Tomlin (1939) American actress, comedian, writer, and producer

Response after being asked how she felt playing a heterosexual in Nashville, on her album Modern Scream (1975)

Democritus photo

“The animal needing something knows how much it needs, the man does not.”

Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

Freeman (1948), p. 162
Variant: The needy animal knows how much it needs, but the needy man does not.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis photo
Dave Attell photo

“A fifty-seven-year-old college professor expressed it this way: "Yes, there's a need for male lib and hardly anyone writes about it the way it really is, though a few make jokes. My gut reaction, which is what you asked for, is that men—the famous male chauvinist pigs who neglect their wives, underpay their women employees, and rule the world—are literally slaves. They're out there picking that cotton, sweating, swearing, taking lashes from the boss, working fifty hours a week to support themselves and the plantation, only then to come back to the house to do another twenty hours a week rinsing dishes, toting trash bags, writing checks, and acting as butlers at the parties. It's true of young husbands and middleaged husbands. Young bachelors may have a nice deal for a couple of years after graduating, but I've forgotten, and I'll never again be young! Old men. Some have it sweet, some have it sour."Man's role—how has it affected my life? At thirty-five, I chose to emphasize family togetherness and income and neglect my profession if necessary. At fifty-seven, I see no reward for time spent with and for the family, in terms of love or appreciation. I see a thousand punishments for neglecting my profession. I'm just tired and have come close to just walking away from it and starting over; just research, publish, teach, administer, play tennis, and travel. Why haven't I? Guilt. And love. And fear of loneliness. How should the man's role in my family change? I really don't know how it can, but I'd like a lot more time to do my thing."”

Herb Goldberg (1937–2019) American psychologist

In Harness: The Male Condition, pp. 6–7
The Hazards of Being Male (1976)

Scott Lynch photo
Richard Burton photo

“When I played drunks I had to remain sober because I didn't know how to play them when I was drunk.”

Richard Burton (1925–1984) Welsh actor

In Mark Pollman Bottled Wisdom: Over 1,000 Spirited Quotations & Anecdotes http://books.google.com/books?id=fM3CO-2nW7sC&pg=PA146, Wildstone Media, 1 January 1998, p. 146,

“I am going to help everyone I can to understand the Buddha’s teachings, I am going to help everyone I can to recite the Great Compassion Mantra and the Heart Sutra, I am going to let everyone know how great the Buddha’s teachings are. I am going to make world peace a reality.”

Jun Hong Lu (1959) Australian Buddhist leader

Master Jun Hong Lu - Ambassador of Peace Education https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrZUen8PMVI&feature=youtu.be&list=PLU6NSq1Oq8pxTDav8m7__9IVbfqlTPB4C&t=175, YouTube, 2016
Guan Yin Citta Dharma Door

Albert Einstein photo
David Foster Wallace photo

“I'm obviously not orthodox, I don't know how many real poets have ever been orthodox.”

R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) Welsh poet

"R. S. Thomas in conversation with Molly Price-Owen." in The David Jones Journal R. S. Thomas Special Issue (Summer/Autumn 2001)

Noel Gallagher photo