Quotes about living
page 77

“The clerisy are those who read for pleasure, but not for idleness; who read for pastime but not to kill time; who love books, but do not live by books.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

Love, Pleasure, Books, Time

“Faith has no less need of the word than the fruit of a tree has of a living root; because, as David testifies, none can hope in God but those who know his name”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Psalm 9:10
Book 3, Chapter 2, Section 31, p. 482
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

God, Faith, Hope, Tree

“I want to live in a city where immigration is seen as a new source of strength.”

Martin Firrell (1963) British artist and activist

"I Want to Live in a City Where..." (2006)

“One person I do feel a little sorry for, though, is the Archbishop of Canterbury, the most important clergyman in Britain and he's only got two lousy palaces to live in. What sort of life is that for a man of God? I bet if Jesus came back, even he'd be embarrassed for him; I bet he wouldn't be able to look him in the eye.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"Religion in the UK" (17 April 2007) http://youtube.com/watch?v=uOYje1oJt7Q 2007

Life, God, Feeling, Personality

“Since the word "knowledge" occurs in my general title… I am going to be talking about epistemology, although I prefer to use the eighteenth-century, indeed, medieval phrase, "natural philosophy."… that enterprise of the human mind which attempts to trace lawfulness to nature, dead and living, but which is not directed to specific inquiries into how this or that law works. Philosophy in the sense in which I practice it, natural philosophy, is concerned with lawfulness rather than with laws and the general nature of laws rather than with the specific structure of this or that law. Natural philosophy was one of the three topics (moral philosophy and metaphysical philosophy were the others) to which one graduated in medieval universities after having studied the seven liberal arts.
I believe that we need to review the whole of our natural philosophy in the light of scientific knowledge that has arisen in the last fifty years.”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination (1978)

Law, Art, Nature, Knowledge

“If we had never met Picasso, would Cubism have been what it is? I think not. The meeting with Picasso was a circumstance in our lives.”

Georges Braque (1882–1963) French painter and sculptor

Source: 1946 - 1963, In conversation with Dora Vallier' (1954), p. 265

Thinking

“The Lord's visitations of distinguished favor are always to the diligent. That great men may not be ashamed of honest vocations, the greatest that have ever lived have been contented, happy, and honored while in the pursuit of humble trades.”

Elias Lyman Magoon (1810–1886) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 346.

Men, Happiness

“On David Cameron's Conservative Party: "The carbon emissions trading system imposed by Kyoto is absurd and entirely ineffectual, but in London, David Cameron wants to apply it to hamburgers. Cameron wants to impose some sort of Kyoto-esque calorie trading system on fast-food purveyors whereby McDonald's would have some trans-fat cap imposed to ensure they pick up the tab for what that $3 Big Mac really costs society. And David Cameron is the leader of the alleged Conservative Party. He's also living in a country whose major cities have been hollowed out by Islamist cells. Nevertheless, as England decays into Somalia with chip shops, taxing the chip shops is the Conservatives' priority.”

Mark Steyn (1959) Canadian writer

Chicago Sun-Times, 28 January 2007

Food, Country

“We must live before we can attain to either intelligence or control at all. We must sleep if we are not to find ourselves, at death, helplessly strange to the new conditions. And we must die before we can hope to advance to a broader understanding.”

John William Dunne book An Experiment with Time

Source: An Experiment with Time (1927), p. 111

Death, Hope, Intelligence, Understanding

“Actually, when you have been in the country for a long time… whether it’s an Indian kid going to live in California working in a software company or whether its me coming to live here as historian and writer; to a certain extent you become a part of the country, and to a certain extent you remain always the person you were with the set of circumstances, history or personal history. So, I don’t think I can ever totally become Indian, but after twenty years I have certainly taken many of the Indian elements. In fact I am sitting talking to you right now in my cotton pajamas and at lunch time I will probably have dal and rice. In various ways I have taken on the life of Delhi; I think I am in the lucky position, in that I can talk to both worlds.”

William Dalrymple (1965) author and historian

In Amrita Ghosh, "Author in Focus: An Interview with Dalrymple".

Life, World, Way, History

“All the while, steadily and without fanfare and as invincibly as all things blossom, ripen, and mature, more people were living longer. And as they did so, they were creating a possibility not even the most far-sighted futurist had anticipated.”

Theodore Roszak (1933–2011) American social historian, social critic, writer

The Making of an Elder Culture (2009)

People

“Throughout the Near East lay rare tinder for anti-Western propaganda: a Moslem culture and history, bitter Arab nationalism galled by Jewish immigration under British protection and with massive American financial support, the remnants of a colonial status, and a sense of grievance that a vast natural resource was being extracted by foreigners under arrangements thought unfair to those living on the surface. This tinder could be, and was, lighted everywhere…”

Dean Acheson book Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969), Middle East

History, Support, Nature, Sense

“We believe we must be the family of America, recognizing that at the heart of the matter we are bound one to another, that the problems of a retired school teacher in Duluth are our problems; that the future of the child — that the future of the child in Buffalo is our future; that the struggle of a disabled man in Boston to survive and live decently is our struggle; that the hunger of a woman in Little Rock is our hunger; that the failure anywhere to provide what reasonably we might, to avoid pain, is our failure.”

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York

Democratic National Convention Address (1984)

Hunger, Pain, School, Family

“It is — last stage of all —
When we are frozen up within, and quite
The phantom of ourselves,
To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost
Which blamed the living man.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

" Growing Old" (1867), st. 7

World

“Many are to believe on Christ through the communication of truth by His servants. As they see the beauty of the Word of God, and as they see Jesus revealed in the lives of His children, they will praise Him with heart and soul and voice.”

Ellen G. White (1827–1915) American author and founder/leader of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church

The Signs of the Times (9 December 1903], paragraph 10

God, Children, Truth, Beauty

“The idea of retiring is like killing yourself. It's almost like Hari Kari. I intend to live to a 100 and go down in history.”

Keith Richards (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

BBC Newsnight 2005; reported in " In quotes: Keith Richards http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6526133.stm", BBC (April 4, 2007).

History, Idea

“In a synchronistic way, the Jungian term of great significance for Carolyn Carlson, her art is in accord with Hölderlin's phrase, "Poetically, man dwells on this earth." After the century of Fascism, we enter the brave new world of the digital era where bombs are grafted inside the body in a corruption of the word spiritual that Malraux never imagined. For Carlson, the question is no longer, "How to live together?"”

Damian Pettigrew Canadian filmmaker

but rather, "How to live poetically our dwelling place?"
On the art of Carolyn Carlson, France Culture interview (December 2012)

World, Art, Way, Imagination

“If we assume the pre-Flood world had ideal living conditions, their memory, wisdom, and accumulated knowledge would have been incredible! How much could you learn in 900 years?! Add to that the fact that you can go talk with your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, who is still living. You can learn from them and build on that knowledge. Plus, don’t forget that Methuselah could have known Adam for 243 years and learned from him; and Adam walked and talked with God Himself for maybe 100 years! I suspect the pre-Flood knowledge and maybe even technology and inventions would blow our minds today!”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 56

Wisdom, God, World, Knowledge

“Susan Brooks was one of those girls who never say anything unless called upon, the ones the teachers always have to ask to speak up, please. A very studious, very serious girl. A rather pretty but not terribly bright girl -- the kind who isn't allowed to give up and take the general or the commercial courses, because she had a terribly bright older brother or older sister, and the teachers expect comparable things from her. In fine, one of those girls who are holding the dirty end of the stick with as much good grace and manners as they can muster. Usually they marry truck drivers and move to the West Coast, where they have kitchen nooks with Formica counters -- and they write letters to the Folks Back East as seldom as they can get away with. They make quiet, successful lives for themselves and grow prettier as the shadow of the bright older brother or sister falls away from them.”

Stephen King book Rage

Rage (1977)

Girl, Sister, Teachers, Success

“Between the early 1600s and the 1950s, more than 20 million people left the British Isles to begin new lives across the seas. Only a minority ever returned. No other country in the world came close to exporting so many of its inhabitants.”

Niall Ferguson (1964) British historian

Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (2003)

People, World, Sea, Country

“Behind the stream of my mind and body, behind the stream of my race and all mankind, behind the stream of plants and animals, I watch with trembling the Invisible, treading on all visible things and ascending.
Behind his heavy and blood-splattered feet I hear all living things being trampled on and crushed.
His face is without laughter, dark and silent, beyond joy and sorrow, beyond hope.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)

Hope, Laughter, Animals, Joy

“"I like to think oysters transcend national barriers, Adrian." - Pink Floyd: Live At Pompeii video, in an interview with director Adrian Maben.”

Roger Waters (1943) English songwriter, bassist, and lyricist of Pink Floyd

Miscellaneous

Thinking

“Wilhelm von Humboldt… stated that the structure of language expresses the inner life of its speakers: "Man lives with the world about him, principally, indeed exclusively, as language presents it."”

Peter Farb (1929–1980) American academic and writer

Word Play (1974)

Life, World

“I believe that thrift is essential to well-ordered living and that economy is a prime requisite of a sound financial structure, whether in government, business or personal affairs.”

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874–1960) American financier and philanthropist

I Believe

Business, Personality

“The whole fun of living is trying to make something better.”

Charles Kettering (1876–1958) American inventor, engineer, businessman, and the holder of 140 patents

As quoted in Dynamic Work Simplification (1971) by W. Clements Zinck, p. 12

“Religion is such a belief of the Bible as maintains a living influence on the heart.”

Richard Cecil (clergyman) (1748–1810) British Evangelical Anglican priest and social reformer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 494.

Religion, Heart

“The original dispute was one of poetic diction… From an interest in the minor problem of poetic diction I was led to see that the problem was really one of a suitable medium for all branches of Chinese literature. The question now became: In what language shall the New China produce its future literature? My answer was: The classical language, so long dead, can never be the medium of a living literature of a living nation; the future literature of China must be written in the living language of the people. "No dead language can produce a living literature." And the living language I proposed as the only possible medium of the future literature of China, was the pei-hau, the vulgar tongue of the vast majority of the population, the language which, in the last 500 years, had produced the numerous novels read and loved by the people, though despised by the men of letters. I wanted this much despised vulgar tongue of the people and the novels to be elevated to the position of the national language of China, to the position enjoyed by all the modern national languages in Europe.”

Hu Shih (1891–1962) Chinese philosopher, essayist and diplomat

The Chinese Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934), p. 50

Love, Men, People, Literature

“Everybody in Vanity Fair must have remarked how well those live who are comfortably and thoroughly in debt; how they deny themselves nothing; how jolly and easy they are in their minds.”

William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair

Vol. I, ch. 22.
Vanity Fair (1847–1848)

“Every year at the farm I watch the insect kingdom come into its northern being, flourish in what we have of heat and sun, live out its myriad life, and disappear almost as if it had never been.”

Henry Beston book Northern Farm

p. 200 https://books.google.com/books?id=xvoMAAAAYAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=sun Northern Farm, 1948

Life, Sun

“Men and women may sometimes, after great effort, achieve a creditable lie; but the house, which is their temple, cannot say anything save the truth of those who have lived in it.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

"They," published in Traffics and Discoveries (1904)
Other works

Women, Men, Truth, Lie

“…if you increase living standards you make labor more productive. This is why Asia today is becoming more productive than the United States.”

Michael Hudson (economist) (1939) American economist

" "Higher Taxes on Top 1% Equals Higher Productivity http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6000", Video Interview (13:28), The Real News Network (TRNN) (January 1, 2011)

“Spanish for, Ask me to talk about Mexican cinema? is like requesting my autobiography, what i have not lived, what i have not seen, and in how many different ways have you seen me? without going any further tender as in "La gallina clueca", tearful as in "Cuando los hijos se van", sweet as in "El baisano Jalil", and energetic and dominant and at the same time affectionate as in "Los tres García" you have seen me very alive and very dead”

Sara García (1895–1980) Mexican actress

Pedirme a mi que hable del cine Mexicano? es como solicitar mi autobiografía, que no habré vivido, que no habré visto, y de cuantas maneras distintas me han visto a mi? sin ir mas lejos tierna como en "La gallina clueca", llorosa como en "Cuando los hijos se van", dulce como en "El baisano Jalil", y enérgica y dominante y al mismo tiempo cariñosa como en "Los tres García" me han visto muy viva y muy muerta. Sara answering when she was told to talk about Mexican cinema. Doña Sara Garcia habla del Cine Mexicano https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXlz7AznYxA

Way, Tear, Time, Dead

“Why don’t you live for the people. Why don’t you struggle for the people. Why don’t you die for the people.”

Fred Hampton (1948–1969) African-American activist

Excerpt from The Murder of Fred Hampton https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7F8RfnDhkA (1971).

People

“There is a reward for kindness to every living animal or human.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Muhammad narrated in Saheeh Muslim, #2244, and Saheeh Al-Bukhari, #2466.
Sunni Hadith

Animals

“Enough is known today about natural ventilation for summer cooling to warrant the entire replacement of artificial air-conditioning devices. …prevailing breezes enter small, louvered openings at the lower section… circulate across the "living zone," rise and then exit through larger, higher openings in the opposite wall.”

Ken Kern American writer

The Owner Built Home: A How-to-do-it Book (1972)

Nature, Summer

“I care nothing for Free Speech in and by itself. All of us place too much value on the power of the printed word and the power of the spoken word. We read too much. We listen too much. We live too little. We act too little…. I speak to you by my actions past and present. I have been gagged, I have been been suppressed, I have have been hauled off to jail. Yet every time, more people ave listened to me, more have protested, more have lifted their voices, more have been responded with courage and bravery…. As a propagandist I see immense advantaged in being gagged. It silences me, but it makes millions of others talk about me, and the cause in which I live.”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

Ford Hall Forum Boston Speech, Woman Rebel, The Margaret Sanger Story, Peter Bagge.

People, Courage, Silence, Time

“I saw that God can do all that we need. And these three that I shall speak of we need: love, longing, pity. Pity in love keepeth us in the time of our need; and longing in the same love draweth us up into Heaven. For the Thirst of God is to have the general Man unto Him: in which thirst He hath drawn His Holy that be now in bliss; and getting His lively members, ever He draweth and drinketh, and yet He thirsteth and longeth.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 75

Love, God, Time

“He would agree that life is a little worth living — or worth living a little; but would remark that, unfortunately, to live little enough, we have to live a great deal.”

Henry James book Hawthorne

Hawthorne, ch. V: The Three American Novels.

Life

“Of living creatures, business men are nearest sane; their philosophy is as accurate as their multiplication table.”

E. W. Howe (1853–1937) Novelist, magazine and newspaper editor

Ventures in Common Sense (1919), p108.

Men, Business

“Many who have not learned wisdom live wisely, and many who do the basest deeds can make most learned speeches.”

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

Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Golden Sayings of Democritus

Wisdom, Learning

“Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me illustrate. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot consider themselves nobler, better, grander, more intelligent than those living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.
The inhabitants of the other spots reason in like manner, of course, with the result that from early infancy the mind of the child is provided with blood-curdling stories about the Germans, the French, the Italians, Russians, etc. When the child has reached manhood he is thoroughly saturated with the belief that he is chosen by the Lord himself to defend his country against the attack or invasion of any foreigner. It is for that purpose that we are clamoring for a greater army and navy, more battleships and ammunition.
An army and navy represent the people's toys.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

What is Patriotism? (1908)

People, Intelligence, Fight, Country

“Young people have many pleasures and many sorrows, because they only have themselves to think of, so every wish and every notion assume importance; every pleasure is tasted to the full, but also every sorrow, and many who find that their wishes cannot be fulfilled, immediately put an end to their lives.”

Hermann Hesse book Gertrud

Source: Gertrude (1910), p. 32

People, Pleasure, Thinking

“You have many years to live—do things you will be proud to remember when you're old.”

John Brunner book Stand on Zanzibar

continuity (27) "Manscape"
Stand on Zanzibar (1968)

“We live in a small world. Not a leaf falls that doesn't affect a myriad of things. When we reach out to someone in love and the effect is made — everyone, everything which comes in contact with the person we've effected is better for it. Of course, the converse is true, too.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

A Magazine of People and Possibilities interview (1998)

Love, World, Personality

“Old age is far more than white hair, wrinkles, the feeling that it is too late and the game finished, that the stage belongs to the rising generations. The true evil is not the weakening of the body, but the indifference of the soul. Upon crossing the shadow line, it is more the desire to act than the power to do so that is lost. Is it possible, after fifty years of experiences and disappointments, to retain the ardent curiosity of youth, the desire to know and understand, the power to love wholeheartedly, the certainty that beauty, intelligence, and kindness unite naturally, and to preserve faith in the efficacy of reason? Beyond the shadow line lies the realm of even, tempered light where the eyes, not being dazzled any more by the blinding sun of desire, can see things and people as they are. How is it possible to believe in the moral perfection of pretty women if you have loved one of them? How is it possible to believe in progress when you have discovered throughout a long and difficult life that no violent change can triumph over human nature and that it is only the most ancient customs and ceremonies that can provide people with the flimsy shelter of civilization? "What's the use?" says the old man to himself. This is perhaps the most dangerous phrase he can utter, for after having said: "What's the use of struggling?" he will say one day: "What's the use of going out?" then: "What's the use of leaving my room?" then: "What's the use of leaving my bed?" and at last comes "What's the use of living?"”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

which opens the portals of death.
Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Growing Old

Love, Life, Death, Women

“American women, like so many others around the world, were trained largely to live as second-class citizens, and living as a second-class citizen meant living as a victim. It was only by empowering them with full social and economic equality that average mothers, wives, and daughters of the world stood a chance of providing for themselves and the offspring they bore.”

Aberjhani (1957) author

(Women, p. 15).
Book Sources, The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois (2003)

Women, World, Chance, Daughters

“The policies — determining who would be drafted and who would be deferred, who would serve and who would escape, who would die and who would live — were an antidemocratic disgrace … I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well placed … managed to wangle slots in reserve and National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country.”

Colin Powell (1937) Former U.S. Secretary of State and retired four-star general

1990s, My American Journey (1996)

Country

“There’s a part of you that insists reality follow the same parameters it always has, even here. That attachment to the way things work in the living world precludes this kind of manipulation. I, on the other hand, had the privilege of spending a good portion of time, when I was alive, in the paroxysms of my own insanity. Rather liberating, in its own way.”

Lawrence M. Schoen (1959) American writer and klingonist

Source: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard (2015), Chapter 8, “Venue and Vision” (p. 98)

World, Way, Reality, Time

“Always to have lived with the nostalgia to coincide with something, but not really knowing with what — it is easy to shift from unbelief to belief, or conversely. But what is there to convert to, and what is there to abjure, in a state of chronic lucidity?”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

The New Gods (1969)

Nostalgia

“I hope I can pass on a few thoughts and ideas to the Sci-Fi channel to encourage people to see that they are living in a conditioned illusion and we can change it any time we want. We can be people and not sheeple.”

David Icke (1952) English writer and public speaker

Source: Ananova, sm_618781

People, Hope, Idea, Change

“Don't tell God they were only little globs of tissue. They were real live persons, being formed in their mother; s womb.”

Jack T. Chick (1924–2016) Christian comics writer

Chick tracts, " Who Murdered Clarice? http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1009/1009_01.asp" (2000)

God, Personality

“Haven't you ever seen a 3-year-old when he makes a foolish blunder? He looks at whatever child or adult is nearby and screams at him "Look at what you made me do!" That's the moral universe that [they] always lived in.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Homecoming saga, Earthfall (1995)

Universe

“Many of the world’s troubles are not due just to Russia or communism. They would be with us in any event because we live in an era of revolution—the revolution of rising expectations. In Asia, the masses now count for something. Tomorrow, they will count for more. And, for better or for worse, the future belongs to those who understand the hopes and fears of masses in ferment. The new nations want independence, including the inalienable able right to make their own mistakes. The people want respect—and something to eat every day. And they want something better for their children.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

Look, p. 46 (22 September 1953)

Children, People, World, Fear

“No man, I suppose, ever admits to himself candidly that he gets his living in a dishonourable way.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

1920s, Notes on Democracy (1926)

Way

“But as president of General Motors, I realized our thinking affected the lives of hundreds of thousands directly and influenced the economic welfare of many important communities, in some of which we were almost the sole provider. In some way, visible or invisible, as we expanded, the economic welfare of millions was becoming linked with the welfare of General Motors. Previously, when industry was smaller, the absorbing problems of industrial management were largely limited to the fields of engineering, production and distribution. Out of its endeavors in these fields had come a continuous stream of new products, providing new comforts and making possible better ways of living. General Motors was becoming large through a, but only because it was rendering a service to community. As its volume of business expanded it became able to do more for workers, stockholders and customers.”

Alfred P. Sloan (1875–1966) American businessman

Source: Adventures of a White-Collar Man. 1941, p. 144

Way, Communication, Business, Problem

“Before we continue our story we must stop to ask, “What is a castle?” Once a castle was defined simply as the fortified and self-sufficient dwelling of an individual feudal lord. Today we know that castles had many functions, both practical and symbolic. The castle was a new ar chitectural form—part fortress, part residence, part statehouse, part the atrical stage. Furthermore, every castle was different, depending on the wealth of the builder, the reason for the castle (control of territory, bor der, coastlines), the local geography (availability of naturally defensible sites), the knowledge of the master builder or patron, the available ma terials, the degree of urgency (speed), and finally the building traditions of the region (the techniques the workmen knew and used). In short, there is no such thing as a typical castle; a castle was a very special build ing whose form and function answered the needs of people living in Eu rope from the eleventh through the fifteenth century.”

Marilyn Stokstad (1929–2016) art historian

Overview: Castles in Context
Medieval castles (2005)

People, Nature, Knowledge, Parting

“To say that basic science is exciting may sound like a contradiction… But I would remind you that there are two intellectual excitements that are not tame at all and that we remember all our lives. One is the thrill of following out a chain of reasoning for yourself; the other is the pleasure of watching several strongly individualistic personalities argue about their deepest convictions. That is to say, the thrill of a detective story and the pleasure of watching a play by George Bernard Shaw.”

John R. Platt (1918–1992) American physicist

John R. Platt (1960) " The sweep and excitement of science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1929478/" in: Public Health Rep. 1960 June; 75(6). p. 495

Pleasure, Science, Personality

“I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad.”

Henry David Thoreau book Civil Disobedience

Civil Disobedience (1849)

World

“I look upon an increase in the power of the State with the greatest fear because, although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality, which lies at the root of the progress. We know of so many cases where men have adopted trusteeship, but none where the State has really lived for the poor.”

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

Modern Review (October, 1935) p. 412. Interview with Nirmal Kumar Bose (9/10 November 1934)
1930s

Men, Fear

“(…)The body-mind is like a room. It is there, but I need not live in it all the time.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Body
Source: I am That, P.153.

Time

“London had vanished. In place of the lively, thrusting metropolitan conurbation was an empty rural wilderness of damp brown fields under low autumnal skies.”

Stephen R. Lawhead (1950) American writer

Source: The Skin Map (2010), p. 81

Autumn

“No righteous rules, however rigid, are too stringent for me; I will live above them.”

Karl G. Maeser (1828–1901) prominent Utah educator and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Sentence-Sermons from Brigham Young University Quarterly quoted in The Latter-Day Saints' Millenial Star, Vol. 70 https://books.google.com/books?id=eItJAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA452&lpg=PA452&dq=He+that+cheats+another+is+a+knave;+but+he+that+cheats+himself+is+a+fool.&source=bl&ots=WBAQiPjQX6&sig=WLEdKN2_kXPXj8jZALKCp2dguaQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjXmNeF_7HMAhUH42MKHdySDgsQ6AEILzAE#v=onepage&q=fool&f=false

“Here is another example of violating one's nature in the name of nobility, an example that shows the larger dangers of false love. Years ago, I heard Dorothy Day speak. Founder of the Catholic Worker movement, her long-term commitment to living among the poor on New York's Lower East Side—not just serving them but sharing their condition—had made her one of my heroes. So it came as a great shock. when in the middle of her talk, I heard her start to ruminate about the "ungrateful poor."
I did not understand how such a dismissive phrase could come from the lips of a saint—until it hit me with the force of a Zen koan. Dorothy Day was saying, "Do not give to the poor expecting to get their gratitude so that you can feel good about yourself. If you do, your giving will be thin and short-lived, and that is not what the poor need; it will only impoverish them further. Give only if you have something you must give; give only if you are someone for whom giving is its own reward."”

Parker Palmer (1939) American theologian

Source: Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (1999), pp. 48-49

Love, Feeling, Understanding, Nature

“There are two types of education: education for livelihood and education for life. When we study in college, it helps us to get a job so that we can earn a living. We can become a doctor, a scientist, an engineer or whatever we want. We may go on to attain wealth, possession and fame. All of this comes from education for livelihood. But this alone will never make our life full and complete. Education is not only to help us live a comfortable life of plenty. When our plans fall apart, when we face failure and loss, when we are knocked down, education should help us get back on our feet. Education should help us regain our mental equipoise, self-confidence and positive attitude, so that we can continue forward. This is why education for life is as important as education for livelihood. Education for life is spirituality.”

Mata Amritanandamayi (1953) Hindu spiritual leader and guru

Amritanandamayi's Address Upon Receiving an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the State University of New York (2010)

Life, Education, Confidence, Failure

“I have a message to the neo-Nazis, to the white nationalists, and to the neo-Confederates: Your heroes are losers. You are supporting a lost cause. And believe me, I knew the original Nazis, because you see, I was born in Austria in 1947, shortly after the Second World War. And growing up, I was surrounded by broken men, men who came home from a war filled with shrapnel and guilt, men who were misled into a losing ideology. And I can tell you: that these ghosts you idolize spent the rest of their lives living in shame and right now, they’re resting in hell.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947) actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heritage

A message for Donald Trump -, ATTN video https://twitter.com/attn/status/898328098529083394 (August 2017) 2010s

Men, War, World, Home

“If anyone can be considered the greatest writer who ever lived, it is Shakespeare.”

Isaac Asimov book Asimov's Chronology of the World

Asimov's Chronology of the World (1991), p. 226
General sources

“For most of the 20th century, small radical groups were seen as social change incubators. The various socialist and communist parties, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and a thousand local or regional variants were where it was at. … But we live in a knowledge society now – a world that depends increasingly on professional expertise and special skills. If we want to change that world, we'll need to be even more expert and skilled than those who'd defend the status quo. That's why professional schools, not radical groups, are our social change incubators now. And radical middle social change agents know it. Many of the most idealistic and dedicated of them have been pouring into our graduate schools, including our great medical, business, and law schools.”

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

Source: Radical Middle (2004), Chapter 16, "You Can Have a Career and Be Political, Too," pp. 176–77.

World, School, Law, Business

“The distinction between true and false consciousness, real and immediate interest still is meaningful. But this distinction itself must be validated. Men must come to see it and to find their way from false to true consciousness, from their immediate to their real interest. They can do so only if they live in need of changing their way of life, of denying the positive, of refusing. It is precisely this need which the established society manages to repress to the degree to which it is capable of “delivering the goods” on an increasingly large scale, and using the scientific conquest of nature for the scientific conquest of man.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), pp. xlv-xlvi

Life, Men, Way, Nature

“I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything. There are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask "Why are we here?" I might think about it a little bit, and if I can't figure it out then I go on to something else. But I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose — which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell. Possibly. It doesn't frighten me.”

Richard Feynman book The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

Source: No Ordinary Genius (1994), p. 239, from interview in "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" (1981): video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEwUwWh5Xs4&t=48m10s

Way, Feeling, Thinking, Universe

“The Americans are the first people whom heaven has favoured with an opportunity of deliberating upon and choosing forms of government under which they should live.”

John Jay (1745–1829) American politician and a founding father of the United States

Charge to the Grand Jury of Ulster County http://www.johnjayinstitute.org/resources/publications/john-jays-charge-to-the-grand-jury-of-ulster-county-1777-and-charge-to-the/ (1777). 1770s

People

“She does not know where any tale waits before it's told. (No more do I.) But forty thieves sounds good, so forty thieves it is. She prays she has bought another clutch of days. We save our lives in such unlikely ways.”

Neil Gaiman book Fragile Things

From Inventing Aladdin
Fragile Things (2006)

Way, Waiting

“My friend Sir G. Johnson subsequently became the leader of one of the two opposed methods of dealing with cholera. His was the “ eliminative” view, namely, that there was mischief in the system that Nature strove to eliminate, so he prescribed castor oil to expedite matters; others took the exactly opposite view, consequently there was open war between the two methods. I read somewhere that one of Johnson’s most fiery opponents considered the number of deaths occasioned by his method to amount to eleven thousand. Leaving aside all question of the accuracy of the estimate of this particular treatment, it is easy to see that when a pestilence lies heavily on a nation, the numbers affected are so large that a proper or improper treatment may be capable of saving or of destroying many thousands of lives. By all means, then, let competitive methods be tested at hospitals on a sufficiently large scale to settle their relative merits. Of this I will speak further almost immediately.”

Francis Galton (1822–1911) British polymath: geographer, statistician, pioneer in eugenics

Source: Memories of My Life (1908), Ch. III Medical Studies

Death, War, Question, Nature

“The days and weeks before a true commitment to Jesus can be terrible and lonely. I think I was feeling bitter about the human experience. I never asked to be human. Nobody can to the womb and explained the situation to me, asking for my permission to go into the world and live and breathe and eat and feel joy and pain. I started thinking about how odd it was to be human, how we are stuck inside this skin, forced to be attracted to the opposite sex, forced to eat food, and use the rest room and then stuck to the earth by gravity. I spent an entire week feeling bitter because I couldn't breathe underwater. I told God I wanted to be a fish. I also felt a little bitter about sleep. Why do we have to sleep? I wanted to be able to stay awake for as long as I wanted, but God had put me in this body that had to sleep. Life no longer seemed like and experience of freedom.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Life, God, Pain, World

“All living souls welcome whatsoever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be possible.”

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

Source: Dialogues in Limbo (1926), Ch. 3, P. 62

Soul

“The people of the Falkland Islands, like the people of the United Kingdom, are an island race. Their way of life is British; their allegiance is to the Crown. They are few in number, but they have the right to live in peace, to choose their own way of life and to determine their own allegiance. Their way of life is British; their allegiance is to the Crown. It is the wish of the British people and the duty of Her Majesty's Government to do everything that we can to uphold that right. That will be our hope and our endeavour and, I believe, the resolve of every Member of the House.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech in the House of Commons (3 April 1982) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104910 First term as Prime Minister

Life, People, Peace, Hope

“He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.
Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go:
And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.”

John Greenleaf Whittier Maud Muller

Maud Muller (1856)

Fashion, Wedding

“Since none of the creatures of the sea were taken on Noah's ark, there would be a strong possibility that some plesiosaurs and maybe even some ichtyosaurs survived the Flood. The violent and turbulent waters of the Flood would surely have killed and buried many of the sea creatures (over 90 percent of fossils found are of marine animals). However, if some had survived the Flood and lived on in the seas for years after, they could help account for many of the legends of sea monsters that have been gathered from all over the world. Remote as it may seem, there could even be the possibility that a few have survived till modern times. After all, it's much easier to believe that they could have survived for several thousand years rather than for nearly a hundred-million years.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

Great Dinosaur Mystery Solved! (2000)

World, Strong, Water, Time

“In order to receive forgiveness, we need to place our trust in Christ as our Savior and the Lord of our lives. But if we reject Christ, then we reject God's mercy and fall back on His justice. And you know where you stand there. If we reject Jesus’ offer of forgiveness, then there is simply is no one else to pay the penalty for your sin – except yourself.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

God, Justice, Penalty, Forgiveness

“An epoch can only be reproduced by its own artists, I mean by the artists who lived in it. I hold the artists of one century basically incapable of reproducing the aspect of a past or future century-in other words, of painting the past or the future.”

Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) French painter

1860s, Realist Manifesto' - an open letter, 1861

Past, Future, Painting

“Comrade Khrushchev often repeats that Socialism cannot be built with American wheat. I think it can be done by anyone who knows how to do it, while a person who doesn't know how to do it cannot build Socialism even with his own wheat. Khrushchev says we live on charity received from the imperialist countries … What moral right have those who attack us to rebuke us about American aid or credits when Khruschev himself has just tried to conclude an economic agreement with America?”

Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman

Jasper Ridley, Tito: A Biography (Constable and Company Ltd., 1994), p. 348-349.
Other

Thinking, Personality, Country

“If I live to be a hundred--and I hope I do--I won't have time to read all the books I want to read, or talk to the people I want to know. Not party talk. That's a waste of time. Real talk.”

Brian Keith (1921–1997) actor

PhotoplayMagazine.com
Brian Keith on trying to live a long life

People, Books, Hope, Time

“I'm really serious about this writing thing. What time I haven't been writing, I've been reading: Thomas Wolfe, if you know who he is. His writing is mostly built about the central character of a writer, himself. Altho it's fiction, it deals with his life and experiences. In my opinion, little as it's worth, he is the greatest writer that has lived, Shakespeare included. He is a genius.”

James Jones (1921–1977) American author

Letter to his brother Jeff, from Hawaii (7 April 1941); p. 11
To Reach Eternity (1989)

Life, Wolf, Time, Reading

“The hippies are the living demonstration of what it means to give up reason, and to rely on one's primeval instincts, urges, intuitions, and whims. With such tools, they are unable to grasp even what is needed to satisfy their wishes; for example, the wish to have a festival. Where would they be without the charity of the local "squares" who fed them? Where would they be without the fifty doctors rushed from New York to save their lives? Without the automobiles that brought them to the festival? Without the soda pop and beer they substituted for water? Without the helicopters that brought the entertainers? Without all the achievements of the technological civilization they denounce? Left to their own devices, they literally didn't know enough to come in out of the rain.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Apollo and Dionysus (1969)

Beer, Water

“I became a member of the RSS in my childhood days then joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (The BJP’s student’s wing). I am a science graduate. Till I was elected as an MLA I was a businessman. After getting into politics, I gave away my business and factory to my partners. After becoming an MLA, I am not doing any business. I have my savings and investments. I have inherited some investments in stocks and shares and I earn my living out of it.”

Amit Shah (1964) Indian politician

"Exclusive Amit Shah Interview: People are waiting to vote for Modi," 2013

Business, Science, Childhood

“In my opinion, the national anthem is a symbolic song about our country. It represents honoring the many brave men and women who sacrifice and have sacrificed their lives each and every single day to protect our freedom. Sitting or kneeling down during the national anthem is a disgrace to those people who have served and currently serve our country. Sitting down during the national anthem on September 11th is even more horrific. Protest all you want and use social media all you want. However, during the nearly two minutes when that song is playing, I believe everyone should put their hands on their heart and be proud of our country for we are all truly blessed. Recent history has shown that it is a place where anyone no matter what race or gender has the potential to become President of the United States. We live in the most special place in the world and should be thankful. After the song is over, I would encourage everyone to please use the podium they have, stand up for their beliefs, and make America a better place. The rebuilding of battery park and the freedom tower demonstrates that amazing things can be done in this country when we work together towards a common goal. It is a shame how quickly we have forgotten this as a society. Today we are more divided then ever before. I could never imagine multiple people sitting down during the national anthem on the September 11th anniversary. The lessons of 911 should teach us that if we come together, the world can be a better and more peaceful place #neverforget.”

Kate Upton (1992) American model and actress

Kate Upton on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/BKO8_ZGA87r/?taken-by=kateupton&hl=en (September 11, 2016)

Women, Men, People, World

“It is always the simple things that change our lives.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Change

“Every time another tribe becomes extinct and their language dies, another way of life and another way of understanding the world disappears forever. Even if it has been painstakingly studied and recorded, a language without a people to speak it means little. A language can only live if its people live, and if today’s uncontacted tribes are to have a future, we must respect their right to choose their own way of life.”

Stephen Corry (1951) British anthropologist and activist

An indigenous language dies ‘once every two weeks’ http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/3086, Survival International 20 February 2008.

Life, People, World, Way

“These poems do not live: it's a sad diagnosis.
They grew their toes and fingers well enough,
Their little foreheads bulged with concentration.
If they missed out on walking about like people
It wasn't for any lack of mother-love.”

Sylvia Plath book Crossing the Water

"Stillborn" http://www.angelfire.com/tn/plath/still.html Crossing the Water (1971)

Love, People, Sadness

“Suddenly they asked me, as only the French would, ‘Madame, what is your philosophy of life?’ What a cosmic question, but I had to answer, and answer quickly, because it was live. So I said, in French, ‘I think that you’ve got to play the hand that you’re dealt and stop wishing for another hand.”

Maeve Binchy (1940–2012) Irish novelist

Recalling being invited to appear on French TV on what she described as “a terrifying serious program about books”. nydailynews.com http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/popular-irish-author-maeve-binchy-dies-72-article-1.1125516?localLinksEnabled=false

Life, Question, Thinking