Quotes about living
page 92

“I want to tell you why I did this. My mother was the first one to tell me about the Statue of Liberty. She saw at first from the deck of the ship that brought her to America: she was an immigrant. She impressed upon me how precious our liberty is and how easily it can be lost. And then one day it occurred to me that I could show with magic how we take our freedom for granted. Sometimes we don't realize how important something is until it's gone. So I asked our government for permission to let me make the Statue of Liberty disappear… just for a few minutes. I thought that if we faced emptiness where, for as long as we can remember, that great lady is, lifted up our land, why then… we might imagine what the world would be like without liberty and we realize how precious our freedom really is. And then I will make the Statue of Liberty reappear, by remembering the world that made it appear in the first place. The world is freedom. Freedom is the true magic. It's beyond the power of any magician. But wherever one human being guarantees another the same rights he or she enjoys, we find freedom. [The curtain between the live audience and the Statue of Liberty used to hide the secret of its disappearance is raised] How long can we stay free? But just as long as we keep thinking, and speaking, and acting as free human beings. Our ancestors just couldn’t. We can. And I will show you the way. Nooooow!”

David Copperfield (1956) American illusionist

The curtain is lowered and the Statue of Liberty reappears
From "The Magic of David Copperfield V: The Statue of Liberty Disappears" (April 8th, 1983)

Secret, World, Way, Imagination

“The musicians had played on the deck as the ship went down. They had forfeited their lives for the sake of others. They had played the tunes of hymns to induce a spirit of peace and calm. They were heroic.”

Steve Turner (1949) British writer

Source: The Band That Played On (Thomas Nelson, 2011), p. 13

Peace

“Life's for living, not for mourning … Live in the present, not the past.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 6: Hal

Life, Past

“A corporation is a living organism; it has to continue to shed its skin. Methods have to change. Focus has to change. Values have to change. The sum total of those changes is transformation.”

Andrew S. Grove (1936–2016) Hungarian-born American businessman, engineer, and author

Andrew Grove, in: " What I've Learned: Andy Grove http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/interviews/a1449/learned-andy-grove-0500/", Esquire magazine, May 1, 2000 New millennium

Change

“A man has to live with himself, and he should see to it that he always has good company.”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

As quoted in Ethics and Citizenship (1924) by John Walter Wayland, p. 208.

“Some love is just a lie of the heart
The cold remains of what began with a passionate start.
And they may not want it to end
But it will, it's just a question of when.
I've lived long enough to have learned
The closer you get to the fire the more you get burned.
But that won't happen to us
Because it's always been a matter of trust.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

A Matter of Trust.
Song lyrics, The Bridge (1986)

Love, Lie, Question, Learning

“"The myths," says Horace in his Ars Poetica, "have been invented by wise men to strengthen the laws and teach moral truths." While Horace endeavored to make clear the very spirit and essence of the ancient myths, Euhemerus pretended, on the contrary, that "myths were the legendary history of kings and heroes, transformed into gods by the admiration of the nations." It is the latter method which was inferentially followed by Christians when they agreed upon the acceptation of euhemerized patriarchs, and mistook them for men who had really lived.”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky book Isis Unveiled

Source: Isis Unveiled (1877), Volume II, Chapter IX

Men, God, Truth, Law

“On the higher plane of public morality, there is no need for me to preach tonight. We have thousands of far better preachers and millions of sacred scriptures to guide us on the path of personal right-living and exemplary official conduct. If we can make effective and earlier use of moral and ethical wisdom of the centuries in today's complex society, we will prevent more crime and more corruption than all the policemen and prosecutors governments can ever deter. If I might say so, this is a job that must begin at home, not in Washington.”

Gerald Ford (1913–2006) American politician, 38th President of the United States (in office from 1974 to 1977)

1970s, Address to Congress (12 August 1974)

Wisdom, Home, Personality

“Don’t children have the same rights to life and equal concern as adults? Don’t we have moral reasons to concern ourselves with the welfare of nonrational beings, such as animals? Mustn’t that status rest on some value independent of the rational nature in persons?
Kantian ethics must answer the last question in the negative, but it answers the other two in the affirmative. I think the right account of the moral status of nonrational living things and of human beings who lack personality in the strict sense can best be derived from Kantian principles, even though Kant himself did not worry about these questions as much as he should have, and some of the things he said about them do not seem to me entirely cogent, or to be the best account available to him.”

Allen W. Wood (1942) academic

Kantian Ethics (2008)

Life, Children, Question, Nature

“William Herschel was the first man to give a reasonably correct picture of the shape of our star-system or galaxy; he was the best telescope-maker of his time, and possibly the greatest observer who ever lived.”

Patrick Moore (1923–2012) English writer, broadcaster and astronomer

As quoted on the official website http://www.rbwm.gov.uk/web/libraries_local_history_figures.htm#William_Herschel of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.

Star, Time

“I believe synthetic biology forces society into the chaos of ethics. And, I believe that every connotation of "chaos" applies to the ethics of synthetic biology. Researchers must decide if a particular endeavor is ethical because, of course, mistakes can result due to the unpredictability of these very complex systems. I also believe that the original Greek and the Genesis, Chapter 1, understanding of formlessness applies, since scientists are trying to move to the simplest creatures possible, so-called "chassis bacteria", onto which they can add desirable traits at their choosing. Finally, I believe that the mathematical connotation of chaos applies, since even the most simple living creature is a dynamical system that is highly sensitive to initial conditions. I sometimes wonder about the extent to which those most intimately involved and those strongly advocating synthetic biology think about this.”

Daniel Alan Vallero (1953) American scientist

Class notes from Vallero's optimization course at Duke University. 2017.

Mathematics, Understanding, Thinking

“The judgment that human life is worth living, or rather can and ought to be made worth living, … underlies all intellectual effort; it is the a priori of social theory, and its rejection (which is perfectly logical) rejects theory itself.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), p. xliii

Life, Effort

“When my grandfather was born there were barely two thousand people living in the capital; in my own childhood there were nearly five thousand. In grandfather's childhood the only people who counted were a few government officials and a few foreign merchants, mainly Jews from Schleswig and Holstein who spoke Low German and called themselves Danes... The rest of the town's inhabitants were cottagers who went out to the fishing and sometimes owned a small share in a cow, or had a few sheep. They had little rowing-boats, on which they could sometimes hoist a sail.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing) (1957)

People, Fish, Childhood

“SPAN ID=Whether_he_realizes>Whether he realizes it or not, however, Mr. Mets is affected every hour of his life not only by the words he hears and uses, but also by his unconscious assumptions about language. […] Such unconscious assumptions determine the effect that words have on him -- which in turn determines the way he acts, whether wisely or foolishly. Words -- the way he uses them and the way he takes them when spoken by others -- largely shape his beliefs, his prejudices, his ideals, his aspirations. They constitute the moral and intellectual atmosphere in which he lives -- in short, his semantic environment.”

S. I. Hayakawa book Language in Thought and Action

Source: Language in Thought and Action (1949), The Niagara of Words, p. 18

Life, Way

“Life without literature is a life reduced to penury. It expands you in every way. It illuminates what you’re doing. It shows you possibilities you haven’t thought of. It enables you to live the lives of other people than yourself. It broadens you, it makes you more human. It makes life enjoyable.”

M. H. Abrams (1912–2015) American literary theorist

The New York Times dialogue with S. Greenblatt (2012)

Life, People, Way, Literature

“Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilised—the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals.”

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

"My Experience in Gaol", Indian Opinion (7 March 1908). Also: Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, op cit., Vol. 8, p. 199.
1900s

Animals

“When we inherit stolen wealth in a will, we would live under a stolen future – thereby mortgaging our future. Remember, what comes from God goes to Him. What comes from truth goes to truth. What comes from stealing goes to stealing. What comes from destruction goes to destruction.”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

On leaders who store up wealth illegally - "Choose The Path Of A Champion" http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/religion/Choose-The-Path-Of-A-Champion-T-B-Joshua-s-Seasons-Greetings-200153 Ghana Web (December 25 2010)

God, Truth, Future, Wealth

“"If you go all the way back to the days just following creation, men lived nine hundred years or more." — Answers to 200 of Life's most Probing Questions”

Pat Robertson (1930) American media mogul, executive chairman, and a former Southern Baptist minister

Life, Men, Way, Question

“I'm not really interested in building a reputation for myself. But I do care for what the company stands for. I believe in work and being connected to the world we live in.”

Miuccia Prada (1948) Italian fashion designer and entrepreneur

On Reputation - Miuccia Prada - forbes.com https://www.forbes.com/100-greatest-business-minds/person/miuccia-prada

World

“The living room is a factory and the rooftop is a farm.”

Hsu Shui-teh (1931) Taiwanese politician

Hsu Shui-teh (1975) cited in " Boy from slum becomes high official http://www.taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=135878&CtNode=451" on T@iwan Today, 21 September 1975

“The vision for Europe needs to renew its commitment to true subsidiarity. Having structures of economic, political and social relationships that liberate subsidiarity will make accepting complexity more realistic. It seems to me that current debates about what Europe is have fallen into the trap of equating strength and unity with simplicity. As I have just said, the opposite seems to be true. Attempts to explain European structures and identity with a single overarching story have ended in failure because they have not allowed sufficient flexibility for these structures to be lived out below the continental level.”

Justin Welby (1956) British Anglican bishop; the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury

Address to the Catholic Institute of Paris (November 19, 2016)

Failure

“The ruthless destruction of wild animals and the abuse of domestic animals is contrary to God’s purpose. Our relationship with the animal world is not one of warfare, but one of dominion. Wild and domestic in terms of God’s purpose. Finally we must say in terms of this text that man was created to live in a perfect world, in a good world, very good God commanded. To till and to keep it, man was formed out of the substance of the dust of the ground we are told in Genesis 2:7. Man is therefore earthbound, psychological and physically, dust thou art and unto dust thou returnest.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, Creationism and Psychology (n. d.)

God, World, Art, Animals

“In fact, the chief end of a woman in China is not to live for herself, or for society; not to be a reformer or to be president of the woman's natural feet Society; not to live even as a saint or to do good to the world; the chief end of a woman in China is to live as a good daughter a good wife and a good mother.”

Gu Hongming book The Spirit of the Chinese People

page 79
The Spirit of the Chinese People (1915), Chinese Woman

World, Nature, Daughters

“Lay your sleeping head, my love
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral;
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie:
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.”

W. H. Auden (1907–1973) Anglo-American poet

Lay your sleeping head, my love (1937), lines 1–2, written January 1937; also known as Lullaby.

Love, Children, Lie, Beauty

“To live classically and to realize antiquity practically within oneself is the summit and goal of philology.”

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) German poet, critic and scholar

Philosophical Fragments, P. Firchow, trans. (1991) § 147

“Exactly twenty-five years from 1 May 1950- the day President Truman authorized the first U. S. military assistance to Indochina- Saigon and the South Vietnamese government fell to the communist regime of North Vietnam, on 30 April 1975. Thus ended the longest conflict in American history. After every prolonged conflict in its experience, the United States has plunged into a period of assessment, trying to sift out the meaning of the memorable events of the recent past while searching for the key to a conflict-free future. This happened in the 1870s after our Civil War, in the 1920s after World War I, and for a relatively brief period in the late 1940s after World War II. But with the advent of the Cold War in 1947, followed by the Korean War in 1950- our first experience with limited war- we lived through over a quarter of a century during which the United States was continuously involved in some sort of emergency, contingency, or actual hostilities somewhere in the world. And so, after our agonizing experience in Vietnam, the first clear failure in our history, it is not surprising to find the United States of the 1970s and 1980s brooding over its frustrations and reevaluating its role in the world.”

Bruce Palmer Jr. (1913–2000) United States Army Chief of Staff

Source: The 25-Year War: America's Military Role in Vietnam (1984), p. vii

Hostility, War, World, History

“We live far enough away from those times of test and trial to know that sincerity and honesty did not all lie on either side. We know the conflicts of loyalties, traditions, ancestry, and interest which drew men to one side and the other. I doubt if there ever was another so great and elemental a conflict from which men emerged with so much of mutual respect, with so little of bitterness and lingering hostility. The struggle brought the whole Nation at last to see that its only assurance was in unity. United, it could go its way in all security; divided, both sections becoming the prey of jealousy and intrigue, would have dissipated all the power they now have for good in the world.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Reign of Law (1925)

Men, Hostility, Lie, World

“The animals are our brothers; another nation living on earth, growing up beside us. They are not lesser beings; they are selves in different forms. Some of them have flippers, some wings for motivation; some have two propelling legs, some have four; we have only two. Some have thumbs, some have claws. We have manufactured claws and worse. We have no rights over these creatures; yet we exploit and imprison them. They should run wild and be on their own but we have corrupted them, enslaved them and modified their behavior and opportunities. Some of them like it, some don't. We have made friends of some and slaves of others.”

Helen Nearing (1904–1995) American writer

Source: Loving and Leaving the Good Life (1992), p. 162

Behavior, Motivation, Animals

““Whites” are not derived from a population that existed from time immemorial, as some people believe. Instead, “whites” represent a mixture of four ancient populations that lived 10,000 years ago and were each as different from one another as Europeans and East Asians are today.”

David Reich (geneticist) (1974) American geneticist, Professor of Genetics

How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of ‘Race’ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/opinion/sunday/genetics-race.html, NY Times, 23 March, 2018

People, Time

“Theses moments – as in a quote I read about life somewhere – are not a puzzle to be solved, but a moment to be lived. Just savor them when they happen. Call them coincidence. Call the synchronicity. Call them anything you want but, at the very least, savor them.”

Buddy Wakefield (1974) American poet

"Spiritualized"
Poetry

Life, Quotes, Reading

“I think every conscious person, every person who is awake to the functioning principles within his reality, has a moment where he stops blaming the problems in the world on group think, on humanity and authority, and starts to face himself. I hate this more than anything. This is the hardest principle within Christian spirituality for me to deal with. The problem is not out there; the problem is the needy beast of a thing that lives in my chest.”

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

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Hate, World, Problem, Thinking

“We should have a State in which we could live and breathe as free men and which we could develop according to our own lights and culture and where principles of Islamic social justice could find free play.”

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) Founder and 1st Governor General of Pakistan

Address to Civil, Naval, Military and Air Force Officers of Pakistan Government, Karachi (11 October 1947)

Men, Justice, Light

“They tell us that we live in a great free republic; that our institutions are democratic; that we are a free and self-governing people. This is too much, even for a joke. But it is not a subject for levity; it is an exceedingly serious matter.”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

The Canton, Ohio Speech, Anti-War Speech (1918)

People

“The first living organisms on Earth doubtless arose in an aqueous environment, and the course of evolution has been shaped by the proper ties of the aqueous medium in which life began.”

Albert L. Lehninger (1917–1986) American biochemist

Principles of Biochemistry, Ch. 2 : Water

Life

“The task is not to win the political centre ground – it is gridlocked and dead – but to transform it. A new social politics of democracy must be capable of creating the conditions for recovery, and setting out a set of principles and a political direction for the future, and it must also address the threat of global warming. The boom is over. In the future there will be less to go round and so let us share it out fairly amongst ourselves and embark on the deep and long transformation that will bring about a good society. It will be the great challenge of our time, and it will shape the lives of generations to come.”

Jon Cruddas (1962) British politician

The Independent, The time has come for a new socialism, 31 March 2009 http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/jon-cruddas-amp-jonathan-rutherford-the-time-has-come-for-a-new-socialism-1658938.html

Democracy, Time, Future, Dead

“Mostly, brothers and sisters, we become the victims of our own wrong desires. Moreover, we live in an age when many simply refuse to feel responsible for themselves. Thus, a crystal-clear understanding of the doctrines pertaining to desire is so vital because of the spreading effluent oozing out of so many unjustified excuses by so many. This is like a sludge which is sweeping society along toward "the gulf of misery and endless wo". Feeding that same flow is the selfish philosophy of "no fault," which is replacing the meek and apologetic "my fault." We listen with eager ear to hear genuine pleas for forgiveness instead of the ritualistic "Sorry. I hope I can forgive myself."”

Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) Mormon leader

According to the Desire of [Our] Hearts, Ensign, Nov. 1996, p. 21 Ensign http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=57acdbdcc370c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1

Age, Hope, Feeling, Forgiveness

“Real morality is possible when the sanctions for morality are also tangible and real. Therefore, atheism shifts the basis of morality from faith in god to obligations of social living. Moral conduct is not a passport to heaven; it is social necessity.”

Goparaju Ramachandra Rao (1902–1975) Indian activist

Atheism: Questions and Answers

God, Faith

“The Tungans, more than the Han, are the enemy of our people. Today our people are already free from the oppression of the Han, but still continue under Tungan subjugation. We must still fear the Han, but cannot not fear the Tungans also. The reason we must be careful to guard against the Tungans, we must intensely oppose, cannot afford to be polite. Since the Tungans have compelled us, we must be this way. Yellow Han people have not the slightest thing to do with Eastern Turkestan. Black Tungans also do not have this connection. Eastern Turkestan belongs to the people of Eastern Turkestan. There is no need for foreigners to come be our fathers and mothers…From now on we do not need to use foreigners language, or their names, their customs, habits, attitudes, written language, etc. We must also overthrow and drive foreigners from our boundaries forever. The colors yellow and black are foul. They have dirtied our land for too long. So now it is absolutely necessary to clean out this filth. Take down the yellow and black barbarians! Long live Eastern Turkestan!”

Sabit Damulla Abdulbaki (1883–1934) First Prime Minister of the Turkish Islamic Republic of Eastern Turkistan, Uyghur statesman, politician,phi…

Zhang, Xinjiang Fengbao Qishinian [Xinjiang in Tumult for Seventy Years], 3393-4.

People, Fear, Color, Way

“Argument almost always leaves behind a sore feeling in the heart of the one who has been worsted. By loving teaching, by Christ-like living, we are to win this people for our Lord. They do not understand what disinterested love and unselfishness mean: you are to go and live it amont them.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(J. Hudson Taylor. God's Fellow Workers. Philadelphia: Overseas Missionary Fellowship.).

Love, People, Feeling, Understanding

“We have neither killed anyone nor have we committed any crime for so many of our children to keep being murdered here each day as a punishment. There is a boy, Ateeq, who lived in this sector, who was martyred just this morning; and all praise is due to Allah, his grave gave off a fragrance. All of us could smell it, and it was exactly the scent which came from my father's grave. We believe that if even a few people stand up to a large army, they can confront it if they are on the Truth; and we are on the Truth -- that is why we have been able to fight them for so long.”

Abdul Rashid Ghazi (1964–2007) Pakistani fundamentalist

Children, People, Truth, Boy

“It is difficult to describe how it feels to gaze at living human beings whom you’ve seen perform in hard-core porn. To shake the hand of a man whose precise erectile size, angle, and vasculature are known to you. That strange I-think-we’ve-met-before sensation one feels upon seeing any celebrity in the flesh is here both intensified and twisted. It feels intensely twisted to see reigning industry queen Jenna Jameson chilling out at the Vivid booth in Jordaches and a latex bustier and to know already that she has a tattoo of a sundered valentine with the tagline HEART BREAKER on her right buttock and a tiny hairless mole just left of her anus.”

David Foster Wallace book Consider the Lobster

Big Red Son, p. 16
Consider the Lobster (2007)

Feeling, Thinking, Heart, Tattoo

“I am accustomed, as a professional mathematician, to living in a sort of vacuum, surrounded by people who declare with an odd sort of pride that they are mathematically illiterate.”

David Mumford (1937) American mathematician

David Mumford, cited in: Michael Harris (2015), Mathematics without Apologies: Portrait of a Problematic Vocation. p. 5

People, Mathematics

“Must an artist live in the world or out of it? I believe this to be an unanswerable question. Total retirement, natural to the Saint, is injurious to most artists. They work marvelously so long as there are materials at hand. Goethe has further advice: "Solitude is a wonderful thing when one is at peace with oneself and when there is a definite task to be accomplished."”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Working

World, Peace, Question, Nature

“For a lazy man I work awfully hard, I couldn't live without acting. In fact anybody who can live without that feeling is a complete idiot.”

Peter Lorre (1904–1964) Austrian actor

Movie Villain Peter Lorre http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-peter-lorre-19640324-story.html

Feeling

“Interviewer: So between those two, if you lived in your own manga world, what would you be like?”

Hiromu Arakawa (1973) award winning Japanese manga artist

Interview with mobuta.com (2004)

World

“Humbly, I seek the blessing of the Lord. I am overwhelmed with a sense of inadaquacy. I feel shaken. I'd like to express appreciation to my father, who lies critically ill. No son ever had a better father. I'd like to express appreciation to my mother. I say these things, because I'd like to make the point that all of us in our various situations are the result, largely, of the lives that touch ours. And today, I feel profoundly grateful for all who have touched mine.”

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

General Conference, October, 1958

Feeling, Sense

“The party is all-embracing. It rules our lives in all their breadth and depth… There will be no license, no free space, in which the individual belongs to himself. This is Socialism… Let them then own land or factories as much as they please. The decisive factor is that the State, through the party, is supreme over them, regardless whether they are owners or workers.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Source: Disputed, Hitler Speaks (1940), p. 191.

Decision

“The parks do not belong to one state or to one section…. The Yosemite, the Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon are national properties in which every citizen has a vested interest; they belong as much to the man of Massachusetts, of Michigan, of Florida, as they do to the people of California, of Wyoming, and of Arizona. Who will gainsay that the parks contain the highest potentialities of national pride, national contentment, and national health? A visit inspires love of country; begets contentment; engenders pride of possession; contains the antidote for national restlessness…. He is a better citizen with a keener appreciation of the privilege of living here who has toured the national parks”

Stephen Mather

FAMOUS QUOTES CONCERNING THE NATIONAL PARKS https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/hisnps/NPSThinking/famousquotes.htm

Love, People, Health, Country

“I also think living in the country gives you faith. All you have to do is get up and look at the mountains and look at the other animals to realize that your problems are mostly made up or exacerbated by humans. But human life isn't necessarily life. There's so much more out there.”

Rita Mae Brown (1944) Novelist, poet, screenwriter, activist

Interview in OutSmart magazine https://web.archive.org/web/20080727021104/http://home.houston.rr.com/blase/Root%20Folder/ritamae.html (January 1998)

Life, Faith, Mountain, Problem

“We live in a system described in obsolete terms. We have come to believe our own repeated declarations that our society is based on individual initiative – whereas, in fact, most of it is no more individual than an infantry division. We assume that our economic system is based on “private property.” Yet most industrial property is is no more private than a seat in a subway train, and indeed it is questionable whether much of it can be called “property” at all. We indignantly deny that we are collectivist, yet it is demonstrable that more than two-thirds of our enterprise is possible only because it is collectivist: what is really meant is that the State did not do the collectivizing.”

Adolf A. Berle (1895–1971) American diplomat

Source: Power Without Property, 1959, p. 27; Cited in asociologist.com http://asociologist.com/2009/12/07/retrosociology-quotes-of-the-day-berle-power-without-property/, 2009/12/07.

Question, Training

“Born in 1883 and dying in 1946, the bulk of Keynes's professional life was framed by two world wars. At the beginning, he was an Edwardian optimist, convinced that automatic progress was steadily enlarging opportunities for more and more people to live the 'good life', as identified by his mentor, G. E. Moore, and his friends of the Bloomsbury Group. He ended his life bequeathing the world a theory, policies and two international institutions (the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) designed to strengthen the foundations of free economy, so as to make it possible again for people to indulge the hopes with which he had grown up. In between, there was catastrophe and retrogression, starting in Europe and spreading to most of the rest of the world.”

Robert Skidelsky (1939) Economist and author

John Maynard Keynes: 1883-1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman (2003), Introduction

Life, War, People, World

“Searching for a cure for aging is not just a nice thing that we should perhaps one day get around to. It is an urgent, screaming moral imperative. The sooner we start a focused research program, the sooner we will get results. It matters if we get the cure in 25 years rather than in 24 years: a population greater than that of Canada would die as a result. In this matter, time equals life, at a rate of approximately 70 lives per minute. With the meter ticking at such a furious rate, we should stop faffing about.”

Nick Bostrom (1973) Swedish philosopher

The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html (2005)

Life, Age, Search, Time

“Certain coincidences risk passing unnoticed; certain people have appeared in our lives on several occasions without our realizing it.”

Patrick Modiano (1945) French writer

Suspended Sentences (1993)

People, Appearance

“Couric: And when it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?Palin: I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.Couric: What, specifically?Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.Couric: Can you name a few?Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn't a foreign country, where it's kind of suggested, "Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D. C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?"”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.
Interview with Katie Couric, CBS Evening News,
2008-09-30
Sarah Palin Answers What Newspapers, Magazines Inform Her Worldview: "Most Of 'Em...All Of 'Em...Any Of 'Em," "Alaska Is Like A Microcosm Of America"
The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/30/sarah-palin-answers-what_n_130706.html
2008-09-30
Palin: ‘I’m the New Energy’
Lisa
Tozzi
The Caucus
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/palin-im-the-new-energy/
2008, 2008 interviews with Katie Couric

World, Understanding, Thinking, Reading

“People say, "Dinosaurs on the Ark? Now, Hovind, they are kind of big aren't they?" The big ones were big, but the little ones were little. You see Noah was 600 years old when he built that big boat. He was probably smart enough to know that you do not have to bring the biggest dinosaurs. You bring two babies, be sure to bring a pink one and a blue one that will be important later, okay. There are all kinds of reasons for bringing babies on the ark. You bring babies because they are smaller. The biggest dinosaur egg is smaller than a football. You bring babies because they weigh less, they eat less, they sleep a lot more, and they are a lot tougher. Do you know that when kids fall they bounce and then they get up and keep running? Adults fall down and break or they lay there a while. Plus you bring babies because after the flood they will live longer to produce the offspring. And that's the whole reason that you are bringing them. Why on earth would you bring big elephants on the ark? That would be stupid, for multiple reasons. Why would you bring a big giraffe? Just bring babies of everything.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), Dinosaurs and the Bible

People, Stupidity, Sleep, Football

“If you told me I was going to live to 240, I would take 10 years off and try and act. I don't have that kind of time, so I'd much rather stick to playing guitar.”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

On why he has no plans to go into acting any time soon AP (2006). "John Mayer looks for magic, sneakers" http://edition.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/20/qa.johnmayer.ap/ CNN.com (accessed September 22, 2006)

Time

“In this country — the most favored beneath the bending skies — we have vast areas of the richest and most fertile soil, material resources in inexhaustible abundance, the most marvelous productive machinery on earth, and millions of eager workers ready to apply their labor to that machinery to produce in abundance for every man, woman, and child — and if there are still vast numbers of our people who are the victims of poverty and whose lives are an unceasing struggle all the way from youth to old age, until at last death comes to their rescue and lulls these hapless victims to dreamless sleep, it is not the fault of the Almighty: it cannot be charged to nature, but it is due entirely to the outgrown social system in which we live that ought to be abolished not only in the interest of the toiling masses but in the higher interest of all humanity…”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

Federal Court statement (1918)

Death, People, Youth, Age

“The time has been in Israel under the law of God, the celestial law, or that which pertains to the celestial law, for it is one of the laws of that kingdom where our Father dwells, that if a man was found guilty of adultery, he must have his blood shed, and that is near at hand. But now I say, in the name of the Lord, that if this people will sin no more, but faithfully live their religion, their sins will be forgiven them without taking life.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 4:219 (Feb. 8, 1857)
1850s

Life, God, People, Religion

“We live in a world in which the only utopian visions arrive in commercial breaks: magical visions of an impossibly hospitable world, peopled by bright-eyed attractive men, women, children… Where nobody dies… In my worlds people died. And I thought that was honest. I thought I was being honest.”

Neil Gaiman book Signal to Noise

Signal to Noise (1992)

Women, Men, Children, People

“Propensities for crime are irrelevant in a discussion about the murder of an individual — Ms. Kathryn Steinle and all other victims of criminals who should not be in the U. S. For these deaths have nothing to do with aggregate crime rates; they're about individuals who should be alive: a baby that should have been born, a girl who should be among the living, young men and women who should not be dead. To justify the crime-probabilities line-of-inquiry in the context of killer Francisco Sanchez' presence that day on the San Francisco pier, you would need to show that had Sanchez been deported or jailed or turned back at the border—his victim, Ms. Steinle, would nevertheless have suffered the same fate at the hands of a native murderer. The same eventuality would need to be demonstrated with respect to each individual victim of a criminal alien. The implication is crushingly stupid.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"The Hispandering Effect," http://www.quarterly-review.org/the-hispandering-effect/ The Quarterly Review, July 12, 2015. 2010s, 2015

Death, Women, Men, Fate

“The enemy may land on this island soon. Once they do, we must follow the fate of those on Attu and Saipan. Our officers and men know about “Death” very well. I am sorry to end my life here, fighting the United States of America, but I want to defend this island as long as possible and to delay the enemy air raids on Tokyo. Ah! You have worked well for a long time as my wife and the mother of my three children. Your life will become harder and more precarious. Watch out for your health and live long. The future of our children will not be easy either. Please take care of them after my death.”

Tadamichi Kuribayashi (1891–1945) Japanese general

Letter to his wife shortly before the Battle of Iwo Jima.

Life, Death, Men, Fate

“I am upset I am very much disappointed when I see within myself a wrong image of myself…. A man can live without fingers, but he cannot live without self-respect…. That is why I took up leprosy work. Not to help anyone but to overcome that fear in my life. That it worked out good for others is a byproduct. But the fact is I did it to overcome fear.”

Baba Amte (1914–2008) Indian freedom fighter, social worker

On his motivation to treat leprosy patients, Page=9
Baba Amte: A Vision of New India

Life, Fear, Disappointment, Help

“Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;
The confidence of reason give,
And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live!”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Stanza 8. Ode to Duty http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww271.html (1805)

Truth, Confidence, Light

“I am going because the Army did not give me the political support to continue as commander and President of the nation. I am not one of those who abandon the ship in the middle of tempests or difficult hours such as those the nation is living in today. The people of the nation know this.”

Leopoldo Galtieri (1926–2003) Argentine military dictator

"AROUND THE WORLD; Former Argentina Chief Testifies on War" http://www.nytimes.com/1983/03/25/world/around-the-world-former-argentina-chief-testifies-on-war.html, The New York Times (March 25, 1983)

People, Support

“There's this brutal imperial power, that my passport says I represent.
But it will never represent where my heart lives, only vaguely where it went.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Animal
Song lyrics

Heart

“saddened to hear the passing of a true artistic master, H. R. Giger. Ur legacy will live on through ur innovative & stimulating originality”

Frances Bean Cobain (1992) American artist

13 May 2014 https://twitter.com/alka_seltzer666/status/466293929432723456 Twitter https://twitter.com/alka_seltzer666 posts

“I will not seek the battle-field —
The men I there should meet,
What have they done to me to make
Shedding their life-blood sweet?
It is the veriest madness man
In maddest mood can frame,
To feed the earth with human gore,
And then to call it fame.
I have been wrong'd; but were my wrong
The deadliest wrong ere done,
I would not slay my enemy,
But bid him still live on :—
And I should deem my vengeance more
Than the death-wound in strife—
What ills can death inflict like those
Heap'd on each hour of life?”

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

19th August 1826) Metrical Fragments - No. 1 (under the pen name Iole
The London Literary Gazette, 1826

Life, Death, Men, Mood

“I’ve only known a vegan life and have been constantly teaching others of the joys and benefits of being a vegan … As an adult, I THANK my Mother profusely for being extremely honest with me as a kid and for never hiding the truth about milk, “meat”, animal experimentation … There is speciesism and that is about as cruel as it gets because it sets the stage and practice for cruelty amongst human beings. … Discrimination is discrimination—as abuse is abuse … regardless of an animals human or nonhuman form, gender, ethnicity, ability, sexual orientation or level of intelligence/knowledge it should be our birthright to LIVE our lives peacefully and harmoniously without inflicting pain on others. People who inflict intentional pain without moral or ethical regard for other human or nonhuman animals are just reminders of how much further we have to go until oppression is completely eradicated.”

Seba Johnson (1973) Olympic skier

"Interview with Seba Johnson" http://www.theghostsinourmachine.com/interview-with-seba-johnson/, The Ghosts in Our Machine (2014).

Life, Pain, People, Truth

“[…] the drum major instinct is real. And you know what else it causes to happen? It often causes us to live above our means.”

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

1960s, The Drum Major Instinct (1968)

“At its beginnings there was very powerful meditation on the presence of Christ in the oppressed Indians, which objectively pointed toward a christology of the "body of Christ." Guamán Poma, for example, said, "By faith we know clearly that where there is a poor person there is Jesus Christ himself," and Bartolomé de las Casas declared, "In the Indies I leave Jesus Christ, our God, being whipped and afflicted, and buffeted and crucified, not once but thousands of times, as often as the Spaniards assault and destroy those people." But this original christological insight did not thrive, and what became the tradition was a christology based on the dogmatic formulas, in which— however well they were known and understood— what was stressed was the divinity of Christ rather than his real and lived humanity.”

Jon Sobrino (1938) Spanish theologian

Source: Jesus the Liberator (1991), p. 11

God, People, Faith, Affliction

“We can not live as disposable people. The broader community, which has firmly established compulsory heterosexuality as the law of the universe, has to get over its problem with us.”

Jeffrey Montgomery (1953–2016) American LGBT rights activist and public relations executive

America...You Kill Me

People, Law, Communication, Problem

“"I am but as others: I am but what I was born to be."
"Do you recognize what you were born to be? Not only a nobleman, but a gentleman; not only a gentleman, but a man — man, made in the image of God. How can you, how dare you, give the lie to your Creator?"
"What has He given me? What have I to thank Him for?"
"First, manhood; the manhood His Son disdained not to wear; worldly gifts, such as rank, riches, influence, things which others have to spend half an existence in earning; life in its best prime, with much of youth yet remaining — with grief endured, wisdom learnt, experience won. Would to Heaven, that by any poor word of mine I could make you feel all that you are — all that you might be!"
A gleam, bright as a boy's hope, wild as a boy's daring, flashed from those listless eyes — then faded.
"You mean, Mr. Halifax, what I might have been. Now it is too late."
"There is no such word as 'too late,' in the wide world — nay, not in the universe. What! shall we, whose atom of time is but a fragment out of an ever-present eternity — shall we, so long as we live, or even at our life's ending, dare to cry out to the Eternal One, 'It is too late!'"”

Dinah Craik book John Halifax, Gentleman

Source: John Halifax, Gentleman (1857), Chapter 36

Life, Wisdom, God, Lie

“Nothing ever does happen in the future and nothing ever has happened in the past; the only happening is in the present moment. And yet people everywhere are so wrapped up in the past and future that the present moment tends to be overlooked. Yet this present moment is the only moment of reality; everything else is imagination. Now is the only time we can live. We can't live in the past, although some attempt it, and we can't live in the future. We live now or not at all.”

Martin Cecil, 7th Marquess of Exeter (1909–1988) Marquess of Exeter

On Eagle's Wings, 1977, p. 159
As of a Trumpet, On Eagle's Wings

People, Imagination, Reality, Time

“I was going through the motions of life, instead of really living, and there’s no excuse for that. It’s not something I’ll let happen to me again.”

Charles de Lint (1951) author

Making a Noise in This World in Hartwell ed. Year's Best Fantasy, (2000) p. 326

Life

“In 16th-century Italy there lived Lodovico Gonzaga, a 16-year old seminarist who was very fond of playing ball. Once a certain priest passing by wondered if for a future priest the youth was too keen on his pursuit and asked him:"What would you do if you learned that in half an hour the end of the world was coming?" To which Lodovico replied: "I'd play on." According to the Russian thinker Georgy Fedotov, the importance of culture lies in precisely that: we go on playing ball on the verge of Doomsday…”

Vladimir Barsky (1866–1936) Russian film director

Chromaticism, trans. Romela Kohanovskaya (1996, , Introduction, p. ix

Youth, World, Learning, Future

“The idea that voting is pointless, democracy a façade, and that no one is representing ordinary people is more resonant than ever as I leave my ordinary town behind. Amidst the guilt and anger I feel in the back of the Führer-mobile, there is hope. Whilst it’s clear that on an individual, communal, and global level that radical change is necessary, I feel a powerful, transcendent optimism. I know change is possible, I know there is an alternative, because I live a completely different life to the one I was born with. I also know that the solution is not fame or money or any transient adornment of the individual. The only Revolution that can really change the world is the one in your own consciousness, and mine has already begun.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Life, Money, People, World

“That's the nub of the thing, you see — seriousness of spirit. It doesn't mean heaviness of heart, or a lack of fantasy, but it does mean an awareness of influences that touch our lives, sometimes in ways that seem cruel and unfeeling, and sometimes in ways that open up a glory which can never be forgotten.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Scottish Folklore and Opera (1992).

Way, Heart

“God not only told them what to do and how to live before the Flood, He also told them what to eat. He gave them a perfect diet. God said, I want you to eat the herbs. Kids, eat your vegetables, the fruit, and the seeds (Genesis 1:29). We don't do that much. We eat the hamburger, french fries, and Coke. God said eat the fruit, vegetables, and seeds. When you eat the fruit, you should eat the seed. When you eat a peach, eat the seed. You say that thing's hard. Well, crack it open with a hammer. The seed is inside the hull, okay. […] Now be sure to get organically grown seeds, not the ones grown on steroids and pesticides. But the seeds contain a bitter substance called cyanide. That'll give you a pucker that'll last about an hour and a half. […] But these seeds contain a vitamin called vitamin B-17 which is half cyanide. You say, oh, that's poison. Oh, it's not either! […] So the cyanide found in the seeds is mixed with benzaldehyde. Both are poison, but together they're harmless. Until they bump into a cancer cell!”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Garden of Eden

God, Perfection

“I know that most men — not only those considered clever, but even those who are very clever and capable of understanding most difficult scientific, mathematical, or philosophic, problems — can seldom discern even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as obliges them to admit the falsity of conclusions they have formed, perhaps with much difficulty — conclusions of which they are proud, which they have taught to others, and on which they have built their lives.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Opening to Ch 14. Translation from: What Is Art and Essays on Art (Oxford University Press, 1930, trans. Aylmer Maude)
As quoted by physicist Joseph Ford in Chaotic Dynamics and Fractals (1985) edited by Michael Fielding Barnsley and Stephen G. Demko
What is Art? (1897)
Variant: I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.

Men, Truth, Mathematics, Understanding

“I study the lives on a leaf: the little
Sleepers, numb nudgers in cold dimensions.”

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) American poet

"The Minimal," ll. 1-2
The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)

Study

“I do know without fear of contradiction what the definition of life is and it is 12 words long. 'Life is defined by how much you improve the lives of others.”

Keith Olbermann (1959) American sports and political commentator

" " Senior Convocation Speech http://www.news.cornell.edu/campus/Olbermann_speech.html," Cornell University (1998-05-23)

Life, Fear

“Management’ll never go for it. First, it’s live-animal research, which is controversial. Management hates controversy. Second, it’s something innovative, which means Management will hate it on principle.”

Connie Willis Bellwether

Source: Bellwether (1996), Chapter 4 “Rapids”, Section 2 (p. 151)

Hate, Animals

“Our planet, the Earth, is, as far as we know, unique in the universe. It contains life. Even in its most barren stretches, there are animals. Around the equator, where those two essentials for life, sunshine and moisture, are most abundant, great forests grow. And here plants and animals proliferate in such numbers that we still have not even named all the different species. Here, animals and plants, insects and birds, mammals and man live together in intimate and complex communities, each dependent on one another. Two thirds of the surface of this unique planet are covered by water, and it was here indeed that life began. From the oceans, it has spread even to the summits of the highest mountains as animals and plants have responded to the changing face of the Earth.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

Opening narration
The Living Planet (1984)

Life, Mountain, Communication, Bird

“Cossacks, I must tell you that you are the butchers of the Russian workers. Will you continue to be so in the future, or will you acknowledge your own wickedness and join the ranks of the oppressed? Up to now you have shown no respect for the poor workers. For one of the tsar's rubles or a glass of wine, you have nailed them living to the cross.”

Maria Nikiforova (1885–1919) Revolutionary, anarchist

Speech to cossack cavalry loyal to the White movement.
[harv, Archibald, Malcolm, http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/marusya.htm, Atamansha: the Story of Maria Nikiforova, the Anarchist Joan of Arc, Black Cat Press, Dublin, 19, 2007, 9780973782707, 239359065]

Wine, Future