Quotes about making
page 28

Malcolm X photo

“President Kennedy never foresaw that the chickens would come home to roost so soon. Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they've always made me glad.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

On the assassination of John F. Kennedy, quoted in New York Times (2 December 1963) "Malcolm X Scores U.S. and Kennedy" http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0812FE35541A7B93C0A91789D95F478685F9. p. 21.

Nikola Tesla photo
Theodor W. Adorno photo

“Elements of empirical language are manipulated in their rigidity, as if they were elements of a true and revealed language. The empirical usability of the sacred ceremonial words makes both the speaker and listener believe in their corporeal presence.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

Source: Jargon der Eigentlichkeit [Jargon of Authenticity] (1964), p. 7

Paul Dirac photo

“The aim of science is to make difficult things understandable in a simpler way; the aim of poetry is to state simple things in an incomprehensible way. The two are incompatible.”

Paul Dirac (1902–1984) theoretical physicist

As quoted in Dirac: A Scientific Biography (1990), by Helge Kragh, p. 258
Source: [Kragh, Helge, Dirac: A Scientific Biography, https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zXm1Bso1VREC&pg=PA258&lpg=PA258&dq=%22The+aim+of+science+is+to+make+difficult+things+understandable+in+a+simpler+way;+the+aim+of+poetry+is+to+state+simple+things+in+an+incomprehensible+way.+The+two+are+incompatible%22&source=bl&ots=OLeGFpZGCh&sig=VRga1I7FVl9UBpXi_oAq_-8u_ls&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjBwLbbwdvVAhXIIMAKHZ_pCZQQ6AEIOTAD#v=onepage&q=%22The%20aim%20of%20science%20is%20to%20make%20difficult%20things%20understandable%20in%20a%20simpler%20way%3B%20the%20aim%20of%20poetry%20is%20to%20state%20simple%20things%20in%20an%20incomprehensible%20way.%20The%20two%20are%20incompatible%22&f=false, March 30, 1990, 258, December 6, 2017]

Jim Caviezel photo
Steven Weinberg photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Morihei Ueshiba photo

“Aiki is not a technique to fight with or defeat an enemy. It is the way to reconcile the world and make human beings one family.”

Morihei Ueshiba (1883–1969) founder of aikido

As quoted in It's A Lot Like Dancing… : An Aikido Journey (1993 by Terry Dobson Riki Moss, and Jan E. Watson - 9781883319021}}

Fred Rogers photo

“Vermont is a small state which makes an enormous difference.”

Fred Rogers (1928–2003) American television personality

Commencement Address at Middlebury College May, 2001 http://web.archive.org/web/20030906163501/http://www.middlebury.edu/offices/pubaff/general_info/addresses/Fred_Rogers_2001.htm

Barbara Bush photo

“Avoid this crowd like the plague. And if they quote you, make damn sure they heard you.”

Barbara Bush (1925–2018) former First Lady of the United States

Advice about news reporters, to incoming first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, on a tour of the White House, as quoted in Newsweek magazine (30 November 1992)

Anthony de Mello photo

“Those who make no mistakes are making the biggest mistakes of all — they are attempting nothing new.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Source: One Minute Nonsense (1992), p. 20

Robert Oppenheimer photo

“I can make it clearer; I can't make it simpler.”

Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967) American theoretical physicist and professor of physics

Words spoken to his class at Berkeley during the period 1932-1934, as quoted by Wendell Furry in American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005), by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, p. 84

Andrew Jackson photo

“Desperate courage makes One a majority.”

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States

As quoted by James Parton in the Life of Andrew Jackson http://books.google.com/books?id=bWYFAAAAQAAJ&q=%22Desperate+courage+makes+One+a+majority%22&pg=PA501#v=onepage (1860), vol. III, ch. XXXVI, "War Upon the Bank Renewed"
However, see also the mis-attributed quote "one man with courage makes a majority."
1820s

Joseph Brodsky photo
Karl Marx photo
William S. Burroughs photo

“Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don’t make compromises, don’t worry about making a bunch of money or being successful — be concerned with doing good work and make the right choices and protect your work. And if you build a good name, eventually, that name will be its own currency.”

William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer

Recounted by Patti Smith in an Interview by Christian Lund http://vimeo.com/57857893, the Louisiana Literature festival August 24, 2012, at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art

Max Scheler photo

“Jesus’ “mysterious” affection for the sinners, which is closely related to his ever-ready militancy against the scribes and pharisees, against every kind of social respectability … contains a kind of awareness that the great transformation of life, the radical change in outlook he demands of man (in Christian parlance it is called “rebirth”) is more accessible to the sinner than to the “just.” … Jesus is deeply skeptical toward all those who can feign the good man’s blissful existence through the simple lack of strong instincts and vitality. But all this does not suffice to explain this mysterious affection. In it there is something which can scarcely be expressed and must be felt. When the noblest men are in the company of the “good”—even of the truly “good,” not only of the pharisees—they are often overcome by a sudden impetuous yearning to go to the sinners, to suffer and struggle at their side and to share their grievous, gloomy lives. This is truly no temptation by the pleasures of sin, nor a demoniacal love for its “sweetness,” nor the attraction of the forbidden or the lure of novel experiences. It is an outburst of tempestuous love and tempestuous compassion for all men who are felt as one, indeed for the universe as a whole; a love which makes it seem frightful that only some should be “good,” while the others are “bad” and reprobate. In such moments, love and a deep sense of solidarity are repelled by the thought that we alone should be “good,” together with some others. This fills us with a kind of loathing for those who can accept this privilege, and we have an urge to move away from them.”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1961), pp. 100-101

Art Spiegelman photo

“There's a therapeutic aspect to all making, but the nature of working is to compress, condense, and shape stuff, not to just expunge it. It's not just an exorcism.”

Art Spiegelman (1948) cartoonist from the United States

As quoted in "Art Spiegelman on ‘Breakdowns’ Redux and the Dark Side of Tina Fey" by Rebecca Milzoff in New York magazine (8 October 2008).

Vladimir Nabokov photo
Leon Trotsky photo
Barack Obama photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Françoise Sagan photo

“Nothing becomes some women more than the prick of ambition. Love, on the contrary, may make them very dull.”

Dans un mois, dans un an (1957, Those Without Shadows, translated 1957)

Saki photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“In my opinion the religion that makes men rebel and fight against their government is not the genuine article, nor is the religion the right sort which reconciles them to the idea of eating their bread in the sweat of other men's faces. It is not the kind to get to heaven on.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

As quoted in Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, 1847-1865 https://archive.org/details/recollectionsab00lamogoog (1895), by Ward Hill Lamon, p. 90
1860s

Germaine Greer photo
H.P. Lovecraft photo
Karl Polanyi photo

“You are born with two things: existence and opportunity, and these are the raw materials out of which you can make a successful life.”

Charles Templeton (1915–2001) Canadian cartoonist, evangelist, agnostic, politician, newspaper editor, inventor, broadcaster and author

Succeeding (1989)

Stefan Zweig photo
John Lydon photo
Barack Obama photo
Aleksandr Pushkin photo
Claude Monet photo

“I am in a very black mood and profoundly disgusted with painting. It really is a continual torture! Don't expect to see anything new, the little I did manage to do has been destroyed, scraped off, or torn up. You've no idea what appalling weather we've had continuously these two past months. When you're trying to convey the weather, the atmosphere and the general mood, it's enough to make you mad with rage.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Quote from Monet's letter to art-critic and his friend Gustave Geffroy, Giverny 1890; as cited in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 56
1890 - 1900

Barack Obama photo
Krist Novoselic photo
Rainer Maria Rilke photo
Jack Ma photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Percy Bysshe Shelley photo

“I love Love — though he has wings,
And like light can flee,
But above all other things,
Spirit, I love thee —
Thou art love and life! Oh come,
Make once more my heart thy home.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

St. 8
Song: Rarely, Rarely, Comest Thou http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley/17889 (1821)

Matthew Perry (actor) photo
John Henry Newman photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Juvenal photo

“Bitter poverty has no harder pang than that it makes men ridiculous.”
Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se, quam quod ridiculos homines facit.

Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se,
quam quod ridiculos homines facit.
III, line 152-3.
Variant translations:
Of all the Griefs that harrass the Distrest,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful Jest.
As translated by Samuel Johnson
The hardest thing to bear in poverty is the fact that it makes men ridiculous.
Wretched poverty offers nothing harsher than this: it makes men ridiculous.
Satires, Satire III

Pericles photo
Mark Twain photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Sukirti Kandpal photo
Jack Welch photo
Mark Twain photo

“It is more trouble to make a maxim than it is to do right.”

Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. III
Following the Equator (1897)

Abraham Lincoln photo
Mark Twain photo
Hippocrates photo

“Life is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult. The physician must not only be prepared to do what is right himself, but also to make the patient, the attendants, and externals cooperate.”

Hippocrates (-460–-370 BC) ancient Greek physician

Ὁ βίος βραχὺς, ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρὴ, ὁ δὲ καιρὸς ὀξὺς, ἡ δὲ πεῖρα σφαλερὴ, ἡ δὲ κρίσις χαλεπή. Δεῖ δὲ οὐ μόνον ἑωυτὸν παρέχειν τὰ δέοντα ποιεῦντα, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸν νοσέοντα, καὶ τοὺς παρεόντας, καὶ τὰ ἔξωθεν.
1:1, Variant translation: Art is long; life is short; opportunity is fleeting; judgement is difficult; experience is deceitful. Compare: "The lyfe so short, the craft so long to lerne", Geoffrey Chaucer, The Assembly of Fowles, line 1.
Aphorisms

Steve Jobs photo

“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

Quoted in Steve Jobs, the Journey Is the Reward (1988) by Jeffrey S. Young ISBN 155802378X
1980s

Maria Montessori photo
Silvio Berlusconi photo

“We must fight against tax evasion but also defend the rights of tax evaders, or companies that make mistakes”

Silvio Berlusconi (1936) Italian politician

As quoted in "Did I say This? in The Observer (20 April 2008) http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/apr/20/italy
2006

Sara Teasdale photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“…it [is] possible to suppose that, if Russia is allowed to have peace, an amazing industrial development may take place, making Russia a rival of the United States.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Part I, Ch. 5: Communism and the Soviet Constitution
1920s, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920)

Jordan Peterson photo
Voltaire photo
Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo
Friedrich Schiller photo
Barack Obama photo

“But right now, the key is to make sure that the public is following instructions. For those of you who still need additional information about how to respond, you can go to Ready. gov -- that’s Ready. gov. And that website should provide you with all the information that your family needs in terms of how you can prepare for this storm.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by the President on Hurricane Sandy http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2012/10/29/president-obama-makes-statement-hurricane-sandy#transcript, quoted in * 2012-10-29
FEMA, W.H. send storm victims to Internet
Steve
Friess
Politico
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/83024.html?hp=l10
2012-11-02
2012

John Locke photo
Emil M. Cioran photo

“What can be said, lacks reality. Only what fails to make its way into words exists and counts.”

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

Drawn and Quartered (1983)

Martin Luther photo
Saul Bellow photo
Barack Obama photo
Federico Fellini photo
Ronald Reagan photo
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi photo

“The right creative act makes its own laws, and always will do.”

John Piper (artist) (1903–1992) English painter and printmaker (1903-1992)

Foreword to Enid Verity's 'Colour' Frewin 1967 ISBN 009079110X

John Locke photo
Marcel Marceau photo

“Mime makes the invisible, visible and the visible, invisible.”

Marcel Marceau (1923–2007) French mime and actor

As quoted in Core Media Collection for Elementary Schools (1978) by Lucy Gregor Brown; unsourced variant or misquotation: "A magician makes the visible invisible. A mime makes the invisible visible."

Charles Dickens photo
Barack Obama photo
Robert Browning photo
H.P. Lovecraft photo

“I am essentially a recluse who will have very little to do with people wherever he may be. I think that most people only make me nervous—that only by accident, and in extremely small quantities, would I ever be likely to come across people who wouldn't. It makes no difference how well they mean or how cordial they are—they simply get on my nerves unless they chance to represent a peculiarly similar combination of tastes, experiences, and heritages; as, for instance, Belknap chances to do... Therefore it may be taken as axiomatic that the people of a place matter absolutely nothing to me except as components of the general landscape and scenery. Let me have normal American faces in the streets to give the aspect of home and a white man's country, and I ask no more of featherless bipeds. My life lies not among people but among scenes—my local affections are not personal, but topographical and architectural. No one in Providence—family aside—has any especial bond of interest with me, but for that matter no one in Cambridge or anywhere else has, either. The question is that of which roofs and chimneys and doorways and trees and street vistas I love the best; which hills and woods, which roads and meadows, which farmhouses and views of distant white steeples in green valleys. I am always an outsider—to all scenes and all people—but outsiders have their sentimental preferences in visual environment. I will be dogmatic only to the extent of saying that it is New England I must have—in some form or other. Providence is part of me—I am Providence—but as I review the new impressions which have impinged upon me since birth, I think the greatest single emotion—and the most permanent one as concerns consequences to my inner life and imagination—I have ever experienced was my first sight of Marblehead in the golden glamour of late afternoon under the snow on December 17, 1922. That thrill has lasted as nothing else has—a visible climax and symbol of the lifelong mysterious tie which binds my soul to ancient things and ancient places.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Lillian D. Clark (29 March 1926), quoted in Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters edited by S. T. Joshi, p. 186
Non-Fiction, Letters

Barack Obama photo

“Our government shouldn’t make promises we cannot keep — but we must keep the promises we’ve already made.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Fifth State of the Union Address (February 2013)

Walker Percy photo
Josh Billings photo

“Better make a weak man your enemy than your friend.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Affurisms. From Josh Billings: His Sayings (1865)

Bertrand Russell photo
Claude Monet photo
Barack Obama photo

“And one of the rules of good civil society I believe is that you’re respectful of the people who disagree with you. And that's part of what makes civil society work. If you can have civil disagreements, and you can listen to each other and not just shout, that's what creates an environment that leads to progress over the long term.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by President Obama in Conversation with Members of Civil Society at YALI Regional Leadership Center, Kenyatta University,Nairobi, Kenya https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/07/26/remarks-president-obama-conversation-members-civil-society (July 26, 2015)
2015

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“We shall make mistakes; and if we let these mistakes frighten us from our work we shall show ourselves weaklings.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), National Duties

Socrates photo
Thelonious Monk photo

“I don't know where it's going. Maybe it's going to hell. You can't make anything go anywhere. It just happens.”

Thelonious Monk (1917–1982) American jazz pianist and composer

When questioned as to the future of jazz, as quoted in Jet magazine (31 March 1960), p. 30

John Locke photo
Ludwig Wittgenstein photo
Kanye West photo

“We'll buy a lot of clothes when we don't really need 'em/Things we buy to cover up what's inside/Cause they make us hate our-self and love they wealth.”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

All Falls Down
Lyrics, The College Dropout (2004)

Viggo Mortensen photo

“Just because you are lucky does not mean you make good choices.”

Viggo Mortensen (1958) American actor

Euronews, Culture, Cinema, "Viggo Mortensen honoured at Marrakech Film Festival", http://www.euronews.com/2014/12/11/viggo-mortensen-honoured-at-marrakech-film-festival/ (December 11, 2014).

Mark Twain photo

“When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man's moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it? Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

"Consistency", paper read at the Hartford Monday Evening Club on 5 December 1887. The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, p. 582 http://books.google.com/books?id=sujuHO_fvJgC&pg=PA582&dq=%22When+the+doctrine+of+allegiance%22 (First published in the 1923 edition of Mark Twain's Speeches, ed. Albert Bigelow Paine, pp. 120-130, where it is incorrectly dated "following the Blaine-Cleveland campaign, 1884." (See Mark Twain's Notebooks & Journals (1979), ed. Frederick Anderson, Vol. 3, p. 41, footnote 92 http://books.google.com/books?id=kMbeUm4pJwsC&pg=PA41) Many reprints repeat Paine's dating.)

Emil M. Cioran photo

“All the concessions we make to Eros are holes in our desire for the absolute.”

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

The Book of Delusions (1936)

Anthony de Mello photo
Stephen Hawking photo

“If you are disabled, it is probably not your fault, but it is no good blaming the world or expecting it to take pity on you. One has to have a positive attitude and must make the best of the situation that one finds oneself in; if one is physically disabled, one cannot afford to be psychologically disabled as well. In my opinion, one should concentrate on activities in which one's physical disability will not present a serious handicap. I am afraid that Olympic Games for the disabled do not appeal to me, but it is easy for me to say that because I never liked athletics anyway. On the other hand, science is a very good area for disabled people because it goes on mainly in the mind. Of course, most kinds of experimental work are probably ruled out for most such people, but theoretical work is almost ideal. My disabilities have not been a significant handicap in my field, which is theoretical physics. Indeed, they have helped me in a way by shielding me from lecturing and administrative work that I would otherwise have been involved in. I have managed, however, only because of the large amount of help I have received from my wife, children, colleagues and students. I find that people in general are very ready to help, but you should encourage them to feel that their efforts to aid you are worthwhile by doing as well as you possibly can.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

"Handicapped People and Science" http://books.google.com/books?id=9LVFAAAAYAAJ&q=%22handicapped+people+and+science%22#search_anchor by Stephen Hawking, Science Digest 92, No. 9 (September 1984): 92 (details of citation from here http://www.enotes.com/stephen-hawking-criticism/hawking-stephen/further-reading).

Vladimir Nabokov photo

“After Olympia Press, in Paris, published the book, an American critic suggested that Lolita was the record of my love affair with the romantic novel. The substitution "English language" for "romantic novel" would make this elegant formula more correct.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

As quoted in "Nabokov's Love Affairs" by R. W. Flint http://www.powells.com/review/2003_07_17.html in The New Republic (17 June 1957).
On a Book Entitled Lolita (1956)