Quotes about making
page 99

“There is a fragrance in the air, a certain passage of a song, an old photograph falling out from the pages of a book, the sound of somebody's voice in the hall that makes your heart leap and fills your eyes with tears. Who can say when or how it will be that something easters up out of the dimness to remind us of a time before we were born and after we will die?”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

Telling the Truth (1977)

Books, Tear, Time, Heart

“It is a scale of proportions which makes the bad difficult and the good easy.”

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

Er ist eine Skala der Proportionen, die das Schlechte schwierig und das Gute leicht macht.
On the Modulor. Letter sent to Le Corbusier (1946); quoted in Modulor (1953)
1940s

“I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Language and Politics (1988) p. 775
Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1980s

Life, Thinking, Sense, Freedom

“Paul [McKenna] and I have been working on making each other’s hair fall out for years now, with some success.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV recordings of stage shows, Svengali (2012), Svengali tour brochure

Success

“The fault of democracy everywhere, including the United States of America, is that too few people make use of it.”

Bill Downs (1914–1978) American journalist

CBS radio broadcast from Berlin on March 2, 1949

People, Democracy

“My work is independent of my will. My best works are created when driven by an inner strength. This has nothing to do with my will. It is that immediate spontaneity of my intense way of living that makes the difference between my work and a lot of other artists who make art works with their mind.”

Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter

Letter to H. E. Kramer, 14-11-1927, as quoted in: Bram van Velde, A Tribute, Municipal Museum De Lakenhal Leiden, Municipal Museum Schiedam, Museum de Wieger, Deurne 1994, p. 46 (English translation: Charlotte Burgmans)
1920's

Art, Way

“Why are you so afraid of the word 'Fascism,' Doremus? Just a word—just a word! And might not be so bad, with all the lazy bums we got panhandling relief nowadays, and living on my income tax and yours—not so worse to have a real Strong Man, like Hitler or Mussolini—like Napoleon or Bismarck in the good old days—and have 'em really run the country and make it efficient and prosperous again. 'Nother words, have a doctor who won't take any back-chat, but really boss the patient and make him get well whether he likes it or not!”

Sinclair Lewis book It Can't Happen Here

It Can't Happen Here (1935)

Strong, Country

“You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind-legs. But by standing a whole flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men. If man were not a gregarious animal, the world might have achieved, by this time, some real progress towards civilization. Segregate him, and he is no fool. But let him loose among his fellows, and he is lost —- he becomes a unit in unreason.”

Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) English writer

Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. IX

Men, World, Fools, Time

“The idea that ancient equal years of accumulated wisdom is a fallacy. […] In medicine, 'ancient' also means developed before we understood the causes of disease, before germ theory. It was based on ignorance then and age makes it no truer. We misguidedly look back to a golden age that never was; ours is the golden age of safe tested medicine, effective beyond placebo, in which we've cut infant mortality and conquered diseases, then forgotten they existed.”

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

The Enemies of Reason, "The Irrational Health Service"
The Enemies of Reason (August 2007)

Wisdom, Age, Disease, Idea

“I really love seeing things go sour, because that’s the way dread creeps into life. A lot of horror films start with a great shock scene. I grew up on that model and it’s great fun, but very perversely, I’m interested in setting up something else, where you’re really engaged with the humanity of the characters — you could be in a normal drama with its own set of problems — and then something else develops. I like this philosophical question: what comes first, reality or your interpretation of it? However interesting that is, and whether it fits in with the horror genre, I don’t know, but I think it makes perfect sense.”

Larry Fessenden (1963) American actor, producer, writer, director, film editor, and cinematographer

Larry Fessenden’s Arty Horror Picture Show Continues with “Wendigo” http://www.indiewire.com/2002/02/interview-larry-fessendens-arty-horror-picture-show-continues-with-wendigo-80532/ (February 14, 2002)

Love, Life, Way, Question

“The pursuits of commerce would be as admirable as they are profitable if they were not subject to so great risks: and so, likewise, of banking, if it was always honestly conducted. For our ancestors considered, and so ordained in their laws, that, while the thief should be cast in double damages, the usurer should make four-fold restitution.”

Cato the Elder book De Agri Cultura

Introduction: of the dignity of the farmer
De Agri Cultura, about 160 BC

Law

“I think a lot of people see food in terms of whether it's going to make them fat or make them skinny. I'm seeing food in terms of how it's going to make me think and will it give me clarity.”

David Zabriskie (1979) road bicycle racer

"Riding the Tour De Vegetable" https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304314404576414124184873028, interview with The Wall Street Journal (29 June 2011).

People, Food, Thinking

“There's something deeper than making money off stuff. Being part of creating stuff for the universe is awesome.”

Ilya Zhitomirskiy (1989–2011) software developer

As quoted in Obituary by RayClaire at Glint (16 November 2011) http://r-c-d.diaryland.com/111117_11.html

Money, Universe, Parting

“This film was pivotal in my life, not so much because it was my first successful effort as a producer and director, but because Hitler was so fascinated by this film that he insisted I make a documentary about the Party rally in Nuremberg. The result was Triumph of the Will.”

Leni Riefenstahl (1902–2003) German film director, photographer, actress and dancer

On The Blue Light: Partly quoted in: Leni Riefenstahl (1992) The sieve of time: the memoirs of Leni Riefenstahl. p. 210

Life, Effort, Success

“What reason, I ask, a reason so much vaster than the other, makes dreams seem so natural and allows me to welcome unreservedly a welter of episodes so strange that they could confound me now as I write? And yet I can believe my eyes, my ears; this great day has arrived, this beast has spoken.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

Le Manifeste du Surréalisme, Andre Breton (Manifesto of Surrealism; 1924)

Dreams, Nature

“To make a contented slave it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken the moral and mental vision and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Source: 1840s, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845), Ch. 10

“The language of the game is interesting. You can think of the pauses as caesuras, breaks between the lines. As a poem the game is composed of a number of short lines representing the pitches. The number of lines per batter form a stanza. Then there is a space. Sometimes the stanzas become breathless, rushing full paragraphs that build rapidly on each other until the poem-inning explodes. The poem lives for this sudden blossoming out of prosodic regularity. Should someone make a computer analysis of baseball prosody, I believe that they would come up with something close to the prosody of some great American lyrical epic, Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, let’s say, or Doc Williams’s Patterson…. The game is definitely an epic … formed of many lyrical moments dependent on silences for their effectiveness. An unfolding story punctuated by brief emotional swellings.”

Andrei Codrescu (1946) American writer

“A Kind of Love,” The Muse Is Always Half-Dressed (1993).

Game, Thinking, Silence, Grass

“Every accommodation of Muslim demands leads to a sense of euphoria and a conviction that Allah is on their side. They see every act of appeasement as an invitation to make fresh demands.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali (1969) Dutch feminist, author

"Author, activist condemns Muslim faith at Palm Beach talk", Palm Beach Daily News (21 March 2009)

Sense

“It is an assumption brought forth countless of times in various contexts that the world would be better, drifting slower towards the ruin, if women had the "power"; if political leadership, decision making, government and economic life was in the hands of women. I think reality, the observation material, supports the assumption.”

Pentti Linkola (1932) Finnish ecologist

Women As The Protectors Of Life II (1996)

Life, Women, World, Support

“The only way to make it clear to him that he should not come here to our lists in the future, is to teach him a hard lesson, and that is done by continually re-adding cc's back to him -- because the mails talk about him -- even when his friends come our mailing lists and delete the his address from the cc list. Like this message, which adds him back in. Richard, you are a lying cheating hypocrite.”

Theo de Raadt (1968) systems software engineer

[Re: Real men don't attack straw men, MARC, openbsd-misc (Mailing list), http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=119761726816776, 2007-12-14, 2017-04-20]

Way, Lying, Future, Cheating

“That it has pleased God to make Holy Scripture obscure in certain places lest, if it were perfectly clear to all, it might be vulgarized and subjected to disrespect or be so misunderstood by people of limited intelligence as to lead them into error.”

Pope Gregory VII Pope from 1073 to 1085

In response to the request made in 1079 by Vratislaus, duke of Bohemia, seeking permission to use Slavonic in local church services.
Awake! magazine December 2011, page 7; They Tried to Keep God’s Word From the Masses.

God, People, Error, Intelligence

“A man who works for another is not going to be paid any more than he is worth; you can bet on that. A man ought to get what he can earn. Don't make any difference whether it's running a farm, running a bank or running a show; a man who knows he's making money for other people ought to get some of the profits he brings in. It's business, I tell you. There ain't no sentiment to it. Forget that stuff.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

Responding to a reporter asking whether or not he believed that other players merited salaries comparable to his own (i.e. $52,000 a year, as per Ruth's newly signed 1922 contract), as quoted in "Have to Get More of 'Em,' Says Babe Ruth When He Hears of the Income Tax," in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (March 10, 1922)

Money, People, Business, Forgetting

“'Live for Loving You' is a kind of song that really can live in many different genres. And, of course, when you do your live performances the first time that you perform a song you want to stay true to the record: because tha's what people want to hear, they want to hear the hit. But then after you have done it fifty thousand times and through many, many different tours, you start experimenting and doing stuff to surprise people. So, the cut that we are doing here for the "iTunes Orginal" is something that we love to do -- because we just took it and really broke it down to a Samba. You know, the Brazilians have an amazing edge -- percussively, I think -- they have amazing rhythms. And this song really fit that rhythm very nicely. So, we wanted to do it acoustically and really cool -- and like we've done many times on tour. Just break it down to just acoustic, no synths and things of that nature: just make it organic. And I love that song for that reason: because you could perform it with just a couple of bongos and some vocals if you had to. And it would still work.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

iTunes interview (released June 2, 2007)
2007, 2008

Love, People, Nature, Thinking

“States of soul rightly expressed, as the poet expresses them in moments of pure inspiration, retain forever the power of creating like states. It is this that makes genuine literature a vital force.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 172

Soul, Literature

“Nobody took it [Mein Kampf] seriously, nobody could, for nobody could make head or tail out of it.”

Hermann Rauschning (1887–1982) German politician

Source: The Revolution of Nihilism: Warning to the West (1939), p. 20

“The only American woman deserving a place on U. S. paper currency is, of course, Anne Hutchinson, a devout 17th century Protestant New Englander who was a fearless champion of religious liberty, family, free speech, and equality — not preference — for women in religious affairs. Perhaps a new piece of currency could be created, one to which the attachment of her portrait would do honor. Ms. Hutchinson, however, is out of contention in the Democrats’ virulent anti-Southern currency crusade because her character traits – and the fifteen children she had with one husband — just do not jive with being Modern Democratic Party Women, those who glory in, and seek legal, economic, and political preference for their talents in whining, vamping, aborting, as well as recognition for their indispensable and eagerly given help in making the United States one of the world’s industrial-scale producers of both pornography and the dismembered corpses of infants. There may be something that can be done, however. The portrait of another Democratic icon named Woodrow Wilson now adorns the $100,000 bill, which appears to be to be used mainly in transactions.”

Michael Scheuer (1952) American counterterrorism analyst

As quoted in Michael Scheuer's Non-Intervention http://non-intervention.com/1689/democrats-scourge-the-south-after-the-battle-flag-it%e2%80%99s-on-to-old-hickory/ (9 July 2015), by M. Scheuer. 2010s

Women, Children, World, Family

“"Make them read that it is no longer the fashion to wear birds upon hats. That will afford relief to your poor milliner and at the same time set free thousands of our darling birds who have been so cruelly used."
Popopo thanked the wise king and followed his advice.
The office of every newspaper and magazine in the city was visited by the knook, and then he went to other cities, until there was not a publication in the land that had not a "new fashion note" in its pages. Sometimes Popopo enchanted the types, so that whoever read the print would see only what the knook wished them to. Sometimes he called upon the busy editors and befuddled their brains until they wrote exactly what he wanted them to. Mortals seldom know how greatly they are influenced by fairies, knooks and ryls, who often put thoughts into their heads that only the wise little immortals could have conceived.
The following morning when the poor milliner looked over her newspaper she was overjoyed to read that "no woman could now wear a bird upon her hat and be in style, for the newest fashion required only ribbons and laces."”

L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) Children's writer, editor, journalist, screenwriter

"The Enchanted Types", in American Fairy Tales (1901)
Short stories

Fashion, Business, Bird, Time

“I do not oppose the insane asylum—but I abhor and condemn the cutthroat system that robs man of his reason, drives him to insanity and makes the lunatic asylum an indispensable adjunct to every civilized community.”

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

What's the matter with Chicago? (1902)

Communication

“The utopian urge that prompted us in recent decades to write the world's thickest instruction manual, naming it the law of the land, has led us to invent a device that, like detailed rules, also avoids the untidiness of human judgment. It goes by an ancient name, process, but its purpose is new. It once existed to help humans make responsible decisions. Process now has become an end in itself.”

Philip K. Howard (1948) American lawyer

The Death of Common Sense, ISBN 0-679-42994-8, p. 60.

World, Law, Decision, Help

“A singer who is able to sing even sixteen measures of good music in a natural and engaging way, effortlessly and in tune, without distending the phrase, without exaggerating accents to the point of caricature, without platitude, affectation, or coyness, without making grammatical mistakes, without illicit slurs, without hiatus or hiccup, without making insolent changes in the text, without barks or bleats, without sour notes, without crippling the rhythm, without absurd ornaments and nauseating appoggiaturas – in short, a singer able to sing these measures simply and exactly as the composer wrote them – is a rare, very rare, exceedingly rare bird.”

Hector Berlioz book À travers chants

Un chanteur ou une cantatrice capable de chanter seize mesures seulement de bonne musique avec une voix naturelle, bien posée, sympathique, et de les chanter sans efforts, sans écarteler la phrase, sans exagérer jusqu'à la charge les accents, sans platitude, sans afféterie, sans mièvreries, sans fautes de français, sans liaisons dangereuses, sans hiatus, sans insolentes modifications du texte, sans transposition, sans hoquets, sans aboiements, sans chevrotements, sans intonations fausses, sans faire boiter le rhythme, sans ridicules ornements, sans nauséabondes appogiatures, de manière enfin que la période écrite par le compositeur devienne compréhensible, et reste tout simplement ce qu'il l'a faite, est un oiseau rare, très-rare, excessivement rare. À travers chants, ch. 8 http://www.hberlioz.com/Writings/ATC08.htm; Elizabeth Csicsery-Rónay (trans.) The Art of Music and Other Essays (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994) p. 69.

Music, Way, Nature, Bird

“In 1965 alone we had 300 private talks for peace in Vietnam, with friends and adversaries throughout the world. Since Christmas your government has labored again, with imagination and endurance, to remove any barrier to peaceful settlement. For 20 days now we and our Vietnamese allies have dropped no bombs in North Vietnam. Able and experienced spokesmen have visited, in behalf of America, more than 40 countries. We have talked to more than a hundred governments, all 113 that we have relations with, and some that we don't. We have talked to the United Nations and we have called upon all of its members to make any contribution that they can toward helping obtain peace. In public statements and in private communications, to adversaries and to friends, in Rome and Warsaw, in Paris and Tokyo, in Africa and throughout this hemisphere, America has made her position abundantly clear. We seek neither territory nor bases, economic domination or military alliance in Vietnam. We fight for the principle of self-determination—that the people of South Vietnam should be able to choose their own course, choose it in free elections without violence, without terror, and without fear. The people of all Vietnam should make a free decision on the great question of reunification. This is all we want for South Vietnam. It is all the people of South Vietnam want. And if there is a single nation on this earth that desires less than this for its own people, then let its voice be heard. We have also made it clear—from Hanoi to New York—that there are no arbitrary limits to our search for peace. We stand by the Geneva Agreements of 1954 and 1962. We will meet at any conference table, we will discuss any proposals—four points or 14 or 40—and we will consider the views of any group. We will work for a cease-fire now or once discussions have begun. We will respond if others reduce their use of force, and we will withdraw our soldiers once South Vietnam is securely guaranteed the right to shape its own future. We have said all this, and we have asked—and hoped—and we have waited for a response. So far we have received no response to prove either success or failure.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

People, World, Fear, Peace

“Sweet is the melody, so hard to come by,
It's so hard to make every note bend just right.
You lay down the hours and leave not one trace
But a tune for the dancing is there in it's place.”

Iris DeMent (1961) American singer and songwriter

Sweet is the Melody
Song lyrics, My Life (1994)

Dance

“I stand on the threshold of new missions and life is making new demands upon me. No matter what further tasks I shall be carrying out, it is perfectly clear to me that the complete liberation of the working woman and the creation of the foundation of a new sexual morality will always remain the highest aim of my activity, and of my life.”

Alexandra Kollontai (1872–1952) Soviet diplomat

The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926)

Life

“We say, 'We think you are a talented, functioning person, and we are hiring you because of your abilities, and whatever you come up with, we're going to take.' If we make a mistake, it will be in picking the wrong person. What we're striving for is total freedom, where we can finance our pictures, make them our way, release them where we want them released and be completely free to express ourselves. That's very hard to do in the world of business. In this country, the only thing that speaks is money and you have to have the money in order to have the power to be free. So the danger is — in being as oppressive as the next guy to the people below you. We're going to do everything possible to avoid that pitfall. But if we fail, it's another saga in the history of man…”

George Lucas (1944) American film producer

On how American Zoetrope functions
1970s, Interview with Judy Stone (1971)

Money, People, World, Way

“For God's sake (I never was more serious), don't make me ridiculous any more by terming me gentle-hearted in print.”

Charles Lamb (1775–1834) English essayist

Letter to Coleridge (August 6, 1800)

God, Heart

“The “noble” person has a completely naïve and non-reflective awareness of his own value and of his fullness of being, an obscure conviction which enriches every conscious moment of his existence, as if he were autonomously rooted in the universe. This should not be mistaken for “pride.” Quite on the contrary, pride results from an experienced diminution of this “naive” self-confidence. It is a way of “holding on” to one’s value, of seizing and “preserving” it deliberately. The noble man’s naive self-confidence, which is as natural to him as tension is to the muscles, permits him calmly to assimilate the merits of others in all the fullness of their substance and configuration. He never “grudges” them their merits. On the contrary: he rejoices in their virtues and feels that they make the world more worthy of love. His naive self-confidence is by no means “compounded” of a series of positive valuations based on specific qualities, talents, and virtues: it is originally directed at his very essence and being. Therefore he can afford to admit that another person has certain “qualities” superior to his own or is more “gifted” in some respects—indeed in all respects. Such a conclusion does not diminish his naïve awareness of his own value, which needs no justification or proof by achievements or abilities. Achievements merely serve to confirm it. On the other hand, the “common” man (in the exact acceptation of the term) can only experience his value and that of another if he relates the two, and he clearly perceives only those qualities which constitute possible differences. The noble man experiences value prior to any comparison, the common man in and through a comparison. For the latter, the relation is the selective precondition for apprehending any value. Every value is a relative thing, “higher” or “lower,” “more” or “less” than his own. He arrives at value judgments by comparing himself to others and others to himself.”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1973), pp. 54-55

Love, World, Way, Feeling

“Patience is only one faculty; earnestness the devotion of all the faculties. Earnestness is the cause of patience; it gives endurance, overcomes pain, strengthens weakness, braves dangers, sustains hope, makes light of difficulties, and lessens the sense of weariness in overcoming them.”

Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American writer

Source: Intuitions and Summaries of Thought (1862), Volume I, p. 161.

Pain, Hope, Sense, Light

“The entrepreneurial role appears to call for decision-making under uncertainty.”

David C. McClelland (1917–1998) American psychological theorist

Source: The Archiving Society, 1961, p. 210

Decision, Appearance

“When you have been close to death it makes you think about life.”

Patrick Dixon book Building a Better Business

Building a Better Business (2005)

Life, Death, Thinking

“We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology, and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction. We will develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect America and our allies from sudden attack. And all nations should know: America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation's security.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

“Your only safety lies in placing yourself in circumstances which will make exertion necessary, and which will secure Divine assistance. Never mind your infirmities. You have nothing to do with them. Your business is to trust, and to go forward. If you wait till the sea becomes land, you will never walk on it. You must leave the ship, and, like Peter, set your feet upon the waves, and you will find them marble.”

Edward Payson (1783–1827) American religious leader

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 125.

Business, Waiting, Sea

“I spend 95 percent of my time thinking about myself anyway. I don't have to watch the evening news to see that the world is bad, I only have to look at myself. I am not browbeating myself here; I am only saying that true change, true life-giving, God-honoring change wound have to start with the individual. I was the very problem I had been protesting. I wanted to make a sign that read "I AM THE PROBLEM."”

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

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Life, God, World, Problem

“Now here is my point. Some of you may agree with me, and some of you may not, but in my view, it would be hard for anyone in this room today to make the case that the United States of America, our great country, a country which all of us love, it would be hard to make the case that we are a just society, or anything resembling a just society today.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

2010s, Liberty University Speech (14 September 2015)

Love, Country

“Liberalism has merely cleared a field in which every soul and every corporate interest may fight with every other for domination. Whoever is victorious in this struggle will make an end of liberalism; and the new order, which will deem itself saved, will have to defend itself in the following age against a new crop of rebels.”

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

"The Irony of Liberalism"
Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922)

Age, Soul, Victory, Fight

“Hence, as the line of sight to the upper part is the longer, it makes that part look as if it were leaning back. But when the members are inclined to the front, as described above, they will seem the beholder to be plumb and perpendicular.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book III, Chapter V, Sec. 13

Parting

“We may be sure that it is the love of God only that can make us come out of self. If His powerful hand did not sustain us, we should not know how to take the first step in that direction.”

François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 270.

Love, God

“If we can find the will I strongly believe we can still make Britain’s approach to talent a bit more X-factor (without Simon Cowell) and a bit less Downton Abbey.”

Jo Cox (1974–2016) UK politician

Jo Cox: Opportunity must knock in a fairer society http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/opinion/jo-cox-opportunity-must-knock-in-a-fairer-society-1-6857022 (24 September 2014)

“The average American is just like the child in the family. You give him some responsibility and he is going to amount to something. He is going to do something. If, on the other hand, you make him completely dependent and pamper him and cater to him too much, you are going to make him soft, spoiled and eventually a very weak individual.”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

Post-re-election interview with Garnett D. Horner, The Washington Star-News (9 November 1972), p. 1.
1970s

Family, Dependency

“About once a month I run across a person who radiates an inner light. These people can be in any walk of life. They seem deeply good. They listen well. They make you feel funny and valued. You often catch them looking after other people and as they do so their laugh is musical and their manner is infused with gratitude. They are not thinking about what wonderful work they are doing. They are not thinking about themselves at all.”

David Brooks (1961) American journalist, commentator and editor

[David, Brooks, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/opinion/sunday/david-brooks-the-moral-bucket-list.html?smid=tw-nytdavidbrooks&seid=auto&_r=0, The Moral Bucket List, New York Times, April 11, 2015]
2010s

Life, People, Music, Feeling

“Every human being has something, a spiritual element, that makes them want to do better, to reach higher.”

Ela Bhatt (1933) founder of the Self-Employed Women's Association of India (SEWA)

Discussion with Ela Bhatt, Founder, Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA)

“So, what I do is a mixture of genuine psychological technique as well as all the chicanery and showmanship of the magician but it was enormously tempting to see what a clinical psychologist would make of it.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)

“You know, I am mainstream America, and it really doesn't matter what party you're in. When you call your children and you say 'How are you?' - and what you are really asking is, 'Do you still have your job? And are you able to make the mortgage payment?', That resonates across the state, not across party lines.”

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

interview with New York Times, 2010-08-12

Children

“The thing that I enjoy about animation is the fact that it is unbridled and there are no boundaries; when are in the room you don’t have to focus on your clothing, make-up, hair, your choreography or your blocking, you really do have total freedom. It is that total freedom that I really enjoy as there is no judgement and there are no critics there watching to see what you are going to do. It is just a free-for-all, and I really enjoy that process. When you are working with incredible directors then the responsibility lies on them to do the product and get the story told; it takes a lot of pressure of me, and I just get to go in and have a play session.”

Jodi Benson (1961) American voice actress, actress and singer

Jodi Benson Exclusive Interview http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/movies/jodi-benson-exclusive-interview-330687.html (August 30, 2013)

Freedom, Animals, Clothes

“At the base of her ankle is a deep, ugly scar she got when a car ran over her foot when she was six years old. That was in a small town in Bangladesh. Thus, even today, she hesitates superstitiously before crossing the road, and is painfully shy of walking distances. Her fears make her laughable. The scar is printed on her skin like a radiant star.”

Amit Chaudhuri (1962) contemporary Indian-English novelist

Afternoon Raag (1993)

Fear, Cars, Star

“Today’s great leaders will make sure they have all the important information, appropriate discussion, and reflection so that they can act decisively when time is of great importance.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ The Wal-Mart Way: The Inside Story of the Success of the World's Largest Company https://books.google.com/books?id=mIxwVLXdyjQC&lpg=PR9&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PR9#v=onepage&q=Don%20Soderquist&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2005, p. 119. On Leading Well

Decision, Time

“I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots
to make earth.”

Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962) American poet

"Shine, Perishing Republic" (1939)

Smile, Flowers

“Don't give up
'cos you have friends
Don't give up
You're not beaten yet.
Don't give up
I know you can make it good…”

Peter Gabriel (1950) English singer-songwriter, record producer and humanitarian

Don't Give Up
Song lyrics, So (1986)

“Sensemaking is about the enlargement of small cues. It is a search for contexts within which small details fit together and make sense. It is people interacting to flesh out hunches. It is a continuous alternation between particulars and explanations with each cycle giving added form and substance to the other.”

Karl E. Weick (1936) Organisational psychologist

Source: 1980s-1990s, Sensemaking in Organizations, 1995, p. 133

People, Search, Sense

“The first Elm Street was such a fresh idea and it absolutely blew me away. But the second one didn’t have Wes involved and I think it suffered as a result of that. With the third one Wes and his writing partner Bruce Wagner already had a script before I came onboard. Then me and Frank Darabont did some re-writes. We thought ‘why can’t we make this film wilder and much more fun that the first one’. I realised that the heart of it was these adolescent kids. These 15/16 year old kids who are just at that age when you start to realise that bad things happen in the world. Of course, none of the adults believe the kids about Freddy so going to them always makes things worse in these films.”

Chuck Russell (1958) American film director

THN Exclusive: Chuck Russell talks I Am Wrath, The Mask and Freddy Krueger http://www.thehollywoodnews.com/2016/05/23/thn-exclusive-chuck-russell-talks/ (May 23, 2016)

Age, World, Idea, Thinking

“"I think we'll make this whole situation a lot simpler by agreeing not to lie to each other," he says. "What do you think?"
I think my tongue has frozen and speech will be impossible, so I surprise myself by answering back in a steady voice, "Yes, I think that would save time."”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

President Snow and Katniss Everdeen, p. 19
The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire (2009)

Lie, Thinking, Time

“Even if this earth is only a vestibule, we ought undoubtedly to make such a use of its blessing that we are assisted rather than delayed in our journey.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Page 84.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

“I think if I directly design their apartment, I will not help them… If you are rich and famous and you buy an apartment (house) and you don't know what to do, you will rent an interior designer. But in the end you will not make your own home. You will take the prefab life made by your interior designer and that is stupid. With ICON you will do it yourself.”

Philippe Starck (1949) French architect and industrial designer

Starck (2006) in: "Starck Ting: March 2006" at starckting.blogspot.com, 2006-03-01

Life, Stupidity, Home, Thinking

“She could not reconcile the anxieties of a spiritual life involving eternal consequences, with a keen interest in gimp and artificial protrusions of drapery. Her mind was theoretic, and yearned by its nature after some lofty conception of the world which might frankly include the parish of Tipton and her own rule of conduct there; she was enamoured of intensity and greatness, and rash in embracing whatever seemed to her to have those aspects; likely to seek martyrdom, to make retractations, and then to incur martyrdom after all in a quarter where she had not sought it. Certainly such elements in the character of a marriageable girl tended to interfere with her lot, and hinder it from being decided according to custom, by good looks, vanity, and merely canine affection.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Middlemarch (1871)

Life, Marriage, World, Girl

“Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets. So that's the end of the constitution as a working machine.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

"America First? America Last? America at Last?," Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (20 April 1992)
1990s

War

“Three basic postulates for ideal citizen laid down by Srinivasa Shasttri are:1) a sense of public spirit, meaning thereby the desire to sink one’s own personal ends in the larger ends of the community, 2) a practical common sense meaning thereby an ability to cope with and overcome the challenges to individual and collective life that arise from time to time, and 3) an ability to understand and appreciate what constitutes the welfare of the society, that is, what are the different elements that go make up the welfare.”

R. Venkataraman (1910–2009) seventh Vice-President of India and the 8th President of India

Source: Commissions and Omissions by Indian Presidents and Their Conflicts with the Prime Ministers Under the Constitution: 1977-2001, p. 184-45.

Life, Communication, Understanding, Sense

“If, then, the things achieved by nature are more excellent than those achieved by art, and if art produces nothing without making use of intelligence, nature also ought not to be considered destitute of intelligence. If at the sight of a statue or painted picture you know that art has been employed, and from the distant view of the course of a ship feel sure that it is made to move by art and intelligence, and if you understand on looking at a horologe, whether one marked out with lines, or working by means of water, that the hours are indicated by art and not by chance, with what possible consistency can you suppose that the universe which contains these same products of art, and their constructors, and all things, is destitute of forethought and intelligence? Why, if any one were to carry into Scythia or Britain the globe which our friend Posidonius has lately constructed, each one of the revolutions of which brings about the same movement in the sun and moon and five wandering stars as is brought about each day and night in the heavens, no one in those barbarous countries would doubt that that globe was the work of intelligence.”
Si igitur meliora sunt ea quae natura quam illa quae arte perfecta sunt, nec ars efficit quicquam sine ratione, ne natura quidem rationis expers est habenda. Qui igitur convenit, signum aut tabulam pictam cum aspexeris, scire adhibitam esse artem, cumque procul cursum navigii videris, non dubitare, quin id ratione atque arte moveatur, aut cum solarium vel descriptum vel ex aqua contemplere, intellegere declarari horas arte, non casu, mundum autem, qui et has ipsas artes et earum artifices et cuncta conplectatur consilii et rationis esse expertem putare. [88] Quod si in Scythiam aut in Brittanniam sphaeram aliquis tulerit hanc, quam nuper familiaris noster effecit Posidonius, cuius singulae conversiones idem efficiunt in sole et in luna et in quinque stellis errantibus, quod efficitur in caelo singulis diebus et noctibus, quis in illa barbaria dubitet, quin ea sphaera sit perfecta ratione.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Book II, section 34
De Natura Deorum – On the Nature of the Gods (45 BC)

Art, Feeling, Star, Intelligence

“Noah said "Nay; I'll make thee an offer,
The same as I did t'other day.
A penny a foot and a free ride.
Now, come on, lad, what does tha say?"

"Three ha'pence a foot," came the answer.
So Noah 'is sail 'ad to hoist,
And sailed off again in a dudgeon,
While Sam stood determined, but moist.”

Marriott Edgar (1880–1951) British poet

"Three Ha'pence a Foot", line 61.
Albert, 'Arold and Others (1938)

“Graphic novelist: Don’t you feel foolish accepting that lie?
Student 3: Well…well…ah, maybe the jews used this book to make their plans!
Student 4: Yeah.
Even if it is a fake! People should read the book because it reveals the jews!!
Graphic novelist: That doesn’t make sense, it…”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), p.124

People, Lie, Books, Feeling

“a) The definition of history? Every historian would agree, I think, that history is a kind of research or inquiry. What kind of inquiry it is I do not yet ask. The point is that generically it belongs to what we call the sciences: that is, the forms of thought whereby we ask questions and try to answer them. Science in general, it is important to realize, does not consist in collecting what we already know and arranging it in this or that kind of pattern. It consists in fastening upon something we do not know, and trying to discover it. Playing patience with things we already know may be a useful means towards this end, but it is not the end itself. It is at best only the means. It is scientifically valuable only in so far as the new arrangement gives us the answer to a question we have already decided to ask. That is why all science begins from the knowledge of our own ignorance: not our ignorance of everything, but our ignorance of some definite thing-the origin of parliament, the cause of cancer, the chemical composition of the sun, the way to make a pump work without muscular exertion on the part of a man or a horse or some other docile animal. Science is finding things out: and in that sense history is a science.”

R. G. Collingwood (1889–1943) British historian and philosopher

Source: The Idea of History (1946), p. 9

Way, History, Question, Knowledge

“When they come together to make music, the Welsh sing their traditional songs, not in unison, as is done elsewhere, but in parts, in many modes and modulations. When a choir gathers to sing, which happens often in this country, you will hear as many different parts and voices as there are performers.”
In musico modulamine, non uniformiter, ut alibi, sed multipliciter, multisque modis et modulis, cantilenas emittunt. Adeo ut in turba canentium, sicut huic genti mos est, quot videas capita, tot audias carmina discriminaque vocum varia.

Gerald of Wales (1146) Medieval clergyman and historian

Book 1, chapter 13, p. 242.
Descriptio Cambriae (The Description of Wales) (1194)

Music, Singing, Parting, Country

“I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it's the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It's probably the most important thing in a person.”

Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993) British actress

How to be Lovely‎ (2005)

Love, People, Thinking, Personality

“You're damn right I'm in it to make money. This is prizefighting, I'm in it to get rich; fast. And then I'm in it to get out… I'm in the business of securing my own future, my family's future, and that's it. That's what I'm in it for. The fight game doesn't last long, competitive fighting doesn't last long. Learning martial arts, and training, is for life because that's medication to me so I will do that forever. But, as far as the fight game, I'm in it to get all the money, all the belts, and then I'm gone.”

Conor McGregor (1988) Irish mixed martial artist and boxer

Setanta Sports interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaZQw3Dh0K0 (September 2014) 2010s, 2014

Life, Money, Family, Art

“The evaluation of one's own social circumstance is part of the analysis of facts and events, and this kind of evaluation is, I feel, as good a starting point of the inquiry into the relations between philosophy and society as any other. Philosophy, in understanding human society, call for an analysis of facts and events, and an attempt to see how they fit into human life, and so how they make up human experience. In this way, philosophy, like history, can come to enrich, indeed to define, the experience of man.”

Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972) Pan Africanist and First Prime Minister and President of Ghana

Source: Consciencism (1964), Introduction, p. 2.

Life, Way, Feeling, History

“But we make such mistakes all the time, all through our lives. Wisdom, I suppose, is seeing this and acting upon it before it is too late. But it is often too late, isn’t it? – and those things that we should have said are unsaid, and remain unsaid for ever.”

Alexander McCall Smith (1948) British writer

Love Over Scotland, chapter 96.
The 44 Scotland Street series

Wisdom, Time

“She certainly is a great queen, and were she only a Catholic she would be our dearly beloved. Just look how well she governs; she is only a woman, only mistress of half an island, and yet she makes herself feared by Spain, by France, by the Empire, by all.”

Pope Sixtus V (1520–1590) pope

On Queen Elizabeth I of England, said to the Venetion ambassador in Rome in the autumn of 1585, reported in Walter Walsh, The Jesuits in Great Britain (1903), p. 111.

Fear

“The movie industry is run by accountants in Hollywood and it's as simple as this; everyone has a number on their computer. They can look up Jeremy Irons and see what my last five movies have made. Say you want to make a $20m picture, which is relatively cheap. If Jeremy makes $9m, the director makes $5m, then you need a leading lady, and they just go through those figures - that's how casting happens. And none of my movies has made a lot of money.”

Jeremy Irons (1948) English actor

Lipworth, Elaine, "King of all his castles"

Money

“Nature isn't classical, dammit, and if you want to make a simulation of nature, you'd better make it quantum mechanical, and by golly it's a wonderful problem, because it doesn't look so easy.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

" Simulating Physics with Computers http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~christos/classics/Feynman.pdf", International Journal of Theoretical Physics, volume 21, 1982, p. 467-488, at p. 486 (final words)

Nature, Problem

“Captain Humayun Khan was a hero to our country and we should honor all who have made the ultimate sacrifice to keep our country safe. The real problem here are the radical Islamic terrorists who killed him, and the efforts of these radicals to enter our country to do us further harm. Given the state of the world today, we have to know everything about those looking to enter our country, and given the state of chaos in some of these countries, that is impossible. While I feel deeply for the loss of his son, Mr. Khan who has never met me, has no right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the Constitution, (which is false) and say many other inaccurate things. If I become President, I will make America safe again.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, July

People, World, Feeling, Problem

“I think my experience as an adoptee who was given beautiful, loving parents, makes me sympathetic to the plight of the voiceless and those who are disregarded or tossed away or thought to not have value in a society. I feel like no one is expendable because it’s convenient. So many animals out there without homes have so much love to give, and I want to do all I can to get them in forever homes so they can give that love. … Fostering a little life is so humbling and sacred. It reminds you we’re all here to help each other and that you’re not the central character in the story of life. You’re a supporting role and your hands are meant to help get someone or something where they should be. Helping and loving an animal is the greatest gift you can give yourself. Every time you save them, you save yourself a little bit, too.”

Bellamy Young (1970) American artist

"Scandal's Bellamy Young has a soft spot for rescue pets", interview with USA Today (13 May 2017) https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2017/05/13/scandals-bellamy-young-has-soft-spot-rescue-pets/101588612/.

Love, Life, Beauty, Feeling

“Now, I’m not saying that we don’t need rules in society. But the question of who makes the rules and on what basis becomes supremely important. Will the rule-making flow from the matrix of voluntary exchange based on the ethic of serving others through private enterprise? Or will the rules be made and enforced by people wearing guns and bulletproof vests with a license to shock or kill based on minor annoyances?”

Jeffrey Tucker (1963) American writer

People, Question

“In common with other men, the business man is moved by ideals of serviceability and an aspiration to make the way of life easier for his fellows… Motives of this kind detract from business efficiency, and an undue yielding to them on the part of business men is to be deprecated as an infirmity. Still, throughout men's dealings with one another and with the interests of the community there runs a sense of equity, fair dealing, and workmanlike integrity.”

Thorstein Veblen book The Theory of Business Enterprise

Source: The Theory of Business Enterprise, 1904, p. 41-42. as cited in: Geoffrey Hodgson (2004). The Evolution of Institutional Economics. p. 202

Life, Men, Way, Communication

“It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men; nay, it is vain to expect that strength of natural affection which would make them good wives and mothers. Whilst they are absolutely dependent on their husbands they will be cunning, mean, and selfish.”

Mary Wollstonecraft book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Ch. 9

Women, Men, Nature, Dependency

“"It is a net," said Horseface, "useful for the fishing of the universe."
Enid crinkled up her face, staring at what he called a net. It was a flimsy thing and it had no shape.
"Certainly," she said, "you would not go fishing the universe in so slight a thing as this."
"Time means nothing to it," said Horseface, "nor does space. It is independent of both time and space except as it makes use of them."”

Clifford D. Simak Highway of Eternity

Highway of Eternity (1986)

Fish, Universe, Time

“Oh! my name is John Wellington Wells,
I'm a dealer in magic and spells,
In blessings and curses
And ever-filled purses,
In prophecies, witches, and knells.

If you want a proud foe to "make tracks"—
If you'd melt a rich uncle in wax—
You've but to look in
On our resident Djinn,
Number seventy, Simmery Axe!”

W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) English librettist of the Gilbert & Sullivan duo

Mr Wells' song, Act I.
"Simmery Axe" is the traditional pronunciation of "St. Mary Axe", a road in the City of London.
In Gilbert's day, the last building was number 68, though number 70 was built later.
The Sorcerer (1877)

“They said if you just turn against Trump it would be better, but he was doing good, and that's what makes it so bad… If he had been a piece a crap from the beginning, it wouldn't be so bad. But we made so many sacrifices. And now he's crapping all over us.”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

The Alex Jones Show, 13 April 2018; quoted in "Watch Alex Jones cry over Trump's decision to bomb Syria" https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/alex-jones-cry-syria/ by Christine Friar, The Daily Dot (14 April 2018). 2018

“In fact, my best year of track competition was the first year I ate a vegan diet. Moreover, by continuing to eat a vegan diet, my weight is under control, I like the way I look. (I know that sounds vain, but all of us want to like the way we look.) I enjoy eating more, and I feel great. … I remember vividly making the decision in July of 1990 to become a vegan. … And I had my best year as an athlete ever! … Your body is your temple. If you nourish it properly, it will be good to you and you will increase its longevity.”

Carl Lewis (1961) US track & field athlete

Introduction https://books.google.it/books?id=gRB5UjsxHy0C&pg=PT5 to Very Vegetarian by Jannequin Bennett (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001, ISBN 1-55853-952-2)

Way, Feeling, Decision

“When I ventured to criticise, the other day, this system I was, I am afraid, misunderstood. As a Conservative, I am naturally in favour of returning into private ownership and private management all those means of production and distribution which are now controlled by state capitalism. I am sure they will be more efficient. What I ventured to question was the using of these huge sums as if they were income.

I know now, I have learnt now from the letters that I have received, that I am quite out of date. Modern economists have decided there is no difference between capital and income. I am not so sure. In my younger days, I and perhaps others of your Lordships had friends, good friends, very good fellows indeed too, who failed to make this distinction. For a few years everything went on very well, and then at last the crash came, and they were forced to retire out to some dingy lodging-house in Boulogne, or if the estate were larger and the trustees more generous, to a decent accommodation at Baden-Baden.”

Harold Macmillan (1894–1986) British politician

Hansard, House of Lords, 5th series, vol. 468, cols. 390-1.
Speech in the House of Lords, 14 November 1985.
1980s

Question, Nature, Housing

“Sometimes one bad decision can mess up your life. We seal our fate with the choices we make. But don't give a second thought to the chances we take… Surely, you say, it's not as bad as you make it sound. If we make a mistake, you can always turn it back around. Get back on the straight and narrow -- When I'm through having all my fun... We seal our fate with the choices we make...”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

Seal Our Fate
2007, 2008

Life, Fate, Decision, Chance

“[An elaborated culture has a] density, complexity, and historical-semantic value that is so strong as to make politics possible… Gramsci's insight is to have recognised that subordination, fracturing, diffusion, reproducing, as much as producing, creating, forcing, guiding, are necessary aspects of elaboration.”

Edward Said (1935–2003) Professor of English and literature

Quoted in Richard Middleton, Studying Popular Music (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-335-15275-9), p. 248

Strong

“Fixing America is not an insurmountable task. It's actually about putting people first rather than politics. I wouldn't be involved in this if I didn't think that we can make a difference, and that it is easy, it's really easy to be principled and put the issues first and politics last.”

Gary Johnson (1953) American politician, businessman, and 29th Governor of New Mexico

Introduction to Gary Johnson
YouTube
2011-08-23
http://youtu.be/9XsRN5CWKrc
2012-02-24
Sound Government

People, Thinking

“It wasn’t really a chat show, it was a magazine show. I looked at it as a summer job. As long as no one makes me interview a celeb again, I’ll be happy. It wasn’t what I signed up for but, of course, nowadays everyone likes celebs. I’m pretty bored of them, though. I wasn’t interested and couldn’t be bothered to pretend I was.”

Nigella Lawson (1960) British food writer, journalist and broadcaster

60 Seconds: Nigella Lawson (2006)

Happiness, Summer

“What is a public meeting? It is not an anarchical combination—it is not a mob—it is an assemblage of rational beings to which, if the invitation be general, every man has a right to go, and the Government reporter has a right to go, but only like others and subject to the ordinary law. But if instead of appealing to the promoters of the meeting…to afford the Government reporter facilities, if instead of that the method of violence is resorted to, then I say the law was broken by the agents of the law. It is idle to speak to the Irish people of the duty of obeying the law, or to bring in Coercion Bills to make them obey the law, if the very Government that so speaks and that brings in these Bills has agents who violate the law by violently breaking up orderly public meetings, and who are sustained by the Ministers of the Crown in this illegal action.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Nottingham (18 October 1887) referring to the Mitchelstown Massacre, quoted in The Times (19 October 1887), p. 6.
1880s

People, Law

“It’s been well said—and by many people in many circumstances—that whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad. These people in the Deep South were mad because they could have elected Douglas, and Douglas would have given them everything they wanted—everything that they wanted that was consistent with his election in the free states.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

God, People, Madness

“Do what is right, not what you think the high headquarters wants or what you think will make you look good.”

Norman Schwarzkopf (1934–2012) United States Army general

Quoted in "The Military Quotation Book" (2002) by James Charlton, p. 60

Thinking

“Time has been called God's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at once. In the same spirit, noise is Nature's way of making sure that we don't find out everything that happens. Noise, in short, is the protector of information.”

Hans Christian von Baeyer (1938) American physicist

von Baeyer did not originate the quip about time, which dates back at least as far as the 1929 book "The Man Who Mastered Time" by Ray Cummings, where it appears on p. 1 http://books.google.com/books?id=YdZEAAAAYAAJ&q=%22everything+from+happening+at+once%22#search_anchor. Source: Information, The New Language of Science (2003), Chapter 14, Noise, Nuisance and necessity, p. 127-128

God, Way, Nature, Time

“Any bit of nonsense can be computerized—astrology, biorhythms, the I Ching—but that doesn’t make the nonsense any more valid.”

John Allen Paulos (1945) American mathematician

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 3, “Pseudoscience” (p. 68)

“And so to those of you who may be vitalists I would make this prophecy: what everyone believed yesterday, and you believe today, only cranks will believe tomorrow.”

Francis Crick (1916–2004) British molecular biologist, biophysicist, neuroscientist; co-discoverer of the structure of DNA

Of Molecules and Men (1966)

“If you want to get the best people to run for office, we’ve got to make the rules easier, and simpler, and more understandable to get on the ballot.”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

http://www.nycivic.org/MediaArchive/BloombergSpeech041110.html
Election Reform

People, Understanding

“I suspect that a major goal of the reform campaign is to make the work of a teacher so degrading and insulting that the dignified and the truly educated teachers will simply leave while they still retain a modicum of self-respect.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

“Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System” (2011)

Education, Teachers

“There is an art to knowing where things should be checked and making sure that the program fails fast if you make a mistake. That kind of choosing is part of the art of simplification.”

Ward Cunningham (1949) American computer programmer who developed the first wiki

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), The Simplest Thing that Could Possibly Work

Art, Parting

Quotes about making page 99

Quotes about making
page 99