Quotes about many
page 24

“It was amazing how many books one could fit into a room, assuming one didn't want to move around very much.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Well of Ascension

“Difference in opinions has cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether the juice of a certain berry be blood or wine.”

Jonathan Swift book Les Voyages de Gulliver

Source: Gulliver's Travels

Wine

“If man be sensible and one fine morning, while he is lying in bed,
counts at the tips of his fingers how many things in this life truly will
give him enjoyment, invariably he will find food is the first one.”

Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese writer

Life, Food, Lying

“Many a good man has been put under the bridge by a woman.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women (1978)

“Because you may think a bed is a peaceful thing, Sir, and to you it may mean rest and comfort and a good night's sleep. But it isn't so for everyone; and there are many dangerous things that may take place in a bed.”

Margaret Atwood book Alias Grace

Source: Alias Grace

Peace, Thinking, Sleep, Night

“Life is a paradise for those who love many things with a passion.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

Love, Life, Passion

“It's a lot easier to be lost than found. It's the reason we're always searching and rarely discovered--so many locks not enough keys.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

“Ignorance is hardly unusual, Miss Davar. The longer I live, the more I come to realize that it is the natural state of the human mind. There are many who will strive to defend its sanctity and then expect you to be impressed with their efforts.”

Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings

Source: The Way of Kings

Nature, Effort

“No matter how many luxuries you get, something will be missing. No matter how carefully you choose, you'll never be totally happy.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Survivor

Source: Survivor

Happiness

“The Herondales are a rather infamous line, as you probably know. Many of them heroes, some of them traitors, so many of them brash, wild creatures consumed by their passions, whether it be love or hate.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Lost Herondale

Love, Hate, Passion

“You kidding? So many preservatives in these things, I'll live forever.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

“A man must sometimes laugh at himself or go mad,’ said he. ‘Few realize it. That is why there are so many madmen in the world.”

Rafael Sabatini book Captain Blood

Source: Captain Blood

World, Madness

“Flowers lead to books, which lead to thinking and not thinking and then more flowers and music, music. Then many more flowers and many more books.”

Maira Kalman (1949) Israeli American artist and creator of children's books

Books, Music, Flowers, Thinking

“Because i've suffered. Because many times in my life i have tried to love with all my heart, and my love has wound up being trampled or betrayed.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Love, Life, Suffering, Time

“I hopehaven't given up on the S. Q.'s of the world, Reynie. As you see, there are a great many sheep in wolves' clothing. If not for S. Q.'s good nature, we'd never have escaped.”

Trenton Lee Stewart The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

Source: The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

World, Nature, Clothes

“If we are all alive ten years hence, let's meet, and see how many of us have got our wishes, or how much nearer we are then than now.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

“When we revolt it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe”

Frantz Fanon (1925–1961) Martiniquais writer, psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary

“How many psychiatrists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” “I don’t know. How many?” “Eight.” “Why?” “Oh, stop overanalyzing it.”

Dennis Lehane book Shutter Island

Source: Shutter Island

“It’s so hard to communicate because there are so many moving parts. There’s presentation and there’s interpretation
and they’re so dependent on each other it makes things very difficult.”

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain

Communication, Parting, Dependency

“The family exists for many reasons, but its most basic function may be to draw together after a member dies.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Family, Drawing

“I think… if it is true that
there are as many minds as there
are heads, then there are as many
kinds of love as there are hearts.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Love, Thinking, Heart

“I wonder how many people don't get the one they want, but end up with the one they're supposed to be with.”

Fannie Flagg book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

Source: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

People

“There are many teenage vampire books you could have purchased instead. I'm grateful you made this choice.”

Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Source: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Books

“The great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

Source: The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction, 1948-1985

Way, History

“Ned said "Nancy Drew is the best girl detective in the whole world!"
"Don't you believe him," Nancy said quickly. "I have solved some mysteries, I'll admit, and I enjoy it, but I'm sure there are many other girls who could do the same.”

Carolyn Keene book Nancy's Mysterious Letter

Source: Nancy's Mysterious Letter

World, Girl

“The love I felt for her on that train ride had a capital and provinces, parishes and a Vatican, an orange planet and many sullen moons -- it was systemic and it was complete.”

Gary Shteyngart Super Sad True Love Story

Source: Super Sad True Love Story

Love, Training

“You have a tendency, Hastings, to prefer the least likely. That, no doubt, is from reading too many detective stories.”

Agatha Christie book Peril at End House

Source: Peril at End House

Reading

“Many forgotten things live still in children's tales.”

Alison Croggon book The Riddle

Source: The Riddle

Children

“Love is many things none of them logical.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

Love

“People are really trying their best. Just like being happy and sad, you will find yourself on both sides of the equation many times over your lifetime, either saying or hearing the wrong thing. Let's all give each other a pass, shall we?”

David Rakoff (1964–2012) writer

Source: Half Empty

People, Sadness, Time, Happiness

“Many men spend their lives living in the wrong corner of their souls, mainly out of fear of what they might find on the other side.”

Sally Gardner (1954) British children's writer and illustrator

Men, Fear, Soul

“Middle age is when you've met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you of someone else…”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

"Let's Not Climb the Washington Monument Tonight"
Versus (1949)

People, Age, Personality

“That's what was great about him. He tried. Not many do.”

Jon Krakauer book Into the Wild

Source: Into the Wild

“In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends imprisoned by an enchanter in paper and leathern boxes.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Box

“Too many people miss the silver lining because they're expecting gold.”

Arthur Yorinks (1953) American writer and director

People

“Why is any one book different from any other book? They are different, A. J. decides, because they are. We have to look inside many. We have to believe. We agree to be disappointed sometimes so that we can be exhilarated every now and again.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Source: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Books, Disappointment

“An individual has not begun to live until he can rise above the narrow horizons of his particular individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. And this is one of the big problems of life, that so many people never quite get to the point of rising above self. And so they end up the tragic victims of self-centeredness. They end up the victims of distorted and disrupted personality.”

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

Variants (Many of MLKs' speeches were delivered many times with slight variants): An Individual has not started living fully until they can rise above the narrow confines of individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of humanity. Every person must decide at some point, whether they will walk in light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgment: Life's most persistent and urgent question is: 'What are you doing for others?'
As quoted in The Words of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Coretta Scott King, Second Edition (2011), Ch. "Community of Man", p. 3
1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)

Life, People, Problem, Personality

“One (martini) is all right, two is too many, three is not enough.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

Quoted in Time Magazine (New York, 15 August 1960) from an an interview with Glenna Syse of the Chicago Sun-Times
Letters and interviews

“They won’t get you without getting us and believe me, we’re not about to make our enemies happy and die here. (Nykyrian)
Damn straight. We have too many people to continue pissing off. (Syn)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of the Night

People, Happiness

“As with many people, Charles, who could not talk, wrote with fullness. He set down his loneliness and his perplexities, and he put on paper many things he did not know about himself.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

People, Loneliness

“No matter how many times she was told that she was loved, there was no recognition that the proof was in the abandonment.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Love, Time

“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Deep, Good Night, Dreams, Night

“[I]t is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Source: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

Lie, Imagination, Heart

“there are only so many ways to get rejected or ignored. It doesn't hurt at all anymore because why should someone who's a complete stranger have any control over your sense of selfworth?”

Neil Strauss book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

Source: The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

Way, Sense, Hurt

“Many of our most serious conflicts are conflicts within ourselves. Those who suppose their judgements are always consistent are unreflective or dogmatic.”

John Rawls book Justice as Fairness: A Restatement

Source: Justice as Fairness: A Restatement

“Many a serious thinker has been produced in prisons, where we have nothing to do but think.”

Robert Greene book The 48 Laws of Power

Source: The 48 Laws of Power

Thinking

“I have tried to know absolutely nothing about a great many things, and I have succeeded fairly well.”

Robert Benchley (1889–1945) American comedian

Funny

“Many kids, it seemed, would find out that their parents were flawed, messed-up people later in life, and I didn't appreciate getting to know it all so strong and early.”

Aimee Bender (1969) Novelist, short story writer

Source: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

Life, People, Parent, Strong

“Chosen motherhood is the real liberation. The choice to have a child makes the whole experience of motherhood different, and the choice to be generative in other ways can at last be made, and is being made by many women now, without guilt.”

Betty Friedan book The Feminine Mystique

Source: The Feminine Mystique

Women, Way

“The more you love, the more you can love--and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how many you can love. If a person had time enough, he could love all of that majority who are decent and just.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

Love, Time, Personality

“A great deal of love given to a few is better than a little to many.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Love

“Bad books on writing tell you to "WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW", a solemn and totally false adage that is the reason there exist so many mediocre novels about English professors contemplating adultery.”

Joe Haldeman (1943) American science fiction writer

Books, Falseness

“Anything you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness, possesses you. And in this materialistic age, a great many of us are possessed by our possessions.”

Peace Pilgrim (1908–1981) American non-denominational spiritual teacher

Age

“It made me wonder how many times we forgive just because we don't want to lose someone, even if they don't deserve our forgiveness.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: Honey, Baby, Sweetheart

Forgiveness, Time

“Everybody gets told to write about what they know. The trouble with many of us is that at the earlier stages of life we think we know everything- or to put it more usefully, we are often unaware of the scope and structure of our ignorance.”

Thomas Pynchon (1937) American novelist

Source: Slow Learner: Early Stories

Life, Thinking

“We have traveled through space and time. We have been many places. Visited many worlds. And there is good news: the acoustics everywhere are terrific.”

Libba Bray Going Bovine

Source: Going Bovine

World, Travel, Time

“I have many questions, but no patience to think them through.”

Maira Kalman (1949) Israeli American artist and creator of children's books

Source: The Principles of Uncertainty

Question, Thinking, Patience

“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke. But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate, so let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, John Wesley Harding (1967), All Along the Watchtower
Context: "No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late"

Life, Fate, Feeling, Falseness

“I really look at my childhood as being one giant rusty tuna can that I continue to recycle in many different shapes.”

Augusten Burroughs (1965) American writer

Childhood

“There were not many people who could say that their education had been paid for with cigarettes.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

People, Education

“There’s no good reason (and many bad reasons) colleges spend more time telling women how to survive predators than telling the other half of their students not to be predators.”

Rebecca Solnit book Men Explain Things To Me

Source: Men Explain Things to Me

Women, Time

“An eleven-year-old girl is many things, but she is not stupid.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Stupidity, Girl

“Reckless,” he said. “You know, when I first showed up at the Institute, Alec called me reckless so many times that I went and looked it up in the dictionary”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Time

“An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories led up to it, it would always have the last word.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,
my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.
So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,
and over our heads the grey light unwinds in turning fans.”

Pablo Neruda book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Source: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Soul, Star, Kiss, Light

“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how many can get through to you.”

Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator

Source: Connie Robertson (1998). Book of Humorous Quotations. p. 2

Books

“Some things take so long
But how do I explain
When not too many people
Can see we're all the same
And because of all their tears
Your eyes can't hope to see
The beauty that surrounds them
Now, isn't it a pity”

George Harrison (1943–2001) British musician, former member of the Beatles

People, Beauty, Hope, Tear

“Why do so many people start their messages with, "It's me"? Of course it is you. We all know that. But who the hell ARE you?”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

People, Hell

“This is the danger of loving: No matter how powerful you are, no matter how many kingdoms you rule, you cannot stop those you love from dying.”

Kate DiCamillo book The Tale of Despereaux

Source: The Tale of Despereaux

Love

“There are many different ways to be poor in the world but increasingly there seems to be one single way to be rich.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Americanah

Source: https://sheleadsafrica.org/20-powerful-chimamanda-adichie-quotes-for-todays-boss-women/

World, Way

“But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them.”

Jane Austen book Mansfield Park

Source: Mansfield Park (1814)

Women, Men, World

“I have wanted you to see out of my eyes so many times.”

Elizabeth Berg (1948) American novelist

Source: The Pull of The Moon

Time

“There are many things in my life that I wish I could take back. Many moments I would recast.”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Source: For One More Day

Life

“As the Wheel of Time turns, places wear many names. Men wear many names, many faces. Different faces, but always the same man. Yet no one knows the Great Pattern the Wheel weaves, or even the Pattern of an Age. We can only watch, and study, and hope.”

Robert Jordan book The Eye of the World

Source: The Eye of the World

Men, Age, Hope, Study

“Resist the temptation to think what afflicts you is peculiar to you. Have faith that what is in your consciousness can be communicated to the consciousness of all. And is, in many cases, already there.”

Alice Walker book The Temple of My Familiar

Source: The Temple of My Familiar

Faith, Communication, Thinking, Affliction

“America is woven of many strands; I would recognize them and let it so remain. It's "winner take nothing" that is the great truth of our country or of any country. Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat. Our fate is to become one, and yet many— This is not prophecy, but description.”

Ralph Ellison book Invisible Man

Epilogue.
Source: Invisible Man (1952)

Life, Fate, Truth, Country

“Love and anger are like land and sea: They meet at many different places.”

Patricia A. McKillip book The Changeling Sea

Source: The Changeling Sea

Love, Sea, Anger

“So I’m your first ever Shadowhunter, huh?" Alec said when they separated at last.
"You’re my first so many things, Alec Lightwood," Magnus said.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Variant: So I’m your first ever Shadowhunter, huh?" Alec said when they separated at last.
"You’re my first so many things, Alec Lightwood
Source: City of Heavenly Fire

“How many people want to read about three disreputable pigs and a dopey wolf with a disposition towards house demolition?”

Jasper Fforde book The Big Over Easy

Source: The Big Over Easy

People, Wolf, Reading, Housing

“Sometimes I think depression should be called the coping illness. So many of us struggle on, not daring or knowing how to ask for help. More of us, terribly, go undiagnosed.”

Sally Brampton (1955–2016) British writer

Source: Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression

Thinking, Help

“My life's not tragic at all. How many guys do you know who are bankrupt and just bought a $3 million house and are getting ready to get $6 million more?”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/boxing/2005-06-02-tyson-saraceno_x.htm
On himself

Life, Guy, Housing

“In those three years, (from fourteen to seventeen years old)… I came to understand the meaning of a drawing from the life, the synthesis of my art, and the rhythm of animais. I remember that a companion of those days,' of whom I hâve since lost sight, made me see, in a couple of hours, on a very true and simple principle, an observation of the necessary equilibria of movement not taught in the schools, the secret of the plans of a figure. That lesson has influenced my whole life. As for the ornament-maker, in whose workshop I earned a scanty wage, I long deplored being constrained to do so, but I hâve since thought with affection of it, understanding that there are as many sources of beauty in ornament as in the face.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

Source: Auguste Rodin: The Man, His Ideas, His Works, 1905, p. 2-3

Life, Secret, School, Beauty

“The French regarded this as a betrayal. It was. They spoke of being cheated by their wartime allies. They were. Clemenceau whose outspoken sympathies for Britain and America (he had been a newspaper correspondent in the United States shortly after the Civil War, had learned American English and married an American) had earned charges from the Right before the war that he was an Anglo-Saxon "tool", was embittered and disillusioned. As the Premier who had pulled France together in the closing period of the war, he realized what so many Frenchmen tended to forget, that without British and American help the war could not in the end have been won. He saw too that without Anglo-American promises of military aid in the future it would be beyond France's power to repel the next German invasion. He had been promised that aid in return for giving up the security of the Rhine, which his generals had demanded. Now France had neither.”

William L. Shirer book The Collapse of the Third Republic

The Collapse of the Third Republic (1969)

War, Learning, Betrayal, Future

“In the political domain, deprived of any collective politcal landmark, stripped of any notion of the 'meaning of History; and no longer able to hope for or expect a social revolution, many intellectuals, along with much of public opinion, have been won over to the logic of a capitalist economy and a parliamentary democracy.”

Alain Badiou (1937) French writer and philosopher

Source: Ethics, Chapter One, "Does Man Exist?"

Hope, Democracy, History

“It is not the terrible occurrences that no one is spared, — a husband’s death, the moral ruin of a beloved child, long, torturing illness, or the shattering of a fondly nourished hope, — it is none of these that undermine the woman’s health and strength, but the little daily recurring, body and soul devouring care s. How many millions of good housewives have cooked and scrubbed their love of life away! How many have sacrificed their rosy checks and their dimples in domestic service, until they became wrinkled, withered, broken mummies. The everlasting question: ‘what shall I cook today,’ the ever recurring necessity of sweeping and dusting and scrubbing and dish-washing, is the steadily falling drop that slowly but surely wears out her body and mind. The cooking stove is the place where accounts are sadly balanced between income and expense, and where the most oppressing observations are made concerning the increased cost of living and the growing difficulty in making both ends meet. Upon the flaming altar where the pots are boiling, youth and freedom from care, beauty and light-heartedness are being sacrificed. In the old cook whose eyes are dim and whose back is bent with toil, no one would recognize the blushing bride of yore, beautiful, merry and modestly coquettish in the finery of her bridal garb.”

Dagobert von Gerhardt (1831–1910) German writer

To the ancients the hearth was sacred; beside the hearth they erected their lares and household-gods. Let us also hold the hearth sacred, where the conscientious German housewife slowly sacrifices her life, to keep the home comfortable, the table well supplied, and the family healthy."
"von Gerhardt, using the pen-name Gerhard von Amyntor in", A Commentary to the Book of Life. Quote taken from August Bebel, Woman and Socialism, Chapter X. Marriage as a Means of Support.

Love, Life, Death, God

“Where there is insight in citation, or wisdom winged with wit, especially from the world of letters, I have quoted liberally. For a good epigram not only makes a point, but a point to ponder. This book provides many such quotations that I have unearthed from the tomes of many writers.”

Evan Esar (1899–1995) American writer

20,000 Quips & Quotes, Introduction, pviii

Wisdom, Books, World, Quotes

“When the ceremony ended Anne and I stayed on the field to greet friends, many of whom had traveled to share the ceremony with us. In one respect it was a difficult day at the end of a difficult month. But in the broader view of life, it was a magical evening at the end of an incredible journey we shared. We walked back over to the quarters we would move out of a few days later, and found friends in the yard and almost every room. At one point I saw Mike Hall, Charlie Flynn, Shawn Lowery, and Casey Welch standing in the fading summer light. I thought of my father, of my first day at West Point, and of our cold Christmas Eve flight over Afghanistan seven months before. The final words of my last speech in uniform, spoken just an hour before were repeated in my mind: "If I had it to do over again, I'd do some things in my career differently, but not many. I believed in people, and I still believe in them. I trusted and I still trust. I cared and I still care. I wouldn't have it any other way… To the young leaders of today and tomorrow, it's a great life. Thank you."”

Stanley A. McChrystal (1954) American general

Closing words, p. 394
My Share Of The Task (2013)

Life, People, Way, Travel

“Throw not my words away, as many do;
They're gold in value, though they're cheap to you.”

John Clare (1793–1864) English poet

"The Cross Roads; or, The Haymaker's Story"
Poems Chiefly from Manuscript

“Of course we may assume many general and non-historical meanings for secularism, but turning a subject that is in all its existence a historical matter into a non-historical matter is a blatant mistake.”

Mohammad Khatami (1943) Iranian prominent reformist politician, scholar and shiite faqih.

(Berlin Institute of Advanced Studies, Nov 2005).
Attributed

“Each form of the sacrosanct was regarded by members of the culture which gave rise to it as a revelation of the Truth; at Byzantium it was not a mere hypothesis that was sponsored by the majesty of the Byzantine style. To us, however, these forms make their appeal as forms alone — in other words, as they would be were they the work of a contemporary (and, since this actually is unthinkable, they affect us in a puzzling manner); or else as so many grandiose vestiges of a faith that has died out. We look at them from outside; they are still emotive, but they are no longer true. Thus we deprive them of what was their most vital element; for a religious civilization that regarded what it revered as a mere hypothesis is inconceivable.”

André Malraux (1901–1976) French novelist, art theorist and politician

Part IV, Chapter V
Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence] (1951)

Truth, Faith

“We are talking here about the future: about the lives of people in the world without wars, without social oppression, without national inequality, without suppression of human’s abilities. In other word, it is about the future that we all call Communism. We strive to imagine (and show to the viewer) the reality of the 21st century - the life of future humans developing, solving their difficulties and problems but being already on the new levels of cognition and morality. But the foundation of that future is being laid now. We strive to represent the future people as vivid and free, in the unity of their joys and cares, poetry and prose of their life. We are in no way satisfied with the primitive and unconvincing image of "people of the future", which can be observed in some works of literature and cinema. At the same time, we consider our work to be polemical with the many books and movies produced by the bourgeois world, which tend to see the future in an apocalyptic or technocratic way, affirming a sort of disbelief in the strength and capabilities of a human being.”

Andrei Tarkovsky (1932–1986) Soviet and Russian film-maker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director

Letter to the central committee of the CPSU (Communist Party of Soviet Union) https://varjag2007su.livejournal.com/2591915.html?utm_source=fbsharing&utm_medium=social (20 October 1970).

Life, War, People, Books

“Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure — but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primaeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and the invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures, each in their appointed place. This law is not subject to the will of those, who by an obligation above them, and infinitely superior, are bound to submit their will to that law. The municipal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at liberty at their pleasure, and on their speculations of a contingent improvement, wholly to separate and tear asunder the bands of their subordinate community, and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil, unconnected chaos of elementary principles. It is the first and supreme necessity only, a necessity that is not chosen, but chooses, a necessity paramount to deliberation, that admits no discussion, and demands no evidence, which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. This necessity is no exception to the rule; because this necessity itself is a part too of that moral and physical disposition of things, to which man must be obedient by consent or force: but if that which is only submission to necessity should be made the object of choice, the law is broken, nature is disobeyed, and the rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled, from this world of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion, and unavailing sorrow.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Pleasure, World, Peace, Law

“It seems to many of us that if we are to avoid the eventual catastrophic world conflict we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government patterned after our own government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace.
To do that, of course, we Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That would be a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order.
But the American colonies did it once and brought forth one of the most nearly perfect unions the world has ever seen.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

UN Address (1999)

World, Peace, Faith, Law

“I'm a lawyer. I make lawyers for a living. I believe in the law. I believe in the law of copyright. Indeed, I have devoted my life to working in law, not because there are big bucks at the end but because there are ideals at the end that I would love to live.
Yet much of this book has been a criticism of lawyers, or the role lawyers have played in this debate. The law speaks to ideals, but it is my view that our profession has become too attuned to the client. And in a world where the rich clients have one strong view, the unwillingness of the profession to question or counter that one strong view queers the law.
The evidence of this bending is compelling. I'm attacked as a "radical" by many within the profession, yet the positions that I am advocating are precisely the positions of some of the most moderate and significant figures in the history of this branch of the law.”

Lawrence Lessig book Free Culture

Free Culture (2004)

Love, Life, Books, World

“This many-headed monster,
The giddy multitude.”

Philip Massinger The Roman Actor

The Roman Actor (1626), Act iii. Sc. 2. Compare: "Many-headed multitude", Sir Philip Sidney, Defence of Poesy, Book ii; "Many-headed multitude", William Shakespeare, Coriolanus, act ii, scene 3; "This many-headed monster, Multitude", Daniel, History of the Civil War, book ii, st. 13.

“The century of revolution in the United States after the Civil War was economic, not political, freeing households from an unremitting daily grind of painful manual labor, household drudgery, darkness, isolation, and early death. Only one hundred years later, daily life had changed beyond recognition. Manual outdoor jobs were replaced by work in air-conditioned environments, housework was increasingly performed by electric appliances, darkness was replaced by light, and isolation was replaced not just by travel, but also by color television images bringing the world into the living room. Most important, a newborn infant could expect to live not to age forty-five, but to age seventy-two. The economic revolution of 1870 to 1970 was unique in human history, unrepeatable because so many of its achievements could happen only once.”

Robert J. Gordon (1940) American economist

Source: The Rise and Fall of American Growth, 2016, p. 1 ; Lead paragraph

Life, Death, Pain, War